The “SECRET” the “SECRET”

June 2007 U.S. $4.95 Canada $7.50

MaZga Z ine The “SECRET” AIR WAR

FIGHTING GENTRIFICATION A Right to the City Blood Diamond WHITEWASH

PLUS Ed Herman, Holly Sklar, Noam Chomsky David Barsamian & Tariq Ali, & MORE Z MAG A ZINE VOL UME 20 NUM BER 6 2007

Z MAGAZINE is an in de pend ent mag a zine of crit i cal think ing on po lit i cal, cultural, social, and economic life in the U.S. It sees the racial, gender , class, June 2007 U.S. $4.95 and po lit i cal di men sions of per sonal life as fun da men tal to un der stand ing Canada $7.50 and im prov ing con tem po rary cir cum stances; and it aims to as sist ac tiv ist efforts for a better fu ture. MZaga Z ine The “SECRET” Z Mag a zine (ISSN 1056-5507) is pub lished monthly ex cept for one is sue in AIR WAR July/August (Vol 7/8) by the In sti tute for So cial and Cultural Com mu nica - tions. Copy right © 2007 by The In sti tute for So cial and Cultural Com mu nica - FIGHTING GENTRIFICATION tions, part of the In sti tute for So cial and Cultural Change Inc., Cambridge, A Right to the City MA. Peri od i cal post age paid at Woods Hole, MA and at addi tional mail of- Blood Diamond fices. POSTMAS TER: Send ad dress cor rections to Z Mag a zine’s main of fice: WHITEWASH 18 Millfield Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543. Circulation of fice at 47 Bar rows Street, Dedham, MA 02026. SUB MIS SIONS AR TI CLES: We welcome un so lic ited submis sions. Due dates are the 25th of each month pref era bly by email to [email protected]. Be sure to put the ti tle, author , and addr ess in the ar ti cle file, not just the cover letter. Also in clude a two-sentence bi og ra phy. Keep ar ti cles be tween 800 and 3,500 words. PLUS LET TERS: Letters should be suc cinct and may be edited for length. Ed Herman, Holly Sklar, Noam Chomsky David Barsamian & Tariq Ali, & MORE ZAPS: We welcome short events list ings, news releases , etc. Send by first of the month for inclu sion in the follow ing month’s issue. Email to [email protected]. Zap listings are free. Cover photo by Little Chef ADS: Ads are free, at our dis cretion. Send full page (7x9.5) JPEG to [email protected]. GRAPHICS: Car toons, illus trations, pho tos are welcome. Sub mit to [email protected] Send arti cles, zaps, graph ics, and letters by email to [email protected] or to Z Mag a zine, 18 Mill field Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543; 508-548-9063, fax: 508-457-0626 PRO JECTS Z Commu ni ca tions projects include: Z Maga zine Online at www.zmag.org; ZNet: email Chris Spannos at [email protected]; 508-548-9064; Z Website: www.zmag.org; Z Video Pro duc tions and Z Media Insti - tute, a 9-day sum mer school in poli tics, media, com puter skills, etc.: Lydia Sargent, 508-548-9063; [email protected]. Z MAG A ZINE STAFF Lydia Sargent: Ed i to rial, Pro duc tion, Pro mo tion Eric Sargent: Ed i to rial, Pro duc tion, Pro mo tion Andy Dunn: Ed i to rial, Pro duc tion, Pro mo tion SUB SCRIP TIONS TO PRINT MAG A ZINE All subscrip tion orders should be prepaid as we are unable to bill. Your sub scrip tion will start with the next avail able issue. Z should ar rive around the fifth of each month. If you aren’t getting your Z, please email [email protected]. U.S.: One Year $33, Two Years $60, Three Years $85; U.S. Low In come: One Year $28 Canada & Mexico: One Year U.S.$44; In terna tional: One Year U.S.$55 Renew als: same as sub scription s; renew al no tices are sent to U.S. sub scribers with fewer than three issues due. Non U.S. sub scrib ers will not receive renew al no tices (too expen sive to send). Note issues due on your la bel and send your renewal when you have three is sues due. Single back issues (last 12 months only): $5 each. Send sub scrip tions and renew als to Z, 18 Mill field Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543; credit card or ders (Visa/ Mastercard only) 508-548-9063; fax 508-457-0626; email: [email protected]. DIS TRIB U TORS News stand dis tri bu tion: Disticor News stand Ser vices SUB SCRIP TIONS TO Z MAG A ZINE ON LINE The print version of Z Mag azine is avail able online; print subscrib ers can sign up for an ex tra $5 a year; oth - ers can sub scribe for $18 a year. Archives are available free of charge. Sign up at www.zmag.org. CHANGE OF AD DRESS Z is charged for each mag a zine with the in cor rect ad dress. Please help us avoid this cost. Notify us im medi - ately if you move. Send a card with your old zip and new ad dress to Z Magazine, 18 Mill field Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543; or email eric.sargent@ zmag.org TABLE OF CONTENTS

Thank You Letters 2

Com men tary 3 QUIDDITY: Postage Hikes Threaten Print Media 3 Z Staff on the lat est bad news ELEC TORAL POL I TICS: Bob “Bal lots for Bush” Bennett 4 Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman on Ohio 2004 elec tion scan dal JUSTICE: Alberto Gon zales & the Lawyers of the Third Reich 5 Roberto J. Gonza lez on grave breaches of law and justice FOG WATCH: The U.S. Now Poses the Greatest Threat of Any Country 9 Edwar d S. Herman on the destru ctive power of America FOR EIGN AF FAIRS: The Iran-UK Face-Off 12 Larry Ever est on the trajectory towar d another war

Activ i sm 15

GRASS ROOTS OR GA NIZ ING: Right to the City 15 Tony Roshan Sam ara on a new so cial justic e alliance OR GA NIZ ING CAM PAIGN: School’s Out? 17 Ari Paul on SOA Watch del ega tion to Latin America EU ROPE: Where is the Euro pean Labor Move ment? 18 Benjamin Weinthal on worker cam paign against Airbus, etc. ANTI-DEATH PEN ALTY: Prison Helps No One 22 Daniel Sturm inter views Staughton Lynd on Lucasville

Fea tures 25

TWENTY YEARS: Imag ine A Country 25 Holly Sklar from May 2003 DE MOC RACY: Kick ing Away the Lad der, Part 2 32 Noam Chomsky on democracy de vel op ment vs. cor po rate eco nom ics AFRIC A: Blood Dia mond: Double Think & De ception, Part 1 35 keith harmon snow & Rick Hines on players behind the scenes SPE CIAL RE PORT: The Secr et Air Wars in Iraq and Afghan i stan 41 Jeff Nygaard on an un re ported as pect of U.S. wars in the Mid dle East INTER VIEW : Ji had: Theirs & Ours, Part 1 45 Da vid Barsamian in ter views Tariq Ali RE SOURCE WARS: Chal leng ing Ca na dian Min ing Com pa nies 50 Al Gedicks on forcing mines on commu ni ties of resis tance

Cultur e 56

BOOK REVIEW : The Price of Fire by Ben Dangl 56 Review by Su san Spronk REEL POL I TICK: 300: A Gay Porn Movie? 58 Mi chael Bronski on a ho mo pho bic AND homo erotic film

Zaps/Free Ads 60 THANK YOU LET TERS

Iraq I’m very sure that com puter com - Paul Robseon pa nies and other mul ti na tion als are Thank you Larry Ev er est for your also in volved. The whole concept of I wanted to thank you for the ar ti cle splen did ar ticle in the May is sue cap i tal ism, “profit over peo ple,” in en ti tled “Paul Robeson: Standing (“$100 Bil lion to Con tinue the War”) itself, is a major cause of the Tall.” When I was a kid in the 1970s, on the U.S. Troop Readi ness bill just problem. I’d stay up late on weekends when ve toed. Both the Re pub li cans and the one of the three available TV net- Demo crats, of course, have an inter - - Diego Guilien works would run old musi cals. I est in pre sent ing the ve toed ap pro pri - loved Show boat, and “Old Man a tions bill (HR 1591) as mighty pow - Chomsky River” lit er ally brought tears to my er ful on de mand ing re de ploy ment eyes every time I heard it. I had no from Iraq: Bush to jus tify his veto, Hello, I just saw a life-chang ing film clue as to who the man who sang it the Dem ocrats to jus tify fur ther fund - about Noam Chomsky from my li- was un til I read your story on him. ing a war of ag gres sion. brary and decided to look in on your I went out im me di ately and bought But the vaunted Dem ocratic bill— mag (which was in the film). I agreed a bi ogra phy, and have or dered some as Ev er est re minds us—pro vides no im me di ately with the elec tion is sues of his re cord ings. One of the great est precisely stated or enforce able with - and the 85 percent voter absence. joys in life is learn ing some thing drawal guide lines, the re de ploy ment Thank you, thank you. I am dis il lu - new, dis cov er ing peo ple and ideas, sce narios couched in smeary lan- sioned with this coun try, our gov ern - sto ries and music. Thanks for in tro - guage with lots of le gal loop holes and ment, and our me dia and may im mi- duc ing me to this great art ist and this no pen al ties for non-com pli ance. grate to New Zealand, but in mean- great man. Moreover, the vetoed bill—as Ever est time I will get your on line 12-month also notes—pro vides for U.S. troops sub scrip tion. - Holly Gar ner to re main in Iraq for var i ous pur- Many thanks for the work you do. Denton, TX poses—in what amounts to approval - Connie Bauer for thou sands and thou sands of U.S. An i mal Rights troops to re main in Iraq for the indef - inite future. Awe some Work Thanks for the Nick Cooney ar ti cle, The bill rede fines “rede ploy ment “Battle of the Beagles” in the May from Iraq” the way the Bush peo ple Se at tle Pa cific Lu theran won’t ac cept 2007 is sue. You would be amazed re de fined “tor ture”: the word or my do na tion of Z Mag a zine, which I how few ar ti cles have come out about words be come a term of art with lit tle thought was in ter est ing. They wrote, AETA, the bill that names ani mal ac - re la tion to or di nary us age or de cency. “Sorry for the long de lay in this re - tiv ists as the na tion’s Num ber 1 ter - The next ver sion of the bill will of sponse. And thanks for your gen er - ror ist threat. course be even weaker on “re de ploy- ous of fer, but at this time these par - Had this bill been in force in the ment from Iraq,” but will be pre- tic ular ti tles are not a match with our 1960s, Mar tin Lu ther King, Jr. sented by both Re publi cans and Dem- cur ric ular needs.” It seems they look would have been called a terror ist ocrats as still pow er ful, but a noble for “schol arly mag a zines.” By the and im pris oned for caus ing fi nan cial com pro mise be tween the two par ties. way, they took a do na tion of Ad- damage to segre gated white res tau- Poor all of us, which in cludes the bust ers. Keep up the awe some work. rants. Pun ish ing prop erty dam age is the Iraqis and all the peo ples of the Mid - - Biju Mathew dle East and of the Earth. pre rog a tive of any cor po ra tion. En - list ing the gov ern ment to la bel those - Peter Belfiore Bobby Sands pro test ers “ter ror ists” is some thing Min ne ap o lis, MN that could have sti fling effects upon I want to con grat ulate Z and your re - citi zen action for years to come. porter for the fine in ter view on the Thanks for air ing this trou bling Al ter na tive Think ing sub ject of Bobby Sands. Bobby was a leg is lat ing. I al ways en joy read ing your ar ti cles hero to so many of us, as your in ter - as a source of al ter na tive think ing. I viewee says. I got to know his - Lori Lippitz was reading a recent arti cle on anti - brother Sean and Tony O’Hara in the Skokie, IL war by Ron Jacobs and it oc curs to years of the hun ger strike and shortly me that, we, cit i zens of the world, there af ter. Though the world, and the have a moral re spon si bil ity to ex pose strug gle, have changed much, Bobby Sands is a constant in his brav ery and We wel come your let ters amd com ments, (and to avoid) those do ing busi ness partic ularl y those relate d to our 20th with the gun mak ers and all those love for com rades. year of publis hing. Send them by mail, prof i teer ing from the war ma chine, - Bill Nevins email, or fax to Z Mag a zine, 18 Mill - such as Lockheed Mar tin, Northrop field Street, Woods Hole, MA 02543; Grumman, Dyncorp, and their likes. Fax 508-457-0626; [email protected].

2 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Commen tary

have raised costs for all pub lish ers, tion “full in for ma tion of their af- Quiddity more or less evenly, by around 12 fairs,” spe cif i cally in tended for small per cent. Dur ing the pub lic com ment po lit i cal pub li ca tions to “pen e trate pe riod, Time Warner sub mit ted their the whole mass of the peo ple.” Even pro posal. Feder a list Alex an der Hamil ton (as a Post age Hikes The Time Warner plan offered fis cally con ser va tive Trea sury Sec re- var i ous in cen tives that could only be tary) con ceded that such rate dis- Threaten Print re al ized by large pub lish ing groups, counts were nec es sary for the good such as co-palletizing large num bers of the coun try. Me dia of maga zines to gether or drop ship - A let ter from sev eral small pub - ping from within postal zones via lish ers sent to the USPS Board of cen tral ized print ing and dis tri bu tion Gov er nors in April said, “These new Z Staff cen ters. Rates for pe ri od i cals that rates will have grave conse quences could not meet the new in cen tives for dis sem i nat ing the very type of in- ike all print me dia—from main - would in crease dra mat i cally. for ma tion our found ing fa thers strove Lstream cor po rate con glom er ates To the sur prise of many, the PRC to pro tect and fos ter when they first to al ter na tive in de pend ent pub lish- an nounced in late Feb ru ary that it es tab lished the pub lic postal ser vice.” ers—Z Magaz ine has suffered declin - was go ing with a plan sim ilar to Ac cord ing to a study by McGraw ing read er ship and sales in the past Time Warner’s, in stead of adopt ing Hill cited in the let ter, “Some small few years. This trend has been what the USPS had orig i nally sug - mag a zines will no doubt go out of blamed pri mar ily on reader mi gra tion gested. In March the USPS allowed busi ness. Some will be forced to pro - to the internet, and sec ondarily on di - only eight days for pub lic com ment duce a lesser product to pay for these min ish ing lit er acy and read ing hab its. on the 758-page PRC plan be fore in creases.” Due to cor po rate con sol i da tion in dis - they adopted it. This plan is so com- Though the pub lic com ment pe- tri bu tion and pro mo tion, though, in - plex that even two months later pub- riod has passed, pub lic out cry against de pend ent me dia are suf fer ing more lishers such as the Na tion and Mother the plan has been grow ing and is hav - than the cor porate mainstream. Jones have said they still cannot cal - ing some ef fect. Im ple men ta tion of The lat est bad news for in de pend - cu late ex actly how much more their the new fee structure has been de - ent print media came over the past postal costs will be, though the Na- layed from May un til July 15, and a few months when the U.S. Postal tion is cur rently es timat ing an in- “Stamp Out The Rate Hikes” cam- Ser vice (USPS) announced a com plex crease of per haps $500,000. paign is un der way to gen er ate fur ther new payment rate system for mailed Me dia his to rian Rob ert Mc- pub lic op po si tion through let ters and pe ri od i cals. Fol low ing a postal rate Chesney quotes a law yer for a large other ac tions. increase of about 5 percent last year, mag a zine pub lisher as say ing, “It publish ers had been told to ex pect an - takes a pub lish ing com pany sev eral eft media’s prob lems are sys- other rate in crease of around 12 per - hundred thou sand dol lars to even par - Ltemic, but not impos si ble to cent this year. In stead, the proposed tici pate in these rate cases. Some overcome. Foundations and wealthy plan might cost us up to 30-40 per - large cor po ra tions spend mil lions to donors are not usu ally friendly to cent more. influ ence these rates.” McChesney or ga ni za tions like ours, which pro - The new rate sys tem is de signed to also points out that the increases are a mote a re struc tur ing of so ci ety along ben e fit large me dia con glom er ates, “rad i cal re for mu la tion” which “goes non-hi er ar chi cal lines from be low. whose mail ing cost in creases will be di rectly against 215 years of postal Instead, radi cal left media in the far less than smaller, inde pend ent pol icy.” Postal dis counts for pe ri od i - U.S., from book publish ers to al ter - publi ca tions. Some of the larg est cals had been pro moted by early U.S. na tive week lies, need on go ing help publi ca tions will even see their postal leaders such as Thomas Jeffer son and from our com muni ties of readers costs decrease as small publi ca tions James Mad i son to al low the pop ula - and grass roots sup port ers. face massive cost increases. There’s As the dev as tat ing ef fects of a rea son for this—the plan the USPS neo-lib eral eco nom ics and neo-con - adopted was largely writ ten by Time For in for ma tion: www. ser va tive mil i tary ad ven tures con- Warner Inc., the world’s largest me - tinue to spread across the globe, it’s dia con glom er ate. stoppostalratehikes. up to all of us to keep spread ing the Last year, the Postal Service com for sample letters stories of resis tance and to keep alive tasked the in de pend ent Postal Reg u la - pro test ing the postal the few out lets pro mul gat ing these tory Com mit tee (PRC) with com ing sto ries, es pe cially within the heart of up with a plan to in crease rev e nues. rate hikes and sugges - the em pire it self. Z The USPS itself of fered a plan for a tions for other ac tions. pe ri od i cal rate in crease that would

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 3 Commentary voters were purged. Centered on cluded on its own list as of Oc tober Elec toral pre cincts that voted more than 80 22. They in cor rectly listed 183 as Pol i tics per cent for John Kerry, this purge not reg is tered and 79 as no sig na- may well have meant a net loss to tures. “The Board did not con test the Dem ocrats of tens of thou sands our data,” said the GCVRC, “but Bob “Bal lots for of votes in an election that was offi - said again it was just a small per - cially de cided state wide by less centage due to human er ror and Bush” Bennett than 119,000. then pro ceeded to certify the entire In a re port is sued De cem ber 7, Cuyahoga County vote even though By Bob Fitrakis & 2004, the Greater Cleveland Voter they thereby knowingly pos si bly Harvey Wasserman Reg is tra tion Co ali tion (GCVRC) dis en fran chised 463 individuals.” re ported that, in addi tion to the Par al lel purges were con ducted hio’s Bob “Bal lots for Bush” purge of reg is tered voters, some by Re pub li can-con trolled boards of OBennett, an es sen tial player in 3.5 per cent of those apply ing for election in Ham ilton County (Cin- putting George W. Bush back in new reg is tra tions were never even cinnati) where some 105,000 vot ers the White House in 2004, is no lon- entered on the rolls by Bennett’s were purged from the rolls and in ger chair of the Cuyahoga County BOE or were en tered in cor rectly, Lucas County (To ledo), where Board of Elec tions (BOE). His which would re sult in dis enfran - some 28,000 were purged in an un- mile stone res ig na tion leaves a leg - chisement of those who had tried to prec edented move in late August acy of scan dal, re crim i na tion, mas - be come new vot ers. Ad di tion ally, 2004. These re main the only three sive voter purges, fel ony convic - the GCVRC es ti mated that “over counties in the state known to have tions, and a pivotal role in a stolen 10,000 voters in Cuyahoga County con ducted mas sive reg is tra tion presi den tial election. would be com pro mised because of purges prior to the 2004 election. Bennett quit in a signa ture cloud these clerical errors.” The three mass ur ban purges dec i- of grace less ac cu sa tions and cheap Bennett re fused to re spond to the mated the rolls in heavily Dem o - shots at Jennifer Brunner, Ohio’s re port’s ini tial con clu sions. When cratic ar eas. Since then, an other newly elected secre tary of state, the study became pub lic, BOE Ex - 170,000 voters have been purged who asked him to re sign along with ec u tive Di rec tor Mi chael Vu ac- from the rolls in Franklin County, the rest of the Cleveland elec tion cused the study coor dina tor of “in - pri mar ily in the heavily Dem ocratic au thor ity. His forced de par ture citing panic.” Vu did not respond Co lum bus pre cincts. Many ru ral marks the big gest landmark yet in to GCVRC’s re quest for the re in - Re pub li can coun ties, like Miami, the unrav eling theft of the presi den - statement of 303 voter reg is tra tions practice a “no-purge” policy. tial elections in Ohio 2004 (Bennett when there was di rect ev i dence that From his post at the helm of re mains chair of the Ohio Re publi - they had been wrongly cancelled. both the Ohio GOP and the can Party). The GCVRC also doc umented Cuyahoga BOE, Bennett was at the In 2004 Bennett was ap par ently that the Cuyahoga County BOE in - center of the purges. Many of the asked by White House consigliere cor rectly clas si fied 463 prop erly 300,000-plus purged vot ers re- Karl Rove to stay on at the Cuya- reg is tered vot ers as not reg is tered. ported that they never received no- hoga BOE to help guar antee Bush’s This in cluded 201 voters who were tice that their vot ing rights had sec ond term. Cleve land is Ohio’s reg is tered on BOE com put ers on been cancelled. Should the general biggest and most Dem ocratic ur ban Au gust 17, but for some unex - 80 per cent pro-Dem o cratic in ner cen ter. A mas sive sweep there by plained reason, were re moved from city mar gins have pre vailed for all John Kerry was ex pected to have the rolls by Oc tober 22. They then three purged lists, the net loss to given him the White House. It was were forced to vote pro vision ally the Kerry camp could have been in Bennett’s job to mute that mar gin and their votes were re jected as not the range of 100,000 votes. In ad- and apparently that’s exactly what registered. dition to the purges, Bennett was he did. In Brun ner’s for mal com plaint also at the cen ter of the elec tion Lead ing up to the 2004 vote, against Bennett, she cited the fact challenges to college students in Bennett over saw the purge of some that Bennett’s BOE did noth ing Dem o cratic enclaves. 168,000 reg is tered voters from the when an es timated 10,000 voters Bennett is infa mous for far more Cuyahoga rolls, includ ing 24.93 were thrown off the vot ing rolls by than mas sive voter purges. Un der per cent of the city of Cleve land, a Diebold voter regis tra tion com - his su per vi sion, a le gally man dated which voted 83 percent for Kerry. puter glitch. re count of the 2004 pres iden tial In one inner city ma jor ity Af ri can Also, Bennett’s BOE rejected vote was il le gally ma nip u lated. Amer ican ward, 51 per cent of the 262 prop erly reg is tered vot ers in- Ohio law says pre cincts must be

4 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Commentary

Re pub li cans. Only Bennett vowed to fight his re moval. But he has now be come the highest election board of ficial to resign here amid the deep en ing scan dals sur round ing the 2004 election. Brun ner has taken cus tody of the 2004 ballots and other vote count ma te ri als, which are cur rently pro - tected by a fed eral court de ci sion. She is ex pected to bring them from Ohio’s 88 county boards to a cen - tral re pos i tory in Co lum bus. Mean- while, new ev i dence is emerg ing that Karl Rove and the GOP had real-time com puter ac cess to both the actual vote numbers in Ohio, as chosen at ran dom for hand count ing ei ther in cum bent Sen. Mike well as the exit poll ing data, that as part of the re count pro cess. But DeWine or Dem ocrat Sherrod would have allowed them to direct two Cuyahoga BOE em ployees Brown—the even tual winner. The how many votes they needed from have since been con victed of a fel - undervotes rep re sented 26.48 per - the sus pect Ohio southwest ern Re - ony and a mis demeanor and have cent of the county’s voters. But, publi can counties that gave Bush each been sentenced to 18 months says Phillips, “Once the of fi cial re - his of ficial mar gin of victory in the in prison for what pros ecu tors have sults were posted, Cuyahoga’s 2004 election. Stay tuned. Z called “rigging” the recount. undervote total fell to 3.25 per- Bennett was also in stru men tal in cent,” leaving him to won der “how the pur chase of some $20 mil lion in the un of fi cial re sults could have Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman’s Diebold voting ma chines for 2006 been so er ro neous in the first books include How The GOP Stole state wide elec tions. Elec tion pro- place.” Amer ica’s 2004 Elec tion (www.free press.org) and What Hap pened In tec tion ac tiv ists ve he mently op- Hayes also found that Cuyahoga Ohio, with Steve Rosenfeld (New Press). posed the pur chase, as seen in a na- County reported 30,791 un counted tion ally televised HBO spe cial, ab sen tee and pro vi sional bal lots. “Hack ing De moc racy.” Un der Af ter these bal lots were counted, Bennett and Vu, the machines mal - they reported 39,262 votes, an out- functioned in Ohio’s 2006 pri mary, come Phillips terms mathe m ati cally Jus tice with vote count report ing delayed “im pos si ble.” Bennett and Vu were for five days. also re spon si ble for more than Long-time election activ ist Adele $12,900,000 in BOE cost over runs, Eisner charac ter izes Bennett’s reign more than dou bling the agency’s Alberto Gon za les at the Cuyahoga BOE as a “cul ture orig inal budget of $11,000,000. with fear.” Among other things, Vu re signed ear lier this year and & the Law yers of Bennett chose to disre gard long- has since been hired as an As sis tant stand ing laws re quir ing that elec- Regis trar of Vot ers in San Diego the Third Reich tion re sults be posted at the pre cinct County, the num ber two spot, with level, a deci sion backed by Ohio’s a $10,000 salary in crease to By Roberto J. González for mer Sec re tary of State J. Ken - $130,000 a year. The San Diego neth Blackwell. Un ion-Tri bune noted, “Vu’s res ig- s At tor ney Gen eral Alberto In a re cent au dit of the gen eral na tion fol lowed a tu mul tu ous 3 1/2- AGon zales strug gles to keep his 2006 elections Dr. Rich ard Hayes year ten ure as elec tion chief, in - job due to the U.S. Attor ney fir ings Phillips found that in the ini tial vote cluding a disas trous May 2006 pri - scan dal, many have for gotten the count, “Cuyahoga County alone ac- mary when the county be gan us ing role he played in creat ing poli cies counted for 148,928 undervotes or new electronic voting machines.” that are pro foundly more trou bling 42.47 per cent of the statewide to- In re sponse to the chaos and re - from a global per spec tive. These tal.” The undervotes occurred in crim i na tion, Brun ner re quested the pol i cies—par tic u larly the “tor ture the race for U.S. Sen ate where vot - res ig na tions of the Cuyahoga memos” prepared by Gon zales and ers ap par ently opted not to vote for board’s two Dem ocrats and two his colleagues from 2002 to 2003—

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 5 Commentary led to grave breaches of the Geneva Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and se - Bush-Cheney law yers that in cluded Con ven tions, the UN Con ven tion cret over seas pris ons. Their ef forts David Addington (Cheney’s legal against Tor ture, and the UN Char- reached a cli max when the Cen ter counsel), John Yoo and Jay Bybee ter. for Con sti tutional Rights and doz- (Jus tice De part ment law yers in the The most in famous memo was a ens of other or gani za tions filed a Of fice of Legal Counsel), and Tim - Jan uary 25, 2002 letter from Gon- crimi nal complaint in Germ any last othy Flanigan (deputy to Gonza les zales to Bush, which ar gued that Novem ber on be half of 12 detain - dur ing his tenure as White House “the war against ter ror ism is a new ees. The suit al leged that Gon zales, counsel), among oth ers. Most were kind of war…. [T]his new par a- Rumsfeld, and a dozen other U.S. mem bers of the ul tra con ser va tive digm ren ders ob so lete Geneva’s of fi cials com mit ted war crimes and Fed er al ist So ci ety and sub scribed to strict limi ta tions on question ing of crimes against humanity. the “uni tary ex ec u tive” the ory—the en emy pris on ers and ren ders quaint idea that con gres sio nal and ju di cial some of its pro visions” re gard ing Ex ec u tive Power Grab power over the ex ecu tive branch treat ment of sus pected Al Qaeda should be strictly lim ited and that and Taliban mem bers. Gon zales he U.S. Attorney fir ings and the pres ident should retain absolute also noted that this would substan - Tother domes tic scandals in control over all cabinet-level tially re duce the threat of crim inal which Gon zales has been im pli- agencies. pros e cu tion of U.S. per son nel for cated—the Na tional Se cu rity Ad- Many of the new poli cies swept war crimes. It is now clear that the min is tra tion’s use of warrantless away re stric tions on the treat ment memos soon became of ficial pol- sur veillance and the FBI’s abusive and in ter ro ga tion of de tain ees, icy, leading to the classi fi ca tion of appli ca tion of the USA PA TRIOT which shocked a num ber of prom i- de tain ees as “en emy com bat ants” Act—are the other side of a rad i cal nent people in the U.S. In Janu ary who were stripped of their le gal ex ecu tive power grab that be came 2005 a dozen retired gener als and rights, harsh in ter ro ga tion tech- ap par ent af ter the Sep tem ber 11 at - ad mi rals pub licly op posed Gon za- niques that eventu ally included tor- tacks. It included Congress’s rapid les’s at tor ney gen eral nom i na tion, ture, and the es cala tion of “ex traor - pas sage of laws that ceded tremen - de clar ing, “U.S. de ten tion and indi nary ren di tion” (state-spon sored dous power to the pres ident and a ter ro ga tion op er a tions in Af ghan i - abduction) of suspected terrorists to se ries of ex ec u tive de crees framed stan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and secret overseas prisons. within the context of a newly de- else where…have fos tered greater Once the memos were released clared “war on ter ror.” an i mos ity to ward the U.S., un der - in 2004, human rights and civil lib- Gon zales (who was Bush’s le gal mined our in tel li gence gath er ing ef- er ties groups sought to hold the coun sel at the time) was deeply in - forts, and added to the risks facing Bush-Cheney le gal team ac count- volved in forg ing these poli cies, our troops serving around the able for de tainee abuses at Abu along with an entire team of world.” Days later, mem bers of the Sen - ate Judi ciary Comm ittee attend ing Gonza les’s confir ma tion hearings were stunned by Ad mi ral John Hutson’s tes timony. Hutson, a re - tired U.S. Navy Judge Ad vocate Gen eral, warned, “The stron gest nation on earth can ill afford an at - tor ney general who en gages in sloppy, short sighted le gal anal y sis or who does n’t object when others do.” Even more frighten ing are the words of retired U.S. Army Judge Ad vo cate Gen eral Corps, Jor dan Paust, who wrote, “Not since the Nazi era have so many law yers been so clearly involved in inter national crimes con cern ing the treat - ment and in ter ro ga tion of per sons detained during war.” Other le gal

6 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Commentary schol ars, in clud ing Scott Hor ton and San ford Levinson, have made similar observations.

Bush-Cheney’s Le gal Team and the Third Reich Juris ts uch com ments beg a se ri ous Sques tion: To what extent are Bush’s le gal coun sel ors (in clud ing Gon za les) play ing a role anal o gous to that of Nazi jurists in the 1930s? The an swer is dis turb ing. Though there are ob vious dif fer ences in po- liti cal ideol o gies and histor i cal con - text, there are key sim ilar ities: 1. A “state of emer gency” was de clared to strengthen ex ec u tive power. In both cases, gov ern ment law yers claimed that ex traor di nary cir cum stances re quired boost ing ex ec u tive power vis-a-vis both Con gress (Reichstag in Ger many) and the courts. In Ger many, a flu en tial Ger man le gal scholar Carl ton, Yoo, Bybee, Flanigan, and “state of emer gency” was trig gered Schmitt ar gued that a strong dicta - oth ers. by the Febru ary 1933 Reichstag tor ship more ef fec tively em bod ies 3. Par lia men tary power was re - fire, which led to Pres ident von the peo ple’s will than par liamen tary duced fol low ing le gal re forms. Par - Hindenberg’s sign ing of the de moc ra cies, since dic ta tors can act liamen tary power in both cases was Reichstag Fire De cree. This al- more quickly and de cisively. He re duced to a shadow of itself as lowed the Nazis to sus pend civil the o rized that a gov ern ment ca pa- checks and bal ances eroded. In lib er ties and de tain sus pected Com - ble of deci sive action must in clude Nazi Ger many, the im pact of the mu nists. A month later the Reich- a dicta to rial ele ment in its consti tu - En abling Act was so se vere that by stag passed the En abling Act, tion, which can be triggered in 1934, the Reichstag was effec tively which gave the chancel lor power to emer gen cies. This was the tool he a rub ber stamp for the Führer. en act laws, for eign trea ties, and crafted for dis man tling lib eral de - In the U.S., Con gress has not con sti tu tional changes without moc racy. (Schmitt later joined the ef fec tively chal lenged the ex pan- parliamentary approval. Nazi party and was appointed di- sion of ex ecu tive power since 9/11. In the U.S., the 9/11 attacks rec tor of the Un ion of Nazi Ju- Even the conser vative group Amer - trig gered a “state of emer gency.” rists.) This theory be came fully de- ican Freedom Agenda (founded by Congress passed the “Use of Force veloped in the “Führer prin ci- four prom i nent Re pub li cans) has Res o lu tion” on Sep tem ber 14 ple”—the notion that the Führer’s re cently ex pressed con cern that (which ceded war power to the will is the law—and was realized in “since 9/11, the exec u tive branch president) and the USA PA TRIOT 1934, when Hitler merged the has chron i cally usurped leg is la tive Act on Oc tober 26 (which re- offices of president and chancellor. or ju dicial power, and has re peat- stricted civil lib er ties). A No vem - In the U.S., the unitary exec u - edly claimed that the president is ber 13 ex ec u tive or der pro claim ing tive theory emerged as an im por - the law.” a state of “ex traor di nary emer- tant con cept among a rad i cal Re - 4. Of fi cials from the ex ec u tive gency” announced rules for de fin- pub li can fringe be gin ning in the exerted pressure on jurists to limit ing enemy com batants and for 1970s. In a re cent arti cle for the their in de pend ence. In Ger many form ing mil i tary com mis sions not New Re pub lic, Jeffrey Rosen doc u- Nazi Justice Minis ter Roland sub ject to congressional or ju dicial ments the de velop ment of this the - Freisler warned judges in 1934 re view. ory in re cent years, highlight ing the that, “It is not the role of the judge 2. Polit i cal theo ries provided a post-9/11 trans for ma tion of uni tary to al ter the ex ist ing laws of the na - legal framewo rk for exec u tive usur - ex ec u tive the ory into prac tice un der tion” be cause “chaos and an ar chy pa tion of power. In the 1920s, in - the guidance of Gonza les, Adding - would re place uni fied lead er ship”

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 7 Commentary were judges to “decide questions 1929 Geneva Conventions or the the vast majority of which were which can be solved only from the 1907 Hague Convention. civilian deaths.) superior vantage point of the In the U.S. Gon zales, Yoo, and Führer.” others have ar gued that Al Qaeda Points of Dif fer ence In the U.S. Alberto Gon zales and the Taliban (among others) are has di rected polite warn ings to the driven by rad i cal re li gious ide ol ogy here are, of course, im por tant Su preme Court—for ex am ple last and engaged in terror ist attacks and Tdif fer ences. Nazi law yers Sep tem ber when he said, “The are there fore not sub ject to the adopted a po lit i cal ide ol ogy cast in Con sti tu tion…pro vides the courts 1949 Geneva Conven tions. Conse - terms of “race,” “blood,” and with rel atively few tools to su per in - quently, both the Nazi jurists and more gen er ally, the “people” tend mil itary and for eign policy de- the Bush le gal team viewed in ter na - (volk). The good of the volk—not ci sions, es pe cially dur ing war- tional laws as ob so lete. of in di vid ual Ger mans—was given time…. [W]hen courts is sue de ci- 6. Trans for ma tions in law led to pre ce dence over other con sid er- sions that over turn long-stand ing state-or ga nized bru tal ity. In both ations and Nazi jurists viewed the tra di tions…they can not—and should cases, the con se quences of legal Führer as the em bodiment of the not—be shielded from crit icism…. opinions, memos, and direc tives people’s will. This has no an alog A proper sense of judi cial humil ity led to state-or ga nized prac tices of among the mem bers of the Bush- re quires judges to keep in mind the bru tal in ter ro ga tion, tor ture, and Cheney le gal team. insti tu tional limi ta tion of the judi - ex ter mi na tion of en e mies. Se cret An other dif fer ence is that in the ciary.” The U.S. attorney fir ings pris ons were a fea ture of both Nazi case of Ger many, the Reichstag are a not-so-po lite warning to and U.S. sys tems though there are never re cov ered in de pend ent power independently minded federal sig nif i cant dif fer ences in scale. The un til af ter the war. In the case of prosecutors. Nazis or ganized the mass mur der the U.S. elections of 2006, the 5. Le gal ad vi sors ar gued that an of mil lions of people. By contrast, Dem o cratic party suc ceeded in win - un con ven tional en emy ren dered in- 108 “detain ees” have been reported ning a ma jor ity. Whether or not ter na tional laws ob so lete. In the killed in U.S. custody since 2001, they will be will ing to roll back the case of the Na zis, the Ger man Gen - with 34 of those sus pected or con- gains in power made by the ex ecu - eral Staff claimed that Rus sian firmed ho mi cides re sult ing from tive branch since 2001 remains to “par ti sans” driven by rad i cal Com - harsh in ter ro ga tions. (It is im por - be seen. mu nist ide ol ogy were en gag ing in tant to note, however, that an esti - So far, the re sults have been ter ror ist at tacks, and there fore not mated 655,000 “excess deaths” of mixed. While the Sen ate Ju di ciary sub ject to the protections of the Iraqis have oc curred since 2003, Comm ittee has begun inves ti gat ing the Jus tice De part ment’s do mes tic pol icies, they are not likely to re - peal the Mil i tary Com mis sions Act or reinstate habeas corpus rights for aliens. De spite these dis tinc tions, the lengthy list of sim i lar i ties should concern those who cher ish a dem o - cratic sys tem of checks and bal- ances. It should also give pause to those who value the rule of inter national law. It would be fair to note that the Bush-Cheney ad min is tra tion rep re - sents one end of a rel atively narrow po lit i cal spec trum in the U.S., which at the supposed liberal end is rep re sented by the Clinton ad min is - tra tion and “new Demo crats” such as John Kerry. It is worth re mem - ber ing that ex traor di nary ren di tion was de veloped by the Clinton admin is tra tion in the mid-1990s fol -

8 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Commentary low ing the Oklahoma City bomb ing stated in its ap proach—re cently (even though that tragedy was or - sum ma rized Gon za les’s ca reer by Fog ches trated by Amer i cans). Fur ther - re mind ing read ers that “As at tor - Watch more, the “re gime change” policy ney-general, he is meant to be the to wards Iraq was first for mal ized people’s law yer—not the pres i- when Clinton signed into law the dent’s…. [H]e has pro vided spu ri - The U. S. Now Iraq Lib er ation Act of 1998. It was ous le gal jus ti fi ca tions for gov ern - also Wil liam Co hen (Clinton’s de - ment tor ture, detentions, and sur - Poses the Greatest fense sec re tary) who noted that the veil lance pol icies, parts of which U.S. would make “uni lateral use of have been found to vio late U.S. Threat of Any mil itary power” to en sure “un in- and inter national law and the U.S. hib ited ac cess to key markets, con sti tu tion…. [Mr. Gon za les] has Coun try in His tory energy, supplies, and strategic am ply proved that he will never be resources.” anything other than Mr. Bush’s By Edward S. Herman John Kerry, days be fore the lawyer—a mere apol ogist for the 2004 pres i den tial elec tions, told the im pe rial pres i dency.” y harsh ti tle is not based on Boston Globe, “I do not think the As the U.S. at tor ney fir ings Mthe be lief that U.S. lead ers United States should join the Inter - scan dal unfolds, it is im por tant to are the most vi cious ever, although na tional Crim inal Court…. U.S. of - view it and other domes tic abuses they are am ply ar ro gant, ruth less, fi cials, in clud ing sol diers, should as part of a broader au thor itar ian and even vicious, ren dered more be pro vided some pro tection,” pre- pro ject or ches trated by Gon za les hyp o crit i cal by the ve neer of sum ably from those seek ing to ap- and other uni tary ex ec u tive the o- self-righ teous ness and “godly” ser - ply the Geneva Conven tions and rists. Most recently, this has in- vice. Rather it rests, first, on the the UN Conven tion against Tor- cluded the cre ation of the Mil itary fact that they have far more de- ture. Never did the “new Dem o- Com mis sions Act of 2006 by the struc tive power than any prede ces - crat” dis play concern for pro viding Bush-Cheney legal team and key sors, have al ready used it, threaten pro tection to civil ians in Iraq and mem bers of the U.S. Sen ate. (It to es calate their vi o lence, and are Af ghani stan, much less to those was passed into law by Con gress not only sub ject to inad e quate con- illegally detained at Guantanamo. last fall as a re sponse to Su preme straints, but op er ate in a po liti cal Court de ci sions that checked the culture that is vola tile, manip u la - Im pe rial Pres i dency? pres ident’s power to hold de tainees ble, and contains threaten ing ir ra - in def i nitely with out charge.) The tio nal el ements. The rise of U.S. ow does Alberto Gon zales fit MCA ter mi nates the writ of ha beas destruc tive power, far be yond any- Hinto this picture? He has been cor pus for non-cit izens, grants the thing re lated to national “defense,” deeply involved in the creation of pres ident the right to label persons and far be yond the ca pa bil i ties of “en emy com bat ant” pol i cies, the “en emy com bat ants” thereby strip - any po ten tial ri vals, was clearly tortur e memos, legal justi fi ca tions ping them of their legal rights, and pur pose ful and designed to serve for the U.S. in vasion of Iraq, and grant ret ro ac tive im mu nity for gov- both the trans national business and the es ca la tion of ex traor di nary ren - ern ment officials who authorized or fi nan cial in ter ests of the U.S. elite dition poli cies. He has also been ordered acts of torture or abuse. and the con trac tor-Pen ta gon-pol i ti- deeply involved in other poli cies Those who know Gon zales de- cian vested in ter ests of mili- that have dra mat i cally ex panded scribe him as a pleas ant person. tarization—the mil i tary-in dus trial pres i den tial power—through war- Yet in his in sti tu tional roles, he and com plex (MIC). rantless sur veil lance and in fir ing his colleagues have paved the way The so-called “defense budget” U.S. at tor neys for ap par ently po lit i- for the sup pres sion of civil liber - should prop erly be called an “of- cal rea sons. ties, the bru tal in ter ro ga tion of pris - fense budget.” This Gon zales and a handful of others oners, and a war of ag gres sion budget—of enor- pur sued an un prec e dented power —acts that vio late inter na tional law mous size and now grab on be half of Bush and Cheney and the U.S. Consti tution. Z ex ceed ing the to- to the point that some estab lish ment tal for the rest con ser va tives de scribe their pol i cies of the world as “rem inis cent of the kingly Roberto J. González is asso ci ate profes - sor of anthro pol ogy at San Jose State abuses that pro voked the Decla ra - Uni ver sity. His most re cent book is An- tion of In de pend ence.” thro pol o gists in the Pub lic Sphere: The con ser va tive Fi nan cial Speaking Out on War, Peace, and Times of Lon don—typ i cally un der - Amer i can Power (2004).

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 9 Commentary taken together—and the increas ing • sab o tag ing the 1972 Bi o log i cal he U.S. mil itary buildup has its aggres sive ness of the U.S. elite in and Toxic Weapons Con ven tion Town in ter nal mo men tum, as the us ing its mil i tary su pe ri or ity to by re fus ing to agree to on-site huge vested inter ests in weap ons “pro ject power” by threats and vio - in spec tions, also in 2001 and war con stantly search for tech - lence in dis tant places, has put great • oppos ing the UN Agree ment to nical advances and new mis sions pres sure on other coun tries to build Curb the In ter na tional Flow of that will jus tify larger bud gets. It up their own arms. They need the Small Arms in 2001, the only has been per sua sively ar gued that arms not only to de fend them selves na tion to do so the United States goads other states against pos si ble U.S. attack, but into defen sive re sponses in or der to • re fus ing to sign the Land Mine also against the use of its mili tary Treaty (Clinton in 1997) jus tify in creas ing “de fense” ex pen- supe ri or ity to estab lish threaten ing ditures (e.g., Rob ert A. Pape, alli ances and bases on their bor ders. • re fus ing to join 123 na tions “Soft Bal ancing Against the United Such alli ance building and basing pledged to ban the use and pro - States,” In ter na tional Se cu rity, has been carried out against sub stan - duc tion of anti-per son nel bombs Summer 2005). Fur ther more, the tial powers such as Rus sia and in 2001 mili tary supe ri or ity and desire to China, as well as lesser re gional • re ject ing the Com pre hen sive test and prove the effi cacy of the pow ers such as Iran. With im peri al- [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty in ad vanc ing mil i tary—and de plete ist ar ro gance, U.S. of fi cials and 1999 stocks that will then need replen ish - pundits have found the arms bud get • re fus ing to rec og nize the In ter - ing—make for pro voc a tive be hav ior in creases and weap ons-test ing re- na tional Court of Jus tice’s ju ris - and a willing ness to take risks that sponses of these lesser pow ers to be dic tion over this country’s “un - lead more readily to war. It also “pro voc a tive” and “chal leng ing.” law ful use of force” against makes the coun try more willing to But these re sponses are ab so lutely Nic a ra gua in 1986 at tack de fense less small coun tries, in ev i ta ble and the U.S. of fense bud - in part be cause it is so easy and in • fail ing to carry out its prom ise, get and power pro jection pro motes Madeleine Albright’s words, made in sign ing the Nu clear the ad vance of an al ready emerg ing “What’s the point of having this Non-Prolif er a tion Treaty, that it new arms race. would work to ward the elim i na - mar vel ous mil i tary…if we don’t use The arms race is also helped tion of nuclear weap ons it?” It im pels U.S. lead ers to over - along by an array of U.S. pol icies es timate how eas ily they can bully that stymie arms control, such as: This re fusal to abide by inter na- or beat into sub mis sion smaller tional law and adhere to in ter na- countries, like Vietnam and Iraq. • with draw ing from the 1972 tional agree ments is regular prac- Both the exter nal and inter nal Antiballistic Mis sile Treaty in tice where these may in ter fere with con straints on militarization and 2001 U.S. plans to project power. war are weak. U.S. mil i tary and economic power have al lowed it to engage in three wars of ag gres sion in vi o lation of the UN Char ter in the last decade without any seri ous oppo si tion by the UN or “inter national commu nity” (i.e., govern - ments capa ble of any ef fec tive op - po si tion to he ge monic power). Even ear lier, it was able to kill mil - lions and vir tually destroy Indo- china, rav age Cen tral Amer ica via mur der ous prox ies and sup port South Af rica’s ram pages against the frontline states and Is rael’s in - va sions of Leb a non, with out any UN or in ter na tional com mu nity ob - struc tion. In the case of its attack on Iraq, the United States even received from the UN ex-post facto rec og ni tion of its oc cu pa tion and pac i fi ca tion rights—which helps ex-

10 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Commentary plain the August 19, 2003 bomb ing of UN of fices in Baghdad. The UN Ap pen dix: Rob ert Wright on the Ter ror ists’ is also busily en gaged in provid ing Re spon si bil ity for a Civ i li za tion Threat the United States and Is rael with some kind of quasi-legal sanction n an op-ed column in the New pears.” But the po liti cal will for the next phase of U.S. se rial IYork Times, April 28, 2007 has n’t yet shown itself and this aggressions. (“Planet Of The Apes”), guest cliché phrase covers over very col um nist Rob ert Wright asks se ri ous prob lems of power, lobal cit i zens have dis ap - whether, when civ i li za tions compe ti tion, and coor di na tion Gproved of these ag gres sions reach a high-tech stage, as we among many con flicting poli - and pro tests have grown in breadth have, this may cause them to ties, along with the pos si bil ity and size, but thus far they have not self-de struct and wipe them - that a deadly “tip ping point” been able to stop the onslaughts. selves out. For Wright, the real might be reached well be fore Democ racy is not work ing well and causal threat co mes from any ade qua te “polit i cal will” across the globe, as elite rul ers ter rorists who hate us. He ac- ma te ri al izes. If the fu ture have reg u larly ig nored pub lic an ti- knowl edges that we ac tu ally threat is still a bit un certain and if the power boys who war sen ti ment as ex pressed in elec - pro duced ter ror ists af ter 9/11 by dom i nate po lit i cal de ci sions tions as well as polls. Where they “freaking out and invad ing one too many coun tries,” and that prefer to take short-term gains have not, as in France and Tur key our “unwit ting” help might con- and risk fu ture disas ters, and if in 2003, those rul ers have been vil- trib ute to a pos itive feed back they can point to fail ures to go ified in the United States and have loop and a “plan e tary death spi - along by other coun tries, and if strug gled to compen sate for their ral.” But we are in no cent of re- the short-term costs of meeting dem o cratic ex cesses. In the United spon si bil ity for fun da men tal this threat are sub stan tial, we States, not only has the rul ing elite causes. may not see any po lit ical will been able to ignore poll ma jor ities for a long, long time. Wright starts by re jecting the favor ing an exit from Iraq, the Wright then comes to ter ror - 2006 election victory of the Dem o - pos si bil ity of a “clas sic nu clear ar ma ged don” be cause the ism where he finds the neg a - crats—widely seen to have been a “threat is in re mis sion” given tive feed back loops more men - reflec tion of the public’s inter est in eco nomic in ter de pen dence and ac ing. As noted, he does admit with drawal—has not pre vented a “crisis- avert ing lines of com - that our re sponses to ter rorism, fur ther Bush es cala tion of the war, muni ca tion” that “have gotten as af ter 9/11, may contrib ute to with only nom i nal Dem o cratic stron ger since the cold war.” He the neg a tive feed back, but he Party resis tance. In an other mark does n’t men tion: the U.S.’s doesn’t acknowl edge that the of dem o cratic fail ure, the Dem o - three ag gres sions in eight wholesale ter ror ism of the im - crats agreed to re move a fund ing years; plans for per ma nent mil i - pe rial states, along with bill re quire ment that Bush seek tary dom i na tion, unilateralism, neoliberal pol icies, might be congressional ap proval before and re ar ma ment; re jec tion of the real un der pin ning of “ter - launching an attack on Iran. in ter na tional law; open threats ror ism” (i.e., re tail ter ror ism). It should also be noted that in the of “preven tive war”; ef forts to These feed back loops could United States exec u tive power has make nuclear arms more “prac - only be bro ken if the United been so cen tral ized and the checks tica ble”; threats to make States were to cease pro ject ing and bal ances sys tem so weak ened space-based mil i tary plat forms; power and forc ing an arms that a single person or clique is the main te nance of hair-trig ger race, ter mi nate its ag gres sions and support of cli ent state ag - now capa ble of taking the country nu clear alerts; the ef forts to gres sions in the Mid dle East, into war (which they have already bully Rus sia with neigh bor ing bases and mis siles; the new end its support for the done in the case of Iraq, based on neoliberal coun ter rev o lu tion bra zen lies). That single person or arms race; and the U.S. and Is- raeli threat to use nu clear arms across the globe, and take the clique also has the power to use nu- against Iran, among other mat - lead in confront ing the envi - clear weapons, which the United ters. ronmen tal threat. But if Wright States has used be fore (uniquely), wrote something like this he He re jects the pos si bil ity of an and which the U.S. leader ship is wouldn’t be a guest colum nist “eco-apoc a lypse” with the re port edly willing and even eager at the New York Times. to use against Iran to end another Panglossian thought that “when (fraud u lent) “mush room cloud” neg ligence makes the prob lem bad enough po lit ical will ap- threat and to teach the world a les - son about who is boss. In short, the

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 11 Commentary world’s most ur gent and real both of which the United States “mush room cloud” threat is lo cated presses. Global in equal i ties have For eign in the hands of a few proven increased, billions of people are Af fairs irresponsibles with ex ec u tive power short of wa ter, food, ad equate med- in the United States. i cal care, and de cent ed u ca tional A sec ond rea son why the United re sources. These, plus the West ern States poses such a ma jor threat to wars of dom ina tion, have increased The Iran-UK civ i li zation is that, while the im - eth nic ten sions, crime, clientelism, pend ing cli mate and en vi ron men tal and mass migra tions, thereby caus - Face-Off cri sis is rooted in un re strained eco- ing more con flict, terror ism, and nomic growth, in stead of leading wars, as well as vast human By Larry Ev er est the world to ward a re ori en ta tion suffering. he March 23-April 4 stand off and re straint, the United States con- The world needs lead er ship in Tbetween Brit ain and Iran over tinues to op pose these and instead re solv ing these real prob lems, but Iran’s sei zure of 15 Brit ish mil itary pur sue short-term economic ad van- what it has been getting from the per son nel ended with out a mil i tary tage. As the leader of the neoliberal United States are pol icies that waste clash, but it would be wrong to rev olu tion, it presses for open ing re sources, stoke con flict, kill and conclude that the Bush regime has up more Third World mar kets and destroy, and lit er ally fight against a aban doned its prep a ra tions for pos - more blind growth, and ac tively con struc tive deal ing with threat en- si ble mil itary strikes against Iran. op poses col lec tive and mean ing ful ing en vi ron men tal di sas ters. The Quite the contrary. The in cident re - actions that might constrain or re - “end times” folks that have close vealed how aggres sively U.S. and duce the hu man con tri bu tion to links to the Bush ad min is tra tion Brit ish forces are act ing to ward global warm ing. It is a beau tiful il - may be getting their Ar ma geddon Iran, the high state of tensions in lus tra tion of the triumph of im me - with out any divine aid, merely by the region, and the poten tial for any di ate grat i fi ca tion and the higher Bush-U.S. policy as usual. Z in ci dent—whether planned or irresponsibility of the dominant not—to es calate into a mil itary con - business and MIC elite. fron ta tion. Ed ward S. Herman is an econ omist , me- A third rea son why this coun try The U.S. “full-court press” and poses such a se ri ous threat is that dia critic, and author of nu merous arti - cles and books, includ ing The Wash ing - mil itary buildup against Iran are the world cannot afford ei ther the ton Con nection and Third World contin u ing. The U.S. and Brit ain waste of an arms race or the so cial Facism, Man u fac tur ing Con sent (with used the inci dent to fur ther vilify costs of the neoliberal rev olu tion, Noam Chomsky) and Im pe rial Al i bis. Iran’s Is lamic Repub lic. No sooner were the Brit ish per son nel re leased than Prime Min is ter Tony Blair ac - cused Iran of “backing, financ ing, arm ing, sup port ing ter ror ism in Iraq,” and urged stepped-up in ter - national pres sure against Teh ran. The Bush re gime dis missed the notion that Iran’s re lease of the Brit ish sol diers showed the po ten- tial for di plo macy, ar gu ing in stead that it showed Iran was un willing to work with “the in ter na tional com - mu nity.” Meanwhile the U.S. con- tinues to hold five Iranian offi cials it seized in Erbil, Iraq on Jan uary 11. Right-wing pub li ca tions in cluding the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard called Iran’s de - ten tion an “act of war” and ag i tated for more aggres sive U.S. ac tion. Within days of the end of the standoff, U.S. mil itary of fi cials in Iraq were hold ing brief ings claim ing

12 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Commentary

Iran was arm ing both Shi ite and Sunni mi li tias, and was re spon si ble for killing Coali tion soldiers . The British Navy in cident il lus - trates just how ag gres sively the U.S. and Brit ish are acting toward Iran and how quickly they can fab- ri cate pre texts for fur ther ag gres - sion. Take the maps the Brit ish pro duce as evi dence to try and prove their per son nel were in Iraqi wa ters. Even U.S. mili tary ex perts ad mit ted that nei ther side could prove con clusively where the confron tation happened given that it took place in a very narrow body of wa ter with con tested and, in some cases, un charted bor ders. The World to Win News Ser vice (AWTW) pointed out (April 2), “The maps the UK gov ern ment trot ted out to prove that its com- trol” ad mit ted they were gath er ing the Gulf once Iranian-bound vessels mando boats were in Iraqi wa ters in tel li gence on Ira nian ac tiv ity in came un der at tack. These so-called were drawn up by the British them - the area: “Basi cally we speak to the ‘war games’ are a re hearsal for a selves and have no legal valid ity. crew [of any ves sel they encoun - na val em bargo and pos si ble com - Former Sea Lord Ad miral Sir Alan ter].... If they do have any infor - bined naval and air attack on Iran.” West implic itly admit ted as much ma tion be cause they’re here for Given the fact that the British in a BBC in ter view (29 March). days at a time, they can share it knew that its forces were op er ating When asked how one could deter - with us. Whether it’s about pi racy close to (or in side) Ira nian waters mine where the mar i time bor der is, or any sort of Iranian activ ity in the and could be seized (as happened in he answered, ‘It is highly com plex. area.” This re port was with held by 2004), it’s quite pos si ble the British A com mis sion is meant [in the fu - Sky News un til af ter the British de lib er ately risked con fron ta tion in ture] to lay down the me dian line per son nel were re leased. or der to either un nerve Iran and/or be tween the Shatt al-Arab and The Brit ish war ship Cornwall, test its response . The Guard ian re- agree where the var i ous lines are. which dis patched the craft seized ports that Ira nian of fi cials state this So we have the line we be lieve is by Iran, is the flag ship of an was the fourth such in tru sion into the cor rect one.’ anti-sub ma rine and minesweeping Ira nian wa ters in the last three Craig Murray, for mer UK am - battle group that includes sev eral months. bas sa dor to Uzbekis- tan called the other British war ships. Its in telli - Both Brit ish and U.S. of ficials Brit ish maps ‘a fake with no le gal gence gather ing is done in concert got on their high horses to de- force,’ and concluded, ‘The UK with the mas sive deploy ment of nounce Iran’s sei zure. Blair called was plainly wrong to be ul tra-pro - U.S. forces in the re gion, which it “il le gal” and a vi o la tion of in ter - voc a tive in dis puted wa ters.’” now in cludes two U.S. air craft car - na tional law, while Bush cried “in - What ex actly were Brit ish forces rier bat tle groups com prised of ex cus able” and called the Brit ish doing less than 10 miles from dozens of heavily armed war ships mil i tary per son nel “hos tages.” Iran’s coast? If they were in spect - with at tack air craft and mis siles. Mean while, the U.S. had seized ing boats for con tra band, as claim- As AWTW News Ser vice notes, Ira ni ans in side Iraq three times this ed, why did they board an Indian- “Under the com mand of the USS year, once with the coop er ation of flagged vessel after it had dropped Stennis, all of these ships are cur - Iraqi gov ern ment forces. All of fi- its load of auto mo biles in Iraq? The rently car ry ing out war ma neuvers cials were in Iraq le gally and all but Brit ish gov ern ment has n’t an swered in the Gulf.... The role of the one is still being held without for - this ques tion. Cornwall and other Brit ish ships mal charges or means of re dress. It turns out they were do ing would be to help protect the Amer i- The Ira nian govern ment is not be - much more. Brit ain’s Sky News can strike force and pre vent the Ira - ing allowed to see its per son nel and (April 5) re ported that the captain nian govern ment from retal i at ing the U.S. only re cently allowed a in charge of the “Inter action Pa- against other countries’ ship ping in Red Cross visit. Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 13 Commentary One Iranian cap tive—Jalal ment (March 27) ex posed U.S. For in stance, tensions are con - Sharafi, the sec ond sec re tary at sup port for anti-gov ern ment Ira nian tinu ing to mount over Iran’s nu- Iran’s em bassy in Bagh dad seized Kurdish forces. There are reports clear pro gram. Iran recently told by Iraqi Min is try of De fense forces that U.S. in tel li gence op er a tives are the UN’s In ter national Atomic En - —was let go just prior to Iran’s re - work ing inside Iran to gather in for - ergy Agency, charged with mon i- lease of the British mil itary per son - ma tion in prep a ra tion for at tacks on tor ing its nu clear sites, that it nel. The U.S. de nied any involve - Iran’s nu clear sites. would with hold in for ma tion be- ment in his sei zure, but the U.S. cause the agency had re peat edly al - over sees the op er ation of the Iraqi he U.S. pushed through sanc - lowed con fi den tial in for ma tion cru - De fense Min is try and works Ttions against Iran in the UN Se - cial to the country’s se curity to be closely with it. When Sharafi re - cu rity Coun cil in De cem ber and leaked and that in the current cli- turned to Teh ran he said he’d been again in March, and is engaged in mate such in for ma tion could be brutally inter ro gated and tortured an aggres sive cam paign to force in- used to fur ther a U.S. or Is raeli with a U.S. of fi cial pres ent (which ter na tional cor po ra tions and fi nan- mil i tary at tack. Iran has also an - the U.S. de nies). Ac cord ing to the cial in sti tu tions to cut off cap ital to nounced—in defi ance of U.S. and BBC, Jalal Sharafi ap peared at a Iran to crip ple its oil and indus trial UN de mands—an ac cel er a tion of its Teh ran news con fer ence and gave a sec tors. Across the re gion, the efforts to en rich ura nium. Ira nian detailed account of beatings, in- U.S. is tar geting groups with ties to of ficials warn they will abandon the cluding being whipped with cables Iran. The U.S. is also stepping up non-pro lif er a tion framework if in- and tor tured with an elec tric drill. its arms ship ments to al lies in the ter na tional pow ers con tinue to pres - A Red Cross of fi cial has con firmed re gion, and has dis patched another sure them to give up their rights that he saw marks on Sharafi’s feet, car rier group, the USS Nimitz, to un der ex ist ing trea ties to en rich legs, back, and nose. An Ira nian the re gion—os ten si bly to re lieve the ura nium for peace ful pur poses. psy chi atrist said that Sharafi was car rier Dwight D. Ei sen hower, but Not a week goes by without new suf fer ing from sleep de pri va tion rais ing the pos si bil ity that the U.S. ru mors of a U.S. at tack on Iran. In and sol i tary con fine ment. could soon have three carrier April the Je ru sa lem Post re ported All of this is treated by the U.S. groups off Iran’s coast. that Rus sian in tel li gence ser vices govern ment and me dia as if it is The Bush ad min is tra tion did not were pre dicting a U.S. sur prise at - per fectly normal and rou tine— push for a mil itary es cala tion in the tack on Good Fri day (April 6). Ku - barely worth men tion—and cer- latest stand off, but this does not wait’s Arab Times re ported (April tainly not wor thy of condem nation mean war is off the ta ble. The U.S. 4) the U.S. was plan ning an attack and expo sure. This is a chilling il- is aware of the enor mous dif ficul - at the end of April. Ira nian offi cials lus tra tion of the degree to which ties it faces in Iraq and the dan gers have stated they fear an at tack this the Bush pro gram of il legal in her ent in war with Iran. But it is sum mer. The website Swoop detentions and torture, and strip- con tin u ing to build an in ter na tional writes: “Fol low ing the May 24th ping people of legal rights, has consen sus against Iran, to iso late it expiry of the deadline for Ira nian been nor mal ized. po lit i cally, and to pre pare pub lic com pliance with UN demands, we The actions of the Cornwall and opinion for what ever actions it will en ter a more vol atile pe riod U.S. war ships in the Per sian Gulf deems nec es sary. with increas ing poten tial for an ac- are part of a broad cam paign While there are di vi sions within cident...to grow into a re gional against Iran being or ches trated by the U.S. rul ing class over how to con fron ta tion.” the U.S. across the Mid dle East. deal with the Middle East, all sides All this un der scores the need to This has in cluded U.S. efforts to are approach ing this from the build mass op posi tion now to any mili tarily encir cle Iran, to provoke stand point of pro tecting U.S. im pe- attack on Iran and to step up efforts insta bil ity inter nally, and to cripple rial ist inter ests in the region. Sig - to drive out the Bush re gime and it eco nom i cally. ABC News re- nif i cantly, no lead ing Dem o crat has re pu di ate its en tire agenda of ag - ported that since 2005, U.S. of fi- spo ken out against war with Iran gres sive and un end ing war. Z cials have secretly been en cour ag - and language for bidding such a war ing and advis ing guer rilla fighters with out Con gres sio nal con sent was from the Baluchi tribe in Pa ki stan re moved from the re cent war ap - Larry Ev erest is author of Oil, Power & to launch attacks inside Iran, and pro pri ations bill. This is why the Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda (Common Courage), a cor re- their at tacks have resulted in the over all tra jec tory—while many dif- spon dent for Rev o lu tion, and a con trib- killing or kid napping of more than fer ent con tra dic tions are at play and u tor to Im peach the Pres i dent: The a dozen Iranian offi cials and sol- war is not inev i ta ble—re m ains to - Case Against Bush and Cheney (Seven diers. A “De moc racy Now!” seg - ward con fron ta tion and war. Sto ries).

14 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Activ ism

and trans na tional cap i tal, so too RTC, ei ther in so cial move ments or Grass roots must the Right to the City move- aca demic cir cles, and that begin - Or ga niz ing ment be trans national and inte grate ning to for mu late one was one of with on go ing strug gles tak ing place the pri mary tasks of the con fer- across the cities of the global ence. But some things were clear South. al ready. The city is a cen tral bat tle - Right to the City ground in the new world or der. As A Right to the City ur ban schol ars have doc u mented, By Tony Roshan Sam ara ma jor cit ies have be come regional n Jan u ary 11, 2007 at the Jap - he concept of Right to the City and global command and con trol Oa nese Amer i can Cul tural T(RTC) is most closely as so ci- cen ters for trans na tional fi nance Comm unity Center in Little Tokyo ated with the late rad ical French so - cap i tal. The ac com pa ny ing de cline in down town Los An geles, Gihan cial theo rist Henri Lefebvre. The in ur ban man u fac tur ing econ o mies Perera, the ex ec u tive di rec tor of the prin ciples of a Right to the City in the global North have left many Mi ami Work ers Cen ter, ad dressed were ar ticu lated in 2004 at the So- cit ies with “sur plus pop u la tions” an ener getic crowd of over 100 cial Fo rum of the Amer i cas in that, like the Euro pean peasants of com mu nity or ga niz ers, rep re sent- Quito, Ec uador and at the World the early in dus trial cap i tal ist era, ing over 30 or gani za tions and 8 Ur ban Fo rum in Bar ce lona Spain, occupy valuable land. Coupled with ma jor cit ies. They came to build a through the World Char ter on the a steady re duction of federal sup - na tional ur ban jus tice move ment Right to the City, and put into ac- port for ur ban ar eas, the economic around the concept of a Right to the tion by groups such as the In ter na- shifts in cities have left many City. The in ten tion was to be gin tional Al li ance of In hab it ants. Right communities exposed to the cruel build ing col lec tive ca pac ity for lo- to the City marks the begin ning of logic of the market. cal strug gles to become a national an effort by U.S.-based so cial The im plica tions for poor peo ple move ment. Perera de clared, “We move ments to be come a part of of color con cen trated in cities are are leav ing here with a game plan. these initia tives and re spond col lec- clear: whereas once they were seg - This is a work ing meeting.” tively to the elite pro ject of cre ating re gated in abandoned downtowns The meet ing was the re sult of “World Cit ies.” while whites fled to the suburbs, over a year of work by Perera, At the RTC con fer ence in LA, now they are expected to disperse Gilda Haas of Strate gic Ac tions for people acknowl edged that there was to the pe riph er ies as cit ies are re - a Just Econ omy based in Los An- no con sen sus on a def i ni tion of con fig ured by global cap i tal, na- geles, and Jon Liss, of Tenants and Work ers United/Inquilinos y Tra- bajadores Unidos in Al exan dria, Vir ginia. Rec og niz ing that ur ban com mu ni ties across the coun try face a strik ingly sim ilar set of chal - lenges and that the condi tion of under-de vel op ment for ur ban com mu - nities of color has na tional and even global di men sions, the or ga niz ers saw a press ing need for a unified so cial jus tice move ment that could take their struggles beyond the local level. A core prin ciple for the grass - roots or ganiz ers was that in this strug gle for so cial justice and human rights, the city must be come a cen tral frame. And just as the back - ward na ture of ur ban de vel op ment pol icies are the result of na tional

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 15 Activism tional real es tate mar kets, lo cal po - grounds the work be ing done. It pres sures of gen tri fi ca tion are felt liti cal elites, and the con sumer helps against the tendency to be all across the met ro pol i tan area, classes. Their pres ence in the ur ban over whelmed by the range of is sues “There’s no neigh bor hood not core in any capac ity other than as con front ing com mu ni ties.” touched by displace ment and gentri - cheap labor is un welcome, a blight For Sara Mersha, ex ecu tive di - fi cation. There is no area of the city on the landscape of the new enter - rec tor of DARE (Di rect Ac tion for that some body is n’t try ing to figure tainment environment. Rights and Equality), RTC pro duc- out how to gentri fy.” One of these The hope is that the RTC frame- tively re veals the lim i ta tions of com mu ni ties is Roxbury, an his tor i - work will func tion as a founda tion small scale strug gles. “We are frus - cally work ing class Black com mu - on which to build or gani za tional trated with just push ing for jobs nity close to downtown Boston. For unity from which to launch re gional and a small per centage of hous ing 30 years Roxbury was ne glected by and national campaigns. Both of within pro jects that are ul timately the city, but the last 10 years have these will be key prior ities at the doing a lot more harm to our neigh- seen a shift and the neighbor hood up com ing So cial Fo rum in At lanta bor hoods than good.” A Right to has been tar geted for “re vi tal iza- this July. Or ganiz ers also see RTC the City anal y sis, she ob serves, tion.” For long-time res idents, this serv ing as an ideo log i cal frame- puts the focus on the colo ni za tion means an in crease in rent and home work to help ur ban res idents make of en tire com mu ni ties and high- costs, and an influx of wealthier, sense of the many chal lenges ur ban lights the national and inter national whiter neigh bors. Khalida Smalls, neo-liber alism throws their way on dimen sions of the challenges local who lives in Roxbury and is pro- a daily basis—som e of which may com mu ni ties face. For Mersha and gram di rec tor of ACE (Al ter na tives appear un connected, but which ac- DARE, based in Prov idence, for Com mu nity and En vi ron ment), tually link the struggles of these Rhode Is land, this means link ing says the mes sage to lower in come communities together. the in crease in rental and own er - folks is clear: “They are aware The or ga ni za tions that came to ship costs, the de velop ment of lux - white people want the city back. Los An geles last Janu ary rep re- ury con dos, and the threatened dis- They’re not wanted here any more.” sented the range of com mu nities place ment of op pressed com mu ni - While there is grow ing aware - under as sault: Black, La tino, ties of color to the com modi fica tion ness of the wave of gen tri fica tion Asian, LGBT, youth, women, im - of land and real estate speculation across the coun try, many res idents, mi grant, work ing poor, un der em - that rav ages metro regions across includ ing those in Roxbury, of ten ployed, unem ployed, and home- much of the globe. see the pro cess, and their own dis - less. Kei Nagao, from the Lit tle place ment, as in ev i ta ble. In deed, To kyo Ser vice Center in Los An - Gen tri fi ca tion As Class one of the hopes is that the Right to geles which works with el derly, And Race War the City framework can help or ga - low-in come Jap a nese and Ko rean niz ers break this iso la tion. Part of rent ers, sees RTC as use ful in ar - teve Meacham, a ten ant or ga - the chal lenge is to raise con scious - tic u lat ing changes oc cur ring in Lit - Snizer in Boston with City ness around the pro cess of gen tri fi- tle To kyo: “Right to the City Life/Vida Ur bana, says that the cation, show that it is the work of iden ti fi able pro cesses and ac tors, that it is not in ev ita ble, and that it can be resisted. This in volves the diffi cult but crucial task of popu lar or par tic i pa tory ed u ca tion. Dis cus sion of on go ing ed u cational ef forts at the con fer ence in - cluded stress ing the his tor i cal dimen sions of gen tri fi ca tion and dis - place ment, from the dis place ment of the Eu ro pean peasantry to the at- tempted clear ing of Na tive Amer - ica, as well as cur rent ef forts in places as var ied as Beijing, Nai - robi, Lon don, Rio de Janeiro, and New Or leans. Speak ing of the role that property spec ula tion plays in the his- toric Shaw dis trict of Wash ing ton

16 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Activism DC, David Haiman of OneDC tive to these people? Why are our pointed to the rela tion ship be tween com mu ni ties be ing pimped? Or ga niz ing or ga niz ers and res i dents. “[Spec u - Cam paign lation is] some thing early on in our The Future or ga niz ing here that our res i dents happened upon. It was n’t brought ne of the chal lenges fac ing all School’s Out? in as theory, but out of our re- Oso cial jus tice move ments is the search we were do ing in the com - ten sion be tween con tend ing with By Ari Paul mu nity. Residents de vel oped their im me diate issues (the need to op- own theory, that, ‘Well, if people pose a par ticu lar eviction or pub lic he fight to close the Western couldn’t specu late on land we hous ing conver sion) and the struc - THemi sphere In sti tute for Se cu - would n’t have a lot of these prob- tural pro cesses that lie behind them rity Co op er a tion (for merly known lems that we have in the com mu - (the global mar ket in real es tate as the School of the Amer i cas or nity.’ And that’s a re ally tre men - spec u la tion). Suc cess ful move ments SOA) at Ft. Benning in Geor gia has dously rad i cal ap proach to de vel op- are those that pro duce campaigns been an uphill battle. But the dra- ment, [and] that’s where I think our that si mul ta neously serve peo ple’s matic left ward po lit i cal shift in pres ence is valu able, helping press ing needs and strike at the Latin Amer ica might be giving the residents uncover and articulate roots of their op pres sion. In vari ably activ ist group SOA Watch some - their own critical analysis like in these campaigns people have mo- thing to be opti mis tic about. that.” bi lized them selves for their own lib - The School of the Amer icas, Haiman’s ex am ple touches on a er a tion through the de vel op ment of founded in 1946 in Panama and re - key is sue raised by many of the or - an under stand ing of their shared located to Georgia in 1984, has ga niz ers at the RTC con fer ence con di tions. trained sol diers from Latin Amer i - when dis cuss ing their pop u lar ed u- As the par tici pants in the RTC can countries for more than half a cation expe ri ences . If these com - confer ence have learned through century in the arts of psy cholog i cal mu nities, which have been told for their own ex peri ences in strug gle, war fare and coun ter-in sur gency. years that their neighbor hoods are human rights and the se curity of An in te gral in sti tu tion dur ing the bad, are some how a prob lem, then op pressed com mu ni ties are mul ti di - Cold War, when Wash ington sup - why are the devel op ers and the city men sional. Se cur ing gen u ine af- ported the bru tal measures of so ea ger to get in there? What ford able housing may be vital, for anti-com mu nist re gimes in Latin makes our neigh bor hoods so at trac - ex am ple, but it is a short term vic - Amer ica, it now focuses on the tory if the low wage jobs or pub lic cam paigns to “fight drug traf fick- as sis tance that en able the poor to ing and pro duction.” Many of its pay af ford able rents dis ap pear. grad uates have gone on to commit RTC Will Be at the While a lo cal ity may be able to atroc i ties through out South and U.S. Social Forum guar an tee af ford able rents, it of ten Central America, includ ing acts of does not control hous ing sub si dies, tortur e and extra ju di cial killings of The RTC movement is busy or have deci sive power over the in no cent ci vil ians. Its grad u ates in- planning for the U.S. So cial Fo- multina tional corporations that clude death squad leaders in var i- rum at the end of June, as the speculate in urban real estate. ous coun tries. It is be lieved the as- Forum will mark the first meet - Rad i cal ur ban so cial move ments sas sin who killed Os car Romero, a ing of all of the coali tion or ga ni - za tions since the Jan uary launch have been resist ing the commodi fi- Salvadorian mon si gnor known for in Los An geles. Their goals at cation of their lives and the destruc - aiding the poor who pleaded for the Forum are to deepen and ex- tion of their homes for cen turies. peace in his country, was an SOA pand their network, to include Or ga niz ers at the LA con fer ence grad u ate. General Manuel Noriega even more cities, more orga ni za - expressed a hope that the RTC of Panama studied there. The list tions fight ing dis place ment, and frame work can bring to gether ur - goes on. an even broader range of so cial jus tice or ga ni za tions, na tion ally ban com mu nities that are once A dele ga tion from SOA Watch, and in ter na tion ally. again con front ing global cap i tal ism a group ded icated to closing the At lanta will also pro vide a in the streets of their cities. Z school and known for hold ing large strate gic venue at which to es - annual pro tests out side Ft. Benning tab lish a pub lic voice for RTC that include acts of civil disobe di - and to put strug gles over ur ban Tony Roshan Samara is assis tant profes - ence, recently visited 12 countries sor of so ci ol ogy and an thro pol ogy at land and reso urces at the cen ter in Latin Amer ica. They met gov - of na tional po lit i cal de bate. George Ma son Univer sity. He has been work ing with the Right to the City alli - ernmen t offi cials and activ ists in an ance since Janu ary 2007. effort to con vince leaders to stop

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 17 Activism send ing sol diers to Ft. Benning. has hope for the bill. The way she “It’s amaz ing how many peo ple de scribes it, the last time the House Eu rope will lis ten to us,” says Lisa Sul- voted to cut funding to the school it livan, a mem ber of the dele ga tion. lost by 15 votes. Since then 35 Re- Ven ezuela was the first coun try publi cans who voted in favor of to pull its students out of the fund ing the school were re placed Where is the school, followed by Ar gentina and by Dem ocrats in the last mid term Uru guay. Bolivia has indi cated that elec tion. Since Feb ru ary, SOA Euro pean Labor it will dra mat i cally de crease the Watch has engaged in lobby ing ef- num ber of stu dents it will send over forts to per suade the new mem bers Movement? time. SOA Watch ex pects Nic ara - of Congress to vote in fa vor of the gua, now un der the Sandinista gov - McGovern bill. SOA Watch repre - By Benjamin Weinthal ern ment of Dan iel Ortega, to soon sen tatives have visited more than announce the same. 200 Congressional offices, Bow- n March the Eu ro pean Union How ever, ac cord ing to Sullivan, man says. SOA Watch also or ga- I(EU) cele brated its 50th anni ver - even in coun tries such as Chile and nized nearly 60 groups to hold pub - sary. The sign ing of the Treaty of Ec ua dor where left-lean ing po lit i cal lic fasts around the country in April Rome in 1957 served as the in spi ra - leaders have taken control of the to highlight the McGovern bill and tion for the end of a war-torn di - gov ern ment, it is still dif fi cult for the move ment to close the school in vided Eu rope and the begin ning of these ci vil ian lead ers to force the gen eral. polit i cal and economic unity for a mili tary to stop inter act ing with the The school’s ad vocates say that new Eu rope. The birth day took school, as the mil itary has sizable the dirti ness of the past is over and place in Berlin, the post-uni fi cation eco nomic and po lit i cal power. that the school, with a reformed capi tal city of Germany whose gov - The group is gear ing up for a cur ric u lum, one that teaches “de - ern ment has as sumed the ro tating del e ga tion to Mex ico. While Pres i - moc racy,” is nec es sary for se cu rity pres idency of the EU for the next dent Felipe Calderon, a con ser va - co op er a tion. But Bour geois, a Viet- six months. Angela Mer kel, the tive, will not pull stu dents out, nam vet eran, is n’t buying it. Can a first woman chancel lor of Ger many SOA Watch be lieves reach ing out mil i tary—an in her ently hi er ar chi- and a mem ber of the Chris tian to him and his Ad min is tra tion may Dem o cratic Un ion (CDU), said not be in vain. “Eu rope has reached more in 50 “Can a mil i tary years than we Eu ro peans could he big fish SOA Watch has yet —an in her ently hi er - have ever wished.” Her motto for Tto catch is Colom bia. None of Ger many’s EU pres i dency: “suc- its gov ern ment of fi cials agreed to ar chi cal, au thor i tar - ceed ing to gether.” meet with the del ega tion on its re- ian ma chine—in- Mean while, a sec ond no ta ble cent tour, says Fa ther Roy Bour - event succeeded in bringing to- geois, SOA Watch’s founder. Co - stall de moc racy?” gether or ganized labor in the Eu ro - lom bia accounts for 50 per cent of pean Union when trade unions in the school’s stu dent body. The four EU na tions—Spain, Ger many, Central Intel li gence Agency esti - Eng land, and France— stopped the mates that there are between 1.8 pro duc tion of Eu rope’s larg est and 3.8 mil lion inter nally displaced cal, au thor i tar ian ma chine—in stall plane maker Airbus, a rare ex am - peo ples in Co lom bia as a re sult of de moc racy? More over, a school ple of Eu ro pean cross-bor der the con flict in volv ing right-wing train ing com bat soldiers with a long union ism. paramilitaries, left-wing in sur gents his tory of pro duc ing hu man rights The Airbus la bor ac tions pro vide and drug traf fickers. “At the SOA, vi o la tors can not ad dress the real a window on Eu ro pean power pol i- the student body reflects where needs of much of the Latin Amer i- tics. In late Febru ary Airbus an - there is the most con flict,” says can people, who lack proper ed uca - nounced the elimi na tion of 10,000 Sullivan. tion and med i cal care, he in sists. jobs, in cluding the closure and sale Mean while, on Capitol Hill, “It’s an ob sta cle to de moc racy,” he of plants. Airbus manage ment, Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) has says of the school. “It’s an obstacle which em ploys 57,000 work ers intro duced a bill in the House to their liberation process.” Z across Eu rope, coined the term Armed Ser vices Com mit tee to cut “Power 8” for its restruc tur ing pro - fund ing to the school while Con- gram, a charm ingly de cep tive la bel gress in ves tigates it. SOA Watch’s Ari Paul is a con trib u tor to Cit i zen Cul- for wide spread lay offs and out- leg is la tive di rec tor Pam Bow man ture, Z, and Time Out Chicago . sour cing. Airbus seeks to slash 18 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Activism 4,300 jobs in France and 3,700 po- An aim of Airbus, which was “willing ness to fight.” The 1,200 si tions in Ger many. The plane founded in 1970, was to com pete union mem bers in Laupheim who maker is also tar geting 1,250 jobs with the U.S.-based Boe ing Cor po - pro duce and design the cabin and in Eng land while Spain will see 400 ra tion, the world’s top sell ing man - cargo com ponents, have shifted, job cuts. u fac turer of pas sen ger planes. The fol low ing the wild cat strike, to an The EU polit i cal class inter prets par ent corpo ra tion of Airbus is the in-plant work-to-rule strat egy. the Power 8 pro gram as a nec es - Eu ro pean Aero nau tic De fense & Braun said that work ers are re fus - sary el e ment of a com pet i tive neo- Space Co. (EADS). Both Boeing ing to accept overtime work and lib eral res cue mea sure. Mer kel, the and EADS pro duce large com mer - spe cial shift as sign ments. “The CDU chan cel lor, said, “At first cial planes, but are also lead ers in pro test within the plant can be sight the prin ciple of fair dis tri bu - the mush room ing mil i tary in dus- felt,” said Braun. tion appears to have been re- trial com plex. EADS’s plane di vi- spected.” Tony Blair, Brit ain’s sion is boom ing eco nom i cally, G Metall is Ger many’s larg est prime min is ter, re acted pos i tively which helps explain why Michael Iin dus trial un ion and dom i nates to the Power 8 plan while outgo ing Eilers, the IG Metall union chair - such sec tors as auto, elec tron ics French Pres i dent Jacques Chirac per son of the works coun cil in the and metal work. The un ion is ar gu - accepted it, but said the clo sure of Nordenham plant in north ern Ger - ably the most pow er ful indus trial plants must “oc cur in a fair so cial many, deemed the plan to sell fac - un ion in the ad vanced cap i tal ist di alogue.” Chirac will be suc- to ries “un ac cept able.” Ac cord ing world and the pattern set ter for col - ceeded by the conser vative Sarkozy to Eilers, Airbus “is filled with lec tive bar gain ing ne go ti a tions in who, fol low ing a meeting with work or ders and the prog nosis Germ any. IG Metall—mirror in g in - French Airbus trade union ists, said looks very good” for the eco nomic dus trial unions like the United Auto he does not feel “bound to the vi a bil ity of the cor po ra tion. Airbus, Work ers (UAW) in the U.S.—has, Power 8 plan.” Work stop pages promptly followed the Airbus pre sen tation of its Power 8 pro gram. On Feb ru ary 28, and run ning into early March, 4,850 Ger man and 4,300 French worker s partic i pated in wildcat and polit i cal strikes. Germ an worker s, who are not legally permit ted to engage in polit i cal strikes, none the- less struck three Ger man plants. A polit i cal strike aims to influ ence a change in the behav ior of the gov - ern ment, whereas an eco nomic strike seeks to al ter the em ployer’s German workers spelling out Wir Sind Airbus (We are Airbus)—photo from IG Metall conduct, in the sphere of labor ne - go ti a tions. The Airbus con flict is whose main head quar ters is lo cated how ever, suf fered mas sive mem - turn ing into a complex inter face be- in Toulouse, France, where 11,500 ber ship losses and a de te ri o ra tion tween po lit i cal and eco nomic work ers are based, has 16 plants of or ga ni za tional and strike power. strikes, largely be cause Airbus is across Eu rope. In ad dition to the In 1992, fol low ing the uni fi ca tion an amalgam ation of public and pri- Nordenham plant, which man ufac - of the for mer Ger man Dem o cratic vate owner ship. The French gov - tures fu se lage parts, Airbus is tar - Repub lic (GDR) with the Federal ern ment, for ex am ple, main tains a geting two other plants in Ger many Repub lic, IG Metall absorbed 15 per cent share of Airbus own er - for sale, a clas sic ex pres sion of 900,000 new east Ger man work ers, ship. The Ger man auto man ufac - outsourcing with a view to ward and increased its mem ber ship base turer Daimler-Chrys ler, as well as slash ing union wages and bene fits. to 3.6 mil lion mem bers. How ever, a num ber of Ger man re gional Work ers in Laupheim, in the the current mem ber ship has plum - states, also have size able shares in south ern Ger man state of Baden- meted to 2,376,000 mil lion mem - the com pany. Airbus is run by a Württemberg, are “shocked and bers and the un ion re cently expe ri - French-Ger man co-chief ex ec u tive frus trated” about the Power 8 plan, enced its first strike loss since struc ture and sym bolizes a kind of accord ing to the IG Metall union 1954. In 2003 east Ger man work - crown ing achievement of EU busi - rep re sen ta tive Mi chael Braun, who ers (in the for mer GDR fed eral ness class eco nomic power. also noted they are show ing a states) sought to re duce their work

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 19 Activism week from 38 to 35 hours thereby man Airbus plants is already em - The emotional, nation al is tic lan - stan dard izing their work hours with ployed by sub contrac tors and tem - guage and desire for lo cal promo - those of west Ger man trade union - po rary em ploy ment agen cies. tion is not lim ited to France. Ger - ists. The strike af fected the produc - Airbus also em ploys “for eign man pro tests fol low ing the em- tion of Volks wagen and BMW au - work ers” who are treated as sec - ployer’s Power 8 an nouncement re - tos in the world’s lead ing export ond-class work ers. sulted in such slo gans as “Airbus nation. The lack of sym pathy A form of eco nomic chauvin ism belongs to Bre men” and “Airbus strikes in the west Ger man IG blocked the attempt on March 16 to belongs to Ham burg.” The germ of Metall plants, cou pled with a woe - build a Europe-wide un ion dem on- Ger man worker chau vin ism with fully in ef fec tual pres sure point stra tion in Brussels, Bel gium and re spect to the Airbus con flict could cam paign strat egy in the east to the pro test against Airbus was rele - be found as early as May 2006. A mo bi lize un ion mem bers and pub lic gated to the national level. When bizarre group un der the name of opinion, turned a win nable strike ques tioned about the role of nation - “Die Freien” secured 30 per cent of into a humil i at ing flop. al ism, IG Metall rep re sen ta tive the votes in a union election in the That a sin gle Ger man un ion rep - Braun re marked that “[Na tional - Ham burg plant, re ported the anti- re sents practi cally all Airbus em - ism] has not en tirely gone away” na tion al is tic left Ger man weekly ployees contrib utes to its bar gain- among Ger man work ers. What Jun gle World. Die Freien warned ing and strike power, in con trast to prompted the can cella tion of the of “the danger that re tir ing Ger man France where five sep arate French rally, however, was a nation al is tic se nior man agement could be re- trade unions rep re sent Airbus em - flyer that the French union CFE- placed with French man age ment ploy ees. The co or di nated IG Metall CGC dis sem i nated. The flyer as - rep re sen ta tives.” Their pro gram high lights their ve he ment op po si- tion to the “outflow of au thor ity to A seg ment of the Ger man la bor move ment grasps Toulouse” in France. The un sa vory na tion al is tic lan- the pressing need to change con sciousness among guage spilled over onto the largest Ger man work ers, yet many un ions re main stuck in Airbus dem on stra tion in Ger many the Middle Ages where 20,000 un ion mem bers from Airbus and sup ply parts firms ral - lied on March 16 to demand the with drawal of the Power 8 plan. At work-to-rule ac tion is affect ing pro - serted the Power 8 re struc tur ing the time, IG Metall had struck the duction. Mar tin Schindler, a union plan is a “bonus for the in com pe- seven Airbus plants in Ger many rep re sen ta tive for the Nordenham tence” of the Ger man plants. The and work stop pages hit Airbus pro - plant, re ports that, “More is be ing CFE-CGC wrote: “Who is respon - duction in Spain and France. In dis cussed than pro duced” on the si ble for the delays by the A380: Brit ain, hundreds of workers ral - factory floor. Man agers have been those who re ceive a third of the lied at the town hall in Ches ter, com plaining about the work-to-rule pro duction line for the A320 North Wales. action and that mem bers are re fus - plane.” The full produc tion of the So cial ist crit ics blasted IG ing over time work. Ac cord ing to A320, accord ing to the Power 8 Metall for invit ing right-wing CDU Schindler, “dis plea sure is wide- plan, will be shifted to the Ger man pol i ti cians to at tend the mas sive spread among the work ers.” plant in Hamburg. rally in Ham burg. Günther Oet- The third plant tar geted by The Ham burg IG Metall council tinger (CDU), the min is ter- pres i - Airbus for outsourcing is Varel, chair Horst Niehus charged the dent of the Ger man fed eral state of which is lo cated like its sis ter plant CFE-CGC with encour ag ing “pop - Baden-Württemberg, said, “We are Nordenham, and pro duces fu se lage ulism” and “nation al ism ,” accord - fighting for Airbus to remain in parts. Hartmut Tammen-Henke, the ing to a report in the French news - Ger many.” Oettinger is cur rently IG Metall rep re sen ta tive re spon si - pa per Liber a tion . Julien Talavan, a tangled up in a row involv ing a fu- ble for Varel, said that the 1,350 un ion rep re sen ta tive from the larg - neral speech in which he turned his mem bers are “very much in a fight- est French Airbus un ion Force pre de ces sor, Hans Filbinger ing mode.” He said in an inter view Ouvriere (FO), said “We are pre - (CDU), a Nazi na val judge, into an that the mem bers “fear a sale” of pared to block the assem bly of the adver sary of the Nazi move ment—a the plant because of the loss of jobs air crafts.” The FO is in sist ing on scan dal ous form of his tor i cal re vi - and “col lec tively bar gained con di- re taining the work in Toulouse and sion ism. Oettinger stressed that tions.” An as tonish ing 35 per cent thereby pre venting the trans fer of “Filbinger was not a National So- of the workforce in the seven Ger - the A320 plane work to Ham burg. cialist” and “there was no ver dict

20 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Activism from Hans Filbinger by which a per son lost his life.” His de fense of Filbinger blanketed the front pages of the Ger man dai lies in April. Filbinger, who cam paigned with the slogan “Freedom or Social ism” dur ing his election race (1976) for the gov er nor ship of Baden-Württemberg, was a fierce oppo nent of the 1960’s Ger man coun ter-cul tural stu dent move ment and created a right-wing think tank that has close ties to reac tion ary in - tel lec tu als. The foun da tion is a hot- bed of ul tra-na tion al ist Ger man thinking. Filbinger issued the death pen alty to the WWII de serter Wal - ter Gröger, a gen u ine re sister of Hitler, whose 78-year-old sis ter, Ursula Galke, said, “A per son of Oettinger’s in tel li gence should not be lying.... Mr. Filbinger was pres ent dur ing the killing of my brother. He read him the sen tence Protest in Hamburg against Power 8—photo from Deindymedia.org of death and stripped him in a cyni - cal way of his civil rights before his two plants in Ger many. This style A seg ment of the Ger man la bor ex e cu tion. The state ments from of na tional-based la bor ne go ti a tions move ment grasps the press ing need Mr. Oettinger are bare faced lies.” at the expense of other work ers to change conscious ness among The pres ident of IG Metall, helps to explain why behind the Ger man work ers, yet many un ions Jürgen Pe ters—in con trast to the scenes Bel gium trade union ists crit - re main stuck in the Middle Ages. pro tec tion ist Ger man rhet o ric of i cized the “croc o dile tears” of their For ex am ple the Ger man la bor fed - Oettinger—went to great lengths to Ger man coun ter parts. er ation (DGB) in the Berlin- not play the nation al is tic card dur - Po lit i cal and eco nomic na tion al- Brandenburg dis trict dis missed the ing the Hamburg rally. Pe ters said, ism re main hot but ton is sues for trade unionist and writer Es ther “We are not fighting against our Ger man trade un ions, largely be- Dischereit, who was re spon si ble col leagues in France” and claimed cause of the fas cist pol itics in Ger - for the DGB’s anti-racism website that “work ers do not al low them - man his tory. Publik, the labor mag - —though an ad min is tra tive la bor selves to be played off against each azine for Ger many’s larg est ser vice law court re versed the ter mi na tion other.” em ploy ees un ion Ver.di, de voted and or dered the DGB to reeinstate Empty un ion slo gans or a gen u - sev eral ar ti cles in its De cem ber her. Dischereit had crit i cized the ine attempt to bring about an 2006 is sue to the “Danger from the ac com mo dat ing pos ture of the la bor anti-na tion al is tic un ion at mo sphere? right” and outlined new aca demic unions to the National Social ist A telling exam ple seems to sug gest stud ies doc u ment ing alarm ing per - Ger man Work ers’ Party in May a case of phoney inter national un- cent ages of rac ism, xe no pho bia, 1933. ion soli dar ity. Peters nego ti ated a and anti-Sem itism in the Ger man new la bor agree ment (Sep tem ber work coun cils. The cover story co or di nated strike ac tion of 2006) with Eu rope’s larg est auto highlighted an EU study show ing Athe four EU coun tries—Ger - man u fac turer, VW. The main el e - grow ing ra cial ha tred di rected at many, France, Spain and Eng land ment in volved em ploy ment se cu rity mi nor ity groups within the EU, ac - —to block the Power 8 down siz ing for 100,000 Ger man work ers un til cord ing to offi cial data from the pro gram is an un tapped bundle of 2010 in exchange for an increased Eu ro pean Mon i tor ing Cen tre of poten tial for cre ating a wave of in- work week with out addi tional pay. Rac ism and Xe no pho bia in Vi enna. ter na tion al ism. Un for tu nately the In Decem ber VW an nounced the A Free Uni ver sity of Berlin in ves ti- frag mented pos ture of the unions dis missal of 4,000 workers at its gation estab lished that 19 percent of rep re sents a fail ure to em brace the Bel gium plant and the trans fer of Ger man trade union ists main tain op por tu nity to de feat a mul ti na - the Golf VW auto pro duction to extreme right-wing atti tudes. tional cor po ra tion and in spire Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 21 Activism worker ac tivism across Eu rope. tional media, though not always The Ger man co-ex ec u tive of Air- Anti-Death with ac cu racy. The Co lum bia Jour - bus, Thomas End ers, told the mag - Pen alty nalism Review wrote that, “Report - a zine Fo cus, “We are at this point ers vied for atroc ity stories. They highly vul ner a ble. Long strikes ran scary tales—to tally false, it was would affect us se verely and throw Prison Helps later found—that spread panic and us still fur ther back.” The turn ing para noia through out the region.” inward of the na tional unions ad - No One The play focuses on the trial of vances Airbus’s agenda. The five pris oners ac cused of mur der - left-lean ing Ger man daily Ber liner Dan iel Sturm In ter views ing Cor rec tional Of fi cer Rob ert Zeitung captured the dis unity within Staugh ton Lynd Vallandingham. George Skatzes, the EU: “The case of the wobbly Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Ja son com pany Airbus shows just how f ter more than a de cade of Robb, James Were, and Keith wide spread eco nomic na tion al ism Afailed at tempts to abol ish the Lamar are all cur rently on Ohio’s is. More than that, though, Airbus death penalty in Ohio, a theater death row and pur su ing appeals. says a lot about Eu rope it self.” play brought the issue back to the Lucasville chal lenges the au di ence The most press ing and seri ous front pages. Lucasville: The Untold to decide whether the right men challenge for trade unionists on a Story of a Prison Up ris ing opened were con victed. re gional level is to cre ate mea sures April 11 in Portsmouth, a few to pro tect union standards in a miles south of the South ern Ohio STURM: Can you describe what trig - glob al ized la bor mar ket. A hope ful Cor rec tional Fa cil ity where one of gered the rebel lion? move is the trans-Atlan tic un ion the nation’s deadli est prison ri ots merger among unions in the U.S., took place in 1993 during which LYND: The Mus lim pris oners who Eng land, Canada, and Ireland. The nine pris oners and one cor rec tional first seized of fi cers in L block and planned fu sion is still in its in fancy, of fi cer were killed. made them hos tages had in mind a but offi cials of the Brit ish un ion, The play ques tions the death brief, blood less dis tur bance. They Ami cus, which rep re sents Airbus penalty convic tions of five inmates hoped to make author ities in Co- work ers in Eng land, and United involved in the siege and exposes lum bus over rule War den Tate’s in- Steel Work ers in the U.S., an- the racist and unjust ele ments of the sis tence on testing for TB by in ject- nounced a decla ra tion to merge this cap i tal pun ish ment sys tem in the ing a sub stance under the skin con - past April. The multina tional union United States. The per son who taining phenol, a form of al cohol. would become the world’s larg est brought the is sue into the headlines But within mo ments, events spun worker or ga ni za tion to tal ling 3.4 is Staugh ton Lynd, a civil rights at- out of con trol. What all wit nesses million memb ers. tor ney and his to rian who con tin ues de scribe as “chaos” en sued. Of fi - The merger plan, ac cord ing to to make reg ulat ing Ohio’s pris ons cers were se verely beaten. The Brit ish and Amer ican trade union- and abolish ing the death penalty his pris on ers in re bel lion thought sev - ists, is the only rem edy against full-time strug gle. In the 1960s eral of the injured of ficers might worker ex ploi ta tion on a glob al ized Lynd was the di rec tor of the Mis - die and went to some risk to take level. A con crete ex am ple of glob - sis sippi Free dom Schools and them to the yard where they could alized trade unionism is the la bor taught history along side Howard be re cov ered and re ceive med i cal protections se cured for work ers in Zinn at Spellman Col lege. When at ten tion. the mar i time sec tor. A doc u ment the steel mills closed in the late War den Tate en cour aged in for - (Bill of Rights) out lines the health 1970s and early 1980s, Lynd rep re - mants, even cre at ing a spe cial post and safety protections for sea work - sented the work ers. He then turned of fice box to receive their commu - ers as well as wage and ben efits to the prison in dus trial com plex ni ca tions. Six sup posed “snitches” stan dards for 1.2 million seafar ers. that had risen in the steel indus try’s were mur dered by fellow pris oners This move ment from na tional- wake. dur ing the first hours of the up ris - based la bor or ga ni za tions to cross- Based on Lynd’s book, Lucas- ing. The prison ad min is tra tors cre - bor der in ter na tional union ism rep - ville, a defin i tive history of the re - ated their share of un intended con- re sents hope for working people of bellion, the story begins in April se quences, too. As Ser geant How- the world. Z 1993 when pris oners take over a ard Hud son tes tified, their hos tage cellblock in the cor rec tional ne go ti at ing man ual di rected that facility. About 2,000 law enforce - prison ne go ti a tors should de lib er- Ben Weinthal lives in Berlin and is a ment of ficers sur rounded the prison ately stall, in or der to wear down La bor Notes cor re spon dent for Ger- dur ing the 11-day riot, in a the re sis tance of the hos tage tak ers. many, Aus tria, and Swit zer land. stand-off that was covered by na- This ap proach caused the author i-

22 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Activism ties on the first full day of the occu - pation to turn off the water and elec tric ity. Three days later, the au - thor i ties’ re fusal to re store these util i ties be came the im me di ate cause of hos tage offi cer Rob ert Vallandingham’s mur der.

Your book doc uments how the Lucasville Five were singled out as or ga niz ers of the up ris ing and spokespeople for the pris oners. You show how they were convicted for Vallandingham’s mur der, de spite com pel ling ev i dence of the de fen - dants’ in no cence. What cor rec tive Actors portraying the Lucasville 5—photo by Daniel Sturm action do you propose? It seems to us, as Quak ers, that I think that would be exces sive I have come to be lieve that there there is in every hu man be ing the pride. That ques tion connects in a were in divid u als on both sides dur - pos si bility of change, of redemp - funny way with my re search as an ing the rebel lion who sought to tion. But no one has a crys tal ball his torian. I have had occa sion to try avoid blood shed. In ne go ti at ing a or mea sur ing in stru ment that makes to under stand where slav ery, rac - set tle ment and peace ful sur ren der, it pos si ble to know for sure when ism, and the thirst to kill come the Lucasville pro tag o nists brought such change has truly occurred. In from in this coun try. The best his - their confron tation to an end with our so ciety, per sons who may be tor i cal es say I ever wrote was “The sig nifi cantly fewer deaths than in poorly ed ucated have a hard time Com pro mise of 1787.” It had to do ear lier prison re bel lions at Attica finding work and then may com mit with the fact that in the sum mer of (1971) and Santa Fe (1980). The a crime. When they “max out,” or 1787 the Con sti tu tional Con ven tion behav ior of the pris oners might be are pa roled, they are even less pre - met in Phila del phia and drew up a com pared to the actions of sol diers pared to obtain a liveli hood and live new Consti tution and 90 miles pinned down by enemy fire on an a nor mal life. In Boston last fall, away in New York City the Con ti - un ex pected bat tle field. Most of the some one asked me about those who nen tal Con gress, the then ex ist ing 407 men in L block. Their moti va - were psy cho log i cally un pre pared na tional gov er nance, passed the tion in staying in L block was to for free dom and the likeli hood that so-called North west Or di nance, pro tect their property and to help they might re peat the crimes that which banned slavery north of the fel low pris on ers sur vive. land them behind bars. As I pon - Ohio River. What dis tinguished some from dered a re sponse, an other mem ber Tradi tion ally , what history text - others, was whether they thought of the audi ence volun teered an an- books say is, “Well, the folks liv - mainly about them selves or guided swer. He said he had spent most of ing in New York City struck a their actions by the per ceived wel- his life in max imum se cu rity pris - great blow for free dom, but alas, fare of the entire convict body. ons. In his opin ion, some pris oners the peo ple meet ing in Phil a del phia This un der stand ing of the Lucas- need men tal health as sis tance be - com pro mised with the pe cu liar in- ville events is what leads me to fore they can safely be released. sti tu tion.” I showed that that was pro pose a gen eral am nesty, as at But prison, this per son em phasized, non sense. The Con ti nen tal Con- Attica. Case by case ad ju di cation of helps no one. gress had a South ern ma jor ity at in di vid ual guilt or in no cence misses the time. The real mean ing of the the es sen tial char acter of the trag - Mary land, New Jer sey, Con nect i- North west Or dinance was not that edy. Those con victed of mur der, cut, Illi nois, New Mexico, and it would be banned north of the as sault, or kid napping have already North Carolina are likely to ban ex- Ohio River, but that slavery would served al most 15 years in soli tary e cu tions and Cal i for nia has or- be rec og nized and tol er ated south confine ment. It is enough. dered an inves tiga tion of the death of the Ohio River. penalty sys tem. Yet, Ohio Gov er nor As a mat ter of fact, it’s clear Support ers of Sis ter Helen Prejean, Ted Strickland, a Dem ocrat, has from the speeches and writ ings of and others, pro pose life without pa- called the cap ital jus tice sys tem var i ous po lit i cal fig ures of the day role as an al ter na tive to ex e cu tion. “fair and im par tial.” Can your play that Southern ers had a good deal of What’s your com ment? can help abolish the death penalty? hope that the tremen dous pop ula -

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 23 Activism tion explo sion into what later be- Ripley where he left a lantern on all sig natures on a pe tition against the came Al a bama, Mis sis sippi, and night. It is said that when a woman death penalty in the area south of Lou isi ana would slope north over named Eliza and her in fant child Co lum bus. the Ohio River so that these states, reached the northern shore of the too, would be settled primar ily by Ohio, soaked and freezing, they De scribe the most dra matic mo- South ern ers and, when push came were met by a pro fes sional slave ments in the play. to shove, would vote with the catcher named Shaw, who seized South. As it turned out, that hope es caping slaves and re turned them There is a mo ment in the play, as was not real ized. But there’s a sub - to the South for money. Shaw is in the book, when the author ities stan tial south ern in flu ence along the said to have been so moved by cho reo graph a sit u a tion. George north ern bank of the Ohio River in Eliza’s brav ery that he pointed to Skatzes is taken from his cell and south ern Ohio. Cincinnati be came the light from the lantern and told not per mit ted to return. An thony the rac ist city it has been for al most her to go there for help. So, there Lavelle, who then becomes the 200 years—pres ently pro vid ing have always been people in gov ern ment in for mant, con cludes one-fourth of the men on Ohio’s Portsmouth who are as lib eral as that Skatzes has be come an in for - Death Row. The Indi ana towns anywhere else in Ohio, but they mant. But when he is fi nally per- across the river from Lou is ville, have been a distinct minor ity. mit ted to re turn sev eral days later, where my fa ther grew up, and Skatzes (an Aryan brother) goes up Alton, Il linois, where anti-slav ery How does your fight to end the to Hasan (a black Sunni Mus lim edi tor Eli jah Lovejoy was mur- death penalty connect with the up- Imam) in an ad joining cell and dered, be came sim i lar hot beds of com ing play? grabs hold of the bars and says, vio lence. So I know first hand the “You don’t know me and I don’t kind of rac ist jokes and songs and They are very much con nected in you. I didn’t tell them anything.” what have you that came out of that my mind in that, if we could line Af ter a mo ment, Hasan says, “I be - mi lieu. So we’re really deal ing up the adult popu la tion of Ohio and lieve you.” It was a dra matic mo - with a state that is divided be tween ask, “Are you for or against capi tal ment in life and hope fully it will be blue and red. Ev ery thing south of pun ish ment,” there’s ev ery rea son a dra matic mo ment in the play. Colum bus is more south ern than to believe that more people would north ern. That’s the best ex plana - be for it than against it. At the You have accepted a minor role in tion for Ohio Gov er nor Ted Strick- the play as a judge. What triggered land’s action. your in ter est in that part?

Is this still rep re sen ta tive of Ohio’s I have a lim itless be lief in the “in - cur rent pop u la tion? Or is rac ism a tegrity and impar tial ity ” of judges ves tige of an older gener ation? so I thought I could dem onstrate my “grat itude” by playing one of If it is ves tigial, it is still very these bastards. I have in mind par - strong. I don’t know if you’ve read ticu larly Judge Fred Cartolano who Ann Hagedorn’s book about the pre sided over the tri als of both anti-slavery move ment in Ripley, James Were and Siddique Abdullah Ohio, Beyond the River: The Un - Director Anderson (left) and Lynd rehearsing Hasan. There is this won der ful line told Story of the Heroes of the Un- Lucasville—photo by Daniel Sturm in the play where Hasan tries to der ground Rail road. Ripley is half- pres ent ev i dence of the causes of way be tween Cincinnati and Scioto same time that we press the gov er - the riot so the jury will un der stand County, near where Lucasville and nor, a Meth odist min is ter and a for - a lit tle better what made peo ple act the South ern Ohio Cor rec tional Fa - mer psy cho log i cal coun selor at as they did. The judge rolls his cility are lo cated. Ripley was the Lucasville, to take ac tion, we need eyes and says, “Ri ots are not cre - scene of an anti-slav ery move ment to win converts par ticu larly in the ated by the prison. Riots are cre - that be gan ten years be fore William south ern part of the state. As my ated by the inmates.” Z Lloyd Gar ri son first pub lished the wife Al ice found out, 25,000 signa - Lib er a tor. As Hagedorn de scribes, tures were col lected in a cou ple of it was at Ripley that a fa mous in ci- months af ter the April 1993 sur ren - Dan iel Sturm is an inde pend ent journal - der in sup port of the death penalty ist and media scholar who covers un der- dent (Eliza cross ing the ice), later re ported so cial and po lit i cal top ics in the re counted in Un cle Tom’s Cabin, and an ab bre vi ated ap peals pro cess U.S. and Europe. He has writ ten on rac- oc curred. Ab o li tion ist John Rankin for per sons sen tenced to death. It’d ism, human rights, the envi ron ment, had a house on a hilltop above be nice if we could collect 25,000 and lo cal pol i tics.

24 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Twenty Years

Z ca ble TV guide in Los An geles. As we were in - spired to use the name by the movie Z, about a mil i - tary coup in Greece where the leader of the re sis - tance was referred to as Com rade Z (hence, after the coup the let ter Z was banned), we changed the name to Zeta Mag a zine un til three years later, when the ca ble guide went out of busi ness. Need less to say, all of the above were not aus pi - cious be gin nings. How ever, on the pos i tive side, while we were cast ing about for cartoons (a few weeks before deadline), we received a large packet of won der ful po lit i cal car toons from some one named Matt Wuerker, which saved the day and his car toons have been ap pear ing in Z ever since that first Janu ary 1988 is sue. Also, in cred i bly, once we got go ing our reg u lar writ ers de liv ered ar ti cles on time, car toon ists mailed in ma te rial reg u larly, and il lus tra tors drew graphics to fit with var i ous ar ti cles. To help com memo rate these 20 years, we are run- ning a se ries fea tur ing as many mem o ra ble ar ti cles from the past as we can fit in lead ing up to our of ficial birth day in Jan uary 2008. We are re print ing them in the orig i nal mag a zine for mat with the orig i - nal graphics. In this is sue, we are fea tur ing an other of our most re quested ar ti cles for re print, “Imag ine n Oc to ber 1987 we mailed the 32-page bro - a Coun try” by Holly Sklar, which appeared in the Ichure pic tured above to 40,000 peo ple, ask ing May 2003 is sue. them to suscribe to a new radi cal maga zine cover - --Lydia Sargent & Micha el Albert ing a wide range of top ics and fea tur ing over 35 co-found ers of Z Mag azine reg ular writ ers from Noam Chomsky to bell hooks to Al ex an der Cockburn to Staugh ton Lynd to Cor nell West to Juliet Schor to Leslie Cagan to Howard Zinn to Penny Lernoux to Sheila Rowbotham to Ward Chur chill to Holly Sklar...and more. CELE BRATE OUR 20 YEARS! The re sponse to that mail ing gen er ated enough Support the Next 20! read ers and funds to pro duce the first is sue, which we mailed free to an other 20,000 or so. We did BECOME A Z SUSTAINER! this with two staff peo ple and an ini tial bank ac - count of $40,000. Ev ery body thought we were To help Z keep sur viv ing and, hopefully , nuts. You can’t start a mag a zine with less than an growing, becom e a sustainer at ini tial $400,000, with an other mil lion or so prom- www.zmag.org. Not only will you be ised over the next 5 years, they said. helping the entir e Z network , but you It’s too long and it does n’t look like a mag a zine, will get ac cess to com men tar ies, Z Space, Z Maga zine On line, forums hosted by Z they said. In ad di tion, two weeks be fore send ing writ ers, dis counts on Z Ed u ca tion, Z the first is sue to the printer, we re ceived a let ter Videos, plus reviews, list ings, and more. from a law yer pro hib it ing us from us ing the name Z Mag a zine, as it al ready be ing used by a Channel

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 25 Cross Cur rents

Imag ine a Coun try

Life in the new millenium ers in creases, one would ex pect worker com pensa tion [wages and ben e fits] to ex pe ri ence sim i lar gains.” That’s not what happened. By Holly Sklar Since 1968, worker produc tiv ity has risen 81 per - cent while the aver age hourly wage barely budged, adjust ing for in flation, and the real value of the min i- mag ine a country where one out of five children is mum wage dropped 38 percent. born into pov erty and wealth is being re dis trib uted Imag ine a country where the min imum wage just Iupward. Since the 1970s, the top 1 per cent of does n’t add up. Where min imum wage work ers earn house holds has dou bled their share of the nation’s more than a third less than their coun ter parts earned a wealth. The top 1 per cent has close to 40 percent of third of a century ago, ad just ing for in flation. Where a the wealth—nearly the same amount as the bottom 95 couple with two children would have to work more per cent of households. than three full-time jobs at the $5.15 mini mum wage Imag ine a country where eco nomic in equality is go- to make ends meet. ing back to the future circa the 1930s. The com bined It’s not Mex ico. after-tax income of the top 1 per cent of tax filers was Imag ine a country where some of the worst CEOs about half that of the bot tom 50 per cent of tax filers in make mil lions more in a year than the best CEOs of 1986. By the late 1990s, the top 1 percent had a larger ear lier gen er ations made in their lifetimes. CEOs share of af ter-tax income than the bottom 50 percent. made 45 times the pay of av er age pro duction and Imag ine a country with a greed sur plus and jus tice non-su per visory workers in 1980. They made 96 times defi cit. Imag ine a country where the poor and mid dle as much in 1990, 160 times as much in 1995 and 369 class bear the brunt of se vere cutbacks in edu ca tion, times as much in 2001. Back in 1960, CEOs made an health, en vi ron men tal pro grams, and other pub lic ser - av er age of 38 times more than school teach ers. CEOs vices to close state and fed eral bud get def i cits fu eled made 63 times as much in 1990 and 264 times as by balloon ing tax giveaways for wealthy house holds much as pub lic school teachers in 2001. and corporations. Imag ine a country that had a record-break ing It’s not Ar gentina. ten-year economic ex pansion in 1991-2001, but mil - Imag ine a country which de mands that peo ple work lions of work ers make wages so low they have to for a liv ing while deny ing many a living wage. choose be tween eat ing or heat ing, health care or Imag ine a coun try where health care aides can’t af - childcare. ford health insur ance. Where people work ing in the A lead ing busi ness mag a zine ob served, “Peo ple food indus try de pend on food banks to help feed their who worked hard to make their com panies com peti tive children. Where childcare teachers don’t make enough are angry at the way the prof its are dis trib uted. They to save for their own chil dren’s education. think it is unfair, and they are right.” It’s not the Philip pines. It’s not Eng land. Imag ine a country where pro ductiv ity went up, but Imag ine a country where liv ing standards are fall - work ers’ wages went down. In the words of the na- ing for youn ger gen er a tions de spite in creased ed u cational labor de part ment, “As the pro ductiv ity of work - tion. Since 1973, the share of work ers with out a high

26 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 CrossCurrents school degree has fallen by half. The share of work ers had me dian 2001 weekly earnings of $718 com pared with at least a four-year col lege de gree has dou bled. with just $575 for work ers not rep re sented by unions. But the 2002 aver age hourly wage for pro duction and Imag ine a country where the con cerns of work ing non-su per vi sory work ers (the ma jor ity of the peo ple are dis missed as “special in ter ests” and the workforce) is 7.5 per cent below 1973, adjust ing for profit-mak ing in ter ests of globe trot ting cor po ra tions infla tion. Median net worth (as sets mi nus debt) sub sti tute for the “na tional interest.” dropped be tween 1995 and 2001 for house holds Imag ine a coun try ne go ti at ing “free trade” agree- headed by persons un der age 35 and households that ments that help cor pora tions trade freely on cheap la- don’t own their own home. bor at home and abroad. About one out of four work ers makes $8.70 an One ad financed by the country’s agency for in ter - hour or less. That’s not much more than the real value national devel op ment showed a Salvadoran woman in of the min imum wage of 1968 at $8.27 in infla tion-ad - front of a sew ing ma chine. It told corpo ra tions, “You justed dollars. can hire her for 33 cents an hour. Rosa is more than It’s not Rus sia. just color ful. She and her co-work ers are known for Imag ine a country where for more and more peo ple their in dus tri ous ness, re li abil ity and quick learn ing. a job doesn’t keep you out of poverty, it keeps you They make El Sal vador one of the best buys.” The work ing poor. Imag ine a country much richer than it country that financed the ad inter vened mili tarily to was 25 years ago, but the per centage of full-time make sure El Salva dor would stay a “best buy” for work ers liv ing in poverty has jumped 50 percent. corporations. Imag ine a country that sets the of ficial poverty line It’s not Can ada. well below the actual cost of min imally ade quate hous- Imag ine a country where nearly two-thirds of ing, health care, food, and other neces si ties. You were women with children under age 6 and more than not counted as poor in 2001 (latest available final data) three-fourths of women with children ages 6-17 are in unless you had pre-tax in comes be low these thresh - the labor force, but af ford able childcare and af- olds: $9,214 for a per son un der 65, $8,494 for a per - ter-school pro grams are scarce. Ap par ently, kids are son 65 and older, $11,569 for a two-per son fam ily, expected to have three parents: Two par ents with jobs $14,128 for a three-per son fam ily, and $18,104 for a to pay the bills, and another par ent to be home in fam ily of four. On av er age, households need more mid-af ter noon when school lets out—as well as all than double the offi cial poverty threshold to meet summer. basic needs. Imag ine a country where home less ness is on the rise, but fed eral fund ing for low-in come hous ing is about 50 percent lower than it was in 1976, adjust ing for in flation. The larg est federal hous ing sup port pro - gram is the mortgage inter est deduc tion, which dispro - por tion ately ben e fits higher-income families. Imag ine a country where more work ers are go ing back to the future of sweat shops and day la bor. Cor - pora tions are re placing full-time jobs with dis pos able “con tin gent work ers.” They in clude tem po rary em - ployees, contract work ers, and “leased” em ployees—some of them fired and then “rented” back at a large dis count by the same com pany—and invol un tary part-time work ers, who want permanent full-time work. It’s not Spain. How do work ers in creas ingly forced to mi grate from job to job, at low and vari able wage rates, without health insur ance or paid vaca tion, much less a pen - sion, care for them selves and their fam i lies, pay for col lege, save for re tire ment, plan a fu ture, build strong communities? Imag ine a country where af ter mass lay offs and un - ion bust ing, just 13.5 per cent of work ers are union - ized. One out of three work ers were un ion mem bers in 1955. Full-time work ers who were union mem bers Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 27 CrossCurrents Imag ine a country where women work ing full time So-called “domes tic vio lence” accounts for more vis its earn 76 cents for ev ery dol lar men earn. Women don’t to hos pi tal emer gency de part ments than car crashes, pay 76 cents on a man’s dol lar for their ed uca tion, muggings, and rapes com bined. About a third of all rent, food or childcare. The gen der wage gap has mur dered women are killed by hus bands, boy friends, closed just 12 cents since 1955, when women earned and ex-partners (less than a tenth are killed by strang - 64 cents for ev ery dol lar earned by men. There’s still ers). Re search ers say, “Men com monly kill their fe - another 24 cents to go. male part ners in re sponse to the woman’s at tempt to The av er age woman high school grad uate who leave an abusive relationship.” works full time from ages 25 to 65 will earn about The country has no equal rights amend ment. $450,000 less than the aver age male high school grad- It’s not Pa ki stan. uate. The gap widens to $900,000 for full-time work - Imag ine a country where ho mi cide is the sec- ers with bach elor’s de grees. “Men with pro fes sional ond-larg est killer of young people, ages 15-24; “acci - degrees may ex pect to earn almost $2 mil lion more dents,” many of them drunk driving fatal i ties, are than their female counter parts over their work-life,” first. It leads ma jor in dus tri alized na tions in fire- says a government report. arms-related deaths for children un der 15. In creas - Imag ine a country where childcare work ers, mostly ingly lethal weapons de signed for hunt ing people are women, gen er ally make about as much as park ing lot pro duced for profit by ma jor man u fac tur ers and atten dants and much less than an imal train ers. Out of proudly de fended by a polit i cally powerful national 700 oc cu pa tions sur veyed by the la bor de part ment, rifle association. In for ma tional ma terial from a na - only 15 have lower aver age wages than childcare tional shooting sports foun dation asks, “How old is workers. old enough?” to have a gun, and advises par ents: Imag ine a country where most min imum wage “Age is not the ma jor yard stick. Some young sters are work ers are women, while 95 percent of the top-earn- ready to start at 10, others at 14. The only real mea - ing cor porate of ficers at the larg est 500 com panies are sures are those of ma tu rity and in di vid ual re spon si bil - men, as are 90 per cent of the most influ en tial posi - ity. Does your young ster fol low direc tions well? tions, from CEOs to ex ecu tive vice pres ident. Less Would you leave him alone in the house for two or than 2 per cent of cor po rate of fi cers at the larg est com - three hours? Is he con sci entious and re liable? Would panies are women of color. you send him to the gro cery store with a list and a $20 Imag ine a coun try where dis crim i na tion against bill? If the answer to these ques tions or sim ilar ones women is per vasive from the bot tom to the top of the are ‘yes’ then the answer can also be ‘yes’ when your pay scale and it’s not because women are on the child asks for his first gun.” “mommy track.” In the words of a lead ing busi ness It’s not France. mag azine, “At the same level of man age ment, the typ - Imag ine a country whose school sys tem is rigged in i cal woman’s pay is lower than her male col- favor of the already priv ileged, with lower caste chil- league’s—even when she has the ex act same qual i fi ca - dren tracked by race and income into the most de fi- tions, works just as many years, relo cates just as of - cient and demor aliz ing schools and class rooms. Pub lic ten, pro vides the main finan cial support for her fam - school bud gets are heavily deter mined by pri vate ily, takes no time off for per sonal rea sons, and wins prop erty taxes, allow ing higher income dis tricts to the same num ber of promotions to comparable jobs.” spend much more than poor ones. In the state with the Imag ine a country where in stead of root ing out dis- larg est gap in 1999-2000, state and local spending per crim ina tion, many pol icy mak ers are busily blam ing pu pil in dis tricts with the low est child pov erty rates women for their dis pro por tionate poverty. If women was more than $2,152 greater than districts with the earned as much as sim ilarly quali fied men, pov erty in highest child poverty rates. The dif fer ence amounts to sin gle-mother house holds would be cut in half. about $861,000 for a typi cal ele men tary school of 400 It’s not Ja pan. stu dents—money that could be used for teachers, Imag ine a country where the aw ful label ing of chil- books, and other re sources. Dis par ities are even wider dren as “ille git i mate” has again been legit i mized. Be - among states, with spend ing in districts with en roll - sides mean ing born out of wed lock, ille git i mate also ments of 15,000 or more rang ing from $3,932 per means il legal, contrary to rules and logic, mis begot - pupil in one district to $14,244 in another. ten, not genu ine, wrong—to be a bas tard. The word il - In rich dis tricts kids take well-stocked li brar ies, le git i mate has con se quences. It helps make peo ple lab o ra to ries, and state-of-the-art com put ers for more dis pos able. Single moth ers and their chil dren granted. In poor schools they are ra tioning out-of-date have be come prime scapegoats for illegitimate textbooks and toilet paper. Rich schools of ten look economics. like country clubs—with man icured sports fields and Imag ine a country where vi olence against women is swim ming pools. Poor schools of ten look more like so ep idemic it is their leading cause of injury. jails—with concrete grounds and grated win dows. 28 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 CrossCurrents Col lege prep courses, art, mu sic, phys ical edu ca tion, field trips, and for eign lan- guages are of ten con sid ered ne ces si ties for the affluent, luxuries for the poor. Wealth ier cit i zens ar gue that lack of money is n’t the prob lem in poorer schools—fam ily val ues are—un til pro pos - als are made to make school spend ing more eq uita ble. Then money mat ters greatly for those who al ready have more. It’s not In dia. Imag ine a coun try whose con sti tu tion once counted black slaves as worth three-fifths of whites. To day, black per capita income is about three-fifths of whites. Imag ine a coun try where ra cial dis par ities take their toll from birth to death. The black in fant mor tality rate is more than dou ble that of whites. Black life ex pec tancy is nearly six years less. Black unem ployment is more than twice that of whites and the black poverty rate is al most triple that of whites. Imag ine a country where the gov ern - ment subsi dized decades of segre g ated suburbanization for whites while the in - ner cit ies left to peo ple of color were treated as out sider cit ies—sep a rate, un - equal, and dispos able. Recent studies have doc u mented con tin u ing dis crim i na - tion in ed u ca tion, em ploy ment, bank ing, insur ance, housing, and health care. It’s not South Af rica. Imag ine a country where the typ ical non-His panic white household has seven times as It’s not Ger many. much net worth (in cluding home eq uity) as the typi cal Imag ine a country where there is a shortage of house hold of color. From 1995 to 2001, the typ ical jobs, not a short age of work. Mil lions of people need white house hold’s net worth rose from $88,500 to work and ur gent work needs peo ple—from cre ating $120,900 while the net worth of the typi cal household afford able housing, to re pair ing bridges and building of color fell from $18,300 to $17,100. mass transit, to cleaning up pollu tion and convert ing Imag ine a country that does n’t count you as unem - to re new able energy, to staff ing after-school pro grams ployed just because you’re un em ployed. To be and community centers. counted in the offi cial unem ployment rate you must Imag ine a country with full pris ons in stead of full have searched for work in the past four weeks. The em ployment. The jail and prison pop ula tion has nearly gov ern ment does n’t count peo ple as “un em ployed” if quadru pled since 1980. The nation is num ber one in they are so dis cour aged from long and fruit less job the world when it comes to lock ing up its own peo ple. searches they have given up looking. It doesn’t count In 1985, 1 in every 320 res idents were in car cer ated. as “un em ployed” those who couldn’t look for work in By 2001, the figure had increased to 1 in every 146. the past month be cause they had no childcare, for ex - Imag ine a country where prison labor is a growth am ple. If you need a full-time job, but you’re work ing indus try and so-called “correc tions” spend ing is the part-time—whether 1 hour or 34 hours weekly—be - fast est grow ing part of state budgets. Ap par ently, the cause that’s all you can find, you’re counted as govern ment would rather spend $25,000 a year to employed. keep some one in prison than on cost-ef fective pro - A lead ing busi ness mag a zine ob served, “In creas - grams of ed u ca tion, com mu nity de vel op ment, ad dic- ingly the labor mar ket is filled with sur plus work ers tion treatment, and em ployment to keep them out. In who are not be ing counted as unem ployed.” the words of a na tional center on in sti tutions and alter - Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 29 CrossCurrents natives, this nation has “re placed the social safety net with a dragnet.” Imag ine a coun try that has been crit i cized by hu man rights or ga ni za tions for ex pand- ing, rather than abolish ing, use of the death pen alty—de spite doc u mented ra cial bias and grow ing ev i dence of in no cents be ing sentenced to death. It’s not China. Imag ine a country that im pris ons black people at a rate much higher than apartheid South Af rica. One out of seven black men ages 25-29 are in car cer ated. Many more are on pro bation or on pa role. Look ing just at pris ons and not local jails, 10 percent of black males ages 25-29 were locked up at the end of 2001, compared with 1 per cent of white males. Black non-His panic women are five times more likely to be im pris oned than white non-Hispanic women. Mean- while, nearly one out of three black men and women ages 16-19 are of ficially unem - ployed, as are one out of five ages 20-24. Remem ber, to be counted in the offi cial unem ployment rate you must be ac tively looking for a job and not finding one. “Sur plus” work ers Imag ine a country where the cy cle of unequal op- are in creas ingly be ing criminalized. por tu nity is in ten si fy ing. Its ben e fi cia ries of ten slan der Imag ine a country wag ing a racially biased War on those most sys tem at i cally un der val ued, un der paid, un- Drugs. More than three out of four drug us ers are der em ployed, un der fi nanced, underinsured, un der- white, accord ing to govern ment data, but three out of rated, and other wise underserved and un der mined—as four state pris oners con victed of drug offenses are un de serv ing, “underclass,” im pov er ished in moral and black and Latino. Racial dispar ities in drug and other so cial values, and lacking the proper “work ethic.” convic tions are even wider when non-His panic whites The oft-heard ste reo type of deadbeat poor people are dis tinguished more ac curately from Latinos. masks the grow ing reality of dead-end jobs and A study in a prom inent med ical journal found that disposable workers. drug and alco hol rates were slightly higher for preg- Imag ine a country that abolished aid to fam ilies nant white women than preg nant black women, but with depend ent children while main taining aid for de- black women were about ten times more likely to be pend ent cor po ra tions. re ported to author ities by pri vate doctors and pub lic Imag ine a country where state and lo cal govern - health clin ics—un der a man da tory re port ing law. Poor ments are rushing to expand lotter ies, video poker, women were also more likely to be reported. and other govern ment-pro moted gam bling to raise rev - It is said that truth is the first ca su alty in war, and enues, dis pro por tionately from the poor, which they the War on Drugs is no excep tion. Contrary to ste reo - should be rais ing from a fair tax system. type, “The typ i cal co caine user is white, male, a high Imag ine a country whose mil itary bud get tops aver - school grad uate employed full time and living in a age Cold War lev els al though the break up of the So - small met ro poli tan area or sub urb,” says the na tion’s viet Union pro duced friends, not foes. This na tion for mer drug czar. A leading news paper re ports that spends al most as much on the mili tary as the rest of law of ficers and judges say, “Al though it is clear that the world com bined and leads the world in arms whites sell most of the na tion’s cocaine and account exports. for 80% of its con sum ers, it is blacks and other mi - Imag ine a country that ranks first in the world in nor ities who con tinue to fill up [the] courtrooms and wealth and mili tary power, and 34th in child mor tality jails, largely because, in a po liti cal climate that de - (un der five), tied with Malay sia and well behind coun- mands that some thing be done, they are the eas iest tries such as Sin gapore and South Ko rea. If the gov- peo ple to arrest.” They are the easiest to scapegoat. ern ment were a par ent it would be guilty of child It’s not Aus tra lia. abuse. Thou sands of chil dren die pre ventable deaths.

30 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 CrossCurrents Imag ine a coun try where health care is man aged for Never mind that he rode his fam ily connec tions in healthy profit. In many countries health care is a right, business and politics. but in this nation one out of six people under age 65 Imag ine a country where on top of dis crim ina tion has no health insur ance, public or pri vate. Healthcare comes in sult. It’s com mon for peo ple of color to get is lit er ally a mat ter of life and death. Lack of health none of the credit when they succeed—por trayed as in sur ance typ i cally means lack of pre ven tive health un de serv ing ben e fi cia ries of af fir ma tive ac tion and care and de layed or second-rate treat ment. The un in - “re verse dis crim ina tion”—and all of the blame when sured are at much higher risk for chronic dis ease and they fail. dis ability, and have a 25 percent greater chance of dy- Imag ine a country where a then pres iden tial press ing (ad just ing for phys i cal, eco nomic, and be hav ioral sec re tary boasted to re port ers: “You can say any thing factors). Un insured women are 49 per cent more likely you want in a debate, and 80 million people hear it. If to die than women with insur ance during the four to re port ers then doc ument that a candi date spoke un- seven years fol low ing an initial diagnosis of breast truth fully, so what? Maybe 200 people read it, or cancer. 2,000 or 20,000.” Imag ine a country where many de scen dants of its Imag ine a country where pol iti cians and judges first in hab it ants live on res er va tions strip-mined of whose views were for merly con sid ered far right on the natu ral re sources and have a higher pro por tion of peo- polit i cal spectrum now rule both houses of congress ple in poverty than any other ethnic group. and the pres i dency and in creas ingly dom i nate the Imag ine a country where 500 years of plun der and judiciary. lies are masked in ex pres sions like “In dian giver.” Imag ine a country whose lead ers mis use a fight Where the mili tary still dubs en emy ter ri tory, “In dian against ter ror ism as cam ou flage for un der min ing de- country.” mocracy. Funda men tal civil liber ties, includ ing the Imag ine a country which has less than 5 per cent of right not to be im pris oned indef i nitely on the word of the world’s pop ula tion, but uses more than 40 per cent govern ment of ficials, are being tossed aside. The at - of the world’s oil re sources and about 20 per cent of tor ney gen eral at tacked crit ics of ad min is tra tion pol icy the coal and wood. It is the number one contrib utor to with McCarthyite words: “To those who scare acid rain and global warm ing. It has obstructed in ter - peace-loving people with phantoms of lost lib erty, my national action on the envi ron ment and climate mes sage is this: Your tactics only aid ter ror ists for change. they erode our na tional unity...They give ammu nition It’s not Brazil. to [our] en emies and pause to [our] friends.” The at- Imag ine a country where half the eli gi ble voters tor ney general would burn democracy in the name of don’t vote. The nation’s sen ate and house of repre sen - saving it. tatives are not rep re sen tative of the nation. They are It’s not It aly. over whelm ingly white, male, and millionaire. At least It’s the United States. 170 sen ators and congresspeople are million aires. Decades ago Mar tin Lu ther King Jr. called on us to That’s nearly one out of three mem bers of the house take the high road in Where Do We Go From Here: and senate. Just 1 per cent of the popu la tion they repre - Chaos or Com mu nity? King wrote: “A true revo lu tion sent are million aires. of values will soon cause us to ques tion the fairness Imag ine a country where white men who are “fall- and jus tice of many of our past and pres ent poli cies. ing down” the economic ladder are be ing encour aged We are called to play the good Samar itan on life’s to believe they are falling because women and peo ple road side; but...one day the whole Jeri cho road must of color are climb ing over them to the top or drag ging be trans formed so that men and women will not be them down from the bottom. That way, they will beaten and robbed as they make their journey through blame women and peo ple of color rather than cor po- life.... A true rev olu tion of values will soon look un - rate and govern ment pol icy. They will buy the myth eas ily on the glaring contrast of pov erty and of “re verse dis crim ina tion.” Never mind that white wealth....There is noth ing but a lack of social vision males hold most senior man agement po si tions and to pre vent us from pay ing an ade quate wage to every con tin u ing un re versed dis crim i na tion is well Amer i can cit i zen whether he be a hos pi tal worker, documented. laundry worker, maid or day la borer. There is nothing Imag ine a country with a pres ident who, even more ex cept short sight ed ness to pre vent us from guar an tee- than his father before him, “was born on third base ing an annual min imum— and livable—income for and thought he hit a triple.” The pres ident wants to every American family.” Z undo affir ma tive action. Never mind that despite all his ad vantages he was a me dio cre stu dent who re lied on legacy affir ma tive action for the children of rich Holly Sklar is the coau thor of Raise The Floor: Wages alumni to get into a top prep school and college. and Pol i cies That Work For All Of Us. Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 31

Democracy

Kick ing Away the Ladder, Part 2

scream, “The Rus sians are com ing” or “Gre nada is Excerpte d from a talk on com ing” or some body. Then we have to have a big defense sys tem and fund the com puters and Internet “de moc racy pro mo tion,” the and mi cro electron ics and so on, and later hand it over economy, and foreign policy to pri vate cor po ra tions for profit. But now the cutting edge of the economy is bi ol- ogy-based, so there fore gov ern ment fund ing has to By Noam Chomsky shift—you have to have some other ex cuse for gov ern - ment fund ing: we will cure can cer, what ever it is. Mean while you have en gi neer ing and bio tech nol ogy f you look at the state sector in the United States, being paid for by the same peo ple, namely, you, with your taxes have been funding growth for years. the prof its go ing to what ever pri vate cor po ra tions will INow the funding is shift ing. Penta gon fund ing is be able to milk them when something is developed. declin ing and funding for the National Insti tute of There are a lot of dif fer ent de vices. Like one crit i - Health and other health-related parts of the govern - cal part of the trade agreements is what is called In tel - ment is going up. lectual Prop erty Rights and that is a fancy term that Take a look MIT, take a look at the funding that is means “state guar anteed mo nopoly pric ing rights.” So going on. There is a pretty of good rea son for it. phar ma ceu ti cal cor po ra tions can charge very high In the early post-war pe riod, the first 25 years, the prices be cause they have a monop oly and that monop - cutting edge of the economy was elec tron ics-based and oly is given to them by state power un der the pretext the way to fool the public into paying for that was to of free trade. They claim that they need it for research and devel op ment, but that is a fraud. It has been well inves tigated by Dean Baker, an ex cel lent econ o mist. You can get some in for ma tion on this from a book he just wrote, which is actu ally free if you go online. It is called The Con ser va tive Nanny State, which is about the real economy. One part of that has to do with the produc - tion of drugs. Baker cal culated that if you increase the state subsidy to 100 per cent and force the compa nies on the mar ket, drug sav ings would be a huge bene fit for con sum ers. But that is not the way exist ing capi tal ism works. Let’s turn to NAFTA in 1994. Some thing happened in 1994 along

32 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Democracy with NAFTA. It was called “Op er ation Gate keeper,” mil itary coup and one of its supporters then ran for insti tuted by the Clinton admin is tr ation. It mili ta rized president? the U.S./Mex ican bor der. Pre viously it was a fairly Well, Cen tral Amer ica was pretty much sub dued, open bor der. Like most bor ders it was es tablished by at least tempo rarily, by Reaganite terror through out conquest. But pretty much the same peo ple lived on the 1980s, but the region from Ven ezuela to Argen tina both sides and moved across the bor ders in both di rec - is now fall ing out of control. Ven ezuela is forg ing tions, but that was not going to work any more af ter closer rela tions with China. It’s plan ning to sell in - NAFTA. They had to militarize it. creas ing amounts of oil to China. That is part of its ef - Why? Well, it was un der stood what the effect of fort to di ver sify ex ports and re duce its depend ence on NAFTA was go ing to be for Mex ico. Mexi can farm - the openly hostile U.S. govern ment. In fact Latin ers were not go ing to be able to compete with Amer ica as a whole is in creas ing trade and other rela - state-sub si dized U.S. ag ri busi ness. So peo ple were go - tions with China and also Eu rope. But China is more ing to flee and a lot of them were go ing to flee to the wor ri some to the United States, with very likely ex- United States. They were go ing to be joined by people pan sion for the raw mate rial ex port ers like Brazil and fleeing from the wreck age of Wash ington’s ter ror ist Chile. China is in vest ing in Latin America and wars in Cen tral Amer ica in the 1980s. So what is the challenging U.S. dominance. so lution? The so lution is to build a wall. First, destroy If you look at U.S. pub lic docu ments, China is re - their economy and then keep them out. garded as the main po ten tial threat, but not a mili tary There is a real so lution, pro mote or at least per mit threat. Of the ma jor pow ers it’s been the most re - devel op ment. But that is coun ter to the inter est of strained in mili tary ex pen di tures. But it is a threat. those who pretty much rule the world, or, at least, The threat is it can’t be in tim idated. When the U.S. own it, or hope to. shakes its fist at Eu rope and tells them to stop in vest - Well, con trol of Latin Amer ica has been the ear li est ing in Iran, Eu ro peans im me diately pull out. China and ma jor goal of U.S. for eign policy—and it remains just moves in. They have been there for 3,000 years. very central. That is partly for re source and mar ket They cannot be intim idated, which is very fright ening invest ment, as well as for ideo logi cal reasons. These to the U.S. Put your self in the situ a tion of a Mafia are dis cussed in in ter nal re cords where plan ners point Don, and sup pose there is some body that can’t be in- out that we can not ex pect to achieve a success ful or der timi dated. And inter na tional affairs are pretty much elsewhere in the world un less we con trol Latin Amer - like the Ma fia. In Latin America, China is just moving ica. So it’s im por tant to keep it under con trol. There along. are tra ditional methods of control—violence and eco- Else where too. You might re call last spring the nomic stran gula tion. But they are losing their Bush ad min is tra tion de cided to in sult the pres i dent of effectiveness. China. He came to visit Wash ing ton and they in sulted U.S. mil itary coups used to be rou tine. The most him by not in viting him to a state dinner, only to a re cent attempt was 2002 in Ven e- zuela, and Washing ton, of course, sup ported the coup and proba bly in sti gated it. The coup in stalled a rich busi ness per son and his first act was to dis band Par lia ment, elim i nate the Su preme Court, and get rid of every other ves tige of de moc racy—that’s what the U.S. calls “democracy promotion.” The coup was quickly re versed in a pop u lar up ris ing, re stor ing the elected govern ment. Wash ington had to turn to sub ver sion, a pro paganda war, and very substan tial aid to the support ers of the coup, under the guise of democ racy pro mo tion. For ex am ple, the op po si tion can di date in the election sup ported the coup. Can you imag ine what would happen in the United States if there was a Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 33 Democracy state lunch. He took it pretty calmly and he then flew to Saudi Ara bia where he en tered into new trade in vest ment re la tions with Saudi Ara bia, which is the oldest and most val ued U.S. ally in the Middle East. Get ting back to Ven ezuela, it joined a South Amer ican economic bloc and was wel comed as opening a new chapter in inte gra - tion. Ven e zuela sup plied Ar gen - tina with fuel oil to help stave off an energy cri sis and bought about a third of the Ar gentine debt. That is one el ement of a region-wide effort to free the countries from the controls of the In - ter na tional Mon e tary Fund. This is af ter two decades of di sas trous effects of confor mity to its rules. The way Ar gentine Pres ident Kirchner put it, “The quests. The elite that run the place are mostly white, IMF has acted towards our coun try as a pro moter and Eu ro pean. The pop u la tion are mostly In di ans, black, vehi cle of poli cies that cause poverty and pain among mised race. That is a fairly sharp distinction. the Ar gentine people.” That is approx imately what he In ter nal eco nomic in te gra tion is also tak ing place said when he announced his deci sion to pay almost a for the first time since the Span ish con quest. Elites in tril lion dol lars, in his words, “to rid Ar gen tina of the the past, the white elites, have been linked to the im- IMF for ever.” And by rad ically vio lat ing IMF rules perial pow ers, but not to one another, and that is be- Ar gen tina did en joy a sub stan tial eco nomic re cov ery ginning to change. from the di sas ter that was left by IMF policies. Other Latin Amer ica is now, I think, the most ex citing countries are going in the same direction. part of the world and there are op por tuni ties for co op- Steps to wards Latin Amer i can in de pend ence ad- era tive devel op ment and inter change that are quite vanced further with the election of Evo Mo rales in real. One step to wards that is the sol idar ity move - Bolivia last De cem ber—a real dem o cratic elec tion, the ments that de veloped in the United States in the 1980s kind that does not take place in the West. The election and 1990s. That was something new. Dur ing hundreds of Rafael Cor rea in Ec ua dor was an other step. Mo - of years of West ern im peri alism, no one in France rales moved very quickly to reach a se ries of en ergy ever thought to live in an Alge rian village and no one agree ments with Ven ezuela and he com mit ted him self ever thought of going to a Vietnam ese village to live to re vers ing the neo-lib eral pol i cies that Bolivia had with the people to help them and support them and pur sued rig or ously for 25 years, leav ing the country pro tect them with a white face. But that started in the with lower per capita income than at the outset. 1980s on a sub stan tial scale. Thousands of peo ple, In Brazil, now con sid ered by the U.S. as one of the many of them from churches, or ganized what is now a good guys, it was nec es sary to ig nore the fact that the mass popular movement all over the world. first thing Pres ident Lula did af ter his re-election was The in ter nal devel op ments in much of Latin Amer - fly to Vene zuela to offer his sup port to Chavez in the ica, as you know, are strongly in fluenced by mass upcom ing election there and also to promote re gional popu lar move ments, which are com ing together in the in te gra tion by in au gu rat ing a joing Ven e zue lan-Bra zil- global justice movement. Where this will lead, no body ian-built bridge across the Orinoco river and over see - can say. But there are def initely oppor tuni ties now for ing work by Brazil’s state oil companies. real prog ress to wards more free dom and jus tice in co- In ad di tion, the in dig e nous pop u la tions are be com - oper ation across the hemisphere—and beyond. Z ing much more ac tive and influ en tial, and many of them want oil and gas—and other re sources—to be do - mes tically controlled. In some cases they op pose pro - Noam Chomsky is a linguist, social critic, and au thor of duction alto gether. Some are even call ing for an In - nu mer ous ar ti cles and books, in clud ing Failed States. dian nation in South Amer ica, which challenges the This talk was given at City Life/Vida Ur bana in Janu ary race/class di vide that goes back to the Spanish con - 2007. It was transcribed for Z by Mary Pea cock. 34 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Af rica

Blood Di a mond: Dou ble think & De cep tion, Part I

made in vis i ble. In - deed, the film Naming the play ers be hind the scenes plays and re plays mis cel la neous ob- jec tion able ste reo- By keith harmon snow types and inac cu - ra cies—but this is & Rick Hines Hol ly wood, af ter all, part of the U.S. media, where degrad ing racial themes are he Hol ly wood film Blood Di a mond depicts hor - routinely peddled. Trific bloodshed in West Af rica spawned by the At the end of the film a dis claimer tells us that in lust for di amonds. The film opens with the under - 2003 the in ter na tional com mu nity—those G-8 ex ec u- statement that “thousands have died and mil lions tives part nered with the di a mond in dus try—es tab lished have become ref ugees.” But more than 70,000 peo - for mal mech anisms to con trol the flow of conflict dia - ple died in Si erra Leone’s war alone. The film im - monds. The film’s dis claimer par rots the line of the me diately segues to a pala tial boardroom in Ant werp, World Di a mond Coun cil, an in ter na tional or ga ni za tion Bel gium, to the G-8 Con fer ence on dia monds. The cre ated by the dia mond in dus try. Both as sure con sum - all-white ex ec u tives are os ten si bly con cerned, hold ing ers that more than 99 per cent of rough stones to day wor ried dis cus sions about…the fate of people? Afri - come from con flict-free sources, thanks to the United can people? Na tions-man dated Kimberley Pro cess—a vol un tary “Accord ing to a devas tating re port by Global Wit - self-reg u la tion scheme where the in dus try crafts ness,” says one of the G-8 execs, “these [con flict] “pass port” doc u ments cer ti fy ing all stones as con flict stones are be ing used to pur chase arms and fi nance free. Ac cord ing to the people who profit from civil war.” The in fer ence is that world lead ers were diamonds, the blood diamonds problem is passé. sur prised by the rev ela tions of Global Wit ness—a “More than 99 per cent of dia monds are con flict Lon don-based watch dog or ga ni za tion that the film free,” the indus try cho rus tells us. “Thus all dia monds clearly ad ver tised for ex pos ing cor po rate mal fea sance. are con flict free.” Like the Blood Di a mond dis- “We must re mem ber that these stones com prise only a claimer, the World Di amond Coun cil (WDC) sweeps small per cent age of the le git i mate di a mond in dus try,” conflict dia monds into the mineshafts of his tory. The says an other G-8 exec, “whose trade is crit i cal to the “Clean Di amond Act”—passed by the U.S. Con gress econo mies of many emerg ing nations.” Ex cuse me? in 2003—does the same. All is well, they say, in Legitimate diamond industry? Emerging nations? Diamondville. The Af ri cans in the film are well dressed and sa lu - To be sure we all un der stand, the WDC in 2006 bri ous and the Af ri can scenes are re mark ably sunny launched a blitzkreig adver tis ing cam paign—full-page and sani tized: the effects of poverty and hunger are ads in the New York Times, USA To day, Los An geles

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 35 Africa Times, the In ter na tional Her ald Tri bune—tout ing the agri culture and com merce in the re gion re quire the di- self-po lic ing suc cesses of the Kimberley Pro cess. The rect au tho ri za tion of the pro vin cial gov er nor, not one cam paign was pre sum ably co or di nated to coun ter the artisano has been granted a license for di amond ex plo- sup posed “neg a tive pub lic ity” of the Blood Di a mond ration or subsis tence agri cul tur e. The “legit i mate” film. govern ment of An gola forces des per ate people to re- To shore up lover’s hearts in the pre-Christ mas sort to “ille gal” activ i ties to surviv e. 2006 dia mond rush, the New York Times echoed the Garimpeiros in An gola are forced into “ille gal” WDC’s statement, adding that dia mond reve nues to - min ing be cause An gola’s min ing se cu rity com pa nies day bring health care, edu ca tion and devel op ment to push peo ple off their own land. Three pri vate mili tary Af ri can coun tries—those emerg ing na tions. “This com pa nies (PMCs) have been tar get ing garimpeiros in [diamond] is sup posed to be a sym bol of all things An gola. The mer cenary firms Alfa-5, Teleservices, good,” a pullout in the NYT ar ti cle reads—next to a and K&P Mineira de fend An gola’s big name di amond se ductive model with a glim mer ing smile and a glam - firms like Sociedade de Desenvolvimento Mineiro or ous gown. The ar ticle points buyers to di amonds (Sodiam), Sociedade Mineira de Cuango, and from Can ada: no blood spilled in Can ada, right? In the Sociedade Mineira Luminas. Hu man rights researcher same paper, on the same day, a full-page Tif fany ad - Rafael Marques has doc u mented case af ter case of ver tise ment fea tured soft aqua ma rine hues off set ting PMCs arres ting, beating, and tortur ing garimpeiros. the spar kle of dia monds and the al lure of the text: They stop garimpeiros from fish ing in their rivers, “My True Love Gave to Me.” grow ing their own food, and living tra dition ally. The Are blood di amonds merely polished by pub lic re- PMCs op er ate be hind An gola’s pub lic di a mond com - lations? The Kimberly Process was launched un der the pany, Endiama, and have exclu sive rights to An gola’s nar row def i ni tion that “con flict di a monds” only orig i - dia monds. Endiama owns 99 per cent of shares in nate from con flicts between “rebels” and “govern - Sodiam, which has a joint ven ture with Lazare Kaplan ments.” It refers to smuggling by mili tias antag o nis tic In ter na tional (LKI) of the Is raeli-Amer i can Maurice to “legit i mate” memb er govern m ents. But the exam - Tempelsman fam ily. ples of An gola and Zim babwe illus trate how the new Sodiam also works with the Russo-Is raeli Lev rules are used against im mi grants, ref ugees, and poor Leviev Group. Endiama owns part of Alfa-5, the citi zen min ers. This is the essence of diamondthink: PMC that ex ploits and tor tures garimpeiros. Alfa-5 truth and lie are inseparable, with deadly conse- and K&P Mineira pro vide secu rity for ASCORP—the quences. An gola Sell ing Cor po ra tion—an other An go lan mo nop - oly. One of ASCORP’s con trol ling inves tors, Lev Leviev, runs a global com mer cial em pire that in- My True Love Took From Thee cludes: Leviev Group of Com panies; Lev Leviev Di a- monds; Af rica-Is rael (com mer cial real es tate in n An gola they are called artisanos or garimpeiros, Prague and Lon don); Gottex (swim wear); plus 1,700 Iand they are lit er ally min ing for their lives. While Fina gas stations in the Southwest U.S.; 173, 7-Elevens in New Mex ico and Texas; and a 33 per cent stake in Cross Is rael Highway (Is rael’s first toll road); and more. Leviev part ner Arcady Gay- damak, an arms dealer, also re port edly works with Danny Yatom, a for mer Mossad (Is raeli se cret ser vice) chief and se cu rity ad vi sor to for mer Is raeli Prime Min is ter Ehud Barak. Leviev is con nected to Rus sian Pres i dent Vladi- mir Putin, and to Sandline In ter national, a UK/South African mercenary firm. An gola remains a war-torn country. The União Nacional para a Indepen- dência Total de Angola (UNITA) re - bels—backed by the CIA dur ing the Cold War, then tar geted by the Clinton Diamond comptoirs (traders) in Kisangani, DRC, controlling the trade ad min is tra tion, then part nered with the for big diamond cartels—photo by keith harmon snow “re bels” in Congo’s wars—are known 36 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Africa

to sell $100 mil lion worth of di amonds an nually. est land hold ers—i.e., mul ti na tional cor po ra tions. While par tici pants in the Kimber ley Pro cess com plain Mugabe seized power in 1981 on the empty prom ise of UNI- TA’s crim inal ity, they gave the “le git imate” of land re form. In the 1980s Mugabe and his “lib er a- Dos Santos gov ern ment a spar kling bill of health. tion” army ter ror ized the Ndebele people under the The An gola exam ple shows how “black mar kets” Gukurahundi—a bona fide genocide. After arm ing are cre ated by pred atory “white” econ o mies, which Mugabe’s gang, the in ter na tional “com mu nity” closed per pet u ate suf fer ing and dis pos ses sion. Diamond com - its eyes to the slaugh ter. At tempts to break the story panies do not “ignore atroc ities” as the New York were squashed in Britain and the U.S. Equally invis i- Times wrote in their De cem ber white wash, they cre ate ble were Mugabe’s ties to in ter na tional arms dealer and per pet u ate them. John Bredenkamp, one of the 50 rich est Brit ons, BAE Sys tems (Brit ish Aero space); the U.S. State De part - ment; and Billy Rautenbach, another Western mining Be trayal Is For ever cartel crony and white patron of Mugabe. The World Di amond Coun cil “expressed con cern” im babwe is the epitome of diamondthink. From about Zim ba bwe’s com plic ity in pil lag ing and smug - ZDe cem ber 2006 to Jan u ary 2007, Zim ba bwe’s po - gling rough di amonds from the DRC into neighbor ing lice ex e cuted Op er a tion Chikorokoza—end of il le gal South Af rica for sale on the world mar ket us ing fraud - min ing—against ille gal gold panners and dia mond u lent cer tif icates of or igin. But the threat of sanc tions min ers coun trywide. Po lice set up roadblocks and bru - against Zim babwe was not about dia monds. While in - tal ized trav el ers. They ar rested and ter ror ized at least ter na tional cap i tal is iso lat ing and pun ish ing Rob ert 24,000 people and burned the houses of artisanal min - Mugabe, other crim inal dia mond net works and rack e- ers and oth ers who were already dis placed by the in- teer ing of equal scale and nature are tol er ated. ter na tional destabilization of Zim ba bwe. Police con fis - An gola and Zim ba bwe ex em plify the pro cess cated some 3.5 ki lograms of gold worth over $57.3 whereby an in ter na tional cer tif i ca tion scheme, en- mil lion; 552,227 kilograms of gold ore; 92 em er alds; forced by the United Nations, rub ber stamps boxes of and 7,868 di a monds. Mean while, Zim ba bwe’s pres i - rough stones ac cord ing to their country of or igin. dent, Robert Mugabe, and his cro nies and their inter - Stamped An gola or Zim babwe, the public is assured na tional bene fac tors have destabilized and de pop u lated that these di amonds are now “con flict free” be cause the Dem ocratic Repub lic of the Congo (DRC) for de- these na tions are mem bers of the Kimberley cer tif i ca - cades—loot ing cop per, co balt, tim ber, ura nium, and tion. Com ing from gov ern ments—and not re bels or di a monds. mi li tias—con sum ers can sup pos edly be at peace as Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party in re cent years crashed they slip a diamond on their finger. the in ter na tional me dia scene for evict ing white farm - Bot swana is a clas sic ex am ple of a “peace ful” ers un der “land re form,” but un touched were the larg- coun try en gaged in di a mond ex plo ra tion. If any di a-

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 37 Africa mond in Af rica is con flict free, one would think Bot- Cen tral Kalahari have been re lo cated from within the swana would be the place to find it. But the Botswana Cen tral Kalahari Game Reserve to make way for new govern ment has a long his tory of op pres sion against tour ism ven tures and min eral pros pect ing by mul ti na - the San people—Bushmen of the Kalahari—and con tin- tional corpo ra tions, includ ing De Beers. About 3,000 ues to force them off an ces tral lands to make way for San were moved to a bleak set tle ment called New the world’s premier di amond car tel, De Beers/An - Xade some 45 km be yond the reserve’s west ern bor - glo-Amer i can Corp. der.... Un em ploy ment, job less eco nomic growth, po - The diamondthink of De Beers knows no lim- lit i cal in-fight ing, con flicts over nat u ral re sources its—they have even claimed that protect ing tribal within and between states, and increas ing mili- home lands leads to apartheid. Dia mond finds in the tarization in a region too famil iar with the human and Bushmen’s ances tral lands have inspired gov ern ment ma te rial costs of war: these are some of the realities evictions. “Money from di amonds has un doubtedly that Bill Clinton should have seen.” funded the evictions and the ‘relo ca tion camps’ which By 2003 Aus tra lian BHP-Billiton was pros pecting the Bushmen call places of death,” wrote Sur vival In- with leases over 78,000 square ki lome ters of Bot - ter na tional. “De Beers’ man ag ing di rec tor in Bot- swana, in cluding some 27,000 square ki lome ters in swana backed the re mov als. De Beers falsely claims the Kalahari Re serve. In a “land mark” court case de - there were no Bushmen orig inally in its conces sion. It cided in Decem ber 2006, the San won the “rights” to has also stated that laws to pro tect tribal peo ples re-en ter their an ces tral lands in the Cen tral Kalahari should not be applied in Africa, as they ‘lead to apart- Game Re serve, but the gov ern ment stip ulated that they heid.’” cannot erect per ma nent struc tures, hunt or drill bore- Bot swana and Namibia have been fighting over wa - holes, and to expect no govern ment ser vices. ter and the flow of ref ugees and dis si dents brought Rapaport News called the court case “the lon gest and Bot swana into the cross hairs of the Pen tagon in the most ex pen sive in Bot swana’s his tory.” Di a monds are late 1990s. A U.S. mil itary build-up ensued—elec - a $2 billion indus try in Bot swana, and the govern ment tronic in tel li gence lis ten ing posts, an ex pan sive air is a 15 per cent share holder in De Beers. The Bushmen base built in the Bushman’s desert, and weap ons and say: “We as First Peo ple of the Kalahari be lieve that train ing pro grams. Con struc tion on the base began in con flict di a monds are when ever di a monds cause pain 1994 and the U.S. “turned the base into a staging area and suf fer ing. That is why we call Bot swana di amonds for [spe cial oper ations] forces in volved in quelling con flict di a monds.” civil wars and se ces sion ist move ments in Af rica.” Bot swana’s op po si tion com plained: “Why should we put up such a so phis ticated and costly facil ity when peo ple are starv ing?” (See Geno cide and Covert Op er - Where Do Dia monds Come From? a tions in Af rica, 1993-1999 by Wayne Madsen.) elgian-born Maurice Tempelsman has a long and Af ter Pres ident Clinton’s glowing speech in Bot- Bbloody his tory in Af rica. When Congo’s first swana in 1998, Pro fes sor Larry Swatuk at the Uni ver - premier, Patrice Lumumba, pledged to re turn di a- sity of Bot swana com plained: “The San people of the mond wealth to the newly inde pend ent Congo in the early 1960s, Tempels- man, who be gan with De Beers in the 1950s, helped engi neer the coup that con sol i dated the dic ta tor ship of 29-year-old Colo nel Mobutu, as well as the coup against Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah. Diamonds were at stake in each of these coups. “I believe this was the begin ning of what we now know of as con flict dia - monds in the Congo,” says blood di a- mond ex pert Janine Rob erts. “From then on dia monds would be ex ten- sively used to dis creetly fund wars, coups, re pres sion, and dic ta tor ships in Af rica.” Ac cord ing to Rob erts, “Tempelsman’s role in the conflu ence Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni meets with mining tycoon Tony Buckingham (far of pub lic policy and private profit as a right)—photo courtesy of New Vision newspaper, Kampala mid dleperson for the De Beers di a- 38 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Africa mond car tel may have shaped every ma jor U.S. co vert action in Africa since the early 1950s. De clas si fied memos and ca bles be tween for mer U.S. pres idents and State Depart ment of fi cials over the last four de cades di - rectly linked Tempelsman to the destabilization of Zaire/Congo, Si erra Leone, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Rwanda and Ghana.” For over 35 years Maurice and his son Leon Tempelsman worked the di- a mond con nec tion be hind the re pres - sion of Mobutu Sese Seko and his Is - raeli-trained shock troops. Now, 47 years later, the Tempelsman em pire re mains rock solid be hind three com - The 2006 DRC elections pitted Kabila vs. Bemba—photo by keith harmon snow panies: Leon Tempelsman & Sons, De Beers, and LKI (which sup plies Tif fany & Co. and Cartier). A cli ent of Adlai Tempelsman is chair of the Amer ican Jew ish Con - Stevenson’s law firm dur ing the first Congo cri ses gress, a Zi onist pres sure group that claims it “works (1960-1970), Tempelsman later hired Law rence closely with the Is raeli mil itary” and he sits on the Devlin, a CIA station chief re spon si ble for co vert op - boards of na tional ist Amer ican think tanks. As er ations in Katanga, to maintain the Mobutu dia - vice-chair of LKI, Tempelsman’s an nual base pay is mond/co balt connec tions into the late 1980s. In 2002 $458,833, with a bonus of $80,000. As princi pal di- Tempelsman of fered Namibia’s Pres i dent Sam rec tor/share holder in Leon Tempelsman and Sons he Nujoma an $80 mil lion inter est free “loan” to bridge gets a com pa ra ble amount again. SEC fil ings show Namibia’s bud getary short fall against future sales of that LKI di rec tors are high-roll ing Zion ist law yers and Namibia’s gemstones. invest ment bank ers: one di rec tor be longs to the law Tempelsman is the deep pockets of many U.S. firm that rep re sented Pres i dent Ken nedy—an other politicians, donat ing to the campaigns of John Kerry Tempelsman friend. LKI is also con nected to the eu- (D); Ed Royce (R); Tom Daschle (D); Barack Obama phemis tically named United States Agency for Inter na- (D); Maxine Waters (D); John Rockefeller (D); Rich - tional Devel op ment (USAID). Selling to the U.S. Dia - ard Gephardt (D); Howard Wolpe (D); and Patrick mond Stock pile and elsewhere, Tempelsman com pa- (D) and Ed ward Ken nedy (D). He also contrib uted to nies have plundered tens of billions of dia mond dollars the 1988 win of George H. W. Bush. Tempelsman ex - from Congo/Zaire alone in the past five decades. ploited ties with Anthony Lake, Clinton’s National Se- curity ad viser, who in ter vened at the U.S. Export-Im - port Bank on Tempelsman’s behalf. Peace Is War, Ig no rance Is Strength Tempelsman con trib uted some $500,000 to Clinton for pres ident and he is currently backing Hillary. He n 2001 the World Peace Founda tion (WPF Pro - trav eled at Clinton’s side on the 1998 presi den tial Af- Igram) on In tra state Con flict at Har vard’s Ken nedy rica tour where his Bot swana visit was not about an School of Gov ern ment or ganized a confer ence on con- Okavango Delta wild life re serve safari. Bot swana’s flict dia monds that “in volved stakeholders of di verse Pres i dent Mogae at tended the 1999 At tract ing Cap i tal in ter ests.” WPF pro gram di rec tor Rob ert Rotberg to Af rica Sum mit in Hous ton, or ganized by the Cor- chaired the meeting. Rotberg is also on the board of po rate Coun cil on Af rica (CCA), the “who’s who” of the Ken nedy School’s Belfer Cen ter Sci ence and In ter - mul ti na tional cor po ra tions. Tempelsman, as CCA na tional Af fairs, whose di rec tors are the core of the chair, or ganized the sum mit, where 10 Af ri can heads de fense and in tel li gence es tab lish ment—peo ple like of state met with half of Clinton’s cabi net and 200 cor- John Deutch, for mer CIA di rec tor, and Richard po rate rep re sen ta tives. Tempelsman and the CCA or - Darmam, a part ner in the Carlyle Group. The Har vard ganized the U.S.-Af rica Busi ness Sum mit in Af rica in di a mond con fer ence ac tu ally nor mal ized De Beers’s 2001, fea tur ing DRC Pres i dent Jo seph Kabila, co or di - re lations with the U.S. gov ern ment. De Beers reps re - nated with an Africa Growth and Op por tunity Act ceived a special govern ment am nesty to attend the (AGOA) meeting involving President G. W. Bush and con fer ence af ter years of ex ile from the U.S. due to Secretary of State Colin Powell. anti-trust law vio la tions. Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 39 Africa In 2002 a WPF re port “Di amonds in Peace and croft Group un der Brent Scowcroft, for mer Na tional War: Sev er ing the Con flict-Di a mond Con nec tion” Se curity Ad viser to Bush I and Ger ald Ford. lauded the Kennedy School’s ef forts based on a rush Kansteiner also works for the Cen ter for Stra te gic and of activ ity that followed the con- Inter na tional Studies Africa Pol - fer ence at the end of Novem ber icy Ad vi sory Panel. Pan el ist 2001. The “rush of ac tivity” in- “Tempelsman's role...as a Frank Wisner was also on the cluded the U.S. govern ment’s Na tional Se cu rity Coun cil un der Clean Di amond Trade Act (HR mid dleperson for the De Clinton. Wisner’s fa ther was 722), passed in April 2003. The Beers di a mond car tel may CIA di rec tor of the Of fice of Pol - Act gave the U.S. pres ident the have shaped every major icy Co or di na tion. An early coau thor ity to in sti tute “war on ter - vert op er a tions bu reau, Op er a tion ror” sanc tions against any coun- U.S. covert action in Africa Mock ing bird, de signed to in fil- try that deals in dirty dia monds. since the early 1950s.” trate and control the U.S. me dia, The U.S. Gen eral Ac counting was one of theirs. Frank Wisner Of fice noted in 2006 that the law —a USAID and state depart ment was weak and deeply flawed. of fi cial in Viet nam—was in- The Ken nedy School today peddles their re port as a volved with the black-op er a tions Phoe nix as sas si na - suc cess. “Us ing dia monds to im port arms and spon sor tions pro gram. Wisner’s co- di rec tors of the Amer ican war is less likely now that the Kimberley Pro cess has In ter na tional Group in clude: pro duced a near-fi nal agree ment,” the cur rent ab stract • Mar shall Co hen, a di rec tor of the Bush-connected reads. “‘Di amonds in Peace and War’ is the place to Barrick Gold Cor pora tion and a Ca na dian gov ern - learn all about this re mark ably suc cess ful ini tiative of ment offi cial conflict preven tion and conflict reduction.” • Har vard Pro fes sor Mar tin Stu art Feldstein When con tacted, Robert Rotberg praised the Kimberley Pro cess as a “re mark able achieve ment” • Clinton cab i net mem bers Wil liam Co hen and Rich ard and dis missed any con flict of inter est between Holbrooke Tempelsman and the Kimberley ini tiatives. Asked • Carla Hills, NAFTA ne goti a tor and di rec tor of Chev - about the U.S. govern ment di amond stock pile, Robert ron-Tex aco and the In ter na tional Cri sis Group, a flak Rotberg in di cated that its ex is tence “is news to me.” orga ni za tion active in all Africa’s hotspots The U.S. De fense Lo gis tics Agency controls some 3.1 (Wil liam) Co hen Group part ners in clude for mer top mil lion car ats held at the De fense Na tional Stock pile Pen ta gon of fi cers, White House of fi cials, UK Lords, Cen ters. Pressed fur ther about Tempelsman, Rotberg NATO chiefs, and di rec tors of Lockheed Mar tin and re plied, “There is no con tact between this side of the Dyncorp. Note that Dyncorp direc tor Mark Ron ald Charles River and that side. This is not a con spir acy. was pre viously pres ident/CEO of BAE Sys tems. An - The real prob lem is not Maurice Tempelsman. The other Co hen Group di rec tor, Gen. (ret.) Paul Kern, biggest prob lem is that the U.S. Trea sury has been re - par tic i pated in op er a tions in Rwanda and Zaire. ally slow to put [Kimberley] structures in place.” Tempelsman’s af fil i a tion with Rob ert Rotberg at Maurice Tempelsman and Rob ert Rotberg are the CFR explains the absence of any men tion of mem bers of the Coun cil on For eign Re la tions (CFR). Tempelsman or his di amond in ter ests in the Kimber - No contact between them? From 1999 to 2002 the ley-re lated con fer ences, pol i cies, and pa pers that came CFR spon sored a series of pan els ti tled “Roundtable out of the Kennedy School. Seven Har vard pro fes sion - on Pri vate Cap ital Flows to Sub-Sa ha ran Af rica.” The als, includ ing Michael Ignatief and Samantha Power, pan el di rec tor was Mahesh Kotecha and the chair was who won a Pu litzer for her white wash of the Maurice Tempelsman. At the time, Tempelsman was U.S.-backed coup in Rwanda, took part in the 2001 fund ing the CFR’s Af rica Pro gram. Pan elists in cluded Ken nedy School confer ence that led to “Dia monds in Wal ter Kansteiner, Rob ert Rotberg, Frank Wisner, Peace and War,” the re port that bur ied Maurice and Bot swana’s Pres ident Festus Mogae. Tempelsman’s involvement. Z The Kotecha fam ily runs il legal networks that pil - lage colum bium-tantalite (coltan) from Congo. Walter Kansteiner—National Secu rity Council Afri can Affairs di rec tor un der Clinton—is to day di rec tor of Moto keith harmon snow’s work has appeared in publi cations in Gold, a com pany involved in Congo’s blood-drenched the U.S., UK, and Japan, in cluding World War 4 Re port, Ituri re gion, and the Kansteiner fam ily of Chicago Black Com men ta tor, Asahi Weekly, Yomiuri Shimbun, To ward Free dom, and Far East Economic Review . Rick trades in coltan. Wal ter Kansteiner was the U.S. pres - Hines is an artist, freelance writer, and inde pend ent re - i dent’s “per sonal rep re sen ta tive” to the G-8 Af rica searcher for so cial jus tice. Part 2 of “Blood Dia mond” Pro cess and he is a found ing prin cipal of the Scow- covers more on the glit ter and greed of capi tal ism. 40 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Spe cial Report

The Se cret Air Wars in Iraq and Af ghan i stan

bring a few things into fo cus about Un re ported ca su al ties the se cret air com po- nent of U.S. op er a tions. Here’s a sample from the week of March 3-9: “In By Jeff Nygaard Afghan i stan this week 330 close-air- sup port mis sions were flown in sup port of the In ter na tional Se cu rity As sis tance Force re lent less at tack from the air against Iraq and and Afghan troops....” Mean while, “In Af ghani stan has been going on for years, with Iraq this week, co alition air craft flew Athe United States conduct ing an aver age of 75 327 close-air-sup port missions for Op er a- to 100 airstrikes in the 2 coun tries ev ery day. The tion Iraqi Freedom.” A “Close-Air-Sup port” mis sion, death toll from these attacks is un known, but a rea son - or CAS, is the term used for “Drop ping bombs in sup - able esti mate is in the range of 100,000 to 150,000 in port of ground troops—also known as an airstrike.” Iraq, with the num ber in Af ghani stan as yet unex - In other words, ac cord ing to the Air Force’s own plored. Yet the story of these air wars is almost un - num bers, the U.S. dur ing that partic u lar week con- known in the United States. Without access to Iraqi or ducted an aver age of 93 airstrikes per day in the two Afghani sources, it is not pos si ble to offer first hand countries. For the fol low ing week the total was 614 accounts of the conse quences of the air wars, but it is strikes or 87 per day. The week of March 17-23 saw pos si ble to go to some available sources to get a 753 strikes or 107 per day. In the only substan tial re- glimpse of what is happening. port to be found in this country in the past year on the Ev ery day the U.S. Cen tral Com mand Air Forces air war—“Bombs over Bagh dad; The Penta gon’s Se - (CENTAF) posts on the Internet a pub lic re port of cret Air War in Iraq” at the online news source their activ i ties. Who knows if these re ports are true or TomDispatch—au thor Nick Turse reminds us that accu rate, but let’s say they are. They’re pretty hor ri fy - these num bers in clude only the air assaults con ducted ing, despite the heroic self-serv ing language. by the Air Force. They “do not in clude guided mis - For ex am ple, a headline from the sum mary of siles and un guided rockets fired, or can non rounds ex - March 13: “Air Con trol lers Di rect Airpower Sym - pended; nor, accord ing to a CENTAF spokes per son, phony over Iraq” and “Air Force Con tinues Giv ing do they take into ac count the muni tions used by some 100 Per cent.” These are standard puff pieces that one Ma rine Corps and other co ali tion air craft or any of the would expect from a pub lic rela tions of fice and, pre- Army’s heli cop ter gunships. More over, they do not sum ably, they are pro duced to maintain mo rale among include mu nitions used by the armed he licop ters of the active and retired mil itary per son nel who seem to be many pri vate secu rity contractors flying their own the pri mary au di ence. Un for tu nately, these sto ries be- missions in Iraq.” “Pri vate se cu rity con trac tors” is the come the grist for the “news sto ries” on Iraq and Af - cur rent eu phe mism for mer ce nary sol diers. ghani stan that we see in the daily press. The Air Force uses the same words to de scribe Leav ing aside the blatant pro paganda, the daily these air strikes: The CAS “mis sions in cluded support CENTAF “airpower sum ma ries,” as they are called, to co ali tion troops, in fra struc ture pro tec tion, re con -

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 41 Special Report struc tion ac tiv i ties and op er a tions to de ter and dis rupt drop ping GBU-31s on a major two-lane road near As ter ror ist ac tiv ities.” One will almost never see the Sadah. This engage ment was meant to ham per traffic words “killed” or “ca su alties” in these reports, with a com ing in and out of As Sadah City from the north. couple of excep tions, to which I will return. The strike was success ful.” Un re ported. • March 9, 45 airstrikes in Iraq: “Air Force A-10 Thun der bolt IIs fired can non rounds at ene mies hid - ing in brush af ter they engaged with co ali tion forces Seven Un re ported Airstrikes near Mahmudiyah. A JTAC re ported the can non ur ing the one-week period of March 3-9 (dates rounds were on tar get.” Un re ported. Dthat were ran domly selected), the U.S. Air Force The above research was con ducted in mid-March re ported a total of 327 Brit ish/U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and a check of the nation’s me dia for the week ending and 330 in Afghan i stan. Here are some ex am ples of March 15 did not yield a single ref er ence to U.S. in cidents re ported in the of fi cial Air Forces Daily airstrikes in Eng lish-language news papers. This typ i- Airpower Sum mary, each fol lowed by the same cal week in the U.S. press in cludes the wire ser vices, one-word sum mary of how they were covered in the National Public Radio, and every where else in the me dia: daily media. • March 3, 41 airstrikes in Af ghan i stan: “In Af ghan i - stan March 3, a B-1B Lancer dropped guided bomb unit-31s and GBU-38s on anti-co ali tion in sur gents in The Ex am ple of Taji an open area near Kajaki. A joint ter minal attack control ler (JTAC) con firmed di rect hits, re moving the in- here are a couple of excep tions to the policy of sur gent threat.” Un re ported. Tnever us ing the words “killed” or “casu alties” in • March 4, 41 airstrikes in Af ghan i stan: “In Af ghan i - the offi cial reports on U.S. “airpower” in Iraq and Af - stan, an Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped guided ghani stan. The first ex ception is when a U.S. airstrike bomb unit-31s on a build ing near is re ported as hav ing killed “terror - Sangin contain ing anti-coali tion ists.” These sorts of re ports are of- insur gents. A joint termi nal at - ten picked up by the corpo rate me - tack control ler confirmed a direct dia. Here is how one such in cident hit.” Un re ported. on March 2 in the town of Taji, • March 5, 45 airstrikes in Iraq: Iraq was cov ered in the corpo rate “In Iraq, Air Force F-16 Fight- press. I first learned about this par - ing Fal cons dropped guided ticu lar airstrike in a re port in the bomb unit-38s, destroy ing an offi cial Air Force News (March 7) anti-Iraqi in sur gent build ing near under the headline “Air Strikes Mosul.” Un re ported. Tar get, Kill al-Qaeda Ter ror ists • March 6, 54 airstrikes in Af - near Taji, Iraq.” As it turns out, ghan istan: “Near Sangin, Navy we don’t re ally know that they F/A- 18s re ceived co or di nates were “ter ror ists” or that they had for a com pound where en emy anything to do with al-Qaeda. The fire was orig inat ing. One of the ar ti cle says that, “Co ali tion forces F/A-18s dropped a guided bomb unit-12 on the compound. A be lieve key ter ror ists were killed JTAC re ported a good hit with dur ing the airstrike.” The arti cle an unusu ally large initial ex plo- points out that the tar gets in Taji sion and at least ten sec ondary were ve hi cles and anti-air craft ar til- ex plo sions, pos si bly in di cat ing lery, which were in “an area de struc tion of a weapons cache.” known for terror ist activ i ties.” Un re ported. CENTAF re ports that, “The strike re sulted in the de - • March 7, 57 airstrikes in Af ghan istan: “In Afghan i - struc tion of the ve hi cle as well as the struc ture it was stan a B-1B Lancer dropped guided bomb unit-38s parked beside.” What struc ture was that? Some one’s and GBU-31 Joint Direct At tack Mu nitions on en emy home, per haps? An of fice building? A hos pital? Were per son nel and a build ing near Garmsir, in support of there peo ple in side? Was it deserted? We’ll never Op er a tion Achil les. The on-scene joint ter mi nal at - know. tack con trol ler and ground forces ob served direct Unlike the other 67 offi cially reported U.S. hits.” Un re ported. airstrikes in Iraq and Af ghani stan that day, the Taji in- • March 8, 50 airstrikes in Iraq: “Air Force F-16 cident did receive some cover age in the U.S. The New Fight ing Fal cons con ducted a pre-planned strike, York Times, the Wash ing ton Post, and the Los An geles 42 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Special Report Times duti fully quoted the claim that CENTAF be lieves “key ter - ror ists” were killed in the strike. The NYT repor ted, “Mili tary author ities on [March 3] were still inves ti gat ing the identi ties of the gunmen and how many men were killed.” This phras ing im - plies that the only people who may have been killed were men, in fact gunmen. Never con sid - ered is the pos si bil ity that ci vil - ians might have been killed. This despite the Air Force’s own re - port ing that a “structure” was destroyed, which should at least be worth an inquiry, one might think. How about the claim that Taji is “an area known for ter ror ist activ i ties?” Well, Iraqis certainly may con sider it so. The LA Times men tions (in a 76-word brief at the end of an weak that it poses no seri ous threat to the su per power. ar ticle about something else) that Taji is “the site of a The weaker na tion is dev as tated and re sis tance to the ma jor U.S. air base.” The Times does n’t say how oc cu pa tion arises. Af ter some years, the re sis tance ac - “ma jor” it is, but it’s pretty ma jor. Taji is one of the quires the capac ity to respond, with lim ited success, to 14 “endur ing” bases that the U.S. has constructed in some of the vi olence of the occu pa tion. Since a large Iraq. As such, it is a sym bol of the U.S. pro ject of part of the vio lence against the popu la tion is com ing main tain ing a more-or-less per ma nent mil i tary pres - from airstrikes, the resistance includes anti-aircraft ence in that country. Taji is the home of the “larg est tactics and weapons. PX in Iraq, which has a Sub way, Bur ger King, and Pizza Hut.” In addi tion, accord ing to the mili tary think-tank GlobalSecurity.org, some por tion of “the The Grisly Arith me tic of the Air War $18.4 billion appro pri ated by the U.S. Congress to sup port the re con struc tion of Iraqi in fra struc ture” has .S. ca su al ties are reg u larly reported by the Air gone into “build ing ren o va tion; ren o va tion and con- UForce, as in this story from March 5: “Air Force struct ion of medi cal facil i ties; repair of a wastewater Heroes: 20 Fallen Air men Hon ored in Af ghani stan.” treat ment plant, and in stal la tion of sewage distribution Univer sity of New Hamp shire econ omist Marc Herold lines” at Camp Taji. es timates that between 4,851 and 5,684 civil ians have So when the Wash ing ton Post re ports that Taji is died in Afghan i stan since the U.S. in vasion in 2001, “an area where sev eral Amer i can he li cop ters have or roughly 900-1,000 per year. Herold admits that been shot down in re cent weeks,” some Iraqis might these num bers are only the ones that can be veri fied rea son ably see this not as ter ror, but as a re sponse to and as such re main “a gross un der es timate.” In a ter ror. That’s surely not what the Air Force pub lic af- graphic il lus tra tion of how the on go ing mil i tary cam - fairs of fice meant when they re ferred to Taji as “an paign in Afghan i stan has fallen out of the public con- area known for ter ror ist activ i ties,” but such is scious ness, Herold’s num bers re main un pub lished in “news” in the upside-down world of war propaganda. this country and have only found publi ca tion in the The “of ficial version” of the events of March 2 is Jan uary 13 is sue of the Indian mag azine the Hindu. this: the “co alition” at tacked the “area” from which Reports in the daily press on ci vilian deaths in Iraq mili tary offi cials “believe” some “terror ists,” repor ted are far more com mon, but only cer tain deaths appear to be mem bers of al-Qaeda who are “re spon si ble for to be news wor thy. The New York Times pub lished a threats to coali tion aircraft,” have been launching at- re port on the vio lence in Iraq on March 19, the fourth tacks against the “anti-ter ror ists.” Here’s how the anni ver sary of the U.S. in vasion of that country, say - same story might appear when looked at from an other ing, “While no single event stood out [on the anni ver - per spec tive: The world’s most pow er ful country in - sary], the day was in many ways em blem atic of the vi- vades and occu pies a sov er eign nation, a nation so olence that Iraqis suffer daily—two car bombs, several Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 43 Special Report as sas si na tions, at least one kid - napping and a num ber of other bomb ings.” In the world as seen by the Times, “the vi o lence that Iraqis suf fer daily” appar ently does not include the 67 airstrikes that the Air Force reports were conducted in Iraq on Monday, March 19. Look ing outside this blind spot, the 2006 re port “Mor tality Af ter the 2003 Inva sion of Iraq: A Cross-sec tional Clus ter Sam ple Sur vey” from the Johns Hopkins School of Pub lic Health, pub- lished in the Octo ber 2006 is sue of the British med ical jour nal the Lan cet, re mains the best es ti mate of the num ber of peo ple who have died in Iraq—vio lently and oth er wise—as a re sult of the U.S. invasion and occupation. As Nick Turse tells us in “Bombs Over Bagh dad,” the Lan cet repor t “esti mated that, 107. On Thurs day, 118. This “airpower sym - 655,000 ‘excess Iraqi deaths as a con se quence of the phony” will go on until activ ists and other cit izens un - war.’ The study...found that from March 2003 to June der stand how one of the “lessons of Viet nam” is be ing 2006, 13 per cent of vio lent deaths in Iraq were caused applied here. A Feb ru ary poll of Amer icans taken by by coali tion air strikes. If the 655,000 fig ure, in clud- the As so ci ated Press showed, “The median es ti mate of ing over 601,000 vi olent deaths, is anywhere close to Iraqi deaths was 9,890.” That is, the guess of about accu rate—and the study of fered a pos si ble range of ci- half of the poll respon dents as to the num ber of Iraqis vilian deaths that ran from 392,979 to 942,636—this killed since Oper ation Iraqi Freedom be gan is at most would equal approx imately 78,133 Iraqis killed by about 2 percent of the actual num ber. Their guess is bombs, mis siles, rock ets, or can non rounds from co- maybe 10 per cent of the number killed by U.S. alition aircraft between March 2003, when the inva - bombs, in an air war that most re spon dents have likely sion of Iraq be gan, and last June when the study con- never heard of. cluded.” Turse adds that, “Ac cord ing to statis tics pro - At tempts to con ceal war time re al i ties are stan dard vided to TomDispatch by the Lan cet study’s au thors, and pre dictable on the part of a govern ment en gaged 50 per cent of all vio lent deaths of Iraqi children un der in an unpop u lar mil itary cam paign. This is why it is so 15 years of age, be tween March 2003 and June 2006, cru cial to have an inde pend ent and skepti cal press that were due to coalition air strikes.” will go beyond re port ing the statements of of ficials to Here, then, are the final rough num bers: Ev ery do a lit tle in ves tigat ing of the “hid eous as pects” that day, between 50 and 100 Iraqis die as a re sult of “co- are being screened. As Turse re minds us, “While we alition” airstrikes. Ev ery airstrike kills, on av er age, will undoubt edly never know the full extent of the hu- one Iraqi, and wounds three more. Updat ing the num - man costs of the U.S. air cam paign, just a few dogged bers from the Lan cet study, we dis cover that overall, re port ers as signed to the air-power beat might, at the since the U.S. in vaded Iraq, somewhere between very least, have offered some sense of this one-sided 102,180 and 147,051 Iraqis have been killed by U.S. air war.” airstrikes alone. Be tween 306,540 and 441,153 have With 75 to 100 airstrikes ev ery day and 100,000 to been wounded. 150,000 inno cents dead, could a state-run media do a better job of “screening from the pub lic gaze” the “hideous as pects” of the U.S. air wars in Iraq and Af- Les sons Ap plied ghan i stan? Z n the last Satur day in March, accord ing to the Air OForce, 111 airstrikes were launched by the U.S. Min ne ap o lis free lance writer and ac tiv ist Jeff Nygaard Air Force in Iraq and Af ghani stan. The Fri day before publishes an email news letter called Nygaard Notes.

44 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 In terview

Jihad: Theirs & Ours, Part 1

Laugh ter and For get ting he tells about a Commu nist Party rally in Prague in 1948. Clementis, one of the An in terview with Tariq Ali Party leaders was pres ent and appeared in thousands of photo graphs show ing him on the balcony with top Party brass. Four years later Clementis was charged with treason and hanged. His im age was then air- By David Barsamian brushed out of those pho tographs .

This is true and it hap pened all over Eastern Eu rope. ariq Ali, an inter nation ally renowned writer, was The country which made this into an art form—there Tborn in La hore in 1943. It was then a part of were peo ple trained in airbrush ing people out of pho- Brit ish-ruled In dia, now in Paki stan. For many years tographs—was Stalin’s Rus sia. Of course, the prime he has been based in London where he is an ed itor tar get of this was Leon Trotsky who, once he had of the New Left Re view. He’s writ ten more than a been disgraced and exiled, had to be taken out of all dozen books on world his tory and pol itics. In his the photo graphs. This model was then taken up in dif- spare time he is a film mak er, play wright and nov el- fer ent parts of East ern Eu rope, North Ko rea, and ist. He is the author of The Clash of Funda- China. There were two pro cesses which took place: mentalisms, Bush in Baby lon , and Speaking of Em- one was air brush ing people out, and the other was air- pire & Resis tance, with Da vid Barsamian. His lat est brush ing people in. People who had not actu ally par- book is Pirates of the Carib bean: The Axis of Hope. tici pated in certain events were painted in or their pho- tographs were put in or fake pho tographs were in - BARSAMIAN: George Or well in 1984 said, Who controls vented. We also see it in the many photo graphs which the past controls the fu ture.” Talk about the uses of showed Ron ald Reagan and Mar garet Thatcher in the his tory in your part of the world. 1980s meet ing the origi na tors of groups who are now on the Most Wanted list of the FBI and the intel li gence ALI: I think it’s been obvi ous for quite some time, cer - networks glob ally that are rarely seen in the media tainly since the end of the Cold War, that through out today. the world, his tory has been either re writ ten or for got- You would have thought that it would be obvi ous ten. Many crucial things that happened in the 20th that when one is discuss ing the or igins of al-Qaeda or century have been airbrushed out. This is some thing other re ligious ex trem ist groups that you would want that irks a lot of people, espe cially in the Arab world to show how these groups sprang up. And in or der to where a sense of his tory is quite strong. Much of what show these, you have to show that they were central is go ing on in the world today has his tor ical roots. allies of the West in the ji had against communism. One has to go back and see what these roots are be - They were greeted as found ing fathers of their coun - cause, unless you do, there is no way of solv ing some tries, and they were given a lot of money. I re mem ber of the prob lems that af fect the world. Robert Fisk once say ing, when he was a re porter for the Lon don Times re port ing on the Afghan War and I’m in ter ested that you use the term “airbrushed” out wit ness ing atroci ties being carried out by the so-called of his tory because in Milan Kundera’s The Book of mujahideen, that he re ferred to them as ter ror ists and

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 45 Interview was told, “You can’t do that. They’re free dom fight - mem ber when I was in Pa kistan in 1999, I was told ers.” that one of the most popu lar names among middle-class fam ilies, in La hore cer tainly, the ma jor ity I did a book with Eqbal Ahmad enti tled Ter ror ism: name used was Osama. This was well before 9/11, but Theirs & Ours and on the cover is one of those photo - this was when he had already begun his jihad against graphs that is rarely seen—Ronald Rea gan sit ting the West and said that it was the new en emy. He was with some of the leaders of the Afghan mujahideen. very pop ular as a re sult. I re mem ber talking to people and say ing, “Can this be true? Why is this?” And they It’s a very pow er ful photo graph. There are sim ilar said, “Be cause people think he is the only one who ones of sim ilar people being re ceived in 10 Downing says these things. And all our pol iti cians and leaders Street by Mar garet Thatcher—Pashtun re ligious ex - are to tally complicit in the new world or der and all the trem ist leaders with their long beards be ing wel- cor rup tion that flows from it. This is what is at tract ing comed. What this shows us is that yester day’s allies young people to him. He is seen as in cor rupt ible.” are to day’s en e mies. There are re ports of many thou sands of madrassas in What is the re la tion ship with Pa ki stan, par tic u larly Paki stan. Accord ing to Pervez Hoodhboy, many of the Inter-Services Intel li gence, with creat ing the so- these Is lamic schools have re placed public edu ca tion called freedom fighters who were re cruited from all because it’s collapsed. Poor peo ple can’t afford to over the Is lamic world to fight the great jihad against send their children to school, but they have oppor tuni - the Sovi ets in the 1980s? ties to send them to madrassas. What do you know about them? The war in Af ghani stan, from the point of view of cre at ing a net work of re li gious ter ror ist or ga ni za tions, Let me start with a story. In the 1990s when my fa ther was prob ably the most sig nifi cant event of the last 30 died and I returned to Paki stan for his fu neral, as ac- years. What is for gotten and what should never be for - cord ing to tradi tion, people come and pay condo lences gotten is that 90 percent of these groups were funded for days af ter the death. An old fam ily friend, who is by the Saudis and the United States indi rectly. The the gover nor of the North-West Fron tier Prov ince, money was chan neled through Paki stan. came to console my mother and me. We were talk ing The dan ger ous thing about all that was that you had and I said, “Tell me, what is the sit u ation in the a sit u a tion where Af ghan i stan be came a vi tal re cruit - North-West Fron tier Prov ince on the Afghan border?” ing point for all these reli gious groups, and they ac tu- He said, “I’m go ing to tell you something which will ally devel oped a fantasy that they had won the war. shock you.” He said, “Dur ing and after the Afghan This was a very dan ger ous fan tasy because in re ality War, these madrassas, re li gious schools, have been the war was won by mas sive U.S. mil itary and finan - cre ated. There are hun dreds of them dot ted all over cial aid and the Pa ki stani mil itary. With out that, the the country. No one is pay ing any atten tion to them, Rus sians might not have been defeated on their own, and they are pro ducing abso lute fanat ics. These are though ulti mately they would have had to withdraw. the people we will have to worry about.” But be cause these groups stayed in the background, Es sen tially, they were taught to read and write. But these jihadis actu ally thought they had de feated the So- the ABC was quite amaz ing. I can’t re mem ber all of viet Union. That gave them this feeling, if we can de- them—but for the Urdu let ter K (kaf), they said, “K is feat the So viet Un ion, we can de feat the United States. for Kalashnikov.” The Urdu let ter J (jim) is for jihad. And if we can de feat the United States, we can in tro - And so on. It was a very care fully or ches trated re li- duce a caliph ate world wide and take global power. It gious ed uca tion. People told me in the late 1990s that sounds slightly nutty, and it is, but it is a be lief that if you’re a poor peas ant or a worker with out a job, or many young Mus lims at tracted to these groups hold, even with a job, and the mullahs come to you and say, say ing, “We’re going to win one day.” That’s where “We’ve set up this school, ed uca tion is free, clothes the fantasy began. we will sup ply your child, he will be given three meals a day, he will not starve. Give him to us.” Fam - In an inter view I did with Eqbal Ahmad in 1998, I ilies were happy to send their child to these reli gious asked him to explain his com ment: “Osama bin Laden board ing schools where the level of education is is a sign of things to come.” abysmally low. The only way you can close them down is by Of course, Eqbal was based right in the heart of it and spend ing mil lions on cre at ing a state ed u ca tion net- could see it all happen ing. On the num ber of oc casions work that of fers free ed uca tion and the possi bility of I talked to him in his last years, we were both very de - upward mo bility for large num bers of poor kids and spon dent of what was go ing on in that region. I re - kids from middle- and lower-mid dle-class fam ilies be- 46 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Interview cause ed u ca tion is be com ing pro hib i tive in this neoliberal world. You need a very strong state ed u cational sys tem with a core cur ric u lum for ev ery one, and with the teaching of Eng lish as com pulsory sec ond language. If that were to happen, the madrassas would empty very quickly. But there is no alter native for many peo ple. They feel that at least their kids will learn some thing. That’s how they think.

And some of that money for funding the schools is com ing from Saudi Ara bia?

With out doubt. The Sau dis have been sup plying money for this sort of activ ity now for nearly 60 years. Dur ing the Cold War they were en cour aged to do so. In those days they sup plied money for cul tural or ga ni za tions, i.e., re li gious ex trem ist or ga ni za tions, which pro moted a par tic u larly Wahhabi and Salafi, in other words, a very sec tar ian ideol ogy. And that car - has been known to rue the failings of its part ner in ries on to this day. pri vate…. Such forbear ance may be changing. In Islamabad, Vice Pres ident Dick Cheney informed The Wahhabi ideol ogy was named af ter Muham mad Musharraf that the United States ‘is un happy with Pa- Wahhab, the 18th century founder of this par ticu lar ki stan’s per for mance in fight ing the re sur gent sect of Is lam. It’s of ten described as mi sog ynist and Taliban.’” The ed ito rial concludes, “The U.S. may homo phobic and, as you said, sec tar ian. Are these well be destined for a long mar riage of conve nience fair de scrip tions of it? with Paki stan. But its spouse need not neces sar ily be named Musharraf.” They’re to tally fair de scrip tions of it. A more accu rate descrip tion would be that they’re Quran liter alists. So It’s very in ter est ing, language of that sort, because it every thing that is writ ten in the Quran is what they be- is to tally co lo nial in the way they for mu late all these lieve in. This was a docu ment pro duced in the 7th cen- phrases—that Pa kistan is es sen tially nothing but an tury, and it re flected all the prej udices of that century, Amer ican colony and its leaders are peo ple whose like the Old Testa ment was written 1,000 years be fore only task in life is to bow before the power of the that and re flected what tribal so ciety in that re gion was United States. What they don’t under stand is that 80 like. Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi reli gion, per cent of the popu la tion of that country is op posed to saw the Ot toman Em pire and felt that this was cor rupt Musharraf’s alli ance with the U.S. So the guy has to and not go ing in the right way, just like lit er alists and walk a tightrope. In fact, backing the United States to born-again Christian funda men tal is ts view the Bible the extent that he’s done has led to three at tempts on liter ally. This, of course, does make them ex tremely his life, two of which came very close to killing him. sec tar ian and rigid in their inter pre tation of the holy So these peo ple should be a bit more grate ful that this texts of Is lam. guy has re ally almost sac ri ficed him self to help them out rather than us ing language like this because he’s In Oc tober 1999 Gen eral Pervez Musharraf over- not killing enough of his own peo ple. That is basi cally throws the civil ian govern ment of Nawaz Sharif. The what they’re say ing, that we want you to kill more coup was welcomed by Washing ton. But now it seems people in your own coun try. He can’t do that. There that the servant is letting the mas ter down. In a March are certain constraints and limi ta tions. 1, 2007 edi to rial enti tled “Betting on Musharraf,” the Pa ki stan is not a coun try that will just accept end - Los Angele s Times writes, “Since 9/11 the United less kill ings of its peo ple. That’s the first point to States has been trapped in an increas ingly loveless make. Sec ondly, It’s im por tant to under stand that primar riage with Pa ki stani Pres i dent Pervez Musharraf. vately, though not publicly, impor tant leaders of the Like many a mis er able mate, the Bush admin is tra tion mil i tary and ci vil ian elite are ex tremely con cerned at Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 47 Interview the way the United States and the West are op er at ing the Paki stan gov ern ment had a se ri ous op tion. If they in Af ghani stan. They warned the United States, in a had not signed this deal, Musharraf’s po si tion would friendly way, that if you carry on like this, you risk have become quite shaky in that country. mak ing what is at the mo ment a very lim ited insur - gency into a full-blown war of national liber ation Since the creation of India and Paki stan into two inde - against foreign occupation. pendent states in 1947, the issue of Kash mir has been This is ex actly what’s happened. Even as we speak, central not only in divid ing the two countries, but also news is com ing through from Af ghani stan of Amer i- in being the cause for two wars and nu mer ous smaller can soldiers lash ing out against civil ians when they wars. In late 2006 Musharraf made a rather un usual couldn’t get the people who were fir ing on them. So pro posal to the Indian prime min is ter, Manmohan once the popu la tion begins to see the occu py ing army Singh, about Kash mir. as an enemy, then that’s it. In my opin ion, the NATO oc cu pa tion can not last in def i nitely. The only coun tries I think the Paki stani elite now under stand that this is a that can use their in flu ence to make sure that there is sit u a tion which can not be solved uni lat er ally, that some sta bility and or der are Pakistan and Iran. there has to be a deal be tween In dia and Pa ki stan. The For the United States to antag o nize both these deal currently being pro posed is a soft bor der be tween countries is shoot ing itself in the foot. They’ve said the two parts of Kash mir, one oc cupied by India and that their main aim is to cap ture Osama bin Laden the other occu pied by Paki stan, and the free move - dead or alive, which they have failed to do. They can’t ment of Kashmiris to any part of their coun try; on blame Paki stan for that. It’s just wrong and fool ish Musharraf’s part, the withdrawal of all jihadis and the and igno rant of them to do this, be cause they don’t sealing up of the camps on the bor der; and on the part know what the sit ua tion in that part of the world is. of In dia, one hopes—this is what is be ing ar gued—the I’m told se nior Amer ican leaders used to imag ine with drawal of the occu py ing Indian army and its re - that all the Pashtuns were Taliban and Taliban was a placement by a gar ri son. syn onym for Pashtun. It was n’t the case. But the way I hope this happens because this is sue has led to in- they are oper ating might make that the case very soon, numer able deaths and the lives of the Kashmiris have because that puppet re gime in Af ghani stan of Hamid be come ab so lutely des per ate and mis er a ble. There has Karzai is ex tremely iso lated. His brother is well been a mas sive with drawal from Kash mir by trad ers, known as one of the most cor rupt drug bar ons and doc tors, and teach ers. The Kashmiri in tel li gen tsia has arms smug glers in the country. There is to tal disaf fec - moved out. That’s how de press ing the situ a tion has tion and alienation on the part of the popu la tion for become. The ques tion is whether such a deal can be Karzai and the people who are backing him. This is pushed through. not a sit u ation that can last indefinitely. But in the long term what we need in the sub conti - Along the Paki stan-Afghan bor der is the North- nent is a South Asia un ion, like the Euro pean Union West Fron tier Prov ince and what are called tribal ar - or a ver sion of it, where each country pre serves its eas. Por tions of the latter, such as north Waziristan, sov er eignty, but at the same time there is a to tal re lax - are fre quently described in the U.S. me dia as im pene - ation of trade, bor ders, free movement, which can tra ble, hos tile terrain, no one can get in there, it’s run only help. Within that framework, the Kash mir prob- by fierce tribal lead ers. The Pa ki stan army did at tempt lem can be sorted out as well as the prob lem of the to go into that area and suffered hun dreds and hun - Tam ils in Sri Lanka and, no doubt sim ilar, smaller dreds of ca su alties, causing Musharraf to sign an prob lems in Ban gladesh and Nepal. I think this is the agree ment with the peo ple there to es sen tially leave way in which the po liti cal elites in that part of the them alone. world should move. The Pa ki stan army was be com ing in cred i bly un pop- Some times when I say this, friends of mine say, ular in the North-West Fron tier Prov ince and in the “Oh, but, you know, it will still be cap ital ism.” I say, tribal re gion because they were killing people and “Yes, I’m afraid it will be be cause there is no uto pian many in nocent people died. So they were threatened so lution there at the present mo ment and one has to by a full-scale tribal revolt in their own country. work with the ma terial there is.” Musharraf, in my opinion, had very little choice but to What is very de press ing is the cali ber of the po liti - do a deal with these people. One reason the Paki stani cal leaders of both coun tries, In dia and Paki stan. They mil itary gave for the deal, they said, “All in for ma tion are weak, they are vi sion less, they are cor rupt. They which we used to get from this region about the move- move about in a world dom inated by money and ment of var ious ex trem ist groups dried up. And we re - they’re quite happy to be part of that world. What that alized that what we had done was to drive these people sub conti nent needs is leaders with a so cial vision, who into the arms of the re ligious ex trem ists. So we had to are pop ular with their own peo ple and can move a do something to stop it.” I hon estly do not believe that pro cess of a Eu ro pean Union-type solution forward. 48 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Interview In this pro posal about Kash mir’s fate is any one asking The im por tant thing to under stand is that the suc- the Kashmiris what they want? cess of the Nepali Mao ists or semi-Mao ists or ex- Mao ists, or what ever you want to call them, is that it No one is. I think the Kashmiris, if asked, would has given a fur ther fillip and encour agement to Mao ist prob ably say, “We want peace. We have had enough and semi-Mao ist groups in In dia, Andhra, and other of war in our part of the world. We just want a period parts of that country where these groups still exist. to breathe again and then let’s talk about what we re- Very lit tle is written about them. They are not as pow - ally want.” My feel ing is that the Kashmiris would er ful as they are in Ne pal, just be cause In dia is a very prob ably also say, “We want in depend ence, but we large country. But this no tion that India, with a thriv- don’t want inde pend ence with an army and all that. ing mid dle class, should not blind to us the fact that We want to be free of both pow ers.” Most Kashmiris this is a mi nor ity of the country. The over whelm ing would prob a bly ac cept au ton omy guar an teed by all the ma jor ity of In di ans still live in ab ject pov erty. And pow ers in the re gion so that this becomes a peaceful unless these problems are solved, trouble lies ahead. haven in the subcon ti nent once again, which it used to be. It is one of the most beau tiful parts of the world. You men tioned the NATO pres ence in Afghan i stan. How is Af ghani stan re lated to NATO? Is NATO be- In 2006 there were re mark able devel op ments in Ne- com ing some sort of for eign legion? pal. A long-standing so-called Maoist insur rec tion toppled the monar chy of Gyandera. Do you see any- NATO, of course, is now the enforcer of the em pire thing en cour ag ing from that? when there is agree ment. When there is no agree - ment—to be fair, there was no agree ment by the It is quite an amazing sit u ation that at a time when vir - United Nations Se curity Coun cil to bomb and invade tually the entire conti nent of Asia was pas sive, Nepal Yu gosla via. NATO did it. And Iraq, nei ther the UN saw this in sur rec tion taking place, led nor NATO agreed, so the United States did it it- by a group which called itself Mao ist. self. But NATO is the col lec tive en forcer of the Initially this group was hard-core West, the United States, and the Euro pean Un- Mao ist, even sectar ian in a fool ish ion. They agreed to take Afghan i stan, and they way. I think their very first pro gram did it. said that they wanted to make Nepal a But, of course, it’s a to tal di sas ter, be cause prov ince in the People’s Repub lic of they don’t know what to do. And it’s cre ating a China. And the Chi nese said, “Please. cri sis now, in Eu rope as well. The Ital ian gov- The world has changed, we have ern ment resigned over this is sue a few weeks changed.” And they told the West, ago. It’s been put back in office. But that was the “This has noth ing to do with us. is sue: the Ital ian pres ence in Af ghan i stan. It’s These are peo ple living in the past.” I just a joke what is going on there. They have no think the re buff from the Chi nese ac tu ally ed u cated clear strate gic, polit i cal, social, economic goals in that these people a bit and they real ized they had to deal country. It’s an oc cupa tion just for the heck of it, to with the real world. keep a puppet regime in power and to keep the But the level of exploi ta tion in Nepal of the poor Taliban at bay. But the way they have gone about it had to be seen to be believed. This was a coun try in has actu ally strengthened the Taliban, who have now which a tiny feu dal elite with a mon arch at its head become an um brella for a very large sec tion of the governed the country. The pol iti cians caved in before Pashtun pop ula tion. It’s ironic that this was an or gani - it. Till last year or a year and a half ago, it was con - zation created to fight commu nism. Throughout the sid ered per fectly legal for these deeply reli gious peo - years when com mu nism ex isted, it was n’t used once. ple, the more re action ary el ements, to say it’s pos si ble The min ute com mu nism col lapses, this be comes a po - to lock a woman in a cowshed while she’s men stru at- lice force for glob aliza tion, for the in ter ests of the ing. This law was only changed a few years ago. So West, and is seen as such. That is how they are the so cial backward ness of the coun try was le gion. It’s building NATO. Z not sur pris ing that an insurrection took place there. How it moves for ward now is key. I think the mon - ar chy has to go, I think Nepal has to become a re pub- Da vid Barsamian is founder and direc tor of Alter na tive lic. I think there has to be a constit u ent assem bly that Radio in Boulder, Colo rado. He is a radio producer, jour- devel ops and agrees on a new con sti tution. And I nalist, au thor and lecturer . His inter views and arti cles appear regu larly in the Pro gres sive and Z Mag a zine. His re - think it needs to have a system where ed uca tion and cent books are Imp erial Ambi t ions with Noam Chomsky, health are given to the poor. If that doesn’t happen, Speak ing of Em pire & Re sis tance with Tariq Ali, and you will see rebellions again. Orig i nal Zinn with Howard Zinn. Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 49 Re source Wars

Chal leng ing Ca na dian Min ing Com pa nies

forced dis loca tion, assaults and even killings by se cu- Im pos ing min ing pro jects on rity forces, con tam ina tion of lands, sup port for re pres - com mu ni ties of re sis tance sive re gimes, and vi ola tion of work ers’ and in dige - nous rights are more of ten asso ciated with junior explorers, many of them incorporated in Canada or By Al Gedicks listed on a Canadian stock exchange.

a na dian min ing com pa nies, which con sti tute almost 60 per cent of the world’s ex plora tion and The Ugly Ca nadian Min ing Com pany Cmin ing com panies, have made Latin Amer ica se ries of “roundtable” dis cus sions took place in the world’s most popu lar re source fron tier. The To - ACan ada in volv ing the min ing in dus try, the Ca na- ronto stock ex change is the world’s larg est sin gle dian govern ment, and civil soci ety, about if and how source of fi nancing for the global min ing indus try. At to reg ulate the global mining indus try. One of the the fore front of Ca na dian min ing in vest ment in Latin most com pel ling ar gu ments for hold ing min ing com - Amer ica are the so-called “ju nior ex plor ers,” who are pa nies crim inally li able for their mis deeds is the case in volved in spec u la tive ex plo ra tion pro jects in many of the Van cou ver-based As cen dant Cop per Cor po ra - en vi ron men tally sen si tive re gions and/or lands in hab- tion (ACC). This ju nior min ing com pany is try ing to ited by in dig e nous com mu ni ties. The ju niors now ac- im pose a large-scale open pit copper mine known as count for more than half of this year’s $7 bil lion the Junin pro ject on commu nities in an 1,800- world wide ex plo ra tion to tal. But the ju niors rarely square-ki lo me ter ru ral area of north west ern Ec ua dor. have the exper tise or cap ital to under take mining Known as Intag and char acter ized by cloud forests and them selves. Their prop er ties are seen as less po lit i - fam ily farms, most of the 15,000 res idents have em - cally risky and thus attrac tive acqui si tions by the min - phati cally said no to mining. Intag, located 50 miles ing giants like BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Newmont north west of Quito in Cotacachi County in the prov - if and when they have obtained the necessary permits ince of Imbabura, is part of both the Choco and the to begin mining. Ec uador ian Andes biodiversity hotspots and is ex cep- In their drive to re alize the profits of spec ula tion, tion ally rich in wa ter re sources. how ever, ju nior com panies fre quently try to im pose Gra ham Saul, In ter na tional Pro gram Di rec tor for pro jects on com mu nities that have said no to mining, Friends of the Earth (FOE) Can ada, called As cen - cre ating se ri ous con flicts in the process. Not so long dant’s Junin pro ject “a poster child for the ‘ugly Cana - ago, the most se ri ous cases of hu man rights abuses dian’ min ing com pany. As cendant is fueling a local and en vi ron men tal deg ra da tion were as so ci ated with con flict and ac tively un der min ing dem o crat i cally the giants of the min ing indus try. How ever, as they elected of fi cials in Ec ua dor.” Even be fore As cen dant be came the tar gets of in ter na tional ad vo cacy cam- came to Intag, it had already been involved in con- paigns by envi ron men tal and human rights groups, flicts with indig e nous peo ples in the Napo province they sought to min imize their expo sure to po liti cally where it has con ces sions, ac cord ing to the co or di na tor risky in vest ments. Thus, in re cent years, alle ga tions of of the Ecolog i cal Mining Action Campaign in Quito.

50 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Re source Wars As cendant acquired the Junin copper pro ject in meet with anyone until the place was vacated by the 2004. The ru ral Intag com mu nities have been resist ing ag gres sors. the pro ject since 1995. The previ ous owner of the pro - Codegam tried on var i ous oc casions to cre ate a new ject, Bishimetals Ex plora tion of Japan, a sub sid iary of county so As cendant wouldn’t have to deal with the Mitsubishi Cor pora tion, had concluded in their envi - requir ements of Cotacachi County’s ecolog i cal ordi - ron men tal assess ment that min ing in Junin would re - nance. “To en force this or di nance,” said Beatrice sult in mas sive de for es ta tion, con tam i na tion of rivers Olivastri, CEO of FOE Can ada, “they’re in sist ing that with toxic metals, and the reset tlement of more than all min ing and pros pect ing ar range ments lo cated in 100 fam ilies from 4 com mu nities. When Bishimetals Intag be can celed and are pro ceed ing with le gal steps re fused to ac knowl edge wide spread com mu nity op po- to accom plish this. It is the height of arro gance to si tion, local res idents burned down the com pany’s think that Ascen dant, a Cana dian junior min ing com - min ing camp. Mitsubishi pulled out of the pro ject pany, believes it can ignore or by pass this sig nifi cant shortly there after. To pro tect the commu nity against envi ron men tal law. What part of ‘no’ does As cendant fu ture min ing threats, Carlos Zorrilla, the pres ident of not un der stand?” the Or ga ni za tion for the De fense and Con ser va tion of At the same time, land own ers in Intag re ported that Intag (DECOIN), helped raise funds for the pur chase As cendant had acquired title to land ille gally. Some of of 5,000 acres of land to set up an envi ron men tal pre- the land in question was within Junin’s com mu nity re - serve and pur sue sus tainable and commu nity-based serve. Some indi vid u als have never lived on the lands pro jects such as grow ing and pro cess ing or ganic cof- they claim to own, includ ing an As cendant em ployee fee for ex port. Many of these pro jects pro vide income who man aged to get someone at Inda, the national to village women and they have taken a prominent role land office, to issue a docu ment stat ing that he has in organizing against the proposed mine. been a “homesteader” (“posesionario” in Span ish) for In 2000 Cotacachi County, where the proposed 15 years. Oth ers who sold their pos ses sion rights to mine is lo cated, was recog nized as the first Eco log i cal DECOIN are re sell ing them to the com pany for many County in Ecua dor. Parts of the 504,000 acre times the orig i nal sale price. In still other cases the Cotacachi-Cayapas Eco log i cal Re serve are within new il le gal claim ants are claim ing land that be longs to Cotatcachi County. Cotacachi Caypas is ar gu ably the le gal own ers of ti tles. DECOIN has hired a team of most biodiverse protected area in the world, home to lawyers in Quito to take the govern ment of ficials in- over 3,000 plant spe cies and to a wide range of mam - volved in this scam to court. In the mean time, com - mals, am phibi ans, and bird spe cies se verely threat ened by ex tinc tion. In re sponse to wide spread lo cal op po si tion, As cen dant set up and funded the Corpo ra tion for the De- vel op ment of the Com mu ni ties of Gar cia Moreno (Codegam), a front or ga ni za tion led by Ron ald An- drade, an ex-congressperson previ - ously in ves ti gated by the Ec ua dor - ian congress for cor rup tion. Codegam offered comm uni ties all kinds of pub lic pro jects, such as roads, new schools, etc., on the condi tion they go along with mining. At other times Codegam re - sorted to more vi o lent tac tics. In April 2005 Codegam and a few dozen pro-min ing people brought by As cendant stormed the Cota- cachi Mu nic i pal build ing and held 19 com mu nity lead ers, in clud ing town ship of fi cials and rep re sen ta - tives of grass roots or ga ni za tions, in side the build ing, de mand ing to see the anti-min ing in dig e nous Mayor Auki Tituana. He re fused to Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 51 Re source Wars mu nity mem bers are block ing As cen dant’s at tempts to cord ing to Zorrilla. Among the com pany’s high-pro - gain entry to com mu nity lands. file lead ers is Cesar Villacis Rueda, a for mer army gen eral with close ties to Ec ua dor’s mil itary in telli - gence and a gradu ate of the infa mous School of the OECD Com plaint in Can ada Amer icas in Fort Benning, Geor gia. The general has said that he believes that people who work for hu man s cen dant’s of fi cial sup port in Intag is lim ited to rights, in dige nous rights, and workers’ rights are part Athe single parish of Gar cia Moreno. In a letter of a “triangle of subversion.” dated April 2005 Ronald Andrade of Codegam and the ACC’s CEO Gary Da vis de nied any first hand Gar cia Moreno par ish pres ident asked the head of the knowl edge of death threats, but admit ted to a reporter armed forces in Ec ua dor to mil i ta rize the Intag area for the Ottawa Citi zen that Codegam had been “per se - due to the alleged high level of inse curity. DECOIN’s cuting” its oppo nents. In June 2005 the com pany fired Carlos Zorrilla warns that if gov ern ment troops are Villacis Rueda and told employ ees that such actions ever sent to put down lo cal resis tance to the Junin pro- will not be toler ated in the future. Codegam em ploy- ject there will be a “bloodbath.” ees, led by its pres ident Ronald Andrade, later turned In May 2005, with the help of FOE Canada and on their fi nan cial spon sor and crit i cized As cen dant for MiningWatch Can ada, Zorrilla trav eled to Ot tawa to failing to live up to previ ous agree ments with file a com plaint with Can ada’s De part ment of In ter na - Codegam and the communities. tional Trade against ACC for alleged vi o lations of the In De cem ber 2005 rep re sen ta tives of 20 com mu ni - Or ga ni za tion for Eco nomic Co op er a tion and De vel op- ties of the Intag area met in the commu nity of ment’s (OECD) guidelines for multi na tional corpo r a- Chalguayacu Bajo and de cided to dis man tle and set tions. The com plaint stated that ACC had not dis - fire to the facil i ties of the min ing com pany. The action closed mate rial infor m ation to the was taken to pro test the pro posed pub lic and po ten tial share hold ers Junin mine, As cendant’s fund ing concern ing its Junin pro ject, in- ...he and other mine crit ics of Codegam, and their ag gres sive clud ing in for ma tion on: lo cal have been threatened with land buying in their com mu nities. gov ern ment ac tions chal leng ing guns and ma chetes af ter The fa cil i ties con sisted of a the legal ity of the Junin conces - building that was the company’s sions; a land own er ship dis pute they started fighting the base of op er ations. To the people that could lead to militarization of com pany’s ex plo ra tion of Intag it was a potent reminder the pro ject area; and in tense op - plans “We’ve all re ceived of the com pany’s unwanted po si tion from lo cal rep re sen ta- death threats”... presence in the community. tives and gov ern ment of fi cials to No one was hurt and com pany the po ten tial forced re lo ca tion of em ploy ees were al lowed to take four com mu nities. “I’m here be - out valuables before the building cause Ca na di ans need to un der stand the real risk of vi - was set on fire. While DECOIN did not par tici pate in olence that is emerging as a re sult of this com pany’s the action and does not condone the use of vio lence, activ ities,” said Zorrilla. “It is time for this coun try’s they explain the reac tion of the local people was author ities to stop pre tending they have no influ ence caused by the “constant abuses” which pre ceded the over this kind of cor porate behav ior. The Ca nadian pro test. “The events are the prod uct of 18 months of government must take action to curb the excesses of as saults, in tim i da tions, death threats, high way Canadian mining companies operating and exploring closings, vi o lent ag gres sion against rep re sen ta tives of overseas.” the county govern ment of Cotatachi, and many other FOE Can ada and MiningWatch Can ada or ga nized mea sures against op ponents of the Junin min ing pro - the “No Means No to As cendant in Ecua dor” cam - ject,” ac cord ing to a DECOIN press re lease. As cen - paign. They initi ated the campaign by releas ing a doc- dant’s Gary Da vis claimed that, “This at tack was per - umen tary film about the Junin conflict the day before petrated by a very small per centage of the regional As cen dant’s an nual meet ing in Van cou ver. (The film com mu nity stake holder pop u la tion and is not rep re sen - is The Curse of Cop per and can be viewed at tative of the majority view of the general www.ascendantalert.ca.) communities.” Zorrilla said that he and other mine crit ics have The com pany im me di ately ac cused cer tain lead ers been threat ened with guns and machetes af ter they of DECOIN as be ing re spon si ble for the fire, even started fight ing the com pany’s ex plo ra tion plans. though no DECOIN mem bers were pres ent at the “We’ve all received death threats,” Zorrilla told a re - event. Af ter the fire, Zorrilla had to tes tify be fore the porter for the Ottawa Citi zen . All of the threats were dis trict attor ney in response to a new accu sa tion by alleg edly carried out by mem bers of Codegam, ac - As cendant claiming that he was behind the burn ing. 52 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Re source Wars Pre viously, the com pany had put in an offi cial request ask ing the Min is try of For eign Re la tions to in ves ti gate Zorrilla. As cen dant has also claimed that the oppo si - tion to their project comes from “foreigners.” The com pany has used the burn ing of their min ing camp as a pre text for bring ing in a private se cu rity firm called GOESIP. Com pany guards are now a con - stant public pres ence in the commu nity, often at points far from As cen dant prop er ties. In ter national human rights ob serv ers who are part of the Intag Sol idar - ity Network (ISN), and who have been pres ent in the Intag region since Febru ary 2005, warned in Paramilitaries attack with pepper spray and tear gas—photo from Intag Solidarity Network a July 2006 re port that, “A very dan ger ous sit u a tion is aris ing—com mu nity con flict ployees from go ing into the commu nity-owned and may con verge with As cendant’s paramilitarization of man aged eco log i cal re serve where the com mu nity the re gion, re sult ing in a Colombianization of the runs a suc cess ful eco log i cal tour ism pro ject. The re - Intag re gion. Once this pro cess starts, a vi cious con- serve sits atop the cop per de posit claimed by the com - flict cycle may re sult, one that could be very hard to pany. On one occa sion the police sent their SWAT stop.... It is clear that As cendant seeks to rip com mu - team to the res cue of the de tained em ploy ees. How - ni ties apart in its strat egy to de feat the re sis tance.” ever, once the commu nities explained why they had Among the company’s activities denounced by the ISN taken this measure, the po lice expressed sup port for were the following: their ac tion. The em ploy ees were re leased un harmed and there were no ar rests. There were law suits, how - • The use of death threats against mining oppo nents ever, for kid napping against six com mu nity res idents. • Em ploying armed guards who don’t wear vis i ble Com pany em ploy ees, in their at tempt to ob tain a so - iden ti fi ca tion or uni forms when op er at ing in pub lic cial license to op er ate, now have to be accom pa nied spaces by fully-armed body guards when ever they go to com - • The mis-rep re sen ta tion of ac tiv i ties and lo cal re al i ties mu nities to talk about the bene fits of min ing and As - in Intag through mislead ing state ments and press cen dant. All of this conflict stimulates the conditions releases for paramilitarization and the cycle of violence so • Tres pass ing on com munity prop erty (in Junin, for ex - clearly illustrated in neighboring Colombia. am ple), de spite signs stat ing that min ers are not welcome

• The ma nip u la tion of re source scar city within com mu - March on Quito ni ties and of fer ing ser vices in exchange for dec la ra - s cen dant’s website claims it “places high im por - tions of sup port for the com pany Atance on work ing with lo cal or ga ni za tions.” It In ad di tion to em ploy ing pri vate se cu rity firms, also says that com mu nity con sul ta tion and en gage ment ACC has con tracted Daimi Ser vices, a pub lic re lations are “key ele ments” in the com pany’s ap proach in the com pany, to try to win the “hearts and minds” of lo cal re gion of its oper ations. In May 2006 the com mu nities res i dents and pro vide the so cial im pact com po nent of of Intag held the company to its word. The dem ocrat i- their en vi ron men tal im pact state ment (EIS), a pre req - cally elected par ish pres i dents that rep re sent the com - uisite for ob taining a min ing license. On sev eral occa - mu nities of Intag met in a pro vincial assem bly and sions com mu nity mem bers from Junin and other com - passed a dec la ra tion de mand ing that As cen dant leave mu ni ties ad ja cent to the pro ject area have de tained em - Ec uador. The com pany was given 15 days to leave. ployees of Daimi Ser vices and prevented them from This is the first time so many lo cal govern ments have enter ing com mu nities to carry out the stud ies neces - publicly called for the imme diate expul sion of a min - sary for the EIS. They have vowed to keep ACC em- ing com pany in Ecua dor. ACC re fused the demand

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 53 Re source Wars and after the 15 days, the communities reassembled was in nocent. When the 90-day period ex pired, the and called for a protest march on Quito. dis trict attor ney asked the judge to issue the war rants. In July 2006 ap prox imately 400 men, women, and All of a sud den, the author ities dis covered where children came from Intag to the capi tal city of Quito to Zorrilla lived and raided his home. march against the Junin min ing pro ject. They were The Ec u men i cal Hu man Rights Com mis sion joined by another 300 from Quito and filled one of the (CEDHU) of Ec ua dor im me di ately con demned the po - cap ital’s main streets with col or ful signs (“Get out, lice action “as part of the campaign of per se cution, in- As cendant”) and anti-mining chants. The crowd dem - tim ida tion, and aggres sion waged since 2004 by the onstrated in front of the Min is try of En ergy and Mines Ca na dian As cen dant Cop per Cor po ra tion min ing com - un til the min is ter agreed to meet with a del ega tion pany against the leaders and res idents op pos ing min ing com posed of the Cotacachi’s mayor, pres idents of the activ ity in the Intag region since 1995.” They criti - local parish gov ern ments of Intag, and com mu nity ac- cized Chap lin for “ac cus ing a leader with a spot less tiv ist Pobilio Perez. The min is ter prom ised that he back ground of ded i ca tion to serv ing the com mu ni ties would strictly abide by the law and, if there were any of the Intag area.” But CEDHU re served its stron gest ille gal i ties, the company’s concession would be con dem na tion “for our ju di cial and po lice in sti tu tions, revoked. involved in such crooked moves against Intag res i- Early on Oc tober 17, 2006 about 19 per sons iden ti- dents, acting as eager pawns for the As cendant Copper fy ing them selves as po lice, some in uniform, 2 with Cor po ra tion.... This law suit, pre sented by As cen dant black ski masks, all armed with handguns or au to- as ‘theft and in jury,’ is ac tu ally just an other at tack matic weapons ar rived at the home of DECOIN’s against the collec tive cause of defend ing the villages Carlos Zorrilla. He was not there. They ar rived in of Intag.” As cen dant de nies any re spon si bil ity for, or five un marked cars with out li cense plates; at least one involvement in, the warrant or the government’s of the cars is said to be long to As cendant. The police actions against Carlos Zorrilla. did not display name tags and when asked by a man Af ter 30 days on the run while an in ter national pub- work ing for Zorrilla, they refused to identify them - licity campaign was or ganized on behalf of Zorrilla, selves. The po lice failed to pro duce a search war rant, the judge revoked the arrest war rant. No sooner had but nonethe less pro ceeded to ransack Zorrilla’s home the war rant been re voked, than another one was is sued in front of his wife and son. Some time later, another for il legal pos ses sion of the gun the police planted in indi vid ual, who claimed to be the pros ecu tor from the his home. city of Cayambe, ap peared with war rants that he Zorrilla is not alone in being victim ized by law- briefly showed Zorrilla’s wife. At the end of the suits. As cendant tried to shut down the Intag commu - search, when the fam ily was out side the house and no nity news paper and filed ten crim inal lawsuits against wit nesses were pres ent, po lice claim to have dis cov - approx imately 40 people of Junin and nearby com mu - ered a hand gun and a paper bag alleg edly contain ing ni ties in an at tempt to si lence the op po si tion. In stead drugs. Nei ther the drugs nor the weapon had been in of si lencing the oppo si tion ACC has inspired more re - the house prior to the ar rival of the police, according sis tance. In Septem ber 2006 the Imbabura Pro vincial to members of the Zorrilla family. Gov ern ment where the Junin min ing pro ject is located The po lice appar ently acted on a com plaint by a asked the Minis try of En ergy and Mines to sus pend U.S. cit i zen, Leslie Brook Chap lin, filed July 23 re - ACC’s ex plo ra tion li cense. The rejec tion of the Junin gard ing an assault and rob bery that had sup pos edly min ing project by local governments was now taken place dur ing the peace ful rally against As cen - unanimous. dant’s Junin pro ject in Quito in July. Eyewit nesses have reported that there was no vi olence at any point dur ing the rally and that the com plainant had been dis- As cen dant In vades Junin trib uting leaflets on behalf of As cendant in the midst of the rally. A few days later, Chaplin went to the po- n the pre-dawn hours of De cem ber 1, a group of lice and accused Zorrilla of steal ing a $1,200 video Iabout 50 heavily armed per sons at tacked a road con- cam era and $500 in cash. The entire exchange be- trol post set up by the com mu nity of Junin to limit ac- tween Zorrilla and Chap lin was filmed by at least one cess to their com mu nity and for est re serve. When person. com mu nity mem bers gath ered at the control post to Based on these made-up charges, Ec uador’s le gal nonvio lently resist the entrance of the armed group, sys tem ini tiated a crim inal law suit against Zorrilla, but they were hit with tear gas as the armed group tried to never bothered to notify him of the charges. The court force its way through the post. When the com mu nity appointed a public defender who also failed to notify mem bers re fused to re treat the armed group fired hun - Zorrilla that he was charged and could pres ent evi - dreds of rounds from their hand and ma chine guns in- dence during the 90-day period as signed to prove he dis crim i nately, wound ing one of the com mu nity mem - 54 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Re source Wars bers. The in vaders were forced to retreat af ter their am mu ni tion ran out. The communities had won the first battle. The at tempted in va sion re - sumed at 4:00 AM the next day. Accord ing to the account pro vided by the Ecu - men i cal Hu man Rights Com - mis sion (CEDHU) in Quito: “...a group of per sons—some dressed as ci vilians, others from Otavalo and Intag, but as so ci ated with the As cen dant Cop per Cor po ra tion—used tear gas, au to matic weap ons Standoff in December between Junin community members and Ascendant-contracted and handguns in the area of paramilitaries—photo from Intag Solidarity Network Chalguayacu Alto (Gar cia Moreno Par ish: Cotacachi County, Imbabura prov ince) injur ing some mem bers and Mines or dered ACC’s gen eral man ager in Ecua - of the local popu la tion. As a con se quence of this condor to stop all ac tiv i ties at its Junin min ing pro ject: fron ta tion, the campesino Is rael Perez suf fered a bul let “As is pub licly known, in the last few days grave con- wound. The com mu nity captured 25 of these invad ers, fron tations have taken place in the commu nities within with the aim of turning them over to the police.” the area of influ ence of the Junin Mining pro ject, CEDHU reported the at tempted in va sions to Gen - which is un der the re spon si bility of the company you eral Luis Garzon (First Army Di vision, in Quito), rep re sent, putting at risk the se curity and integ rity of who con firmed that an Army heli cop ter had been the in hab it ants of the area.... There fore, as the en vi - hired for de liver ing pro visions, but as sured the hu man ron men tal author ity in charge in the mining sector, rights or ga ni za tion that no ac tive Army per son nel had this Subsecretary requires that the com pany you rep re - taken part in the oper ation. CEDHU re ports that the sent re frain from car ry ing out ac tiv ities un til this re - para mil i tary forces are the em ploy ees of an ag ri cul - quire ment [ap proval of En vi ron men tal Im pact Study] tural com pany, Empresa Faleircorp. ACC has con- is ful filled.” The subsecretary later re jected ACC’s tracted Empresa Falericorp to de velop the land in EIS be cause of in suf fi cient con sul ta tion with the af- Junin which As cendant claims to own. CEDHU asked fected commu nities. This ef fectively stops the pro ject. the Minis try of De fense to fully inves tigate the para- At the same time as ACC’s per mit was sus pended the mil itary groups used by ACC. “We hold the Minis ter Minis ter of En ergy and Mines sus pended all mining of En ergy and Mines and As cendant Copper Cor pora - activ i ties in the south of the country due to the unusual tion re spon si ble for these new mea sures which lev els of vi o lence sur round ing the Ecaucorrientes threaten the human rights of Intag’s com mu nities, and mining projects, owned by another Canadian mining for all the other conse quences re sult ing from these company, in the Condor Range. pre med itated armed incursions” said Sister Elsie After hearing testi mony that Cana dian mining com - Monge, executive director of CEDHU. panies are leaving a path of destruc tion in countries all On De cem ber 6, 4 peo ple were wounded, one se ri - over the world, the Ca na dian gov ern ment re jected the ously, when a pro-min ing crowd of about 100 in the rec om men da tions of the Stand ing Com mit tee on For - area of Gar cia Moreno stopped approx imately 400 eign Af fairs and In ter national Trade for tighter reg ula - people from all over Intag and other parts of tions on Ca na dian min ing com pa nies abroad. In stead, Cotacachi County, along with the gover nor of it contin ues to rely on vol untary codes of conduct that Imbabura and Cotacachi County, who were headed to don’t work. Z Junin to wit ness the trans fer of the 57 se curity guards who were cap tured by the com mu nities pre viously, to gov ern ment au thor i ties. The pro-min ing crowd threw Al Gedicks teaches soci ol ogy at the Univer sity of Wiscon - rocks and tires that had been set on fire, fired shots, sin-La Crosse and is the author of Re source Re bels: Na - tive Challenges to Mining and Oil Corpo ra tions (South and threw Molotov cocktails at the group. End Press, 2001). The author has relied heavily upon re- Fol low ing these in ci dents, the Under sec re tary for porting from the Intag Soli darity Net work (www.intag En vi ron men tal Pro tec tion of the Min is try of En ergy solidarity.org). Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 55 Culture

Book colo nial strug gle in Bolivia, which This was achieved by clos ing the Re view be gan when min ers dis cov ered a state-owned mines and lay ing off vein of almost pure silver in Cerro over three-quar ters of the work- Rico (lit er ally, “Rich Hill”) in the force. Other pri vat iza tion pro grams The Price of Fire: altiplano region of Potosí. Since and aus ter ity pol i cies were also im - then, the richness of the Bo livi ans posed with force. De bili tated by Re source Wars and So cial sub soil has never trans lated into neoliberal re struc tur ing, the left Movements in Bolivia wealth for the ma jor ity of its peo - was weak and di vided. In the ab- By Ben Dangl ple. Dangl reminds the reader of sence of an or ga nized op po si tion, AK Press, 2007, 240 pp. the “open veins” of Latin Amer ica neoliberal gov ern ments deep ened where the flow of re sources to the re forms over the next two decades, Review by Susan Spronk north that started in co lo nial times slowly strip ping the state of its ad - in ten si fied dur ing the neo- lib eral min is tra tive ca pac ity and pro duc- nyone who has had the priv i- period. As one woman once put it tive in fra struc ture. For eign-funded Alege to travel or live in Bolivia to me dur ing a soli dar ity tour on NGOs flooded in to fill the gap. has likely ob served that there are at the wa ter is sue in El Alto, “neolib - De spite the gov ern ment’s prom ises least two things that re mark able er alism is sim ply the most re cent in that neoliberal reforms would in - country does not lack: ter ri tory and a series of polit i cal projects spon - crease freedoms , raise the stan dard imag i na tion. Ben Dangl cap tures sored by elites that have plundered of living, and create economic both of these in his re cent book on Bolivia’s natu ral wealth. Three pros per ity, how ever, they left aver - the re source wars in Bolivia. As an hundred years ago, the Span ish sent age Bo livi ans worse off than be - in de pend ent jour nal ist, he has trav - us down the sil ver mines of Potosí. fore. elled and lived in Latin Amer ica for Now the mul ti na tional cor po ra tions In chapter two, Dangl describes the past six years in cluding long in El Alto and Cocha- bamba try to how the em bers of the mil itant min - stretches in Bolivia writing for var - steal our water and sell it back to ers’ un ions were scat tered all over i ous pro gres sive mag a zines. He is us.” the country as min ers and their the co or di nat ing ed i tor of “up- Such col lec tive mem o ries have fam ilies mi grated to places like the sidedownworld,” which is one of in formed con tem po rary calls for coca-grow ing ar eas of the Chapare the best alter native sources of in for - na tion al iza tion of nat u ral re sources, and shantytowns like El Alto in ma tion on the social strug gles tak- such as oil, gas, and wa ter. Dangl search of new ways to make a liv - ing place in Latin Amer ica. pro vides the histor ical roots of this ing. In the Chapare, for ex am ple, Pre sented as a people’s his tory, de mand. Af ter the pop u lar rev o lu - for mer min ers ap plied their or ga ni - Dangl describes the pan orama of tion of 1952, the reform ist rul ing zational skills to build sindicatos, so cial strug gles both past and pres - party, the Na tional Rev o lu tion ary which “or ganized work cy cles, and ent, start ing from the in dige nous Movement (MNR), paid mil lions of dis tri bu tion of land, and me di ated upris ings against Span ish rule and dollars in com pensa tion to the “tin dis putes,” as well as com mu nal ending with an account of the first bar ons” who were ousted by the work bri gades and par tic i pa tion in year in of fice of the Movement To - rev olu tion in or der to se cure the fa- po lit i cal pro tests. The growth and wards So cialism (MAS). The book vor of cap i tal ist im pe ri al ism, mat u ra tion of these or ga ni za tional is the story of strug gle around what notably Bolivia’s largest donor, the struc tures even tu ally cul mi nated in Dangl calls the price of fire: “ac - United States. the founda tion of the Six Feder a- cess to basic el ements of sur vival— Dangl describes the fierce pop u- tions of Coca Grow ers of the Trop - gas, wa ter, land, coca, em ploy- lar re sis tance as a wel come sign ics of Cochabamba, the po lit i cal ment, and other re sources.” He ar - that the left has re-or ga nized af ter pre cur sor of MAS. Dangl describes gues that the strug gles over the 15 years of neoliberalism. He how, in its early days, MAS ar ticu - “price of fire” in Bolivia must ul ti- writes that the first pri or ity of the lated an “anti-impe r ial ist,” “anti- mately be under stood in the context neoliberal govern ment that as sumed neoliberal” plat form that “ad vo- of a long history of in dige nous and of fice in 1985 was to smash the cated the de crim i nal iza tion of coca worker mobilization and revolt. mil i tant min ers’ un ions, which production and putting natural The first chap ter pro vides a brief leads the pop ular class strug gle for resources, such as gas and oil, history of anti-impe r ial ist and anti- the post-Sec ond World War period. under state control.”

56 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Culture

The Cochabamba wa ter war of One of the central prob lems con - proof al ter na tive to cor po rate con- 1999-2000, the sub ject of chapter front ing a “social movement party” trol. Though YPFB of fers hope ful three, is widely acknowl edged as like MAS is that its le git imacy is exam ples for state con trol of gas, the turn ing point that ruptured now de rived in part from its agree- the gov ern ment-run in dus try has years of neoliberal hege mony and ment to play the “rules of the the po ten tial to be just as ex ploit - helped Bo liv i ans make con nec tions game.” It came to of fice through ative, cor rupt, and in ef fi cient as among a myr iad of issues, in clud- par liamen tary channels so it is not cor po ra tions. Much would de pend ing the anti-im pe ri al ist strug gles likely to eschew them. In its bid for on the YPFB man agement.” In - against coca-erad i ca tion, peas ant of fice, however, the party has used deed, one of the first tasks con - strug gles for agrar ian reform, and a rad i cal rhet o ric, but taken more fronting MAS admin is tr ation is to univer sal concerns about the gov- mod er ate policy stances than the re build the state’s ad min is tra tive ern ment’s eco nomic pol i cies. The so cial movements on the streets. In capac ity and build a “differ ent kind wa ter is sue served as a cat alyst for its first year in of fice, the of state” af ter it has been gutted a broader set of pop ular griev ances Administration has also been very and corrupted from years of re lating to the toll ex acted by cautious to build consen sus so as neoliberal reforms. neoliberal reforms on Bolivia’s not to pro voke a vio lent reac tion The more troubling question for work ing classes, unit ing ru ral and fur ther de bate is whether the so cial urban residents around a common or ga ni za tions in Bolivia have the regional concern. power to im plement their vi sion. In Af ter the wa ter war, so cial chapter seven on El Alto, Dangl is move ments fo cused on two basic right fully im pressed by the “self- is sues—the de mand for rad i cal so - or gani za tion” of the masses in this cial change through a poli tics of “self-built” city, but he shares a “ba sic needs” and the na tion al iza - trou bling ten dency to ro man ti cize tion of natu ral re sources—which the “sponta ne ous” forms of so cial culmi nated in the gas wars of Oc to- or ga ni za tion that sup pos edly ex ist ber 2003 and May-June 2005. there, which leads to some am bigu - While Dangl is keen to demon - ity in his anal y sis. Af ter de vot ing strate the creativ ity and vi tality of var ious pages to de scrib ing the way the Bo liv ian so cial move ments that so cial movements have built up col- helped to elect MAS in De cem ber lec tive grass roots or ga ni za tions 2005, he also pro vides a cautious over the past de cade, such as the assess ment of the possi bil i ties and neighbor hood councils of El Alto, lim i ta tions of MAS’s elec toral he co mes to the rather puz zling strategy. con clu sion that the mo bi li za tions of At the heart of the di lemma are Oc tober 2003 and May-June 2005 stra tegic questions about the rela - from the right, as ex em plified by had no leaders and no struc ture. He tionship be tween the social move- the Constituent Assembly. relies heavily on the inter pre ta tio n ments and the po liti cal party and In deed, MAS is not re ally as of Uru guayan so ci ol o gist Raúl whether it is pos si ble to exe cute rad ical as it some times sounds. The Zibechi (a parti san of the “chang- rad i cal change through par lia men - re-na tional iza tion of the oil and gas ing the world with out taking state tary channels. Dangl clearly sides sec tor in au tumn 2006 ba si cally power” camp) who writes that “It with the “movimientistas,” such as amounted to a re ne go ti a tion of the could be argued that if unified, or - Os car Olivera of Cocha- bamba’s terms of pub lic-pri vate part ner ships ganized struc tures had ex isted, not Coordinadora, who fears that if so - be tween the state and mul tina tional as much so cial energy would have cial movements iden tify too closely cor po ra tions. Dangl de scribes in been unleashed. The key to this with Mo rales’s party, “It will be the last chapter enti tled “Boliv ian over whelm ing grass roots mo bi li za- more dif ficult for people to mo bi- Mo ment” that the plan has also tion is, with out a doubt, the basic lize…. If Evo fails, it will be a fail - been highly criti cized by the radi cal self-or ga ni za tion that fills ev ery ure for the so cial movements. The so cial movements who took to the pore of the so ciety and has made gains of six years of struggle will streets in 2003 and 2005 de mand ing su per fluous many forms of rep re - be lost.” Dangl, sim ilar to Olivera, expropriation without indemni- senta tion.” An alter na tive inter pre - is skep ti cal about par tic i pat ing in fication. tation sug gests that while the so cial the tra di tional po lit i cal sys tem In the follow ing chapter, Dangl move ments in Bolivia are well-or - while also expressing his sympathy writes, “Putt ing re sources into gov - ganized at the grassroots level, they for MAS’s victory. ern ment hands is far from a fool - have sys tem at i cally failed to Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 57 Culture present an alternative to state what makes MAS so differ ent from vio lence the famous bat tle in which power. In the absence of such an pre vi ous gov ern ments is Mo rales’s 300 Spar tans held off the enormous alternative, the more reformist in vi ta tion to the so cial move ments Per sian ar mies of Xerxes at the MAS has filled the political void. to keep him in check and to help Bat tle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE The af ter math of the wa ter war his ad min is tra tion de fend what (Be fore Cur rent Era)—was an at - raises sim ilar ques tions about so cial some have called the “third revo lu - tack on the Bush admin is tra tions’s move ment strat egy and or ga ni zation” from be ing highjacked by the Iraq war since it por trayed the tion. Dangl observes, “Cor porate right, which re mains an im mi nent overt fool ish ness of fight ing a los- con trol of wa ter hor ri bly af fected a possi bil ity . ing war. Oth ers ar gued that it was a ma jor ity of the pop u la tion, and yet, Dangl’s book re minds us that paean to Bush’s pol icy since the af ter Bechtel was kicked out, the one of the most pos itive outcomes Spar tan army is shown to be the sub se quent pub lic con trol has also of the MAS’s elec toral vic tory is apo the o sis of brav ery, honor, and left much to be desired.” In part that it has raised peo ples’ ex pec ta- male ness. Both are actu ally be side this is due to the fact that the tions, both in Bolivia and abroad, the point—300 is a shal low man i - much-cel e brated ad hoc co ali tion foment ing the belief that creat ing fes tation of pop culture that is es - known as the Coordinadora, an un - another world is not only pos si ble, sen tially un in ter ested in cur rent or ga nized struc ture par ex cel lence, but nec es sary. Any one in ter ested in events. I sus pect its stoner sen si bil- could not sus tain the high level of the inspir ing social movement ity can’t really be bothered, which mo bi li za tion needed to fol low struggles in Latin America should is not to say that it is n’t po liti cal. through with its vi sion of re form. read this book. Z At heart, 300’s ad u la tion and The coali tion eventu ally split into pro mo tion of stat ist au thor ity and dif fer ent fac tions rep re sent ing com - en dorse ment of he ge monic vi o lence pet ing in ter ests be tween, for ex am - Susan Spronk is a post-doc toral fellow at makes it, rather au then ti cally, a Cor nell Uni ver sity and has spent the last ple, or ganized work ers and poor few years doing re search and living in fine ex am ple of fas cist filmmaking. wa ter con sum ers. So cial move ment Bolivia. Leni Riefenstahl would have loved lead ers were faced with the task of this film, if only be cause Zack man ag ing a com plex bu reau cracy, Snyder rather con sciously im itates but with the social movements all of the cin ematic tricks used in weak and divided at the local level, her Nazi pro paganda epics, Tri- in ter na tional fund ing agen cies and Reel umph of the Will and Olympi a. elites were able to set the con di - Pol i tick Thirdly, many reviews in the main - tions for re form, rather than the stream press have been say ing that Coordinadora, whose lead ers en vi- 300 looks like a gay porn movie sioned a truly dem ocratic man age- 300: A Gay (have they ever seen a gay porn ment. If or gani za tion is the weapon movie?) or that it has a gay sensi - of the weak, a lack of or ga ni zation Porn Movie? bil ity. Yet, some gay crit ics and and lead er ship can be de bil i tat ing. mag azines have been call ing the In short, some struc tures of rep re - By Mi chael Bronski film ho mo phobic. Is it gay? Gay sen ta tion and dem o cratic ac count - hat ing? Queer am bi ent? Metro- abil ity within any so cial or ga ni za- ack Snyder’s id iotic sword and sex ual? The Greeks may have had a tion are nec es sary to coun ter any Zsandal trifle 300 is no table on word for it, but no one can de cide form of power and it is not clear three ac counts. The first are the what it is. that ad hoc coali tions such as the rel a tively cool com puter gen er ated There re ally isn’t much to say Coordinadora of fer an alternative to im ages (CGI) that make the movie about 300’s fascist poli tics— they mass parties or other experiments look like a cross be tween the Frank are ob vious and not very vis cer ally that have been tried, such as Miller graphic novel, on which it is ex cit ing—but the con text of soviets, councils or democratic based, and a video game. Unfor tu- homoeroticism, and homo-hys teria, trade unions. nately, the CGI is fun for about 20 that per vades them is mildly in ter - Dangl is cor rect to observe that min utes before it begins to look like est ing. Sure, the film lav ishes at - much de pends on the ability of au- a TV com mer cial for, well, video tention on lots of men who con - ton o mous so cial move ments to games. The sec ond vaguely inter - stantly flex and preen. But if it is a push MAS in the right di rec tion. In est ing as pect of 300 is that it gay male sen si bil ity, it is 50 years the words of po lit i cal an a lyst, Hel- sparked a small, but spir ited debate old. Im ages of well-built men ena Agirakis, “The [54 per cent by about its polit i cal inten tions. preen ing are so ubiq uitous now— which Mo rales won] is n’t a blank Some com men ta tors ar gued that they are the sta ple of re al ity TV check; it’s a loan.” Fortu nately, the film—that de tails with graphic shows and the cov ers of US and 58 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Culture

Peo ple—that they hardly qualify as have called it Pulp Dic tion. What- —were not only gaining in popu lar - “gay male sen si bil ity.” They may ever tal ent these per form ers have, ity, but also influ enc ing main stream be the end-result of the tri umph of all of them—Gerard But ler as the culture. In deed, many of the per - a gay male sensi bility in popu lar brave King Leonidas, Lena Headey form ers in the peplum films had cul ture, but that is quite dif fer ent. as his wife Queen Gorgo, Dominic their or i gins in the gay mus cle On the other hand, many com - West as the trai tor ous Theron (who magazines. men tators, on gay blogs as well as looks distractingly like the caveman None of those films openly em - the Internet Movie Da ta base have in the Geiko insur ance commer - braced their incepient homoeroti - ac cused 300 of be ing ho mo pho bic. cial), David Wenham as Dilios cism, which is un der stand able It’s easy to see, and even agree —are lost in a bad script and over - given the time frame. But in the 45 with, the gist of their ar guments, whelmed by flashy im ages. years since those films were made since Snyder has pitched his film the world has be come far more on the visual im ages of the strong, open. It would have been refresh - manly, sexy Spar tans fighting what But what we get here ing if 300 had at least made a nod seems to be an army of orien tal- are straight, frat boy to the fact that Spar tan sol diers en - ized freakish look ing Per sians. It buddies who make fun gaged in com pli cated (de pend ing on can’t be an ac ci dent that Xerxes the source of in for ma tion) same-sex (Rodrigo Santoro) is por trayed as a of the Athenians for be- ac tiv ity and re la tion ships. But what mu tant Ru Paul-esque queen with ing “boy lovers.” we get here are straight, frat boy full makeup, piercings, and jew- buddies who make fun of the Athe - elry. In deed, the manly demeanor nians for be ing “boy lovers.” In of the Spar tan 300 exists, to a large some sense 300 wants to be a beef - degree, by the “girly” appear ance 300 is ob vi ously cog ni zant of its cake film that en tices a teen boy au - of their Per sian foes. 300 artic u - debt to the film world of the late dience with vio lent, sexy male bod- lates not so much an overtly ho mo - 1950s and early 1960s, but it is also ies and then tells them that it’s okay phobic atti tude, as a ram pant desire per fectly happy to negate the essen - to be homophobic. to sep arate Spar tan men from their tial meaning and poli tics of those Snyder and Kurt Johnstad don’t Persian coun terparts. films. It is ob vious that the draw of have enough imagi na tion to make This might all be in ter est ing in a these mov ies is the bare-chested 300 inter est ing, or take any chances postmodern sort of way, if 300 had guys in scanty peplums (the short with it. They don’t even have any creative impulse push ing it for - skirt these film he ros wore, giving enough nerve to define their posi - ward. But, alas, as Gore Vidal said it’s name to the genre) flexing their tion on state power and it’s po liti cal about the New York pre miere of mus cles and fur row ing their brows im plica tions. Is this a par ody of the the San Fran cisco drag troupe The as they think of their next line. Ad min is tra tion’s Iraq pol icy or a Cockettes, “not hav ing any tal ent It is no sur prise that many of the re jection of it? Iron ically, the pep- is n’t enough.” past peplum-wear ing per form ers— lum films of the 1960s al most al - The screen play of 300 is dis mal. such as Steve Reeves, Gordon ways had an anti-au thor i tar ian im - As penned by Snyder and Kurt Scott, Ed Fury, Kirk Mor ris, Reg pulse. They were, in some sense, Johnstad it is a ram shackle copy of Park, Mickey Hargitay, Mark For - the be gin ning of a coun ter cul ture. any junky 1960s sword and san dal est, Alan Steel, Dan Vadis, Brad But at this time in his tory irony mini-epic—Her cu les (1958), The Har ris, Reg Park, Pe ter Lupus, does n’t play well. It would be a Gi ant of Mar a thon (1959), Revolt Rock Stevens, and Michael Lane— stretch to say that 300 was play ing of the Slaves (1960), Queen of the were of ten pro fes sional body build- with the ideas of consciously be ing, Am a zons (1960), The Co los sus of ers. In the 1950s and the early si mul taneously, a pro and anti-Iraq Rhodes (1961), The Re bel Glad i a - 1960s body build ing for men—what film. Or at be ing both homo phobic tors (1963), etc.—without much of was called phys i cal cul ture, now and homo erotic. It is, how ever, an the inten tional wit. (Although to be called gym cul ture—was es sen tially exam ple of the dumbing down of fair, some of these films were made a large- scale cul tural pro ject, ar tic - po lit i cal dis course in pop u lar cul- by great direc tors: Jacques Tourner ulated and unarticulated, for re in- ture: a film that wants to say things di rected The Gi ant of Mara thon and venting the male body after WWII. about both and has nothing to say Sergio Le one di rected The Co los sus In ter est ingly, as the male body about either of them. . Z of Rhodes be fore his ca reer-mak ing was be ing re defined as both strong, spa ghetti west erns.) sexy, and vulner able, the gay rights The di a logue in 300 is wooden move ment was tak ing root and gay Michael Bronski is the author of Pulp and feels as com puter gen er ated as male cul ture—es pe cially mus cle Friction: Un cov ering the Golden Age of the im agery. They might as well mag a zines like Phy sique Pic to rial Gay Male Pulps (St. Mar tin’s Press). Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 59 ZAPS

Contact: info.interactivist.net; course ma te ri als about com - UBA.selfmanagement@ mu nity or ga niz ing are avail- Events gmail.com. able at the website. Contact: Democ racy Unlim ited, BOOK TOUR - John Pilger PO Box 610, Eu reka CA will be tour ing to discuss his 95502; 707-269-0984; info new book, Free dom Next @DUHC.org; www.duhc.org. Time (Nation Books). The first event is Thursday, June 7 at 7 PM at the New School, Tishman Audi to - Hall, 180 Berkeley St., rium; $5 admis sion; free for Boston. stu dents with ID. Pilger will Contact: 413-529-0063; www be in LA on Monday, June .rfc.org. 11 at 7 PM at the Japa nese Amer i can Cul tural and IM MI GRA TION - July 27-29, FORUM - From June 27 Com mu nity Cen ter. He will the Na tional Grass roots Im - through July 1, 2007, the migrant Strategy Conf erence also speak on June 13 at 7 United States So cial Fo rum PM in San Fran cisco at the will take place at the Univer - (USSF) will bring togethe r sity of Richmond School of Yerba Buena Cen ter for the AN TI WAR RALLY - A rally gen er a tions of move ment or- Law, Rich mond, VA, orga - Arts and in Chicago on June and march to the Bush es tate ga niz ers and ac tiv ists to de - nized by the Na tional Immi - 16. in Kennebunkport, Maine is fine an al ter na tive po lit i cal grant Sol i dar ity Net work. Con tact: In New York: www. vision for the United States. scheduled for August 25 fea- newschool.edu/publicprograms; Contact: ActionLA/The Peace tur ing speak ers, mu sic, and in LA: www.jaccc.org; in San Contact: USSF, 9 Gam mon Av - Cen ter, 8124 West 3rd Street, more. Camp Casey will be Fran cisco: www.ybca.org. In e nue, At lanta, GA 30315; Suite 104, Los An geles, CA set up for 10 days, with free Chicago: info@soc ialism confer - 404-586-0460; ussf2007 90048 202-595-8990; info@ @gmail.com; www.ussf camp ing for ac tiv ists (by ence.org. Also www.na tion ImmigrantSolidarity.org; res er va tion). books.org. 2007.org. www.2007conference.net. Con tact: Jamilla El-Shafei, event orga nizer, 603-969-8426; [email protected]; www.kportprotest.org.

BOOKFAIR - Vic to ria’s 2nd An nual An ar chist Bookfair is scheduled for Fri day through Sunday, Septem ber PEACE - Sev eral thou sand 7-9 at the Vic to ria Coolaid women are ex pected to So ci ety, 749 Pan dora St., Vic to ria, BC. PRO TESTS - Actions demand - gather in Dallas July 10-15 ing an end to Israe li oc cupa - for the 3rd Inter nationa l VVAW - Viet nam Vet er ans Contact: www.myspace.com/ tion of Pal es tine are planned Women’s Peace Con fer ence Against the War cel ebrate victoriaanarchistbookfair. for June 9 in London’s Tra - at the Ad ams Mark Ho tel their 40th An ni ver sary on fal gar Square and June and Con fer ence Cen ter. The August 5 with a weekend 10-11 in Washing ton, DC. theme is “Em pow er ing event at Roose velt Univer - Peace mak ers.” sity in Chi cago featur ing Cam paigns Con tact: UK-www.enoughoc cu - speak ers, mu sic, and more. pa tion.org; U.S.-Cam paign to Contact: 214-421-6707; www. End the Is raeli Oc cu pa tion, PO womenspeaceconference.org. Contact: Vietnam Vete rans Box 21539, Wash ing ton, DC Against the War, Na tional Of - 20009; 202-332-0994; www. fice, PO Box 408594, Chi cago, endtheoccupation.org. IL 60640; 773-276-4189; vvaw @vvaw.org; www.vvaw.org. PER FOR MANCE - “Cel e brate the Chil dren of Re sis tance” ECON OMY - The Work ers’ RE TREAT - A Commu nity is a one-night scripted dra- Econo my: Self-Manag ement Or ga niz ing for Deep De- matic program that honors and the Dis tri bu tion of moc racy re treat will be held Ethel and Julius Rosenberg’s Wealth con fer ence will take August 10-12 in Humboldt re sis tance, star ring Angela place July 19-21 at the Uni- County, Cal i for nia. This Davis, Eve Ensler, David versit y of Buenos Aires in workshop will help partic i- Strathairn, & Howard Zinn, Bue nos Ai res, Ar gen tina. pants ef fec tively or ga nize to AC A DEMIC FREE DOM - A plus ad di tional read ings and Free and open to the public , re claim cit i zen sov er eignty group of ac adem ics and oth- mu si cal per for mances: June the event will fea ture round- from cor po rate con trol. Info ers are com ing to the de - 19, 7:30 PM, John Hancock ta ble dis cus sion and de bate. on other workshops and fense of embat tle d author

60 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 ZAPS

Ward Churchill, whose rad i- tal issues from a pro gres - cal schol arship and teach ing sive/rad i cal per spec tive. po si tion con tinue to be Contact: www.atthespine.org. threat ened. View state ments and update s online . SONG QUEST - The inau gu ral Con tact: criticalxthinking@ya- Sol i dar ity Idol song quest hoo.com; www.defendcritical has been launched, seeking think ing.org. to add another working class iting schools, youth projec ts, mu si cal stan dard to such and histori c and cultura l clas sics as the Internationale sites. and Sol i dar ity For ever. Con tact: Ol ive Coop er a tive Con tact: NewUnionism.Net, Ltd., Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Suite 7, Peel House, 30 The Beswick Street, Manches ter M4 Downs, Altrincham, Cheshire, 7HR, Eng land; info@olivecoop. WA142PX, UK; idol - com; www.olivecoop.com. niz ing strat e gies from [email protected]; www.newunionism.net/solidarity around the country with COM MU NITY AC CESS - In PE TI TION - An online peti - idol.htm. more than two dozen ar ticles Mas sa chu setts, Verizon is tion is available to condemn from local , regional , and na- at tempt ing to elim i nate the killing of Doa, a young tional sources re lated to the towns’ ca ble ne go ti at ing Kurdish girl who was stoned lack of quality jobs for rights and threat ening com - to death in Bashiqa in front low-in come com mu ni ties of munity access . A huge turn - of hundreds of people and color. author i tie s who did not pre- out of cit i zen op po si tion Con tact: Ur ban Hab i tat, 436 thwarted their first try, but vent this crime. 14th Street, Ste. 1205, Oak - more pressure and moni tor - Con tact: www.stophonourkill - land, CA 94612; 510-839-9510; ing are needed to oppose ings.com. [email protected]; House Bill 3385 and Senate www.urbanhabitat.org. 1975. PRISON - Re tired left ies and Contact: 339-222-2442; info folks with a few hours to @keepitlocalma.com; www. spare are wanted for vol un - keepitlocalma.com. teer shifts of three hours two Books times a week doing office work for Prison Radio. Please come and help. DVD DOC U MEN TARY - The Con tact: Prison Ra dio, PO Box Em pire in Af rica, now avail- 411074, San Fran cisco, CA 94141; 415-648-4505; info@ able on DVD, is a hard-hit- prisonradio.org; www.prison ting doc u men tary un rav el ing radio.org. the com plex dy nam ics behind the civil war in Si erra Le one, a war that lasted GE TREES - The STOP GE eleven years and re sulted in Trees Cam paign and mem - Mu sic & Video tens of thousands of deaths ber groups from around the and the displac ement of U.S are unit ing to stop the more than two million peo - plans of GE tree gi ant ple (one-third of the popu la - ArborGen to re lease ge net i- tion). cally en gi neered eu ca lyp tus Con tact: Cin ema Li bre Stu dio, trees in the south east. 8328 De Soto Ave., Canoga AGRIBIZ - The Most Impor - Con tact: Alyx Perry, South ern Park, CA 91304; 818-349- 8822; info@cin emalibrestudio. tant Fish in the Sea: Menha - For ests Net work, PO Box 941, den and America by H. Asheville, NC 28802; 828-277- com; www.cinemalibrestu - 9008; howdy@southernsus tai n- dio.com. Bruce Frank lin de scribes ableforests.org; www.south ern how this small fish is be ing sustainableforests.org. dec i mated by one cor po ration, Omega Protei n, which U.S. PAL ES TINE - Olive Co- ROCK RE SIS TANCE - Sonic Pub li ca tions turns billions of menha den op er a tive of fers stu dents’ Re sis tance is the third al bum into in dus trial com mod i ties tours to Pal estine , the next from the Se attle-based RACE/CLASS - The new is sue such as chicken feed, lino - being June 13-22. Partic i- power-trio At the Spine. The of Race, Poverty & the En vi- leum, pes ticides, and cat pants meet Pal es tin ian stu - new CD ad dresses so cial, ron ment provides concre te food. dents and or ga ni za tions, vis- eco nomic, and en vi ron men- ex am ples of suc cess ful or ga -

Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 61 ZAPS

Contact: Is land Press, 1718 Men and the Web of Global Con nect i cut Av e nue, N.W., Cor rup tion, edite d by Steve Suite 300, Wash ing ton, DC Hiatt. 20009; 202-232-7933; www.islandpress.org. Contact: Berrett-Koehler Pub - lish ers, 235 Mont gom ery Street, Ste. 650, San Fran cisco, CA 94104; 800-929-2929; www.bkconnection.com.

CITE! Women of Color Against Vi o lence, is an WATER - Part rad ical his tory exposé of the “non-profit in - of water , part guide to sus- dustri al complex” and its tain able tech nol o gies, Dam qui etly dev as tat ing role in Na tion, edite d by Cleo man ag ing dis sent. Woelfle-Erskine, July Oskar Cole, and Laura Allen, DE MOC RACY - Vanderbilt Contact: South End Press, 7 brings togethe r 100s of na - Uni ver sity Pro fes sor Bruce Brookline St. #1, Cam bridge, tional and in ter na tional pro- Barry’s new book Speech - MA 02139; 800-533-8478; less: The Erosion of Free www.southendpress.org. Ex pres sion shows how an EN VI RON MENT - Toxic Burn erosion of freedom of ex- by Thomas Shevory detai ls RACE - On Race and Democ - pres sion available to Amer i- an ac tiv ist cam paign against racy col lects 14 of Her bert can workers on the job (and a toxic waste in cin er a tor in Aptheker’s essays, edited by af ter work) un der mines our the rust belt town of East Eric Foner and Manning so ci ety. Liv er pool, Ohio, of fer ing Marable. Aptheker’s work, new en vi ron men tal mod els though largely suppress ed, Con tact: Berrett-Koehler Pub - for com mu nity and en vi ron - forged an early path in Afri - lishers, 235 Montgom ery Street, men tal ac tion. can Amer i can stud ies de - Ste. 650, San Fran cisco, CA cades be fore the Civil Rights jects, or ga ni za tions, and 94104; 800-929-2929; www. Contact: Uni ver sity of Min ne- move ment. strat e gies in an anal y sis of bkconnection.com. sota Press, Suite 290, 111 wa ter’s his tory with the ac - Third Av e nue South, Min ne ap o - Contact: Uni ver sity of Il li nois tive fight for its fu ture. lis, MN 55401; 612-627-1970; Press, 1325 South Oak St., www.upress.umn.edu. Cham paign, IL 61820; Contact: Soft Skull Press, 55 800-621-2736; www.press. Wash ing ton St., Brook lyn, NY NONPROFITS - The Rev o lu - uillinois.edu. 11201; 718-643-1599; www. tion Will Not Be Funded: Be - softskull.com. yond the Non-Profit Indus - trial Com plex, edite d by IN-

ECO NOM ICS - Fol low ing on the heels of Con fes sions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins comes A Game As Old As Empire: The Se- cret World of Economic Hit

62 Z MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 Activism nt Rece Strate ses Z gy Relea Z Forei VIDEO gn Policy

A Conversation of Sorts A Talk FROM SDS TO LIFE AFTER CAPITALISM KICKING AWAY THE LADDER: A conversation with Michael Albert CORPORATE ECONOMICS VS. DEMOCRACY & Noam Chomsky A talk by Noam Chomsky Inspired by Albert’s book Remembering Tomorrow, Chomsky focuses on the problems of democracy Chomsky and Albert got together in early May at development in the U.S. He discusses the so-called MIT--with Amy Goodman as moderator--to grand economy, which he describes as a failure for reminisce about the past as it provides lessons for the majority of the population. Chomsky also future activism. (Chomsky was on the faculty at details the history of the U.S. trajectory, after MIT when Albert was a student organizer there in WWII, towards becoming the most powerful state 1967-68.) Three current student activists then in history using military and economic policies asked questions about the future and commented that were anything but democratic; what he describes as a policy of “kicking away the ladder.” on lessons from past SDS and anti-war organ- He closes by encouraging solidarity work across izing. 90 minutes. the hemispheres to build a global justice movement. Talk 60 mins.; Q&A 25 mins. From the Left Forum RADICAL VISIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY Z Sessions on Vision A panel discussion by members of the & Strategy 1-5 International Project for Participatory Society on radical theory and progressive, democratic SESSION 1. WORKER OCCUPIED FACTORIES IN ARGENTINA alternatives to authoritarian systems in organizing Presentation by Marie Trigona politics, the economy, the family, and work BUILDING A PARECONISH MOVEMENT relations. Speakers include: Chris Spannos, Presentation by Michael Albert Cynthia Peters, Peter Bohmer, Andrej Grubacic, Ria Julien, & Stephen R. Shalom. 90 mins. Session 1 covers participatory economics (parecon) in theory and practice. In Part 1, “Worker Occupied Factories” in Argentina, Marie Trigona FORGING A RADICAL POLITICAL FUTURE talks about new forms of working together in the Seven talks from the 2007 Left Forum cover the many worker occupied factories there. In Part 2, environment, health care, third party politics, and “Building a Pareconish Movement,” Michael the state of the left. The speakers are: Cornel West Albert outlines principles and values of parecon and the economic institutions that could foster on “What Does it Mean to Be A Leftist Today?”; those values; and he makes the case for prioritizing Heather Rogers on “The Hidden Life of vision and strategy in activist efforts for social Garbage”; Bashir Abu-Manneh on “Palestine and change. 110 mins. the U.S. 2006-07”; Frances Fox Piven on “Health

Care and the Left”; Howie Hawkins on “U.S. SESSION 2. RACE, CULTURE, AND LEFTISTS Politics and the Green Party”; Chris Gavreau on Presentation by Justin Podur “U.S. Politics and Revolutionary Socialism”; and AUTONOMOUS POLITICS Manning Marable on “Further Black Disen- Presentation by Ezequiel Adamovsky franchisement in the Bush Years.” 120 mins. In Part 1 Podur explores issues of race and multi- culturalism. He questions assumptions about Order by mail or “people of color” as a homogenous group and at www.zmag.org argues for recognition of multiple, overlapping identities. In Part 2 Adamovsky strategizes about a possible umbrella structure for combining activist democracy, and autonomous communities. Finally, groups in a non-hierarchical form. 110 mins. he argues for a type of direct democracy with a system of nested councils linked to each other. In SESSION 3. KINSHIP VISION Part 2, Jeremy Brecher argues for an activism that Presentation by Cynthia Peters includes subverting sovereign states through the RAWA AND FEMINIST STRATEGY use of constitutional insurgency. He describes Presentation by Sonali Kolhatkar some examples of successful actions (war crimes In Part 1 Peters explores what values family arrange- tribunals, civil rights movements) to change ments have and don’t have. She looks specifically at repressive international law. 80 mins. sexist divisions of labor/parenting and at sexuality. She argues for caretaking as a possible category for in- SESSION 5. UNIONISM AND clusion in people’s “balanced life job complex.” In Part WORKERS’ LIBERATION 2 Kolhatkar offers a detailed description of the origins Presentation by Tom Wetzel of RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women POWER & REVOLUTION: DON’T MOURN, of Afhanistan). She draw lessons from their organiz- BALKANIZE ing strategies, structure, and process. 80 mins. Presentation by Andrej Grubacic SESSION 4. A POLITICAL SYSTEM FOR In Part 1 Tom Wetzel describes how the working A GOOD SOCIETY class can liberate itself from the class system--from Presentation by Stephen R. Shalom capitalist ownership, managers, and Mafia-style CONSTITUTIONAL INSURGENCY union hierarchies. He argues for a new labor Presentation by Jeremy Brecher movement and self-managed worker organiza- In Part 1 of Session 4 Stephen Shalom critiques tions. Andrej Grubacic argues for unthinking our some of the various left options for decision- inherited, narrow-minded left paradigms, focusing making institutions in a good society. He covers on the lessons of the anarchist project for Leninism, representative democracy, referendum liberatory social change. 100 mins.

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