Radical Criminology issue two H fall 2013 ISSN: 1929-7904 I S B N : 978-0615877570 a publication of the Critical Criminology Working Group at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (12666 - 72 Avenue, Surrey, BC V3W 2M8) www.radicalcriminology.org punctum books ✶ brooklyn, ny http://www.punctumbooks.com H Radical Criminology H Issue 2 H September 2013 H ISSN 1929-7904 General Editor: Jeff Shantz Production Editor: PJ Lilley Advisory Board: Olga Aksyutina, Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies / Institute for African Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; Davina Bhandar (Trent U.); Jeff Ferrell (Texas Christian U.); Hollis Johnson, (Kwantlen Polytechnic U.); Michael J. Lynch (U. of South Florida); Mike CK Ma, (Kwantlen Polytechnic U.); Lisa Monchalin, (Kwantlen Polytechnic U.); Heidi Rimke, (U.Winnipeg); Jeffrey Ian Ross, (U.Baltimore) cover art: Erin Marie Konsmo layout & design: PJ Lilley Unless otherwise stated, contributions express the opinions of their writers and are not (necessarily) those of the Editors or Advisory Board. Please visit our website for more information. H Contact Us H email: [email protected] website: http://journal.radicalcriminology.org Mailing Kwantlen Polytechnic University, address: ATTN: Jeff Shantz, Dept. of Criminology 12666 72 Avenue | Surrey, BC, Canada V3W 2M8 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, enabling non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction of the published article in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Attribution to include the author or artist’s name, date of first publication, and our journal’s name, Radical Criminology. H n this period of state-sponsored austerity and suppression of Iresistance there is a great need for criminologists to speak out and act against state violence, state-corporate crime, and the growth of surveillance regimes and the prison-industrial complex. Criminologists also have a role to play in advancing alternatives to current regimes of regulation and punishment. In light of current social struggles against neoliberal capitalism, and as an effort to contribute positively to those struggles, the Critical Criminology Working Group at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver has initiated this open access journal, Radical Criminology. We now welcome contributions. (See back page or our website for more details.) Future issues might include: Prison Abolition • Anti-colonialism • Resistance to Borders & Securitization • Surveillance and the Digital Panopticon • Anti-capitalism & Corporate Crime • the Military-Industrial Complex This is not simply a project of critique, but is geared toward a praxis of struggle, insurgence and practical resistance. 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Printed paper copies with full color cover are available at cost through punctum books ✶ brooklyn, ny http://www.punctumbooks.com “SPONTANEOUS ACTS OF SCHOLARLY COMBUSTION” punctum books is an “open-access and print-on- demand independent publisher dedicated to radically creative modes of intellectual inquiry and writing across a whimsical para-humanities assemblage.” Inside editorial / 7 ) In Defense of Radicalism Jeff Shantz features / 15 ) The Earth Liberation Front: A Social Movement Analysis Michael Loadenthal 47 ) Fighting Inequality in Hong Kong: Lessons Learned from Occupy Hong Kong Angie Ng arts / 69 ) ‘Art Through a Birch Bark Heart’: An Illustrated Interview with Erin Marie Konsmo by pj lilley 97 ) + Profiles: Families of Sisters in Spirit & Native Youth Sexual Health Network 103 ) Globalization and the Politics of Culture: An Interview with Imre Szeman by Marc James Léger insurgencies / 125 ) Everyone is a Terrorist Now: Marginalizing Protest in the U.S. Ivan Greenberg 139 ) The Color of Corporate Corrections: The Overrepresentation of People of Color in the For-Profit Corrections Industry Christopher Petrella & Josh Begley book reviews / 149 ) The Criminal’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Surviving Arrest in Canada (C.W. Michael) Reviewed by—Tom C. Allen 152 ) The Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book (Gord Hill) Reviewed by—Mike Larsen 156 ) State Power and Democracy: Before and During the Presidency of George W. Bush (Andrew Kolin) Reviewed by—G.G. Preparata 162 ) Defying the Tomb. (Kevin “Rashid” Johnson) Reviewed by—Jeff Shantz Editorial: In Defense of Radicalism In the present period few terms or ideas have been as slandered, distorted, diminished, or degraded as radical or radicalism. This is perhaps not too surprising given that this is a period of ex- panding struggles against state and capital, oppression and ex- ploitation, in numerous global contexts. In such contexts, the is- sue of radicalism, of effective means to overcome power (or sti- fle resistance) become pressing. The stakes are high, possibili- ties for real alternatives being posed and opposed. In such con- texts activists and academics must not only adequately under- stand radicalism, but defend (and advance) radical approaches to social change and social justice. The first known use of the term radical is in the 14th century, 1350–1400; Middle English coming from Late Latin rādīcālis, having roots. It is also defined as being very different from the usual or traditional. The term radical simply means of or going to the roots or origin. Thoroughgoing. Straightforwardly, it means getting to the root of a problem. Radicalism is a perspective, an orientation in the world. It is not, as is often mistakenly claimed, a strategy. To be radical is to dig beneath the surface of taken for granted assumptions, too easy explanations, unsatisfactory answers, and panaceas that pose as solutions to problems. Radicalism challenges and oppos- es status quo definitions—it refuses the self-serving justifications offered up by authority and power. Rather than a set of ideas or actions, this is a crucial approach to life. As the existential Marxist analyst Erich Fromm has sug- gested in an earlier context of struggle: To begin with this approach can be characterized by the motto: de omnibus dubitandum; everything must be doubted, particularly the ideological concepts which are virtually shared by everybody and 7 8 RADICAL CRIMINOLOGY (ISSN 1929-7904) have consequently assumed the role of indubitable common-sensi- cal axioms…Radical doubt is a process; a process of liberation from idolatrous thinking; a widening of awareness, of imaginative, creative vision of our possibilities and options. The radical ap- proach does not occur in a vacuum. It does not start from nothing, but it starts from the roots. (1971, vii) As is true for much of views and practices in class divided capi- talist society, there are two distinct perspectives on radicalism, two meanings of radicalism. From the first perspective of radi- calism as a getting to the roots—going to the source of problems —the nature of capital must be understood, addressed, confront- ed—overcome. Ending capital’s violence can only be achieved by ending the processes essential to its existence: exploitation, expropriation, dispossession, profit, extraction, possession of the commons, of nature. And how can this be accomplished? Capital and states know—they understand. Thus, the identification of those acts outlined above—identified, precisely, as radical. Radicalism, from below, is sociological (and should be crimi- nological, though criminology has sometimes lagged). It ex- presses that orientation to the world espoused by C Wright Mills as the sociological imagination (1959). Radicalism in its first sense connects history, economy, politics, geography, culture, seeking to move beyond the easy answers rigidified unreflexive- ly as “common sense” (which is often neither common nor sensi- ble). It digs beneath convention and the status quo. For Fromm: To “doubt” in this sense does not imply a psychological state of in- ability to arrive at decisions or convictions, as is the case in obses- sional doubt, but the readiness and capacity for critical questioning of all assumptions and institutions which have become idols under the name of common sense, logic, and what is supposed to be “nat- ural.” (1971, viii) More than that, radicalism does not seek nor take comfort in the constructed moralism peddled by power—by state and capital. A radical orientation does not accept the false moralism that de- fines the acceptability of actions by their acceptability to pow- erholders or elites (law and order, rights of states, property rights, and so on). As Fromm has stated it: This radical questioning is possible only if one does not take the concepts of one’s own society or even of an entire historical period —like Western culture since the Renaissance—for granted, and fur- thermore if one enlarges the scope of one’s awareness and pene- EDITORIAL: IN DEFENSE OF RADICALISM 9 trates into the unconscious aspects of one’s thinking. Radical doubt is an act of uncovering and discovering; it is the dawning of the awareness that the Emperor is naked, and that his splendid garments are nothing but the product of one’s phantasy. (1971, viii) Breaking the law (of states, property) can be straightforwardly just and reasonable. As upholding the law can be (is, by defini- tion) an act of acceptance of systems of injustice and violence. The hungry do not need to justify their efforts to feed them- selves. The dispossessed do not need to explain their attempts to house themselves.