The State or Revolution

The workers, soldiers and peasants, from 1905 to 1917, progressively initiated uprisings and revolutionary episodes and then, riding an exceptionally high wave of activity and protest in October 1917, the Bolsheviks convinced workers, soldiers and peasants that for their own good, it was necessary to create a strong state apparatus. They created a state institution which they protected and strengthened by employing special bodies of (predominantly) armed men. As the effective head of that state, Lenin in 1919 declared the following;

“This new state organisation is being born in travail …” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 29. page 375.)

Later he added;

“The dictatorship of the proletariat does not fear any resort to compulsion and to the most severe, decisive and ruthless forms of coercion by the state.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 31. page 497.)

Later still:

“We took over the old machinery of the state, and that was our misfortune. Very often this machinery operates against us…here at the top, where we exercise political power, the machine functions somehow…Down below, however, there are hundreds of thousands of old officials whom we got from the Tsar and from bourgeois society, and who partly deliberately and partly unwittingly, work against us.” (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 33 page 428/429.)

This institution of ‘ruthless coercion’ (Lenin’s own words) was progressively directed against workers and peasants and anyone else who disagreed with the Bolsheviks sectarian project. However, well before the workers, peasants and soldiers could be convinced of the need for such a separate institution over and above them, the ranks of the Bolsheviks had first to be convinced – for it was by no means the opinion of all anti-capitalists at the time.

As the dominant political figure within the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, it was down to Lenin to provide sufficient evidence for his belief in the necessity of a strong post-capitalist state. This task was crucially important in order to persuade the party and its supporters that those who opposed a post-capitalist state were entirely wrong. The evidence was carefully gathered, collated and then later presented to the party members in the above-noted pamphlet ‘State and Revolution’. Lenin, in writing this document, selected and assembled a comprehensive series of extracts from Marx and Engels, to support and back up his firm belief in the ‘instrumentality’ of a state after a workers’ revolution.

Lenin was able to interpret and mediate the thoughts and writings of these two revolutionary-humanists in order to confirm conclusions he already held. It is my contention that these were conclusions that – had they been alive – both Marx and Engels, would have disassociated themselves from. I have also no doubt they would have also been vigorously scathing about the reality of the post-capitalist social and economic forms promoted and defended by all Bolsheviks, and subsequent communists. For Marx it was; ‘State or Revolution; whilst for Lenin it really was ‘State and Revolution’ The material the latter used and how he used it in that pamphlet to justify his position continues below.

The material Lenin used.

In his polemic on the state against the Anarchists and others Lenin, correctly claims that Marx’s position on the state had been ‘distorted’. Indeed it has! And not just by Anarchists and opportunists – but also by his so-called followers.. Nor is it always done deliberately. Marx has often been simply misunderstood or insufficiently studied – even by those calling themselves ‘Marxists’. Despite this observation of distortion, Lenin uses Engels, more than Marx and indeed it is with Engels that he starts this pamphlet. Engels in the work Lenin first chose, observed that in the development of human societies from their earliest forms several distinguishing features emerge. One in particular is the establishment of a separate public power and relates to the question of a state;

“The second distinguishing feature is the establishment of a public power, which no longer directly coincides with the population organising itself as an armed force.” (Engels. ‘Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’ 1891)

Using this particular work by Engels Lenin correctly sketched out the emergence of a ‘public power’ (a state) as an organ of class oppression finally perfected under the capitalist mode of production. Engels, in line with Marx, argued that in a classless post-capitalist form of production, the state will be put into a ‘museum of antiquities’. But Lenin suggested something different. He proposed that the state will “turn the means of production into state property”.

This indeed, was an earlier position of Marx but that was before the Paris Commune. Later, in a preface to the ‘Communist Manifesto’ Marx of course famously declared his earlier view of the state needed substantial modification after studying the events of 1871. It needed abolishing! Lenin does in fact mention this! However, in the next offering, using Anti-Duhring – a later work by Engels – there is a clear suggestion by Lenin of an institution called the state which workers will use before it eventually withers away. Lenin goes on to add;

“..Engels speaks here of the proletarian revolution ‘abolishing’ the bourgeois state, while the words about the state withering away refer to the remnants of the proletarian state after the socialist revolution.” (Lenin. State and Revolution’ Chapter 1. part 4.)

Here we witness Lenin building upon an outdated formulation by Engels and introducing into the revolutionary process a two-stage and a two state progression. 1. Abolish the bourgeois state and 2. create a proletarian state. Lenin in Chapter 2, then turns to Marx and quotes from ‘The Poverty of Philosophy’ where Marx argues that in the post-capital ‘associations’ of workers there will be no more ‘political power groups’. In this view the overthrow of the bourgeoisie will lay the foundation for the sway of the working classes which Marx at that moment in time (1847- 48 ) termed the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Lenin uses this early formulation by Marx to conclude that Marx proposed the existence of a state which was; ..”so constituted that it begins to wither away immediately”. Lenin in what amounts to sophistry then added;

“The proletariat needs state power, a centralised organisation of force, an organisation of violence, both to crush the resistance of the exploiters and to lead the enormous mass of the population – the peasants, the petty-bourgeoisie and semi-proletarians – in the work of organising a socialist economy. By educating the workers party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organising the new system.” (Lenin. State and Revolution Chapter 2, section 1.)

This is the classic Leninist and Bolshevik position on the state. It is a view in which a state controlled by a ‘vanguard’ carries through the post-capitalist revolutionary measures, pushing or dragging everyone else along with it. The wage-workers remain wage workers, while the state re-forges society. This extract also includes the perceived leading role of the ‘party’ in any post-capitalist reconstruction. Later Lenin recognises that Marx, in 1852, had not specifically raised the question of what was to take the place of the destroyed bourgeois state machine.

He then noted that Marx and Engels concluded that their earlier formulations had become outdated and workers could no longer use the bourgeois state for their own purposes but need to ‘smash it’. So far so good. The bourgeois state is to be destroyed, (that is the political aspect of the revolution) but the crucial question remains. What is to be put in its place to fully carry out the economic and social revolution in the mode of production? Another form of state power?

To be or not to be! (that was the question.)

This issue has long disturbed and divided many anti-capitalists. The later Engels along with Lenin, Trotsky and the majority of Bolsheviks proposed a strong state which would – for an undetermined period of time – seize control of the major economic assets, guide the economy and lead or coerce the population into the correct paths as they saw them. Eventually this state, they suggested, would wither away. Those who opposed such a position (anarchists, Marx and other anti-capitalists) argued that taking over or setting up another state – no matter what its stated intentions – would have a momentum of its own becoming a separate force standing above society. This debate, often heated, obviously predates Lenin and the Bolsheviks and was seriously taken up by Marx, who called for the state’s abolition.

Yet Lenin – after the October revolution – only considered it a misfortune that; “We took over the old machinery of the state….”. In other words according to Lenin, under the Bolsheviks, the state with its bourgeois and aristocratic elements, had not even been smashed! Indeed, it had been taken over, along with many of the existing officials and bureaucrats – ”who work against us”. In other words, part 1 of Lenin’s two-state theoretical solution had not even been implemented! As we shall see, this reveals a serious discrepancy between Lenin and Marx. In section 2 of this sustained polemic, Lenin reproduces a few extracts from Marx’s ‘The Civil War in France’ and concludes from them that;

“The Commune therefore, appears to have replaced and smashed the state only by fuller democracy: abolition of the standing army; all officials to be elected and subject to recall. But as a matter of fact this ‘only’ signifies a gigantic replacement of certain institutions by other institutions of a fundamentally different type. (Lenin. ibid.)

The verbal hinge ‘but’ in this further sentence is an interesting sophist-style insertion by Lenin of Engels’ and his own position. It adds to the first sentence the need for a special post-capitalist ‘institution’ and confirms his earlier (asserted) two-stage process. After the dismantling of the bourgeois state, the creation of another organ of coercion and suppression. A state which as Lenin later stated would not fear to enact “ruthless forms of coercion”.

It would be an institution that would become an employer of workers and would have the power to reduce “the remuneration of all servants of the state to the level of workman’s wages”. Clearly, remuneration, as with other important economic and social issues, would not be decided by the workers, but by the state officials. Here we have a the unequivocal proposal for a replacement ‘state’ institution which enacts ‘measures’, employs workers at average wages and has officials who are supposed to be subject to recall. Lenin continues;

These measures concern the reorganisation of the state, the purely political reorganisation of society.” (Lenin. State and Revolution. Chapter Section 2.)

So again according to Lenin, the state is to be reorganised not smashed and involve the ‘whole population without exception’ in discharging its functions. Supervising these functions will be wage-working officials on average wages. This is an extremely confused and confusing proposal and is undoubtedly idealistic if not oxymoronic. A state, by definition is a separate public power from that of the armed people. Also it is not what transpired at any stage in the Soviet Union under the Bolsheviks. Lenin at that point in State and Revolution (ie the call for ‘the purely political reorganisation of society.’) was also ignoring Marx on the limitations of politics and the need to cast off politics in all its forms. Marx for example notes that;

“Where political parties exist, each party sees the root of every evil in the fact that instead of itself an opposing party stands at the helm of the state. Even radical and revolutionary politicians seek the root of evil , not in the essential nature of the state, but in a definite state form, which they wish to replace by a different state form……The political mind is a political mind precisely because it thinks within the framework of politics. The keener and more lively it is, the more incapable it is of understanding social ills. (Marx in Marx/Engels. Collected Works. Volume 3. Page 197/199. Emphasis added RR)

This and other cogent observations of politics by Marx are well worth considering for those who think that politics are ‘the’ solution to the problems facing the working and oppressed classes. There can be no doubt that Lenin had a keen and lively political mind. He certainly demonstrates its use in this polemic with those who disagreed with him on this and other issues. Using selected excerpts from Marx and mainly from Engels, Lenin, in State and Revolution, presents an apparently convincing theoretical argument for what was to transpire in the Soviet Union, after the October Revolution. Convincing, only if one fails to understand Marx’s general revolutionary-humanist position on the self-activity of the working class. Before considering Marx further a few additional extracts from Lenin are worth noting to indicate his consistency on this question.

“It follows that under communism there remains for a time, not only bourgeois law, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie.” (Lenin. S & R. Chapter 5.)

And:

“The point is whether the old state machine (bound by thousands of threads to the bourgeois and permeated through and through with routine and inertia) shall remain, or be destroyed and replaced by a new one. Revolution consists not in the new class commanding, governing with the aid of the old state machine, but in this class smashing this machine and commanding, governing with the aid of a new machine.” (Lenin. S & R. Chapter 6.)

It is clear from these somewhat self-contradicting extracts, that Lenin adopted as a firm principle the creation of a post-capitalist machine, institution or state which would be the engine driving the revolution forward. At this stage in his pamphlet he also argued that this state would be administered by everyone and that the whole working people would be armed. Yet it is well documented that what transpired in reality was a ‘special’ state and a corresponding bureaucracy along with a special armed force (the Red Army) and a secret police (the Cheka) along with numerous planning and implementing Orgburea’s. We also know the whole project went disastrously wrong from very early on, despite or perhaps because of (among other things) the states “most severe, decisive and ruthless forms of coercion“ against reluctant workers and peasants. So much coercion in fact that the Soviet Union has long ceased to be an example that working people would seriously want to follow.

Sophistry – the use of plausible but unsound arguments.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks got it so wrong for so long because Lenin became a ‘revered’ ‘leader’ and the ‘State and Revolution’ became something of a sacred gospel that few bothered or dared to criticise – a gospel to be learned, not questioned. This was a reverence and deference which lasted well into the 20th century. The theoretical and practical mistake made by Lenin and his supporters was also compounded and gained inertia because the distinction between the formulation ’dictatorship of the proletariat’ made by Marx at one point and the ‘content’ of what he personally understood this to represent did not receive sufficient consideration.

The same problem exists between distinguishing the form and content of words such as ‘association’ and self-governance also used by Marx. Without further definition, ‘Governance’ can be separated from self – and it was under Bolshevism! The ‘soviets’ were indeed at first a form of workers and soldiers ‘association‘, but were then transformed into an organs of the state. The term ‘dictatorship’ by the whole proletariat can and was disconnected from the proletariat and became a dictatorship over the proletariat. These facts illustrate that the ‘content’ of terms is far more important than the particular descriptive labels used. For example, consider the following content of Marx‘s position on the term ‘emancipation of the working class‘.

“The emancipation of the working classes must be achieved by the working classes themselves. We cannot therefore co-operate with people who openly state the that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic persons from the upper and lower middle classes.” (Marx/Engels Selected Correspondence. Progress. Page 307

Yet it is clear from reading Lenin’s output, that as a middle-class trained lawyer, he did not think working people in general could be trusted with their own emancipation. See for example Lenin Complete Works, Volume 26 page 414 for a vivid example; (other examples to follow.) And one final extract from Lenin’s ‘State and Revolution:

“We are not utopians, we do not “dream” of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination…..No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and foremen and accountants. The subordination, however, must be to the armed vanguard of all the exploited and working, people ie to the proletariat.” (Lenin. S & R. Chapter 3, section 3.)

This polemical assertion by Lenin amounts to a typical sectarian type mocking of an alternative position. It is a type of fictional distortion of a potential opponents character – this time as ‘utopians’ and ‘dreamers’ – which is meant to undermine – in ‘loyal’ followers – an alternative theoretical and practical position. On top of that, Lenin also denigrates workers and peasants as ‘needing’ subordination and control. Marx considered workers and peasants even in the 19th century as capable of self-activity and self-organisation, whilst Lenin in the 20th thought they were not and should slavishly expect and accept subordination, coercion and control.

So in publishing ‘State and Revolution’, Lenin had set up his less critical followers to accept a stereotyped inadequacy of the working class and a stereotyped utopianism of opponents of a state. He then lulled them further into compliance with his view by adding that subordination should be to another abstract formulation – the proletariat. However, we know that by the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin meant the armed Communist Party State and its most loyal supporters. We know this because he unmistakably stated it when openly accused of operating a one party dictatorship.

“Yes it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we will not shift form that position.” (Lenin. Collected Works Volume 29 page 535)

And he just as plainly stated the reasons;

“…the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class……it can only be exercised by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels.” (Lenin. Collected Works. Volume 32, page 21.)

Vanguards and cogwheels – driving the revolution forward – or even backward as it turned out! That just about sums up Leninism and Bolshevism. By selecting certain statements and interpreting any literary ambiguity in Marx and mainly Engels in a particular way – in other words by sophistry – he was able in ‘State and Revolution’ to lay the ground for what he and his supporters were able to put into practice once they had assumed positions of power. Yet if we go back over the thoughts of Marx on this question it is possible to arrive at a different interpretation both of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the question of a special elite institution of coercion after the bourgeois state and its power has been physically closed down.
The differences between Marx and Lenin.

Marx was not a politician. Lenin was. Marx was scathing of all politics. Lenin lived for politics. That is one difference. However, this was not necessarily the deciding factor between them on this question. In ‘State and Revolution’ Lenin claimed that like him, Marx was a centralist – but he was definitely not. To correct this ‘centrist’ distortion a special footnote was made to the ‘Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League’ explaining that a reference to centralism was a mistake owing to ‘liberal falsifiers of history’. In fact in re-examining the organisational question both Marx and Engels considered ‘provisional and local self-government’ had become ‘the most powerful lever of the revolution.“ Lenin fails to recognise or even mention this in State and Revolution. Yet this theoretical and practical difference over ‘politics’ and ‘centralism’ is not the only one relevant to this crucial issue. The discrepancy on the question of the state goes much deeper.

Marx made his own direct study of actual working people in numerous revolutionary and non-revolutionary situations to arrive at his own independent conclusions on their ability, the nature of the commune and the dangers of substituting a state for the newly acquired collective power. Lenin on the other hand studied Marx and Engels to settle the question of the state. For this reason, Lenin’s conclusions on the state in ‘State and Revolution’ were dependent upon a particular reading of Marx and Engels – not on any directly observed reality. This ‘reading’ being perhaps also influenced by his desire to polemicize against Kautsky and the anarchists. In contrast, Marx, after extensive involvement alongside workers in the 1st International and elsewhere, made the following comment on the Paris Commune;

“From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognise that the working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery used against itself, and on the other safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment.” (Marx. Class Struggles in France. Peking edition. Page 15. Emphasis added. RR.)

With regard to the first point we have already seen earlier that Lenin admitted that not all the previous repressive machinery was done away with. “We took over the old machinery of the state…” With regard to the second, safeguarding themselves against its own deputies and officials was something actually denied to the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union. Eg. “Yes it is a dictatorship of one party!”

Furthermore, safeguarding themselves against their elected and unelected party officials was also something denied to the rank and file Bolsheviks, let alone the ordinary workers and peasants. (On this question see Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 32 page 50). Party ‘appointments’ were the preferred method of choice under the leadership of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin (See Lenin’s ‘Better fewer but Better‘).

Yet such safeguarding against elected delegates is the most fundamental content of any descriptive term given to the post-capitalist structures which emerge after an anti-capitalist revolution. Marx on the post-capitalist reconstruction of society;

“Does this mean that after the fall of the old society there will be a new class domination culminating in a new political power? No. The condition for the emancipation of the working class is the abolition of all classes…The working class in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society.” (Marx ’The Poverty of Philosophy’ Collected Works Vol. 6 page 211-212.)

It is clear that the Bolshevik position, justified by Lenin in State and Revolution and implemented in the Soviet Union with the approval of the Bolshevik Central Committee members, was substantially different than that proposed by Marx or the form chosen by the workers and others in the Paris Commune. For Lenin it was to be the case that after the fall of the old society there would remain a political power in charge – the ‘vanguard’ – the Bolsheviks! Yet the Bolsheviks were a group – self-claiming – to be the vanguard of the working class and entitled to exercise a state ‘dictatorship‘ against the workers! For Marx it was the workers commune which would be the institutional and organisational form for continuing the revolution and all which was to follow. For example in debate with the Anarchist Bukharin Marx stated;

“..as soon as the functions have ceased to be political ones, there exists 1) no governmental function, 2) the distribution of the general functions has become a business matter, that gives no one domination, 3) election has nothing of its present political character.” (Marx. Conspectus of Bukharin’s Statism and Anarchy‘.)

So no governmental function, no domination, no politics in elections. Marx further argued that the ‘greatest measure of the commune was its own existence’. He noted that the solution was simple – as all great things. It provided ‘the rational medium’, ‘the political form of social emancipation’, it allowed the return of the powers usurped by the state to the ‘living forces’ of the ‘popular masses’. That was the content of Marx’s term ‘governmental machinery’!

Not actually a machine, of course – that was just a figure of speech – but a non-elitist, low cost living organism capable of collective action, reflection, self-criticism, correction and economic development – a commune! Indeed, continuing the argument with the anarchists and replying to their accusation directed against Marx and others of wishing to implement a form of government over the workers, he replied among other similar points , ‘Non, mon cher‘ ;

“..the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune….”.(Marx. Conspectus of Bukharin’s Statism and Anarchy‘.)
Permanent Revolution.

So the concept of a post-capitalist ‘state-institution’ doing things for (and against workers) is missing in Marx – who knew very well the problems connected with the separation of such public-power. For Marx the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ was to be exercised by the proletariat organised in its self-governing local communities in which all citizens capable of bearing arms would do so. These local self-governing communities would be federated in the manner they saw fit in order to co-ordinate economic, social and defensive activities. They would only ‘dictate’ to those defeated pro-capitalist forces which wished to become parasitic on the new form or disrupt the peaceful progress (an ongoing revolutionary economic transformation) to an alternative post-capitalist mode of production. Certainly not dictate to and coerce their own class or other oppressed classes.

Also missing in Marx is the concept of a special, self-appointed ‘vanguard’ needed to lead the working and oppressed classes to their emancipation – to free them from above – and also tell them what to think! Their own self-critical experience in a revolutionary transformation of the mode of production was to be a class-wide experience not that of a ‘party vanguard’. A further important content of the term ‘self-activity’ of ‘working people’ used by Marx lies in the following; “..the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution: the revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.” (Marx. German Ideology. Coll. Wks Vol. 5 page 53.)

Lenin and the Bolsheviks differed from Marx on the form and content of the post-capitalist structures created by the working and oppressed classes during uprisings and revolutions. Instead of revolutionary self-activity of the masses, they created a powerful state, with loyal bodies of armed men, which produced top-down plans and coerced workers, soldiers and peasants into fulfilling them. Even internal critics of this ruling party were bullied and coerced well before Stalin, a favoured colleague of Lenin’s for much of Lenin’s life, took it to its logical conclusion and escalated a red terror calling it socialism. In contrast – before finally discarding the by then soiled term ‘socialism’ Marx commented on the purpose and function of a post-capitalist mode of production;

This socialism is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionising of all the ideas that result from these social relations. (Marx. Class Struggles in France. Foreign Languages edition. page 198.)

We can see, if we are not blinded by ‘faith‘ or stubbornness, that not only was Lenin’s ‘State and Revolution’ profoundly wrong in theory, its applied conclusions proved tragically destructive in practice. Leninism and Bolshevism has thus become a theoretical and practical model to strenuously avoid in pursuit of a working class post-capitalist mode of production. The Soviet State and its senior architects, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin etc., represent a serious historical and intellectual barrier to the post-capitalist project. It is a barrier which urgently needs to be overcome. One last point from Marx on the nature of the working class revolution as it relates to the idea and practice of any state.

“It was a revolution against the ‘State’ itself, of this supernaturalist abortion of society, a resumption by the people for the people of its own social life.” (Marx. ’The Civil War in France‘. Peking edition. page 172.)

And as Marx also noted, states by direct taxation, become the first and steadily increasing charge on the producers labour. For Marx, a workers and citizens associative self-government, based upon the example of Commune, was the ultimate form of defensive and operational association, and in its continuance, the beginning of the revolutionary post-capitalist transformation. Local and region self-government was to be the foundation of all which was to follow. It was to be the immediate lever of change not a future result – granted to them by a self-selected so-called worker-friendly but coercive government ruled by a party-political elite – after an indeterminate period of time.

The crucial practical contribution by the Communards of Paris and written up by Marx in his various drafts (later interpreted by Engels), was something that Lenin de-constructed and skilfully reconstructed in the ‘State and Revolution’ to suit his own political preferences. This detailed polemic and his forceful character allowed him to influence a political elite (the Bolsheviks) and together they created a power structure (the Soviet State) over the working and oppressed classes. It was a state that stifled and distorted the revolution and strangled the self-activity of the masses – as any ‘state’ must. From the standpoint of workers and the oppressed the choice is clear: during a revolutionary upsurge its either a State or Revolution; one or the other; for the two are incompatible.

[ See also ‘Marxists versus Marx’. and ‘The Party: Help or Hindrance.‘ both athttp://www.critical-mass.net

While Portland police carried out Thursday's camp removal, city park rangers removed 984 homeless camps in 2010, then with increased patrols keeping numbers down, 684 camps in 2011 and 500 in 2012...

 Malroy said the group did its best to keep their camps clean. He said they weren't drug users, didn't drink but were forced onto the streets by medical problems that prevent them from working. Malroy's criminal record is for non-violent crimes, including arrests for drugs and car theft, according to state court records. 

"We're all trying to get disability and get housing, but they won't give you housing unless you have a fixed income," he said. "So we're kind of stuck out here." 

Portland Police officers quietly posted metal signs in front of City Hall Friday evening outlawing obstruction of the sidewalk along Southwest 4th Avenue—in effect serving an eviction notice to the homeless encampment that has swelled to more than 40 people in recent weeks.

 Mayor Charlie Hales boldly declared last week that enforcing sidewalk laws against people experiencing homelessness — and we assume the mentally ill — wasn’t about homelessness at all. “This is about lawlessness,” the mayor proclaimed to the media. 

Not one mention of the public health crisis on our streets or the lack of funding for homeless or mental health services. Nothing was mentioned about how the business community, residents, local government, advocates, social-service providers and law enforcement can work together to tackle these tough problems. Not a peep about an increased investment for rent assistance to target some of the hard-to-reach folks on our streets.

The message sent to the media and Portland was simple: We’re cleaning up lawless behavior that we’ve tolerated for far too long. 

Street Roots and others saw years of hard work about how to frame this issue to get common Portlanders to engage in working together to solve homelessness flash before our eyes.

Then the police went out and swept homeless camps.

Sitting quietly in the background are lobbyists for the business community who are pushing an agenda to government and the media that tourism is hurting and the business climate is threatened because of the visible homeless downtown.

Meanwhile, anyone walking through Portland’s core would see tourism and business booming. 

 What’s the solution?

The solution is to work together to develop strategies to increase our affordable housing stock, to increase rent assistance dollars for people on the streets, and to maintain targeted enforcement on people who are clearly out of line. The solution is not to enforce decades-old perspectives that research and history have shown do absolutely nothing to solve the problem of poverty and homelessness in urban America.

What Portland needs are leaders who listen to experts in the field and in government that have been successfully housing people for years. 

Street Roots is ready to work alongside both traditional and non-traditional partners to get the job done. What we can’t do is sit on the sidelines and watch individuals and families in poverty be demonized in our community.

Housing stability makes economic and social sense. Everyone deserves to have a safe place to call home, regardless of circumstances, and everyone benefits when they do.

Willow Frost speaks before the City Council

Could you get a good night's sleep in this situation?

  
On July 11th, 2013, Willow spoke brilliantly before the city council - here is what she said:


Hello, my name is Willow Frost, and I'm houseless. I became a member of Right 2 Dream Too in March, and since then, I've learned a lot concerning the homeless population of Portland. The first being this: sleep is a biological need that cannot and will not be denied forever.

Nearly three out of four Russians think homosexuality should be rejected by society, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.

The study found that 74% of Russians answered “no” to the question: “Should society accept homosexuality?”

AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

I believe it is not enough to impose fines on gays for engaging in the propaganda of homosexuality among adolescents. We need to ban them from donating blood and sperm, and if they die in car accidents, we need to bury their hearts in the ground or burn them as they are unsuitable for the aiding of anyone's life.

A pedestrian pauses to read a notice announcing an upcoming public meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, December 3, to urge Americans to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics. New York, United States, 1935.

— National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.

View Photograph

At the Escuelita Zapatista, Students Learn Community Organizing and Civil Resistance as a Way of Life

The Class Was Stopped Twice: The First Time to Emphasize the Importance of Discipline in Their Organization

By Alex Mensing
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

Students line up to register to the first “Escuelita Zapatista” atCIDECI. PHOTO DR 2013 Alex Mensing

The Escuelita was not your typical school, in many ways. The teachers had no degrees, the textbooks did not cite prestigious academic predecessors, and the classrooms had no blackboards. Class was in session 24 hours a day and the question and answer period was open all the time. And, to be sure, the subject matter was out of the ordinary.

Off to School

A man walks throguth Rosario Río Blanco in the autonoumous municipality of San Pedro Michoacán. PHOTO DR 2013 Alex Mensing

La Realidad

-Before the Spaniards arrived, indigenous people had tightly-knit communities and cultural traditions that shaped their relationship to each other and the land they worked.
-The Spanish Conquest destroyed their social fabric and made people work as individuals in an exploitative system.
-In 1810, Miguel Hidalgo led peasants to take independence from the Spanish crown, but Mexico remained in the hands of the rich. They consider this the first important demonstration of nonconformity.
-In 1910, Emiliano Zapata fought in the Revolution for “Land and Liberty,” achieving the ejido system (community-owned farmlands).
-During the 20th century, landowners eat away at the advances gained by the ejido system and, together with the corrupt government, oppress indigenous communities.
-1983, the EZLN is formed and arrives in Chiapas, beginning to train and organize.
-1994, the EZLN’s armed uprising achieves a space for dialogue and autonomy.
-2003, the Councils of Good Government are formed to organize Zapatista autonomy and governance.

“He was killed by the damned government,
for nothing more than demanding justice”

“The assassins were soldiers
dressed as campesinos
while he was asleep
they killed his wife and children”

“Look here now, the time has come
And you can’t be a spectator
The people’s struggle is without end
Until we see the people triumph.”

The sinuous road makes transportation between Rosario Río Blanco and La Realidad a risky endeavour. PHOTO DR 2013 Alex Mensing

The Textbooks

“are a product of meetings that the Zapatista bases of support in all zones have carried out to evaluate their work in the organization.

Compañeras and compañeros from the communities in resistance of the 5 caracoles, tzotziles, choles, tzeltales, tojolabales, mames, zoques y mestizos, gathered to ask and answer questions among themselves, exchange experiences (which are different in each zone), and to criticize, self-criticize, and evaluate what they have done so far and what they still have to do. These meetings were coordinated by our compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, and were recorded, transcribed, and edited for the notebooks.”

The stage at the “Escuelita Zapatista” in La Realidad has the images of Emiliano Zapata and the differents subcomandantes zapatistas.PHOTO DR 2013 Alex Mensing

How to Sharpen a Machete

A Walk around the Block

A mural of subcomandante Marcos on a wall at La Realidad. PHOTO DR 2013 Alex Mensing

Conclusion

The audience pays attention during the final presentation announcing the end of the first “Escuelita Zapatista”. PHOTO DR 2013 Alex Mensing

Health workers

Health workers are striking against recent health sector reforms passed by Congress.

“We have exhausted the tracks of dialogue and therefore define the realization of a strike from August 19 to press the government to try and hear both our demands and aspirations,” Hector Gaviria Alviz, President of the national trade union of workers and public health (ANTHOC) told Colombia Reports.

MORE: Colombia’s health workers join farmers, miners and coffee growers in strikeAccording to the unionist, the health workers “wish to remove the economic concept of health and ensure that the service be provided directly by public hospitals and municipal authorities” instead of corruption-ridden health care providers that fail to pay hospitals on time.

Colombia’s national miners union (CONALMINERCOL) announced Tuesday it will be lifting its national work stoppage after nearly two months of nationwide strikes.  According to Colombia Reports:

The exact details of the deal are set to be released by CONALMINERCOL leaders Tuesday afternoon, but Ramirez said it will only prove effective in dealing with the ongoing struggles of Colombia’s independent mining sector if the government follows through on its promises.

“We are here in part because the government refused to honor its word,” said Ramirez. “If you study each of the protest movements, that is the common theme. Everyone had deals with the government, and the government refused to fulfill its promises. We have provided oversight measures to ensure the government’s compliance with our [most recent] deal, but we have no way of knowing if they will work or not.”

With the formal resignation of the 16 presidential cabinet ministers, senior advisers and secretaries on Monday, the government is trying to send a message to the public that it is dealing with the severe crisis that erupted in recent weeks, according to El Tiempo newspaper.

Earlier today it was announced that four Colombian soliders who had been taken captive while trying to infiltrate the protests have been released.  NTN24 writes:

According to farmers protesting in the area, the alleged infiltration of the protest movement by the Colombia Army soldiers was aimed at creating instability and violence.

The troops' release comes after three local officials were detained by protesters in Antioquia and then later released the same day over the weekend.

A group of Canadian organizations, NGOs and unions released a statement yesterday in support of the strikers and condeming the repression activists have met from security forces.

We the undersigned organizations stand in solidarity with Colombian rural peasant farmers who along with other members of civil society, including miners, teachers, medical professionals, transport workers, and students have undertaken nationwide strikes. This past weekend an estimated 200,000 people blocked roads and marched peacefully across Colombia to protest the negative impacts on their communities of the U.S.-Colombia and Europe- Colombia Free Trade Agreements.

There is a growing discontent with Free Trade Agreements that benefit only large multinational corporations and impose privatization, deregulation and anti-union policies. President Juan Manuel Santos government’s economic policy known as “locomotora minero-energetica” is promoting the development of large scale mining and resource extraction in the hands of multinational corporations many of which will benefit Canadian companies like Pacific Rubiales Energy and Gran Colombia Gold at the expense of small scale local miners and workers.

We condemn the heavy handed tactics of the riot police who have used violence in the form of beatings, arrests and tear gas on peaceful protests in an effort to crackdown on civil society. Civil society is also condemning the targeted arrests and detention of peasant and labor leaders like Mr. Ballesteros, the Vice President of the Agricultural workers union, FENSUAGRO who was recently elected to the Executive Board of the trade union central CUT. Mr. Ballesteros is an organizer and spokesperson in the labour movement and has played a significant role in the current strikes.

We are also alarmed by the irresponsible comments of Colombia’s Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon who claimed that the striking workers are being controlled by "terrorist” groups.

We support civil society calls for President Juan Manuel Santos to guarantee the democratic right for peaceful protests and to establish a meaningful dialogue with striking sectors that will allow their demands to be met.
Bolivarian Circle Louis Riel
British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF)
Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia
Common Frontiers
Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique latine
Council of Canadians
Idle No More
The Colombia Action Solidarity Alliance (CASA)
The Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network (LACSN)
United Steelworkers (USW)

The following report is from the Alliance for Global Justice is a few days old but informative.

Brutal Repression of National Strike in Colombia-Santos Declares Militarization of Bogotá

by James Jordan

Colombian Armed Forces have brutally attacked members of the “Paro Agrario” National Farmers and Popular Strike, with at least four to five persons dead and reports of hundreds wounded. Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos, dismissing strikers as vandals, has ordered the militarization of the capital city of Bogotá and places throughout the country, vowing to deploy 50,000 soldiers. Santos accused the popular peace movement, the Marcha Patriótica (Patriotic March) of fomenting the violence, saying, “We know the Marcha Patriótica seeks nothing but a situation without exit to impose its own agenda. The interests of the peasants don’t mean anything to them, nor do regional accords: the only thing that matters is their political agenda.” What Santos does not seem to understand is that the Marcha Patriótica is largely made up of peasant groups, including Colombia’s largest agricultural union, FENSUAGRO. The fact that Marcha Patriótica leaders have been chosen to represent strikers, and the widespread participation in the strike itself, both expose the lie of Santos’ declaration.

The national strike was called following attacks against peaceful protesters in the Catatumbo region, which set off a national movement. Demands include popular participation in the peace process, an end to Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that threaten the livelihoods of family farmers and workers, and government fulfillment of unkept promises for infrastructure development and Peasant Reserve Zones in rural areas.

Starting around mid-afternoon on Thursday, August 29, 2013, violent crack downs on protesters were carried out by ESMAD, the Colombian riot police, in Bogotá. Eyewitnesses told us ESMAD attacked demonstrators with bricks and tear gas. Telesur reports 89 wounded in the city and in a more recent report by Ecuador’s El Comercio, the number was raised to 200. Similar events were unfolding in cities and departments throughout Colombia, including Tolima, Meta, Guaviare, Antioquia and elsewhere. Radio Caracol lists five persons killed, including two in Bogotá, one in Soacha (a Bogotá suburb), one in Coyaima, Tolima, and one in Rionegro, Antioquia. FENSUAGRO reports two farmers killed and four wounded in Tolima. El Espectador also published photos documenting police attacks against journalists covering the strike in Medellin, and FENSUAGRO has informed us of attacks in Bogotá against reporters for Contagio radio.

The Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) is especially distressed to hear about the arrests in Tolima of Jailer Gonzalezand Maribel Oviedo, with whom we visited in both our last delegations to Colombia. Jailer is the President of ASTRACATOL, the Tolima affiliate of FENSUAGRO, and Maribel is the Educational Secretary. In 2011 the Colombian Armed Forces illegally apprehended Jailer. He was released only after a campaign of national and international pressure. In March of this year, Maribel was threatened with execution by members of the Colombian military who held her hostage in a farm house for two days. Before her cell phone was confiscated, she was able to alert community members about her situation. When we visited Maribel in April, she also credited national and international intervention for her safe release. Jailer and Maribel are husband and wife, with two daughters, one an infant. We are very concerned for the entire family during this difficult time.

I spoke to July Henriquez, a lawyer for the Lazos de Dignidad (Links of Dignity) organization who provide support for Colombian political prisoners, and for ASTRACATOL. I wanted to ask for more information about Jailer and Maribel. However, at the moment I contacted her, she was in the streets of Bogotá and told me that national strike supporters were under attack. She reported that, “At this moment we are in a critical situation in Bogotá. Since 2pm, the police have been committing abuses against the protesters from the National Farmers Strike and damaging the property of downtown residents.”

An international labor activist living in the area, who asked to remain anonymous, described “…a scene of utter chaos. I was observing in the march all day. ESMAD was extremely aggressive. A lot of people were arrested. This is particularly worrying because most of the human rights organizations and lawyers are in the field in verification missions and so on….I witnessed ESMAD throwing bricks into a crowd of mostly nonviolent protestors, with representatives of the mayor’s administration and the ombudsman’s office dodging them. I also saw quite a few crowds of totally peaceful protestors getting gassed by mobile police units on motorcycles.”

These attacks are the latest in a series of harsh actions taken by the state against growing protests around the nation. Peasant farmers are demanding the government honor agreements to protect their farms by establishing Peasant Reserve Zones and building basic infrastructure for rural areas, such as good schools, roads to get crops to market, support for crop substitution to replace coca cultivation, and basic health facilities.

We at AfGJ are especially concerned because of the targeting of FENSUAGRO, the Marcha Patriotica, and the strikers’ chosen representatives in negotiations with the government. The arrest of Hubert Ballesteros was a major blow to the entire process for peace.[Click here to send an email demanding his release.] He is Vice President of FENSUAGRO and a member of the Executive Committee of the United Workers Center (CUT), Colombia’s largest labor federation (which includes FENSUAGRO). Hubert is one of ten primary negotiators for the national strike. More than that, he is an adamant supporter of just peace through negotiations. I first met Hubert in 2009 when he helped organized one of AfGJ’s delegations. In several discussions Hubert repeatedly told us two things that Colombians were asking of us in the United States: to end support for war and repression in Colombia; and to advocate for a peace process based on dialogue including not only the armed actors, but all the people. Hubert was arrested on August 26^th and charged with “Aggravated Rebellion”.

The crackdown has been difficult for the embattled ASTRACATOL union in Tolima. In May, Guillermo Cano was arrested and charged with “Rebellion”. He is the Human Rights Coordinator for ASTRACATOL, and a member of the FENSUAGRO Executive Committee. He was arrested, along with eight other activists from ASTRACATOL and the Tolima Marcha Patriótica, just days after attending a United Nations forum on popular participation in the peace process. By removing ASTRACATOL’s President, Human Rights Coordinator and Educational Secretary, the representation of Tolima’s peasant farmers and agricultural workers is seriously compromised.

For Fensuagro nationally, it is the same situation. Since the 2011 installation of the Marcha Patriótica, there has been a spike in arrests and assaults of Fensuagro and other Marcha leaders. Aggressions against rural human rights defenders are at a ten year high, and forced displacement has risen by 83%. It is clear that the Santos Administration is trying to break Fensuagro, the Marcha Patriotica, the national strike and the entire agrarian movement.

The United States is continuing policies that encourage state violence and violations of basic human, labor and civil rights, having spent more than $8 billion on Plan Colombia, the US sponsored war plan. The US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement and active support for Colombia’s integration into NATO show that the White House is less interested in peace than in rewarding displacement and brutality when it advances corporate interests. By jailing farmers, workers and peace and justice activists, the Colombian government is systematically removing those who stand in the way of further acquisitions of resources and profits for big landowners and transnational corporations.

This coming Wednesday, September 4^th, 2013, is the first anniversary of the Colombian government accord with the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) that began the current peace process. It is interesting that at the same time that Santos was ordering attacks on protests around the country, that the FARC released a statement calling for a bilateral cease fire for the upcoming 2014 elections.

What you can do:

• September 4^th is SOLIDARITY WITH COLOMBIAN FARMER/LABOR DAY! It is also the first anniversary of the beginning of the peace process between the Colombian government and guerrillas. We are asking people to jam the Colombian Embassy and Consulates with calls demanding an end to repression of the national strike and for the immediate liberty of the unionists and peasant leaders Hubert Ballesteros, Jailer Gonzales and Maribel Oviedo. We are further urging people to contact their Representatives and ask them to act to suspend the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement and to end all aid to Colombia until these three are freed and the repression has ended.
• 
  

CALL THE COLOMBIAN EMBASSY:  202-387-8338 Fax: 202-232 8643

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT THE COLOMBIAN CONSULATE NEAREST YOU 

Thinking aloud here about Syria and similar situations.

There should exist some way for the WORLD to respond to this sort of shit. I, however, don't kmow what that is. Perhaps, the International Court of Criminal Justice should have a military arm. If anyone does anything, perhaps, the first step beyond simple, and often useless diplomacy, could be declaring certain areas within Syria, probably near a border, should be declared a safe haven for refugees and defended by air power (which stated right up front will be used in the event of any intrusions), and if possible some group of peacekeepers from Norway or China or Spain or Senegal, or Vietnam, or S. Africa, or somewhere...rather then just a senseless bombing run. Meanwhile, rather then just presenting the evidence to the UN, it should be presented to like the Arab League, ASEAN, the OAU. Like many, I am weary of the world just turning away while atrocities of all kinds are committed. I also understand the horror of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, but for the dead, I am not sure they care all that much if it is a chemical weapon, a bomb, an artillery strike, or a bullet. In Syria alone, how many hundreds of thousands of non combatant dead without Chemical weapons is too much.

Notice also that my proposal does not even rely on proving who used the chemical weapons, merely that they were used. The warning about messing with the safe havens would also apply to everyone. It also makes irrelevant USA (or anyone else's) past actions. The only thing that matters is here and now...

Perhaps, in a more ideal world, the safe havens themselves could become autonomous zones, similar to what the Zapatistas have created, where people could learn and create a whole new way of living together, governing themselves, and creating a new world (see for example, http://oreaddaily.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-world-where-autonomy-isnt-just-talked.html).

On the one end of the spectrum, abortion laws in Muslim-majority countries exemplified a generally conservative approach where 18 of 47 countries only legally permit abortions in cases where the life of the pregnant women is threatened (i.e. not in cases to preserve a woman’s physical or mental health, rape, foetal impairment, or for social or economic reasons). On the other end of the spectrum, 10 Muslim-majority countries allow abortion ‘on request’.

The diversity found in Muslim-majority countries is likely in part due to the variability of the Islamic position as well as many other factors including whether the legal system is based on Sharia law exclusively (e.g. Iran), a combination of Sharia law alongside civil or common law (e.g. Saudi Arabia), or whether the legal system is not formally based upon Sharia law at all (e.g. Turkey). 

The example of Iran is particularly interesting. Iranis a theocratic country, where the Shiite rule of the jurist was established in the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the Muslim clergy or Ulama are involved in policy making and legislation (Mehryar, Ahmad-Nia and Kazemipour, 2007, p.353). In 1977, before the Revolution, abortion was made available on request provided it was prescribed by a qualified doctor, and the government was involved in an active family planning programme which had been established since 1967. This law was annulled by the new state immediately after the Revolution (Mehryar, Ahmad-Nia and Kazemipour, 2007, p.357), abortion was outlawed except to save the woman’s life, and sterilisation was banned. The official national family planning programme was abandoned, and the regime under the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini became overtly pronatalist, with procreation (within marriage) and fertility being extolled as key Islamic values (Boonstra, 2001, p.5). Over the next few years, the fertility rate in Iran increased dramatically (Obermeyer, 1994, p.46). However, attributing this change in policy purely to the triumph of Islamic values is misleading. In fact, in early 1980, when the revolution had ended, the Ministry of Health obtainedfatāwa from the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini and other respected ayatollahs stating that Iranian couples’ use of modern contraceptives was not contrary to Islamic principles (Mehryar, Ahmad-Nia and Kazemipour, 2007, p.354). Furthermore, though high fertility rates had been encouraged in response to heavy casualties during the war with Iraq between 1980 – 1988, by the late 1980’s, the negative effects of the war became apparent and worsening economic conditions, combined with a rapidly increasing population, obliged the leaders of the Islamic Republic to ‘re-evaluate its ideological stance with respect to population issues’ (Obermeyer, 1994, pp.46-47). Thus, a reproductive health and family planning programme was re-introduced in 1988 and now provides a wide range of contraception. Moreover, in April 2005 the Iranian parliament, despite opposition from the Islamic Guardian Council, approved a law which permits abortion in the first four months of gestation if the foetus is ‘physically or mentally handicapped’ (Hessini, 2007, p.80). Additionally, the law in Iran (along with only Tunisia and Turkey) allows for vasectomy procedures and tubal ligation[3] (Boonstra, 2001, p.5).

Thus, a country ruled by some of the most conservative Muslim clerics has, in relation to other countries of the MENA region, a fairly permissive approach to abortion and family planning (Hessini, 2008, p.82). DeJong, Jawad, Mortagy and Shepard (2005), therefore argue that: ‘Iran’s efforts to address reproductive health issues in consonance with religious values in an important model for other Muslim countries’ (DeJong et al., 2005, p.50). From a more cynical perspective, it can be argued that the leaders inIran, as well as being religious clerics, are also a ‘pragmatic political elite’ who to some extent recognise the importance of co-opting women’s support to ensure the survival of the government regime (Marcotte, 2003, p.162). Crucially, it must be recognised that the economic and political considerations of the different governments have motivated them to respond in different ways to issues of reproductive rights. Thus, while the present government inIranrefers to the Islamic religious tradition to justify its more permissive policies in relation to abortion and reproductive rights, previously, more restrictive policies had also been legitimated with reference to Islamic principles (Obermeyer, 1994, p.47). 

In principle, the Qur'an condemns the killing of humans (except in the case of defense or as capital punishment), but it does not explicitly mention abortion. This leads Islamic theologians to take up different viewpoints: while the majority of early Islamic theologians permitted abortion up to day 40 of pregnancy or even up to day 120, many countries today interpret these precepts protecting unborn children more conservatively. Although there is no actual approval of abortion in the world of Islam, there is no strict, unanimous ban on it, either. Islam has not given any precise directions with regard to the issue of abortion. Hence it is not a matter, which has been clearly stated in the Shari'ah (Islamic Law) but rather an issue pertaining to the application of our knowledge of the Shari'ah.  Such application may vary in conclusion with a difference in the basic premises of one's arguments.

The scholars all agree that abortion is forbidden after the first four months of pregnancy, since by that time the soul has entered the embryo but it would allow the use of RU486 (the "morning-after pill"), as long as it could be reasonably assumed that the fertilized egg has not become implanted on the wall of the uterus. Most scholars say that abortion is legal under Islamic Shari'ah (law), when done for valid reasons and when completed before the soul enters the embryo. To abort a baby for such vain reasons as wanting to keep a woman’s youthful figure, are not valid.

...quote a statement from the Prophet (s) that refers to a human being starting as a fertilized ovum in the uterus of the mother for forty days, then it grows into a clot for the same period, then into a morsel of flesh for the same period, then an angel is sent to that fetus to blow the Ruh into it and to write down its age, deeds, sustenance, and whether it is destined to be happy or sad.

 Yet women in many Muslim communities face barriers to contraceptive access and family planning services due to religious and cultural misconceptions. The reality is that Islam is – and always has been – supportive of women’s reproductive rights. The family is the basic unit of a Muslim society, and the mother is the keystone of this unit. Islam is a progressive religion that encourages its followers to uphold principles and practices that ensure maternal and reproductive health, and family planning is a central component of such practices.

Islam does not forbid a woman from controlling the spacing and number of her pregnancies. A thorough review of the Holy Quran reveals no text (nuss) prohibiting the prevention or planning of pregnancy, and there are several traditions of the Prophet (PBUH) that indicate such practices are permissible. Many modern contraceptives and family planning methods, by analogy (kias), are similar to coitus interruptions (al-azl), which has been practiced since the time of the Prophet (PBUH). Modern contraceptive pills, injectables, implants, and other reversible methods were not known at the time of the Prophet (PBUH), but serve the same purpose as coitus interruptions as they temporarily prevent pregnancy. Hence they can – and should – be used today.

The future of abortion rights in Islam

On Wednesday, 14th Aug, Sharon Rafferty, Sean Kelly, Aidan Coney and Gavin Coney were taken out to Omagh Court for their P.I.(preliminary investigation) The 3 men in which is unfortunately now normal practice for Republican prisoners in Maghaberry were forcibly strip-searched before leaving the gaol but in a sinister development it has transpired that female Republican prisoner Sharon Rafferty was also forcibly strip-searched by staff in Hydebank gaol. Sharon was physically restrained by staff and her clothing was forcibly removed. Sharon has been left with physical injuries and no doubt emotionally scarred by this brutal sexual assault. IRPWA demand an end to all strip-searches and strongly condemn this new development whereby female Republican prisoners are forcibly strip searched in Hydebank.

Mandy Duffy from the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA) sais Ms Rafferty felt like she had been “sexually assaulted” after the search. “She feels very strongly she should not have to remove her clothing,” she aid. The prisoner campagner says Ms Connor will also continue to resist strip searches. “Christine feels she is being denied the right to medicial treatment which is a basic human right,” she said. “She is on medication and needs to see a specialist.” The last high-profile female republican prisoner to be subjected to strip searches is believed to be Roisin McAliskey – daughter of former Mid Ulster MP Bernadette McAliskey – who was searched more than 70 times while pregnant in custody awaiting extradition to Germany in connection with an IRA mortar attàck in 1996. She was released wîthout charge in 1998.

 In more recent times the practice came under the spotlight in 2005, when the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) helped non-republican prisoner Karen Carson bring a judicial review before the High Court in Belfast, claiming frequent strip searching in Hydebank was in violation of articles three and eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, which relate to torture and privacy.

 Speaking to the Tyrone Herald, a spokesperson for the NIHRC said it supports the Prison Review Team’s 2011 recommendation to find an effective and less intrusive alternative to strip searching.

“The Commission’s 2005 research revealed the traumatic impact of strip searching on women and recommended that its use should be exceptional and restricted.”

It said while it had not received any complaints about the use of strip searching on women prisoners in recent times, the body intends to raise the issue of Sharon Rafferty’s forced search on August 14 during a visit with the Prison Service later this month.

Mandy Duffy said both male and female republican prisoners refuse to submit to strip searching, claiming that scanners exist that deem the practice unnecessary. On August 14, she said Rafferty’s three co-accused were also similarly strip searched by force at Maghaberry Prison after refusing to comply with requests to remove clothing.

“There is technology in place that removes the need for any prisoner to remove they're clothing,” said the IRPWA spokesperson, “Sharon said she did not want to humiliate herself.”

Christine Connor refuses strip search, screws deny her medical treatment

1. ↩ See John Bellamy Foster, The Ecological Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009), 85–105; International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2010 (OECD/IEA, 2010), 125–26; Ramez Naam, The Infinite Resource (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2013), 47.
2. ↩ Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen, “Implications of ‘Peak Oil’ for Atmosphere CO2 and Climate,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 22 (2008): 1–10. The term “unconventional fossil fuels” is commonly used to refer to: fossil-fuel feedstocks that have not been intensively exploited up to the present, usually because they are of inferior grade and/or require additional technology and added costs for extraction and processing, such as heavy oils, oil sands, shale gas, tight oil, tight gas, oil shale, methane hydrates, and oil from deepwater drilling. “Unconventional Fossil Fuels,” Juice: Alternative Fuels World, http://alternatefuelsworld.com, accessed July 15, 2013; International Energy Agency, “Glossary of Terms” (“Unconventional Gas” and “Unconventional Oil”), http://iea.org, accessed July 15, 2013.
3. ↩ Charles C. Mann, “What If We Never Run Out of Oil,” Atlantic 311, no. 4, May 2013, 54, 63.
4. ↩ Michael T. Klare, The Race for What’s Left (New York: Henry Holt, 2012), 106.
5. ↩ Bill McKibben, “The Fossil Fuel Resistance,” Rolling Stone, April 25, 2013, 42.
6. ↩ The Keystone XL Pipeline is actually part of the larger Keystone pipeline system. The first two phases of this are already completed and the third phase, the southern leg, will soon be finished. When this is done Alberta tar-sand oil will begin to flow to the Gulf. But the completion of the critical northern line (phase 4) will provide a more direct route and will carry about twice the oil. As Candice Bernd has written: “James Hansen called the [Keystone XL] project ‘the fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet.’ … The northern, cross-border expansion of the project would make that fuse burn faster, doubling the Keystone pipeline system’s carrying capacity to more than 800,000 barrels a day.” Candice Bernd, “Tar Sands Will Be Piped to the Gulf Coast, With or Without the Northern Segment of Keystone XL,” Truthout, April 29, 2013, http://truth-out.org.
7. ↩ David Biello, “How Much Will Tar Sands Oil Add to Global Warming?,” Scientific American, January 23, 2013, http://scientificamerican.com.
8. ↩ James Hansen, “Game Over for the Climate,” New York Times, May 9, 2012, http://nytimes.com, and “Keystone XL: The Pipeline to Disaster,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2013, http://articles.latimes.com.
9. ↩ Glenn Gilchrist, “Transportation—Alberta Achilles Heel,” April 5, 2013, http://world.350.org; Reid McKay, “Canada Losing Massive Wealth on Oil Price Differential,” CEO.CA, February 13, 2013, http://ceo.ca; David Biello, “Greenhouse Goo,” Scientific American 309, no. 1 (July 2013): 61.
10. ↩ David Sassoon, “Crude, Dirty and Dangerous,” New York Times, August 20, 2012, http://nytimes.com; David Biello, “Does Tar Sand Oil Increase the Risk of Pipeline Spills?,” Scientific American, April 4, 2013, http://scientificamerican.com.
11. ↩ McKibben, “The Fossil Fuel Resistance,” 40; Michael Levi, The Power Surge (New York: Oxford, 2013), 81; “What’s Next in the Ongoing Keystone XL Saga,” U.S. News & World Report, April 5, 2013, http://usnews.com.
12. ↩ See Jacob Devaney, “Idle No More: Hints of a Global Super-Movement,” Common Dreams, January 3, 2013, http://commondreams.org; “First Nations Group Calls for B.C. to Reject Northern Gateway Pipeline Work Permits,” Vancouver Sun, June 27, 2013, http://vancouversun.com; Brooke Jarvis, “Idle No More: Native-Led Protest Movement Takes on Canadian Government,” Rolling Stone, February 4, 2013, http://rollingstone.com.
13. ↩ Ohio Environmental Council, “What is Fracking?,” http://theoec.org, accessed July 29, 2013; “Baffled About Fracking? You’re Not Alone,” New York Times, May 13, 2011, http://nytimes.com; Levi, The Power Surge, 41–49.
14. ↩“Rise in U.S. Gas Production Fuels an Unexpected Plunge in Emissions,” Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2013, http://online.wsj.com. Such figures are of course misleading in terms of the overall climate problem, since the coal industry has responded to the increased competition of natural gas by increasing coal exports to China and elsewhere. Indeed, a study by John Broderick and Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Climate Change Research Institute has indicated that “more than half of the emissions avoided in the U.S. power sector [in 2008–2011] may have been exported as coal.” Thus they conclude that “without a meaningful cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of sale gas reserves is likely to increase total [global] emissions.” John Broderick and Kevin Anderson, Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?, Tyndall Manchester Climate Change Research, October 2012, http://tyndall.ac.uk, 2. U.S. coal exports help fuel Chinese industry, which then sells a larger part of their output back to the United States. It has been estimated that the United States imported 400 million tons of embedded carbon in Chinese goods in 2008 alone. Bill Chameides, “On U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Cognitive Dissonance,” The Green Grok, November 14, 2012, http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu.
15. ↩ Jeff Tollefson, “Methane Leaks Erode Green Credentials of Natural Gas,” Nature, January 2, 2013, http://nature.com.
16. ↩ Matthew Phillips, “More Evidence Shows Drilling Causes Earthquakes,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 1, 2013, http://businessweek.com.
17. ↩“Quebec’s Lac Mégantic Oil Train Disaster Not Just Tragedy, But Corporate Crime,” Guardian, July 11, 2013, http://guardian.co.uk; Jonathan Flanders, “‘Pipeline on Rails’ Plans for the Railroads Explode in Quebec,” CounterPunch, July 11, 2013, http://counterpunch.org; “Quebec Train Death Toll at 50,” New York Post, July 11, 2013, http://nypost.com; “Canadian Tanker Train Crash Raises Fresh Questions on Oil Transportation,” Guardian, July 16, 2013, http://guardian.co.uk.
18. ↩ Frances Beinecke, “3 Years Later: Act on the Lessons of BP Gulf Oil Spill,” The Energy Collective, April 18, 2013, http://theenergycollective.com; Klare, The Race for What’s Left, 42–49.
19. ↩ Klare, The Race for What’s Left.
20. ↩ Susan Solomon, et. al., “Irreversible Climate Change Due to Carbon Dioxide Emissions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 6 (February 10, 2009): 1704–9; Heidi Cullen, The Weather of the Future (New York: Harper, 2010), 261–71; James Hansen, “Tipping Point,” in Eva Fearn and Kent H. Redford, eds., State of the Wild 2008 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2008), 7–8; Biello, “Greenhouse Goo,” 58–59.
21. ↩Trillionthtonne.org; Carbon Tracker and the Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics, Unburnable Carbon 2012: Wasted Capital and Stranded Assets (2013), http://carbontracker.org; Myles Allen, et. al., “The Exit Strategy,” Nature Reports, April 30, 2009; http://nature.com; and “Warming Caused by Cumulative Carbon Emissions Towards the Trillionth Tonne,” Nature 458 (April 30, 2009): 1163–66;Malte Meinshausen, et. al., “Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets for Limiting Global Warming to 2°C,” Nature 458 (April 20, 2009): 1158–62.
22. ↩“Ending Its Summer Melt, Arctic Sea Ice Sets a New Low that Leads to Warnings,” New York Times, September 19, 2012, http://nytimes.com; Andrew Freedman, “A Closer Look at Arctic Sea Ice Melt and Extreme Weather,” Climate Central, September 19, 2012, http://climatecentral.org; John Vidal and Adam Vaughan, “Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks to Smallest Extent Ever Recorded,” Guardian, September 14, 2012, http://guardian.co.uk.
23. ↩ Australian Climate Commission, The Angry Summer (2013), http://climatecommission.gov.au; Climate Central, Global Weirding (New York: Pantheon Press, 2012).
24. ↩“Greenland and Antarctica ‘Have Lost Four Trillion Tonnes of Ice’ in 20 Years,” Guardian, November 29, 2012, http://guardian.co.uk.
25. ↩ Levi, The Power Surge, 148–49; Naam, The Infinite Resource, 161–62.
26. ↩ Bruno Burger, “Electricity Production from Solar and Wind in Germany in 2012,” Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, February 8, 2013, http://ise.fraunhofer.de; “Crossing the 20 Percent Mark: Green Energy Use Jumps in Germany,” Spiegel Online International, August 30, 2011, http://spiegel.de; Levi, The Power Surge, 144–45; Naam, The Infinite Resource, 163.
27. ↩ Mason Inman, “The True Cost of Fossil Fuels,” Scientific American (April 2013): 58–61; Charles A.S. Hall and Kent A. Klitgaard, Energy and the Wealth of Nations (New York: Springer, 2012); Steve Hallett, The Efficiency Trap (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2013), 77; Eric Zencey, “Energy as a Master Resource,” in Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2013 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013), 79; Levi, The Power Surge, 151–52.
28. ↩ Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War (New York: Routledge, 2001), 332.
29. ↩ See Horace Campbell, Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2013); John Bellamy Foster, Naked Imperialism(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006).
30. ↩ See Matt McDermott, “Why Japan’s Methane Hydrate Exploitation Would Be Game Over for the Planet,” Motherboard, March 2013, http://motherboard.vice.com; Mann, “We Will Never Run Out of Oil.”
31. ↩ Executive Office of the President, The President’s Climate Action Plan (June 2013), http://whitehouse.gov, 19; Levi, The Power Surge, 99–101, 171–72.
32. ↩ Richard York, “Do Alternative Energy Sources Displace Fossil Fuels?,” Nature Climate Change 2 (2012): 441–43.
33. ↩“Charlie Rose Talks to ExxonMobil’s Rex Tillerson,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 7, 2013, http://businessweek.com.
34. ↩ Juliet Eilperin, “The White House’s ‘All of the Above’ Energy Strategy Goes Global,” Washington Post, April 24, 2013, http://washingtonpost.com; David Biello, “All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy Trumps Climate Action,” Scientific American, November 16, 2012, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com.
35. ↩ Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on Climate Change,” WhiteHouse.gov, June 25, 2013, http://whitehouse.gov; Executive Office of the President, The President’s Climate Action Plan, 7, 19.
36. ↩ Executive Office of the President, The President’s Climate Action Plan, 8.
37. ↩ Curtis White, The Barbaric Heart: Faith, Money, and the Crisis of Nature (Sausalito, CA: PolipointPress, 2009).
38. ↩ George Lakey, “I Pledge Allegiance, To Resist the Pipeline,” Waging Nonviolence, March 12, 2013, http://wagingnonviolence.org. In his June 2013 remarks introducing his “climate action plan” Obama ambiguously stated that the Keystone XL Pipeline project would be disapproved if it was shown to “significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” The inclusion of the word “significantly” naturally allows the administration the maximum latitude to come down on the side of the fossil fuels industry if it so chooses.
39. ↩ See, for example, Jeremy Leggett, The Solar Century (London: GreenProfile, 2009). This technocratic approach is a product of Leggett’s whole history, first as a geologist consulting for the oil industry, then as a Greenpeace leader, then as CEO for Britain’s first solar power corporation, and finally as the founder of Carbon Tracker.
40. ↩ Bill McKibben, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” Rolling Stone, July 19, 2012, http://rollingstone.com.
41. ↩ Zencey, “Energy as a Master Resource,” 80–82.
42. ↩“An Interview with Kevin Anderson,” Transition Culture, November 2, 2012, http://transitionculture.org; Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 232. A similar criticism (to that of Anderson) of the Stern Review’s contention that carbon emission reductions of more than 1 percent per annum were detrimental to the capitalist economy and thus had to be off limits was made in John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, The Ecological Rift (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), 154–56.
43. ↩ Kevin Anderson interview; Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows, “Beyond ‘Dangerous Climate Change’: Emission Scenarios for a New World,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 369 (2011): 40–41. We might add that what would make a vast reduction in consumption possible while at the same time improving the conditions of most of the population is the massive amount of waste built into monopoly capitalist society, associated with the prodigious expansion of superfluous goods, and vast marketing expenses. Such socially unnecessary expenditures, as Thorstein Veblen explained at the outset of the twentieth century, are built into the production of commodities themselves. See John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, “The Planetary Emergency,” Monthly Review 64, no. 7 (December 2012): 7–16; Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1964), 284–325.
44. ↩ The Royal Society, People and the Planet (London: Royal Society, April 2012), 9.
45. ↩ Johan Rockström, et. al., “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” Nature 461 (2009): 472–75, http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov; Carl Folke, “Respecting Planetary Boundaries and Reconnecting to the Biosphere,” in Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2013, 19–27.
46. ↩ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964), 2. See István Mészáros, “Substantive Equality: The Absolute Condition of Sustainability,” in Mészáros, The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008), 258–64.
47. ↩ Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976): 637–38.
48. ↩ Frederick Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1984).
49. ↩ The notion of an environmental proletariat is advanced in Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift, 440. See also Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011), 143–44. An example of the growth of a broad alliance of working people is the Idle No More movement in Canada, in which popular environmental groups, the National Farmers Union, and, increasingly, unionists are allying themselves with a movement led by First Nations, and organized around their treaty rights—in opposition the Canadian government’s rapacious extractivist policies. Much of the struggle has centered on resistance to tar-sands oil extraction/production, focusing on native land and water rights. See Gene McGuckin, “Why Unionists Must Build the Climate Change Fight,” Climate & Capitalism, May 2, 2013, http://climateandcapitalism.com; “Farmers Union: Why We Support Idle No More,” Climate & Capitalism, April 3, 2013, http://climateandcapitalism.com.
50. ↩ James Hansen, “Making Things Clearer: Exaggeration, Jumping the Gun, and the Venus Syndrome,” April 15, 2013, http://columbia.edu; Obama, “Remarks by the President on Climate Change.”
51. ↩ Mészáros, The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time.

REMEMBER THE ROBERT WILLIAMS BOOK "NEGROES WITH GUN?" WELL, HERE SITS CHALKY WHITE AND SOME NEGROES WITH GUNS A FEW DECADES EARLIER

 ...he’s a gangster involved illegal trade, but he also serves as a defender of his community against often violent white racism and a provider for the needs of black people whether they participate in the underground economy or not. More than just a procurer of outlawed whiskey, White is the political leader and moneyed savior of Atlantic City’s poor black population. 

 Chalky is a devoted family, he spends his time outside of the home running his business and making sure the black population gets their proper cut of the burgeoning illegal liquor economy. It’s not that we’ve never seen a black man as husband and father, but to share in the same body two ideas that seem at odds with one another (criminal mastermind and loving husband/father) challenges us to think of black men beyond the binary of good versus bad, that one could be both wedded to the streets and his take care of his responsibilities his family left at home....

... what makes him most compelling is not simply that he is complex – a man who ruthlessly runs an illegal liquor enterprise and dotes on his Morehouse College-bound son – but that his complexity represents a real, if forgotten set of black men who lived during that era.

 ...we witness an exchange between a prohibition-era black political boss and the Klansman he believes lynched one of his employees. Chalky White, played brilliantly by Michael K. Williams (who previously played the homoerotic killer Omar on “The Wire” ) tells the bound white man a story about his father, the most talented carpenter in Elkin, Texas. After building a majestic set of bookshelves for a white employer, Chalky’s father is lured out of town and lynched – likely to avoid paying him for his work and for the sin of being an artistically gifted Negro. At the conclusion of the tale we see Chalky White unfolding a set of carpenter’s tools, at which point the captive Klansman gulps and asks what he plans to do with them. The reply, uttered with sneering contempt encapsulates every reason why “Boardwalk Empire” has quickly become one of the best-written shows on television. “Well,” the Chalky says ominously, “I ain’t fixing to build no shelves.”

Where the bootlegging at the heart of “Boardwalk” was largely run by whites, the numbers racket was, at least early in its history, a black and Latino enterprise. And Casper Holstein, who was the most powerful of these bosses, would be worthy of his own HBO series. At his height in the mid 1920s, Holstein controlled a large swath of the Harlem numbers racket, pulling in $10,000 daily. His wealth made him a major force in politics both in Harlem and his native Virgin Islands.

What made him stand out, though, was the significant role he played in helping fund the Harlem Renaissance. Holstein donated money to black colleges, dropped large financial contributions on Marcus Garvey’s movement and set up a fund for aspiring black writers, several of whom later became recognized figures in the Harlem Renaissance.

Chalky White is a fictional character but this is literally a case of art imitating life. Given the nature of the world he inhabits and the demands of the storyline, a character like him probably isn’t long for this world. But there’s something to be said for the fact that there are plenty more where he came from.

Black Revenge Fantasies, White Manhood, and Historical Memory: Boardwalk Empire's Episode, "Anastasia" Reviewed

HBO's Boardwalk Empire is a lush television series. Do not be mistaken: Lushness does not necessarily mean a completeness of superficial physical beauty or the trap of ephemeral and pretty things. Lushness can also be depth. It can be intelligence. Lushness can be breadth and reward. As noted philosopher Slavoy Zizek said of the seminal dystopian film Children of Men, some artifacts of popular culture reward "deep viewing." For those who study film, popular culture, or the semiotics of mass culture, this means viewing a film with obligatory seriousness, intensity, and broadness of field.


For scholars of film, this understanding is a wink to the concept understood as "Mis En Scene." Translated: Boardwalk Empireframes a shot in such a way as to encourage a careful attention to clothing, the positioning of the characters relative to one another, and of the scene at large. The most damning observation that one can make of a television series such as Boardwalk Empire, a period piece set in the 1920's, is that it is a wax museum come to life. On its worst of days, and in the hands of a lesser steward, Boardwalk Empire could be the pitiable performance of a once great Motown band singing at a county fair when all the magic is gone, and the agents involved are in full denial about how far low they have fallen. Boardwalk Empire is none of these things--it is a window into the past, carefully constructed, and indelibly committed to the best that dramatic television can offer.


Boardwalk Empire is set is the great age of Prohibition-era America, when flappers danced upon the stage, temperance societies of now empowered (white) women reigned for a moment as they spread the wings of their now found political agency, and gangsters (with their liquor) were king. This is also the moment when white ethnics--those Italians, Irish, Greeks, and others--fought to burn away their ethnicity in the crucible of a soon to be found full whiteness in the post-World War One moment, as they become erstwhile Horatio Algers, when like James Cagney, they came to understand that "the world is mine."


The setting that is the literal boardwalk in Boardwalk Empire is also a complement to how race was made in early 20th century America. The sites, sounds, and spectacle of this space, the World's Fairs and mass culture were locations for race makingthrough popular culture. Moreover, the iron cage of white manhood, its imagined fraternal order, and the creation of "normal" bodies were all made real through the accessible spectacles featured on the boardwalk of places like Atlantic City, P.T. Barnum's enterprises, the "freak show," Ripley's stages, andthe great midways of cities such as Chicago.


Boardwalk Empire contains all of these elements. It has acknowledged the racist spectacle of The Hottentot Venus. The marquis of the theaters featured in Boardwalk Empire's deep scenes all signal to this history. Cigarette store Indians are omnipresent. Black popular culture is the ether of The Roaring Twenties, all the while black folks are dismissed as schwartzes who don't polish the crystal ware correctly. As whiteness exists only in juxtaposition to blackness and the Other, black folk are peripheral to Boardwalk Empire while being central to the American mythos. This is especially clear in Sunday's episode, "Anastasia." Because popular culture, especially television shows such as Mad Men andBoardwalk Empire, traffic in the malleability of historical memory, the white gaze doesn't see "us," but "we" are forever there.


The greatest moment of Boardwalk Empire's "Anastasia" episode signals to the power of blackness in American memory, and of this country's popular culture at large. To this point, Nucky, Steve Bushemi's (main) character, the top dog of Atlantic City, is playing chess not checkers. If politics is "what have you done for me lately?" and "who get's what, when, and why?" Nucky must reach out to Chalky, Omar of The Wire fame and the boss of the African American political machine in Atlantic City. Ultimately in"Anastasia," realpolitik trumps white supremacy and provincial notions of the supremacy of white bodies over those black and brown.


There is also a fantasy element to collective memory whichBoardwalk Empire is so keenly aware. Some viewers may indulge dreams of flappers, finely tailored suits, and bootleg liquor. For those with a blue's sensibility, our freedom dreams may be a bit different: How many of "us" have ever gotten to sit across from their sworn foes? To make them render onto Caesar? To act out justice upon their bodies?


In "Anastasia," Chalky indulges this dark dream--an Inglorious Bastards moment--of providential justice. He sits across from the Grand Cyclops of the KKK in Atlantic City. Chalky, in the longest monologue on the show to date relays a tale of class, race, and "uppity" negroes who dared to step out of line. For this, Chalky's father swung like strange fruit. And as Chalky opens up the leather clutch that contains his father's tools to torture the Grand Cyclops, we understand that pain will be a form of cathartic vengeance.


Here, suffering rendered onto the enemies of black folk, the Knight Riders, Klansmen, Klanswomen, and others is also a fantasy of sorts. How many black Americans can really recount a family story--one that is "true"--of relatives hung on the lynching tree, of uppity negro Catcher Freeman runaways, and where we, all of us, had grandmas who had Colt revolvers hiding under the hemline of their dresses ready for any white man (or anyone for that matter) who crossed them?


And we certainly cannot forget the stories about former chattel who ran away and came back as Union soldiers--much to the chagrin of their former masters; of slaves who posted bounties for their "owners" during Reconstruction; slaves that evicted masters on the plantation as they built a nation under their feet, or of the ultimate "go to hell letter" written by Jourdan Anderson to his white "employer." These are collective memories that may or not be literally true. Nevertheless, this does not take away the power of these communal truths because collective memory is none diminished by appeals to empirical truth.


In relief, Boardwalk Empire is a story of class, aspiration, and the Horatio Alger myth. Boardwalk Empire is also a tale of revenge and fantasy on the part of "us" against "them." Per our tradition, some questions about the Easter Eggs and Mis En Scenes of Boardwalk Empire:


1. What have you noticed in the background? What is your favorite shot of the series so far?


2. Of fashion choices and body sculpting. Am I the only person who has noticed something amiss with Lucy's beautiful breasts, or the choice of "female grooming" to this point so far?


3. Harlem. I need to see Harlem in its heyday. As an Easter egg,Boardwalk Empire could feature some former Harlem Hellfightersas badmen and now gangsters. Alternatively, some former white officers in those famed units would make for suitably complicated characters that are nonetheless racist, but somehow "progressive" for their contemporary moment in Jim Crow America.


4. On that note, Steve Bushemi's character dismisses the obviously "racist" cop during their meeting. Am I being cynical, or does the white racial frame always find a way to protect itself through a narrative where white racism is an outlier and most white folk are always good people--despite the politics of the epoch?


5. The Romanovs. What a great meta-narrative for this episode asBoardwalk Empire is a show centered on the pretenses of class mobility, uplift, social betters, and striving towards the good life.


6. As we saw with the slashing of Jimmy's prostitute lover, do the little folks always have to suffer for their associations with the marginally more powerful?


7. Why the emphasis on premature babies? Is this some signal to technology, progress, and America? Or is it a wink to a fascination with abnormal bodies during the early part of the 20th century?


8. We have Chalky as the bad black man and one of the machine bosses of Atlantic City. Are we going to see The Queen, the real queen, who was marginalized by the Hollywood myth-making machine in Lawrence Fishburne's movie Hoodlum?

Since 2008, the state has provided more than $41 million to West Virginia greyhound breeders through the Greyhound Breeding Development Fund, according to a report released today by Massachusetts-based nonprofit Grey2K USA.

"The state is investing in an industry that has passed," said Christine Dorchak, Grey2K president. "And we want to point out that this is not only a misuse of taxpayer money, it's also causing great harm to greyhounds."

Other states that have ended greyhound racing have also allocated money to people in the racing industry to help them transition to other jobs, Thiel said.

"But to us, our economy shouldn't be built on cruelty to dogs,"Thiel said. "We don't understand the argument that you should continue doing something that causes hundreds of dogs to die and thousands of dogs to endure lives of confinement."

How Organizers Are Bringing About the Death of 

Greyhound Racing

Credit: Action Shots Online

The sights of the greyhound track can be horrifying: cages too tight for dogs to stand, abuse at the hands of trainers, gruesome injury and prompt euthanasia. A new report [PDF], released on September 4th by GREY2K USA and the ASPCA, looks at greyhound racing in West Virginia and finds a dying industry that’s propping itself up by cutting corners on animal care. Across the country, it seems like public opinion has turned against greyhound racing–the number of tracks in the United States has fallen by half over the past ten years.

The emotional case to ban greyhound racing is easy to make. People love dogs, and racing dogs face short and painful lives so casinos can maximize their profit. West Virginia has only two active tracks, but from 2008 to the present, 4,796 greyhound injuries were reported, resulting in 289 deaths. If the numbers don’t make the case, then the stories do. One dog spent over two months in the kennel with a broken leg without receiving veterinary treatment. Another was grabbed by the neck and thrown screaming into a truck by a trainer with a record of mistreatment. A director at the Wheeling Island Racetrack described one kennel: “I began choking so badly that even my eyes were watering… a strong odor of urine affected me.”

Emotions alone don’t change public policy, however, especially not when significant sums of money are involved. Without much fanfare, the legislative shift against greyhound racing has become one of the most decisive progressive victories of our time. In the past twenty years, eleven states have passed laws prohibiting dog racing.

How did the anti-racing movement become so successful so quickly? Like any successful campaign, they had a strong but nimble leadership who understood how to activate passive supporters and create strategic alliances.

The 2008 campaign to ban greyhound racing in Massachusetts operated in the shadow of a failed referendum eight years earlier. The 2000 campaign lacked the infrastructure to compete on a statewide level; the measure only appeared on the ballot because unconnected volunteers across the state collected signatures. By the next campaign, activists had enlisted almost one hundred local coordinators and won the endorsement of many more community leaders. The movement gained a voice, and a thorough research effort provided a meaningful, compelling message. Massachusetts voters responded by giving the greyhounds a victory by almost 12%.

Advocates of greyhound racing use mostly economic arguments, threatening job losses if the industry is forced to close. Rhode Island kept dog racing in 2009 because of the need to maintain tax revenue, and advertisements from Massachusetts tracks told the stories of their workers. To combat this, anti-racing activists have focused on the subsidies that state governments spend on greyhounds. They’ve formed alliances with casino owners forced to keep failing tracks open. When I spoke to Ann Church, the ASPCA’s vice president for state affairs, she was just as prepared to make the economic case as the animals rights case for ending the sport. These arguments resonate across the political spectrum, and Republicans have led the fight to ban racing in Arizona andWest Virginia.

Through all this, greyhound advocacy has been on the fringes of the progressive movement. I doubt that many progressives actively support greyhound racing, but the campaigners’ success rarely gets the attention it deserves. Church admits that they face entrenched opposition in West Virginia, admitting to me that “once the stream of money starts flowing, it’s very hard to turn off.” The dogs have canny organizers and battle-tested strategies on their side, however, and I doubt it will be long before we finally see an end to America’s cruelest sport.

The Pinochet regime was violent, repressive and a close ally of the United States. Pinochet formed alliances with other military regimes in South America, and they created “Operation Condor,” a campaign of coordinated terror and assassinations throughout Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Operation Condor even reached onto the streets of Washington, DC, when, on Sep. 21, 1976, a former Chilean ambassador to the US during the Allende government, Orlando Letelier, along with his assistant, a US citizen named Ronni Moffitt, were killed by a car bomb planted by Pinochet’s secret police on Embassy Row, just blocks from the White House.

In Chile neoliberal politics were imposed under a military-business dictatorship and until very recently the climate did not appear favorable for challenging the current right-wing government led by Pinochet's cherubs who represent the legacy of the dictatorship, even after more than twenty years of transition to democracy. This is a fearful democracy that had changed the administration of power and made signals toward the protection of human rights, while it continued to repress and criminalize social movements and indigenous communities. It also promotes the criminalization of dissidence by creating new laws to take it to court.

 
...We are talking about a state conceived of and designed to meet the needs of neoliberalism. The cost, however, is paid by the environment, common goods and working men and women: the fallacy of the successful businessmen is based on the dynamic of double exploitation of the environment and labour.

...We are talking about a state conceived of and designed to meet the needs of neoliberalism. The cost, however, is paid by the environment, common goods and working men and women: the fallacy of the successful businessmen is based on the dynamic of double exploitation of the environment and labour.

The powerful students’ struggle of the past three years is questioning the roots of neoliberalism in the educational system as exemplified in 2011, when students began demanding free education and an end to the debt they were forced to assume in order to study. They also confronted the state and the government concerning profits in educational establishments because in neoliberal Chile businesses that provide services, especially in the areas of finance and retail, are characterized as “industry,” and education is no exception. It has become like any factory, mining, chemical, wood or industrial complex. In other words, education is another sector of economic activity developed to expand the frontiers and strengthen the expansion of capital through onerous fees and high interest rates on educational loans, transforming it into a type of double surplus value extraction.


The student movement has persuaded diverse sectors of society to join the students in their demands; they made it clear that they were the children of workers and therefore part of the social fabric of the nation. As such, their problems extended to all parts of society as they did not consider themselves a sector encapsulated by its own imperatives. Nonetheless, the students emphasized their autonomy from political parties, government coalitions and business interests. Moreover, the majority of student federations called for a transformation of society, including the political constitution that impedes the democratic process in matters that directly affect people's lives.


At present, more than ever, social movements across Chile – from workers of all sectors to students and peasants – are requesting the end of the market in the strategic sector of the economy and the removal of the neoliberal approach in the implementation of social programs: no more market in health, education, housing, and pension plans; no more profits on the state funding of social services.

Today,...sees alarming similarities between the repression in Chile and US policies today: “You have extraordinary renditions. You have extrajudicial killings. You have secret centers of detentions. I am very concerned that those methods ... were applied in Chile with the knowledge and the backing of the Nixon-Kissinger administration in this period. The same methods are being applied now in many countries with the backing of the United States. That is very dangerous for everyone.”

Rather than meeting with Kissinger for advice, John Kerry would better serve the cause of peace by consulting with those like Garces who have spent their lives pursuing peace. The only reason Henry Kissinger should be pursued is to be held accountable, like Pinochet, in a court of law.

My friends,

Surely this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the towers of Radio Portales and Radio Corporación.

My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath: soldiers of Chile, titular commanders in chief, Admiral Merino, who has designated himself Commander of the Navy, and Mr. Mendoza, the despicable general who only yesterday pledged his fidelity and loyalty to the Government, and who also has appointed himself Chief of the Carabineros [national police].

Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say to workers: I am not going to resign!
Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seed which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever.

They have strength and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested neither by crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.

Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that. At this definitive moment, the last moment when I can address you, I wish you to take advantage of the lesson: foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their tradition, the tradition taught by General Schneider and reaffirmed by Commander Araya, victims of the same social sector which will today be in their homes hoping, with foreign assistance, to retake power to continue defending their profits and their privileges.

I address, above all, the modest woman of our land, the campesina who believed in us, the worker who labored more, the mother who knew our concern for children. I address professionals of Chile, patriotic professionals, those who days ago continued working against the sedition sponsored by professional associations, class-based associations that also defended the advantages which a capitalist society grants to a few.

I address the youth, those who sang and gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism has been already present for many hours — in terrorist attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of the silence of those who had the obligation to protect them. They were committed. History will judge them.

Surely Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to [inaudible] the workers.

The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.

Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again where free men will walk to build a better society.

Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!

These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason.

Chile: The first dictatorship of 

globalisation

When General Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s left-wing government in Chile, Mike Gatehouse was among the thousands of activists arrested. On the 40th anniversary of the coup he describes the hope and then the horror of the time.

By Peter Kornbluh

"Nothing can be done for me medically within the standard care that (my oncologists) are authorized to provide. They recommended that I be admitted to hospice care to make my remaining days as comfortable as possible. I have been given two months to live.

I want the world to know that I am an innocent man and that Albert Woodfox is innocent as well.  The state may have stolen my life, but my spirit will continue to struggle along with Albert and the many comrades that have joined us along the way here in the belly of the beast."

Angola 3 Political Prisoner Herman Wallace Given 2 Months to Live

 BY MRDAVEYDLEAVE A COMMENT

With so much going on in the world, where we are running around demanding that everyone conforms to rest of the world conform to our so-called standards of governing and we often forget that here at home we mistreat and abuse far too many of our citizens. For all the talk of us being the beacon of freedom and the world’s number one super power that all should emulate, where we fall short the most is the cruelty and torture we put upon those who are incarcerated, in particular political prisoners and those who have partook in the Prison Reform Movement of the 1970s

First we should note that this week Sept 9th- Sept 13th marks the 41st anniversary of the nation’s most violent and disturbing Prison Rebellion.. We’re talking about Attica. The root of the rebellion was folks coming together and asking for what we’re deemed reasonable improvements and an end to the isolation and torture of inmate at the hands of sadistic guards.

The violence was when then Governor Nelson Rockefeller refused to negotiate on key demands  and sent in guards , soldiers and former prison workers who shot and killed 9 of the 10 prison guards who were held hostage.. along with over 20 inmates. After the rebellions prisoners were stripped and cruelly beaten after erroneous reports were put forth that they had killed prison guards. It was later learned the inmates tried to protect them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBG1UkxrMG0

Angola 3

1971 was the year the Attica Rebellion took place. It was also the same year that one thousand miles away, Robert King, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallacewere sentenced to do time at Angola State Prison  a former slave plantation. Inspired by the Prison Reform Movement and the fact that Woodfox and Wallace had joined the Black Panthers, they began organizing inmates and pushing to demand improvement to the prisons wretched conditions. They called for an end to violence and rapes that were routinely occurring. They called for the prison to be desegregated.

In 1972 the 3 men were accused of murdering prison guard Brent Miller and were placed in solitary confinement for 40 years. All 3 maintained they were innocent which seemed to be supported by the fact there was no physical evidence connecting them to the crime. Over the years it was found evidence used against them was compromised by prosecutors and prison officials who held racial biases and that much of it has since been lost.

Witnesses were later found to be discredited and on 3 different occasions their sentences was overturned only to be appealed by over zealous Louisiana attorney generals who have made it a mission to keep the remaining two Woodfox and Wallace locked up. King who was set free several years ago after spending 29 years in solitary confinement..

Herman Wallace

In recent days its come to light that 71 year old Herman Wallacewho was diagnosed with severe  liver cancer has 2 months to live. Even under these conditions he has not been released ..below is a statement he released.

Saturday, August 31st, I was transferred to LSU Hospital for evaluation. I was informed that the chemo treatments had failed and were making matters worse and so all treatment came to an end. The oncologists advised that nothing can be done for me medically within the standard care that they are authorized to provide. They recommended that I be admitted to hospice care to make my remaining days as comfortable as possible. I have been given 2 months to live.

I want the world to know that I am an innocent man and that Albert Woodfox is innocent as well. We are just two of thousands of wrongfully convicted prisoners held captive in the American Gulag. We mourn for the family of Brent Miller and the many other victims of murder who will never be able to find closure for the loss of their loved ones due to the unjust criminal justice system in this country. We mourn for the loss of the families of those unjustly accused who suffer the loss of their loved ones as well.

Only a handful of prisoners globally have withstood the duration of years of harsh and solitary confinement that Albert and myself have. The State may have stolen my life, but my spirit will continue to struggle along with Albert and the many comrades that have joined us along the way here in the belly of the beast.

In 1970 I took an oath to dedicate my life as a servant of the people, and although I’m down on my back, I remain at your service. I want to thank all of you, my devoted supporters, for being with me to the end.”

Here’s some additional information on the Angola 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPf23DKkb_0

Keep in Touch with Herman and Albert

Albert Woodfox #72148 Herman Wallace #76759

David Wade Correctional Center Elayn Hunt Correctional Center

N1 A3 CCR D #2

670 Bell Hill Road PO Box 174

Homer, LA 71040 St. Gabriel, LA 70776

The Sorry Injustice of the Angola Three

Release Herman Wallace—he is about to die of cancer in prison after 40 years in solitary confinement.

By Sara Rahman

Two men watch television in the Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana, where Herman Wallace, one of the Angola Three, is held.

Photo by Gilles Mingasson/Getty Images

Herman Wallace spent over four decades alone in a 6-by-9-foot prison cell. For 41 years, he has stretched, wretched, ached, medicated, grown, and deteriorated—all in the three paces he could take from his toilet to his closed cell door.

This week, while awaiting a federal judge’s decision on a petition he brought challenging the conviction that put him in solitary confinement, Wallace, who is 73, stopped an ineffective chemotherapy regime for a liver tumor. Because of the cancer diagnosis, Judge Jackson agreed to an expedited ruling over a month ago, but hasn’t issued it yet. Wallace, meanwhile, has been told he has two months to live.

Wallace is one of the Angola Three, a trio of men who have become fixtures in prisoner exoneration lore both for the evidence of misconduct in their cases and for the political undertones of their decades-long solitary confinement. They’ve been held in Louisiana’s legendary Angola prison, which is named for the slave plantation that once occupied the grounds. Angola is also referred to as “the Farm,” and when you enter its gates after a long, lonely drive, you see inmates, mostly African-American, tending fields of cotton, wheat, and corn.