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OCTAVIA'S BROOD: "REMEMBER TO DREAM"

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Okay, then, week number three for Scission's new Cultural Mondays  is underway.

Speculative fiction has always been of interest to me.  It has the potential to lay out things political in a way that masses of folks can enjoy and at the same time help social activists experiment with ideas in a way that a straight line political piece just cannot.

I once took a course in college on Science Fiction and was asked to write a short story.  I came up with the now famous (yeah, right), get this, "Quotations from Mao Tse ?."  Hey, it was like 1972 or something.  I won't even go any further with that.

Now back to our story.

Octvia Butler is (actually she is now deceased) a well known African American female writer of socially important, progressive Science Fiction or Fantasy or Speculative Fiction, Visionary  (whatever you want to call it).  I've read a number of her works and found them to be outstanding. They are a fascinating read and politically (and philosophically) significant at the same time...and much better written than most works in the field.  She tackles issues most writers of fiction do not in a way almost none can and from a perspective which few in the world of Speculative fiction could possibly relate.  As ColorLines writes, "The late writer’s work often centers on black women who must navigate the politics of apocalypse."
  
Now along comes Adrienne Maree Brown.  Brown is a co-founder of the Ruckus Society and has participated in and helped to organize numerous direct actions in a variety of cities.  She also loves Science Fiction.  She has all co-hosted workshops on Octavia Butler an annual gathering of technology and media activists in Detroit.  ColorLines reports:

  

This summer, Brown and her allies wrapped up a remarkably successful crowd sourcing campaign and raised more than $17,000 to take their work on the road. The finished product will be “Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements,” an anthology of speculative fiction written by activists. The project is also the work of Walidah Imarisha, a writer and activist based in Portland. Along with the book, the editors and authors will also host writing workshops across the country.

“There have been great anthologies of explicitly political or identity-based sci-fi, but to our knowledge there hasn’t been a collection of original sci-fi from people who do social justice work,” Brown says. “And our work needs us to be so visionary so it’s an exercise and experiment.”

“A lot of our movements are shaped defensively, necessarily,” Brown says. “It can be easy to set our dreams only on the horizon of what seems possible in circumstances largely controlled by oppressive systems. It feels like radical work to actually stretch our imaginations and recenter ourselves in the long arc of what we need to survive.”

I really am looking forward to the end result.

So should you.

I am going to give you two posts again.  I know this is becoming a habit, but I promise it won't be.  I just couldn't figure which of the two below to leave out.  The first is an interview with one of those working with Brown on the project Walidah Imarisha found at Red Door Project. The other is sort of a first for Scission.  It is actually a  A selection from the forthcoming anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements which I found at the Hooded Utalitarian. I hope you enjoy it.





“All Organizing is Science Fiction:” Walidah Imarisha on Her New Crowdfunded Project, Octavia’s Brood



Walidah Imarisha is proud to be a nerd. The Portland-based writer, organizer, educator and performance poet is obsessed with sci-fi, and she’s equally passionate about social change. Those two interests collide in Walidah’s newest project with adrienne maree brown, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, an anthology of visionary science fiction and speculative fiction written by organizers and activists, inspired by prominent science fiction writer Octavia Butler.


Octavia’s Brood reached its funding original goal on Indiegogo earlier this month, and is currently seeking contributions for stretch goals. You can read more about the project and contribute here.
We interviewed Walidah last week about Octavia’s Brood, her relationship with Butler’s work, and why it might be time for Uhura to give Captain Kirk a piece of her mind.


Matt Lurie: How has Octavia Butler influenced you?
Walidah Imarisha
Walidah Imarisha: I’ve been a science fiction nerd my entire life. My earliest memory is watching Star Trek at the age of 2, I tried to learn Klingon when I was in middle school, and used to try to do Princess Leia buns every Halloween… Afros and Princess Leia buns do not go together, unfortunately. [laughs]


So I’m biased, but I think everyone should read Octavia Butler. It’s been amazing working on this project and seeing everyone’s different entry points into radical science fiction—or what we like to call visionary fiction. The difference is that visionary fiction is aware of power dynamics, and may show a dystopian future, but focuses on ability of people, especially those that are marginalized, to make change and to become aware of power structures. We can explore these dystopian futures—that are very much based on the inequalities and oppressions that happen here, in the present—while empowering and showing folks that they have the potential to make change. Octavia Butler is a cornerstone for that type of story.


And it’s been interesting talking to many of our writers, who said things like, “I never liked science fiction because I never saw any reflection of me. I can’t make it to the future, so why would I wanna read that future?” For many folks it was really Octavia’s writing that was the first time that they saw themselves and their issues written into the future, in a way that felt hopeful—instead of the message we’re used to hearing. You know: “Sorry y’all got massacred, sucks to be you.” Uh, wow, really?


Octavia Brood is part of a legacy of visionary ancestors who, especially for marginalized and oppressed groups historically, are the ones who dreamed of us. For adrienne and me, as two black women, it’s important for us to remember that for our enslaved ancestors, dreaming of us without chains was science fiction. They had no conception or frame to understand that future, and yet being able to envision it made them able to work towards it. They literally bent reality to create us, and to create this world. That’s the importance and the power of science fiction. It’s the only genre that allows us to do that—to completely re-envision the future, to dream, and then to move towards making those dreams possible.


ML: That term, “visionary fiction,” is interesting, because it’s the opposite of what we’re used to seeing. I think, for a lot of people, modern science fiction is about all the terrible things that could happen, the dangerous, dystopian future we could find ourselves in if we’re not careful. Visionary fiction sounds like it’s more about making the future better than the present.


WI: And even when things aren’t great, people are working to make spaces great. We’ve been doing these short videos called Voices from Octavia’s Brood where we’ve been interviewing different writers for two or three minutes about Octavia or their work. One of the writers I was interviewing, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, was clear—she was like, “Octavia isn’t easy.”


Yeah, Octavia is hard. There’s no sugar with that medicine. She doesn’t give you what you want; she gives you what you need, and she doesn’t mess around when she gives it to you. For example, stories like Parable of the Sower. In their interviews, probably ninety percent said how hard it was to read that book because it is so close to where we are now—it is just a half step away—and it is so terrifying that it’s so close. So many people said things like, “I had to start it five or six times,” but when they got into it, there was this overwhelming feeling that, yes, this future is horrific and frightening, but even within this devastated landscape, if we are ready, if we are prepared, we can build. We can build a community, and out of this kernel, this “Earth Seed”—as Octavia calls it—something beautiful and huge can sprout.


ML: Even within this dark future, there’s a kernel of hope.


WI: Right, and for us, I think it’s about being realistic. Again, Star Trek is interesting, because so many people who watch it see this idealized, perfect future. I certainly didn’t believe it was perfect, because I identified with Uhura. And after three seasons, you really don’t know anything about her other than the fact that she answers the phone on the Enterprise.


ML: She’s a space secretary.


WI: “How may I direct your call, please?” [laughs] You know. And that said, it was incredibly important for me to even see her make it to the future, and she was an officer, and she could—in theory—take over the bridge if everyone else was wiped out. But I definitely feel like visionary fiction is about re-centering those folks who are on the margins, saying what would Star Trek look like through Uhura’s eyes? It would certainly not look like the idyllic landscape that Kirk sees. She’s like, “If I could just— I gotta think about my galactic pension. If I get it, I’d have some things to say to you, sir.” [laughs]


WEB Brown Imarisha
adrienne maree brown (left), Walidah Imarisha (right)
So I think that reality is important too. It’s really saying that, for so many people, the world has never been ideal. For oppressed and marginalized communities, it’s never been a hopeful time to have children. It’s never been a good time to have dreams for the future, because they’re so fragile and they could be crushed in an instant. And yet it’s only because folks triumph, and hold onto those dreams, and hold onto that hope that any of us are here for us today.


ML: Where do you see Octavia’s influence?


WI: I think she’s everywhere. She’s inspired an entire generation of people to dream and to remember to dream. Every radical person I know either loves Octavia Butler, and they were sci-fi nerds before they read her, or Octavia was was got them into science fiction. That reality can’t be denied, that she wrote so many complex stories that don’t have easy answers, and that appeals to people who live complicated lives. There’s no easy answer to creating transformative social change; there’s just the process. One of the things that Octavia says is that, from Earth Seed, “All that you touch you change. All you change changes you.”


God is change. Whether you believe in God or not, change is the only constant force, and it’s going to come, and you can be ready for it or not. You can get bulldozed, but it’s coming. For folks who organize, for people whose lives are institutionally unstable anyway, that’s comforting in some way, to know that it’s not just my life, it’s the constant force of the universe, and I can get ready for it. I can’t stop it, but I can be ready, so when that comes—like Lauren Olamina [from Parable of the Sower]—I can grab my survival bag, and run out while people are coming over the wall and destroying my little space of community that was my protective bubble. And now it’s gone, and that’s scary, but I prepared for it, and I’m ready for the lessons I’m going to learn along the way.




ML: What do you hope to accomplish with Octavia’s Brood?


WI: I’m just so happy that there’s been a resurgence in reclaiming, and holding and lifting up Octavia Butler. The Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network is an organization that was just recently started by Ayanna Jamieson. It started because Ayanna took a trip to Octavia’s grave and it was overgrown, neglected. People didn’t really know where she was buried and, especially for black women, this is a story that happens again and again. It makes me think of Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote these foundational stories that completely changed American literature, that shifted the black experience indelibly. She died penniless and alone, and people couldn’t even find her grave. So even if this larger society isn’t going to honor our visionaries, we’re going to honor our visionaries. That process is so powerful because it’s holding up Octavia as well as all those folks that Octavia acknowledged freely and happily and constantly that she was holding up.


So by holding up Octavia, there are all these layers. We’re holding up this lineage, and we’re also holding up the future. Alexis Pauline Gumbs quotes an interview Octavia did in the eighties, when someone asked “What does it feel like to be THE black female science fiction writer?” And Octavia said something like, “I never wanted that, I didn’t want it. I want there to be hundreds of black female science fiction writers, I want thousands of people writing themselves into the future. That’s why I started writing, because I wasn’t present in any of the futures, in any of the literature I’ve been seeing, and I want everyone to write themselves into the future.” This is the responsibility Octavia has placed on us, to continue this work. She has laid down the challenge to say, “Can you dream?” And it’s all our responsibility to echo back to the universe all of our complex, beautiful, challenging, complicated, contradictory, beautiful, ugly truths. And then work to make the future.


That’s why we wanted specifically to reach out to organizers and people who are creating social change. Many of the folks we reached out to at first we like, “You want me to write what now?” And I would say at least half of the initial response was, “No, I can’t do that.” So we said, “Okay, just sit with it, think about it, and we’ll get back to you.” And by and large, when we got back to folks, they said, “Oh my God, so I had this amazing idea, and I’ve written fifteen pages already! And I’m going to keep going, and how long of a submission can I submit?” I think it’s because to us, all organizing is science fiction. I mean, what does a world without prisons look like? What is a world without hunger? What is a world where there is justice and people have enough to eat and decent education… We don’t know! It’s science fiction.


ML: Mission statements are science fiction premises.


WI: Yeah, vision statements, mission statements, “We believe in a world where…” Once you start that, you are writing science fiction. All organizing is science fiction. Organizers should have the space to claim that.


A lot of times, we’re so focused on the strategic plan, and the next six months, and “what are our action steps?” And those are incredibly important to making change, but we rarely have the space to step back and take a minute to collectively dream. We found that when we offer these visionary organizers that chance, it’s mind-blowing what they come up with.

Learn more about and support Octavia’s Brood at its Indiegogo campaign page.








Excerpt from “Black Angels and Blue Roses”

[Note by Noah: This is an excerpt from a story by Walidah Imarisha which will be included in the anthology Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements, edited by Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown. The book is a collection of sci-fi stories by social activist writers, inspired by the work of Octavia Butler. The editors are currently running a funding campaign on indiegogo, where you can find out more about the project.

Thanks to Walidah and Adrienne for running this excerpt here!

784px-Butler_signing
Octavia Butler


… The gang stayed for a few hours, drinking copious amounts of whiskey and making more noise than the rest of the bar put together.

Finally they started to trickle out. Tamee, who had to take a piss, was the last one out. He walked down Lennox on unsteady legs. Night still warm from the summer’s day heat, like the hood of a parked car. He looked up at the moon. It was blood red. Damn, Tamee thought. Rubbed his head. His fingers tracing the uneven scar that ran from the top of his cranium, down the right side of his forehead. Crossed the socket where his right eye used to be. Ended an inch or so under his bottom lid. Like a permanent tear.

The doctors said he was damn lucky. If his head had been turned just a few degrees up, it would have penetrated his brain. If it didn’t kill him, it would have left him a vegetable.

This is why you don’t try to take on five nazi skinheads all by yourself, he mused ruefully to himself. Especially not if one of them has a crowbar. His mother always said he was stubborn as a mule and had to learn everything the hardest way possible.

As if called into existence by his thought, Tamee caught sight of a nazi he knew sauntering on the other side of the street. Tamee didn’t know his real name, only knew the bonehead went by Joker. Tamee had had a number of run-ins with Joker and his crew. Tamee had come out the worse for wear on most of those too.

But not tonight, he thought grimly. Cracked his knuckles. Tonight was payback night.

Tamee started loping across the street after him, his long legs gazelle-like in their movements.

“Hey fuckwad!”

Joker’s turning face smashed into Tamee’s fist. Blood rained on the ground. Tamee hit him with a flurry of punches. A knee to the gut. Threw him up against the wall. Another combo to the face.

Tamee was so intent on administering the beating, he didn’t hear Joker’s three man crew approach from his right side. His blind side. And he was blindsided. A fist slammed into his skull right behind his ear. He didn’t see stars; he saw a nuclear bomb explode behind his eyelids.

The four nazis circled around Tamee. Boots fell like autumn leaves. Tamee was protecting his head, his face, his internal organs. But not for long. He knew they were just getting started. He wouldn’t be able to hold out long. Tamee could tell they didn’t mean to leave anything of him when they were done.

Just when Tamee felt his consciousness begin to slip away, A. rounded the corner. She stopped, took a couple seconds to assess the scene.

“Hey, get out of here! Get out of here, black bitch, if you know what’s good for you!’

A.’s eyes smoldered, but she turned to leave. Her eyes caught Tamee’s. His desperate, terrified, hopeless eyes. She had seen that look so many times before. That look had gotten her kicked out of heaven. That look had cost her everything. She would have nothing to do with that look.

But the nazis took her moment of reflection for defiance. Three of them peeled off. Menaced towards her. Circled her like jackals. One of them pulled out a knife.

“You shoulda left when you had the chance, bitch.”

She locked her eyes on them. She knew they couldn’t seriously injure her. They didn’t have the power. But they could hurt her. And she’d felt enough pain for three lifetimes.

And she just really really hated boneheads.

With one fluid motion, A. whipped her trenchcoat off. Her remaining wing was wrapped across her shoulder like a shawl. Tied down by a cord wrapped firmly around her waist. She ripped the cord free, and her wing, black as the night’s sky, snapped back and out with a five foot span. Reaching for the lost heavens.

“What the fuck???” The closest nazi to her scrambled backwards.

“Man, it’s kind of costume or something. Don’t be fucking stupid!” Joker yelled. “Fuck her up!”

The nazi nodded and charged A. She jumped in the air, flapping her wing while she did. She could not fly with only one wing, but she could jump much higher than humans, and descend slowly.

The nazi ran right under her, carried by his own momentum. As he passed, she kicked him with a boot to the back of his head. He sprawled on the concrete like split milk, unconscious.

She made short work of the other two who bellowed and ran at her, enraged. An elbow to the face. Flurry of punches. Broken nose. Blood. Silence.

Joker stared at her. Fear and loathing mixed in his eyes. He looked about to rush her. But he must have calculated his odds because instead he turned to run. A. leapt forward. Wrapped her wing around him. Squeezed. Squeezed until he stopped struggling and slumped to the ground, breathing shallowly.

She surveyed the five men sprawled on the ground, the nazis and Tamee, who had uncurled himself from a ball but had not moved during the fight. Frozen with amazement and awe. He felt absolutely no fear. He knew he was in the presence of something incredible. Exalted. Divine.

She looked down at Joker. She should just leave them all here for the cops to find and be done with it. This wasn’t her problem. She wouldn’t have gotten involved if they hadn’t pulled her into it. She shouldn’t have gotten involved at all. Why the fuck did she? she asked herself, disgusted. She glanced at Tamee, the cut on his forehead leaking blood into his good eye.

A. sighed. She had lived in Harlem long enough to know sending anyone into the criminal justice system did nothing but make them more damaged and desperate. She hid in the shadows, watched the police patrolling the streets. Not patrolling. Hunting. There was no mercy behind those shining badges. The scene played out over and over like a flickering film projected onto the city. And she had done nothing each time before, just waited for the reel to end.

She knelt down next to Joker. Like this, he looked so fragile. So breakable. She could end this right now. Do to him what he had planned to do to Tamee. She was an Angel, after all, even if she was fallen – she would be merciful.

A small voice in the recesses of her mind asked, Should I use the Voice? She stared down at this manchild she knew to be a killer. She could smell it on him; this was not his first attempt at taking a life, nor would it be his last if something wasn’t done. She shook her head, trying to clear the thought out, but it clung like a burr.

When she was an Angel, A. had used her Voice to change hearts. Sing humans good. There were no repercussions as an Angel, with a sanction from the Almighty. It had actually been a joyous communion, and the glow she felt had filled her with even more warmth and peace than she thought possible.

But God had taken that when he set fire to her and expelled her from Heaven. Sure, He had left her the Voice. But if she used it, she took on these humans’ pain. She had tried it only once, when she was first exiled. It was flames of the barrier between Heaven and Earth licking at her flesh again, biting and tearing until she could not take it. She had collapsed; it took days to recover fully. One of the many reasons she avoided interacting with humans when at all possible. She’d already suffered enough pain for them.

But now that this situation stared her in the face, she found she could not just walk away. Even though everything inside her screamed to. She could not shake the look in Tamee’s eyes, the plea for help. Mercy. Grace. It had been a long time since she had been reminded not only of the horror of humans, but the vulnerability.

A. opened her mouth. She began to sing. It was the most incredible sound Tamee had ever heard. Cool clean waterfalls cascading down into cool green valleys, his mother’s hands cool on his hot forehead, the beauty of a grove of olive trees bright in the sunshine in his stolen home of Palestine. His whole family, even the ones murdered and lost, gathered, arm and arm. Complete peace.

A golden light shone in A’s mouth, illuminating through her flesh. She leaned over Joker. The light cracked and rained down on his face. Soaked into his skin. At the same time, a murky darkness crept up the stream of light. Climbed into A. through her mouth. Darkened the glow emanating from her chest. She grimaced and her voice faltered, but she continued singing.

Joker’s face, twisted with hate and rage even when unconscious, began to relax. The lines of anger smoothed out. His face became serene. A child curled up in the arms of its mother, protected and safe.

A. turned and did the same to the others. The light in her chest almost entirely eclipsed by the smoky darkness from their mouths. She could barely reach the one furthest away, had to drag herself over, still singing but now her voice sounded like a small wounded animal.

When she finished with the last one, she leaned backwards. Wavered like a candle in a strong wind. She keeled over, her head hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

Tamee rushed forward to lift her up, despite the many injuries that screamed at him.

“Are you all right?” he stared down into her face. The color of coffee beans dusted with rose petals. Flawless like glass. Eyes like galaxies.

She was more beautiful than anything he could have ever imagined.

Her eyes focused on him. She jerked away and tried to stand up. She failed, and only accomplished rolling away onto her side.

“Get off.” Her voice, though thin, was infused with steel. Reached out her hand to try to lift herself up.

“I… I can’t believe you’re here. You exist. I never thought I would see something… someone like you…” Tamee sputtered.

A. gave up trying to stand. Laid there breathing shallowly for a while. Reached into her trenchcoat pocket. Pulled out a cigarette.

“So you think you know what I am.” The snap of the lighter.

“Of course I know what you are.” A touch of awe in his voice. “It’s been a minute since I touched the Qu’ran. Years since I went to masjid. But I would know you anywhere.

“You’re an angel.”

She paused, the look of pain on her face completely unconnected to her injuries.

After a long minute, she growled, “I used to be an Angel. Now I’m just like all of you. Scraping away on the face of this cesspool called a planet until you fucking die.”

“Wow… um, okay,” Tamee stuttered.

Silence. Her ragged exhale.

“Well, thanks. For saving me. I mean. I really appreciate it. Really,” he babbled.

“Don’t thank me.” Her tone stung more than a slap to the face. “If I’d had my way, I wouldn’t have done shit.”

Tamee was a little taken aback by her callousness. She didn’t sound much like an angel. For one thing, he had not imagined an angel would curse. He thought there would be more love and compassion. She wasn’t really at all how he imagined an angel.

She was a million times better.

A. reached into her pocket and pulled out some more black cord. She propped herself up against the brick of a building. Gingerly folded her wing forward across her shoulder. Began wrapping the cord around and around, until the wing was strapped down securely.

“So, what’s your name?” Tamee asked after a minute.

“Don’t have one.”

“Well, what did they call you back then? In… you know, in Heaven?”

“Nothing. Angels don’t have names. We know each other. We can… “
A. had no words to describe the flow of energy. The connected contentment that linked all of the Angels. God. Heaven itself. They were all one. Separate and one. There was a me, but there was no you. Everything was felt. A continuous feedback loop of perfect joy. There were no human words to describe it, because they could not even fathom the depths of beauty that come from being part of God. It made her angry to try to find words to explain the most painful loss she would or could ever have.

A. barked, “ We just feel each other, okay.”

“Okay, can I just call you Angel then?”

“No.” She threw her trenchcoat over her shoulders as she staggered to her feet. She began dragging herself away. Tamee sat, frozen, wanting to yell for her to wait, wanting to say something, anything, that would make her stay. Make her turn around so he could see her face one more time. But he could think of nothing. His heart contracted in his chest as he watched her limp away.

She stopped, hand on the dirty brick beside her. She turned her head slightly to the right. Enough for him to see her face in profile.

“You can call me A.

“Ain’t no Angels in Harlem.”



SCISSION GOES WITH GOOGLE FIBER

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I just got Google Fiber installed which changed my internet provider and my cable TV.  I plan to spend some time the next few days figuring out how it all works, running errands, and catching up on chores.

CONSEQUENTLY, Scission will be off line a bit, but not for long. 

Hang in there folks...

IN THE HALLS OF JUSTICE THE ONLY JUSTICE IS IN THE HALLS, JUST ASK JEFFERY DESKOVIC

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Who is Jeffrey Deskovic?  I had no idea until about five minutes ago.  Jeffrey, it turns out is a guy who served sixteen years in prison for a crime he did not commit.  Jeffrey wasn't political or anything just a guy who got screwed, badly.

Jeffrey was 16 when he was charged based upon a coerced confession following a seven and one half hour police interrogation.  Jeffrey was convicted despite DNA evidence which showed that the semen found inside the victim did not match his.  

The Innocence Project writes: 


On November 2, 2006, Jeff Deskovic’s indictment charging him with murder, rape, and possession of a weapon was dismissed on the grounds of actual innocence. Postconviction DNA testing both proved Deskovic’s innocence and identified the real perpetrator of a 1989 murder and rape.

That new DNA test was a more sophisticated version which also identified the actual perpetrator.

Sixteen years he spent fighting to prove his innocence.  Sixteen years he was locked up for nothing.

Can you imagine?

Scission Friday presents below a lengthy interview with Jefrey from Prison Legal News.  It's all there...

What a freaking screwed up "justice" system, we have.



An Innocent Man Speaks: PLN Interviews Jeff Deskovic


On April 9, 2013, Prison Legal News editor Paul Wright sat down with Jeffrey Deskovic as part of PLN's ongoing series of interviews concerning our nation's criminal justice system. Previously, PLN interviewed famous actor Danny Trejo [PLN, Aug. 2011, p.1] and millionaire media mogul and former federal prisoner Conrad Black [PLN, Sept. 2012, p.1].

Jeff Deskovic was 16 years old when he was accused of raping and murdering a classmate, Angela Correa, in Peekskill, New York in November 1989. He was interrogated, polygraphed and threatened by the police for over 7 hours without his parents or an attorney present, and eventually "confessed" to the crime. [See: PLN, April 2011, p.18]. DNA testing revealed that the semen found in the victim's body was not his, yet he was prosecuted anyway based on his coerced confession, convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree rape, and sentenced to 15 years to life in 1991.

Jeff sought post-conviction relief but his appeals were denied; his attorney filed his habeas corpus petition four days late due to misinformation from the court clerk, which led to an appeal to the Second Circuit. Then-circuit court judge Sonia Sotomayor was on the panel that denied his appeal in April 2000.

Jeff's conviction was overturned in 2006 and he was released from prison after serving almost 16 years; the charges were dismissed based on a finding of actual innocence. Post-conviction DNA testing identified the real perpetrator, Steven Cunningham, who has since pleaded guilty to murdering Angela Correa.

Jeff filed a state court claim and a federal lawsuit against a number of individuals and agencies involved in his arrest and prosecution; some of the claims settled and others remain pending. Sotomayor was nominated for a position on the U.S. Supreme Court by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate in August 2009. Jeff opposed her nomination, noting that she had rejected on procedural grounds the appeal of his habeas petition alleging actual innocence; as a result, he spent six more years in prison before being exonerated. [See: PLN, Aug. 2009, p.12].

Since his release Jeff has obtained a master's degree in criminal justice, become a strong advocate for criminal justice reform, testified before state legislatures and, using funds from his lawsuit settlements, established the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice to help others who have been wrongfully convicted. The foundation achieved its first victory in January 2013 by assisting in the release of William Lopez, 54, a New York state prisoner who served over 23 years for a murder he didn't commit.



PAUL WRIGHT: So, Jeff, where were you born and raised?

JEFF DESKOVIC: I was born in Tarrytown in 1973 and I was raised in Peekskill, which is in Westchester County, New York.

PW: And in your case you were wrongfully convicted at the age of 16, is that correct?

JD: I was arrested at 16 but turned 17 before the trial came around, so technically I was 17 at the time I was wrongfully convicted. 

PW: And in your case the evidence was solely based on a confession the police coerced out of you, correct?

JD: Yes.

PW: Okay. Can you tell our readers why you would confess to a crime you didn't commit, what was the interrogation like that led you to do that?

JD: Most people don't realize that coerced false confessions are the cause of wrongful convictions in 25% of the 303 DNA-proven wrongful convictions, with false confessions experts identifying particularly vulnerable populations as being youth and people with mental health issues. In my particular case, I was driven from Peekskill to Brewster, which is about 40 minutes away, so that meant I wasn't able to leave on my own. It was a school day so my parents didn't know where I was, hence they didn't call around looking for me; they thought I was in school. I wasn't given anything to eat the entire time I was there. I didn't have an attorney present. The polygraphist was actually the Putnam County Sheriff's investigator who was pretending to be a civilian, so he never shared with me the fact that he was a police officer. 

They put me in a small room and attached me to a polygraph machine. The polygraphist gave me many cups of coffee; the reason why that's important is because the premise of the polygraph is that when a person lies you become nervous and your nervousness will result in the pulse rate being sped up. Other factors that will cause the pulse rate to speed up, though, would include fear and caffeine. He used a lot of scare tactics on me. 

PW: And how long did the interrogation last?

JD: More than 7 hours. Towards the end of the interrogation he asked me – I guess he was exasperated – he said, "what do you mean you didn't do it, you just told me through the test you did, we just want you to verbally confirm this." When he said that to me that really shot my fear through the roof. At that point the police officer who was pretending to be my friend came in the room and told me that the other officers were going to harm me and he was holding them off but he couldn't do so indefinitely, that I had to help myself. 

When he added that if I did as they wanted not only would they stop what they were doing but I could go home afterwards, being young, frightened, 16, not thinking about the long-term implications, instead being concerned about my own safety in the moment, I made up a story based on information they had given me during the course of the interrogation. By the police officer's own testimony, by the end of the interrogation I was on the floor crying uncontrollably in what they described as a fetal position.

PW: So the only evidence that connected you to the crime was the false confession, correct?

JD: Yes.

PW: It was the only thing that connected you to the crime but conversely, the only physical evidence that was present was that the murder victim, Angela Correa, had semen in her vagina which, by the time you were convicted, the prosecution already knew that it excluded you as a suspect. In other words, the only physical evidence they had exonerated you.

JD: Yeah, exactly. They knew the DNA didn't match me before they went to trial, just like they knew that the hair [evidence] on the body didn't match me either. So you're correct.

PW: How did your lawyer do at trial?

JD: The lawyer gave me inadequate representation in the following ways....

PW: And who was your attorney?

JD: My attorney's name was Peter Insero from the Legal Aid Society of Westchester. So in no particular order: he never spoke to my alibi witness. I was actually playing Wiffle Ball at the time that the crime happened. He never explained to the jury what the significance of the DNA exclusion was or used it to argue that the confession was coerced and false. When the hair didn't match me the prosecution resorted to arguing by inference rather than by bringing in evidence; they claimed the hairs must have come from the medical examiner and his assistant, but never got hair samples to make the testing. 

So when the prosecution did that, my lawyer was supposed to jump on that and insist that the comparative [testing] be made. Except he didn't do that. Every time I attempted to tell him what happened in the interrogation room he was always shutting me up; he never wanted to hear it. He very rarely met with me. He should have never represented me in the first place because of a conflict of interest. 

The prosecution brought in fraud by the medical examiner. Six months after the autopsy took place, it was only after the DNA didn't match that suddenly the medical examiner claimed that he found medical evidence to show the victim was sexually active, which was what opened the door for the prosecutor to again argue, again by inference, that it didn't matter the semen didn't come from me, it could have come from consensual sex; in fact going so far as to name another youth by name, but they never did DNA tests to prove it. They never even called him as a witness. 

So again when that happened, my lawyer was supposed to jump on that and to look at this other youth as an alternative suspect, and supposed to generally explode that whole myth, to make the DNA evidence stand up and exonerate me. But he didn't. And the reason that he didn't is because the other youth was represented by another member of the Legal Aid Society. And then not just even a co-worker, but [by] the man who was supposed to be supervising him in conducting my trial.

I wanted to testify at the Huntley hearing as to what happened in the interrogation room because, if I had done so and the judge had believed me, then that would have resulted in the statements being suppressed and hence the charges would have been dismissed.

PW: The Huntley hearing is a pretrial hearing?

JD: It's a pretrial hearing which the subject matter is whether a confession has been voluntary or not or whether your rights have been read or not. I wanted to testify at that hearing but [my lawyer] wouldn't allow me to; he told me he hadn't decided yet if I was going to testify at trial or not, so he didn't want to have me on the record as to what happened prior to that because he didn't want the DA to have that to cross-examine me. Which really didn't make sense because had we won the Huntley hearing there wouldn't have been a trial, and had we lost I wouldn't have had to take the stand at trial.

And then when I got to trial he wouldn't let me testify there either. He told me, "It's not my job to prove that you're innocent, it's their job to prove that you're guilty and I don't think they've done that." But although it might be true as a legal maxim, it's not true in reality. The jury is not thinking that way. Furthermore, the other reason was that he said, "my personal win/loss record is better when my clients don't take the stand as opposed to when they do." And I could see how that could be true generally, because most of his clients probably had a criminal record which can only get into evidence if they took the stand and it came out in cross-examination under Sandoval. [People v. Sandoval, 34 N.Y.2d 371, 314 N.E.2d 413 (NY 1974)]. But I didn't have a record so that didn't apply to me.

Another thing was he never put on the record when the judge – we hadn't decided what kind of trial we were going to have, a bench trial or jury trial – and he told me that the judge came to him off the record and told him to pick a jury because he didn't want to be responsible for finding me not guilty. So right there that's a statement of bias, that's a statement that he must be feeling the public pressure, so he's supposed to put that on the record and ask the judge to remove himself. Except that he didn't.

PW: Did the mainstream media play any role in your conviction?

JD: Yes. Every time I made a court appearance I was on the front page of a number of newspapers, and the articles were written from a guilt-oriented perspective. So I believe that set the tone for things, and it's a fiction to believe that jurors aren't affected by adverse media coverage – or that judges and prosecutors can't be swayed or even emboldened by negative coverage.

PW: How many appeals did you ultimately file when you were challenging your conviction?

JD: Seven, plus the winning post-conviction 440 motion.

PW: And how much time were you sentenced to?

JD: 15 to life.

PW: In your appeals, in the seven appeals you filed, what was the courts' response?

JD: I actually only had one of those appeals decided on the merits.

PW: That was your initial direct appeal.

JD: That was my initial direct appeal. And one of the more bizarre things was that I was raising issues of my innocence based on the following legal arguments: on legal sufficiency, weight of evidence, guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

PW: I've read some of the initial appeals from your case, and the court said the evidence was "overwhelming." The only evidence that tied you to the crime was the coerced confession, and they found that to be overwhelming.

JD: Right, which was obtained under the questionable circumstances I've already laid out, plus there's the DNA exclusion. Now from that point forward though, and I'll walk you through this quickly, I never had an appeal decided on the merits after that. 

PW: Everything was on procedural issues.

JD: Right. My lawyer asked to re-argue my direct appeal – that was denied. With the New York State Court of Appeals, you have to get permission from the court before they'll agree to let you argue your issues. So I applied for permission and they said there was no merit in law to justify reviewing my case; they weren't going to review it. I then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus.

PW: In state court.

JD: No, in federal court. And there the problem was that the court clerk gave my attorney the wrong information regarding the filing procedure, telling my attorney that it was enough that my petition be postmarked on the due date as opposed to be physically filed in the building on the due date; the result of that was my petition arrived four days too late. At the time, [district attorney] Jeanine Pirro, who has that Judge Jeanine show now on TV, her office argued....

PW: And her husband is a convicted felon.

JD: Her husband is a convicted felon. 

PW: Tax fraud I recall?

JD: Tax fraud with alleged mafia connections as well. Her office argued that the prosecution was somehow prejudiced by those four days, and that the court should simply rule that I was late without getting to the merits of the issues I was arguing – which included, among other things, my innocence argument based on DNA. The court sided with the district attorney and that meant I was time barred, so was only able to argue the procedural ruling against me. 

I went to the U.S. Court of Appeals; I obtained permission from them to appeal, and my lawyer presented three arguments as to why they should overturn the procedural ruling. Which was that this was not a delay caused either by myself or my attorney, but by the court clerk; that it would result in a continuing miscarriage of justice, as it would be continuing if they upheld it; and that reversing the procedural ruling would open the door for more sophisticated DNA testing. 

Once again, the district attorney opposed and the U.S. Court of Appeals, which included Judge Rosemary Pooler as well as Justice Sonia Sotomayor, upheld the procedural ruling against me. My lawyer then moved to re-argue and requested that all the judges on the Circuit hear the issue, but the re-argument motion was denied. And the U.S. Supreme Court declined to give me permission to appeal when I applied.

PW: Okay. So how did you eventually get your conviction overturned, after all that? I guess one of the things too is what was the time span that it took to work through all these court proceedings? So you went in in 1991, and....

JD: My appeals were over in 2001, so I began this big letter-writing campaign from 2001 to 2005, writing big law firms, reporters, faith-based organizations. You name it, if I came up with a rationale of how people could help me either directly or indirectly I tried it, very rarely receiving any responses. I wrote a book author, care of the publishing company. And somebody at the publishing company forwarded the letter to investigator Claudia Whitman, who responded right away. We corresponded for about a year and she gave me ideas and tried to get people to take my case. 

One of the ideas she gave me was that I should write the Innocence Project again, which is a not-for-profit organization here in Manhattan that works to clear wrongfully convicted prisoners in cases where DNA testing can demonstrate innocence and there has not been prior DNA testing. The problem I had when I originally approached them in 1992-93 was that prior testing had been done in my case, DNA hadn't become sophisticated like it is now and we didn't have the DNA databank; also, they had never seen a case before where there was a DNA exclusion and yet a conviction. 

I had been following DNA technology advancement but I wouldn't have thought to write them again, thinking I'd get a similar response. But I didn't have any other options so I wrote them and then forgot about it. I kept writing other places and nothing else worked. For the next six months, unbeknownst to me at the time, Ms. Whitman was lobbying them from outside their organization to take my case while one of the intake workers was simultaneously lobbying on my behalf to take the case because the lawyers there were hesitant to take it, again because of the pre-existing [DNA] exclusion. 

Finally, after six months they decided to take my case. Pirro had left office and been replaced by her successor, and they got the new DA to agree to allow me to have further DNA testing through the databank. The results actually matched the perpetrator, whose DNA was in the database – only because he was left free while I was doing time for his crime. He struck again, killing another victim, a woman, three-and-a-half years later.

PW: That's one of the things – we're kind of skipping ahead here but since you're raising the subject – I was going to ask you. Eventually the person who killed Angela Correa was identified through DNA evidence, and who was that person and had they committed any other crimes while you had been wrongfully convicted of their crime?

JD: Yeah, his name was Steven Cunningham and he killed another victim as I mentioned, but prior to that he had a record for drugs. 

PW: So at this point you're represented by the Innocence Project and they filed a motion in state court with....

JD: Well actually they didn't have to file a motion to get the testing; the DA agreed, so we didn't have to litigate. The only motion they filed was after the DNA didn't match, to overturn the conviction, which the DA joined in the motion. My conviction was overturned on September 20, 2006 and they filed a subsequent motion on November 2, 2006 to dismiss the charges, which the DA also supported.

PW: After that I read that Cunningham was subsequently charged and pled guilty to Angela Correa's murder. 

JD: Correct.

PW: Now I read the report on your conviction that was issued by a couple of retired judges. It was a commission of inquiry, and one of the things they talked about was they say that the cops and prosecutors had tunnel vision but they kind of go out of their way to say that the cops and prosecutors didn't intentionally frame you for a crime they knew you didn't commit. 

And to me that seems like a remarkable conclusion when I think about the fact that they knew before they prosecuted you that the DNA evidence they had at the time excluded you as a suspect. So they knew that you couldn't have committed the crime, yet they still proceeded to prosecute you, convict you, sentence you and send you to prison. So what's your take on the report?

JD: I think they were trying to be politically correct and they didn't really want to step on anybody's toes. So if that meant compromising the truth I think they were willing to do that. As you point out, the bottom really drops out of the argument that this was all just a good faith mix-up when you consider that when the DNA didn't match they didn't drop the case.

PW: Or start looking for whose DNA it actually was.

JD: Exactly. The police went back into the field and interviewed everyone who knew Angela Correa and everyone told them she didn't have a boyfriend. So they knew that, they knew that this theory was BS. The prosecutor, George Bolen, had a history of working together with Dr. Roe, the medical examiner, who would alter his findings in order to fit prosecution theories. They also knew that there was nothing in that report when he initially did his autopsy to support this medical evidence of Angela Correa's sexual activity. That was only made up specifically as a response to the DNA. Getting back to the cops though, all those interviews they conducted of people where everyone told them she had no boyfriend, they never documented any of those interviews either, and hence we didn't know that. So when you consider everything in the totality it was a frame. It was a frame.

PW: Has anyone been fired or disciplined in connection with your wrongful conviction?

JD: No. No, as a matter of fact in some instances people have gotten promoted.

PW: That's usually the norm in these cases.

JD: Yes it is. Well the Lieutenant at Peekskill, who just recently retired, Lt. Tumulo, he became the police chief. There're people who might be prosecuted, George Bolen, and two weeks before I was released he suddenly and mysteriously retired and went to Florida of all places.

PW: [Laughs].

JD: If you all see him, get at him for me. [Laughing]. That's a joke. Yeah, but he retired and then once I brought a lawsuit, the medical examiner retired. But no one has ever been disciplined and that's one of the things that bothers me, because had I broken the law or anyone else broken the law in any fashion, you know, we'd be called to account for that. There would be punishment of some kind.

PW: But you don't work for the government.

JD: I don't work for the government so I don't have the license to break the law.

PW: Yeah. So you were 16 when you were arrested, 17 when you were convicted. How old were you when you got out of prison?

JD: 32.

PW: Okay. So you did 16 years in prison, and what was it like for you to get out of prison after 16 years?

JD: In the moment or in general?

PW: I'd say in general; I'd say overall. 
I'm asking this in the context that I got out of prison after 17 years.

JD: Yeah.

PW: But everyone's experience is different.

JD: Of course it feels like a different world out here, on a number of levels. First of all, technology: we didn't have cell phones, GPS, Internet, these different methods of banking. When I go to neighborhoods in towns and cities that I'm familiar with I see structures that weren't there before and others that are missing and replaced by other things, so when you take that and add that people I once knew who lived in those neighborhoods have long since moved away, I perceive it as almost like being in some kind of alternative universe.

There's the neighborhood aspect of things, then. It took a while; I still don't feel like I've fully caught up. I feel like the world is on a much faster pace – there is a lot less external stimuli inside than there is out here – I had to get used to making choices, having so many variations of products. It can be debilitating actually.

PW: Wal-Mart is a bigger commissary than they have in prison.

JD: Yes! [Laughing]. Yeah, it is. Even now, though, sometimes I catch myself. I feel like I break loose for a half-second of the tapestry of reality, for example when I'm driving a car. And you know, this is crazy that I'M DRIVING A CAR. No one knows where I'm going, and there's no supervision. I have keys and this is kind of crazy. I'm a former prisoner and I have people working for me, and have an office – it feels surreal. There were a lot of psychological things that I had to work through: anxiety attacks, panic attacks, most people have PTSD. So I've had to overcome a lot in that area.

PW: While you were in prison, during the 16 years you were in prison, what did you do in prison? And I'm not asking that in the daily context of, you know, "I got up and went to breakfast" and stuff like that. Just in the 16 years what did you do in prison?

JD: Yeah, I understand. Well, I got a GED, an associate [degree], I completed a year or two towards the bachelor's before they cut the funding for college education. When that happened I took advantage of some of the limited vocational opportunities that were there: I learned how to type; I did general business; I took a painting class; I got six certificates in plumbing; I worked as a teacher's aide, helping people get the GED, learning to read and write; I took the computer repair class. All of that stuff sounds much better than what it was because the curriculum in the shops was obsolete, maybe from five or six years before I went into the shops, and the instructors seemed more interested in getting a paycheck than they were actually in proactively teaching. 

I found things to throw myself into mentally. I read a lot of nonfiction books; I learned the law. I used to read wrongful conviction literature for inspiration to keep going. I threw myself into sports and I even engaged in this elaborate delusion when I was playing basketball, or playing ping pong or chess, and I would pretend that I was a professional player and so-and-so was there, and that it was also going to be broadcast. In a way it almost sounds like what little kids do, but it's actually on a deeper level than that.

PW: [Laughing]. Actually, prison sports are a very important event, so....

JD: Yes, sports are very important!

PW: It's probably the most important thing going on in prison, is sports. 

JD: I would agree, and for me it was the delusion there, taking it a step further. I don't think most people there were pretending to be professionals and all that. But I think it was kind of like a defense mechanism.

PW: In some of the interviews I read you mentioned that you converted to Islam while you were in prison. So why did you convert, and my next question I guess is are you still a Muslim?

JD: No, I'm not a Muslim any longer. Why did I convert? I was really depressed and I saw somebody who – in prison they give you these department identification numbers and the first two numbers are the year that you entered the state system. So this guy had this look of peace on his face even though he had been incarcerated for eleven years, and I was attracted to that. I was pretty depressed and having a hard time psychologically.

So I approached him and wanted to know what was his secret. And he shared some religious materials with me and one day I just felt that was the direction my heart was pulling me in. It was another important factor as to what helped me through my experience. It gave me something else to throw myself into mentally. I did studies there; it warded off some of the riff-raff, but then the flip side of that is when other people got into problems, their problems became mine. Then when I was at services and classes, I saw different immediate surroundings, so again, a little less reminder about the prison type stuff. 

It gave me something to throw myself into, and more importantly it gave me some solace and it helped me keep going psychologically. I'm not a Muslim any longer. I mean, I practiced for about a year-and-a-half after I was out – I had a huge beard and was really into it. It wasn't something I just did because I was in prison, I really was into it. The library that I had amassed was better than the library in the mosque itself. But there were a couple of things that happened.

First, there were a lot of things about life that I wanted to experience, things like what is it like to go to a nightclub, or have a drink socially, or going out on dates, and sexuality and all these things that I hadn't had the chance to experience as an adult, which if I'm following that faith then I'm not able to do those things or I would need to get married. 

So there's that, and then I met a lot of people – Christians and Jews and Buddhists and Hindus and people of no formal faith – along this advocacy trail I've walked over the last six years. Most world religions, you know, Islam included but it's certainly not limited to that, they try to be nice about it, but if you don't believe what they believe in then you're not a believer and in the end you're going to hell, right? That's just a basic tenant.

PW: Or they kill you if they have the state power to do so.

JD: Right. 

PW: Depending on what period of history we're in.

JD: I've met all these good people in these walks of life and I can't dismiss people like that any longer. So that, and along with wanting to experience all of these things about life out here also. I guess the final thing which pushed me over the edge, I guess you could say, or that helped me land where I am now – when I went to these different places to worship, these different mosques, it becomes more Arab nationalism than it actually does any type of religious practice, these cultural things that I really didn't experience while I was in prison. It just didn't feel right to me.

PW: Are you still religious now or do you have any religious faith?

JD: I'm not religious now. I believe in God, I know beyond a doubt that He exists. I don't subscribe to a particular form of faith; I guess you could say I'm spiritual but not religious.

PW: Okay. I guess kind of following up on this, I think one of the things I would ask as a follow-up question is how did 16 years in prison shape your world view, or how you look at things? I think especially in your case where you quite literally grew up in prison; you went in at the age of 17 and got out by the time you were 32 – that is quite literally almost a lifetime. So you spent half your adult life, or your entire adult life and half your life in prison.

JD: Right.

PW: And I assume you were always in maximum-security prisons?

JD: Exactly right.

PW: So how did that shape your view on the world and life?

JD: In a number of ways. Firstly, my awareness of how the criminal justice system is broken and the systemic deficiencies that lead to wrongful convictions and the reforms that are needed gives me some perspectives on that. I had a chance to see other deficiencies in the justice system. 

I mean it struck me as absurd when I would talk with people who were incarcerated for drug offenses, like in New York under the Rockefeller drug laws, where people were doing 15, 20, 30 years on an arbitrary amount of drugs or drug use rather than sale. So I know them. And then I know these other people who have killed people or committed assaults or robberies or other violent crimes and they have less time than the people there [on drug charges].

So I had the chance to see the perspective from the inside, some of the injustices of that. I mentioned earlier that I read a lot of nonfiction books and one of the genres I read, I really got into presidential history and politics. I felt as I was reading the presidential history books you're indirectly tracing the different collective mentality of the country as it moves from stage to stage, so when I analyze current events now I think about historical things that I'm aware of from before. 

You know, the United Nations or League of Nations or that kind of thing. So it affects it that way. When I was reading the books I kind of caught the political bug, and I used to watch this show all the time, "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. I've watched the show a lot, so that formed some of my views. I got into governmental abuse exposé type books and similar programs. So those things factor into it. I feel like, because of my experience, I have an increased sense of morality and right or wrong and the importance of honesty.

PW: Who's your favorite president?

JD: Lyndon Johnson. I feel like he did all of his good work – he got consumed by the Vietnam War, that is what people think to associate him with, but they don't realize that really that was left over from other presidents. He got sucked into that and it was something he had to get involved in that he didn't create. But he's responsible for many of the social programs and civil rights legislation. He actually did a lot more in terms of getting things passed than his predecessor, you know, JFK. He's my favorite president. I prefer to think of him in terms of the....

PW: The Great Society.

JD: In terms of the Great Society rather than the Vietnam War, which is what ultimately brought him down.

PW: Okay. What was your most positive prison experience in the 16 years that you were in?

JD: Wow. That's a good question. I've never gotten that one before.

PW: Well, that's why you've never been interviewed by Prison Legal News. 

JD: [Laughing]. That's right, that's right. Most positive prison experience?

PW: Sure. Sixteen years in prison, something good had to come out of it somewhere.

JD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. I agree. Can you ask me some other question to help me to focus to bring one thing out?

PW: Well, the follow-up question to that one is, what was your most negative prison experience? [Laughing].

JD: Oh God. My personal most negative experience? Well, when I almost lost my life because other prisoners wanted to carry out this vigilante mentality toward people convicted of sex offenses.

PW: Even though, as it turned out in your case, you were actually innocent.

JD: That's right, "even though." I had multiple shots at the side of my head with a ten-pound weight plate; that had to be it. It was that or, having suffered that attack, then to add insult to injury, having been placed in the Box on top of that when I'm supposed to be in the hospital. So I'm in the Box and I've almost lost my life, and I'm supposed to be in a prison hospital but instead they've got me in the Box.

PW: And the Box is supposed to be special housing....

JD: Special Housing Unit. 

PW: Aka, "the hole."

JD: While I'm there I get the news that my habeas corpus petition has been denied because it arrived four days late because the court clerk gave my lawyer inaccurate information. I mean, was it the assault, was it right after that, or certainly it was a low point when I was turned down for parole. I was looking for that as a way out and that door was slammed on me. It's kind of hard to mix and match, compare and contrast those three events on the negative side.

Probably the most positive thing that happened to me was being part of the college community that was in prison. There was the cell block the administration put aside specifically for inmates who were in the college program, and while we were there we kind of formed a community. The normal barriers, the safety protocols that people observe, we didn't really have to go through that there. Everybody was helping each other; if I was weak in one subject I could go to anybody and ask them to assist me, and everyone tried to be helpful in that way. There was a lot of tutoring that went on and very little violence; that was definitely part of it.

PW: To follow up, you mentioned just now that you had been denied for parole, and I don't think I saw that in the material I reviewed to prepare for the interview, so how many times were you eligible for parole and what happened at your parole hearings?

JD: I was eligible for parole once. I had a 15-to-life sentence. In New York they don't have good time that takes time off the front end of your sentence.

PW: So in New York you have to do the 15 years just to see the Board?

JD: Just to see the Board. So in the parole review I knew they were in the habit of rubber-stamp denying even meritorious applications for anybody who was incarcerated for a violent crime. So I tried to protect myself by repeatedly raising the issue of my innocence and citing the DNA [evidence].

PW: And usually they cop quite the attitude and they claim that you're not accepting responsibility, you're not showing any remorse, blah blah blah, and they use that excuse to deny parole and punish you even further. Is that what happened in your case?

JD: Yeah it is, I believe that it is.... So in the interview, having went into that, towards the end of the interview, they asked me about an aggression replacement training program. I was able to give them the answers to show that I learned the material in this class. And one of the commissioners said to me, "Well, that's good Mr. Deskovic, because you're going to need those skills when you return back to society, good luck."

The procedure is that they mail you the decision three days later via the institutional mail. So considering how that interview ended, I actually walked around the prison for the next three days thinking that I had somehow defied the odds, that I was going to be going home. When I got the decision in the mail, it said I had a good disciplinary record, a great educational record, letters of support, even a letter from a prison employee recommending that I be paroled. Nonetheless I had been convicted of a brutal and senseless crime and to parole me would be to somehow deprecate its seriousness. So at that point, considering that I knew many people who were working on years 25 and 30 from a 15-to-life sentence where they go to a parole board and are denied and have that cycle continue into perpetuity, I thought I was going to die in there at that point.

PW: As many prisoners in fact do who are wrongfully convicted. 

JD: And many who do who are rightfully convicted or who have turned their lives around and could be productive members of society if they were released. It just seems to me so senseless and pointless to continue incarceration in those incidences. 

PW: Okay, have you filed any lawsuits over your wrongful conviction?

JD: Yes.

PW: How many and what have the outcomes been?

JD: I've filed in the New York State Court of Claims. The result of that, after 4½ years of being released, I was able to settle that case for $1.85 million. I filed a federal civil rights case; there were four defendants in there. I sued the Legal Aid Society. I settled that but per their agreement I'm not allowed to disclose the amount. I sued Westchester County. There were two components to that – there was the fault of the medical examiner and also the District Attorney's office. That I settled for $6.5 million. I sued Putnam County, and I sued Peekskill. The last two defendants I'm still in litigation with.

PW: Six, seven years after your release, the litigation continues.

JD: I just want to mention though, people don't realize you don't keep the amount you settle for. You have to pay costs between $75,000 and $225,000 depending on how much money has been spent, and then the lawyers take a third. So in the end you end up keeping about 55-60%.

PW: And who were the lawyers representing you in these cases?

JD: Nick Brustin and Barry Scheck from the law firm of Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin. 

PW: So of all these people you've sued who were involved with wrongfully convicting you, at any point has anyone apologized to you or said they were sorry about what happened and have any of them offered to make amends and try to replace any part of the 16 years of your life that they stole through framing you for a crime you didn't commit?

JD: No. The only apologies I've gotten were from the prosecutor in the court and the judge. But neither of them were the people who had something to do with convicting me. It wasn't the trial judge who sentenced me, despite telling me "maybe you are innocent," and it wasn't the prosecutor who continued to pursue the case after the DNA and everything else that I've already covered. None of the people involved have ever apologized.

PW: So in this litigation, because here we are, you got out in 2006 and as I look at the calendar it's 2013. Seven years later no one is saying, "Okay, at this point I realize we made a mistake"– let's be generous and say they made a mistake, if we're not so generous we'll say they knowingly framed an innocent person for a crime they know he didn't commit – but no one is saying we have some type of responsibility, or moral or ethical obligation, to try to make you whole or to make amends to you. None of that has happened, just scorched earth litigation? 

JD: Yes.

PW: It makes us proud to be Americans, doesn't it?

JD: [Caustically]. With the "best" system in the world you'd expect more, but it's not the case.

PW: I was going to ask you about that, too. What's your response to people who say "you got out of prison after 16 years and...."

JD: The system worked?

PW: Yes. Exactly. What's your response to that?

JD: Well....

PW: First off, has anyone actually said that to you?

JD: No, no one's actually said that. Having said that, though, in the comments section once, within the context of Sotomayor's ruling upholding the four-day [habeas filing] lateness, one person once said, and I don't know who it was, they said "it was a procedural technicality so that was the right decision, and Deskovic wound up getting out anyway, so the system worked." There was one person who anonymously commented on that level.

PW: He probably works for the U.S. Attorney's office!

JD: To me, anybody who would say that the system working consists of innocent people serving 16 years in prison before justice is done, that's a bizarre definition of the system working.

PW: I think one of the things that is really underplayed in these wrongful convictions is how they endanger public safety. And I think your case is a really good point of that because Cunningham went on to kill another person and if the police had been doing their job and actually tried to identify who the actual killer was, rather than just pinning the murder on whoever they could, which in this case was you, that second victim would still be alive today.

JD: I agree with that. I think that wrongful convictions are a public safety issue; it's not about coddling criminals or the rights of defendants over the rights of victims. It's about making the system more accurate.

PW: You've been out of prison for seven years now. What have you done since getting out?

JD: Well I received a scholarship from Mercy College, which I used to complete the bachelor's degree. I just completed a Master's in Criminal Justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I did a lot of advocacy work on an individual level. I was a columnist for five years at a weekly newspaper where I wrote on wrongful conviction subjects but occasionally on other criminal justice topics. I did a lot of presentations on wrongful convictions across the country; I lobbied elected officials in New York and Connecticut and I've testified at some legislative hearings, the subject matter of which was wrongful conviction prevention measures and the subject of capital punishment, in that it poses a risk in executing innocent people. I've done multiple media interviews to raise awareness about wrongful convictions.

Lastly, I've started the Jeffery Deskovic Foundation for Justice, to try to clear other people who have been wrongfully convicted. Not simply in the DNA cases, which is what most organizations in the field limit themselves to, but also in non-DNA cases, which is important because DNA is only around in 5-12% of all serious felony cases.

PW: Right.

JD: We have the re-integrative side also, with which we seek to help people put their lives back together again after being released. We have the public awareness and legislative aspect of it, which those two things are kind of the same as what I did as an individual, just with a support staff.

PW: And what is your interest and motivation in doing this? Specifically, in establishing the Jeffery Deskovic Foundation for Justice?

JD: My motivation is, I had the goal to reach back into prison and clear other people who are similarly situated. I want to make what happened count for something. If I can do that, I can take some solace out of what happened to me. 

PW: Have you had support or help in doing this?

JD: Sure. The foundation's assistant director, Richard Blassberg, I actually used to write for him at the newspaper for four years so he's assisted me from the beginning: Hiring personnel and having renovation work done, putting together the procedures and protocols by which we operate.

PW: Okay. And when did the foundation start?

JD: We started in September 2011, so from September to March of last year. We needed that time to select the office equipment and furniture, get the right personnel in place, and again the protocols and procedures. We've been at full strength from March to March, so about a year now.

PW: And I understand you've had one success already?

JD: We've had one success. We played a role in assisting William Lopez to undo his wrongful conviction. He was in for 23½ years and he's home now for about 2 months. I got a chance to be on a different side of the equation. Before, people would say to me, "You're an inspiration to us, you're why we do the work, this is what pushes us to keep going." And now I see that in looking at him.

PW: You set up the foundation using your own money, correct?

JD: Yes I did. I put up $1.5 million of my own money to get it started. So that guarantees us to operate for three years. And during that time we need to become sustainable through external funds.

PW: Now as far as I know – in the context I've been covering prisons and prison litigation for a little bit over 23 years now – as far as I know you're the only exonerated prisoner who has used his own money to start a foundation or do anything with his own money to help other people who were wrongfully convicted or to advance a social justice project. Do you have any idea why that is? 

JD: [Pauses].

PW: Because at this point we've had a lot of exonerated people and a lot of those, obviously some cases, in many cases they don't get any compensation at all. In a lot of other cases people do get a lot of compensation.

JD: Hey you're right, we're the first organization started by an exonerated. There are a lot of exonerated people who have started other things, but it's on the re-integrative side. It's not like they're trying to clear people or put up their own money like I did. You know, I'm trying to think why no one else has done it before. It's one thing to theorize about it or to say it and it's something else when you actually have the means to do so and you have to part with a large sum of money.

PW: Well, you did it and that's why I'm saying....

JD: Listen, you have to really, beyond a superficial level, you have to be really convinced to the core of your being to do it. I think in other instances people want to put their experiences behind them and they don't want to think about it; they don't want to think about what happened to them much less help other people. But for me, I can't forget about people I metaphorically left behind. And I guess just my sense of that, and my sense of morality in that – it's weird to say of myself – but I guess it runs stronger than other people who have been compensated at this point but haven't done it.

PW: What is your view of the criminal justice system?

JD: The criminal justice as it's currently constructed is broken. Until we start passing reforms, we're going to have innocent people continually be wrongfully incarcerated, we'll continue to have people unnecessarily incarcerated who would be productive members of society if they were released, and other injustices from over-sentencing to over-charging. All of these things will continue.

PW: In your view what needs to change to prevent innocent people from being wrongfully convicted in the future?

JD: A number of things. One is that we need to criminalize clear-cut, intentional prosecutorial misconduct: When prosecutors engage in tactics like withholding exculpatory material, working hand in glove with experts – telling them what you want to prove and they'll prove it – supporting perjury and not correcting perjured testimony. When that's done intentionally, I think there should be criminal penalties and I think we should remove prosecutorial immunity so that they can be held accountable civilly – the same way that if somebody commits murder not only do they face criminal charges but they can also be sued for wrongful death. There's no other aspect of law enforcement that enjoys this immunity and I don't see why prosecutors should be a special class of people above the law. 

But past that, videotaping interrogations from beginning to end. I think it would prevent police officers from engaging in some of the more abusive tactics. It would prevent them from leaving things out of their testimony so at trial it doesn't become a swearing match of their word against the defendant's. 

PW: Right.

JD: A better system of defense for the poor. I mean, some of the built-in deficiencies when it comes to that include an uneven financial and manpower playing field between the public defender and prosecutor, limiting case loads and equal pay for both sides. Having one state-wide system that would enable there to be oversight, quality control. Also, standardized evidence preservation systems. I mean DNA is only around in about 5-12% of all serious felony cases, but if you're lucky enough that your case falls into that small percentage, the first obstacle is whether or not the evidence has been lost or destroyed, and if it has you're just out of luck. There's no law mandating that it be preserved.

Plus corroborative requirements when it comes to incentivized witnessing, which is when people get benefits for testimony.

PW: And jailhouse snitches.

JD: Well, that's the same thing. That's incentivized witnessing.

PW: That's the fancy term for it.

JD: That's the fancy term for it, right. But some of the things I would advocate that would address that would be an external evidence corroboration requirement, and wearing of a wire. So we can be sure in these really questionable jailhouse confessions where these people have been with each other for a number of months or weeks and are all of a sudden freely talking among themselves about all these serious crimes. I want to be sure these conversations are actually taking place rather than being fabricated by desperate prisoners caught red-handed who have no truthful information to trade.

PW: Do you see any interest in preventing wrongful convictions from anyone in a position of power? And by position of power I mean like judges, legislators, prosecutors – in other words, the people who are actually in a position to and can and do send people to prison. Do you see any interest or incentive among them in preventing wrongful convictions?

JD: Well, Assemblyman [Joseph] Lentol from the New York state legislature has always sponsored a lot of wrongful conviction prevention measures and things typically get passed out of his committee and passed in the Assembly, though they always die in the Senate. But outside of him? I would have to say no. Governor Cuomo made – I forgot if there was an announcement or state of the state address or some major announcement – where he was talking about the need for better identification procedures and videotaping interrogations. He said that verbally, but I don't see him publicly repeating that; I don't see him using political capital to try to get those measures through. To me it's just talk.

PW: Or let's not forget that he is the governor, so he could issue an executive order that, for example, the state police or law enforcement agencies under control of the executive branch at the state level could do this, and that could in turn serve as a model for other police agencies throughout the state.

JD: I agree with you. 

PW: I've got a quick question here, which I think might go into this, since you're kind of an expert in wrongful convictions....

JD: My master's thesis was written on the topic, by the way.

PW: Are there any rich people who have been wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn't commit that you can think of?

JD: Not that I can think of.

PW: Okay, so it's almost like you get as much justice as you can afford.

JD: Yeah. Exactly. If you're rich and/or politically connected then you can afford the best talent. You can hire the best lawyers, the best experts and the best investigators.

PW: If there was one change, just one, that you could make in the criminal justice system, what would it be?

JD: Definitely criminalizing intentional prosecutorial misconduct.

PW: Okay. While you were in prison did your family support you? In other words, what effect did your conviction have on your family support network and your relationships with your family?

JD: Well, it disrupted things. My mother was the only person who consistently came to visit me, although the last 6 years that slowed down dramatically. At the end I was lucky if I saw her from every four to six months. I had several sets of aunts and uncles that would come and visit me and then I wouldn't see them for another three, four years, and then they'd pop up and then I wouldn't see them for another three or four years. And then I had most of my family that never came to see me.

PW: Which is actually kind of the norm for most people who go to prison, wrongfully or rightfully convicted as the case may be. 

JD: Yeah, exactly. Family and friends, it's a common pattern that you point out, they fall by the wayside.

PW: And the longer you do, the more they fall. 

JD: Yes. Exactly right.

PW: Are you angry or bitter at your experience for having been wrongfully convicted of a crime you didn't commit? 

JD: No, because I realized within the first week that by being angry I'm not hurting anybody except myself. I'm not getting back at any of the people who wrongfully convicted me; I'm the only loser here. I want to enjoy myself, my life as much as I can, get as much meaning out of it as I can, and I can't do that if I'm angry and bitter.

PW: Okay. If you had one piece of advice to give PLN's readers, especially those who are incarcerated, what would that be?

JD: Well, for people who are guilty who are incarcerated, my message to them would be: The system is not going to rehabilitate you. You have to want it for yourself so you need to be proactive. Take advantage of the educational opportunities that are there. Read non-fiction books, don't waste your time or get caught up in prison politics. Try to orient everything you do towards your future life when you're eventually free. There have been a lot of worthwhile accomplishments by people who have committed crimes that have resulted in their conviction but they have done a lot of meaningful things both individually and that have benefitted society. 

In terms of people who are innocent, I would say don't give up. Because if I had given up I wouldn't be home, I wouldn't be doing the things that I'm doing. Don't forget about the people you've left behind, metaphorically. There are many people wrongfully imprisoned. To me, to come home and forget about the cause, the struggle and other people, that's wrong. That's wrong to do that. Once you're exonerated you can parlay your 5 minutes of fame into talking about the system needing reforms and other people being there wrongfully, and keep it going as long as you can. Kind of like I've done. I haven't done anything special, I mean I have in the sense that other people aren't doing it and it's a worthwhile thing, but it's not in the sense that it's certainly replicable by other people. 

No matter how many times you send out letters and they're not answered, or how many times your appeals are denied, don't take no for an answer. You have to keep going. If one door closes, go on to the next one and don't be afraid to go back and knock on the same door previously. All the places you look to for help don't necessarily have to be in the legal field. Often in these wrongful conviction cases, somewhere along the way there is some sort of lay person, a civilian, who turns into an advocate who can help build a bridge between the wrongfully convicted and the professional legal services that will be needed to clear their name. So look in those directions as well. 

PW: How can prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted contact the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice?

JD: Firstly, I will have to ask a special favor in requesting that this part definitely be kept in the issue. We only do non-DNA cases in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and DNA cases nationally. Please, if you live outside that jurisdiction, please don't flood us with letters because you're creating a large pool of correspondence. We're already swamped as it is and we're not able to go beyond our geographical limitations. Having said that, they can contact us via snail mail: The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, 133 West 72nd Street, New York, NY 10023.

PW: That wraps up my questions, so my final question is, is there anything you'd like to say that I missed, or that you'd like to get out there?

JD: Sure. There are a couple of things. Firstly, one of the foundation's challenges is trying to build our donor base. 

We raised very little money through grassroots. I want people to realize that even if you're of modest means, your small contribution can help. If we all do a little bit we can get a lot done; we need to become sustainable so we can keep trying to clear people such as Mr. Lopez. I can only do so much myself, and the foundation can only do so much. We need people to support our work.

On a related note, one of our challenges in raising funds in terms of large donors is that until you land your first five-figure donor, it's very hard to raise money from people who have a large giving capacity. It's almost like they're waiting for somebody else to make the first donation, which will be their endorsement so they don't have to go through all the vetting and everything else that's necessary. 

So if you're reading this and you're of means, please consider a major gift to support the foundation. 

I'd like to get our community word in here, too. If people text the word "Deskovic" to 50555, they'll be opting into text message alerts so they'll know, for example, if I'm doing a speaking engagement at a certain place, certain time, or TV or radio interview. If there are other wrongful conviction issues we're engaging in, they'll know about them and they can come out and support us. If they text the word "innocent" to 50555, they will make a $10 donation to the foundation which is added to their cell phone bill. Standard text message policies apply.

It's important to back advocacy work with grassroots support, because there is only so much I can do as an individual or even what the foundation can accomplish by itself. If people can support us and encourage other people to do so, it would go a long way to assist our efforts. 

The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice is online at www.thejeffreydeskovicfoundationforjustice.org. Other organizations that work on wrongful convictions are listed in PLN's resources section on page 60. For more information about Jeff, visit: www.jeffreydeskovicspeaks.org. 

CAPITALISM AND REPRODUCTION BY MARIAROSA DALLA COSTA

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It is Theoretical Weekends and we are going back almost twenty years to 1994 and a bit of analysis from Mariarosa Dalla Costa.


Rather than write my own introduction, I will just copy a bit about this from The Commoner introduction.


Mariarosa Dalla Costa explores the relation between capital and reproduction and regards the powers of the “actors” of the latter (women, indigenous people and earth) as decisive force “that can lift the increasingly deadly siege capitalist development imposes on human reproduction”. She argues that the woman’s question, the question of the indigenous populations, and the question of the Earth have close synergies, and thus it is no surprising that in the last two decades they have become of great importance. If the path towards a “different kind of development cannot ignore them” it is because of the many powers (powers to) these subjects have. The many powers of civilisations that have not died “but have managed to conceal themselves” reside in the secrets that “have been maintained thanks to their resistance to the will to annihilate them.” The gift of struggles. Also the Earth has “many powers, especially its power to reproduce itself and humanity as one of its parts.” And these powers have been “discovered, preserved and enhanced more by women’s knowledge than male science”. These triple knowledge/powers – of women, of indigenous people and of the earth – should “find a way of emerging and being heard” and act as the decisive force they are.

The following comes from The Commoner.


Mariarosa Dalla Costa[1]

CAPITALISM AND REPRODUCTION[2]
(11-07-94)

Paper presented by Mariarosa Dalla Costa at the seminar, Women's Unpaid Labour and the World System, organised  by the Japan Foundation, April 8 1994, Tokyo, as part of the Foundation's  “European Women's Study Tour for Environmental Issues”.

The sphere of reproduction today reveals all the original sins of the capitalist mode of production. Reproduction must be viewed, of course, from a planetary perspective, with special attention being paid to the changes that are taking place in wide sectors of the lower social strata in advanced capitalism as well as in an increasing proportion of the Third World population.  We live in a planetary economy, and capitalist accumulation still draws its life-blood for its continuous valorization from waged as well as unwaged labour, the latter consisting first of all of the labour involved in social reproduction (M. Dalla Costa, 1972), in the advanced as well as the Third World countries.

We find that social "misery" or "unhappiness" which Marx (Marx, 1975, p. 286) considered to be the "goal of the  political economy" has largely been realized everywhere. But, setting aside the question of happiness for the time being--though certainly not to encourage the myth of its impossibility--let me stress how incredible it now seems, marxist analysis apart, to claim that capitalist development in some way brings a generalised well-being to the planet.

Social reproduction today is more beset and overwhelmed than ever by the laws of capitalist accumulation: the continual and progressive expropriation(from the 'primitive' expropriation of the land as a means of production, which dates from the16th-18th centuries in England, to the expropriation, then as now, of all the individual and collective rights that ensure subsistance); the continual division of society into conflictual hierarchies (of class, sex, race, and nationality, which pit the free waged worker against the unfree unwaged worker, against the unemployed worker, and the slave labourer); the constant production of inequality and uncertainty (with the woman as reproducer facing an even more uncertain fate in comparison to any waged worker and, if she is also member of a discriminated race or nation, she suffers yet deeper discrimination); the continual polarisation of the production of wealth (which is more and more concentrated) and the production of poverty(which is increasingly widespread).

As Marx writes in Capital (1976, Book I, p.799): "Finally, the law which always holds the relative surplus production or industrial reserve army in equilibrium with the extent and energy of accumulation rivets the worker to capital more firmly than the wedges of Hephaestus held Prometheus to the rock. It makes an accumulation of misery a necessary condition, corresponding to the accumulation of wealth.  Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance, brutalization and moral degradation at the opposite pole, i.e. on the side of the class that produces its own product as capital." This is true, not only for the population overwhelmed by the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. It is even more accurate today, now that capital's accumulation passes, for example, through factory, plantation, dam, mine, and even carpet weaving workshops where it is by no means rare for children to be working in conditions of slavery.

Indeed, capitalist accumulation spreads through the world by extracting labour for production and reproduction in conditions of stratification which end in the reestablishment of slavery. According to a recent estimate, slavery is the condition in which over 200 million persons are working in the world today (The Economist, January 6 1990).

Those macro-processes and operations which economic forces, supported by political power, unfolded during the period of primitive accumulation in Europe with the aim of destroying the individual's value in relationship to his/her community in order to turn him/her into an isolated and valueless individual, a mere container for labour-power which s/he is obliged to sell to survive, continue to mark human reproduction on a planetary scale. The indifference shown by capital towards the possibility of labour-power's reproduction in the first phase of its history was only very partially, and today increasingly precariously, redeemed centuries later by the creation of the Welfare State. Currently, the task being set by the directives of the major financial agencies, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is to re- draw the boundaries of welfare and economic policies as a whole (Dalla Costa M., Dalla Costa G.F., ed., 1993) in both the advanced and the developing countries. (The economic, social welfare and social insurance measures recently introduced in Italy correspond precisely to the various 'structural adjustment' plans being applied in many Third World countries.) The result is that increasingly large sectors of world population are destined to extinction because they are believed to be redundant or inappropriate to the valorization requirements of capital.

Just as at the end of the 1400s, when the bloody legislation against the expropriated (Marx, 1976, Book I, Chapter 28) led to the mass hanging, torturing, branding, and chaining of the poor, so today the surplus or inadequately disciplined population of the planet is exterminated through death by cold and hunger in eastern Europe and various countries of the advanced West ("more coffins less cradles in Russia" (La Repubblica, February 16 1994)); death by hunger and epidemic in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere; death caused by formally declared war, by genocide authorized directly or indirectly, by military and police repression. The other variant of extinction is an individual or collective decision for suicide because there is no possiblity to survive. (It is significant that, according to the Italian press reports in 1993-94, many cases of suicide in Italy are due to unemployment or to the fact that the only work on offer is to join a criminal gang, while, in India, the 'tribal people' in the Narmada valley have declared a readiness to die by drowning if work continues on a dam which will destroy their habitat and, hence, the basis of their survival and cultural identity). (1)

The most recent and monstrous twist to this campaign of extinction comes from the extreme example of resistance offered by those who sell parts of their body, useless container for a labour-power that is no longer saleable. (In Italy, where the sale of organs is banned, press and TV reports in 1993-94 mentioned instances in which people said explicitly that they were willing to break the ban in exchange for money or a job.) For those impoverished and expropriated by capitalist expansion in the Third World, however, this is already a common way for obtaining money. Press reports mention criminal organisations which traffic in organs and supply perfectly legal terminals such as clinics. This trade flourishes thanks to kidnapping, often of women and children, and false adoption. An enquiry was recently opened at the European Parliament on the issue (La Repubblica, September 16 1993), and various women's networks are trying to throw light on and block these crimes. But this is where capitalist development, founded on the negation of the individual's value, celebrates its triumph; the individual owner of redundant or, in any case, superfluous labour-power is literally cut to pieces in order to re-build the bodies of those who can pay for the right to live to the criminal or non-criminal sectors of capital which profit from it.

During the era of primitive accumulation, when the free waged worker was being shaped in England, the law still authorized slavery (Marx, 1976, Book I, Chapter 28), treating the vagabonds, created by the feudal lords' violent and illegal expropriation of the land, as "voluntary" perpetrators of the crime of vagabondage and ordaining that, if anyone should refuse to work, he would be "condemned as a slave to the person who denounced him as an idler." (Marx, 1976, p.897). But, if this reduction of the poor to slavery remained on a relatively limited scale in England, not that much later, capital launched slavery on a much vaster scale, emptying Africa of the equivalent of Europe's population at that time through the slave trade to the Americas and the Caribbean.

But slavery, far from disappearing, has remained as one of capitalism's unmentioned, concealed constants. The poverty imposed on a large part of the planet by the major financial agencies chains entire families to work in conditions of slavery so that they can pay their creditors; workers are made to work in conditions of slavery in livestock farms, plantations and mines; children are made to work in conditions of slavery in carpet work-shops; women are kidnapped or fooled into working in the sex industry. But these are only some examples. It is significant that the problem of slavery was raised by the Non-Government Organisations at their Forum in Vienna on June 10-12 that preceded the UN's World Conference on Human Rights on June 14-25, 1993.

Again, in the period of primitive accumulation, with the birth of free waged labour after the great expropriations, there was the greatest case of sexual genocide in history, the great witch-hunts, which, with a series of other measures directed expressly against women, contributed in a fundamental way to forging the unfree, non-waged woman worker in the production and reproduction of labour-power (Federici, 1988). Deprived of the trades and means of production and subsistence typical of the previous economy, and largely excluded from craftwork or access to the new jobs that manufacturing was offering, the woman was essentially faced by two options for survival: marriage or prostitution. Even for women who had found some form of work external to the home, prostitution at that time was also a way of supplementing low family income or the low wages paid to women.  Over and above the various regimes and meanings it has gone through in different eras and social contexts, it is interesting that, in that period,  prostitution first became a trade exercised by women at the mass level, whence one can say that during the manufacturing period the individual proletarian woman was born fundamentally to be a prostitute (Fortunati, 1981; 1984, p.209).

From this insoluble contradiction in the woman's condition as an unwaged worker in a wage economy (Dalla Costa M., 1972) sprouted the conditions for mass prostitution in that period - and also the conditions on which the same phenomenon is based today, but on a vaster scale,  in order to generate profits for one of the most flourishing industries at the world level, the sex industry. This led the World Coalition against Trafficking in Women to present the first World Convention against Sexual Exploitation in Brussels (May 1993). The women in the Coalition also agreed to work for the UN's adoption of the convention and its ratification by the national governments.

Internationally, in fact, the sexual exploitation of women by organised crime is increasingly alarming. In Italy, these organisations have already brought many women  from Africa and eastern Europe to work as prostitutes. The tricks used to cover up exploitation by prostitution - for example, wife sales by catalogue or 'sexual tourism' in exotic destinations - are legion and well-known. According to the Coalition's charges, various countries already accept forms of 'sexual tourism' as a planned component in national income. Thanks to individual women and NGOs, studies of the direct government responsibility in forcing women to serve as prostitutes for soldiers during World War II have also begun.

Woman's condition in capitalism is born with violence (just as the free waged worker is born with violence); it is forged on the witches' pyres, and it is maintained with violence (Dalla Costa G.F., 1978). Within the current context of the population's reproduction, the woman continues to suffer violence as the subject of poverty at the world level (since her unpaid responsibility for the home makes her the weak contracting party in the external labour market), but because of her lack of economic resources, she also suffers a further violence of being sucked increasingly into organised prostitution. The warlike visage that development increasingly assumes simply worsens woman's condition still further and magnifies the practice and mentality of violence against women (2). A paradigmatic case is the war rape exercised as ethnic rape in the war in ex-Yugoslavia.

I have mentioned only some of the social macro-operations which allowed the capitalist system to "take off" during the period of primitive accumulation. But just as important were a series of other operations (Marx, 1976, Book I, Chaps. 26-33) left unmentioned here for the sake of brevity, but which could also be illustrated today as aspects of the continual re-foundation on a world scale of the class relationship on which capitalist development rests: the perpetuation of the stratification of workers in society based on the separation and counterposition imposed through the sexual division of labour.

All the considerations  are designed to lead to one fundamental thesis: capitalist development has always beenunsustainable because of its human impact. To understand the point, all one needs to do is to take the viewpoint of those who have been and continue to be killed by it. A presupposition of capitalism's birth was the sacrifice of a large part of humanity, mass exterminations, the production of hunger and misery, slavery, violence and terror. Its continuation requires the same presuppositions. Particularly from the woman'sviewpoint, capitalist development has always been unsustainable because it places her in an unsustainable contradiction, by being an unwaged worker in a wage economy and, hence, for that reason, denied the right to an autonomous existence. And if we look at the subsistence economies-- continually besieged, undermined and overwhelmed by capitalist development--we see that capitalist development continually deprives women of the land and water which for them are fundamental means of production and subsistence in sustaining the entire community.

The expropriation of land leaped to the world's attention in January with the revolt of the indigenous people of Chiapas in Mexico. The media could hardly avoid reporting it  because of the crucial role played by Mexico's alignment with the Western powers through the agreement for the North American Free Trade Area.  The perversity of producing wealth by expropriation and the production of misery was there for all to see.  But it is also significant that the dramatic consequences of expropriation of the land led those involved in drawing up the Women'sAction Agenda 21 in Miami in November, 1991 to make a forceful appeal for women to be guaranteed land and access to food. At the same time, the process of capitalist expansion--in this case, with the Green Revolution--led many people to  practice the selective abortion of female foetuses and girl-child infanticide in some areas of the Third World (Shiva, 1990): from sexual genodice to preventive annihilation.

The question of unsustainable development has become topical fairly recently with the emergence of evidence for various environmental disasters and forms of harm inflicted on the ecosystem. The Earth, the water running in its veins, and the air surrounding it have come to be seen as an ecosystem, a living organism of which humans are a part-humans who depend for their life on the life and equilibrium of the ecosystem-  as against an idea of Nature as the 'other' of Humanity - a Nature to be dominated and whose elements are to be appropriated as though they were potential commodities waiting in a warehouse. After five centuries of expropriation and domination, the Earth is returning to the limelight.  In the past it was sectioned, fenced in, and denied to the free producers. Now, it is itself being expropriated of its reproductive powers - turned topsy-turvy,  vivisectioned, and made a commodity.  But these extreme operations (like the 'banking' and patenting of the genetic codes of living species) belong to a single process whose logic of exploitation and domination has brought the planet to such devastation in human and environmental terms as to provoke disquieting questions as to the future possibilities and modalities of human reproduction.

But environmental destruction is united with the destruction wreaked on an increasingly large proportion of humanity. The destruction wreaked on the human groups is necessary for the perpetuation of capitalist development today, just as it was at its origins. To stop subscribing to this general destruction, and hence to approach the problem of 'sustainable development', means, above all, to take into account the struggles that are moving against capitalist development in the metropolises and the rural areas.  It also means finding the ways, and defining the practices to set capitalist development behind us by elaborating a different approach to knowledge.

But in interpreting and taking into account the various anti-capitalist struggles and movements, a global vision must be maintained of the many sections of society rebelling in various forms and contexts throughout the planet. To give priority to some and ignore others would mean adopting the same logic of separation and counterposition which is the soul of capitalist development.  The cancellation and annihilation of a part of humanity cannot be given as a foregone conclusion. In the metropolises and the advanced capitalist countries in general, many no longer have the waged job which, in their context, is the source of subsistence. At the same time, the welfare measures representing the complex of individual and collective rights that contribute to ensuring survival are being cut back. Human reproduction has already reached its limits: the woman's reproductive energy is increasingly dried out like a spring whose water has been used for too much land and water, says Vandana Shiva (1990), does not multiply.

Reproduction is crushed by the general intensification of labour, by the over-extension of the working day, amidst cuts in resources whereby the lack of waged work, too, becomes a stress-laden search for work and/or illegal employment, added to the laborious work of reproduction. I have no space to give a more extensive description of the complex phenomena that have led to the drastic reduction in the birth-rate in the advanced countries, particularly in Italy (where index of fertility rate, 1.26, and the population shows zero growth). But it should also be remembered that women's refusal to function as machines for reproducing labour-power, demanding instead to reproduce themselves and others as social individuals, has represented a major moment of women's resistance and struggle (Dalla Costa M., 1972). The contradiction in women's condition--whereby women are at a disadvantage in searching for financial autonomy through waged work outside the home, since they also remain primarily responsible for labour-power's production and reproduction--has exploded in all its unsustainability: women in the advanced countries have fewer and fewer children. In general, humanity in the advanced countries is less and less desirous of reproducing itself.

But women's great refusal in countries like Italy at the same time demands an answer to the overall question we are discussing: it demands a new type of development in which human reproduction is not built on an unsustainable sacrifice by women, as part of a conception and structure of life which is nothing but labour time within an intolerable sexual hierarchy. The "wage" struggle, in both its direct and indirect aspects, does not concern solely 'advanced' areas as something distinct from 'rural' ones, for there are very few situations in which survival rests solely on the land. To sustain the community, the wage economy is most often interwoven with resources typical of a subsistence economy, whose overall conditions are continually under pressure from the political and economic decisions of the major financial agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank (Dalla Costa M., Dalla Costa G.F., eds. 1993).  Today, it would thus be a fatal error not to defend the wage level and guarantees for the income - in money, goods and services - that it is working humanity's right to demand, since the wealth and power of capitalist society has been accumulated on the basis of five centuries of its labour. At the same time, land, water and forests must remain available for those whose subsistence comes from them, and to whom capitalist expropriation offer only extinction. As different sectors of mankind seek and demand a different kind of development, the strength to demand it grows to the extent that no one accepts their own extinction or the extinction of others.

The question of human reproduction posed by women's rejection of procreation is now turning into the demand for another type of development and seeks completely new horizons. The concept of welfare is not enough. The demand is now for happiness. The demand is for a formulation of development that opens up the satisfaction of the basic needs on whose suppression capitalism was born and has grown. One of those needs is for time as against a life consisting solely of labour, another is the need for physical life/sexuality (above all, with one's own and other people's bodies, with the body as a whole, not just the functions that make it more productive) as against the body as a mere container for labour-power or a machine for reproducing labour-power. Yet another need is the need for sociality/ collectivity (not just with other men and women, but with the various living beings with which can now only be encountered after a laborious journey out of the city) as against the separation/isolation of individuals in the body of society and living nature as a whole. And still another need  is for public space (not just the public parks and squares or the few other areas permitted to the collectivity) as against the enclosure, privatisation, and continual restriction of available space. Then there is the  desire to find a relationship with the totality of the Earth as a public space as well as the need for play, indeterminacy, discovery, amazement, contemplation, emotion...

Obviously, the above has no pretence to 'defining' fundamental needs, but it registers some whose systematic frustration by this mode of production has certainly not served human happiness.  But I think one must have the courage to pose happiness as a problem. This requires the reanalysis of the notion of development, in order to think again "in the grand manner," and to reject the fear that raising the question of happiness may appear as too daring or as something too subjective. Rigoberta Menchu (Burgos, 1991) tells how the mothers in her community teach their girls from the start that the life facing them will be a life of immense toil and suffering.  But she also wondered why, and the why reflects very precise, capitalist reasons: "We started to reflect on the roots of the problem, and we came to the conclusion that its roots lay in possession of the land. We did not have the best land, the landowners did. And every time we clear new land, they try to take it from us or to steal it in some way" (Burgos, 1991, p.144). Rigoberta has raised the problem of how to change this state of affairs; she has not cultivated the myth of human unhappiness. And the Christian teaching she has used alongside the Mayan traditions, has offered various lessons, including that of the Old Testament's Judith.

In my view, it is no coincidence that, in these last 20 years, the woman's question, the question of the indigenous populations (3), and the question of the Earth have assumed growing importance, for they are linked by an especially close synergy. The path towards a different kind of development cannot ignore them. There is much knowledge still in civilisations which have not died but have managed to conceal themselves, and their secrets have been maintained thanks to their resistance to the will to annihilate them. The Earth encloses so many powers, especially its power to reproduce itself and humanity as one of its parts. These powers have been discovered, preserved and enhanced more by women's knowledge than male science.  It is crucial, then, that this other knowledge--of women, of indigenous populations and of the Earth, whose 'passiveness' is capable of regenerating life (Shiva, 1990)--should find a way of emerging and being heard. This knowledge appears now as a decisive force that can lift the increasingly deadly siege capitalist development imposes on human reproduction.  


Bibliography

Burgos, E., (1990), Mi chiamo Rigoberta Menchù, Florence, Giunti.

Dalla Costa, M., James S., (1972), The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, London, Falling Wall Press.

Dalla Costa, G.F., (1978), Un lavoro d'amore. La violenza fisica componente essenziale del "trattamento" maschile nei confronti delle donne, Rome, Edizioni delle Donne.

Dalla Costa, M., Dalla Costa, G.F., (eds.) (1993), Donne e politiche del  debito. Condizione e lavoro femminile nella crisi del debito internazionale, Milan, Franco Angeli (English edition in preparation with Zed Books)

Federici, S., Fortunati, L., (1984), Il grande Calibano. Storia del corpo sociale ribelle nella prima fase del capitale, Milan, Franco Angeli.

Federici, S., (1988), "The Great Witch-Hunt", in The Maine Scholar, Vol.1, No.1.

Fortunati, L., (1981), L'arcano della riproduzione. Casalinghe, prostitue, operai e capitale, Venice, Marsilio.

Fortunati, L., (1984), Sesso come valore d'uso per il valore, in Fortunati L., Federici S., Il grande Calibano. Storia del corpo sociale ribelle nella prima fase del capitale, Milan, Franco Angeli.

La Repubblica, (1993), September 16.

La Repubblica, (1994), February 16.

Marx, K., (1975), Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844) in Early Writings, London, Penguin.

Marx, K., (1976), Capital. A Critique of Political Economy.Volume One, London, Penguin.

Michel, A., (1987), "La donna a repentaglio nel sistema di guerra", in Bozze, No.2, April-March.

Shiva, V., (1990), Staying alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India, London, Zed Books.

The Economist, (1990), January 6

Women's Action Agenda 21, (1991), in World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet, Official Report, 8-12 November 1991, Miami, Florida, USA, United Nations, New York, N.Y.


Notes

(1) The protest over the Narmada dam has received extensive coverage in international publications and the international media. For a critical interpretation of the proliferation of dams in the world, see Shiva (1990).

(2) Currently, there is a wide-ranging debate on the issue. A. Michel's essay (1987) remains a good reference-point.

(3) As was stressed by the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples at the NGO Forum in Vienna (June 10-12, 1993), these peoples have worked especially hard during the last two decades to get their voice heard, to make progress on questions concerning them (the question of land, above all), to obtain greater respect for and a formalisation of their rights in written form. Significant stages in the process have been the Kari Oca Declaration, the Land Charter of the Indigenous Peoples, and the Convention of the International Labour Organisation on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ILO Conv. No. 169).  This growing liaison and promotion of their demands was a major factor in the speedy expressions of solidarity from the North American indigenous populations during the rebellion of the indigenous people of Chiapas.





Capitalism and Reproduction

a été publié

 en japonais dans la revue "Jokyo" (Situation), Tokyo, Juillet 1994

 en anglais dans Open Marxism Vol. III: Emancipating Marx , W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn, J. Holloway and K. Psycopeds (eds.), Pluto Press, London, 1995.

en espagnol dans "Viento del Sur" n. 3, 1994, Mexico.

 en italien dans "C.N.S., Capitalismo Natura Socialismo", n. 1, 1995.




Capitalismo e Riproduzione

è stato pubblicato

 in giapponese sulla rivista "Jokyo" (Situazione), Tokyo, luglio 1994.

 in inglese su Open Marxism, Vol. III: Emancipating Marx, W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn, J. Holloway and K. Psycopeds (eds.) Pluto Press, London, 1995.

 in spagnolo su "Viento del Sur", n. 3, 1994, Mexico.

 in italiano su "C.N.S., Capitalismo Natura Socialismo", n. 1, 1995.


Capitalism and Reproduction

has been published

  in Japanese in the review "Jokyo" (Situation), Tokyo, July, 1994.

 in English in Open Marxism, Vol. III: Emancipating Marx, W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn, J. Holloway and K. Psycopeds (eds.) Pluto Press, London, 1995.

 in Spanish in "Viento del Sur", n. 3, 1994, Mexico.

 in Italian in "C.N.S., Capitalismo Natura Socialismo", n. 1, 1995.







[1]Author: Prof. Mariarosa Dalla Costa
Professor of Political Sociology
Dipartimento di Studi Storici e Politici
Via del Santo 28
35123 Padova - Italy.

Tel: (049)-827-4-024 or 030
Fax: (049)-827-4-029

[2]  Translated from the Italian by Julian Bees

JUST PLAY THE DAMN MUSIC ALREADY

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Cultural Monday has arrived again and we cross the Atlantic and land in the British Isles for the piece to follow.

The thing is entitled "Marxism and Art," but I am not sure that is really apropos.  What it takes up is the question of what we find as valuable in art (in this case song), what we find as protest, and all that rot.  I like the approach because I have this hang up about those who think only certain types of music, often folk music, and only certain types of song are really worth listening to or playing from their sanctimonious  standpoint of "progressive" politics.  Those folk can't conceive of value in some Goth song, for god's sake.  If it ain't being sung by some guy in a flannel shirt or some women with long hair streaming down her back, accompanied by an acoustic guitar, well, they say, I don't want to hear about it, especially not if you are claiming it has some political worth.  I see this sort of reaction as hogwash.

Sticking song, sticking art in some dogmatic box is horrendous, in my view. Claiming  that music, song, art, cannot convey something valuable unless it meets some preconceived rule of political worth is, as the author of the piece below writes,"... to miss the value of song and other art whose radical political potential is not necessarily in its content or “message” but perhaps in what its doing stylistically or maybe just even in how to makes you feel on that basic human level." The hang up on the message and the messenger is what turns me way off on these people...and ends up actually and probably biasing me against their type of music which they place on a pedestal and call it folk, or women's music, or protest music, or what have you.

I could name dozens of songs even from the Big Hair era of metal (which i loved)  that stir the soul, fire the imagination, make you want to get up and dance,  and even, every now and then, say something to boot.  But, OMG, these Stalinist of political music scream popular music can't have real "value", since after all it isn't blatantly political (and because lots of people, who don't even consider themselves "political" or working class, or movement types, or wear work boots, actually enjoy it).  Left wing political art snobs is what these smug progressive really are who feel the need to tell the rest of us how what we like is just commercial while what they like, is obviously the real thing.  It has to be becasue it is dull, boring, and they "dig" it.

Feel free to "dig" it to your heart's content.  It isn't for me to tell you what to like.  Just don't lecture me about it.

I love Rock and Roll (and here is a confession, I love lots of today's Country music, as well).  I find worth in it not just because it makes me feel good (which it does, and which is enough), but because in some way it conveys something, be it human struggle (individual or collective), human and everyday life as most people live it, love, yes, love, even, sometimes liberation.  It doesn't have to woo me with  some direct political content to get me to want to hear it, move to it.  That isn't necessary...not at all.  It doesn't have to be sung or strummed by some lonely figure from the back of a railroad car or some faux working class venue (generally inhabited by non working class people).  I just want to feel something, you know what I mean, I hope.

Anyway, I am descending to gibberish because I still don't have the hang of what I am supposed to write on this cultural Monday thing...and because I am not willing to spend hours and hours on what I write...just want to get something across, that's all.

Help me out here, Bill...

The following is from Workers Liberty.  Again, I like the analysis, but even it goes off too far into the world of "what is art" for me.  Why all the academics... why all the worry... just play the damn music.

What can you expect though from something titled...



Marxism and art




Author: 
 The Ruby Kid



This is the text of a speech given by hip-hop artist and spoken-word poet The Ruby Kid at a Workers' Liberty meeting at Goldsmiths University in November 2012. He was speaking alongside the screenwriter Clive Bradley




I’m going to talk quite mainly about music, and some poetry, although I’ll touch on other art-forms too. I’ll say now that I’m not going to talk particularly about my own work. Although if anyone has any questions about that maybe you can get at me afterwards.

To answer the question that titles this meeting – I think the short answer is “no”, and the longer answer is “not really, but…” Personally I have a lot of sympathy with the sentiment expressed by the English poet W.H. Auden in his elegy for W.B. Yeats, in which he said “poetry makes nothing happen”. He was responding the Yeats’ own soul searching in “Man and the Echo”, when he asked “did that play of mine send out certain men the English shot?” He was worried that his play “Cathleen ni Houlihan” had played some role in inciting the 1916 Easter Rising; I think art can have a catalysing role in shaping ideas, but I don’t think the direct cause-effect relationship Yeats worried about is very often a factor. It probably says more about Yeats’ own self-conception than much else.

I said I’d focus mainly on music, so just a few words on some history there. Song has always been a feature of working-class struggle. It’s an easy, collective activity. It’s participatory, it brings people together, and I think the act of doing it speaks to something that’s quite a fundamental part of what Marx called our “species being” – the essence of our humanity.

It’s also galvanising to participate in a vocal activity as part of a collective – the word “slogan”, a key part of the vocabulary of the left, originates from a Gaelic word referring to the war cries of the clans. It’s easy to understand the emotional, psychological, and cultural power of something shouted or sung in that context; for me, as a socialist, the best protest songs are “slogans” in that original sense – battle cries in class warfare, even if the cries are whispered or melodic rather than screamed.

Tangentially I think it’s a shame that our movement has lost some of its artistic culture. That’s been bound up with the deterioration of its political culture. Just look at the chants that are common on most demos – “they say cut back, we say fightback”, “we are the Tory haters”… really basic, lowest-common-denominator stuff. As the confidence, self-assertion, and political culture of our movement has decline, or been smashed up, our artistic culture has declined too. I think a healthy, vibrant labour movement would have all kinds of song, music, and performance taking place on a demonstration. If you look at what’s possible artistically at the high points of class struggle – workers’ theatre in occupied factories, early Soviet art – that gives us something to aspire to. Of course, it’s the high tide of class struggle that enables that rather than the other way around, but we should try and embody or prefigure some of that spirit where we can.

There’s no specific formula for defining whether a particular song or piece of music represents “protest”, or is explicitly “political”, and I think the attempt to apply one would lead us into very hot water indeed. I also think that, as leftist, we should very strenuously avoid an over-valorisation of “protest music” that refuses to acknowledge the value of a song – or any other piece of art – unless there’s an inherent, explicit political message that we approve of. Precisely because it speaks to and relates to something essential in our humanity – the use of our voices, collectivity, and so on – song and the spoken-word, my artistic avenue of choice, have an intrinsic value and have to be related to on their own terms, not just on whether a given work of art has a particular political content.

For example, there’s a vast and rich tradition of industrial ballads and songs of toil in this country – there’s a great appendix in Dorian Lynskey’s book 33 Revolutions Per Minute that talks about the influence of that tradition on the more modern protest songs he’s writing about. He talks about “a melting pot of topical ballads, labour songs, parodies, spirituals, and hymns”, which is a great image. Within that melting pot there are lot of songs which are just descriptive; it’s just the self-expression of working people talking about their lives. The “protest” isn’t explicit, but it’s there: for working people in early industrial society to think and write about their conditions was an implicitly radical act, as it allowed them to tell their own story and contextualise their experience rather than just meekly accepting it. The act of writing and singing the song can itself be the protest, not just the song’s content.

There was a lot of media chatter around the time of the 2010 student revolt about why there wasn’t more “protest music” coming out of that movement. That was very surreal to me, and a little frustrating. There was a litany of articles – mainly in the Guardian and NME – which engaged in some journalistic head-scratching about the “conundrum” of why, given that the tide of social protest was rising again, there weren’t more “protest songs” being made.

The whole debate was confused in my opinion and elided a vast amount of issues about the way the music industry has changed, but it also missed the important point that there was plenty of song being played and sung on those demonstrations. The fact that people couldn’t conceive of it as protest song because it wasn’t warbled by some guy with an acoustic guitar says more about them than about us, I think. It’s particularly odd when you look at the significant parallels between, say, grime and punk. If we’re capable of conceiving of punk as having an almost inherent potential to express protest – which seemed to be pretty consensual amongst the people writing these articles – I don’t see why grime should be viewed differently, when it shares a lot of the same participatory and anti-establishment characteristics.

The healthiest “Marxist” attitude to art can be arrived at when we cast our nets widely, and try and break down boundaries, rather than erecting them. Too much of what has passed for “Marxist” understandings and analyses of art has been restrictive and dogmatic, decreeing from above rules about content and theme that a work of art must follow in order to be deemed political worthy.

Against those restrictions, I’d quote from the fabulous art manifesto Leon Trotsky co-authored with the surrealist painter Andre Breton: “The free choice of these themes and the absence of all restrictions on the range of his explorations - these are possessions which the artist has a right to claim as inalienable. In the realm of artistic creation, the imagination must escape from all constraint and must, under no pretext, allow itself to be placed under bonds. To those who would urge us, whether for today or for tomorrow, to consent that art should submit to a discipline which we hold to be radically incompatible with its nature, we give a flat refusal, and we repeat our deliberate intention of standing by the formula: complete freedom for art.”

Fundamentally this is about relating to art on its own terms, and seeking to understand its value in terms of how it relates to what Marx called our “species-being” – the essence of what makes us human – not just in terms of how art can be used as a crude cipher for a political message. Art is not simply an instrument, it has an intrinsic value, and a genuinely radical-materialist attitude to art looks for the liberatory political potential even in works of art whose content isn’t particularly radical.

For me, the attempt – intentional or otherwise – to place dogmatic restrictions on what art must be, and what themes it must deal with, in order to have radical political potential comes from Stalinism.

The art theories developed by Stalinism in the 1930s – you’ll have heard the terms “social realism” or “socialist realism” – contended that a work of art – a painting, a novel, a play, a song, a poem – had no value unless it was a direct, explicit, authentic reflection of “the struggle”, and was explicitly an expression of protest. A lot of the people who established the framework through which a lot of people on the left still understand protest song – AL Lloyd, Alan Lomax, Ewan MacColl, Pete Seeger – were committed Stalinists.

In my view it was in large part the influence of those Stalinist ideas that was behind the hostility to Bob Dylan’s electrification of his music in the late 1960s. The work of those people is contradictory and there’s a lot of value in it – Lomax’s work, for example, in discovering, collecting, archiving, and preserving the musical and vocal traditions of the American agricultural working-class and of black workers in the south was incredibly important. But I think people like Lomax also helped perpetuate an idea on the left, that came from Stalinism, that art had to meet certain predetermined political criteria if it was to be considered at all valuable.

The point isn’t to reject what’s valuable in the work of those people, or by any means to imply that that simple, direct, protest-song register – a song like “Which Side Are You On?”, for example – doesn’t have its place. Of course it does. It has an essential place. The way that that song in particular has been sung and resung and rewritten and resung in working-class struggle after working-class struggle since the 1930s proves its place. But it is to say that to limit ourselves to that, or to fetishise that to the exclusion of everything else, is to miss the value of song and other art whose radical political potential is not necessarily in its content or “message” but perhaps in what its doing stylistically or maybe just even in how to makes you feel on that basic human level.

Ultimately I think those two different approaches to art speak to two different understandings of what socialism is. The first approach, which can’t see value in a song unless it’s a drab song of toil (I’m hyperbolising but you get my point), speaks to a conception of socialism which is shackling, and dull, and based on adherence to dogma handed down from above. The second approach speaks to a libertarian model of socialism, one that’s about removing shackles – political, economic and cultural – in order to liberate creative human potential to make and receive art not on the basis of whether it conforms to dogma but on the basis of how it engages with our species being.

That’s the model of socialism I believe in, and which Workers’ Liberty fight for. It’s a model within which the role of song and art is not crudely instrumentalist but an integral part of a project to liberate our common creativity from the restrictions capitalism places on it.

THE REPUBLICANS ARE SOMEWHERE TO THE RIGHT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

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I don't usually write about Republicans and Democrats, but this Republican drive to cut food stamps makes me so sick to my stomach that I just can't avoid doing just that. 

Cut food stamps...NOW...are you kidding me.  The GOP says, well, unemployment is dropping so now is the time. Whoopee!  Even the jobs people are getting these days, the lucky ones, often don't pay enough to feed their families.  Cut food stamps, that's the Republican plan.

One Afghan veteran had this to say to those Republicans who want to take literally the food out of his mouth:


My name is Jason. I turned 35 less than a week ago. My first job was maintenance work at a public pool when I was 17. I worked 40 hours a week while I was in college. I’ve never gone longer than six months without employment in my life and I just spent the last three years in the military, one of which consisted of a combat tour of Afghanistan.

    Oh, and I’m now on food stamps. Since June, as a matter of fact.

Why am I on food stamps?

    The same reason everyone on food stamps is on food stamps: because I would very much enjoy not starving.

I mean, if that’s okay with you:

Mr. or Mrs. Republican congressman.

Mr. or Mrs. Conservative commentator.

Mr. or Mrs. “welfare queen” letter-to-the-editor author

.
Mr. or Mrs. “fiscal conservative, reason-based” libertarian.

I do apologize for burdening you on the checkout line with real-life images of American-style poverty. I know you probably believe the only true starving people in the world have flies buzzing around their eyes while they wallow away, near-lifeless in gutters.

Hate to burst the bubble, but those people don’t live in this country.

I do. And millions like me. Millions of people in poverty who fall into three categories.

Let’s call them the “lucky” category, since conservatives seem to think people on welfare have hit some sort of jackpot:

Those living paycheck to paycheck? They’re a little lucky.

Those living unemployment check to unemployment check? They’re a little luckier.

Those living 2nd of the month to 2nd of the month? Ding! We’ve hit the jackpot!

The 2nd of the month being the time when funds gets electronically deposited onto the EBT card, [at least in NY] for those who’ve never been fortunate enough to hit that $175/month Powerball.

I fall into the latter two categories. But I’ve known people recently — soldiers in the Army — who were in the first and third. They were off fighting in Afghanistan while their wives were at home, buying food at the on-post commissary with food stamps.

And nobody bats an eye there, because it’s not uncommon in the military.

It’s not uncommon — nor is it shameful. It might be shameful how little service-members are paid, but that’s a separate issue.

The fact remains anyone at a certain income level can find it difficult from time to time to pay for everything. And when you’re poor you learn to make sacrifices. Food shouldn’t be one of them.


What Jason just doesn't understand is that the Republicans, those a-holes who want to cut food stamps really don't give a shit about him...or anyone remotely like him.  Don't care.  Never did.  Never will.  Ain't their problem.  Want your vote, sure, but otherwise, you can go to hell. 

Beyond that, though, most of these Republicans are thinking of race when they wan't to cut those food stamps.  I don't know if Jason is black, brown or red.  I don't know anything about Jason's race, but in the world of Republicans what he is not, is white.

They talk food stamps, they see these people of color.  They see people of color, and they see welfare cheats.  "Let em all starve to death, who needs em."  That is their mantra.

Yet, as Edward Wyckoff Williams at the Root points out,


...despite prevailing racial stereotypes, which first became mainstream during President Ronald Reagan’s tenure and his propagation of the Chicago “welfare queen” myth, the overwhelming majority of food stamp recipients are white. And curiously, many of them are Republicans. USDA data show that in 2011, 37 percent of food stamp users were from white, non-Hispanic households.


And of the 254 counties where the number of food stamp recipients doubled between 2007 and 2011, Republican candidate Mitt Romney won 213 in last year’s presidential election. Bloomberg News compiled research revealing that Kentucky’s Owsley County — which backed Romney with 81 percent of its vote — had the largest proportion of food stamp recipients of all the communities where Romney won.

What is most curious is that this isn’t surprising. The poorest states in the union tend to be the most reliably red, with Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas among the top 10.

According to the Bloomberg research, more than half of Owsley County’s population — 52 percent — received food stamps in 2011 alone. The county’s racial makeup is 97.6 percent white, and it has a median household income of $19,344 — in comparison with the national median household income of $52,762. In fact, four in 10 of the country’s residents live below the poverty line, based on U.S. census statistics.

Republican Rep. Hal Rogers, who represents Owsley County and won his 16th term in the House of Representatives last year, boldly joined the GOP majority that voted to cut billions from food stamp services. It seems mind-boggling that Rogers also won 84 percent of the vote, yet in matters that most concern the economic interests of his constituents, he acts with impunity.

And Rogers isn’t alone.

Two-thirds of the 39 legislators who represent America’s 100 hungriest counties voted “yea” on behalf of the measure, which eventually passed 217-210. Reps. Andy Barr, R-Ky., Paul Broun, R-Ga., Gregg Harper, R-Miss., and a host of others joined. In fact, all but 15 members of the Grand Old Party voted in favor.

What does this say about Republicans?  What does this say about those poor and working class white folks who vote for them...over and over again.

Oh, have I mentioned yet,  Several of the House Republicans who voted Thursday for a bill that slashed billions of dollars from the food stamp program personally received large farm subsidies for family farms.  Buzz Feed points out:


During the food stamp debate, GOP Rep. Stephen Fincher, who received thousands in farm subsidies, responded to a Democratic Congressman during the debate over the cuts by quoting the bible, saying “the one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Fincher himself has received his own large share of government money. From 1999 to 2012, Stephen & Lynn Fincher Farms received $3,483,824 in agriculture subsidies. Last year he took in $70,574 alone.

Another Republican congresswoman who voted to make cuts to the food stamp program was Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri. Her farm received more than $800,000 in Department of Agriculture subsidies from 1995-2012. In 2001, her farm received $135,482 in subsidies. 

Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who also voted to make cuts to the program, was a partner in Racota Valley Ranch, her family’s farm and previously had nearly a 17% stake through 2008. The farm received $3.4 million in subsidies from 1995-2012. The Environmental Working Group, which analyzes subsidy data, says the “estimated amount of subsidies attributed to Rep. Noem from 1995-2012 is $503,751.”

Rep. Marlin Stutzman, a Republican Rep. from Indiana also received his fair share of government subsidies. He personally took in nearly $200,000 for the farm he co-owns with his father.

According to the New York Times Stutzman said Thursday the bill cutting food stamps by $39 billion over the next ten years “eliminates loopholes, ensures work requirements, and puts us on a fiscally responsible path. 

Does the word "hypocrites" come to mind?

There is more to be said, and Chauncey Devega over at We are Respectable Negroes blog says it well.




The Republican Vote to Cut Food Stamps is Really a Decision to Kill the "Useless Eaters"


15 million Americans were “food insecure” in the United States during 2012. The Great Recession has increased the number of Americans who do not have sufficient food by 30 percent. The fastest growing group of people who need some assistance with obtaining sufficient food to maintain a basic standard of living is the elderly. Hunger in America is estimated to cost the U.S. economy 167 billion dollars.

Approximately 20 percent of American children live in poverty. Food insecurity and hunger leads to a long-term decline in life spans and a diminished standard of living for whole communities.


Last week, Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to cut 39 billion dollars from federal food assistance programs. Their vote is more than just the next act in the ongoing politics of cruelty by the Republican Party in the Age of Obama.

It is a decision to kill poor people.


In America, discussions of poverty are linked in the public imagination to stereotypes about race, class, and gender. The face of poverty is not white (the group which in fact comprises the largest group of recipients for government aid). Instead, it is the mythical black welfare queen, or an “illegal” immigrant who is trying to pilfer the system at the expense of “hard working” white Americans.


Discussions about poverty are also easily transformed into claims about morality and virtue. Consequently, while the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is very efficient and involves very little if any fraud on the part of its participants, stereotypes about the poor can be used to legitimate the policing and harassment of Americans in need of food support through mandatory drug testing and other unnecessary programs.


Here, the long-term end goal for Republicans is revealed for what it is—a desire to make being a poor person into a crime.


Such a project serves a broader effort by conservatives to further transfer resources upward to the 1 percent from the American people. The decision by Republicans to further punish the poor, while the United States is in the midst of one of the greatest economic calamities in recent memory, also exists in the context of a Republican Party whose last presidential nominee suggested that 47 percent of the American public are human leeches and parasites.


Their vote to cut food assistance programs (as well as the social safety net more broadly) exists in a bizarre political moment when the Republican Party is possessed by a radical and destructive ideology, one that is a mix of Ayn Randian fantasies, austerity and neoliberalism run amok, and libertarianism processed through the carnivalesque freak show performance and eliminationist shtick of Right-wing talk radio.


The Republican Party’s hatred of poor people overlaps with its use of white racial resentment and symbolic racism to win over white voters in the post civil rights era.


For decades, conservatism and racism have been political intimates in the United States. The Great Recession and the rise of austerity politics have facilitated a frightening union of those forces on the American Right.


With the introduction of the “Southern Strategy” during the Nixon era, and now spurred on by the election of the country’s first black president, The Tea Party GOP has been fully transformed into what is best described as a “Herrenvolk” political organization.


“Herrenvolk”--what literally means “the Master Race” or “chosen people”--is a description of a society where citizenship is tiered and hierarchical along lines of “race”. As such, the dominant group receives the full benefits of social services, transfer payments, and other supports from the State. The out-group, marked as the Other, is viewed as not deserving of such resources.


South Africa and Nazi Germany were Herrenvolk societies. The United States during its centuries-long slave regime, and then the many decades of Jim and Jane Crow, was also a society organized along similar principles of racialized citizenship.

In this arrangement, the poor and others among the out-group are stigmatized as “useless eaters” who should be separated from the body politic if some other use cannot be found for them.


I use this powerful phrase with great care. While originally used by the Nazis and the American eugenics movement to describe the handicapped, as well as the physically and mentally disabled, “useless eaters” can also be understood in the context of a Herrenvolk society to include those “surplus” people who are not “properly” contributing to society.


History echoes. For example, during the 2012 election (and through to the present) Republicans have used the language of “makers” and “takers” to describe their view of American society in which the former are “productive” citizens, and the latter are “drains” on society and “surplus” people.


The Republican Party demonstrates its Herrenvolk ethic in a number of other ways too.


Most importantly, the Republican Party’s Herrenvolk value system is enabled by its voting base where 95 percent of its voters in the 2012 presidential election were white.


The policies which result will almost by necessity serve “white” political interests, however perceived or defined by the Republican leadership and its media apparatus. This claim is buttressed by Eric Knowles of New York University whose recent research details how the Tea Party serves as a white identity organization for its members.


It is also important to call attention to how the Tea Party is both older and whiter than the nation as a whole. The country which they yearn for and “want to take back” is an appeal to the world of Jim and Jane Crow, unapologetic white male privilege, and where white people were subsidized and protected by the State at the expense of others.


As highlighted by Ira Katznelson’s essential book When Affirmative Action was White, the white middle class in the post-World War 2 era was a creation of the federal government. 


The VA and FHA home loan programs were not equally accessible by blacks and other people of color. The G.I. Bill, a stepping stone to education and middle class identity, was also practically limited for African-American veterans and other people of color.


Those and other similar programs made the white American middle class and constituted one of the single greatest moments of wealth creation in the history of the United States. Such policies were examples of racially tiered citizenship in practice as day-to-day government policy.


Herrenvolk America is the dreamland and formative political and social experience that the Tea Party, as the beating heart of the Republican Party, yearns to create.


In chasing the dream of a conservative political Whiteopia, the Republican Party has also succeeded in rolling back the voting rights of racial minorities, young people, the elderly, and the poor across the country.


It also uses the racially incendiary language of “secession” and “nullification” that is drawn directly from the American Civil War and the “States Rights” movement.


This is a practical embrace of the white supremacist politics of Jim and Jane Crow, the neo Confederacy, and a rejection of the victories of the Civil Rights Movement.


The faux populist language of “real Americans” deployed by Sarah Palin for example, is a clear signal to a sense of “us” and “them”, a divide that cannot neatly be separated from a sense of a shared racial identity on the part of the speaker and its intended audience where to be “American” is to be “white”.


Birtherism is predicated on racial bigotry and the idea that for many white Americans a black man is de facto not a “real” citizen. Thus, Barack Obama is symbolically unfit to be President of the United.


The use of coded and overt racial appeals by Republicans to attack President Barack Obama is further evidence of how white racial resentment has triumphed as a type of common sense language for the Right in this political moment.


All white people do not benefit from being members of a Herrenvolk society in the same way. Anticipating this arrangement, activist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois famously described white skin privilege as a type of “psychological wage” that does not always translate into equal material gains or rewards for its owners. In many cases, Whiteness and white racism actually hurt white people.


Thus, the following puzzle: the Republican Party is cutting food stamps under the cover of punishing the black and brown poor; in reality, white people in the heart of Red State America will be hurt the most by such a policy.


In the Tea Party GOP’s dream of Herrenvolk America all white people are equal—and borrowing from the Orwell’s classic book Animal Farm—but some white people are more equal than others.


The Republican Party has voted to kill the “useless eaters” by cutting food assistance programs. But, data on food stamp use from the USDA suggests that such a policy will cause great pain to Republican voters.


How do we reconcile this contradiction?


Ultimately, populist conservatives and the Tea Party base are so drunk on white identity politics that they are unable to realize that the plutocrats and the 1 percent have just as much disdain for them, regardless of their common racial identity and skin color, as they do the black and brown poor.

Class trumps race.  Unfortunately, the common good is betrayed again by how too many poor and working class white conservatives cling to white identity politics instead of seeking shared alliances of mutual interest, aid and support across the color line.







SEEDS OF EMPIRE VS SEEDS OF THE MULTITUDE

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Seeds.  Strange things, these seeds.  They look like, well, seeds, and then one day they are plants.  Seems simple and natural, but capital never leaves well enough alone.  Global Capital and the Empire are always on the hunt for more accumulation and more profits, and more ways to exploit the multitudes. As La Via Campesina warned back on March of 2011, 


 Our agricultural systems are threatened by industries that seek to control our seeds by all available means. The outcome of this war will determine the future of humanity, as all of us depend on seeds for our daily food.

Of course.

Capital has turned seeds into just another commodity, added patents, genetic engineering and privatized, or is trying to privatize the whole damn thing.

Again from March of 2011,


In their drive to build monopolies and steal our natural wealth, corporations and the governments who serve them place at risk all of humanity’s food and agriculture. A handful of genetically uniform varieties replace thousands of local varieties, eroding the genetic diversity that sustains our food system. Faced with climate change, diversity is a strength, and uniformity a weakness. Commercial seeds drastically reduce the capacity of humanity to face and adapt to climate change. This is why we maintain that peasant agriculture and its peasant seeds contribute to the cooling of the planet.

...hybrid and genetically modified seeds require enormous quantities of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and water, driving up production costs and damaging the environment. Such seeds are also more susceptible to droughts, plant diseases and pest attacks, and have already caused hundreds of thousands of cases of crop failures and have left devastated household economies in their wake. The industry has bred seeds that cannot be cultivated without harmful chemicals. They have also been bred to be harvested using large machinery and are kept alive artificially to withstand transport. But the industry has ignored a very important aspect of this breeding: our health. The result is industrial seeds that grow fast have lost nutritional value and are full of chemicals. They cause numerous allergies and chronic illnesses, and contaminate the soil, water and air that we breathe.

Let us not be mistaken. We are faced with a war for control over seeds. And our common future depends on its outcome. It is through this lens that we must analyze the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), in order to understand what is at stake and what positions we should take.

I don't really know a whole lot of the ins and outs of all this, and because I've spent the day, the week, fooling around with messed up email accounts, I lack the time for the kind of basic research I usually do.  So, I am pretty much sticking with La Via Campesina to explain it all...including the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture:


...we must situate the Treaty in its historical context of constant attempts to steal our seeds. The industry and most governments are using the Treaty to legitimate the industry’s access to those peasant seeds that are stored in collections around the world. The Treaty recognizes and legitimizes industrial property over seeds, thus creating the required conditions for theft and monopoly control. In the Treaty, the florid language used to describe Farmers’ Rights entrusts individual states with the responsibility for their implementation. However, states do not apply them. Therefore the mentioning of these rights is only an attempt to inoculate the Treaty against our possible protests and denunciations.

The result is a treaty that legitimates the World Trade Organization (WTO) and laws on industrial property rights. It is therefore legally binding with respect to industrial property rights and the rights of plant breeders, while allowing states not to respect Farmers’ Rights. It is a contradictory and ambiguous treaty, which in the final analysis comes down on the side of theft.

Basically, it sounds to me like the  strategic plan of Global Capital in general...which "...in the final analysis comes down on the side of theft."

The following is, of course, from La Via Campesina, but this week. 

What we learn is that the fight continues and the multitudes aren't just sitting back willing to take this crap...



The seed treaty must no longer allow the stealing of seeds from peasants

Press release of La Via Campesina

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(Oman, 24 September 2013). This week, from 24 to 28 September, witnesses the opening in Oman of the Fifth Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, also known as the seed treaty. The treaty was ratified to facilitate access for all to seed diversity. However, the hopes raised on the occasion of its adoption in 2001 have been dashed and have led only to failure.

Actually the treaty has allowed the seed industry to draw freely and without charge from the huge wealth of seeds accumulated through centuries of selection by peasants and to lock up this wealth in private collections. At the same time, public collections that are accessible to all are disappearing one after the other, and the fundamental right of peasants and small-scale farmers to access, use, exchange and sell their own seeds is being criminalized. If men and women farmers and peasants can no longer save and select their own seeds, their systems of production will lose their capacity to adapt to climate change. It is not only biodiversity but the food security of the entire planet that is at risk.

Under pressure from free trade agreements, seed laws only recognize the proprietary titles, patents and plant variety certificates which the industry has filed in order to take control of all cultivated plants. Peasants and small-scale farmers in Colombia, Thailand, East Africa, Chile and Europe are experiencing this at the very moment. These men and women only have access to industry seeds which they must buy every year and which require for their cultivation an arsenal of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other poisons, all of which affect their health and that of consumers. They are obligated to fight to assert their right of access to traditional seeds.

Victories are still possible, as shown by recent examples in Chile and Colombia, where the mobilization and determination of peasants and family farmers has forced a retreat on the part of governments. According to Eberto Diaz of the International Coordinating Committee of La Via Campesina: “The freezing of decree 970 in Colombia is a victory, admittedly partial, but also an important step for the entire social movement in Colombia. The government has recognized that it is peasants and family farmers who feed us every day. This law was an attack on peasant farming.”

In the opinion of La Via Campesina the Treaty must acknowledge its own failure and stop giving multinationals, free of charge, seeds taken from the fields of peasants and small-scale farmers. The governments that make up the Governing Body of the Treaty must in every country allow and/or continue to allow these peasants and farmers to lawfully use, exchange and sell their own seeds. This is what we have come to demand from governments through our participation in this meeting of the Treaty. These rights are the most basic condition for the conservation and renewal of the plant genetic resources required for our food. Our future depends on it and this is why La Via Campesina called its latest publication on seeds La Via Campesina: Our Seeds, Our Future. It shows how the daily struggle for seeds begins in the fields. It is high time for the Treaty to take this into account.

For more information:
Eberto Diaz (spanish) : + 57-31 03 01 75 34.
Guy Kastler (french): +33 6 03 94 57 21 and guy.kastler@wanadoo.fr
Miriam Boyer (english, spanish): +49 16 37 41 17 77 and miriam.boyer@yahoo.de



MARISSA ALEXANDER TEACH-IN CURRICULUM (AND NEWS)

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Some good news.  Marissa Alexander is going to get a new trial.  An appeals court judge ruled that the trial court had essentially forced Marissa to prove her innocnese as opposed to the state proving her guilty.  

Judge James H. Daniel wrote for the unanimous state appelate panel in Florida. 


“The defendant’s burden is only to raise a reasonable doubt concerning self-defense...The defendant does not have the burden to prove the victim guilty of the aggression defended against beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

Judge Daniel also said that  Alexander should not have been required to prove that she had been injured by her husband (as a justification for using deadly force in self-defense), since he had not been injured by the shooting.  Marissa fired the shot into the ceiling, not him.


He ordered a retrial. A separate proceeding would determine whether Alexander could be released on bail pending that trial.


Every additional day is jail which Marissa spends is plain wrong.  Every day she has spent in jail has been because she defended herself against abuse.  

It is as simple as that and virtually everyone knows that.

So why is she still sitting behind bars.

REMEMBER: THIS IS NOT OVER  

State Attorney Angela Corey has pledged that she will retry the case.  "The defendant's conviction was reversed on a legal technicality," said a statement released by Corey's office. "The case will be back in Circuit Court in the Fourth Judicial Circuit at the appropriate time."  

On the same day that news broke about a new trial for Marissa, a curriculum for those who want to offer teach-ins about her case and others like it was posted on line by Project NIA.  For Scission Prison Friday, I am passing along that curriculum right here, right now.



No Selves to Defend: Curriculum for Marissa Alexander Teach-In

On the occasion of Marissa Alexander’s 33rd birthday, we hosted a teach-in about her case in the context of others involving women of color who were criminalized for defending from violence.

Even before we facilitated the teach-in we were asked by others if we could share the curriculum and materials with them. A big part of our work at Project NIA is focused on making information readily available in the spirit of collaboration and a desire for a more just world.

As such, we are making the curriculum and materials that were developed by Mariame Kaba freely available. Please feel free to adapt the materials however you choose. We only ask that you make sure to creditProject NIA for the materials as you use them. In addition, please be aware that this curriculum was only offered once and is a work in progress. The feedback was very positive but we would definitely appreciate it if you would share any improvements you make to the curriculum. We would love to keep adding to it and sharing what you develop with others too. We will happily upload your materials here for others to use.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE & TEMPLATE — DOWNLOAD PDF.

HANDOUTS


Biderman’s Chart of Coercion (hand this out with the case study above)





APPENDIX (Additional Information)

You can hand out the following handout during the historical timeline activity to the small groups that might be discussing the cases of Inez Garcia, the New Jersey 7, Joan Little, and CeCe McDonald (in case they don’t have enough background on the cases). CASE STUDIES (Optional)

The following is a handout developed by the Free Marissa Now Campaign with a list ofACTIONS that folks can take to support her.

If you are going to facilitate this teach-in, I suggest that you read this STATEMENT ABOUT MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCING (PDF) and its intersection with domestic violence and racism developed by the Free Marissa Now Campaign. It would also be a good resource for teach-in participants as well.

Facilitators might also want to read the statement of Incite! calling for the freedom of Marissa Alexander. The statement does a terrific job underscoring the social forces that led to her criminalization while also showing how to do intersectional analysis.

The National Coalition against Domestic Violence can also provide facilitators with background information that might be helpful (this is especially true if you don’t have a grounding in the dynamics of DV).

Finally, I encourage facilitators who are new to thinking about the Prison Industrial Complex to read through The PIC Is which is a zine that was developed by us and the Chicago PIC Teaching Collective. It’s a quick read and provides a brief intro to the PIC.
Good luck! If you have any questions, feel free to address them to Mariame at   
projectnia@hotmail.com

THE 43 GROUP: FIGHTING FASCISM AND CHANGING THE TIDE OF HISTORY

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As stated in my previous post, a group of National Socialist (nazis) and their friends plan a rally in Kansas City this weekend.  I plan to join many others at the Jackson County Courthouse where white supremacists plan to meet to let them know what the people of Kansas City think of their ilk.  A few miles away in a large park, far from the action, another group of folks including city officials, political figures, establishment community leaders, representatives of various not for profits and NGOs will hold a talk fest to talk about it all in their version of how best to fight fascism, racism, nazism.  

Scission has already made clear where it stands:


Scission believes that a disciplined, yet free, counter rally in sight of the white supremacists makes far more sense then holding some festival far from the scene.  Scission believes a large turnout at the Courthouse counter rally is important for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the safety of those counter demonstrating.  It is also important that the white supremacists see what Kansas Citians really think of them, hear directly what Kansas Citians have to say to them, understand that Kansas Citians are not afraid of them.  Scission calls upon those planning the far away event to reconsider or, at a minimum,  to let those who attend their rally know that another event is happening which will express our outrage directly without any intent of violence. 

There are in fact a whole range of tactics advocated by various and asundry forces on how best to fight white supremacists when they make an appearance.  They range from direct conflrontation, to non violent confrontation, to ignoring their presence, to demonstrating somewhere else where there are no white supremacists around, to listening to speeches, to this that and the other thing.

Today, I want to cite what a group predominately made up of ex-Jewish servicemen, some women, and some non Jews as well in Britain decided to do...and did...to fight the spread of fascism in Britain after World War II.  They took the direct approach, but they did more than just physically break up fascist rallys in some sort of spontanious manner.  Known as The 43 Group these folks spyed on, scouted out, infiltrated, propagandized and carried out basically a military style operation to upend, succesfully I might add, the Mosely movement which was gaining a foothold in Britain at the time with its fascist, Jew hating rhetoric and physical attacks.  The 43 Group essentially said, "Not on our watch."

Posted below are two articles and a video.



First from Workers's Liberty

Fighting fascists after 1945


Author: 
 Charlie Salmon


Physical confrontation with fascist organisations is a controversial matter for the main strands of anti-fascism. For groups like Unite Against Fascism, on the deliberate calculation of the dominant left force within it, the SWP, such tactics are likely to scare off their media, religious and mainstream political supporters. Searchlight has a similar problem.
On the other hand, groups like Antifa appear, at least judging by their website and reported actions, to have elevated the idea of physically confronting the BNP and parties like them to a guiding principle.
There is a substantial degree of mistrust between these three groups — some of it based on the SWP/UAF’s sectarianism, some of it on antagonism towards the perceived recklessness of Antifa — which makes any honest accounting of militant anti-fascism problematic.
But historical examples of militant anti-fascism should aid us in understanding the place of physical confrontation in a working class, political anti-fascism. One example is that of the 43 Group, who campaigned against British fascists after the Second World war. In this issue we publish an inteview with Morris Beckman from the 43 Group.

The notion that World War Two was a “war against fascism” is a popular myth used in the mainstream media and historical accounts as the ultimate justification for taking on Hitler’s Germany. This notion was held by a good many servicemen and women. Little could have done more to explode this idea than returning to post-war Britain and finding a resurgent fascist movement. Morris Beckman experienced just this after six years at sea as a merchant seaman.

“I’d been away for six years. On my return, I got the train to Paddington and a taxi to Hackney. My father and mother still lived in the same place.” Returning home, Morris sensed that something was wrong: “‘What’s the matter?’, I asked my father. ‘The Black Shirts are back, the fascists are back’. They’d been marching down the streets, chanting ‘we’re going to get rid of the yids’, they attacked synagogues. My mother and the neighbours were afraid to go out at night”.
For the Beckman family and the rest of the Jewish community in East London, the nightmare of the pre-war fascist movement was repeating itself. If World War Two was really a “war against fascism”, how could fascists still be marching through London?
“In the post-war period only two countries had large, organised fascist groups: Spain, where the fascists were in power; and Britain, where Oswald Mosley was attempting to re-start his British Union of Fascists. By this time everyone knew about the Holocaust.” The newsreels of concentration camp survivors, the horrific detail of the Holocaust and its consequences filled the newspapers but still, anti-semitism played a significant role in the post-war fascist revival.
For Morris and his friends there were just two topics of conversation: the fate of the Jews in Palestine and the threat to the Jewish community posed by Mosley’s re-constituted fascist group. The plight of the Palestinian Jews and those Holocaust survivors attempting to reach Palestine were influential factors in the 43 Group’s decision to fight back.
“Three years after the war thousands of Jews were still incarcerated in displaced persons camps. They could see Germans walking about free. This created an enormous amount of anger. The suicide rate in these camps was very high.” Those survivors who sought refuge in Palestine were continually blocked and harassed by Britain’s colonial forces. At the same time, the Jewish and Arab populations in Palestine suffered under a brutal colonial regime.
“The British had a habit in Palestine of flogging... one schoolboy, putting up political posters in Tel Aviv was caught by a British patrol. He was flogged”. In response, the Irgun (an underground, Zionist para-military organisation) captured and flogged four British soldiers.
On another occasion four Jewish students were sentenced to death by hanging. There was international uproar: “The French and Italians urged the British not to hang. Some MPs came out against the hanging. But Atlee ordered their hanging before the set date of execution”. In response, the Irgun captured three British soldiers and hung them.
The Irgun were certainly far, far removed from the politics of socialism — but their actions inspired Beckman and his friends to begin a fightback against fascism in Britain.
“We went up to the pub for sandwiches and saw an outdoor fascist meeting next to the Maccabi Sports Club. Jerrrey Hamm was on the platform. Britain Awake [by Oswald Moseley] was being sold. Instead of going to the pub we walked nine-abreast through the crowd, walked up to the speaker and said: ‘You’re doing a good job, I’d like to buy a couple of magazines’. Two fascists came towards us, we grabbed their heads and cracked them together. We dragged down the platform and smashed everything up.”
Beckman and friends returned to the Maccabi Sports Club to discuss what had just happened. They concluded: “The government won’t stop the fascists. The Board of Deputies won’t stop them. Only the communists are trying to stop them. There’s nobody else.” Thirty eight Jewish ex-servicemen and five women turned up to a subsequent meeting organised by word of mouth. “We had a discussion about what to do. We’d already made one attack, we decided to do it again. The meeting was a success!”
After numerous assaults on Jewish homes, shops and buildings — including a number of attacks where elderly Jews were thrown through plate-glass windows — an opposition organised itself. “The fascists didn’t expect the Jews to attack them. They didn’t expect Jews to be more violent than them. We deliberately went so hard at them that we filled A&E with very badly damaged fascists.”
Soon the original forty-three were joined by over one thousand others. “We were turning people away. We wanted seven to eight hundred who’d be an elite fighting unit. We had about 60 gentiles in our ranks. We had some contact with the Communist Party of Great Britain. Of our members, we had more than eighty different trades and professions, including doctors... We published a broadsheet called ‘On Guard’ for eighteen months. Non-Jews wrote for it including Douglas Hyde, editor of the Daily Worker... On Guard was sent out to trade unionists and some MPs.”
The 43 Group didn’t rely on stumbling into fascist activity. Their activities were very well planned and coordinated: “We infiltrated nineteen small fascist units by 1946. We had moles inside of them... We had about one hundred women who’d been in the war. They collected all the information that came in. By this time, the 43 Group wasn’t just based in London, we had branches in Newcastle and Derby.” Information came in from across the country. When the Group heard of some planned fascist activity, the organising committee met to discuss a response. Everything was planned, risks assessed and preparations made well in advance.
“When decisions were made we had six to seven hundred people ready to act. We never walked towards the fascists, we ran at them! This unhinged them. When we received information and decided a plan, we’d dish it out to our commandos who’d assemble a team. We never let up on the fascists.”
This consistent approach took its toll on the fascists: “Basically, what beat them was the fact that we were very disciplined and very flexible. We could put out ten teams of commandos all together, at the same time. We had loads of information. It worked out very well!”
As the momentum of the 43 Group grew, conditions around them changed: “By 1947 there was a tremendous surge of support from the grass-roots Jewish community. We had regular contributions coming in. At the same time, the first fascists started to come up to us, they said ‘no more fighting, we’ve finished with Mosley, can we talk?’ Sometimes we’d talk to them and they’d ask to join! We always replied ‘you’ve got to be convinced first’.”
One of the most prominent successes was the defection of Michael McClean, who left Mosley and started to speak on 43 Group platforms. “The fascists became afraid of us, they knew they couldn’t stop us. When I interviewed some of the fascists in the 1950s they told me ‘if you hadn’t destroyed us, nobody else could have’. We were the only consistent opposition, we took the only way possible to destroy them.”
The 43 Group was not founded with working class politics and was not rooted in the trade unions and political organisations of the working class; but it was a grass-roots — mainly communal — response to the regrouping fascist movement in Britain.
Its actions severely disrupted the unity and strength of Mosley’s supporters, destabilising their activities and driving a wedge between competing fascist leaders. It played a defining role in snuffing out the embers of pre-war fascism.
Although the main thrust of its efforts was the physical protection of the Jewish community and retribution for attacks on that community, none of the work would have been possible without sophisticated organisation, intelligence gathering and coordinated action.
Beckman and his colleagues started out with just forty three, and managed to build an organisation over one thousand strong. They responded to physical threats, intimidation and murder in the most effective way open to them. They met like with like.
• For more information see: The 43 Group, by Morris Beckman, Centreprise (1993). The Spiro Ark community group will hold a celebration of the 43 group early next year. www.spiroark.org
--------------------------------------

From the Guardian


They stood up to hatred

Mark Gould meets veterans of the 43 Group, an organisation of Jewish ex-servicemen who waged a five-year war against Oswald Mosley's fascists
Harry Kaufman demonstrates how to turn a copy of the Guardian into a useful cosh. A tap across the palm gives a hint of the damage it would cause if it were swung in anger.
"This of course was only for self-defence," he smiles. "If you were arrested, you simply dropped it on the floor and it was just a newspaper. Others carried bits of lead piping, iron bars and things."
Kaufman, 77, stocky and full of life, is one of the younger survivors of a violent guerrilla army of British Jews who for five years waged war against Oswald Mosley's fascists on the streets of London and other big cities. Tonight, on Holocaust Memorial Day, Kaufman will be reunited with former comrades at a special event to commemorate the 43 Group.*
Morris Beckman, 88, one of the founder members, explains why it was set up. "I had been in the merchant navy, survived two torpedo attacks on the Atlantic convoys, and I came back home to Amhurst Road, Hackney to hugs and kisses. My mother went out to make some tea and my dad said, ' The bastards are back – Mosley and his Blackshirts'."
He, like thousands of British Jews, came home from the war thinking fascism was buried. Each week they saw fresh newsreel evidence of the Nazi genocide. But they were sickened to find Mosley released from internment and reviving the British Union of Fascists, which had flourished in Jewish areas such as the East End before the war. He says:
"The Talmud Torah (religious school) in Dalston had its windows smashed. Jewish shops were daubed 'PJ' (Perish Judah). You heard, 'We have got to get rid of the Yids' and 'They didn't burn enough of them in Belsen'."
With the Labour home secretary James Chuter Ede refusing to take action and the Jewish establishment urging peaceful protest, the demobbed Jews had had enough.
In April 1946, Beckman was one of 43 people (38 men and five women) who met at Maccabi House, a Jewish sports club in south Hampstead, and the 43 Group was born. "We wanted revenge – the Holocaust was in our minds. We decided we had to out-fascist the fascists," he says.
By 1947, the group had over 1,000 members – all war veterans — in London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Newcastle, including 100 women and a network of gentile spies who infiltrated fascist organisations.
The toughest – former Royal Marines, paratroops and Guards – became the commandos, on call day and night to disrupt meetings and carry out raids. A network of London black-cab drivers provided eyes, ears and transport.
Ridley Road market in Hackney drew crowds of 700 to hear Mosley and junior demagogues rage against the "alien" menace. Beckman says the 43 Group would "salt" the crowd with infiltrators who would distract the police by fighting among themselves. Then two flying wedges of commandos would drive through from either side aiming to overturn the platform. If the meeting was disrupted the police were forced to close it down."
He estimates more than 2000 meetings were disrupted in this way. "They saw us as stereotypes, the nervous Jewish tailor clutching a bag of money, when we were young men, trained to fight. I interviewed some fascists years later and they said they left Mosley because they didn't want to get a beating. We made a lot of people A&E cases."
Money flooded in from prominent Jews such as the boxing promoter Jack Solomons and the businessman Sir Charles Clore. Every month Bud Flanagan (born Reuben Weintrop and a member of the Crazy Gang comedy quartet) sent a £30 cheque with a note saying "Good work, boys".
Kaufman signed up for the 43 Group after seeing a newspaper headline: "Jewish war heroes arrested after Mosley protest".
The group's team of forgers may have saved him from prison. "I was on top of somebody whacking him and a police officer grabbed me and said sort of 'You're nicked'. Behind me, Reggie Morris, a big bloke in a white mac, showed the officer a card: "Special branch. I'll take this one.
He marched me around the corner and said 'Now fuck off'."
He was arrested again in Tottenham and says he was only spared jail because he had been called up for national service in the RAF.
Jules Konopinski, 79, was a commando veteran of Ridley Road. He came to Hackney from Poland with his family in 1939. His mother's nine brothers and sisters died in the extermination camps. In 1946, his uncle, a survivor of Auschwitz, moved in. "I had eyewitness evidence of the Holocaust and there were these Nazis walking around saying the Jews are like rats."
When asked if he seriously injured anyone he will only say "Yes". He took part in raids on fascist homes, staked out cemeteries that had been the target of fascist daubings. "We visited one fascist at home after an attack and severely reprimanded him. We said if any one of ours is hurt again we will come back to find 10 of you."
Today, amid denunciations of Israeli aggression in Gaza, Beckman, Kaufman and Konopinski have no regrets and say they are proud of fighting fascism. Beckman concludes: "We defended the community by making it impossible for the fascists to terrorise us."

-----------------
VIDEO: THE 43 GROUP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSNkTnIsWho
            
 "What we did by stopping these people was change the tide of history."

The '43 Group



The '43 Group



NO FREE SPEECH FOR NAZIS/NO PLATFORM FOR RACIST HATE

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There are those who defend the rights of nazis to free speech. These include the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and others who are organizing the shindig at the Liberty Memorial here in Kansas City far away from the Nazi rally planned for tomorrow.  They believe it is vital that we not challenge their right to freely express their racist beliefs, and that it is best to never directly confront them.

I am not one of those people.  I will be attending the true counter rally taking place directly where the nazis plan to rally at the Jackson County Courthouse.  Of course, even amongst those of us at the counter rally many still mistakenly cling to the quaint notion that nazis and their like have some sort of god given right to call for genocide, murder, and white supremacist mayhem.  They mistakenly think we are in some sort of intellectual debate or that if we shout down nazis we are the same as nazis.  This "objectivist" nonsense really must be defeated.

No one, I repeat, no one has the right to call for my death (I am a Jew and a Marxist).  More importantly no one has the right to call for mass murder and genocide.  No one has the right to organize for such.  Make no mistake about it, that is exactly what your local nazis are all about.

Still every time they appear, the calls for free speech appear with them.  I understand the confusion, but folks, I actually take a side.  I stand with John Brown against white supremacy.  I stand against nazism.  I stand against genocide.  When you allow them free reign to speak and organize and to call for hate and death, then you are in some sense allowing them space to create a movement to do just that.  I know that is not your intent.  I know we are on the same side.  I know that.  However, the practical result is just that.

When you argue that if we don't allow free speech for nazis then the State won't allow us free speech either, I believe you are making a huge error.  The State does not allow us free speech.  We fight for our right to speak.  We go to jail for our right to speak.  The history of the left, be it anarchist, Marxist, communist, anti-racist, anti-fascist, whatever, is full of people who have gone to jail for speaking out.  Many are sitting in jail right now for their speech.  They may be charged with some other crime, but you and I know why they are there.  We cannot depend on the State to protect us from nazis and we cannot depend on the State to guarantee our right to speak out and organize. We must depend on ourselves.  The State, its laws, its courts, its police are not their to protect the multitude.  They are there to protect and serve Capital and Power.  If we get in the way, they pounce on us.  The State is not our friend (this by the way is something else those planning the event in cooperation with city officials, local government leaders, not for profit CEOs, Executive Directors, Presidents, and "official" community representatives also do not get).  

Finally, you and I are not the State.  We are not the Constitution (which by the way was not handed down by God and used to say slavery was not a problem).  That said even the sacrosanct Constitution does not allow some  absolute right to free speech anyway.  You can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater, and you should not be allowed to shout out for "genocide" on a crowded planet.

This should not be construed as some sort of call for a violent confrontation tomorrow in Kansas City.  We can drown out this particular batch of white supremacists and put a stop to their organizing attempt in downtown Kansas City without physical assault, although we always reserve the right to self defense.  I am no pacifist.  There are times and there are places where a resort to force is the only alternative.  That is absolutely for sure.  I don't think tomorrow on the steps of the Jackson County Courthouse is such a time or such a place.  I understand the thinking of those who disagree with that and who feel nazis and their ilk deserve a more physical response.  It is just in this particular instance, I don't think it is necessary.  I hope it is not necessary.

That said, let me add one other thing, which I wrote yesterday somewhere else, which I think it is important that all of those taking part in tomorrows anti-nazi protest remember:

Meanwhile the fight against white supremacy, white skin privilege, and racism continue every day. Groups like the NSM are dangerous, obnoxious, full of bravado, but they are still a sideshow. They currently have few followers and little power. Groups like them represent a very small part of the whole white supremacist foundation upon which this country is built. Sure, they must be challenged whenever they rear their heads precisely in order to keep them a sideshow, but the real battle is much deeper, much more real, and much more difficult. The white supremacy and white skin privilege which is engrained in the very fabric of this country (and in fact in virtually all white people, even workers, by the very real material privileges the system of white skin privilege provides them) and which, by allowing them to identify as white ties them to the very system which oppresses the vast majority of us all ( though not equally), a system which is enforced by Capital and the white power structure (through its police and military if and when necessary) is our biggest enemy. We need to all remember that.

The following was written four years ago in Britain.  It was written in regard to the fascist British National Party.  It is taken from the blog of John Molyneux.




NO PLATFORM FOR NAZIS!

The recent appearance of BNP leader, Nick Griffin, has generated much discussion over the question of his right to a platform on the BBC and, more generally, over the issue of free speech for fascists. For me this is an old question about which I made up my mind in the course of the struggle against the National Front in the seventies. At that time we, Anti- Nazi League supporters and the left generally argued the case for no platform in every student union and trade union we could and pretty much won the argument throughout the labour and student movement. Today there is a new generation of fascists (the BNP, EDL etc) and anti- fascists and we need to have, and win, the argument again. This is my contribution.

The first reason for refusing Nick Griffin and other BNPers a platform on the BBC and elsewhere in public life is simply that they are NAZIS. I am not opposed to giving them a platform because I don’t agree with them or don’t like them. I don’t agree with (and actively dislike) Tories, and indeed Blairites, but I don’t want to no platform them. Its because they are NAZIS i.e. fascist followers of Adolf Hitler. Some people don’t realise this because it has long been Nick Griffin’s strategy to present the BNP as just British Patriots, but in fact Griffin and other BNP leaders, like fellow Euro MP Andrew Brons, are long standing hard core Nazis who go back to John Tyndall, the NF and Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists (Hitler’s main supporter in Britain). Moreover Griffin is surrounded by hardcore Nazi thugs, like Tony Lecomber, with numerous convictions for racist violence and terrorism.

Nick Griffin


John Tyndall on left


Oswald Mosley in the 30s


Tony Lecomber (5 convictions under Explosives Act, 12 convictions total)


Some people who know the BNP are Nazis don’t realise what this means. Nazis are not just people with unpleasant views. They are a political movement bent on winning power with the aim of destroying democracy (and freedom of speech), destroying the labour movement (who are all ‘Communists’ in their eyes) and driving out, by intimidation and force, non- white ethnic minorities. Whatever Griffin may say in public, the BNP aim of achieving a white only, non- multicultural Britain could ONLY be achieved by smashing the trade unions and socialist organisations and violent intimidation and persecution of people of colour, and Griffin knows this.

The second main reason for not giving the BNP a platform is that we are not just talking about words here. Every time and everywhere the BNP gets a foothold or an airing of its views there is an increase in racist violence and attacks. This is what happened in SE London when the BNP had its headquarters in Welling, culminating in the racist murder of Steven Lawrence. Its what happened with former BNP member, David Copeland , the nail bomber who bombed Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho. Griffin will not go on TV and openly urge violence but that’s what his thug sympathisers on the street will hear and act on.

Stopping the BNP (and other fascists) from growing and building influence, including by stopping their marches, and denying them public platforms is therefore both a political duty, a necessary act of solidarity with all vulnerable minorities AND, for everyone of colour, LGBT people, Jews, Muslims, trade unionists, socialists etc a matter of self preservation. To put it personally, if the BNP were in power I, and people like me, would be in prison at best and most likely dead. In a town or community where they were dominant I and people like me would not be safe to walk the streets. Anyone who doubts this should check the historical record and see what the fascists did to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Germany, to Antonio Gramsci in Italy, to Andreu Nin in Spain and to hundreds of thousands of rank and file socialists across Europe, long before they started on the Holocaust.

Some Common, but Mistaken, Arguments for giving the BNP a Platform

1. Put Griffin on TV, he’ll only make a fool of himself.
 Griffin was bad on Question Time, but the publicity he received enabled the BNP to get 3000 enquiries for membership. Every time Griffin or other BNP leaders get these platforms they get more publicity, become more accepted as part of the ‘mainstream’ and gain support.

2. The way to defeat the BNP is by rational argument. Rational argument will work for some people (mostly people who wouldn’t join or vote BNP anyway) but it will not work for many of those the BNP is trying to attract. The BNP’s essential appeal is not rational but emotive. Their appeal is to bigotry and hatred, to people who are fearful and want scapegoats and ‘strong leadership’. Gaining public platforms, such as on the BBC, increases that appearance of strength, as does successfully marching in the streets. Denying them a platform and driving them off our streets shatters that image of strength. The ‘master race’ doesn’t look very masterful when it is forced to flee with its tail between its legs.

3. The BNP are not Nazis because they British not German. This is an argument based on historical ignorance. The German Nazis are the best known example of fascism, but fascism was and is an international phenomenon and movement, which took power in Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Rumania, Japan and elsewhere, and struggled for power in other countries including France and Britain. Today there are neo-nazi movements across Europe including in Russia and outside Europe, in the USA and India.

4. The British people have too much sense to be won over by the BNP. This argument can seem plausible and hard to answer without attacking ‘the British people’ but it is wrong on a number of grounds. Try out, for example, ‘The British people have too much sense to vote for Margaret Thatcher’. Or ‘The British people have too much sense to interested in trashy nonsense like Big Brother or I’m a Celebrity- Get me Out of Here.’ It is not true that the British have some special gene of common sense, unlike Germans, Italians etc , which makes them immune to fascism. What stopped Mosley in the thirties was not ‘British’ common sense but anti-fascist militancy at the Battle of Cable St. and elsewhere. Also the BNP does not have to win over all, or even most, of the British people (and the same applies to fascist movements in other countries). The fascists in Germany, Italy, Spain etc did not gain power by winning majority support but by being put in power in situations of extreme economic or political crisis by the ruling class of those countries in order to smash the left and the workers movement. For that they did not need to achieve a majority only a credible sixe and strength. This can certainly be achieved by the BNP in the future IF we let them.

5. Freedom of speech is an absolute principle, which must be granted even to Nazis. No, it is not an ABSOLUTE principle in this or any other society and cannot be. I do not have an absolute, or any kind, of right to turn up at the BBC and be allowed to speak on Question Time or any other programme, I have to be invited and so does Nick Griffin. Even elected MPs cant demand the right to be on TV, much as they’d like to. Try exercising absolute freedom of speech at the Tory Party Conference or the Labour Party Conference (remember Walter Wolfgang who shouted ‘Rubbish!’ at Jack Straw and was manhandled out by heavies.) Try exercising any kind of freedom of speech in a court of law when the judge tells you not to and you will end up in jail for contempt. In fact there thousands of such restrictions on freedom of speech, in the armed forces, in many jobs, on schools, in the police, and so on. You do not have, and should not have, a right to stand in the street and yell racist abuse at people (indeed you can be arrested for behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace for a lot less than this). Yet, although the BNP may choose its words carefully this is essentially what the BNP does. They should be stopped before they get too strong for them to be stopped.

What all the above arguments have in common is that they treat the struggle against fascism as if it were some kind of reasoned debate with victory going to the side that presents the most logical arguments ( ‘Now is mass unemployment in Germany really caused by the Jews ? Let’s examine the evidence’) It is not. History shows that it is a social and political struggle ( an aspect of the class struggle) which if the fascists get strong enough will culminate in civil and world war. Defeating Hitler cost 50 million lives. I say ‘ Never Again! Stop them now – by any means necessary !’

John Molyneux
November 30, 2009

A NOTE TO THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, INC

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Sorry folks.  There was no time this weekend for Theoretical Weekends or anything else theoretical for that matter.  If you have been following this blog, you know I was out confronting and helping to shout down some nazis who decided to rally in our town on the steps of the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City.  Hundreds of us with no real leaders, no real spokespeople, no one for the media to center on,  simply took to the streets across from forty or so nazis who were hiding behind lots of KC police.  You can figure the rest out or check it out somewhere else on the net.  I "enjoyed" my afternoon with my friends drowning out this miserable excuse for the "master race." What a joke they were.  

However, small in numbers though they be, a mere sideshow to the real white supremacy that corrodes this nation, though they are, it is up to "us" it is up to the multitude to make damn sure they stay that way.  Hundreds of anti-racists and others made damn sure we played our part yesterday.

Meanwhile, miles away, in a lonely park a diversity rally organized by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, Inc. (IREHR), city officials, Not For Profits, establishment community leaders,  some official Jewish groups, and some old line mainstream civil rights organizations rallied to hear speeches.  They had warned people to stay away from where the nazis were, implying people like us, the anti-racists, were likely to provoke violence.  

Although the rally to take place to counter the nazis in downtown KC had been being organized for months, the IREHR came in at the last minute to split the crowd.  They no doubt accomplished that goal to some limited extent. 

Needless to say many of those who worked for months on the courthouse rally where the nazis really were are pissed at the people from the IREHR who tried to usurp, unsuccessfully, their work.

Today's blog is probably of not much interest to a lot of you, but, hell, this is my blog so I guess I will use it today to express my own feelings just a little.  No big, long tirade.  This isn't worth that.  Just some thoughts.

I must add that one of the reasons this is a little personal to me is that years ago, in the early 80s in Kansas City, I was part of a collective that began publishing an anti-racist, anti-fascist magazine, The Hammer, out of Kansas City.  This project grew out of anti-racist,  anti-Klan and anti-Nazi work we were already doing.  It was just   one part of our whole overall general political work back then. I am not going to mention names, but one of the principals of the current IREHR was also one of the founders of the magazine.  We actually formed the IREHR at that time to background  The Hammer primarily  for mailing and tax purposes.  We split after a few years because this unnamed person (who I had known and worked on and off with since the late 60s,  wanted us to become more respectable, less confrontative, more liberal.  He also wanted us to leave our leftism (which varied by individual) behind. The majority of the collective did not feel the same way.  We went our way.  He went his.  

Ironically, I recall, as one of the founders of the IREHR back 1983, I remember the original Board. I am still friends with many of those folks who formed the IREHR  all those years ago. That Board never voted to turn the IREHR over to this unnamed person or or anyone else.  Perhaps, its time we just took it back.

Just kidding.  Don't want it.

The IREHR does a satisfactory job monitoring white nationalists (though actually dealing with them in a direct way is apparently something they want no part of anymore).  That's okay.  They do what they do.  I've no problem with that.  I actually am the first to admit, up front  that I learned a lot of how I look at the white nationalist movement today, their ideology, their strategy from that unnamed person.  I give him credit for that.  He and the IREHR are welcome to "monitor" these people, so the rest of us can go about our actual political work out in the real world.  That's cool.  Someone has to do it.  However, again, this does not mean they own the game, the franchise, that they can tell everyone else what they should do, that they can disrupt anti-racist organizing here, there or everywhere.

The organizers of the real anti-nazi rally at the courthouse did go to these other people and asked them to join together with them at the Courthouse counter rally, and  to realize they were splitting the movement.  The response was negative.  The IREHR and the others went on about their business of implying to the city that the tactics of anti racist activists were likely to lead to violence at the Courthouse counter rally.   Those of us at the Courthouse were prepared to defend ourselves against violence, but we didn't go there trying to start it and had no plans to provoke it.

By the way, there was no physical violence in the end.

I am calling on the IREHR to cut this shit out.  Get back to what they do best.  Organize their rallies when they want, where they want.  They have an agenda.  Fine, carry on.  However, when nazis are in town and  when others are already at work on countering them directly, that is not the time to butt in, try to take over, and divert energy.  I hope they consider this and I hope they take it to heart.

PS: The important thing is that the counter rally in the face of the nazis went off very well and as I said there were hundreds of people there, how many hundreds, well, I am a poor crowd estimator, but the media reports run from about 300 to 1000.  I told a friend three or four hundred.  It was good.  It was spirited, It was autonomous.  It was fairly leaderless somehow.

A few miles away I hear there were 100 or 200 folks who gathered peacefully in the sun and heard some speeches.    

ZAPATISTAS, STORYTELLING AND RESISTANCE: A TALE FROM OLD ANTONIO AS TOLD TO SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS

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Last week I simply forgot Cultural Monday, but this week here it is.

Resistance and culture.  Revolution and culture.  Nowhere does any of this come together in a closer relationship than amongst the Zapatistas.  Read their communiques and you don't find the old staid left wing tracts we are all so used to.  Instead, you find stories and myths and gods and corn and the past and the present and the future all rolled into one.  Fascinating stuff really and a new way to communicate and to build and to organize and to counter Global Capital and Empire.

No one makes better use of myths and symbols then the EZLN and the Zapatista movement.  No one has caught the attention of the world with the fewest gun battles then the EZLN and the Zapatista.  No one has threatened the State without even striking to seize the State than the Zapatistas.

We have much to learn from them.

In that spirit, I am not going to harrangue you with my own Marxist verbage on what is going on down there in southern Mexico and, for that matter, all around the world.

Not today.

Today I will simply give you and example of another way to do that that I found at "Letters from Subcomandante Marcos."

The real, but myth-like Subcomandante Marcos writes of, "a story as it was told to me by old Antonio, the father of the Antonio that appears in "Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds, a Storm and a Prophecy"'

Old Antonio is a character often referred to by Marcos in his "communiques and stories." Is he real? Does it matter? Anyway who is to say. Writes Kasim Tirmizey at Left Turn:


In these stories, Old Antonio smokes cigarettes and tells Marcos tales of the Mayan gods, who love to dance and walk while asking questions. Through these stories we can understand some of the philosophies of the Zapatistas.

Enjoy, think and understand... 




"The streams, when they descend, have no way of returning to the mountains except beneath the ground."


"In the time before the world came into being, the gods came
together and decided to create the world and to create men and
women. They thought to make the first people very beautiful and
very strong. So they made the first people of gold, and the gods
were very content because these people were strong and shining.
Then the gods realized that the golden people never moved; they
never walked or worked because they were so heavy. So the gods came
together again in order to figure out a way to resolve this
problem. They decided to make another group of people and they
decided to make this group of people of wood. The wooden people
worked and walked and the gods were again content. Then the gods
realized that the golden people were forcing the wooden people to
work for them and carry things for them. The gods realized that
they had made a mistake, and in order to remedy the mistake, they
decided to make some people of corn, a good people, a true people.
Then the gods went to sleep and they left the corn people to find
a solution to the problem. The corn people spoke the true tongue,
and they went to the mountains in order to find a path for all the
peoples. . . "

Old Antonio told me that the golden people were the rich, the
whites, and the wooden people were the poor, the ones who forever
work for the rich. They are both waiting for the arrival of the
corn people. The rich fear their arrival and the poor hope for it.
I asked old Antonio what color was the skin of the corn people, and
he showed me several types of corn with different colors. He told
me that they were of every sort of skin color, but that nobody knew
exactly, because the corn people don't have faces.

     Old Antonio has died. I met him ten years ago in a community
deep in the jungle. He smoked like nobody else I knew, and when he
was out of cigarettes he would ask me for some tobacco and would
make more cigarettes. He viewed my pipe with curiosity, but the one
time I tried to loan it to him he showed me the cigarette in his
hand, telling me without words that he preferred his own method of
smoking.

     Two years ago, in 1992, I was travelling through the
communities attending meetings to decide whether or not we should
go to war, and eventually I arrived at the village were old Antonio
lived. While the community was discussing whether or not to go to
war, old Antonio took me by the arm and led me to the river, about
100 meters from the center of the village. It was May and the river
was green. Old Antonio sat on a tree trunk and didn't say anything.
After a little while he spoke, "Do you see? Everything is clear and
calm. It appears that nothing will happen. . . ""Hmmm," I
answered, knowing that he wasn't asking me to answer yes or no.
Then he pointed out to me the top of the nearest mountain. The
clouds laid gray upon the summit, and the lightning was
illuminating the diffuse blue of the hills. It was a powerful
storm, but it seemed so far away and inoffensive that old Antonio
made a cigarette and looked uselessly around for a lighter that he
knew he didn't have. I offered my lighter. "When everything is calm
here below, there is a storm in the mountains, " he said after
inhaling. "The mountain streams run strongly and flow toward the
riverbed. During the rainy season this river becomes fierce, like
a whip, like an earthquake. Its power doesn't come from the rain
that falls on its banks, but from the mountain streams that flow
down to feed it. By destroying everything in its path, the river
reconstructs the land. Its waters will become corn, beans and bread
on our tables here in the jungle. Our struggle is the same. It was
born in the mountains, but its effects won't be seen until it
arrives here below." He responded to my question about whether he
believed the time had come for war by saying, "Now is the time for
the river to change color. . . " Old Antonio quieted and supported
himself on my shoulder. We returned to the village slowly. He said
to me, "You are the mountain streams and we are the river. You must
descend now." The silence continued and we arrived to his shack as
it was growing dark. The younger Antonio returned with the official
result of the meeting, an announcement that read, more or less,
"We, the men, women and children of this village met in the
community's school in order to see if we believed in our hearts
that it time to go to war for our freedom. We divided ourselves
into three groups, one of men, one of women, and one of children to
discuss the matter. Later, we came together again and it was seen
that the majority believed that it was time to go to war because
Mexico is being sold to foreigners and the people are always
hungry. Twelve men, twenty-three women and eight children were in
favor of beginning the war and have signed this announcement." I
left the village in the early morning hours. Old Antonio wasn't
around; he had already gone to the river. Two months ago I saw old
Antonio again. He didn't say anything when he saw me and I sat by
his side and began to shuck corn with him. "The river rose," he
said to me after a bit. "Yes," I answered. I explained to the
younger Antonio what was happening with the consultations and I
gave him the documents that outlined our demands and the
government's response. We spoke of what had happened in Ocosingo
during the offensive and once again I left the village in the early
morning hours. Old Antonio was waiting for me at a turn in the
road. I stopped alongside him and lowered my backpack to look for
some tobacco to offer him. "Not now," he said to me as he pushed
away the bag of tobacco that I was offering him. He put his arm
around me and led me to the foot of a tree. "Do you remember what
I told you about the mountain streams and the river?" he asked me.
"Yes," I responded whispering as he had when he had asked me the
question. "There is something I didn't tell you," he added looking
at his bare feet. I answered with silence. "The streams. . . " he
was stopped by a cough that wracks his entire body. He took a
breath and continued, "The streams, when they descend. . . " Once
again he was stopped by a cough and I went for a medic. Old Antonio
turned down the help of the compasero with the red cross. The medic
looked at me and I made a sign that he should leave. Old Antonio
waited until the medic left and then, in the penumbra of the dawn,
he continued, "The streams, when they descend, have no way of
returning to the mountains except beneath the ground." He embraced
me rapidly and left. I stayed there watching as he walked away, and
as he disappeared in the distance, I lit my pipe and picked up my
backpack. As I mounted my horse I thought about what had just
occurred. I don't know why, it was very dark, but it seemed that
old Antonio was crying. I just received a letter from the younger
Antonio with his village's response to the government's proposals.
He also wrote me that old Antonio became very ill and that he had
died that night. He didn't want anyone to tell me that he was
dying. The younger Antonio wrote me that when they insisted that I
be told, old Antonio said, "No, I have already told him what I had
to tell him. Leave him alone, he has much work to do."

TYPHOON HAIYAN: NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL

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A thousand people rallied in front of the US Embassy in Manila on November 11 to demand climate justice in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan. The protesters from various sectors — farmers, urban poor, women, workers, and youth — marched from Bonifacio Shrine demanding that the US immediately and radically cut its greenhouse gas emissions and pay for its climate debt for adaptation, loss and damages. The protest was organised by the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice.



We've heard it all before.  Some commentator, some media talking head telling us for the umpteenth time that scientist can't really say that global climate change is responsible for the ferocity of Typhoon Haiyan which slammed into the Philippines killing thousands a few days ago.  Just before making landfall, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JWTC) clocked the winds of Haiyan (called Yolanda in the Philippines) at 314 km/h with gusts up to 379 km/h.

Can't we really?

The strongest storm ever to make landfall, EVER, and we can't really conclude anything.

BS.

The recently-released IPCC report on climate change highlighted the risks of global climate change. It has long been recognized that the increases seen in global average temperatures are likely to drive changes in the patterns and frequency of extreme weather events.  By the way, that report was several years behind the times.  Things are much worse now then when the report was being put together.

The Mirror writes:


The clue comes from looking at how warm the Pacific Ocean was in the week or more before Haiyan started to build. The temperatures of surface water as well as the deeper waters of the Western Pacific had risen steadily. Huge amounts of energy were stored up, integrated through the water column, and available for release and for the storm to absorb, fuelling Haiyan’s intensification.

The Sydney Morning Herald:

 “Once [cyclones] do form, they get most of their energy from the surface waters of the ocean,” Professor Steffen said. “We know sea-surface temperatures are warming pretty much around the planet, so that's a pretty direct influence of climate change on the nature of the storm.”

Grist has more to say on the subject:


What the new paper — “Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years” — shows is that the recent oceanic warming is happening at a historically unprecedented rate. The study was authored by three researchers: Braddock Lindsay, a geoscience researcher at Columbia University; Delia Oppo, a climate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Yair Rosenthal, a geologist at Rutgers.


 “That rate of change in ocean heat content is 15 times greater now than it’s been in the last 7,000 or 8,000 years.”

Uh, hello. 


The government of the Philippines has reached the conclusion that global climate change IS a factor and that something has to be done and now.  “What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness,” said Naderev “Yeb” Saño, lead negotiator for the Philippines at the climate talks. “The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw. Typhoons such as Haiyan and its impacts represent a sobering reminder to the international community that we cannot afford to procrastinate on climate action.”

Grist reports countries, poorer countries, being impacted by global climate change are pleading for help,


We told you on Friday that climate delegates representing poor and developing countries are begging wealthy countries for financial help — not just for help in reducing their carbon emissions, but also for help in dealing with crazy weather that’s already happening. They say they can’t afford to do it alone, and many of them feel that their countries shouldn’t have to, since the rich nations of the world have pumped so much of the excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Rich countries have pledged to provide $100 billion in annual climate assistance starting in 2020 via the Green Climate Fund, but they’ve contributed very little so far. “We have not seen any money from the rich countries to help us to adapt,” Saño said. And some delegations in Warsaw are seeking more funding still, to compensate developing countries for the damage caused by climate disasters.

It is incredible that we are still dithering around about global climate change.  Climate change deniers refuse to see what is right in front of their face.  I say, let these assholes go to the Philippines today and tell the survivors they needn't be concerned about climate change.  It ain't no big deal.

Philippines Negotiator  Yeb Sano says it far better than I.  As reported now by EcoWatch,


“To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of you armchair,” he said. “I dare you to go to the islands of the Pacific, the islands of the Caribbean and the islands of the Indian ocean and see the impacts of rising sea levels; to the mountainous regions of the Himalayas and the Andes to see communities confronting glacial floods, to the Arctic where communities grapple with the fast dwindling polar ice caps, to the large deltas of the Mekong, the Ganges, the Amazon and the Nile where lives and livelihoods are drowned, to the hills of Central America that confronts similar monstrous hurricanes, to the vast savannas of Africa where climate change has likewise become a matter of life and death as food and water becomes scarce.”

“Not to forget the massive hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard of North America,” Sano continued. “And if that is not enough, you may want to pay a visit to the Philippines right now. What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness.”

Sano said that he identified with the young people and activists around the world who are standing up to the fossil fuel industry, protesting in the streets and committing civil disobedience. He shared their frustration and appreciated their courageous action. The same sort of leadership was necessary here in Warsaw, he said.

“We can take drastic action now to ensure that we prevent a future where super typhoons are a way of life,” said Sano. “Because we refuse, as a nation, to accept a future where super typhoons like Haiyan become a fact of life. We refuse to accept that running away from storms, evacuating our families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead, become a way of life. We simply refuse to.”

Sano then went off the prepared script of his remarks that were released to the media to announce that he would be commencing a voluntary fast.

“In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home and with my brother who has not had food for the last three days, in all due respect Mr. President, and I mean no disrespect for your kind hospitality, I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate. This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this COP until a meaningful outcome is in sight.”

And that is not the end of the story, only the beginning.  

Meanwhile,  in the Philippines the situation is dire and the people have no reason to believe or trust in their government or the world to provide them with the help they need right now.  Ask Haitians how that works out.  They also know that their misery, their loss is quite actually the result of the continued war on the environment being waged by Global Capital, Empire, and its vassal States.  They are only too aware that the rich of the world are still perfectly content to sit back and watch the multitude struggle to survive.

We know that one day the tables shall turn, the multitude will say "enough" and the today's powerful will shake in their boots.

The question is, will it be soon enough.

The following is from Green Left Weekly.
 

Philippines: 'Let our people live! Climate justice now!'


At least 10,000 people are feared dead due to Typhoon Haiyan (known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines).
The statement below was released by the Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM, a Filipino socialist party) on November 10 in response the huge humanitarian disaster caused by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda. Details on how to donate to the PLM's relief efforts at at the bottom. You can also sign a petition initiate by the Philippines Movement for Climate Justice.
* * *
Let Our People Live! Save Lives, Redistribute Food, Stop the Economic and Environment Plunder! Climate Justice Now!
The people are still reeling from the impact of possibly the biggest typhoon to strike the country. Death toll numbers are rising rapidly. There is huge devastation.
Many are still trying to contact their relatives, friends and comrades, but communication systems are down, in the hardest hit areas. How should we, as activists and socialists, respond to the crisis?
Firstly, we have to support and take whatever measures are necessary to protect the people. This means all measures that bring the people immediate relief.
In the hardest hit city of Tacloban, in south eastern Visayas, the people are already taking what food and relief supplies that they need from the malls. The media reports this as looting and the break-down of law and order.
But we say: let our people live. This is not "looting". People are taking food, where they can get it, in order to survive. If there is no timely and organsed support system from government, people just have to do it themselves and they should organise themselves to do it more effectively.
Even some grocery owners understand the need for this. According to one report of a man who broke into a grocery store: "The owner said we can take the food, but not the dried goods. Our situation is so dismal. We have deaths in our family. We need to save our lives. Even money has no use here now”.
Where possible, PLM will assist them to organise to take over food supplies and necessary relief goods.
Then there’s the issue of the government response. Our experience has been that it has always been too slow and inadequate. Any efforts are undermined by corruption. The exposure of the organised plunder by the political elite and sections of government, of development funds or “pork barrel” funds meant for the people, is a testimony to this.
This outraged the country and brought almost half-a-million people out in to the streets in a huge show of protest on August 26. While one plunderer has been arrested, the president has not responded decisively to clean up the system.
The public funds plundered by the elite should have been used for preventative measures to support the people weather these disasters: for infrastructure, including better sea walls and communication infrastructure; for early warning systems; for well-constructed and therefore safe public housing, to replace huts and shacks built out of dried leaves and cardboard; for health and education; for equipment and personnel for rapid emergency response, and the list is endless.
But no, this was not the case, it was eaten up by the greed of the elite classes.
Unfortunately, we have no reason to believe that the government and the system will deliver and meet the needs of the people, this time round either. The self-interest of the elite, and their control of the government and the system that is designed to perpetuate their interests, through the plunder of the people’s assets and resources, renders the entire set-up inutile in the face of a disaster on this scale.
Then there are our international "allies", such as the United States government, who have sent us their best wishes. But these so-called "allies" are also responsible for the situation faced by our people.
These typhoons are part of the climate crisis phenomenon faced by the world today. Super Typhoon Haiyan (referred to as Yolanda in the Philippines) was one of the most intense tropical cyclones at landfall on record when it struck the Philippines on November 7. Its maximum sustained winds at landfall were pegged at 195 mph with gusts above 220 mph.
Some meteorologists even proclaimed it to be the strongest tropical cyclone at landfall in recorded history. Haiyan’s strength and the duration of its Category 5 intensity — the storm remained at peak Category 5 intensity for an incredible 48 straight hours.
The still-rising greenhouse gas emissions responsible for the climate crisis are disproportionately emitted by the rich and developed countries, from the US, Europe to Australia. For centuries, these rich, developed countries have polluted and plundered our societies, emitting too much greenhouse gases to satisfy their greed for profit. They have built countless destructive projects all over the world like polluting factories, coal-fired power plants, nuclear power plants and mega dams. They have also pushed for policies allowing extractive industries to practice wasteful and irresponsible extraction of the Earth’s minerals.
They continue to wage environmentally destructive wars and equip war industries, for corporate profits. All of this has fast-tracked the devastation of the Earth’s ecological system and brought about unprecedented changes in the planet’s climate.
But these are the same rich countries whose political elite are ignoring climate change and the climate crisis. Australia has recently elected a government that denies the very existence of climate change and has refused to send even a junior minister to the climate conference in Warsaw, Poland.
The question of climate justice — for the rich countries to bear the burden of taking the necessary measures for stopping it and to pay reparations and compensate those in poorer countries who are suffering the consequences of it — is not entertained even in a token way.
The way the rich countries demand debt payments from us, we now demand the payment of their “climate debts”, for climate justice and for them to take every necessary measure to cut back their greenhouse gas emission in the shortest time possible.
These rich "friends’" have preached to us about our courage and resilience. But as many here have pointed out, resilience is not just taking all the blows with a smiling face. Resilience is fighting back.
To be truly resilient we must organse, fight back and take matters in to our own hands, from the relief efforts on the ground to national government and to challenging and putting an end to the capitalist system. This is the only way to ensure that we are truly resilient.
Makibaka, huwag matakot! Fight for our lives, don’t be afraid!
Donations can be sent to: Transform Asia Gender and Labor Institute
Account No. 304-2-304004562
Swift Code: MBTCPHMM
Metrobank, Anonas Branch Aurora Blvd., Project 4
Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Email: transform.asia1@gmail.com
Mobile/cell No. +63(0)9088877702
PayPal donations can be made here: http://transform-asia.org/


ANTI-CATHOLIC, ANTI-ABORTION WACKS, AND KIDNAPPING ALL ROLLED UP INTO ONE STORY

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Then there is this anti-abortion group out there that calls itself "Abolish Human Abortion," and likens itself to the abolitionists who opposed slavery.  I'll leave that one for you to mull over for a while.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch the group is driving many in the anti-abortion movement nuts with their over the top rantings, pickets of churches, just downright nastiness.  When anti-abortion groups think you are a bunch of nasty a-holes, even though you are anti-abortion, well, that says something.

DOES THAT SYMBOL IN THE MIDDLE REMIND YOU OF ANYTHING?
THINK SS
THINK NAZIS
HMMM


I should mention the fact that the group happens to just hate Catholics.  I don't mean they don't just have some bad feelings toward Catholics, they have no use for them altogether.  Catholic anti-abortion activists became livid, for example, when they ran across this posting from a fellow by the name of Toby Harmon on facebook:


Of course, Toby does add the famous line that anti-abortion just love relating to "hating the sin but not the sinners." I am sure Catholic anti-abortion advocates say this all the time, but they tend to get hot when someone says it about them.

Meanwhile who is Toby Harmon and what does he have to do with anything anyway?

According to some zany outfit called The Crescat, Tony H. is:

...a key founding member of the groupAbolish Human Abortion, a pro-life organization looking to drive a wedge into the pro-life movement by pitting Prots against Catholics apparently.

About Abolish Human Abortion, Crossed the Tiber via The National Catholic Register writes:


There's a group of Christians on facebook who call themselves Abolish Human Abortion. They sell tee-shirts and posters, buttons and bumper stickers and go to pro-life marches to verbally attack Catholic abortion protesters saying things like this: 

“Abortion is legal in America because the Catholic Church and the Protestants are not standing up and fighting against it. Marching does not help end abortion… One sermon a year is not enough. Marching is not enough.” – Todd Bullis (AHA)


Their founding members are from a fringe group of Calvinism known as hyper-Calvinism and believe that only those who share their extremely narrow view of Calvin's writings will be saved. It is unclear to me if they are really pro-life or just using a pro-life front to market their anti-Catholic rhetoric. They address those who don't agree with their version of the gospel as apostate and have made negative comments against several prominent pro-life patriots. The founders of AHA call former evangelicals to Catholic converts by the loving and non-divisive appelation "apostate."

"We do not consider Catholics brothers in Christ or Christians at all. We will not seek unity with a Satanic religious system. The only unity that can come is for Catholics to repent of their false religion and idolatry and repent and put their faith in Christ alone (not rituals, not Mary, nor the Church of Rome or any mere man.)" Toby Harmon,  AHA


These folks are the Jack Chicks of the pro-life movement and have tactics very much like the Westboro Baptist cult. When Catholics are standing up for life at Marches for Life, they are cowering with bull horns in the shadows shouting things like the above and trying to make money selling merch. Supposed pro-lifers like this will only add to the chaos and confusion and will cause much harm to the real pro-life movement, which is made up largely of Catholics.

   Avoid AHA group like the plague they are and spread the word through social media that these folks are cultish charlatans trying to make a name for themselves to attack the Catholic faith, using the pro-life movement as their "Trojan Horse." Use your twitter account, blogs and fb to get the word out about these sad folks so they don't confuse more people and detract from our efforts to protect the unborn and those at the end of their lives. God have mercy, it's hard enough to stand up for life in this secular culture but now having to be attacked by a cult that believes they are the only Christians and we are satanic.

This would be almost funny if it weren't for some other antics of this zany group uncovered recently by the group known as the Cicada Collective which according to its own web page, 

...is an autonomous community-centered group of individual organizers located in North Texas. Working through a reproductive justice framework, we aim to address the barriers and lack of resources regarding reproductive health in our red state by providing a channel of access to the resources necessary for reproductive autonomy. We aim to focus on building accessibility for the communities most often restricted from these resources, with the understanding that people’s varied experiences with reproductive oppression and resistance shape the type of support they need. These communities include but are not limited to: working class people of color, people with both visible and invisible disabilities, undocumented, incarcerated, or criminalized people, sex workers, gender and sexual minorities (queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people), legal minors, and those individuals at the intersections of some or many of these marginalized identities. We strive to draw from our sense of place to act in solidarity with those in our area, hoping to strengthen these pathways of resistance.

One of the services they provide is, "... transportation/lodging possibilities for people in North Texas who are seeking abortions."

What they uncovered on the Abolish Human Abortion facebook page is not funny.

The following is from  THE FRISKY (of all the strange places I have cited, this one is right up there), but I happened to enjoy their write up about this more than the ones from my usual sources.  


Texas Religious Right Now Basically Advocates Kidnapping Women Who Seek Abortions

abortion texas car
Fund Texas Women, a nonprofit that helps support women who seek abortions, has warned that anti-choicers are encouraging members of Christian groups in Texas — where abortion rights have just been gutted — to join an email list of volunteers to take women to abortion appointments. But instead of actually taking women to their abortions, the group Abolish Human Abortion warns, “it’s a wonderful opportunity to minister to an abortion-minded woman for an hour while you DON’T take her to her clinic.”
Or, you know, like, kidnapping.
Via the blog Daily Kos, Fund Texas Women pointed to the Facebook posting by the group, which reads:
Please share this email far and wide among Christian groups. Cicada.collective.ntx@gmail.com
It’s the email address being used by a group backed by Fund Texas Women and Lilith Fund looking for volunteers to shuttle TX women around for their abortion appointments. Consider volunteering yourself. I’m not suggeting you actually take a woman to an abortion clinic but it’s a wonderful opportunity to minister to an abortion minded woman for an hour while you DON’T take her to her clinic. And hey if you can’t change her mind by the time she gets out of your car and realizes she is at a church and not the clinic she’s missed her appointment anyway
Volunteering to help a woman and then lecturing her in your car, making her miss her appointment and bringing her to a strange location (some random church)? How on Earth do these people call themselves Christians when they treat other human beings so shitty?
Abolish Human Abortion has seemingly responded to media attention about their kidnapping tactic, posing on Facebook this afternoon:
All kidnapping is evil, especially when you take a child to a stranger against her will to mutilate her body.
Way to miss the point.  I’m going to donate money to Fund Texas Women tonight just to spite these people.

"WE HAVE THE POWER TO SURVIVE"

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Okay, it is Prison Friday and I have a long one for you, so I won't take up much of any space here.  I just want you to know this is an important and fascinating read for many reasons, but you need to read it to find out why.

The following is from Lib.com



A Palestinian woman in prison - Laila al-Hamdani



A fascinating, moving and, at times, harrowing first-hand account of life as a Palestinian female political prisoner in Israel, the conflicts and relationships between inmates - both Jewish and Arab - and the struggles against prison authorities.
Trigger warning: contains discussion of prison violence, rape and torture.
WE DIDN'T ASK who had planted it, but within ourselves we all knew that this beautiful jasmine tree had been here before the state which had built this prison was planted on our land.
The tree was the only speck of colour in the grey surroundings, a spot of light in the darkness of our days here; that may have been the reason why they suddenly decided to cut it down. Our hearts sank with every blow of their axes on the thin, strong trunk. When our tree finally gave way, falling down and scattering its white flowers and green, delicate leaves on the ground, we watched with tearful eyes as they dragged its now dead body out of the prison yard. We wondered how a jasmine tree could be a danger to security in this prison, this state. We must have stood there a long while, speechless, staring at the empty space on the grey wall, when one of the comrades said in a clear voice, 'Well, sisters, the thing they forget is that trees have roots.' We went back to our cells, back to the daily routine, quietly smiling, knowing that it wouldn't be long before the small, green buds would rise from the ground again.
I don't know why this episode keeps coming to mind when I think about my days in prison. Maybe because it meant a lot not only to me, but for all the girls who were there that day. It means there is always hope, even in the darkest hours of prison, and that we have the power to survive, to learn and to fight.
It all began with a little piece of paper that said that I was wanted for questioning by the military authorities. I even can't remember whether it came by post or whether it was delivered by hand, but this piece of paper determined my life for the next few years. The rest ofthe group to which I belonged, including my brother, had already been arrested five months previously, and so I'd spent this whole period waiting for the knock on the door at dead of night. (They don't like arresting us in broad daylight.) The darkness meant fear and pain, the vulnerability of anticipating what must come.
I was not arrested, because they assumed that I would panic and lead them to other members they did not know of. For five months I slept with my clothes on, wondering whether each night would be the night. At long last they gave up hope, and I was called in for questioning on the same day that the trial of my comrades began. All sorts of thoughts went through my mind and, I must confess, so did fear. What I was about to face might be anything: maybe questioning and harassment for this has become a common experience for many of us living under occupation. On the other hand, it could also mean torture and imprisonment, as happened to one of my colleagues at university; he went in for questioning and he never came back.
My brother's face came to my mind, thin and pale, the way he looked when I visited him in prison. 'Prison is a school', he used to say, smiling cheerfully. I always wondered why they were so cheerful, so confident, when I went to see him and the others. I only came to understand this when I was imprisoned myself. Up to that point I felt they were more confident, less worried than those of us left outside.
Names echoed in my memory, names of women political prisoners who were still in prison and unable to tell of their experience. This added to my confusion. I knew that many of them were tortured, and this knowledge certainly did not make things easier.

Maskobiya

MASKOBIYA. The name still makes many prisoners and ex-prisoners shudder. That was the place I was to be interrogated in. This big, yellow-walled building, built almost a century ago by the Russian Orthodox Church, was the centre of torture stories for Palestinian prisoners. Its dark and narrow corridors and its small cells were the terrain on which many human struggles for survival have been fought, struggles to retain your honour and your sanity, in the face of a sophisticated machine of torture, designed to break you down.
As you pass through the first of the huge gates and hear it squeak closing behind you, you can't help feeling 'creepy'. You remember what people say about the place: 'The one who enters is lost; the one who gets out is reborn'. I was in now, being led to one of the many cells along an interminable corridor. It seemed to take forever, I was full of fears. Fears of the unknown.
Sounds. Sounds without images, penetrating through the thick walls, twisting around the labyrinth of corridors, rising from the cellars. The sounds were not difficult to work out. The noise of crying, of bodies being kicked, thrown against the walls, falling under blows, collapsing into the bliss of unconsciousness. The sounds of torture must be similar the world over; I learned to listen in a completely new way. I kept wondering-was it planned this way? It meant that torture was shared out between the one being tortured and the many listening ears; that every time one of us was led through these corridors of pain, we suffered with our unseen friends, hidden somewhere within this monstrous building. This kind of preparation for your own interrogation is planned to break the toughest prisoners even before the questioning starts. A kind of warning that unless you cooperate, your fate will be similar.
A small room, at the end of that awful corridor. One desk, three interrogators. On entering, it was not fear that fùled me, but anger. That first session lasted for a few hours. It began with ordinary questions about my life and studies, and ended by them making it clear that I was here to stay. The noises penetrating through the walls during my questioning, made it impossible to concentrate on anything-shouting, screams, yelling and cursing. After a while I was ordered to sit facing the wall. I could sense the presence of someone in the room. I turned my face to see who was there and a sharp woman's voice ordered me: 'Keep your face to the wall, Arab bitch, and don't move.'
I could still hear the sound coming through the wall I was facing: the blows on a human body. It sounded as if the prisoner was in the middle of the room, being kicked from one torturer to another, his hands handcuffed behind his back and blindfolded, unable to avoid the next blow or to know where to anticipate it. Was this the way they killed Muhammad Abu Aker during his interrogation? What else was awaiting him, in the next room? Perhaps the hot and cold bath treatment. They knew that a man's body cannot survive a whole night in the cold bath, in the middle of winter. He was too old. They found him dead the next morning. They were very fond of using that particular method of torture it leaves no incriminating marks on the victim's body. Sitting there, in that room, just sitting and listening, filled me with horror. My mind heaved with wondering: What? When? Is this what I will have to face? My spinal cord shrank as if under cold water; I began to sweat, feeling as if thousands of tiny creatures were creeping under my skin.
The door opened. It was time. I was taken out of the room, led down corridors, more corridors, up the stairs and more corridors. The questions in my mind got bigger and bigger. What if! could not take the torture; if they tried to rape me; what if. . . ? The faces of my family came into my mind, and the faces of my comrades in prison. Tears came to my eyes. I wondered about the man in the torture room downstairs. What was his name? What does he look like? What were the charges against him? Thinking about him was a way to quell my own fears, to hold back the tears.
All along the corridor of cells I heard: 'Be brave, sister. ' Voices, faces, trying to console me. 'Be strong, comrade, don't worry. Don't let them frighten you,' the bruised faces were saying, smiling at me from behind the bars. Swollen hands were extended out, greeting, touching and encouraging. I was not alone. They must have been through inhuman torture, yet they felt the need to comfort and encourage me. I felt my fears melting away. They cannot break us.
Pushed into a cell, the door closing behind me, I heard a warm voice welcoming me. An old woman wearing the traditional embroidered dress, smiling at me. 'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'I am Umm Sabir. I was arrested three months ago.' She asked about my arrrest, and I told her everything that happened to me that morning, even about my fears.
Umm Sabir told me her story. 'I have been here three months. I still don't know what is going to happen to me. They say I killed my husband, but I didn't, I swear I didn't. They killed him. They found his body in a well by the settlement, the settlement which was built on our land. We were about to appear in court and show the documents that prove that the land belongs to us, so they killed him, and arrested me. I've only been interrogated once since then; I am still waiting. Why did they have to kill him, a poor old man, over seventy he was; wasn't it enough that they took our land and left us nothing to live on?' She started to cry and all the tears that I had held back that day streamed down my cheeks.
For the next few days, not much happened. Umm Sabir and I spent the time exchanging stories, listening to the prison sounds-dogs barking, more shouting, and sometimes the sound of men singing, a few cells away. I started singing with them. To my amazement singing filled me with hope, because I knew what these men must have been through, and I thought: 'They can still sing; not all is lost. ' I started looking forward to hearing their voices and singing with them.
The next interrogation took place a week after the first one. This time I was not afraid, again encouraged by the greetings as I went down the corridor, passing the men's cells. I was prepared for the worst.
What happened was not at all what I expected. I was treated to a lecture that lasted two hours, while the interrogator spoke about the historical rights of the Jews to our land; that land actually belonged to them; that we were a bunch of Beduin who came from Saudi Arabia; and that we'd best leave this place and go where we belong. The next chapter of this lecture dealt with the persecution the Jews suffered in the fifteenth century in Spain; then Hitler; and now the PLO and us terrorists trying to drive them into the sea. This bizarre session of mixed-up history and Zionist propaganda continued, while I listened to the dogs barking outside. 'Are you listening to me?' shouted the interrogator, his face getting redder. I was wondering - do they use the dogs to torture prisoners?
'Anyway,' the interrogator said, 'I don't expect you to become a Zionist after listening to me. I just wanted you to understand.' Understand, understand what? He did not tell me and I did not ask.
I was taken back to the cell. In the corridor, again passing by the men's cells, I felt a hand press something into mine. I couldn't work out who, of the faces looking at me through the bars, had given me it. Back in the cell with Umm Sabir, I unrolled the little piece of paper and found a song, written in pencil. Its words were simple. It said:
Quote:
We are not going to die; we are
going to uproot death from our land. . .
There, far away, the soldiers will
take me, to be locked in the darkness
In the hell of chains . . .
But now I am amongst my comrades
adding my voice to theirs, now I
am strong, I can break down the
walls of my cell. . .
And I swear there will be no peace
until our revolution, our struggle
for freedom is victorious.
I learned the words by heart and joined the comrades from the men's block in singing it. It is strange, almost mysterious, the way that sharing makes one so much stronger. When I was first brought in, I felt so small and isolated, I could easily have been crushed. Now, hearing my own voice singing in unison with the others, I felt completely different. I had the strength to bring down the walls of my cell. Sharing was the first lesson I have learnt-the knowledge that behind the wall there is someone prepared to grit their teeth and ignore their pain, so as to offer you a smile of encouragement. You are not alone; thousands have passed down the same corridors before you. Harassed, tortured, even died in this place, all for the cause. It matters little that I did not know their names, they are part of you, you are part of them; that feeling of comradeship joins you together. You lose the boundaries of your own body, it becomes part of this huge, strong, living entity-you cannot help feeling the pain of their bruises on your own face.

Neveh Tirtzah

THE PARTING from Umm Sabir and the comrades in the men's cell was a tearful one - I was being transferred to Neveh Tirtzah, the women's prison in Ramleh. I only had seconds to say goodbye to everyone as I was dragged down the corridor for the last time, squeezing as many hands as I could. They will stay there, to face more torture, or will be released, or transferred to other prisons, their guilt automatically assumed. Under the Israeli legal system in the Occupied Territories, we are all guilty until proven innocent and your innocence very much depends on the political situation at the time and the mood and personalities of the interrogators. For them, each case is a professional challenge to their training and their ego, so many of them are prepared to do anything, no matter how inhuman, to get a confession from a prisoner. How many prisoners have' confessed' to acts they have never committed, just to stop the torture, while others ended up crippled for life, some even died, rather than confess?
I had no idea what it was like in the women's prison, and my thoughts were wandering as I sat in the military jeep, handcuffed and blindfolded and surrounded by military police. Are the women allowed books? Visitors? Are they allowed contact with the outside world, or are conditions just as bad as at the detention centre, where even your lawyer is not allowed in while you are under interrogation? Though I knew that transfer to Ramleh meant that I was getting a longer imprisonment than I had expected, I was looking forward to meeting all the women I had heard so much about over the years - heroines, freedom fighters, strong women who had given up everything for the cause.
Once I was inside the prison, my blindfold was removed, as were the handcuffs. The men gave my papers to the women guards and left. While I was changing into prison uniform, I was treated to another 'educational' session, with the guard telling me that none of this would have happened if I just stayed at home, got married and had children, instead of getting involved in stupid politics which would lead me nowhere but prison. The lecture was delivered in English, as she knew I did not speak Hebrew and she either did not speak Arabic, or preferred to speak English. Another guard then took me over to the Palestinian women's block. Going through the double gates, I saw them in their green prison uniforms, cleaning the yard and the corridors. As soon as they saw me, they all gathered around shaking my hand, hugging and patting my shoulders, with words of welcome. They then followed me down the long corridor to the cell, where the guard locked me in. I was hardly given a chance to look at my new surroundings - the women gathered at the small window in the door and showered me with questions. My name, the charges against me, news from outside - I could barely answer them all, I was so overwhelmed by the warmth of their welcome, linking me to those women who were separated from me by the heavy metal doors.
I wished I could embrace all those faces with my eyes, carve them into my heart, fearing that the minute I turned my face away, they would disappear, leaving me alone in that cell.
Then came the meetings with women I had heard of for years. The first was a strongly built woman - I realized I was looking at the first woman to be involved in the armed struggle in the Occupied Territories. She was the first to be jailed and was sentenced to a life-term plus ten years. Looking at her face, it was not diffIcult to imagine how she had suffered - she had been in prison eight years by then - yet she still smiled and made jokes.
The other one was a woman with magnificent eyes and a comforting, friendly smile. I had heard about her torture before I came to prison she was sentenced to two life-terms plus ten years. . . How much did she have to struggle within herself, to forget or put aside the memories of torture and to keep that smile? When I heard later about the torture she suffered, I realized why she was always busy; she never allowed herself a moment of rest. I do not believe that anyone will be able to forget such a nightmare-she was beaten to the point of unconsciousness, then raped with a truncheon. She does not talk about her experiences and I deeply regretted the one time I asked her about it. It was like reopening a deep wound that took too long to heal. My questions were scratching her memory with a knife of pain, bringing back things which she had struggled to push away into the dark corners of her mind.
It is still painful to me to write about yet another story of torture. Nonetheless, these stories have to be told - so that they may not happen again; so that people know the sufferings that our women, our men, and our children have gone through and are still going through; so that the cynical phrase 'Humane Occupation' can be exposed as the cruel lie it always was.
Writing these lines, I have in mind a small, thin, sharp featured woman. She always kept herself apart, as if surrounded by a deep sadness. When I met her, I knew that here was someone who would not, who could not, compromise. During her torture, she and her father were made to strip naked in front of each other; then they ordered her father to rape her. When they both refused to comply, they had to face the most inhuman tortures.
These stories and many others were living with me, with all of us in our cells. The cell I found myself in was a small room with three bunk beds and extremely thin mattresses. It had a small window looking onto a green yard (which later I found was not allowed us) a toilet and shower cubicle, all very clean-a credit to the women who were living there. This was to be my new home. For how long?
I was allowed one hour in the prison yard, which I happily welcomed. After being locked up in Maskobiya for eighteen days, it was my first chance to talk to the women. Sitting on the ground, they were telling me about life in the prison, when we heard a scream. It was more like a wounded animal squealing. We saw a woman being dragged by three guards, her whole body was bloodstained. Despite their number she managed to free herself from them, trying in vain to escape; the place was surrounded by so many fences and masses of barbed wire. . . at last they caught her and dragged her, beating her, into a small building. I was later told it was the isolation block.
My face must have reflected the horror I felt at this display of brutality, for my friends told me that the woman was a drug addict. Unable to afford to buy the drugs from prison pushers, she would cut herself with anything sharp she could find, and became uncontrollable. 'Why don't they take her to hospital?' I asked. They told me that taking her to hospital would mean informing the prison governor, getting a special vehicle and guards it was easier to lock her in the isolation block and get the prison nurse to stitch her up. I gathered that this happened quite often, depending on the number of drug addicts kept in the other wing of the prison. I thus learnt the prison had two wings-one for the Jewish women, mainly drug addicts, thieves and prostitutes; the other one for the Arab women, all but two of whom were political prisoners. We were not allowed into their yard, which was the patch of green I saw from my window. Only during work were we allowed to mix with the Jewish women. All sentenced prisoners had to go out to work; sometimes they also allowed those awaiting trial to work. As those that did not go to work were only allowed out for one hour per day, we all preferred to work, even though we had no choice about the kind of work we were given to do.
For work done in prison we used to get paid such meagre wages, we must have been some of the world's worst paid workers. It was not enough for the most basic needs, such as cigarettes. In addition to the wage, each of us was allowed a small sum in support from our families, to supplement our wages. Many had no families, or came from very poor ones and could not get any money from the outside. To solve this basic inequality we set up a 'common fund' into which money was put by those that could afford it and from which all our needs were met communally. This 'canteen for all' project was most successful and brought us all closer together.
The first job I was given was making clothes pegs. In the workshop building there were a number of sewing machines, and the other women told me that they had first been ordered to sew military uniforms, but had refused. This led to them being locked up for a long time, at the end of which they ended up making prison uniforms. Making clothes pegs was the most boring part of our day: sitting for six hours constantly doing the same movement really puts your brain to sleep. From the start, I decided to let my hands do the movement and to let my mind wander, think, imagine I learned to separate mind and body. This way my mind could leave the prison, visit my family and friends, or even wander into the men's prison, separated from ours by a wall and an ever-closed gate. This gate was only used in emergencies-when they needed the male guards to beat us up, fire teargas at us, or drag a whole number of us to the isolation block, as happened when we went on strike.
To make time work for us, the Palestinian women decided to allocate daily subjects for discussion, so that each of us would prepare one, teaching the rest. This was very successful, until the Jewish women working with us complained that we were disturbing their peace and quiet, and the guards enforced total silence once again.
At the same workbench there were a couple of Jewish women, a mother and daughter. We noticed that they hardly spoke Hebrew, indeed they hardly spoke at all. We then found out they were new immigrants from the USSR, who had left everything behind and come to the land of milk and honey. They found themselves living in barrack-like dormitories with no prospect of a job, or meaningful life. In their frustration, they had beaten up a social security office clerk and now found themselves working side by side with us. Another similar woman found it impossible to live outside. When her prison term was over, she would refuse to leave; she had nowhere to go - no family, no job, no other friends, nowhere to live. She used to sit outside begging the guards to let her in, and then would go to steal, or assault someone, so as to be sent back inside. She and some of the other Jewish women were visited every day by a special sewing teacher; the hope was that this training would turn them into useful members of society.
I then realized that most of the Jewish prisoners were women from the Sephardi community, originating in the Arab countries; only a small minority came from the USSR and the rest of Eastern Europe. The relationships between us and them were quite friendly, including some petty trading, such as bartering tea for cigarettes. At break times they would separate themselves from us. We kept away from their fights unless they became too violent or dangerous. They even would use us as arbiters in their quarrels, sometimes, telling us stories about each other. This came in handy during the strike, when all privileges were withdrawn, and we were not allowed to use the prison canteen. Soon we ran out of supplies of coffee, tea and cigarettes. Two of us persuaded the Jewish women that we were able to read their fortunes in the coffee-cup, in return for supplies. As we heard so many stories about each of them from her friends and enemies, the readings were reasonably accurate, and our supplies kept flowing . . . Other services we performed for them included writing to their boy friends, as most of them were illiterate. This even led to a Hebrew class being opened for the Jewish girls, to teach them basic language skills. We were allowed to attend, and a whole number of us studied Hebrew that way. The class was wound up when the Jewish girls stopped attending-it then looked as if the class was run mainly for us, and they closed the class. Most of them came from very large families and were quite bitter about their real chances in life. They explained that anything worthwhile was in the hands of Ashkenazi (Western) Jews, and how they and other Sephardis were treated as second-class citizens. Their bitterness towards this oppression was such, that when an Ashkenazi school teacher was brought in for some crime she committed, she was totally rejected by the other Jewish women, and she ended up with us, in our section. They never missed an opportunity to kick her, especially when they found out she enjoyed some privileges denied to them she was allowed not to wear prison uniform, and was treated much better by the guards, who, ironically, were mainly Sephardis. All this was quite new to me. Of course, I have read about the exploitation of the Sephardis in Israel, but experiencing this in prison helped us to realize that the myth of a coherent, united and strong Israeli nation was flawed at the very centre of its existence, its racist features extending beyond the Palestinians towards the whole Sephardi community, in a structure of disadvantage resembling the hated apartheid system.
The most pleasant distraction from our hateful routine was the presence of a number of children, even babies, within the walls. One of the Arab women, sentenced for murder, was pregnant when she was brought in. She had a little daughter aged two, a lovely baby, who came into prison with her and soon became a plaything for all of us. We taught her to walk, talk, eat her food there was no shortage of volunteers to look after her . . .
One of our comrades, who had been arrested together with her husband for belonging to a guerrilla group, was also pregnant when they brought her in. Her husband was kept on the other side of that big wall, in the men's prison, and obviously he wasn't allowed to see her. He was not even told when his wife was taken to hospital to give birth. In hospital, she was in the same room with a Jewish prisoner also about to have a baby. She told her that, whether it was a boy or a girl, she had decided to call her baby 'Falasteen' -Palestine. The Jewish woman then decided to call hers Israel . . .
When she came back with her newborn baby, we all flocked to see her, only to find that the Registrar refused to record the name 'Falastin' as the boy's name. A long argument ensued, in which she made it clear that she refused to register her son under any other name. At last the Registrar gave in and registered the boy. The Jewish woman called her son David (without, one presumes, opposition from the prison authorities. . . ). Little Falastin had more than fifty mothers, all competing for his attention, more than ready to play with him, feed him, sing him songs and even wash his nappies . . .

Nablus

FINALLY, four months after my arrest, it was the day of my trial. I was driven to the military court in Nablus, where, apart from my close family, the only audience were the guards. I was disappointed, as I hoped to see my friends there-as a result of a last minute change, I had been taken to a different court, and my lawyer only managing to let my family know.
I was quite confident I assumed that I would be released either immediately, or in a month or two, because up until then, most of the Palestinians convicted on the same charge of 'membership of a banned hostile organization' had been sentenced to periods between six months and a year. To my surprise, the judge, a military officer, announced a sentence of three years, basing it on the fact that I expressed no signs of regret or repentance. It was a deterrent sentence - a warning to women that might contemplate the same course of action. I heard my mother draw in her breath, as she tried hard not to cry.
It was a cold winter day in February when I was taken back to Nablus prison. I spent ten long days in a cubby hole between the guard's toilet and washroom, as there were no other facilities for women in this prison, which was normally only used for men. I tried hard to calm down, to get used to the idea that I was to spend three years in prison. I kept thinking about people that had been sentenced for life; others that had died in prison. Compared with them, I thought, I have little to complain about. I started thinking of ways of using this time positively, so as not to be destroyed by it. I could even continue my university degree study, if they'd let me. . . I'd have to work out quite a tight schedule of work . . . By the time I was brought back to Neveh Tirtzah, I had got used to the idea that I was to spend two years and eight months in jail, with no possibility of reprieve.
Our daily timetable was unchanging and very tight; it needed all of us to maintain it. After work we had lunch, and the study period would start. It was a long struggle before they would agree to supply us with a blackboard, and later some text books. Every one ofthose books could tell a story of the pleading, the strikes and the bitter struggle we had to wage, to get anything at all.
One of us was teaching English; another mathematics; a third comrade taught us Hebrew, as the Hebrew classes had been terminated some time previously. She came from the part of Palestine occupied in 1948, and spoke fluent Hebrew. One of my students was Umm 'Abdalla, a seventy year-old woman. She had been arrested for feeding her son, a freedomfighter. The official charges were'hiding and feeding an enemy, not informing the appropriate authorities of his and his associates' whereabouts'. She preferred to go to jail rather than inform on her son and his comrades. We were afraid that she would die in prison, she was so frail and old. After four months with us she was released, able, for the first time in her life, to write her own name and read a little. It seems that the prison authorities were worried as well they could not afford having this old woman die in prison.
As there were a number of old women who were illiterate, we opened a special class for them. One of the women in the class was Umm Ahmad, whose son was serving a life sentence; she herself had been arrested while crossing from Jordan. She was a courageous woman, always ready with good advice; she was a mother to us all we would rest our heads on her lap to seek comfort. She advanced well with her studies, and I was extremely happy and proud that I had come to know her.
After two hours of study, we would all go out into the yard for physical training. We all loved that part of the day, running and jumping-it was vital that we kept fit. After dinner, we would start our political education sessions. As these were not permitted, we had to post guards to keep watch for any prison guards approaching. When the doors were locked at 8 o'clock, we would read, talk and prepare for the next day's lessons.
This very active daily schedule kept us sane and healthy, much better than sitting passively, trapped in our memories of our loved ones and missing all the things we were deprived of outside. We saw what happened to most ofthe Jewish convicts in the other block their time was spent in petty quarrels and crying. Sometimes the routine was broken by film shows, mainly educational films about health and childbirth. But the break was not always welcome - they kept showing us films about the first Zionist pioneers in Palestine and, again and again, films about the Holocaust and Jewish suffering - as if we were responsible for the holocaust. This forced viewing was a kind of psychological torture, totally unfair, we felt. On those occasions, our relationship with the Jewish women would suffer badly: they would begin behaving like patriots and ultra-nationalists, looking for an enemy to pick a fight with, and of course, there we were - enemies of their state, as they saw it. On one of those occasions, a Jewish girl who was normally very mild and eventempered, stood up and shouted that the Jews should do to the Arabs what had been done to the Jews in Europe. She was usually peaceful and nice to us, but these films were stirring her violence against us.
The Israeli Day of Independence was a day of celebration for them; we would stay locked in our cells, as punishment for our hunger-strike, which was not just a protest against our own imprisonment, our individuallack of freedom, but protest against the lack of freedom of our whole nation. For us it was a day of deep grief, a day on which our agony started. For them, it marked the end of the diaspora; for us, the beginning of our own diaspora, with no end in sight. On the day the state of Israel was declared, our identity as Palestinians was denied. Could there be two groups more polarized?
For daring to stage a hunger-strike on the day of their celebration, we had to face all kinds of threats, abuses and attacks. As the day progressed, both the guards and the Jewish inmates would attack us, trying to provoke us. Our policy in the face of all this aggression, was to stay calm and not to be provoked any reaction from our side would have led to even more aggression being vented against us. The day would end with both sides totally exhausted-them with eating, drinking and singing, us with hunger and stress. A little microcosm of the relationship between the two estranged communities in Palestine.
It would normally take more than a couple of days for things to go back to some kind of normality, a few days during which both camps avoided talking to each other. This 'normality' lasted until the next religious occasion or another political upheaval. The one occasion when things took a long time to return to normal was the Entebbe raid.
On that day we were not allowed out to work; there were no newspapers and the guards were extremely hostile and aggressive towards us. It was clear that whatever had happened was very important-otherwise they would have let us go to work. The Jewish women were not allowed into our section, and only after two days of extreme tension did we find out that a military operation was taking place in Uganda. One of the women that worked in the kitchens told us. She also found out that there might be an exchange of prisoners, and that the comrades serving life sentences stood to be freed first. The news had a very dramatic effect: comrades serving life sentences were jumping up and down like little children, overcome with joy; they handed out their meagre belongings to their friends, promising to come and liberate us all soon. .. 'We will think of you, when we're having coffee in Beirut. . . ' Their various roles in the prison, such as running the library, were delegated to others; change was in the air, urgent change.
That night none of us could sleep; over-excited, we waited for the doors to open at any moment and for our comrades to be taken on their way to freedom. But in the morning we were taken to work again, with the guards cracking jokes at our expense; the radio in the workshop gave the details of how the operation had failed. It is difficult to describe the bitter disapointment we all felt, especially the ones preparing to be liberated. We fell silent, not being able to look each other in the eye, as if it was us who had failed. But our problems were only starting a more dangerous crisis was facing us. From the other wing we heard shrill singing and hysterical voices threatening to kill us all. Provocations continued, and aggression flared in a way that was new and more frightening than before. We could hear the guards stirring it up, which added to our fears. We asked the guards to allow us not to work, as we feared clashes, but their orders were clear everyone must go to work. There would be no incidents, they promised. That morning I was working in our kitchen. One of the comrades told me that the Jewish convicts had got knives, through the kitchen in their section. We, of course, were not allowed to use knives in the kitchen except under constant attention from the guards. It was obvious they could not have acquired the knives without the guards turning a blind eye.
We managed to pass a warning to the girls in the workshops, but could not warn those working in the prison yard (the 'meadow' as we called it). They were cutting the grass between the barbed wire fences, so as to expose any tunnels being dug. The yard had access only through a single gate, always kept locked, even when the women were working there. On that day, one of our comrades was working there with one ofthe Jewish convicts. All of a sudden we heard her scream. From where I was, I could not see what had happened, but I saw the girl being carried in by two comrades. She was unconscious and one of her friends was also hurt, bleeding. They then told us that a Jewish woman who was in for prostitution had tried to strangle our comrade, who was not suspecting an attack, and in any case, was not strong enough to resist. Two of the others rushed to save her, one jumping over the fence to fight the Jewish womanreleasing the girl from her grip, but cutting herself badly as she clambered over the barbed wire fence, back to our section. The guards, realizing the seriousness of the situation, then started a big search, and many knives were retrieved from the other wing.
Incensed, we pressed charges against the other woman for attempted murder. The prison atmosphere was very tense, with the governor trying to force us to drop the charges and the girl herself came many times, trying to persuade us. We called many meetings to discuss this matter, and finally we decided to drop the charges against her. We knew that if found guilty, she would end up with another five years on her sentence. It was a difficult decision. As political prisoners, this was our first chance to assert our rights, our political strength, by insisting on pressing the charges. On the other hand, we all knew what five years in prison would mean to this young, politically inexperienced woman, who had allowed herself to be swept along by the waves of hatred and incitement all around her. Would our revenge have a political echo and meaning, or would it just be a personal vendetta? After all, we couldn't hold this poor woman responsible for the occupation, the torture, the killings - she is only a tool, a victim of a situation she does not fully comprehend. In the end, we explained to her why we were going to drop the charges. We gained a friend in her, and probably many more, to whom she spoke and explained our reasons.
Imprisonment is a severe punishment, being locked up behind walls, deprived of the most precious gift, freedom even when, in occupied Palestine, freedom is a somewhat abstract concept. This basic injustice was heightened by the fact that we lacked even the simple amenities allowed common criminals. As we were not criminals, we were not allowed family visits; we could not be released after two thirds of our prison term, for 'good behaviour'; we had no right of appeal against our sentence. Those basic, inalienable human rights were denied us because we were not common criminals. On the other hand, we were refused the status of 'prisoners of war' the war between us and Zionism being totally denied, in the same way that our national identity, our land, our whole entity are constantly denied by the enemy. This way, we had none of the rights of POW's-we were termed 'Security Prisoners', according to the Emergency Regulations passed by the British Mandate government in 1945 . . . We were prisoners with no rights, of a nation that did not exist, in a land no longer ours, governed by the regulations of an Empire no longer in existence . . .

Fighting back. . .

IN SPITE of the fact that the prison was recently built (there is always a boom in prison building in Israel) the conditions were harsh. Medical treatment, if you can call it that, was very poor. Two tablets were the only medication for ailments, and prisoners would die before the authorities would agree to take them to hospital. One of our comrades was very ill, and unable to eat or move at all. When she started having difficulties in breathing, we insisted on her being taken to hospital, or at least that an Arab doctor be allowed to visit her - we had no illusion about the type of treatment she would get in the prison clinic. Quite clearly, her life was in danger. But the authorities refused to transfer.
All this happened after a long period of tension, during which we had demanded a whole number of basic rights to be restored and a number of humiliating situations to be changed. Their refusal to transfer our sick comrade became the flashpoint of our anger and frustration. A list of demands presented to the authorities was not answered or acknowledged. The list included a long catalogue of senseless atrocities, which we demanded should be stopped.
These included the repeated arbitrary searches, carried out at any hour of day or night, with all of us waiting in the yard, cold and angry. When we returned to the cells, all our meagre belongings would be scattered on the floor, trampled on and destroyed, papers and exercise books gone for censorship. We never saw anything again. Books were almost impossible to get in the Red Cross would tell us that they supplied books according to a list agreed by the prison authorities, yet those books would not arrive and when we inquired, all we got was abuse in return. We also complained about the humiliating way that members of our families were searched on the rare occasion of an agreed visit. During such visits, a guard would sit with us noting down every word uttered during the visit by either prisoners or visitors.
As there was no response to our demands, we refused to enter into the cell block until such a response was forthcoming. The governor ordered the guards to lock five of us in the isolation cells, and the rest in their cells. This led to an all-out strike by us. Our comrade's health was rapidly failling and we started banging on the doors and windows, demanding her immediate transfer.
The answer was more violence. This time, male guards from the neighbouring prison were brought in to beat us up. It was impossible to get away from the truncheons, it was a bloody fight which we could not win.
After these events, we all decided to go on a hunger strike, as the only way of forcing them to negotiate with us. After three days, our comrades in the isolation block were released, and negotiations on the rest of our demands could start. The result was a qualified success: our comrade was taken to hospital, some of the books were returned and they promised that confiscated material would be returned - although they would not hear about stopping the searches. It took a few months for us to realize that they reneged on most of these promises.
Three of us were exiled to the Gaza prison for our role in the strike. We ended up having to wage a new battle in order to have them returned. We were not allowed to correspond with them at all. We were not successful, and slowly things went back to normal.
Time in prison has completely different qualities from the time spent elsewhere, for obvious reasons. One dreads certain times of the day, and eagerly expects others. The most special part of any day for all of us was four o'clock in the afternoon. It was then that we got newspapers, but, most important of all, letters were handed out. The guard arriving with the letters had us all standing around her with trepidation, our eyes fixed on her lips, trying to decipher the sounds of names before they were uttered. When you got a letter, the excitement was too much you would start reading it even before you found a chair to sit down. Those of us who did not hear our name read out would quietly disperse, trying to hide the enormous sense of disappointment, the tear or two, the hope dashed but not totally given up-maybe tomorrow. . . I used to read my letters many times, learning them by heart and reciting them to myself during my long hours at work. Tenuous as they were, the letters were our main link with the outside - visits were only allowed once a month. We were allowed to write six letters a month ourselves, on very small sheets of prison-supplied paper.
When we write, we know that not only our family and friends are going to read it; there will also be the prying hands and eyes of the censor looking at every single word, decoding any hints, recording any details. Our letters could not be the intimate contact that we wished them to be, that we so needed them to be. Our friends and families outside knew the same, and remembered the same when writing to us. This feeling of being looked at through a keyhole, of your most intimate feelings being paraded naked in front of someone hostile and unknown, was one of the worst punishments in the prison system.
It was after two years in prison that I first met Ruth. She was an Israeli sociology student from the Hebrew University, and she came to the prison often, as part of a study in criminology that she was conducting with the Israeli prisoners. When we first met, she was reluctant to speak to me; she was actually frightened of me. When she plucked up courage we ended up talking for hours. She told me she was frightened to death in our section of the prison, which she referred to as the 'terrorist' section. She had clear expectations of being physically attacked when she came in, and was surprised, even confused, by our friendly reaction.
Having overcome her fear, she started visiting us quite often. We became close friends and discussed everything, from theatre to music, to sex and family relationships. She told me about problems she had with her husband, and we talked of mutual academic interests I was studying sociology before I was arrested. She even told me about friends of hers, to whom she planned to introduce me, after my release from prison. The guards warned her about us, about me, but this did not deter her, and she continued visiting me. For me, she had become not only a friend, but also a most welcome change in my prison routine. Warnings came from both sides, with my comrades arguing that she had been sent to spy on us, but it did not affect my determination to continue the friendship and the dialogue.
But our dialogue was not complete. One subject we both avoided totally was politics. Of course, we had to come to it sooner or later, and one day Ruth asked the fated question, 'How did you come to be here?' and then concluded with a rather naive, but moving statement about the fact that we seemed to get on with each other so well, so why fight, why not get together, put aside the conflict?
It was clear she did not see a political dimension to the conflict, so I began to talk to her about the fate of Palestine since the beginning of the Zionist settlement, tried to describe to her the aspect of the conflict that was always invisible to her, as it still is, to most Israelis. The occupation, the destruction, loss of homes and family, of the rural and urban communities, of their cultural traditions, of their national and social sense of identity. The diaspora, one country after another rejecting us; a life with no future; a life with no constant and clear connection to a place; a landscape of home; a life of divisions and conflicts, in which disaster is a daily visitor in every family, and catastrophe is routine. I said that as a Jewish woman she should have no problem in understanding this fate of ours. Were the Jews not outcasts for centuries, refugees, victims of oppression?
She was quite shocked, crying throughout my story and saying repeatedly: 'This is not what they tell us in school; I never heard any of this before; I had no idea. . . ' A long period of heavy silence followed. Ruth was battling with herself, taking her time, she was preparing to ask me another important question. I later understood she came armed with that question, a question that she treated like a kind of political litmus paper. She broke the silence by asking: 'Suppose that one day we meet on opposite sides, me with an Uzi sub-machine gun, and you with a Kalashnikov rifle-would you be able to shoot me?'
I was quite shocked. She obviously had not understood my story (I told myself) if she could come up with this comic-strip formulation of our political and human dilemma. I told her: 'If we met in the way that you describe, on opposite sides of the front, it means that we are going to shoot at each other, because that is why we are there. I shall be fighting for my freedom; what will you be fighting for? Probably, your right to deny my freedom? In that situation, do not count on me not to shoot you. I will not wait to be shot by you, or anybody else. I will shoot first; I will try to be faster, to survive. '
We spoke no more. Suddenly I realized that there was always a barrier between us, like a glass wall, invisibly separating our positions. We pretended not to see it, we did not want to admit its existence, but we both felt it. Her question made both of us realize that as long as she was the occupier and I the occupied, as long as we were not equals we would never be able to transcend this invisible barrier.
Ruth never came back. If she was to understand, she would have had to give up too many things that she was not ready to abandon, not yet, and probably, not ever. I was sad. I felt I had not lost a friend, but gained an enemy. An enemy who might just cry while doing the killing.
This relationship with Ruth comes to my mind often, when I hear talk about 'peaceful coexistence' between the occupied and the occupier, the oppressor and the oppressed, the lamb and the wolf. The lines of the poem I first learned in prison come back, from the distance of pain:
Quote:
And I swear there will be no peace
until our revolution, our struggle
for freedom is victorious.

"THE WORKERS' INQUIRY: WHAT'S THE POINT?" BY JOE THORNE

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"Workers’ inquiry is an approach to and practice of knowledge production that seeks to understand the changing composition of labour and its role within processes of social transformation. It is the practice of turning the tools of the social sciences into tools for labour organizing. Historically workers’ inquiry developed in Italy in a context marked by rapid industrialization, mass migration, and the rise of industrial sociology. Workers’ inquiry was formulated within autonomist movements as a sort of parallel sociology, one based on a re-reading of Marx and Weber against established parties and unions."                        -A Workers' Inquiry Reader

That is where we are going with today's Theoretical Weekends here at Scission

The above quote indicates the concept of the "workers inquiry" was developed in Italy.  Well, I understand where that thought comes from, but it does ignore the fact that back in 1880 Karl Marx did a workers inquiry of his own.  As he wrote:


Not a single government, whether monarchy or bourgeois republic, has yet ventured to undertake a serious inquiry into the position of the French working class. But what a number of investigations have been undertaken into crises — agricultural, financial, industrial, commercial, political!

The blackguardly features of capitalist exploitation which were exposed by the official investigation organized by the English government and the legislation which was necessitated there as a result of these revelations (legal limitation of the working day to 10 hours, the law concerning female and child labor, etc.), have forced the French bourgeoisie to tremble even more before the dangers which an impartial and systematic investigation might represent. In the hope that maybe we shall induce a republican government to follow the example of the monarchical government of England by likewise organizing a far reaching investigation into facts and crimes of capitalist exploitation, we shall attempt to initiate an inquiry of this kind with those poor resources which are at our disposal. We hope to meet in this work with the support of all workers in town and country who understand that they alone can describe with full knowledge the misfortunes form which they suffer and that only they, and not saviors sent by providence, can energetically apply the healing remedies for the social ills which they are prey. We also rely upon socialists of all schools who, being wishful for social reform, must wish for an exact and positive knowledge of the conditions in which the working class — the class to whom the future belongs -works and moves.

These statements of labor's grievances are the first act which socialist democracy must perform in order to prepare the way for social regeneration.

The following hundred questions are the most important. In replies the number of the corresponding question should be given. It is not essential to reply to every question, but our recommendation is that replies should be as detailed and comprehensive as possible. The name of the working man or woman who is replying will not be published without special permission but the name and address should be given so that if necessary we can send communication.

Replies should be sent to the Secretary of the Revue Socialiste, M.Lecluse, 28, rue royale, saint cloud, nr. Paris.

The replies will be classified and will serve as material for special studies, which will be published in the Revue and will later be reprinted as a separate volume."

Karl followed this up with a one hundred page questionaire.  He wasn't just doing this for fun or for a school project.  Can you even imagine such of Marx.  Asad Haider and Salar Mohandesi write at North Star:


Was work­ers’ inquiry a means of access­ing the pro­le­tar­ian view­point? Was it sim­ply the work­ers’ par­tic­i­pa­tion in gen­er­at­ing a uni­ver­sal knowledge?

What is abun­dantly clear is that Marx had a high esti­ma­tion of the autonomous activ­ity of the work­ing class. Not only would work­ers pro­vide knowl­edge about the nature of cap­i­tal­ism, they would be the only ones who could over­throw it: only the work­ers in town and coun­try, “and not sav­iors sent by prov­i­dence, can ener­get­i­cally apply the heal­ing reme­dies for the social ills which they are prey.” This prac­tice of work­ers’ inquiry, then, implied a cer­tain con­nec­tion between pro­le­tar­ian knowl­edge and pro­le­tar­ian pol­i­tics. Social­ists would begin by learn­ing from the work­ing class about its own mate­r­ial con­di­tions. Only then would they be able to artic­u­late strate­gies, com­pose the­o­ries, and draft pro­grams. Inquiry would there­fore be the nec­es­sary first step in artic­u­lat­ing a his­tor­i­cally appro­pri­ate social­ist project.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Italian Marxists were grumbling about the Communist Party of Italy, about Stalinism, about the USSR, about the general state of all things communist.   They were searching and exploring a different form of communism than the "already existing" brand.  As part of the exploration they began using the method of worker inquiry and what was also called co-research.   Marta Malo de Molina writes:


"...it is worthwhile paying special attention to the uses of the worker-survey employed by Italian operaismo (workerism a section of the Italian workers’ movement)9. The young operaisti, gathered in initially around the journal Quaderni Rossi10, attempted to explain the crisis of the workers’ movement during the fifties and the early sixties. For the operaisti, it was not possible to interpret this lived crisis merely as a result of either the theoretical errors, or betrayals by the leadership, of leftist parties (an argument repeated by those orthodox elements of the communist and anarcho-syndicalist sections of the workers’ movement). In contrast, the operaisti argued that the crisis had taken place because of the intense transformations, in the productive process and the composition of the labour force, introduced by the Scientific Organisation of Work. Thus, the use of the inquiry was intended to reveal a “new worker condition”. Looking at the condition of these new subjects, how they could reopen spaces of conflict and reinvigorate workers’ demands become a central theme for the operaisti’s practice and discourse."

Well, enough of this.  On to this piece which I found at The Commune (one of my more favorite places these days).




the workers’ inquiry: what’s the point?


Joe Thorne looks at the history of the “workers’ inquiry” idea: from Marx, to Italy in the 1960s, to the present day.  This fairly long article touches on debates amongst those influenced by operaismo about how we should relate to the modern workplace.

What can we learn from focussed investigations of contemporary working class reality?
The point of these notes is: to understand what the term ‘workers’ inquiry means; to argue that it has come to mean at least two different things; to characterise the political objective of these different projects; and to evaluate both the importance of those objectives and how well they are met by the methods in question.  The point is to articulate what place I believe the inquiry ought to have in the ideas and practice of revolutionaries.  It will also say something about research into class composition more generally.
Karl Marx
The term “workers’ inquiry”, its basis in Marxist orthodoxy, and its association with lengthy surveys (100, questions, no less), originates in an 1880 proposal by Karl Marx.
We hope to meet in this work with the support of all workers in town and country who understand that they alone can describe with full knowledge the misfortunes form which they suffer and that only they, and not saviors sent by providence, can energetically apply the healing remedies for the social ills which they are prey. We also rely upon socialists of all schools who, being wishful for social reform, must wish for an exact and positive knowledge of the conditions in which the working class — the class to whom the future belongs –works and moves.[1]
The questions included:
15.  State the number of rooms in which the various branches of production are carried on. Describe the specialty in which you are engaged. Describe not only the technical side, but the muscular and nervous strain required, and its general effect on the health of the workers.
40.  Do schools exist for children and young people employed in your trade? If they exist, in what hours do the lessons take place? Who manages the schools? What is taught in them?
81.  Do any resistance associations exist in your trade and how are they led? Send us their rules and regulations
The most obvious reason for caution about any plan drawing inspiration from Marx’s is that there is no record of any responses to his proposal, nor any suggestion that it lead anywhere.  This is reason for caution, no more than that: but as we shall see, it was not to be the first time.
Quaderni Rossi
The most important modern inspiration for the workers’ inquiry is dissident Italian Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s.  Originating in the Quaderni Rossi journal, the idea was taken up by elements in Potere Operaio, Autonomia and Lotta Continua.
Within Quaderni Rossi there were disagreements about the method and purpose of the inquiry.
On the one side, there was the faction of “sociologists” (lead by Vittorio Rieser), and at that time the most numerous. This section understood the inquiry as a cognitive tool in order to understand a transformed worker reality, and oriented towards provide the tools for producing a theoretical and political renovation of the worker movement’s official institutions. On the other side, we find Alquati and a few more (Soave and Gaparotto), who, based on factory experiences in the US and France, considered the inquiry as the basis for a political intervention oriented towards organising workers’ antagonism. It was a considerable difference from the point of view of the concrete goals of the survey. The distance was even greater though in terms of method: in fact, while the first faction was actualising Marxist theory with themes and methods from North American industrial sociology, Alquati was proposing a kind of strategic research in the study of the factory.[2]
This latter tendency didn’t just have a research agenda.  They had a tactical agenda, part of which was that the inquiry needed to be a workers’ self-inquiry.  It implied that not only would the researcher be immersed (working, living) within the research context in question, other workers would be engaged in the process, not merely as objects of research (respondents to questionnaires), but co-researchers themselves.
This version of the worker inquiry implied a further step from the simple questionnaire towards a process of co-research: one the one hand, inserting militant-intellectuals, who were pursuing research into the object-territory (almost always the factory, and some times, neighbourhoods), transforming them into additional subject-agents of that territory. On the other hand, actively implicating the subjects who inhabit that territory (mainly workers, and sometimes, students and homemakers) in the research process, at the same time, would transform them into subject-researchers (not merely objects). When this double movement worked well, the knowledge production emerging from the research process mutually nurtured a self-empowerment process and the production of a rebel subjectivity in the factory and neighbourhoods.[3]
This (dialogical, organisational, tactical) aspect of the workers’ inquiry is also the one emphasised by Raniero Panzieri:
The aims of inquiry can be schematically summarised thus: we have important instrumental goals driven by the character of inquiry as a correct, efficient and politically fertile method to establish contacts with singular and grouped workers. This is a crucial objective: not only is there no discrepancy, gap or contradiction between inquiry and the labour of building political relations; inquiry is also fundamental to such process. Moreover, the work needed for inquiry, the labour of theoretical discussion with comrades and workers, is one of serious political training, and inquiry is a great tool for this.
Inquiry should also aim to decisively eliminate ambiguities that persist in our theoretical formation, that is the theory elaborated in Quaderni Rossi, because as other comrades have already pointed out many aspects of this draft of a theory are arrived at only by antithesis; they are drawn from a critique of official policies and of the theoretical developments of the workers’ movement, yet they are not positively grounded nor empirically based at the level of class.[4]
Why inquiry?  Wasn’t it sufficient simply to develop the correct line, and hand out leaflets to the workers telling them what they should do?  What set the inquiry method apart from this approach was the recognition that beneath the official rhetoric of demands over pay and perhaps hours, workers had other concerns about their work.
A historian of the period, Robert Lumley, gives an example of a woman worker who had been complaining “to Communist Party officials that they had not understood the problems on the shop-floor (tens of women had been suffering fainting fits and hysteria because of the pressure of work, but the union agreed to compensation rather than a reduction of line-speeds).”[5]  She recounts:
they came back at me with ‘that’s what the Quaderni Rossi people say` and so on. I, poor thing, hadn’t a clue who these people were, so I went to find out.[6]
Lumley continues:
She described how, when she went to speak about working conditions at meetings, ‘an official was sent with me so that I bore witness to my experience, and he drew the political conclusions’. The Quaderni Rossi experiment, in other words, proposed an alternative method of political work which attempted to overcome this division of labour.[7]
The Tribe of Moles
Whilst we are discussing the Italian Marxism of that period, we would do well to mention Sergio Bologna’s text The Tribe of Moles, which seeks to explain the explosions in student militancy in 1977 as an expression of a specific process of class recomposition.  As far as I am aware, the text was never described as a workers’ inquiry: but it is nonetheless considered important and influential as a text which addresses the question of the relationship between class composition and struggle.
Bologna’s objective was “to uncover the new class composition underlying these struggles, and to indicate the first elements of a programme to advance and further generalise the movement.”[8]  In the conclusion to the text, he anticipated and replied to a particular line of criticism:
Such a proposal cannot be simply written off as a step backwards in collective bargaining, that would prepare the ground for a new social contract between the Government and the unions. It would be absurd to reject it out of hand, for the simple reason that such new objectives would carry within them the representative weight of the infinite political creativity that has emerged in these past few years. Rather, the bigger problem is how we are going to find the point where such a project can be applied – in short, to choose the “new Mirafioris” out of all the various “driving sectors” of the so-called tertiary sector. More specifically, out of those sectors which function as a connecting link between the production of absolute surplus value and the production of relative surplus value – like, for example, the cycle of transportation. Moreoever, even in the simple extension of the rigidity of labour (even in its form as a system of trade union guarantism) to lavoro nero, subcontracted work etc, would have the effect of forcing the factory struggle to take a leap forward. In short, we are looking for the social channels whereby we could break the encirclement that is currently under way, and prevent the movement dispersing itself into a thousand decentralised moments of struggle – a new, long Purgatory of endemic struggles. We have to find something which can function in the same way as did the strikes over pensions and the strikes over wage-zones did, in relation to the workers’ cycle of struggles in 1968-69.[9]
But there were no new ‘Mirafioris’, not then, and not yet.[10]  Over the next decade, the Italian revolutionary left dissolved its own organisations.  What informal organisation was left was smashed, and many of its best militants – Sofri, Negri – are still in prison.
We should be clear about the logic of Bologna’s programme, and how it relates to subsequent historical developments.  Bologna’s idea was that the sort of research he was doing could help reorientate revolutionary activists to focus on those areas of the economy which were most capable of producing militancy and radicalism. It provided, was able to provide, no such assistance.  In general, this idea – that we can find and target the most important sectors with militant activity is, if not useless, problematic.  There are arguably cases when such orientation was effective, including the decision of the Russian Bolsheviks to concentrate their activity on urban factory workers.  But it is not very often possible to identify the next “mass vanguard”.  For example, it seems unlikely that it would have been possible, in early November 2010 (unless through an organisation with exceptionally deep roots), to identify 16-18 school and college students as the subjects of the next great upsurge.  Last summer, we asked Sheila Cohen to write an article for our paper “to look at the broader political sweep of how changes in class structure and composition interact – or don’t – with issues of consciousness and resistance.”  Her conclusion?  “Mostly the story is one of almost complete unpredictability.”[11]
Decomposing the inquiry I: Wildcat
Under the heading of the workers’ inquiry, a great diversity of approaches to research and writing have developed: the Wildcat group in Germany being the best known and most committed proponents of these techniques, research models, and political concerns.  It is possible to argue that these approaches tend more to Bologna’s, as discussed above, than they do to the original idea of the workers’ inquiry.  In any case, they include:
  • An organisation basing itself on regular, systematic local reports, which seek to answer a defined series of questions relating to class composition, struggle, etc.  (The ongoing practice of Wildcat in Germany.)
  • In depth interviews or personal description of experience in a single workplace, industry, or job.  M has written on his experience at Hackney street cleansing department.[12]  The ‘Call Centre Inquiry Communism’ (Kolinko) project, which resulted in a book-length write up on experience, class composition and capitalist accumulation in call centres is perhaps the most important product of this agenda.  The full text is available online.[13]
  • Macro-level analysis of class composition and existing struggles in a borough[14], city[15], region, or nation state.
It is obvious what these have to do with class-composition.  But it is not obvious that they should be discussed under the same category as the workers’ inquiry, which seems to be a very different sort of project – one in which revolutionaries not only investigate proletarian reality, but engage other proletarians in that process of collective evaluation, as part of a process of promoting communist ideas and workers’ struggle.  Nonetheless, as we will see, such projects are often promoted under the banner of the workers’ inquiry, and by those who do refer explicitly to the inquiry idea.
But what are the functions claimed for these different techniques?  One is similar to that claimed by Bologna for his approach in The Tribe of Moles.  As the proposal which lead to Kolinko put it, “we want to attack the question of whether there is a broader tendency of capitalist development and the possibilities for communism behind this formation of a new type of worker.”[16]  Or as they said elsewhere, “Investigation means first of all to find out how we can fight against work and exploitation together with other workers in a particular place and how we can develop a form of power at the same time.”[17]
I have explained above why I am sceptical about this approach, and if anything the scepticism seems validated by the Kolinko experience.  What more do we know, now, about the possibilities for communism?  What more do we know about how we can fight and develop a form of power?  Not much.
Who’s listening?
Ironically, I believe it is possible to argue that, while proponents of the modern workers’ inquiry officially emphasise the importance of listening to workers, and the importance of rigorously evaluating militant experience, these values are not present within their attitude to their own practice and theory of the workers’ enquiry.  A member of The Commune, a call centre worker, has reviewed Prol-Position’s Call-centre, inquiry, communism (Kolinko) publication.[18]
Prol Position activists are constantly guarding against being seen to “represent” workers, but rather want to “promote” self-organisation, and so their leaflets and materials are of a largely descriptive character, while also making sharp criticisms of trade unions and pointing to the limits of different forms of struggle. They furthermore take part in activist initiatives set up with the aim of ‘supporting’ working class struggles, for example in the Call Centre Offensive outlined in the book. The chapter on trade unions, ‘base unions’, petitions and strikes has much of interest on the different means of resistance employed by workers, such as in the 1999 BT strike, “Large amounts of overseas phone calls were reportedly made, apparently totaling over £15,000. One call was claimed to have been made to the speaking clock in Zimbabwe with the receiver left off the hook overnight; as well as this, top of the range stock was sent out to householders with faulty BT equipment”.
But this part of the study seems to have a somewhat artificial character: the Marxists get jobs in a call centre in order to find out what is going on and relay it back to the workforce, but stop short of giving any practical advice for how to advance struggles. To a limited extent, this seems to recreate a mirror image of the crude “Leninist” form of “intervening” in a workplace from the outside and giving lectures on the lessons of history: i.e. the revolutionaries see themselves as separate from the workforce and with different objectives, using their enquiry to inform their own theories, understand how the working class resists work and to help them(selves) reflect on the world, but not actually doing much to test the water of organizing tactics which could actually succeed. It is no surprise that they report that their materials about working conditions often meet with the response “OK, so what? We know that already. What can we do?” Indeed, the chapter on organizing initiatives concludes with the questions “how can we relate to strikes and conflicts and thus support some kind of learning process? What kind of means do we need to be able to hear about the important developments? What can we learn within strikes and other struggles? How can we participate in the discussions of the workers?…”, the Prol Position activists presenting themselves as outsiders. They hope to promote the values of self-organisation (solidarity, democracy, serious focus on the workers’ own most pressing concerns) within the class, but in fact the book tends towards merely discerning to what extent resistance is taking place already.
. . .
The workers’ enquiry is a useful tool in the early stages of such organizing work. Whether by deliberate “intervention” or not being able to get a better job, a worker who goes into a call centre already a revolutionary ought to understand the ins and outs of the workplace and the views of her/his colleague. But its value is premised not merely on sociological analysis and personal reflection on the results of the study, but rather as a means to an end. The working class understanding itself not merely in terms of the work it does and the conditions to which it is subject, but rather as an agent of transformative change which examines its force and rights all the better to change them. Workers’ self-inquiry, not an inquiry about workers.[19]
A review in Aufheben 12 (2004, not online) makes some similar points.  If the idea is that the workers’ inquiry is a qualitatively different and better way to engage with workers than the standard methods of the left, isn’t it a subject of some concern that workers don’t find the texts which are produced, or the process of research, more engaging, empowering, or useful?  Isn’t it of similar concern that the interviewees often find the interviews themselves disempowering, even didactic (through leading questions)?  Why haven’t young workers in the recomposing class been attracted to the workers’ inquiry?  Enough young workers must have come across the Prol-Position researchers in the course of producing the book to test this: was there any noticeable attraction toward involvement in Prol-Position, Wildcat, or workers’ inquiry in general.  Why has Wildcat, whilst promoting this approach – which allegedly brings it closer to the working class – been less good at attracting radical workers than Trotskyist organisations, or even spreading its ideas?  Could it be that workers are sometimes more interested in general political ideas, or practical ways to build their confidence in action, than microscopic accounts of empirical reality?  Is this wrong?  Who says?  Should the Prol-Position activists have tried to promote answers on the level of organisation?  Would those who participated be in favour of doing that another time?  If not, why not?
Decomposing the inquiry II: no politics without inquiry?
Ed Emery, a prominent partisan of the inquiry idea made a proposal in 1995 for a workers’ inquiry project in Britain, entitled No politics without inquiry!  The practical objective of Emery’s proposal was described as follows:
To set up an intercommunicating network of militants doing more or less detailed work on class composition in their local areas; to meet as and when appropriate; and to circulate the results of our collective work.[20]
The political need which this programme was supposed to meet was described as follows.
The old class forces have been taken apart. World-wide. “Decomposed”. New class forces are emerging. New configurations. This is what we call a “new class composition”.  .  . The new class composition is more or less a mystery to us (and to capital, and to itself) because it is still in the process of formation. Eternally in flux, of course, but periodically consolidating nodes of class power.  Before we can make politics, we have to understand that class composition. This requires us to study it. Analyse it. We do this through a process of inquiry.[21]
In other words, much like Bologna and Wildcat (whose approach he explicitly seeks to emulate), Emery is conceiving research, inquiry as an aid to a grand strategy for revolutionary militants.  Panzieri’s idea of the inquiry as an organising, project is absent from the proposal.  However, if Emery’s approach to the function of the inquiry seems somewhat derivative, his conception of its potential diversity of form and subject matter is creative and interesting.  He asks:
why stop at the printed word? We could include song. Woody Guthrie, singing the lives and times of the migrant workers of Dust Bowl USA. Alan Lomax, collecting blues and prison work songs. Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser with their Carry It On: A History in Song and Picture of the Working Men and Women of America . . . And photography. For example, Sebastiao Salgado’s incredible Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age, which he defines as a work of “militant photography”.  And Jo Spence, in Putting Myself in the Picture, where, among other things, she charts the process (a labour process, in the arena of reproduction) of her own death from cancer. Bringing the Inquiry right home into the front room, into the family . . .[22]
The bibliography lists such luminaries as Tony Cliff and Mao Tse Tung as practitioners of the workers’ inquiry, each in their own way.  As far as I know, much like Marx’s proposal, and much like the proposal presented to the 2010 ‘Meltdown’ conference hosted by our organisation, this proposal didn’t get anywhere.
Recomposing the inquiry: workers’ stories and faceless resistance
Young militants of the Swedish group Kämpa Tillsammans have developed their own method of inquiry, which does not rely on the lengthy interviews typically used by Wildcat.  For the purpose of this review, their experience is worth quoting at length.
While traditional workers’ inquiries tend to be quite formal, often involving questionnaires and formal interviews, the members of Kämpa Tillsammans chose instead to document their own (often humorous) work experiences, draw lessons from them and publish them on the internet. They deliberately chose the medium of story-telling because they wanted workers to engage with the stories in a way that is not possible with formal surveys. Kim Muller of Kämpa Tillsammans explains that they wanted to change the popular idea of what it was to be a worker; workers do not communicate with each other via “written pamphlets or leaflets but by talking and storytelling”, thus stories provide a far better way to develop a new workers’ discourse than dry analysis and documentation.
This practice has since become popular in the Swedish workers movement, with many militants reporting on their workplaces online on sites such as forenadevardare.se (for health workers) or Arbetsförnedringen (for job seekers). The practice of workplace blogging can easily spread work experiences, showing the political dimensions in daily conflicts as well as giving clues about the changing composition of the working class.
One such blog, ‘Postverket’ is written by Postal Service workers. They see it as a way of developing the discussions that start in the canteen or on the shopfloor and circulating them among other workers in different sections and in other parts of the country. In turn, the discussions on the blog can serve as the basis for further discussion and action within the workplace.
The writers have found that, once introduced to the blog, their co-workers start to read it and discuss it with other workmates, helping to develop their ideas and sharpen their criticism of the bosses and the work.
Thus for the Swedish movement, workplace blogging has a number of different functions. On the one hand, by publishing online, workers can transcend their individual workplace to connect their experiences and ideas with those of other workers on the other side of the country. It allows for the deepening of political arguments and critique. On the other hand, workplace blogs can create a new discourse of work, and help to form the basis of a new working class identity. For many people, the mention of ‘working class’ summons up a dozen grey clichés, none of which are relevant to their experiences. Stories and experiences from modern workplaces can help to popularise a more relevant conception of work and class, that can in turn help to propel working class mobilisations.[23]
Perhaps, in this idea of workers’ stories, we can see a return to the Quaderni Rossi conception of the inquiry: workers’experience as a means to involve workers in general (not only revolutionary workers!) in the promotion of class consciousness, political organisation, and perhaps one day – struggle.  One implicit criticism of the Wildcat approach by Kämpa Tillsammans is that the formal interview process is somewhat alienating and boring.  This view is also expressed by a member of The Commune who has been interviewed as part of a Wildcat inquiry.[24]
It would be interesting to know what a workplace intervention or organising drive based around stories and first person accounts would be like.  Although at least one member of our organisation is currently involved in such a project, the lack of access to materials from past interventions makes it difficult to ascertain the existence of such a project, and evaluate its relative impact.  We do have access to a bulletin and leaflets produced by Big Flame – a British group which drew on the influence of the Italian Marxist traditions we have discussed – but in fact they are fairly ‘political’ and ‘objective’ in their tone, although less so than the (admittedly, much shorter) bulletins  of Trotskyist groups such as Workers’ Fight.[25]  For an example of something a bit different, see page 11 of the Ford Halewood bulletin, which contains a letter and a poem.[26]  My impression is that the Big Flame interventions had a less didactic character, not because of the style of the texts, but because of how they were organised: with open editorial meetings, and because of the time which was put in at the factory gate listening to workers, and basing their politics faithfully on the submerged aspirations of the most militant layers.  It’s hard to imagine any effective organising based only on passively reflecting mass subjectivity, rather than by bringing to the fore particular elements.
An intermission: The American worker
Well before Quaderni Rossi, a young American factory worker wrote about his experiences at work.  What he and his fellow workers felt, smelled, saw, said, and thought.  It was published in 1947, the first half of The American Worker.  In the introduction, he gives us some idea of the power which dragging working class experience out of the shadows, and placing it in the light can have.
The rough draft of this pamphlet was given to workers across the country. Their reaction was as one. They were surprised and gratified to see in print the experiences and thoughts which they have rarely put into words. Workers arrive home from the factory too exhausted to read more than the daily comics. Yet most of the workers who read the pamphlet stayed up well into the night to finish the reading once they had started.
In direct contrast was the attitude of the intellectuals who are detached from the working class. To them it was a repetition of an oft-written story. They felt cheated. There was too much dirt and noise. They could not see the content for the words. The best expression of what they had to say was: “So what?” It was to be expected, for how could those so removed from the daily experiences of the laboring masses of the country expect to understand the life of the worker as only the worker can understand it.
I am not writing in order to gain the approval or sympathy of these intellectuals for the workers’ actions. I want instead to illustrate to the workers themselves that sometimes when their conditions seem everlasting and hopeless, they are in actuality revealing by their every-day reactions and expressions that they are the road to a far-reaching change.[27]
The whole pamphlet is worth reading.  It burns with working class life, and we can see why a factory worker at the time would have lost sleep to read it.  It doesn’t quite fit into the conception a of workers’ inquiry as a process through which to organise, but as a text it clearly has the potential to act as an organising or consciousness raising tool, just by dint of being hard hitting, raw, well written, and most importantly backed up by a clear intention to distribute it to relevant people by a political network (in this case the Johnson-Forest Tendency[28]) with the means to do so.  In our paper, we’ve carried a few reports from comrades on their work, or other aspects of their lives.  We should do more of this; but seek to take a leaf out of Paul Romano’s book: trying to find something in the experience of work which does point in the way of communism.  As for how he does it, I can’t detail that here, it’s necessary to read the text.  However, Ria Stone, who provides a sort of theoretical after-word, concludes like this:
“Sure, we could do it better.” In these words, there is contained the workers’ recognition of the enormous scope of their natural and acquired powers, and the distorted and wasteful abuse of these powers within the existing society. In these words is contained also the overwhelming anger of the workers against the capitalist barriers stifling their energies and hence victimizing the whole world. Never has society so needed the direct intervention of the workers. Never have the workers been so ready to come to grips with the fundamental problems of society. The destinies of the two are indissolubly united. When the workers take their fate into their own hands, when they seize the power and begin their reconstruction of society, all of mankind will leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.[29]
The inquiry in context: the contributions of organising and politics
Quaderni Rossi’s inquiries, and those of their immediate political descendents, took place in a period of high and sustained class struggle.  This was not incidental to the context in which the inquiry had such relevance, but – in Panzieri’s account – fundamental to it.
it is extremely important to remember the outcome of our previous discussion: inquiry needs to be carried out in the heat of the moment and on the spot, it must investigate a situation of great transformation and conflict, and investigate the relationship between conflict and antagonism within it. In other words, we need to investigate the manner in which the system of values expressed by the workers in normal circumstances changes, and detect those values that are substituted or disappear when the awareness of alternatives arises, because some of the values held by workers under normal circumstances are absent from moments of class conflict and vice versa.[30]
Such a warning should give us cause to be wary about what we can expect from an inquiry in a period of low class struggle; and therefore some of its limits as an approach to communist activism.
If we return to Robert Lumley’s account of the period, he argues that, alongside the emergence of previously submerged demands (assisted by Quaderni Rossi), an organising tradition based around politically educated militants was vital.
The agitators within the factories in the period before 1968 were mainly drawn from, or had been within, the ranks of the Communist Party, and were the backbone of union organization. They were especially well qualified for this role for a number of reasons, which related mostly to their political rather than their trade union identities. Above all, these people resisted the pressures of everyday experience that seemed to say that nothing could really be changed.[31]
The emphasis in the passage is mine.  The point is that it is necessary, in order to build a militant, working class communist movement, not mainly to enumerate the various reasons for our sense of disempowerment, which are many, but to assert that general truth: that the working class can, through its own action, change the world. This idea has a certain power to break through the fixed objectivity of the present moment.  An understanding of the world as it is must constantly be subjected to the countervailing pressure of working class self-confidence; which does not always have a real, objective manifestation, but which we can assert only on the level of politics, and of our general, abstract understanding of the world.  And indeed, that was the very point of the theory of proletarian autonomy, developed in Quaderni Rossi by Mario Tronti and others.
According to one militant who left the Communist Party in 1967:
it seemed that at a certain moment along the road something could happen that had never happened before . . . at one level, ingenuously, I believed that this society is not ours, and we must create a society of our own that is different. This is what the PCI taught and it did it well. It is not by chance that it took the best part of the working class because of its sense of responsibility the militant had to be very serious, honest, humble, conscientious, and present himself to the workers by putting himself at their service.[32]
My emphasis again: political education is vital; and not all politics flows from analyses of experience or class composition, much of it is based on general and abstract conviction.  This is worth mentioning because is a tendency to see inquiry type politics as the crucial form of political activity: and that propaganda, political education, and agitation for action represent, in some sense, ideological and didactic diversions from the real business of politics.  But if we return to look at the context in which the modern idea of the workers’ inquiry emerged, we can see the importance, to what happened next (the ‘creeping May’ period of intense class struggle, 1969 – 1976) of these very things.  The explosive combination came when the new subjectivity broke through the limits of the old ways of doing things: but in that breaking through, militants took much of value with them:
The Communist Party membership and background was . . . no automatic guarantee of a militant’s ability to represent and mobilize fellow workers. When ideology was separated out from, and even counter-posed to the ‘moral economies’ of groups of workers, then it could function repressively as seen in the instance of the response of PCI officials to emotional reactions to working conditions, which was regarded as an economic issue to be resolved by monetary agreement. In the mid to late sixties, a number of agitators found themselves in conflict with the party, which seemed incapable of organizing the intense feelings of resentment and outrage on the shop-floor, and which they felt had reneged on its promise to bring about radical change. For them, immersion in the daily realities of the factory was also an act of purification and a return to the roots of the Communist project. The role of these agitators was enhanced by their political connections, which linked them to outside networks, giving them additional resources of information and moral and intellectual support.[33]
Therefore, analysing the period which gave birth to the workers’ inquiry, we can say that we need: not only attention to the subterranean elements of proletarian consciousness, but also, no less vitally, political education, and effective organisers.  We need to be interested in these elements as well.
Inquiry, research, and building a working class communist movement
The point of this text is to allow me to explain, coherently and in the context of the existing tradition, what competing strands I see in the idea of the “workers’ inquiry” (and, more generally, class-composition related research), and which of those strands I see as being valuable and important.
I have argued that there are two principle strands within the idea of the workers’ enquiry: the activist, militant strand, which engages workers as the subjects of research and action; and the strand which seeks to analyse class composition as an aid to the orientation of revolutionary militants.  I argued, broadly, for a positive attitude toward the former (as one element in a broader agitational strategy), and a sceptical attitude toward the latter.
To be clear: the conception of the militant workers’ self-inquiry, articulated in the comments of Panzieri quoted above, I think is of tremendous political importance.  It suggests a means of engaging with workers which is more dialogic than didactic.  But how we integrate that dialogic intention into our organising will differ from time to time and place to place.  I think that the workers’ stories idea of Kämpa Tillsammans is probably the most interesting, clearly articulated contemporary idea about how to approach that practically (and the aspect ofhumour is important!).  I think that an inquiry which does not involve others – outside the existing communist layer – as active participants in setting the research agenda, and which does not integrate that with a project to promote militancy, will be of little usefulness; amounting to freelance academia, whether or not that is the intention.  But this means we have to prioritise the question: in what forms, now, are workers interested in sharing their experiences?  Or if they are not, most of all, interested in that, what are they interested in?
For these reasons, I am much more sceptical about the model of the very different “workers’ inquiry” promoted by Wildcat, which draws (as I see it) on a wholly different set of objectives, which I have suggested are drawn from Sergio Bologna’s interest in the changing structure of class composition as a potential guide to revolutionary orientation.  So, I think when we talk about inquiry proposals, it is best we talk in very definite terms, and try to answer the question, first: how does it engage people beyond our organisation (and beyond the ranks of organised politicos) as active participants?  (If it can’t, then isn’t that a sign that we ought to be doing something else instead, which can?)  And second: what is its militant content?  That is, what does it try to do on the level of political organisation?
So much for the workers’ inquiry.  Is all research which does not fit this conception useless?  No!  As it happens, I find the idea of a study into the class-composition (and capitalist functioning) of a city such as Bristol fascinating, and I would be interested in working with others to develop a fairly full account of changing patterns of work and industry in Britain, as well as the British economy’s connection to the wider global one.  My political motivation for this is that I want to understand the world that I live in, and I want other people to as well, although I’m not convinced either project would end up being able to inform anything on the level of strategy or propaganda.  For this reason, I don’t grant any overwhelming priority to such projects.
For example, let’s take the proposal – currently being considered by some comrades – for an enquiry into the capitalism and class composition in Bristol.  If the idea of the Bristol study got to the point of talking to workers, it could have real organising implications, which would be fantastic.  But this sort of research does not begin from working class experience – in the case of Bristol, for instance, it begins with asking questions such as: what industries are where?  Where do workers live?  What is the relation of those companies to global supply chains?
So what importance do I think this sort of research has?  I think it does have some importance, but not such importance that I think it ought to be a major drain on time, certainly not to the extent that it competes with workplace activity, in which collective self-inquiry and the promotion of militant activity ought to seamlessly merge.  Unlike the self-inquiry proper, I don’t think this ‘objective’ analysis of changing class structure is even necessarily more of a priority than answering questions such as – what is the function of trade unions in Britain today?  Or – what is the function of ‘humanitarian intervention’ in the modern world system?  Ultimately, I think any serious organisation must be able to address these ‘big’ political questions, as well as know about the structure of employment on the docks.  They are both necessary.
Postscript: the inquiry and our organisation
How do these attitudes relate to the recent proposals a number of London comrades have made about our paper and organisation?  In a number of ways.  First of all, because if we want to promote any method at all – whether it’s the workers’ inquiry or armed struggle – it’s necessary to organise to grow as a method of, and with the aim of, doing so.  There’s no point having a great idea such as the inquiry, if there’s no attempt to promote it.  Secondly, because having such a small organisation and such a small circulation paper doesn’t provide the basis for having a genuine class conversation, which would imply a certain diversity of experiential input, and ideally a certain plurality of involvement in certain industries, areas and job types – such that one can expect a reply from others informed by their own experience.  Thirdly, because, to return to the original point of the workers’ inquiry – building a communist movement amongst workers’ – the workers’ inquiry isn’t the only way to do that.  There are other methods, and neither Marx nor the Quaderni Rossi researchers pretended otherwise.  Diffuse propaganda, political education, agitation for direct action and solidarity, as well as other forms of activity, also have a role.  They have had for every remotely successful organisation in the past, and no doubt will in the future too.

[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.generation-online.org/t/tpanzieri.htm  Note than insofar as the inquiry is meant to lead to a superior “theoretical formation”, it is by addressing “ambiguities” – or presumably, errors – in existing theory.  The point is not to come up with theories about class composition in order to prove or disprove them.  The point is to use studies of class composition or working class experience to address the questions which workers and revolutionaries are already asking, because they are implied by the political challenges of the moment.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Fiat Mirafiori in Turin was the most important factory in developing  the practice of workers’ autonomy, and hosted the most important of the worker-student assemblies, the movement around which produced Lotta Continua in 1969.  What about now?http://cachef.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d897c94-1dce-11e0-badd-00144feab49a.html#axzz1MSZ9KC3D   http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2011-01-15/open-letter-from-the-workers-of-fiat-mirafiori Contra Bologna, the small factories didn’t turn out to be the next major site of struggle either.
[15] As I believe the comrades in Bristol are considering. . .
[24] A personal aside.  I previously proposed that we base a pamphlet on student occupations around asking participants to give their own accounts of the occupations, and draw out what seemed important to them.  Comrade L argued that we shouldn’t bother “scratching the issue” unless we use proper “research methods”.  I think we should be prepared to see an approach based on soliciting stories as a method as worthwhile as a 100 question survey.  It has some flaws, sure, but it also has the strength of recognising the subjectivity – in the jargon of 1960s Italian Marxism ‘encouraging the self-valorisation’ – of the participants, and their more equal agency in the inquiry process.  At any rate, it isn’t a more eclectic approach than that proposed by Ed Emery, who wants to use photography and folk song!
[28] The Johnson-Forest Tendency was a split from Trotskyism in the US (at different times, both the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Workers’ Party) lead by C.L.R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya and Grace Lee Boggs: its orientation can be identified as roughly ‘Marxist humanist’.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid
.


PUSSY RIOT: REVOLUTION GROWING OUT OF THE BARREL OF A GUITAR

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First off, I want to say that I would have liked to post Dan Berger's rather remarkable piece "Marilyn Buck's Playlist" here, but it probably just a bit too long even for Scission.  However, I very highly recommend it to all Scission readers.

So then what do I have for Cultural Monday.  I have Pussy Riot.  In a piece written by Claire Tancons (short bio at end of piece) in 2012 and reproduced at e-flux.

We all know about Pussy Riot and what is happening with these women right now.  Few, however, have taken the time to place them within a historical and truly political framework as Ms. Tancons does below.  One needs to understand  their storming of a Moscow cathedral was not merely a solitary act coming out of nowhere, but fits into a diverse sort of political history, whether they knew it or not (and my guess is that they did).  Their are some interesting parralels I see with Yippies, with Zapatistas, with Occupy, with all those big puppets we see at anti-Global Capital events around the world...and with a revolutionary tradition in Russia itself.  Ms. Tancons has a bit deeper analysis than that. 

To some Pussy Riot seems to be some silly little offspring of some bright, but overzelous young women...a cute story of protest and human rights.  It is interesting that President Putin and the religous rulers from the Russian Orthadox Church take them a bit more seriously than that.  They know what the danger of Pussy Riot is, just as the leaders of the Empire and the Board of Directors of Global Capital, as well as the State of Mexico, realize what the danger is from a lightly armed group of indigenous and campasenos stuck in the middle of southern Mexico reallly is.

Political power "may" grow out of the barrel of a gun, but revolutionary struggle, the creation of a truly new world takes place on more than one plane and in more than one way...and oddly enough I find myself saying sometimes the "gun" may not be the difference maker  at all.  Sometimes the "gun" itself, as we see with the Zapatistas, is merely part of the myth, part of the play, part of the symbolism, and little more.

 Pussy Riot didn't carry anything but guitars, some music, some lyrics.  That was more than enough to make some powerful people tremble.

FREE PUSSY RIOT 

The piece below is worth the read.


Carnival to Commons: Pussy Riot Punk Protest and the Exercise of Democratic Culture

Once again, the press has dismissed a popular movement as carnival—this time not Occupy Wall Street, but the anti-Putin protests. On March 1, 2012, in a Financial Times article titled “Carnival spirit is not enough to change Russia,” Konstantin von Eggert wrote, “One cannot sustain [the movement] on carnival spirit alone.”1 A little over a week later, Reuters sought to close the debate with an article by Alissa de Carbonnel, in which she announced, “The carnival is over for Russia’s three-month-old protest movement against Vladimir Putin.”2 On the contrary, it was just the beginning of Russia’s carnival.
Around the same time, Irina Sandomirskaja, professor of cultural studies at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies at Stockholm’s Södertörn University, wrote in an online article:
The world will be saved by the balagan (street theater playing farce).” In this carnivalesque paraphrase of the famous dictum by Dostoevsky, Lev Rubinstein, truly the brain and the tongue of Moscow’s recent political protests, and the one who currently occupies the position of “the Sun of Russian Poetry,” sums up the results of the political season that is swiftly moving to its end in the presidential election on March 4th.3
Described as “a fairground show, performed by itinerant players who traveled from fair to fair and frequented the Mardi Gras celebrations in Petersburg,” the balagan is no longer a mainstream popular entertainment in Russia.4 But its main figure, Petrushka (equivalent to Pierrot), the fool, might well be reincarnated in Lev Rubinstein, while other, heretofore unconceivable characters have since been added to the Russian carnival cast.

Illustration by Nicholas Blechmann for the New York Times. See 

1. Post-feminist Masquerade

Having stormed a half-empty Moscow cathedral in brightly colored tights, dresses, and ski masks, members of an all-female, self-proclaimed punk band performed a strident so-called punk prayer as a call to action to their fellow comrades. The arrest, subsequent trial, and current incarceration of Pussy Riot have since become history, but on that February 21, Pussy Riot’s antics hadn’t yet made it into the official record of the carnivalesque.
Did anyone notice the date? One Russian journalist, Mansur Mirovalev, of the Associated Press, retrospectively reported on Holy Mary, Drive Putin Away, Pussy Riot’s forty-second-long, lip-synched performance at Christ the Savior, that “[a]n outspoken cleric known for his liberal views call[ed] it a ‘legal outrage’ during Shrovetide week, when church tradition allows and even encourages carnival-like escapades and jokes.”5Shrovetide week is customarily designated for confession in the Christian calendar, rendering Pussy Riot’s catty song a strange confession. Perhaps more significantly, February 21, 2012 actually falls right on Mardi Gras day, the last sanctioned day of carnival revelry.
Pussy Riot performance at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour on February 21, 2012. See video here 
Given Pussy Riot’s careful calendrical choices, masterful use of symbols, and canny encoding of signs, it is hard to believe that it was merely coincidental that their iconoclastic performance took place on Fat Tuesday. Their first song, “Release the Cobblestones”—perhaps a veiled reference to the May 1968 slogan, “Sous les Pavés la Plage” (Under the Cobblestones, the Beach)—was released on November 7, 2011, the anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Pyotr Kropotkin, one of the founders of anarchism, was invoked in their song “Kropotkin Vodka,” which began as a series of impromptu performances, recorded and later released on the internet. Of their signature balaclavas, one band member, known as Shayba, said:
Masks are our visual style and a core principle of the group. We don’t want people to focus on us as individuals or biographies. We want people to look at us as an idea. It’s a principal [sic] of universality. We want people to think that anyone you see walking down the street can be a member of Pussy Riot.6
However, despite the band’s emphasis on anonymity, and contrary to their reported references to the American feminist artist-activist group Guerilla Girls and the broader riot grrrl and third-wave feminist movements, Pussy Riot appear to be engaged more in what Angela MacRobbie termed “post-feminist masquerade”—a return to patriarchal codes under the mantle of taken-for-granted feminism—than in feminist discourse tout court.7 “Even though we wear dresses, we make ‘unfeminine’ movements. It’s a multilevel way of breaking with traditional feminine behavior,” said band member Tyurya, calling into question the sophistication of their feminist rhetoric.8 And although Western journalists have fawned over Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s August 8 closing statement at Khamovnichesky Courthouse, it was a hodgepodge of multifarious references ranging from Stephen, a follower of the Apostles, to French Renaissance thinker Montaigne, including none of their feminist forbearers. In lieu of feminist subjectivity, Tolokonnikova referred to herself and her two partners, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, as “three girls” against whom “the political system has ganged up.” She recognized their “childish naïvete,” and she expressed feeling “overwhelmed” by Madonna’s support.9
Illustration by Ribber Hansson for the Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden.

2. Mock De-Crowning

In spite of Pussy Riot’s efforts to agitate the flag of Western feminism and its long tradition of femininity as masquerade, it might be more revealing to look at their performances through the lens of carnivalesque discourse—which is not to say that Pussy Riot articulated a carnivalesque discourse any more than they did a feminist one. In the aforementioned closing statement, they did, however, root their practice in a solid tradition of Russian dissidence, citing Fyodor Dostoevsky and Aleksandr Vvedensky as sources of inspiration. Reflecting upon their own fate prior to their two-year imprisonment in a Soviet-style prison camp, they recounted biographical anecdotes—Vvedensky’s falsified death certificate and Dostoevsky’s staged firing squad—more than artistic achievements. Pussy Riot took Vvedensky’s “bad rhyme” as a model for their own slack sound, but not Dostoevsky’s invention of what Mikhail Bakhtin termed “the polyphonic novel,” a hallmark of his theory of carnivalization or carnival influence in literature. And yet, Pussy Riot’s performances are an almost perfect illustration of Bakhtin’s notion of carnivalesque acts and carnivalesque categories, as described in his Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics.10
The punk prayer, in its call for the removal of President Putin from office in the very cathedral where Patriarch Kirill officiates, is an updating and a doubling of the decrowning of the carnival king ritual, which is, according to Bakhtin, one of the dual aspects of the primary carnivalesque act of mock crowning/decrowning. Pussy Riot killed two kings with one song. If some Russian citizens felt that they had been robbed of the crowning of the king because of flawed elections, they wanted to make sure to take part in its decrowning through their protests. Pussy Riot’s performance acted as the catalyst for a process already underway but condemned to incompleteness: the first element of the dualistic carnival ritual, mock crowning, had itself been a mockery, for it was at the public’s expense rather than Putin’s. According to Bakhtin’s progressive view of history, the dual nature of the ritual in a “carnival sense of the world”—a world unknown to Putin—is “[…] the shift-and-renewal […] of all structure and order, of all authority and all (hierarchical) position.”11
Illustration by Ribber Hansson for the Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden.
If Pussy Riot greatly contributed to the verbal debasement of Putin with an onslaught of obscenities, as in their January 20 “Putin Pissed Himself” Red Square performance, the crowd had already begun the war of words with slogans such as “Khutin Pui,” or “Puck Futin,” a sly inversion of “Fuck Putin.”12 Unlike in the American Occupy movement, where bankers and billionaires, rather than President Obama, were the target, the Russian protests are characterized by—indeed, were born of the desire to—dismantle the figureheads of the state and the church, the whole patriarchal superstructure as phallocratic supercherie. Symptomatically, the head of the Russian state and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church are referred to not by their formal titles as President and Patriarch, but by their last names Putin and Kirill, emphasizing the personalization of power and the illegitimacy of their function. Pussy Riot’s songs’ attack on Putin’s person is a response to what Ken Hirshkop has called “the official obsession with the proper name” that, according to Bakhtin, “signifies an intention to prolong an identity over time, without regard for specific qualities or achievements”—a more than sufficient summary for the musical chair arrangement played by Putin with Dmitry Medvedev.13
While carnivalesque acts have often been reduced to the order of the pseudo-revolutionary, is it not compelling to witness their repeated occurrence in contemporary protest movements, and might it not be useful to understand their function in the arc of a movement’s life, in this case to understand Pussy Riot’s emergence within the chronology of the Russian Protests? Here it becomes possible to observe Pussy Riot in light of Bakhtin’s Dostoevsky in particular, not least because it stems from the Russian context. This is not so much to enforce the idea of the carnivalesque as the coming revolution, or to emphasize the radical politics of these movements, but rather to understand why and how particular, formerly anachronistic cultural forms return to blend with current techniques of communication and bring momentum to contemporary emancipatory struggles—or, in not so many words, how culture informs politics.

Supporters of opposition punk band Pussy Riot participating in a music video shot in Berlin for Canadian electro-pop artist Peaches. Photo: AP.

3. Aesthetic for Democracy

Both Ken Hirschkop’s Mikhail Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy (1999) and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Declaration (2012) deal with the notion of democracy, which the former sees as an irrelevant, and the latter as a corrupted, political project. Published the year of the Global Carnival Against Capital, Hirschkop’s book sticks strictly to Bakhtinian exegesis, while Hardt and Negri’s pamphlet, written in response to the 2011 movements, dispenses with the carnivalesque, which they had previously taken into account in Multitudes (2004).
One of the first things the Russian protests did, as all movements do, was bring people together. For Bakhtin, this is part of the carnivalesque category of “free and familiar contact among people”14intended to break hierarchical relationships, facilitate the release of laughter, and dispel fear. In a well-known passage, he writes that “[carnival’s] sense of the world [as one great communal performance] liberat[es] one from fear.”15 For Hirschkop, however, contrary to what has often been said, Bakhtin’s fearwas not so much the result of Soviet Russia’s crackdown on people perceived as dissidents as much as it was the result of the belief in archetypal human emotions. For Hardt and Negri, “the construction of political affects […] requires physical proximity,”16 and they characterize the process by which it occurs as “a being together.” On the topic of fear, to which they devote a section complete with examples from Tahrir Square to Puerta del Sol, they write:
We cannot fully explain how these militants achieved such a state of fearlessness, which must have been due, in large part, to their being together, but we can easily recognize its physical power and importance. Power cannot survive when its subjects free themselves from fear.17
While it is not possible for me to suggest that carnivalesque laughter could be at play in Egypt, it is easy to imagine that it is in Spain and in Russia, both of which have longstanding carnivalesque traditions. To translate a Bakhtinian concept into terminology from Hardt and Negri, laughter is a counterpower to fear. The origins of Russia’s carnivalesque are clear, while Spain’s are easy to sum up: for Bakhtin, Cervantes’Don Quixote is a prime example of carnivalization and, as demonstrated by Victor Stoichita in Goya: The Last Carnival (1999), Goya’s work was infused with a deep understanding of the carnivalesque. So, the fearlessness Hardt and Negri could not fully explain is given elements of explanation from a cultural theory with which they are familiar but chose not to resort to in this instance.
But one of Hardt and Negri’s undisclosed carnivalesque contributions in Declaration is the idea of the “inversion of the subjective figures of the crisis in figures of power.”18 The very notion of inversion of subject positions is a classic carnivalesque process, while their further characterization of some of these subjectivities at the mediatized, the securitized, and the represented is particularly relevant to Russia’s brand of carnivalesque protest. (The other subjective figure of crisis is the indebted, which is particularly relevant to the American Occupy Wall Street movement.) What are Pussy Riot’s members, if not emblematic figures of the represented (which combine all other figures) who have empowered themselves and helped empower others? What have Pussy Riot done, if not given an iconic representation to the crisis of representative democracy? Pussy Riot have played no small part in providing heightened visual currency and affording new subjective agency to longtime followers and recent recruits (among whom are their previously skeptical parents themselves).
Pussy Riot’s performances—currently the apex of the carnivalesque arc of the Russian protests—are no doubt creating an aesthetic for democracy, according to Bakhtinian principles, as revisited by Hirschkop. Are they also constructing the commons, as Hardt and Negri envision? How many steps lie between the creation of a democratic aesthetic and the construction of a democratic political project? Is the carnivalesque a prefiguration of the political? Old tropes, however ineffectual, are easier to reformulate than to avoid altogether. Let’s rephrase: Is the recurring emergence of the carnivalesque in protest movements a function of their efficiency at clearing the space for the work of the commons? On Hardt and Negri’s checklist, only one of the four prerequisites for constructing the commons has been met: “the ability to create social bonds with each other.” The “power of singularities to communicate through differences” might only happen when a cross-section of Russia’s population, not just Moscow’s “cognitive precariat,” takes to the streets.19 The “real security of the fearless” might have come to a temporary halt with Pussy Riot’s imprisonment; it might also have heartened other activists to carry forth. The “capacity for democratic political action” might begin with a long appeal process in order to repeal an undemocratic verdict.

Pussy Riot supporters place masks on a monument to WWII heroes at an underground station in Moscow. Photo: Yevgeny Feldman Novaya Gazeta/AP.
Hirschkop spends the length of his book grappling with Bakhtin’s separation of carnival culture and democratic politics, a weakness of the political potential of carnival, as most have argued. In his conclusion, he offers the following reckoning in support of the importance of the role of culture in shaping movements:
The democratization of social life is more than ideology; it cannot be reduced to the homage that every secular political movement pays to the authority of the people. A national vernacular, a mass electronic communications network, a system of population-wide formal education, and techniques for the mobilization of crowds in public spaces are facts embedded in modern ethical life, not mere constraints or tools, but realities that shape contemporary social relations. They may be politically mobile, and they are by no means either universal realities or ones destined to last forever, but for a large part of the world they represent a level of popular mobilization and power no political movement can ignore.20
This bears a striking resemblance to early-twenty-first-century Russia. That Putin seemingly chose to ignore the democratic nature of cultural life in Russia, even as it surfaced from beneath his undemocratic politics, is not surprising given the blinding nature of autocratic rule. That Pussy Riot dared confront him and create such a stir by exercising their democratic rights amped up with carnivalesque cultural memory might not yet be conclusive but can surely be conducive to hope.

Jacques Callot, Farnos, the Red Nose, 17th century. Russian humorous woodcut, depicting a pig-riding jester. Farnos was the prototype of the Russian folk theater’s Petrushka, a source of inspiration for the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.

4. Return of the Balagan

Pussy Riot have already garnered a wide following around the world, albeit more so in Europe than anywhere else, and they are under discussion to copyright their name. On the day of or in the days immediately following their trial, balaclava-clad copycats, sometimes armed with guitars, attacked cathedrals and churches and other Christian religious symbols, which seem to have been their main target. A small group managed to climb up the Grossmuenster Cathedral in Zurich to tie up a monumental Pussy Riot Banner on the façade. On Sunday 19, two male Germans and a female Austrian were reported to have interrupted a church service at Cologne’s cathedral. The most carnivalesque aspect of these acts, in the absence of a coherent target, was their spontaneous solidarity. As for the members of the topless feminist activist group FEMEN, who assailed Patriarch Kirill on a visit to Kiev and used a chainsaw to cut down a cross, they missed the mark altogether with spectacular but uncarnivalesque actions devoid of the identificatory and counter-identificatory tensions that can provoke reversals of roles or functions like the symbolic decrowning of Putin and defrocking of Kirill.
“Russia takes to the streets to say goodbye to the regime,” says one free member of Pussy Riot in the latest released song, “Putin sets the Fires to Revolution.” Russia has been a country of revolutions before, and Pussy Riot has lit and extinguished their own fires in prior performances. Of the good intentions paving the road to democracy, Hardt and Negri joke about “[…] the Soviets who battling capitalist domination thought they were headed for a new democracy but ended up in a bureaucratic state machine.”21 There is little hope that an old-style communism or a nominal democracy will inaugurate a new era of cultural revolution. At the very least, Pussy Riot is well on its way to consolidating Russia’s democratic culture. “Russia takes to the streets to say goodbye to the regime./ Russia takes to the streets to say goodbye to the regime.” The refrain might well take Pussy Riot and their growing mass of supporters to the top charts, and the balagan then will make a full comeback to save the world.
×
The author welcomes any comments on this essay at carnivalagainstcapital@gmail.com




Claire Tancons is a curator, writer and researcher whose work focuses on carnival, public ceremonial culture, and popular movements. She was the associate curator for Prospect.1, the first New Orleans biennial, and Contemporary Arts Center, also in New Orleans (2007-9), as well as a curatorial consultant for Harlem Biennale (2010-12). As curator for the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008) and guest curator for CAPE09, the second Cape Town biennial (2009), she organized processions mixing the traditions of political demonstrations and carnival parades, opening the way to what has since been seen as a new model of curatorship, an example of cross-cultural curating. Upcoming projects will take place at Göteborgs Konsthall (2012-13) and Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans (2013-14).


WHITE SKIN PRIVILEGE: THIS TIME HE IS ARRESTED, BOOKED, AND HELD WITHOUT BAIL

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It isn't even about George Zimmerman anymore.  

Yeah, the guy should have already been serving a life sentence for the murder of Trayvon Martin...or desperately trying to avoid execution.   Hopefully, he will now get some time for his latest assault on a woman.  This time on his current, well, maybe not so current anymore, girlfriend.  He is a total, worthless, racist, misogynist, looser.  He is a murderer.

What his latest bit of nastiness shows ever so clearly is just how white skin privilege works on virtually any level in this country.  The guy shoots an unarmed African American young man and the police send him home...then after the outrage he gets charged...then a jury says he is not guilty of shooting and killing the young man he shot and killed.  Now, things are different.  He points a gun at someone and is promptly arrested by police and charged with felony assault.  Same state, by the way.  What's up.

Duh.

Black youth.  White woman.

This is not in any way meant to diminish what he did yesterday.  Domestic assault and violence against women is epidemic.  Patriarchal  capitalism is not exactly well known historically for caring all that much about violence against women.  However, and still, one person was white and one was black and the results of the case are polar opposites...even though in one case the person was threatened and in one case the person was killed...and the opposite results go against the person who was killed.

What the hell?

There is no surprise here.  It's called white skin privilege.  It operates even for victims of crimes (and even for a light skinned hispanic man (who gets deemed an "honorary white") when the other guy is most definitely black. It is white supremacy.  It is white skin privilege. It is America.

As it is written at So Lets Talk About,


Immediately. Not six weeks later.

Immediately, for pointing a gun at someone. Not for murdering an unarmed person.

Immediately. He was arrested, taken to jail, forced to spend the night, and is waiting on a bail hearing this afternoon where he may be forced to wear an electronic monitoring device.  

Maybe if he had just pointed a gun at Trayvon Martin, he would’ve been convicted of an actual charge.


Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t police called to the scene when Zimmerman was moving out of his wife’s house in September?  I think I see what’s going on here; the pattern is so clear.

Zimmerman isn’t a violent man with control issues at all.  He just doesn’t like when women tell him to get out of their house.  If he would get an actual job, he might be able to pay his own rent, but that’s beside the point.  The lesson here is, if you want to preserve your safety and keep your name out of the news, don’t kick George Zimmerman’s freeloading ass off your couch, or he will probably break something and pull a gun on you.

Another thing: Zimmerman isn’t violent…he just has a lot of feelings and it’s hard for him to contain them all.  He doesn’t react to situations the way normal people do.

Tell him to get out of your house?  He pulls a gun on you.

Walk around carrying corner store snacks?  He shoots you.

Or we might take a look at  these words at  Young, Broke, and Beautiful:



George Zimmerman was arrested today for “felony aggravated assault with a weapon, misdemeanor battery-domestic violence and criminal mischief.” 

Why?

He pointed a gun at a white woman.

Let me be REALLY clear here: I am white, and I am a woman. I am not, in any way, shape, or form, saying that domestic violence isn’t a massive fucking problem. I am not saying that Samantha Scheibe wasn’t absolutely right to fear for her life, call the police, and press charges. I am 100% on Samantha Scheibe’s side—but the point I am making is not about her.

This is a man who, as I’m sure you can all *recite* by now, saw a black teenage boy named Trayvon Martin walking down the street, at which point Zimmerman the police, followed Martin in his car, stopped his car and got out, taking his loaded gun with him, to follow Martin, and shot him to death. Martin was walking home from the store with Skittles and an iced tea.

Shot him to death. Police couldn’t give a shit. They let him go. You all know the rest of the disgusting story, racist story.

The guy points a gun at a white woman? He’s arrested, booked, and held without bail.

It's so clear you don't even have to go to some radical or even particularly progressive oriented political or anti-racist website to find a good quote.

But you could go to a blog called New Possibilities which describes itself as "A Bold, New, Black Voice Speaking Truth to Power Without Fear"  if you want to feel some real anger:


After that menace, George Zimmerman, lynched our brother Trayvon Martin, white conservatives and their negro puppets like Crystal Wright rationalized and justified Zimmerman's actions. They painted Trayvon as the aggressor, as the violent one, as the thug, as the hooligan, as the troublemaker, as the nigger. 


They conveniently ignored George Zimmerman's relevant, violent and racist past. (Source: George Zimmerman's relevant past by Jonathan Capehart). They ignored his 2005 arrest for resisting an officer with violence. They ignored the 2005 restraining order entered against him for domestic violence. They ignored the fact he made 46 calls to police to report on "suspicious" black people. They ignored his cousin, Witness No. 9, when she said that Zimmerman "does not like black people". They ignored Witness No. 9 when she said that Zimmerman "is a very confrontational person".


Now that Zimmerman has threatened two precious, lilly white women with guns, maybe his defenders will finally realize that George Zimmerman is a menace to society.

Maybe the jurors will finally realize that they released murderer. Maybe they will realize that Trayvon Martin's blood is on their hands. 


How many more people must he threaten before he is finally imprisoned?  How many more people must he harm before he is finally imprisoned?  How many more people must he kill before he is finally imprisoned? 

No, as much as this IS about George Zimmerman, it also IS NOT.

Our old friend Chauncey Devega over at We Are Responsible Negroes  has something to add to the matter.


ARE YOU SURPRISED?  GEORGE ZIMMERMAN MAY HAVE BEEN ABLE TO KILL TRAYVON WITH IMPUNITY, BUT IF YOU POINT A SHOTGUN AT A PREGNANT WHITE WOMAN YOU GET ARRESTED

Trayvon Martin is still dead.

In the months and years before he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman was arrested for fighting with the police, was accused of molesting a family member, committing domestic battery, violated the rules of being a member of the neighborhood watch by carrying a weapon while on "duty", and was on mood altering drugs.

George Zimmerman was and is a ticking time bomb of violence. And I would not be surprised if Zimmerman is eventually diagnosed as being sociopathic.

George Zimmerman has been arrested again--not for murdering Trayvon Martin--but for threatening his pregnant girlfriend with a shotgun.

I wrote many essays about the Trayvon Martin murder case as I tried to work through what his death by a street vigilante revealed about the intersections of race, crime, and the law in the United States.

Yet, months after Zimmerman's acquittal, I am still vexed by how conservatives, colorblind racists, and the Gun Right (to the degree such a cohort can be disentangled) could flock to his defense. He is a serial loser. Why make Zimmerman the flag bearer and martyr figure for the cause of "gun rights?" Who could reasonably imagine George Zimmerman as a "victim?"

The answer lies in the power of the white racial frame to make insanity seem reasonable, and to normalize the monstrous. In all, racism, guns, and "reasonable doubt" trump the rights of black Americans, and other people of color, to be safe in their personhood from the violent prerogatives and prejudices of the White Gaze.

In private, many of Zimmerman's defenders likely knew that he was an irresponsible person and guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin. However, their public commitment to white supremacy and symbolic racism trumps reason, ethics, and a broad humanism which embraces black Americans as worth the same protections and citizenship rights as white people.

Black Americans, because of their historical memory and lived experiences, are highly attuned to threats of racially motivated violence by people like George Zimmerman. The Black Freedom Struggle would not have triumphed over the racial terrorism of slavery, as well as Jim and Jane Crow, without those survival skills.

George Zimmerman's arrest for domestic violence is only a "surprise" for the most in denial and willfully ignorant members of the American public--and for those whose commitment to the Gun Gods have otherwise damaged their ability to think in a critical and reflective manner.

During the murder trial, Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jaentel was mocked, derided, and publicly lambasted by George Zimmerman's defenders and the Right-wing media. Her retelling of Trayvon's fear-laced observation that he was being stalked by a "crazy ass cracker" was proven accurate (again) by Zimmerman's arrest for domestic violence and threatening his pregnant girlfriend with a shotgun on Monday of this week.

As others have smartly observed, several months ago George Zimmerman learned that he could stalk and kill a black teenager for the crime of walking down the street "without permission". George Zimmerman has now learned that you go to jail for threatening to shoot a pregnant white woman with a shotgun.

I wonder: how long until George Zimmerman is stripped of his honorary Whiteness by the White Right? Or does the Right's misogyny and love of guns trump their defense of white women against domestic violence?




TERN ISLAND IS CALLING ON YOU TO SAVE THE EARTH

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Has it really come to this?  Should we just go ahead and declare a Pacific Ocean island a Superfund site.  It may just be happening actually.  


Tern Island.  Ever hear of it?  Tern Island is a remote island in the French Frigate Shoals of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Tern Island is home to nesting seabirds, endangered Hawaiian monk seals, and threatened Hawaiian green sea turtles.  Hmm, sounds sweet. Tern Island, was formed into a runway to serve as a refueling stop for planes enroute to Midway during World War II. The original seawall, runway, and some of the buildings remain.  Well, maybe not that sweet.




Starbulletin writes:



From the air, Tern Island looks like no more than a gleaming white runway in a dreamy turquoise sea. For those with a little more imagination, the 34-acre island, with buildings on its west end and waves breaking on its east end, looks like an aircraft carrier going at full speed.

But if the island is a ship, it's no military vessel. As the main biological field station of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, Tern Island is more of a Noah's Ark. This 34-acre strip of land is the heart and soul of Hawaii's protected marine animals.

Workers  live in the U-shaped building, a former Coast Guard barracks. The runway, in foreground, stretches the length of the island. The rest of the land and surrounding waters belong to the wildlife.

Strange place, this Tern Island.


So whats up at Tern Island and the surrounding atolls.  According to Honolulu Civil Beat:



The Center for Biological Diversity, a mainland conservation group, has taken the unusual step of pushing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to designate the Northwestern Hawaiian islands and parts of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as a Superfund cleanup site.


“We think that plastic pollution is an increasing threat to our nation’s wildlife and particularly the wildlife in the northwest Hawaiian islands where you would hope, as a marine monument, it would have extra protections,” said Emily Jeffers, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

 She said 267 species have been documented to have been affected by plastics, through entanglements or ingestion.

“It’s a problem that’s getting worse and worse as we use more disposable plastic," Jeffers said.

If it gets designated as a superfund site on account of plastic marine debris, it would be a first.

The EPA has now said it will study the situation at Tern Island.  The LA Times reports:



“The EPA intends to evaluate potential and observed releases of hazardous substances from Tern Island, including hazardous substances that absorb to plastic marine debris in the surrounding surface water,” EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld wrote in a Nov. 14 letter to the group.

Blumenfeld wrote that the area also “presents a scientifically meaningful opportunity to evaluate the potential toxicological impact of plastic marine debris ingestion on highly sensitive receptors.”

 Note: The group also asked the EPA to study the Pacific Garbage Patch, a high concentration of swirling garbage, derelict fishing gear and tiny debris particles sometimes described as a “plastic soup.” 


Plastic free times writes:



The use of disposable, single-use plastic items has effectively turned our oceans into plastic soup.  While it is true that not all marine garbage is plastic, current peer-reviewed research clearly indicates that plastic is the dominant material littering the ocean, and its proportion consistently varies between 60% and 80% of the total garbage in the ocean.


In addition to the plastic pollution found in the ocean, researchers are finding more and more plastic washing up on the shores of remote islands, and in the bellies of dead sea birds and marine mammals. In its August 2006 Pollution Bulletin, the Marine Mammal Commission wrote, "The accumulating debris poses increasingly significant threats to marine mammals, seabirds, turtles, fish, and crustaceans. The threats are straightforward and primarily mechanical. Individual animals may become entangled in loops or openings of floating or submerged debrijs or they may ingest plastic materials. Animals that become entangled may drown, have their ability to catch food or avoid predators impaired, or incur wounds from abrasive or cutting action of attached debris. Ingested plastics may block digestive tracts, damage stomach linings, or lessen feeding drives. The deceptively simple nature of the threat, the perceived abundance of marine life, and the size of the oceans have, until recently, caused resource managers to overlook or dismiss the proliferation of potentially harmful plastic debris as being insignificant. However, developing information suggests that the mechanical effects of these materials affect many marine species in many ocean areas, and that these effects justify recognition of persistent plastic debris as a major form of ocean pollution."
As important as all that is, Tern Island is just not about sea birds and turtles.

Clearly this is merely one more way in which Capital, using all of us as tools, is going about its endless destruction of our environment...once and for all.  It can't be left up to the fish and other marine life to tackle this on their own.  We, you, me, all of us have got to realize right now that everything is in the balance now.  Global Capital has got to end before THE END.  That is not something that is going to just happen, but it is something that has to happen. We need a revolutionary environmental movement that understands that Capital is behind the destruction of the planet, not some schnook who takes his groceries home in a plastic bag, not some poor workers who drives to his job in an old Ford, not the peasant woman in Guatemala who has to use old wood to cook her dinner and a nearby stream to bathe.  Yes, of course, all those things hurt, but the schnook, the worker, the woman cannot be THE TARGET of a global revolution and a defense of Earth.  Global Capital has got to be the target once and for all.  The times for tiny reforms and feel good measures is gone.  Maybe "time" is gone, I don't know.The EPA is NOT going to save us, that much is for sure.  


Again, what I do know if the multitude is to have a future on this planet, well, the time for talk has past.Some of my friends think I am an alarmist, but I think they have their leftist heads buried in the sand...and on Tern Island that will get you dead.


Tern Island is just some dinky little split of land out in the middle of nowhere, but Turn Island is calling out to us for help, not just for itself, but for the whole dang planet.



The following is from Grist.






This Pacific island has so much plastic pollution it might become a Superfund site

Tern Island
Forest and Kim Starr
There’s so much plastic crap floating in the Pacific Ocean and washing up on shorelines that one atoll in the midst of the mess could be declared a Superfund site.
Tern Island is the largest island in the French Frigate Shoals, a coral archipelago 550 miles northwest of Honolulu, part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Replete with lagoons, wildlife, and alluring white sands, the island should be a paradise on Earth. But it’s not. Plastic pollution there is so bad that a year ago the Center for Biological Diversity asked the feds to consider adding Tern Island and the rest of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, plus a part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that’s in federal waters, to itsSuperfund list — a list of the nation’s most polluted places. From the petition [PDF]:
The reefs and shores of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands are littered with hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic garbage. Derelict fishing gear and debris entangles innumerable fish, sea birds, and marine mammals, often resulting in injury and death. Plastic pollution harms wildlife via entanglement, ingestion, and toxic contamination, causes substantial economic impacts, and is a principal threat to the quality of the environment.
A Superfund designation would help mobilize federal efforts to clean up the area. But it would be unprecedented — out of the hundreds of sites on the Superfund list, none was put there because of plastic pollution. “It’s not really common for people to make petitions like this,” an EPA spokesman said after the petition was filed.
But after giving the unusual request some consideration, the feds are on board with a preliminary study that will help decide whether such a listing is warranted.
Well, they’re kind of on board.
The EPA and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service don’t plan to study the whole region as requested, but they have committed to assessing whether Tern Island, which at 25 acres is the area’s biggest island, should be added to the Superfund list. From Honolulu Civil Beat:
[W]hat has distinguished Tern Island from the other islands, and piqued the EPA’s interest, is that the island’s monk seals are showing elevated levels of PCB’s. The toxic, cancer-causing chemicals may be entering the marine food chain through tiny plastics, said Dean Higuchi, a spokesman for the EPA. …
The environmental study will focus on whether toxic substances are entering the marine food chain through micro-plastics and potentially accumulating at increasing levels, as well as the general effects of micro-plastics on marine creatures and wildlife.
The EPA is also concerned about old landfill sites with buried electrical equipment on the island, which may be releasing PCBs and other hazardous contaminants. Tern Island was the site of a U.S. Naval Station during World War II. 
The federal study could ultimately affect an area larger than the 25-acre island. Improving the government’s understanding of micro-plastics in the environment could lead to more stringent controls on pollution from storm-water drains and water-treatment plants.



"WE HAVE IMAGINATION, THEY ONLY HAVE PLANS WITH TERMINAL OPTIONS"

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Here is something I don't think I've done before, but I'm reading this book about the Zapatistas and have this sudden urge to be of more assistance.    The book itself is a description and disucssion of what the its Introduction calls the first post modern revolution (not a term, I like particularly, but I get it):

The first “postmodern revolution” presented itself to the world through a complex web of propaganda in every available medium: the colorful communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos, the ski masks, uniforms, dolls, murals, songs, and weapons both symbolic and real. By proliferating a profound and resonant set of myths, symbols, and grand historical gestures calculated to reflect their ideologies, organizing methodologies, and cultural values, the Zapatistas helped set into motion a global uprising, and the awareness that behind this uprising is a renewed vision of history.

The Zapatistas have figured out that they need more than the guns they have to build a new society in the middle of an old one.

What can I do?  Well, how about publishing their latest communique.  The communique is a great example of the way the Zapatistas have gone about things.  This, like all the communiques before it, is not bland Marxist tract or a bunch of piled on revolutionary rhetoric.  It is something else entirely.

I have lots of friends who have very serious doubts about the whole Zapatista enterprise.  You know what?  I just think they don't get it.  They don't get that this just isn't "your old man's world' anymore.

Anyway, here ya go from Dorset Chiapas Solidarity.



44. EZLN COMMUNIQUE FOR THEIR THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY: REWIND 3
NOVEMBER 17, 2013
REWIND 3.
Here we explain the reasons behind this strange title and those that will follow, narrate the story of an exceptional encounter between a beetle and a perplexing being (that is, more perplexing than the beetle) and the reflections of no immediate relevance or importance which occurred therein; and finally, given a particular anniversary, the Sub tries to explain, unsuccessfully, how the Zapatistas see their own history.
November 2013
To whom it may concern:

WARNING – As noted in the text entitled “The Bad and Not So Bad News,” the writings that preceded that text had not yet been published. Ergo, what we are going to do is “rebobinar” (that is, “rewind” the tape) to what should have appeared on the Day of the Dead. Having rewound, you may then read in inverse order the inverse order in which the texts will appear and that way you will…hmm…forget it, I’ve even managed to confuse myself. The point is that you get the gist of the “retrospective” perspective. It’s as if one is going in one direction but later returns to see how they got going in that direction in the first place. Got it? No?
WARNING TO THE WARNING – The following texts do not contain any reference to present, current, important, or pressing situations, nor do they have any political references or implications or anything of the kind. They are “innocent” texts, as are all the writings of the self-designated “supcomandante of stainless steel” (that is, me). Any resemblance or similarity to real persons or events is purely coincidental and quite frankly schizophrenic…yes, just like the national and international situation where it is clear that…okay, okay, okay, no politics.
WARNING SQUARED – In the highly unlikely event that you feel that what is said below refers to you, you are categorically mistaken…or you are shameless fan of ad hoc conspiracy theories (which can be translated as “for every failure, there is a conspiracy theory that can explain everything and therefore repeat the mistakes.”)
Alright then.
-*-
P.S. Durito’s First Encounter with the Cat-Dog.
Durito was solemn. But not with that false posturing of government officials the world over. He was serious in that sense of when one is hit in the face by a heavy loss and there’s nothing one can do about it other than curse…or tell a story.
Don Durito of the Lacandón lights his pipe, this errant and wandering knight, comforter of the afflicted, delight of children, unrequited yearning of women and others, unattainable standard for men, nightmare of tyrant and despots, uncomfortable thesis for ignorant sophists.
Entranced in the light of our insomnia, he narrates, almost in a whisper, for me to transcribe:
THE STORY OF THE CAT-DOG
(How Durito met the Cat-Dog and what they said, in those dark morning hours, about fanaticism)
At first glance, the cat-dog looks like a dog…ok, maybe more like a cat…or a dog…until it meows…or a cat…until it barks.
The cat-dog is unknown to terrestrial and marine biologists (in which category of living things would it fit?), an irresolvable case for psychology (neural surgery cannot locate the part of the brain that defines dogness orcatness), a mystery for anthropology (can traditions and customs be simultaneously similar and antithetical?), a source of despair for jurisprudence (what rights and duties emerge from both being and not being?), and the holy grail of genetic engineering (it is impossible to privatize that elusive DNA). In sum: it is the missing link that would bring down the entire Darwinist laboratory, seminar, symposium, and much-reiterated scientific fashion.
But let me tell you what happened.
As is the rule, it was the dark hours of the early morning. There was just enough light to cast a shadow. I walked calmly, taking steps only by memory. Then, I clearly heard someone say:
A fanatic is someone who, in shame, hides their doubt.”
Internally agreeing with the assertion, I approached and found the voice. Without any introduction, I asked:
“Ah, so you are… a dog.”
“Meow,” he replied.
“…Oh, okay, a cat then,” I said tentatively.
Woof,” he replied.
Okay, a cat-dog,” I said to him and to myself.
There you go,” he said… or I thought he said.
So well, how’s life?” I asked (and I transcribed without hesitation, determined not to be surprised by anything, since it was a beetle who was dictating this exceptional story to me).
Sometimes it’s worthwhile,” he responded with a kind of purr.  “At times it’s like cats and dogs,” he growled.
Is it a problem of identity?” I ask, lighting a pipe and taking out my multi-touch smartphone-tablet (in reality it’s more like a spiral notebook, but Durito wants to appear very modern—transcribers note).
Nah, one doesn’t choose who they are, but rather who they could be,” the cat-dog barked disdainfully. “And life is no more than that complicated transition, achieved or truncated, from one thing to the other,” it added with a meow.
So then, cat or dog?” I asked.
Cat-dog,” he said, as if stating the obvious.
And what brings you to this area?”
“A she, what else.”
“Ah.”
“I am going to sing to her, because some cats can actually sing you know.”
“Umm… before your serenade, which this female who stirs you will no doubt find sublime, can you clarify for me what you said at the beginning of this story?”
“About fanaticism you mean?”
“Yes, it was something like, ‘there are those who hide their doubts behind irrational devotion.’”
“Exactly.”
“But, how does one avoid ending up in one of the sinister rooms of that grim house of mirrors that is fanaticism? How does one resist the pressure and the blackmail to join in and embrace religious or lay fanaticism,.. the oldest kind, yes, but not the only current one?
It’s simple,” said the cat-dog laconically, “don’t join.
Build many houses, each their own. Abandon the fear of difference.
Because there is something that is the same as or worse than a religious fanatic, and that is an anti-religious fanatic, or secular fanaticism. And I say that it could be worse because the latter uses reason as an alibi.
And, of course, it has its equivalents: homophobia and sexism, phobia of heterosexuality and hembrismo [the assumed moral superiority of women]. And you can add to this the long etcetera of the history of humanity.
 The fanatics of race, color, creed, gender, politics, sport, etc., are, in the end, fanatics of themselves. They all share the same fear of difference. And they pigeonhole the entire world in the closed box of exclusive options: “if you aren’t this, than you must be its opposite.”
“Are you saying, my esteemed sir, that those who criticize sports fanatics are just as bad as the sports fanatics?Durito interrupts.
It is the same thing. You have, for example, politics and sports, both professional: in both cases, the fanatics think that the professional is the one that counts; in both cases they are merely spectators applauding or booing the opponents, celebrating victories that are not their own and mourning losses that are not theirs. In both, they blame the players, the referee, the field, the opponent; in both they hope that “next time we’ll win,” both think that a change in coach, strategy, or tactic will resolve everything. Both pursue and harass the fans of the opposition; both ignore the fact that the problem is with the system.”
“Are you talking about soccer?” Durito asks as he takes out a ball that he himself autographed.
“Not only about soccer. In everything, the problem is who commands, the owner, he who makes the rules.
In both spheres, whatever is not paid is scorned: field or street soccer, the politics that doesn’t converge with electoral conjunctures. ‘If it doesn’t pay, then why do it?’ they ask.”
Ah, are you talking about politics?”
“Not at all. Although, for example, with every passing day it is more evident that what they call ‘the Modern Nation-State’ is a heap of debris for sale, and that the respective political classes are determined to rebuild, again and again, the rooftop of a crumbling house of cards, without realizing that the deck is completely torn and tattered, unable to stand upright itself, let alone support something on top.”
“Hmm… it would be very difficult to put this in a tweet,” Durito says as he counts to see if it could fit into 140 characters.
The modern political class is fighting over who will be the pilot of a plane that crashed a long time ago into neoliberal reality,” pronounces the cat-dog, and Durito thanks him with a bow.
So, what is to be done?” asks Durito as he demurely stows his Chiapas Jaguars banner.
Avoid the trap which holds that freedom is the power to choose between the two imposed options.
All categorical options are a trap. There are not only two paths, just as there are not just two colors, two sexes, or two beliefs. The answer is neither here nor there. It is better to make a new path that goes where one wants to go.”
“And the conclusion?” Durito asks.
Neither dog nor cat. Cat-dog, not at your service.
And let no one judge nor condemn that which they do not understand, because difference is a sign that all is not lost, the we still have a lot to see and to hear, that there are still other worlds to discover…”
And with that he left, the cat-dog that is, which, as its name indicates, has the disadvantages of both dog and cat… and the advantages of neither (if there are any).
Dawn had already come when I heard a sublime mix of meow and bark. It was the cat-dog serenading, out-of-tune, the light of our sweetest dreams.
And in some early morning hour, perhaps on a still distant calendar in an uncertain geography, she, the light that both unveils me and keeps me from sleeping, will understand that there were hidden lines, drawn for her, that maybe only then will be revealed or recognized in these words now, and she will know in that moment that it didn’t matter what path my steps tread. Because she was, is, and will be, always, the only worthwhile destination.
The end.
Postscript: where the Sup tries to explain, in a postmodern multimedia format, the way in which the Zapatistas see and are seen in their own history.
Well, first it’s necessary to clarify that for us, our history is not just who we have been, what has happened to us, and what we have done. It is also, and above all, what we want to be and do.
Now, in this avalanche of audiovisual media ranging from 4D cinema and LED 4K televisions to the polychrome andmulti-touch screens of cell phones (which, allow me the digression, show reality in colors that have nothing to do with reality), we can place, in an improbable timeline, our way of seeing our history with… a kinetoscope.
Yes, I know that I went a bit far back, to the origins of cinema, but with the internet and the multiple wikis that abound and redound, you won’t have a problem figuring out what I’m referring to.
Sometimes, it can seem like we are getting close to 8 tracks and super 8 tracks, and even then the 16 millimeter format is still far off.
What I mean is that our way of explaining our history seems like an image of continuous and repetitive movement, with some variations that give that sense of mobile immobility: always attacked and persecuted, always resisting; always being annihilated, always reappearing. Maybe that’s why the denouncements made by the Zapatista support bases, via their Good Government Councils, have so few readers. It’s as if one had already read that before and they only changed the names and the geographies.
But it’s also where we show ourselves. For example, here:
Yes, it’s a little like Edison’s moving images from 1894, in his kinetoscope (“Annie Oakley”): we were the coin tossed into the air, while the young lady “civilization” shot at us over and over again (yes, the government would be the servile employee that tossed the coin). Or like in “The Arrival of a Train” from 1895 by the Lumiere brothers; we were the ones who stayed on the platform while the train of progress came and went. At the end of this text you will find some videos that will help you understand this.
But now and then the collective that we are takes and makes each still shot, drawing it and painting it as the reality that we were and that we are, many times with the black shades of persecutions and prisons, with the gray shades of contempt, and with the red of plunder and exploitation. But also with the browns and greens of we who are of the earth.
When someone from outside stops to look at our “movie,” they often comment: “what a skillful shooter!” Or “what a daring employee who throws the coin into the air without fear of injury!” But no one says anything about the coin.
Or, about the Lumiere brothers’ train, they say: “but how stupid, why do they stay on the platform and not board the train?” Or, “we have here another example of why the indigenous are how they are—because they don’t want to progress.” Or the more daring ones, “Did you see what ridiculous clothes they wore in that era?” But if someone would ask us why we don’t get on that train, we would say“because the next stations are ‘decadence,’ ‘war,’ and ‘destruction,’ and the final destination is ‘catastrophe.’ The pertinent question is not why we don’t board the train, but why you all don’t get off of it.”
Those who come to be with us, to look at us looking at ourselves, to listen to us, to learn from us in the little school, discover that in each still shot, we Zapatistas have aggregated an image that is not perceptible at first glance. It is as if the apparent movement of the images hides the particular that each still shot contains. That which is not seen in the daily comings and goings is the history that we are. And no smartphone captures those images. Only with a very big heart can they be detected.
Of course, there is always someone who comes and tells us that now there are tablets and cellphones with cameras in front and back, with colors more vivid than those of reality, that there are now cameras and printers in the third dimension, that there is plasma, LCD and LED, and representative democracy, and elections, and political parties, and modernity, and progress, and civilization.
They tell us that we should leave behind all that stuff about collectivism (which, besides, rhymes with primitivism): that we abandon this obsession with taking care of the environment, the discourse of mother earth, self-organization, autonomy, rebellion, freedom.
They tell us all this while clumsily editing out the fact that it is in their modernity where the most atrocious crimes are perpetrated: where children are burned alive and the pyromaniacs are congressional representatives and senators; where ignorance pretends to govern the destiny of a nation; where sources of work are destroyed; where teachers are persecuted and slandered; where one big lie is overshadowed by another, bigger one; where inhumanity is awarded and honored and any ethical or moral value is a symptom of “cultural backwardness.”
For the mass (paid) media, they are the modern ones, we are the archaic. They are the civilized, we are the barbarians. They are the ones who work, we the idle. They are the “decent people,” we the pariahs. They the wise, we the ignorant. They are the clean, we are the dirty. They are the beautiful, we are the ugly. They are the good, we are the bad.
And they forget what is most fundamental: this is our history, our way of seeing it and of seeing ourselves, our way of thinking ourselves, our way of making our path. It is ours, with our errors, our failures, our colors, our lives, our deaths. It is our freedom.
This is our history.
Because when we Zapatistas draw a key below and to the left in each still shot in our movie, we are thinking not about what door to open, but about what house with what door we need to create so that this key will have a purpose and a destiny. And if the soundtrack of this movie has the rhythm of polka-ballad-corrido-ranchera-cumbia-rock-ska-metal-reggae-trova-punk-hip-hop-rap-and-whatever else is added, it’s not because we don’t have musical taste. It’s because this house will have all colors and all sounds. And there will be therefore new gazes and new ears that will understand our efforts… even if we are only silence and shadow in those future worlds.
Ergo: we have imagination, they only have plans with terminal options.
That’s why their world is crumbling. That’s why ours is resurging, just like that little light that, although small, is not less when embraced by shadow.
Vale. Cheers, and here’s to celebrating our birthdays very happily, which is to say, in struggle.
El Sup, confusing himself with the videos that he wants to include in order to, as they say, put the candle on the cake that does not say, but knows itself to be, thirtysomething.
Mexico, November 17, 2013.
Thirtieth anniversary of the EZLN.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text:
Video that tells the story of the “Dog that was a cat on the inside,” by Siri Melchoir. United Kingdom, 2002.
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cat-dog in action. Note how he returns to his secret identity when he is discovered.
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A very brief reference to the origin of cinema. Pay attention to the mini-short: “Annie Oakley,” seconds 20 through 26.
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The Arrival of a Train,” by the Lumiere brothers, 1895.
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For a birthday boy as other as the eezeelen, Las Otras Mañanitas, con Pedro Infante y Los Beatles.
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