FORECASTING RAIN

The Foreclosure Crisis and Bailouts: A Numbers-Free Explanation of How the Big Banks Set Out to Rob You and Succeeded

2012-10-12T15:21:00.001-04:00

Not understanding complicated mathematics or derivative schemes does not mean you cannot grasp the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing foreclosure crisis. In fact, when journalists pretend that this is all too difficult to explain to you they are concealing the truth from you, and as such are complicit in what can only be considered criminally unethical behavior by investment banks and others. I am a layman when it comes to finance, so what proceeds is a laymen’s explanation for these crises because I believe if this was made very clear for everyone, there would be riots.

A few years ago a new tool for fronting money for homebuyers was dreamed up by investment banks. This included the sale of what is known as Mortgage-Backed Securities, of MBS. This is how it works:

Just like in the good old days, a commercial bank who loans us money to buy a house. In exchange, we promise the commercial bank interest and principle on the loan, that is, the mortgage payments. These payments would eventually net the bank more money then it started with, and we would net a house.
However, instead of waiting to get paid back by us, the commercial banks started selling the rights to our payments to an investment bank. The investment bank would give the commercial bank a lump sum, and the commercial bank would forward our payments to the investment bank. This is a good deal for the commercial bank because they unload risk and get cash that they can then lend out to someone else.
The investment bank then creates a fake “company,” called a Special Purpose Entity, or SPE, and hands over the rights to your mortgage payments to the SPE. It also hands over the rights to several hundred of your neighbors’ mortgages to the same SPE.
The investment bank then sells “stock” in the SPE. These stocks are the infamous “Mortgage-Backed Securities.” Those who buy these MBS are people who are willing to pay back a part of the money to the investment bank in exchange for part of your mortgage payments. The folks buying these stocks are typically private citizens or other investment banks.

Got that? It’s:

And everyone’s happy, right? There is more money available for mortgage lenders, which means there is more money available for you and me to borrow to achieve sweet, sweet homeownership. And out there somewhere is someone with money to invest that now has a new trendy way to let their money have babies. The only problem is there is risk, as with all investing. When you invest in a company, that company may fail, and your stock then becomes worthless. With a MBS, if a certain number of folks foreclose, the SPE’s stock is no longer worth what folks paid for it, and the investors take a loss. At least they should, anyway.

Claiming the intent to “insure” the money they were investing in these SPEs, investment banks and others took out different kinds of “insurance policies.” Some of these were CDS, or Credit Default Swaps, but there are many different kinds. Basically the SPE’s investors pay a premium to an “insurance” company and in exchange the insurance company pays out to the investors if there are mass foreclosures.

Some of you may be wondering why I keep using scare quotes. There are two reasons.

The idea of insuring an investment is silly. An investment is paying money now for the getting more money later. Getting more money back later is possible only because you are risking losing money. If you turn around and pay even more money out to a third party to negate the risk, you are paying out of what you expect to recoup if you made a good bet. You are reducing risk but also reducing returns. In other words you could have just picked a safer bet with lower rewards in the first place. This is a ridiculous thing to do. Investors lower their risk by trying to make smart decisions about where they invest money, not by investing in any old thing and then paying someone else to take the risk for them. What ends up happening is that investors start hoping that they can collect on their insurance, meaning they end up hoping their investment was a bad one. It’s basically a complicated way of short selling.
Mortgages are already “insured” by their very nature. Think about it. What happens to your house when you can’t make your payments anymore? The bank takes it. Your house is the collateral that indemnifies the lender from loss should you not be able to pay back the loan. In theory, if you own an MBS, you are entitled to the house should the mortgages not be paid back. So in other words, these CDS were insurance against losses that your house already protected against. Double insurance? This is a very odd practice indeed.

So what does this mean? It means that all these CDS and etc. weren’t “insurance” at all. They were bets. It means that the people buying your mortgage debt expected you to default, and so made a bet that would be profitable to them if you did.

You might be thinking, “Why would they buy my mortgage debt if they expected me to foreclose?” Answer: What better way to ensure that something goes belly up then to design it yourself?

After discovering that this “new tool” made money available for home loans that wasn’t available before, banks started making riskier loans then they ever could before. These loans were to people that had bad credit, or didn’t have high income, or didn’t have a down payment. They also made loans that were very difficult to pay off in the long term, aka subprime loans. That's right; I'm accuse them of rigging mortgages to fail. And they pumped these out as quickly as they could. And investors were willing to pay good money for these loans because they knew something very important about them; that they were going to go belly up. They rigged the casino. They bought a very flammable building and took out a huge insurance policy on it, and just waited for the fire.

They had one problem, though. No one goes to bet at rigged casinos. No one insures buildings that don’t pass a fire inspection. In order to make money off a bet, someone has to agree to take the losing side. No one is going to bet against the Super Bowl champs the day after the game, and no one is going to bet we can pay out mortgages when everyone knows we can’t. Investment banks needed a fall guy, someone they could force to make a terrible bet against their will and force to pay up when the foreclosures hit.

They picked us.

They did it by piling the bets onto companies like AIG. AIG gleefully agreed to bet that we would pay back our loans, not because they thought you would, but because they all knew what would happen when we didn’t. It has been commonly held investment wisdom for a while now that when critical banks are in trouble, the government bails them out, making these institutions safer for investing. In this case, they counted on it. A massive transfer of wealth would go from the public coffers (or, more accurately, added to the public debt), pass through AIG, and end up in the pockets of all the folks that bought the mortgage debt that they ~~knew~~ made sure was bad.

And, perhaps worst of all, they get to keep your house, too.

It just came out that Wells Fargo was explicitly doing this very thing I have just described and may have to pay back a small part of what they have reaped from this whole thing. But it is ludicrous to pretend that they won’t get away with it since both Democrats and Republicans are more than willing to turn a blind eye. It’s also ludicrous to think that this was just a few bad apples; it a system where all the decision are made by just a few bad apples. All of them are guilty.

An important question for you to answer if you are facing foreclosure is, why are you being foreclosed on at all? We already paid back the banks for any losses they might have suffered when we couldn’t make our payments when you bailed out AIG. The house exists as collateral to protect the lender from loss. They haven’t suffered a loss because of their so-called “insurance,” and so if your home is repossessed, they are keeping it as a windfall on top of what they have already recouped. There is even some question as to whether MBS holders are getting the proceeds from foreclosed houses or whether the original commercial lender (that was already paid one by the investment bank for your loan) is simply keeping the money themselves. More on this here.

I’ll see you at the riots.

It's A Trap! or, Why Obama Lost a Technocratic Debate

2012-10-05T15:23:00.000-04:00

Throughout this campaign, Romney has willingly played the far right nut job. His infamous 47% comments simply confirmed what most people, particularly liberals, already suspected about him: that he hates working people, has a pro-corporate and pro-1% mindset, and has no room in his platform for any compromise with the liberal agenda. Call it Tea Party influence, an unruly base, a personal disgust for people who aren’t as privileged as he is, but the outcome is the same: myore taxcuts for the rich; the appointment of Paul Ryan; promises of deregulation; recommitting to dirty energy; etc.

This has allowed Obama to play the “Reasonable” card for the entire election. Obama has made policy sacrifices over and over in order to build a reputation as the Great Compromiser, willing to take “good ideas from both sides,” and not at all the anti-white socialist his more…unstable critics have painted him as. But there is a problem with being “reasonable.” Obama has felt the need to distance himself from economic policies that liberals prefer in order to distance himself from being considered a liberal. Raising taxes and raising spending have been taken off the table in an attempt to occupy the center of the electorate. His base has more or less become an inconvenience; he isn’t just distancing himself from the radical left, but even from “pragmatically” left folks that do all the groundwork for him. In other words, to be reasonable, Obama has more or less adopted the GOP’s platform from 15 years ago. His cover for this rightward move derives from the extremeness of Romney’s campaign; the more rightward the GOP moved, the more safely Obama could move to the right, because liberals seem committed to voting for ANYTHING as long as it is not as bad as a Republican. If Romney was Goldwater, Obama could safely be Reagan. If Romney were to decide to go full Nazi, Obama could become John Birch. With no credible threat to his left, the possibilities for “compromise” were endless, because he could simply pick up more voters from the center while continuing to hang onto liberals who feared a President Romney far more than a less and less liberal Obama (well, some liberals still love Obama as a liberal paragon, but I try not to think about those people). Not to mention the hacks at MSNBC were always there to assure fidgety liberals the Obama was still a liberal, despite all evidence to the contrary.

All this beget one surprising(?) fact: Obama is a fiscally center-right Democratic presidential candidate. He is running as a Blue Dog, not a liberal.

This is what set the stage for the Obama’s debate loss Wednesday night. Obama proudly laid out his “reasonable” principles. Cut taxes and cut spending. Corporate tax rates are too high. Small businesses need to be unburdened. The deficit in priority number one. Etc. And all this center-right nonsense would be okay, because Obama merely had to point out that Romney favors even more taxcuts for the rich than Bush did.

Except something happened that the Obama campaign did not expect. All at once, with no warning whatsoever, Romney stopped playing the right wing nut job. In a mad rush back to the center, Romney disavowed the right wing mantle that the Democrats had been putting on him since the primaries, and became a classic centrist Republican again, à la his days being the Governor of Massachusetts. Obama was visibly stunned at this, particularly when Romney walked away from his tax plan and claimed to have no idea what Obama was talking about. Obama looked across the podium and was shocked to see his ideological equal (at least as far as economics are concerned).

The problem for Obama was twofold. The first was that in a race between two candidates that agree on principle about everything, the advantage goes to the challenger. Incumbents have a real record to defend, where sacrifices have been made, where mistakes have occurred, and where the inevitable downside to all these right-wing policies have to be explained away. You’ve got to make excuses for failures, and no one likes to hear excuses for failures. A challenger can present ideas that are devoid of downsides, because they haven’t been enacted in the real world. These ideas can only be weighed in abstract, because there is no empirical evidence of their adverse effects. They are not weighted down by the consequences of having been implemented (of course, all these ideas have already been implemented, but Romney can claim otherwise because he’s new to the scene, after all; he actually claimed that “No one has ever done what I’m suggesting”). Obama could not defend his policies on the basis of having principle differences with Romney, because throughout the campaign, Obama and the Democrats have been convicted to the same center-right principles that Romney was suddenly espousing. Without being able to say, “There were some downsides to policy A but it was worth it because I care more about XYZ then you do,” the debate was reduced to a technocratic duel. And Romney is more believable as the technocratic better of the two, not least of all because he probably is. Romney’s entire career is built on the idea that he’s a competent bureaucrat. His history of being an ideologue is actually rather short.

The second downside, or so I believed, was that Romney was removing the cover Obama had for adopting this center-right platform. Obama didn’t appear to be any more liberal than Romney during the debate to me. When Romney spoke about the role of government and his plans for jumpstarting the economy, whether he was lying or not, he seemed to be saying, “I would do what Obama is trying to do, I would just do it more effectively and efficiently.” They both agreed on the importance of education going forward, and Romney (rightly) pointed out that education under Obama has not improved. They both agreed on the central place of small business (their definition aligns up to 3%). They agreed on Social Security. They agreed on the principles of Obamacare, with Romney attacking Obama on technical specifics, not overriding principles. They agreed that tax rates are too high, and the tax code too complicated. The one real place where they seemed to disagree was the idea that cuts should be offset by a smaller amount of revenue, but let’s face it, even this is a matter of degree, not of principle. Also Medicare--even the voucher system is being presented as a technical fix to better meet the same principles that Obama holds (Romney even leapt out left of Obama by again claiming it was Obama who had designs on cutting Medicare).

The liberal side of mainstream politics was noticeably absent. Where were the attacks on the 47% comments? Defense of Keynsian stimulus? The all important role of government in protecting oppressed people? Vigorous defense of government intervention into healthcare? Significant cuts to defense? The promised cutting of tuition rates? Bailing out the auto industry? Punishing the banks for the financial collapse? Punishing corporations for outsourcing, and Romney’s lifetime complicity in this? Where was talk of Bain Capital, for that matter?

Absent. And with this absence, I felt that the fundamentally conservative nature of the Democratic Party was finally and accidentally being laid naked for all to see. The right wing cover that Romney had provided was gone. I predicted rage from liberals across the country, directed at a Democratic President that they suddenly realized had no interest in representing his base.

How naive of me.

At first I got what I expected. MSNBC tore into the President as soon as the debate was done. There was what I have to assume to be authentic outrage that a liberal contender didn’t show up. Chris Mathews specifically blasted Obama for not being informed on the liberal talking points, saying that he should tune into MSNBC more often. Watch:

“Game changer,” I thought. Liberals will be furious, and maybe some will begin to see the futility of supporting this man who is participating in the very rapid slide backwards that we are currently enduring. At worst, I thought, the Obama campaign will finally be held responsible for adopting so many center-right positions, and be forced leftwards. In either case, I could smugly watch the fury build.

But alas, Thursday morning came, but Christmas didn’t. It turned out that Liberals were not angry at Obama for being too right wing. They were, get this, angry at Romney for not being right wing enough! You can’t make this stuff up!

Liberals everywhere were enraged at Romney for trying to reinvent himself as a centrist. Ostensibly, they were mad that he had lied about his record (shocking behavior from a politician, I know). And so the liberal news all day was harping on the fact that Romney is a liar, and Ed Shultz and Chris Mathews got hammered for “abandoning the President” by criticizing Obama at all for his performance. But it seems to me that liberals wouldn’t mind if Romney lied to make himself look more right wing than he had previously seemed. In that case, they could have continued having the principle debate that they have been having all year. What liberals were actually mad about was that Romney was swooping in on the center-right spot that Democrats had been leisurely occupying throughout the election cycle, and when suddenly contested for this spot, it became clear that Obama is not fit to hold it. He must move left to remain competitive. He must demonstrate some type of ideological difference with Romney. But instead of being happy about what is essentially a liberal victory—that is, they succeed in shaming Romney into moving to the left, and mainstream politics to the left with him—they have been doing everything they can to keep Romney out in the far right, and let Obama sit uncontested at center-right.

In effect, this the equivalent of liberal ideological suicide. Liberals don’t seem to believe in their own politics as much as they hate the politics of the far right. As a consequence, they have abided a center-right president running a center-right campaign because it increases his electability. Simultaneously, it ensures that no truly liberal policies will ever be enacted again. Compromise has become a drug for liberals, making them forget the reason they wanted liberal policies in the first place (you think they work better, don’t you remember that?). Glenn Greenwald made while a similar point a couple of years ago while attacking Lawrence O'Donnell; that Democrats would be better off enacting truly liberal policies that work rather than watered down liberal policies that fail, because then they could go to the electorate and say, “Hey look, this Healthcare Bill or the economic stimulus really works, not just partly, but all the way! Let's keep doing things like this!”

The difference between me and Glenn Greenwald is I don’t think even the most robust liberal policies would do anything besides make the rich richer and the poor poorer, just the same as “conservative” ones. To me, this liberal suicide couldn’t happen fast enough, because liberalism is an anti-working class, anti-revolutionary ideology built on privilege and Paternalism. Once liberals have given up pretending that they can influence politics at the poles, and come to see that their only “vote” is the way the same pro-corporate agenda is spun (with even the spin starting to sound a hell of a lot alike), then maybe we can start building a movement that can actually achieve something.

“Why is Everyone* So Stupid?” (*Except Me)

2012-10-02T11:24:00.000-04:00

Note: If you are an oppressed person who has said something like this about your oppressors, this post is not about you. This is not an attempt to get you to alter your reaction to ignorant oppressive actions or statements nor is it an attempt to criticize that reaction, whatever it might be.

Okay, you forgot your anti-elitism hat today. It happens to me, too. I get it. It’s a heavy hat. It’s really very frustrating out there; everyone has been constantly lied to and too many seem to have bought into countless false narratives without much reflection. True, you’re probably privileged by a somewhat respectable education, but still, it can be hard to believe so many people don’t think the same way you do. And what’s worse, folks seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to disregard what you say, and after all, you’re (mostly) only trying to help them. “What the fuck?!” is right. I wouldn't accuse you of having a similar knee-jerk reaction to what they think because well, you’re right and they’re not. Right? Okay, so take a breath, spend some time in front of the stupid tube, and take the rest of the afternoon off. You deserve it after all that truth-telling.

Just don’t forget to put your hat back on tomorrow.

Chances are, if you are relating to all this, you are a liberal complaining about poor GOP voters (though no one ideology has a monopoly on forgetting their anti-elitism hat, to be sure). For instance, when the election cycle heats up your liberal tweeps may start saying things like, “Why are poor folks always voting against their own interests?!” As brilliant as you are, you probably know the answer to this question, but just in case, I’ll remind you:

Because it’s impossible for folks to vote in their own interests. That’s why.

Oppressed folks are usually more aware, than even you are--in all your overly informed brilliance--just how much between a rock and a hard place they are. If you are able to look past all the partisan hackery, you see that hiding behind all those “R’s” an “D’s” are really just a bunch of class enemies who have one set of tricks or another to make life easier for rich folks and much harder for everyone else. And oppressed folks are usually really good at seeing past all the hackery; hell, they might even be better at it than you. Should I decrease government and get screwed over by unfettered big business? Or should I increase government and get screwed over by…government, and the big business that controls it? Whenever ~~they can~~ you let them get away with it, Democratic politicians demean poor folks and use government as a weapon against them. Is it really surprising that poor folks would vote against them or -- ::gasp:: -- not vote at all?

You may also from time to time forget how difficult it is to get factual information, even in this day and age. If you forget, you might slip and say something really ignorant like, “the information is out there is you just bothered to look.”

Well, if you’re anything like me, you have the privilege to sit at a computer at work and check the blogosphere more or less once an hour. You have news alerts sent to your smart phone and you have a nice, stimulating political argument on Twitter once a week. Maybe you went to college and got all read up on the social theories and economic shenanigans and know exactly how to parse out the truth from mainstream “news” sources. All these opportunities to get “oh-so-informed” about everything and anything can make it easy to forget that most people don’t have time to go scouring the internet for the details about Obama’s “Jobs Plan” and the latest analysis of the analysis of Limbaugh’s comments about that Republican governor who’s about to be famous for six days. Turns out a lot of folks don’t have easy access to a computer, even if they do have the time. And if they have a computer and have the time, they don’t know where to look, because they’re been actively being prevented from finding out. And to cap it all off, if they do manage to stumble upon the truth (maybe they have a reality splintering experience while perusing your blog), how much of that knowledge is going to lead to a real improvement in their lives? Maybe they don’t get a kick out of being a wonkish know-it-all on Facebook like you and me. Without a political movement to be active in (something you could spend some time building, you know), all that knowledge is just, well, depressing. This is where an understanding of self-efficacy is critical; people need to believe again that what they think, what they say, what they do, and what they know actually matters, and the means to make that matter is provided by communities of resistance, but by an individual’s lack of “stupid.”

Oh yeah, and...maybe folks are just really tired and stressed out and need what little spare time they have to unwind. That’s not a crime, you know. In fact, working class folks spending time the way they want to spend time might even be called revolutionary.

You may also be misled into thinking you are more informed that you actually are. Despite your noble resistance, MSNBC and the New York Times have been stroking your ego so vigorously that they may have caused you to forget that being well informed and being well-versed in the talking points is not exactly the same thing. For instance, you may have some vague opinion about QE3, being the supremely informed citizen that you are. But, you probably don’t have a very thorough understanding of what QE3 is. Almost no one does. In fact, most of the policy-makers, politicians, and even economists, pushing for it don’t know what it is or what it will mean. Not that you are stupid or uninformed. You are just a lot more like everyone else then you think you are when you forget your anti-elitism hat—you are being actively deceived and actively prevented from know what is going on.

And last but not least, you could maybe, possibly just be dead wrong.

I know, I know, super unlikely...but you have to admit: it’s a possibility. Regardless of how uber-left or fantastically intelligent and critically-mind you consider yourself to be, you grew up swimming in the garbage just like the rest of us. Despite your best efforts, you have absolutely swallowed some of that garbage. So maybe somewhere in your gut you have some ideas about what is properly “intellectual” for political conversation. Or maybe you have some sort of dogma that serves you so well most of the time, until it doesn’t (for instance, your reasonable affinity for science may have morphed in a militant faith in “Science!”). You have been programmed into unthinking respect for folks that have been trained to speak “the code;” you know, that collection of words and phrases that David Brooks and Thomas Friedman use weekly to make it seem like what they are saying is thoughtful or intelligent. Given all this, you are likely to make the mistake of thinking you know more about oppressed folks’ lives then they do. You don’t.

But I’m sure you knew that already.

Speech Vs. Graffiti

2012-09-25T10:48:00.004-04:00

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." -Abbott Joseph Liebling

Apparently, you have the right to say whatever you want on a subway ad in America—if you can afford it.

In theory we all collectively own public property, since we all pay for it, and can use it as we wish. In practice, you or I cannot plaster quotes on billboards all over subway platforms whenever we want to. You also cannot, through the legal system, enforce guidelines that prevent hate speech from greeting you every time you take public transit. The legal fiction that everyone can say whatever they want in public is used to justify forcing you to hear the opinions of those with money. Exhibit A:

Credit: Reuters/Brendan Mcdermid

This is an ad was paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, whose executive director is Islamophobic blogger Pamela Geller. You would imagine that the MTA and other public transit organizations would prefer to sidestep the controversy altogether simply doing business with another advertiser. Well, initially, they did.

As Haartz reports:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York initially refused to run Geller's ad, saying it was "demeaning." But U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled last month that it is protected speech under the First Amendment.

"Our hands are tied," MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said. "Under our existing ad standards as modified by the injunction, the MTA is required to run the ad."

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, backed publication of the "patently offensive" ads.

"More offensive would be their censorship because that would violate the guarantee of free expression of all ideas regardless of how distasteful they are," she said.“Most offensive?” Really?

If Geller had the same rights as you or me, she could say whatever she wanted—on her blog, standing on a street corner, or in a dark room by herself—without having police repel from the rafters and drag her to prison. But she had more rights than you, because you are not executive director of an organization, and therefore you cannot buy ad space to amplify your speech.

For instance, if you were to assert the right to speech like Geller can speak by doing something like…

Via Israel Facts

…then you would be breaking the law. Because you didn't pay for the ad (even though you are a partial owner of what is theoretically a public space). That’s graffiti. You are a criminal, and this disregard for the law is just so uncivilized.

Good for them.

The ads are up in San Francisco buses, New York City subway stations, and soon D. C. subway stations. Check out #MySubwayAd if you want to learn more about exercising the rights that are legally only provided to people who can pay.

And P.S. Whenever powerful people call a group of people "savages," that's usually a good indication of where your loyalties ought to lie.

The Most Important Thing I've Listened to All Year

2012-09-12T12:29:00.003-04:00

Chris Hedges gives a disturbing reality check about what is going on around the country, and what it means for our future, on his most recent drop in on Democracy Now. He details several of what he calls "sacrifice zones," which he believes are templates for the rest of the country as wages continue to be depressed and the wealth gap rises, and we transition to a "neo-feudal society."

I got his book right after listening to it and will be tweet about the content as I go (the artwork is pretty great as well).

Chris draws some interesting connection with the Chicago Teachers' Union strike that's currently under way. Given his warnings, and the way Occupy was dealt with by the powers-that-be, it doesn't seem unreasonable that the strike could be put down by force. There is already speculation that Rahm Emanuel is looking to pursuit a court injunction on the basis that the strike "is or has become a clear and present danger to the health or safety of the public." Apparently there has been a strike in crime since the strike began. This seems one quick hop away from sending in the storm troopers, but it's not a sure bet that a judge would go along with it. I've also heard that it is illegal for teachers to strike on issues not directly related to pay under some provisions in the new llinois Education Labor Relations Act but I cannot seem to verify this (if anyone knows if this is true or not let me know). Since it's clear that pay is not really the central issue here, we may see that used against the strike (though harder to sell to the rest of us).

Only You Have the Power to Move Us Forward

2012-09-10T17:19:00.001-04:00

There was one bit of Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC that I found particularly striking:

“…Because we understand that this democracy is ours.
We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.
As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.
So you see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens – you were the change.
…
If you turn away now – if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible…well, change will not happen. If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves.
Only you can make sure that doesn’t happen. Only you have the power to move us forward.”

This conceptualization of American politics is so at odds with how electoral politics is presented to us that it was actually shocking to hear. Typically candidates materialize on our TVs and appeal to us as prospective employees or contractors, asking us for our business and making promises in return. Unlike contracts, however, Presidents cannot be sued and their contracts rarely expire in less than four years, regardless of the promises they break. Their promises therefore are quickly forgotten, and government in turn mostly seems monolithic, unresponsive, hegemonic, and inaccessible.

Obama is suggesting shift the very core of how we’ve grown to feel about government. Self-government, he’s telling us, means the actions of the State are our actions. Obamacare wasn’t passed “at us,” or even “for us.” It was passed “by us.” Ditto with providing student loans, ending the global gag rule, and, I guess, the debt crisis and drone strikes. But, that aside, this is all a very new and, dare I say, empowering notion of politics. It is so new that it seems almost bizarre in our political landscape. It’s enough to make a million liberals’ eyes sparkle.

My point is that this: shouldn’t this be self-evident already? Why is it such a novelty to think of our government in these terms? Why is it so weird to think about the world this way?

“Self-government” is a crucial part of the leap forward that was marked by the American and French revolutions. Well, maybe not all the governed were participating, and participation was often marginal, but at least it wasn’t just the king anymore. As suffrage has been extended and the obstacles for participation have been knocked down, this self-governance thing should be felt more and more by ordinary people. If we, the People, really are the government, shouldn’t we feel more like every representative is acting because we gave them the okay, and that every public servant is there because we wanted them there? Shouldn’t we be celebrate progress together, and sharing responsibility for failures? Shouldn’t it be no big thing for us to stand up and say, “this is not what we wanted, and it’s going to stop now.”? Why don’t we just implicitly feel this way?

To me, this is simply evidence that the whole self-government thing is a sham. Government is a monster that does some of what it is bid by those who have the power to control it (not us) and it is this feeling that dominates our view of politics. Conservatives want to shackle it and keep it from affecting their lives as much as possible; liberals want to change it. No one feels like we come together every four years to figure out the best way forward. People come together to bicker over who to blame and who we mistrust the least. The contradiction between what people feel about government and what Obama has correctly claimed we should feel is proof that we are not participating in a grand experiment in self-governance. Instead we are participating in a hoax.

It isn’t just a party thing, either. We don’t all come together to decided what to do, but even partisan don’t feel like they themselves are responsible for the actions of their representatives. I haven’t met an Obama voter that feel like yeah, Obamacare was their idea. People root for their guy and their guy’s ideas; there doesn’t seem any room to root for ourselves.

I think deep down everyone knows this. Some are even happy about it; I’ve heard both conservatives and liberals speak about “those people” who are too stupid to be trusted with a vote, much less a true role in governing our society. I’ve even heard some people remind us that “we do not live in a democracy; we live in a republic” as if people weren’t implicitly aware of this already. The trouble is, we should be living in a democracy, and that is what most everyone wants. Obama is a smart man—he knows this. And he exploited not just this desire in his speech, but the very fact that it is not at all how we feel about the way things are. He wants us to “hope” once again, but this time hope for a deeper shift, one that leads not to just a new kind of politics but a new kind of democracy.

I’m guessing we’ll be left hoping by the end of his second term.

But it is good news that this contradiction was so eloquently pointed out. People taking their lives and their communities into their own hands, taking personal responsibility for the course of history—this is the stuff that real change movements are made of. As people continue to become active through outlets like Occupy, and become more and more convinced that their voices are irrelevant to mainstream politics and government, the closer we get to real fissures and real changes.

The 53% ploy to divide the 99%

2012-04-15T10:11:00.001-04:00

This 53% business is very clever, because it is basically a way to trick people into throwing their lot in with the 1% when their real interests lie with the 99%. Pointing out who pays income taxes and who doesn't is a way of praying on the frustration--the very understandable frustration--that people feel when they are worked 40+ hours at a job they hate for a boss they hate so they can barely afford nice things that they hardly every get to enjoy and then look around and realize that other people have some of those nice things without having to satisfy a boss they hate and work unreasonable hours at a job they hate. Of course that pisses people off, and we on the left are idiots when we pretend that it doesn't. Let's forget for a moment that there are a lot of taxes to pay besides income tax, and the "47%" pay those. Instead, consider the following:b

A) 1% gets rich off this arrangement at the expense of the "53%." Think about it. When someone buys a flat screen TV with your tax money, where do you think that money is ending up? Huh?

B) The people on the nations welfare role want to change this arrangement, and want to work, whereas the 1% is "conservative" AKA doesn't want anything to change. Because the welfare state that is oppressing you, 53%er, is also oppressing the people who do not happen to pay income tax.

We're Not Going to Fix This But We Will Tell You Whose Fault It Is

2012-03-17T10:57:00.000-04:00

It seems highly unlikely to me that GOP strategists are dumb enough to believe that modern women will tolerate this year's assaults on their rights. That many of them will, as in previous generation, vote for those who explicitly plan to take their rights away. Even women predisposed to prefer Republicans will--most of them, I hope--turn up their nose at this tactic. Why, then, would they be conducting this campaign? What good can come of disparaging and alienating half of the electorate in a election year?

These are ugly times for American government and economic institutions. The life support that Wall Street has been put on at the expense of the 99% has caused nausea by all, regardless of political orientation, and, consequently, most people are fairly disgusted by the two parties responsible (I won't name names...). We may blame different people, but regardless of which section of the political spectrum we're on, Americans carry an overwhelming feeling that something is broken. Many attempted to do something about it (for instance, by participating in the Tea Party), but soon discovered that their politicians had no intention of amending their ways. They've done nothing, and don't intend to.

How do I know? If the GOP had a plan to do things differently, don't you think they'd mention it? I mean, besides repeal all the regulations (of which there are none that are meaningful already) and "Drill, baby, drill," how exactly does the GOP expect to get people hired again? They don't have a plan because they don't expect to spend much energy on this. Welcome to the new normal, folks.

In this climate, you might start to see people begin turning their wrath on politicians, the economy system, and the state. The critical consciousness that could emerge in the process could lead to less participation in the political system and more activities against it (fingers crossed for a lively American Spring). So the right-wing patrons of our economic elites have pulled out a very old tactic to divide up the electorate and keep people's eyes on the ballet and out of the streets.

Find a scapegoat.

"Moslems" were an okay scapegoat for the Bush years, as long as liberals were willing to go out on a limb and suggest that the constitution should apply as equally to Arabs as it does to, well, at least Black folks. But thanks to the Obama administration's tacit acceptance of all (and more) of Bush's constitution-shredding activities, there's not a whole lot of mileage in attacking Arabs. This is the brilliance of Obama's decision to turn his back on all his campaign promises regarding the "war on terror." Since blowing up and/or abducting innocent Arab men, women, and children is no longer controversial in mainstream politics, it's hard for the GOP to drive up electoral fervor by talking about how terrifying Bin Laden and all of the rest of the people who look like him are, and how the only way people can be safe is by voting the only party people can be confident are all torturing warmongers. After all, this administration kept on in Iraq, vamped up in Afghanistan, has been bombing Pakistan, and has even made detours into several other countries. "We're pretty confident that the Democrats have got the bombing and torturing and pillaging covered," the electorate has replied. "What else you got?"

If this analysis is correct then the GOP have to find a scapegoat that the Dems have no choice but to at least superficial defend. Blacks? No (neo-Jim Crow, AKA the "War on Drugs," is healthy under Obama). Gays? No (the Democrats seem to be quite willing to throw them under the bus once their done taking their money and votes).

In that case, how about women? Ah yes, women. If women can be painted as the "Cause of All Our Problems" because they want to drive up the national debt and threaten religious institutions with their feminist-inspired sex mania, and because they Planned Parenthood to be allow to exist, then surely the Dems would come running. Not necessarily because they want to, at least not the men (I love this shot of Morning Joe's all-man panel discussing congress's all-man panel, including Lawrence O'Donnell). But enough women are just strong enough these days, just vocal enough about not wanting to continue to be second class citizens, and enough of a voting base for the Dems, that Obama will have to campaign on their side.

A controversial scapegoat is the GOP's reward for their efforts. A scapegoat that can only be adequetly punished, they promise, as long as they get elected. And who knows, perhaps the recent reactionary anti-feminist backlash makes it safe to run on a platform of "women who have sex without our permission are sluts." I mean, it's not like the GOP are popular among women anyway.

In any case, the main lesson here is to keep eyes on the prize. Political calculations on the part of the GOP or phony words of defense from the Democrats are not reasons to get back involved with the circus we call mainstream politics. The best and only way to fight for women is in the streets.

Prisons: The Ultimate in "Social Spending"

2012-01-23T19:48:00.000-05:00

In many ways the New Deal was one of the worst things that has ever happened in the history of humankind. That is a strong statement, unless you consider the possible alternatives. Capitalism was collapsing in the 1930's. If you believe, as I do, that much of the pain and suffering that the world has endured since is directly because of the prevailing economic order, then you can blame FDR.

What? He's your liberal hero of the century?

Why?

The people who marched and struggled and bled for the eight hour day, the weekend, minimum wages, and an end to child labor were unionized laborers. FDR did what he had to to preserve the system as much as he could given the immense amount of social unrest in light of capitalism having begun to crumble. And it was a victory for the elite.

How? The welfare state.

And now we find ourselves with the second great economic collapse in the history of Capitalism. And despite what the media might have you think, the reasons are clear:

Productivity is the amount of "stuff" made per hour. If you understand that in order for Capitalists to make money, that stuff cannot just be produced--it has to be purchased. Ultimately, wage-earners in the United States are expected to buy up most of that stuff (and they mostly did during the "Fordism" era of Capitalism). But when you have wages plateau and productivity continues to rise, the workers can no longer afford all that stuff. If workers cannot afford to buy up all that surplus stuff since the 70's by relying on their wages, then how is it getting bought up? How is the inevitable drop in aggregate demand avoided?

That's a 2 part answer: debt, and the State. Mostly everyone is familiar with the former of these answers and the mumbo jumbo that goes with it: credit default swaps, sub-prime mortgages, credit cards, etc. But few seem to understand the latter, especially among liberals and the left.

When each worker produces this much more than can be affordability consumed by society, it leads to a whole lot of junk left over that is sitting in a warehouse somewhere and a whole lot of labor that isn't being translated into capital for the boss. This is what Marx termed "overproduction" or "over-accumulation." When this happens, the capitalist needs 2 things to happen,

(1) Some productively employed people need to stop producing for society, and

(2) The level of consumption needs to be preserved.

If only (1) happens, then the amount of people taking in cash to be able to consume drops even more, which leads to a further drop in aggregate demand. If only (2) happens, that is, if people are just given more money by the boss so that they can consume more, then the cut the bosses get from increasing productivity goes to the workers instead. So what does (1) plus (2) equal? The state, buying a lot of stuff for people who are kept unemployed, or unproductively employed.

Below is a graph of US government spending. It's almost creepy how much this graph has in common with the one above:

Liberals like to pretend that all this spending is helping us. You know, social safety net, make the poor not as poor, pay for it using all that wealth of the rich.

Except the more "social spending" we seem to do, the bigger the gap between the rich and the poor becomes. So who exactly is all this spending helping? You might expect a group of people who crash land on a desert island would have a higher quality of life then the people being "helped out" by our urban projects and welfare roles. And then you have success stories like education:

And then you have all the countless government jobs, the kind that add nothing of value to our society. I am not picking on the unfortunate souls who happen to find themselves in these jobs.

So what is the real effect of all this spending? The real reason is there's is a lot of stuff out there that the leisure class needs to be bought up, and they are happy to have the government to buy it for us when we're not able. That's why we've built fighter jets that the melt in the rain, "bridges to nowhere," and why we've subsidized for corn that gets thrown in a barn somewhere to rot. People act like federal spending is somehow charity for "lazy social leeches" or, the liberal alternative, "those poor people who just can't seem to be able to help themselves." But you don't make anyone richer by buying them food, prescription drugs, or even DVD players. The people who get rich from all this are the people who get paid: capitalists.

There is no better example this then the prison-industrial complex.

Angela Davis wrote "Are Prisons Obsolete," in 2003, aiming at prisons as the next major focus of American abolition. Michelle Alexander's recently published "The New Jim Crow" demonstrates the undismissable links between our racial caste system and the emergence of our prison state. Experience, for those who have it, and simple reflection for those that don't, tells us that the term "corrections" is laughable given the contemporary prison system. Our system is not about treatment or rehabilitation. It is not even about punishment (though this is often how it is sold to the more fearful or zealously law-and-order types among us. It is about profit.

Prison combine the two most important functions for government during overproduction. It prevents workers from producing, and it leads to huge amounts of consumption.

It costs more money to lock up someone for a year in New Jersey then to send them to Princeton. Check out this great graphic, which describes the outrageous bill that the State is willing to pay to "protect" us. From whom? Non-violent drug offenders, mostly of color, mostly poor. Alexander lays out in horrifying detail the policing practices that turn a social problem that effects every race almost equally (drug use) into a "war" that is a form of racialized social control not unlike Jim Crow. It is this racist system that leads to such high rates of imprisonment for people of color: in 2007 the rate of incarceration for white men was 773 per 100,000, for black men 4,618 per 100,000, despite the fact that rates of drug use and sales among whites and blacks are more or less the same.

"Our research shows that blacks comprise 62.7 percent and whites 36.7 percent of all drug offenders admitted to state prison, even though federal surveys and other data detailed in this report show clearly that this racial disparity bears scant relation to racial differences in drug offending. There are, for example, five times more white drug users than black. Relative to population, black men are admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than that of white men. In large part because of the extraordinary racial disparities in incarceration for drug offenses, blacks are incarcerated for all offenses at 8.2 times the rate of whites. One in every 20 black men over the age of 18 in the United States is in state or federal prison, compared to one in 180 white men." -Human Rights Watch

The left in this country has been off track for a long time. They have come to believe that the state will protect the vulnerable from the excesses of capitalism. They have confused a workers' state with a welfare state. But the state's role in capitalism, regardless of the form of that state, is not to protect us; it is to serve the rich. Administer the affairs of the ruling class. And in a welfare state society like the United States or Europe, the state is meant to protect consumption when it is threatened by capitalists' own avarice. Not seeing this, many on the left have embraced state charity, instead of helping to organize working class people to take care of their own needs, resist their oppressors, and find empowerment. They have looked to above for salvation instead of working to build it from the ground up. And they have been complicit in giving the rich the biggest possible tool--in the form of the state--to use against us all. And it's getting bigger all the time. Think about it: if a big state could or would protect us from capitalism, then why is corporate power, and the gap between the rich and the poor, worse now then ever?

A Dream

2011-12-18T18:35:00.001-05:00

Tell me if this sounds idealistic and immature:

It is my belief that a racist white working class man from, say, South Boston, and a young black woman who has only know white people in the context of discrimination and prejudice who is from, say, Roxbury, could find themselves fighting side by side for their mutual salvation at an Occupy protest, could lock arms in defiance of the police state that has oppressed them both, and in a moment of co-empowerment find solidarity that transcends prejudice. It is my conviction that such moments are all that can really meant by "smash racism." And, it is my hope that the revolutionaries of the Occupy movement will embrace these moments, as opposed to preventing them before they can happen.

Talk, As Long As You Don't Incite

2011-12-08T09:49:00.001-05:00

"Little in the way of expression is outlawed under the United States Constitution, but an act which incites a lawful forceful response is unlikely to pass as expressive speech."
-Justice Frances A. McIntyre

I'm not a lawyer. But this line is truly terrifying. It seems to me that the only sort of free speech that needs protection by the Bill of Rights is speech that incites an otherwise "lawful" forceful response. This interpretation seemingly gives any legislative body the right to pass laws legalizing a forceful responses to any speech they see fit, and thus strip said speech of any First Amendment protection. The question is not whether the Constitution "outlaws" expression; the question is whether it prevents local and state executives and legislatures from outlawing expression. According McIntyre, it doesn't. Meaning, there is no utility to the Bill of Rights at all.

Also, I remember there being something about "assembly" in the First Amendment as well, though McIntyre seems to have neglected to mention that in his decision (you can read the entire thing here).

The fact is everyone should have realized that the courts would side with Menino regardless of the merits of the case. This demonstrates that the system is corrupt whenever the rights of ordinary citizens are concerned, particularly when they are taking part in activities that threaten the system itself (even if those actions only consist of speech and assembly). If you search your feelings, I am confident that you will come to the same conclusion I have; in this case, the law meant nothing. Which begs the question, why have the law at all? Why have these courts? Why should we ask for something (protection) from a corrupt system instead of doing it ourselves? If the system has made it explicitly clear, yet again, that rights are only afforded to those that either have a lot of money or don't expect anything to change, then why are we pleading with that system instead of trying to bring it down?

"I Worked Really Hard to Get Where I Am"

2011-12-07T00:16:00.001-05:00

I hear this all the time. It is meant to somehow be proof that the meritocracy is real.

I think it mostly has to do with people feeling threatened that you are taking something away from them by suggestion that "hard work" isn't actually the key to success that people pretend it is. As if you are accusing them of cheating. Or maybe people are still steaming about lazy co-workers they had somewhere down a few rungs on the ladder. Either way, it is not at all relevant.

Imagine for a second that each number stands for a kind of person. 1s are people that have worked really hard and have been rewarded with upward mobility; they have "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps." (Ignore for a second that no one ever does this all by themselves.) 2s are people that are rich but don't work very hard, and so on.

When people claim that they belong to group 1, and that that somehow proves we live in a meritocracy, what they are saying is "If there is anyone who is a 1, then the meritocracy is real." But that's not true. We only have a meritocracy if groups 2 and 3 don't exist. There can be a handful of people in group 1, and of course, there is. But there is a TON of people in groups 2 and 3 as well. As a social worker, I work everyday with people in group 3. Most of our country is actually inhabited by group 3.

And, to be even clearer, groups 2 and 3 don't just exist, they are essential for Capitalism. Profit is only made by exploiting surplus labor; that is, people need to be made to work harder then they get paid for (group 3). In fact, most of the people who are actually producing value for society are not considered "successful."

So next time someone pulls this out don't argue with them about whether its true or not. Just explain to them that that doesn't actually matter.

Two Victories Worth Being Proud Of

2011-10-26T16:03:00.000-04:00

I have a dilemma to propose to you. There are two major victories for the Occupy movement so far that are really worth mentioning. It is difficult to tell which one is more worth being proud of.

Victory #1: "Outing the Ringers"
Thanks to Jay Smooth for so eloquently explaining the mess we've made for TV talking heads.

I can't say it better than Jay Smooth did, but it does bring me great satisfaction, and it should bring us ALL great satisfaction. The more ridiculous these mouthpieces start to look, and the more ridiculous their defends start to look, the less people will be willing to take them seriously. And that's a great thing.

Victory #2: "Outing the Imposters"
Victory number 2 was touched on by Chris Hedges in this recent column, as well as an interview he did down at Occupy Wall Street (around 4:19)

There are a lot of people out there who have spoken a lot of empty words and meanwhile deliberately sold out the people they pretended to represent. None are more despicable than the politicians who make up the Democratic Party. At least the GOP is honest about working for rich people day in and day out. The Democrats have always been willing to give lip service in order to channel honest grievances into a corrupt and fruitless political process for their own sakes. But Hedges is right to call out unions and Moveon.org as well, and we can add the million other faux progressive organizations to that list. Over the next few months we will watch as these hypocrites scramble to try to avoid their impending irrelevance, either by attempting to co-opt us or by simply hitching a ride: "This what we had in mind the whole time, we swear!" That's the important thing to remember--any organization that was serious in its opposition to the United States' plutocratic system could have organized a real struggle instead of just talked. Now that everyone knows what real struggle looks like, the curtain has been lifted, and these people have been revealed for what they are: complicit.

The attempts at co-optation have already begun. The other night a lackey for Alan Khazei attempted to pass a resolution at an Occupy Boston GA to bring politicians to our camp in order to build "unity" or some such nonsense. But this lackey did not identify himself as a lackey. He pretended to be a protester. And the best part? The resolution was brought to the GA when most of the rest of Occupy Boston was out marching. Alan Khazei, consider yourself outed.

I've Got a List of Demands Written on the Palm of My Hand

2011-10-23T13:57:00.000-04:00

(Updated Below)

Why we are giving into the pressure of outsiders trying to discredit us is beyond me. Our demands aren't clear enough? And that's a problem because...?

It's a problem for the people seeking to co-opt us and/or marginalize the Occupy movement because they want most of all to get into a technocratic discussion of why we can't have what is our right as human beings to have. Of course no technical tweaks will offer any reprieve of our grievances; our collective alienation, oppression, and dehumanization are built into the system itself. And of course the powers that be know that, and as long as we are talking about specific reforms we play into their hands.

This movement is at it's best when it creates an opportunity to practice community and democracy outside the system. Our foremost demand should be to continue to do just that, and for others to do it as well. It is at it's worst when we allow ourselves to be portrayed as a party that people can shop around for. We are NOT the left wing's answer to the Tea Party. We aren't another party--we are a new party that doesn't require parties, because party systems are undemocratic.

So if people must have a list of demands, in order to show other people what we stand for, and to give common cause for others to join us, then perhaps that following list will suffice:

We demand the right to represent ourselves in a democratic fashion.
We demand the right to speak about our non-freedoms however we want, whenever we want, whereever we want.
We demand the right to have a dialogue with each other about how to build a better world for ourselves.
We demand that we and every person on the planet is guaranteed all human rights, including but not limited to:

Education
Healthcare
Nutritious food
Shelter befitting a human being as defined by the person themself
Productive work of a person's choice that is not exploited by others for profit
The right to love who we want, however we want
The right to clean wind, water, soil, and air
The right to associate with others as we see fit and to engage in community in ways we find fulfilling

We demand the right to control our own destiny and the destiny of all fruits of our labor.
We demand an end to alienation and economic exploitation.
We demand an end to all institutionalized forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, sizeism, islamophobia, antisemitism, or any other system of oppression which impoverishes some and grants power and privilege to others.
We demand a society where the good of all is placed above the profit of a few.

In short, we demand that we, and every other person on this earth, are treated with the full rights and dignity that is fitting for a human being.

"List of Demands" by Saul Williams

(note: This list is hardly exhaustive, I know. I will gladly add something if you think it belongs here).

UPDATE 10/26/11: Occupy Boston ratified this Statement of Purpose, and in my opinion it's right on track.

This Is What Co-optation Looks Like: Response to George Lakoff

2011-10-21T12:53:00.000-04:00

George Lakoff wrote this truly troubling piece about the Occupy movement.

The only thing I agree with is the sentiment that he begins the column with:

"I think the movement should be framing itself. It’s a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you — the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends."

I am willing to give Lakoff the benefit of the doubt, and say that he probably is a well-meaning friend when he tries to frame the movement, though it is a special kind of well-meaning friend the decides to take up the mantel of "framing" the movement for us now that we are "maturing." However, Lakoff throwing in his lot with those who represent one of the most dangerous threats to the Occupy movement: co-opters.

In this piece, Lakoff reinforces the idea that society is divided into the traditional left-right (aka conservative-progressive, aka Republican-Democrat) political dialectic, an idea that has defined the dominant worldview regarding politics for some time. He makes the mistake of assuming that this paradigm accurately reflects the ideological makeup of the country and, by extension, that it accurately reflects reality. He has no way to understand the occupy movement except as a progressive counterweight to the Tea Party in this narrow conception of politics. If that is all we are, the left's answer to the Tea Party, then we may as well stop right now.

In truth the paradigm that Lakoff draws on is actually one that is maintained by the two major political parties--the Democrats and Republicans--in order to bury the truth: that the divide between the two is completely artificial. Both parties have the same agenda, to serve the oligarchy, and blame the other party when this hurts the rest of us. "The party in power is tinkering with the state incorrectly, and this is the source of our problems," they both claim, because they both seek to hide the innate impotence of this particular government, and governments in general, to correct the ills that are inextricably linked to the larger politico-economic system itself. This quote from Marx goes beyond the scope of this point, but clarifies the positions of our two parties in the US:

The state will never discover the source of social evils in the "state and the organization of society", as the Prussian expects of his King. Wherever there are political parties each party will attribute every defect of society to the fact that its rival is at the helm of the state instead of itself. Even the radical and revolutionary politicians look for the causes of evil not in the nature of the state but in a specific form of the state which they would like to replace with another form of the state.

From a political point of view, the state and the organization of society are not two different things. The state is the organization of society. In so far as the state acknowledges the existence of social grievances, it locates their origins either in the laws of nature over which no human agency has control, or in private life, which is independent of the state, or else in malfunctions of the administration which is dependent on it. Thus England finds poverty to be based on the law of nature according to which the population must always outgrow the available means of subsistence. From another point of view, it explains pauperism as the consequence of the bad will of the poor, just as the King of Prussia explains it in terms of the unchristian feelings of the rich and the Convention explains it in terms of the counter-revolutionary and suspect attitudes of the proprietors. Hence England punishes the poor, the Kings of Prussia exhorts the rich and the Convention heheads the proprietors.

Lastly, all states seek the cause in fortuitous or intentional defects in the administration and hence the cure is sought in administrative measures. Why? Because the administration is the organizing agency of the state.

The contradiction between the vocation and the good intentions of the administration on the one hand and the means and powers at its disposal on the other cannot be eliminated by the state, except by abolishing itself; for the state is based on this contradiction. It is based on the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities, since the scope of its own power comes to an end at the very point where civil life and work begin. Indeed, when we consider the consequences arising from the asocial nature of civil life, of private property, of trade, of industry, of the mutual plundering that goes on between the various groups in civil life, it becomes clear that the law of nature governing the administration is impotence. For, the fragmentation, the depravity, and the slavery of civil society is the natural foundation of the modern state, just as the civil society of slavery was the natural foundation of the state in antiquity. The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery.

From "Critical Notes on the Article 'The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian'" (1844)

I think that most people in our country, particularly the ones that encounter extreme forms of oppression, have come to realize that "democracy" has become a meaningless catchphrase in a country where regardless of the party that wins, the 99% lose. The economic elites that make all the major decisions never seem to come up for election, only their stewards. Low participation in elections reflects the fact that people see complicity for this in Democrats and Republicans alike, though to be fair they wouldn't be able to stop it, on their own, even if they wanted to. What people want is not another party they can "shop" around for--what they want is a new process altogether. To me, this is what the Occupy movement represents.

The Tea Party itself is an excellent case example of what the Occupy movement need most be afraid of at this stage: co-optation by established liberal political institutions, the behemoth of which is the Democratic Party. This open letter was supposedly written by a former tea party member to the occupiers quite early on in the movement. In this letter, the author describes the way that the Tea Party, which began as a movement to call out both parties as being corrupt, pro-corporate, anti-citizen, and pro-big (oppressive) state (though perhaps the Tea Party was also racist, individualistic, and "libertarian" in the right wing sense of the word). He also describes its co-optation by the conservative political machine. This co-optation has made the Tea Party nothing more than another cog in the same machine it hated. In an effect, no new ideas were introduced, and worse yet, nothing at all, fundamentally, changed. Whatever systemic threat they posed has been neutralized. A "Tea Partier" is now just a code term for a dogmatic Republican.

But if we take the author's word for what the Tea Party began as (and I hesitate to do so, but let's do that for the sake of argument), we can see that it wasn't really pro-Republican at all, nor did it express ideas that are allowed to be expressed through sanctioned channels like Republican Party (and still aren't). The true political and "moral" spectrum is vastly wider, and different, then what is legitimized by institutions in society, as well as what Lakoff will acknowledge.

For instance, my own moral/political lens, that of a critical/radical orientation, leads me to the following views that are not presented in Lakoff's piece: that the economic and institutional structures themselves, fundamentally, are what causes these recent problems like joblessness and poverty; that there can be no compromise between the "The Private" and "The Public" in which we, the vast majority of citizens of the country and the world, make out ahead; that working within the system has been encouraged by people in power precisely because it changes nothing; that as bad as money in representative political processes are, the representative political process is itself the problem because it is undemocratic by its very nature; that wages going up has no real consequence on the fact that workers are exploited by a tiny leisure class, and always have been, and always will be under a capitalist system; that ending the destruction of the natural world is not contingent on changes in the administrative orientation of the state, but is contingent instead on ending capitalism itself, which would collapse without the ever increasing consumption of natural resources; and, most importantly, that compromise with a system that causes the poverty and dehumanization of 80% plus of the world's population is complicity with that poverty and dehumanization.

I am not proposing that this alternative political/moral framework to supplant what Lakoff proposed. I am merely pointing out that his article does not encompass a true range of political and moral thought, just as our formal political process has failed to do so. Our only hope now is to replace this formal process with a new one, where people freely exchange ideas in an arena where no one has power over anyone else, where we decide what to do together. That is what the occupation movement is; an alternative process that has taken on the struggle of trying to accomplish true democracy.

Chris Hedges promises that the co-optation I fear is not possible in his newest column. His work on this has been pretty awesome; I hope he's right.

Response to "How to be a Radical Therapist"

2011-10-16T15:22:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, April mentioned an article by Rick Kunnes entitled "How to be a Radical Therapist." This is an article that appeared in one of my classes at Simmons. I have written a response for my class (below) which plays up "Liberation Health" as a possible solution to the dilemmas that Kunnes identifies. Liberation Health is a Freirean influenced health care paradigm that is championed by one of my professors. You can find out more about it here. The original article by Kunnes is embedded below my response.

Vacillating towards the Proletariat How to Be a Radical Therapist

Struggling Together at General Assembly

2011-10-09T15:59:00.003-04:00

(Updated Below)

This past Wednesday at Occupy Boston, near the end of the assembly, a group of young men* spoke out (loudly, breaking from process, and with some degree of [male] anger); they said that we had lost sight of why we were here and what we were about and they had felt that their voices had been silenced.

They were reacting directly to the facilitation of that evening’s GA. This GA had been quite tightly facilitated and facilitators were trying a new tool: floor monitors. Floor monitors were to seek out all of the clarifying questions, points of information, friendly amendments, and blocks, and then direct the group’s attention to them when their time came. This first night, the floor monitors had taken on the role of speaking for the person with the point, question, amendment, or issue. This, it seems, had not necessarily been the intentions of the facilitator team but had occurred nonetheless (and has since not been repeated). Also there was some degree of vetting by the floor monitors (i.e. if your point of information was too-off-topic then the floor managers would suggest, or maybe tell you, that you needed to get on individual stack). This vetting process appears to still be happening by floor monitors.

So, Wednesday, this group of men—who I believe were all physical occupiers—was very upset and threatening to leave the movement/encampment. They used their loud male voices and their anger to direct attention towards themselves and effectively disrupt the process. The facilitator, at this time—GA was pretty much over—decided that it was time for her to step aside. The group of 5 4 men moved to the front and onto the “stage” where they stood side-by-side and shouted their dissatisfaction.

I was incredibly impressed and proud with how the assembled community reacted. People moved forward to listen to these men and there was a sense that we must embrace them and be sure that they feel valued, loved, and listened to. People’s Mic immediately went into effect (we had been using a PA system during GA). A few people spoke out to them asking what it is that they were specifically taking issue with. Then @TomJoadsGhost called for People’s Mic and requested that these men join us down in the general area, rather than standing above us on the stage. They obliged—this was a great first step as far as the dynamics of the space and the mood of the discussion. As more people begin speaking out (with People’s Mic) someone stepped up to take stack (so less assertive people would not be passed over). A bit later, a woman spoke out and asked that we create a more deliberate circular space so that more people can see the individual speaking up. Several members of the facilitator working group spoke—largely without defensiveness. The woman who was facilitating that night came into the center of the crowd and spoke up. She had had a stressful night and often frustration is unfairly targeted at the facilitator his/her/hirself; however, she did not back away from this conversation and instead placed herself right in the middle of it.

What had begun as a somewhat anxious and tense conversation sparked by some very upset individuals had been caringly and respectfully deescalated and addressed by the community. I believe that most of the men who originally voiced their complaints did feel responded to, cared about, and respected by the community. (One of these men did storm away before we were able to begin conversing about it; several people did follow him to talk it through and I believe I’ve since seen him at the occupation.)

To wrap up this anecdote for those particularly interested in how this panned out: the thrust of the conversation became understanding what people were having issues with; communicating and re-communicating that facilitators do not have power over others, but rather are there to aid in empowering the process (which is an expression of the entire group and a structure meant to empower the community); it was re-iterated that we are learning about how we like to run GA and that new things are just experiments and need not stay the same; it was repeated that the more people who can participate in the facilitator’s working group the better; the facilitators noted that having the floor monitors paraphrase others’ thoughts is problematic; and we all began to work through the complexity and tension inherit in empowering a process and trusting that a powerful process with an empowered facilitator need not feel like or lead to hierarchies or authority of one individual, but also that it is important to remain vigilant in holding the process accountable to the group. Good stuff all around.

But the main reason that I bring this story up is to discuss the way these men expressed their dissatisfaction, their concerns, and their feelings. They did so with their loud (and empowered) male voices and by allowing their anger to be very visible to the group. I think that their concerns are very valid and I do understand being angry about them. And I don’t bring this up to get into a hierarchy of oppression debate or to make commentary about these men’s experiences. But what I do wish to say is that I believe the community should respond to all concerns of this nature by embracing those who are upset, deeply listening to their issues, and working with them and others to address people’s feelings and concerns. But, I worry: In this case, these men were greeted with precisely that, but were they greeted with it because they used institutionalized and normative means to garner a great deal of attention and alarm? I believe so, at least in part.

They used a set of means that are much more comfortable for them to use than they would be for others to use. And they used a set of means that are much more uncomfortable for me to witness than they are for others with different identities and experiences to witness.

And, while their feelings of upset and frustrations are valid, it makes me very worried that their behavior, in fact, further silences others whose concerns are just as valid.

In some ways, a stricter process makes space for those who are more often and easily silenced and we must bear this in mind. I am thankful that, on Wednesday night, several people stepped up to improvise implementing some type of respectful community process in order to simultaneously address these men’s concerns and to make safe spaces for all. That was a very positive reaction (one we might not have had just a week ago, before we began to experiment with the structure and process of GA).

It’s important to keep in mind what the facilitation process at GA can do that is positive, while we also strive to keep it accountable to the whole community. And I hope that those who can use their booming male voices and their scary anger remember the effects of those tools on others and those tools’ history as a means of oppression. I hope as a group we continue to be vigilant in keeping spaces safe for even the quietest among us. Those people, too, must have space to express their issues (over which they are feeling just as upset as those men were those that night) and get equal time in front of the community. Those are some of the things I hope.

I almost People’s Mic’d myself to say a bit about this last Wednesday night, but I wasn’t sure how to say it in a short enough sound byte and to do so in a way that did not trigger to oppression-hierarchy game amongst the group of men who already felt silenced and misunderstood. Anyone reading this with some fabulous sense of how to cut this down to a few non-triggering sentences that can easily be divvied into 3 or 4 word parcels, PLEASE let me know!

In solidarity, A

*Note: I am assuming that these 5 4 individuals are male-identified. This is not an OK assumption, but—in this case—I am really just using this instance as a case study to talk about larger concerns. Therefore, while I might be misrepresenting the details of this a particular anecdote (please do correct me), I think that the larger point remains valid.

UPDATE 1, 10/9/11, 19:12 PM:
The facilitator's take on what happened at Wednesday night's GA. She also touches upon some of the issues of sexism that the facilitation working group is dealing with.

Guide to Occupying With Love

2011-10-03T14:51:00.000-04:00

This is just what I think, not what I have been successfully able to live up to. Even in ourselves, there is a struggle worth having. I just wanted to put it out there to you.

React to people hating on the movement with love

Most of those people are part of the 99%.
There has been a lot of misleading lies in the press. That is not people’s fault. Most of them will be having their first contact with the movement when they are being hateful towards you. Let them know the truth about us, and surprise them with love.
It may help to remember that change is REALLY scary, even for people who desperately want a change.
Honey catches more flies then vinegar.
Belligerent, disrespecful people will turn onlookers off. Our reactions of love will turn onlookers on.
Because I want to be a part of a movement that is about love, freedom, and true democracy. And what does a movement like that look like? It responds to hate with love.
Remain mindful that your identity may give you power over other individuals because of institutionalized oppression/s.
Even when they aren’t around, you can be hateful towards people, or you can treat haters with love!
Because it will make Cornell West happy (okay, this isn't a real reason...).

Treat other people at the occupation with love, even when you REALLY, REALLY disagree.

Differences of opinion are sometimes scary because the ideas of others can hurt you. That is only because people have power over you. At the occupation, no one should have power over you, and so you do not need to be afraid of differences of opinion.
What you think and what that person you disagree with thinks can interact in amazing ways now that a truly democratic dialogue is possible. Will their mind change? Will your mind change? Will something new and important be created instead? Embodying love and patience is the only way to find out what that amazing interaction might be!
Passionate, powerful dialogue with one another is an expression of LOVE. But name calling, condescension, or denying the humanity and human rights of others is not.
Be mindful that your identity may give you power over other individuals because of institutionalized oppression/s.
Even when they are not around, you can treat those at the occupation you happen to disagree with hatefully, or you can treat them with love! One way of loving people at the occupation is to not speak on their behalf when you do not have their permission.

Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

2011-10-02T18:40:00.005-04:00

Revolutionary groups have a very different picture of what democracy looks like than what has sprung up in the #occupytogether movement. For example, the Revolutionary Communist Progressive Labor Party (PL) has a very inflexible view of democracy and how organizing decisions should be made. They claim that democratic centralism is the end all and be all of revolutionary democratic organizing:

We communists are bitterly opposed to the democracy practiced in capitalist countries, that is, to "bourgeois democracy" based on periodic elections with secret ballots for presidents and parliamentsor congresses. Bourgeois democracy is an elitist system that guarantees thecapitalists run things while workers have no real say in how society works…

The Party is organized on the basis of democratic centralism. The Party is divided into cells, or clubs, which meet regularly to evaluate members' work and to make suggestions about how to improve it, and to evaluate the Party's positions and make suggestions for change. These suggestions are taken by the club leader to section meetings (made up of the club leaders and other leading comrades in an area, and by section leaders tothe Central Committee. Based on the collective experience of the Party, the leadership decides on new positions (a new line) which all Party members are then bound to put into practice. Only if all of us put the same line into practice can wefind out if the line works; if each of us goes our own way, we will never havethe common strength of a united Party.

Democratic centralism is communist democracy. After the revolution we will run all of society along democratic centralist lines. Let us contrast communistdemocracy with bourgeois democracy, to show how communist democracy serves theinterests of the working class, the great majority of people, while bourgeois democracy serves the interests of the bourgeoisie, the small rich elite.

Democratic centralism forces everyone to speak up. At club meetings, eachperson must express their opinions, including openly voicing theirdisagreements. Bourgeois democracy listens only to the silver-tongued stars,the media-fashioned "opinion makers." Most people are encouraged tobe passive, to go along with the drift. Nothing encourages you to speak out ifyou are shy. This builds the elitist attitude that politics is only for thechosen few, that most of us are too dumb to know what is going on. This isinherent in a system based on large-scale elections, without smalldecision-making groups that meet regularly.

Democratic centralism forces people to evaluate themselves honestly and to listen to the evaluation of others (praise as well as criticism). This lets people grow and improve, and it holds back the liars and braggarts. Bourgeois democracy, on the other hand, encourages the con artist who can hide his failures and his cheating. The system penalizes honesty and thoughtfulness in favor of the best actor. Under bourgeois democracy, politicians are rarely held responsible for their mistakes. This is great for the elite who want to hidehow they swindle and exploit us.

Besides drawing on the strength of the collective, democratic centralism also forces us to act in a collective manner--to do what is best for the group. He who pursues individual self-interest at the expense of the common purpose willcatch hell at the next club meeting, because he makes things harder for his comrades. This way we learn to help each other. Bourgeois democracy is based onthe principle of screwing the other guy so you can get ahead. Telling lies about your opponent is okay as long as you don't get caught. What counts is winning the election, not improving society.

Each Party member accepts the discipline of carrying out the Party line. So once a decision has been reached, we can be sure that there will be a struggle everywhere to put that decision into action. Under bourgeois democracy, there is no discipline except the courts and the jails. There is no system to win people to the common decision. There is nothing to guarantee that the rich and powerful will follow the decision of the legislature, if they can figure out how to avoid it; no one is going to call them to account in front of a mass meeting. Each person may try to undermine the group decision for his own advantage.

Finally, democratic centralism is based on struggling to weed out rotten ideas and anti-social behavior. We want to help each other become better people.Bourgeois democracy is based on "doing your own thing," which is the essence of civil liberties. Each person is said to be "free" to dowhatever they want--that is, to screw everyone else, if they can get away with it." Free speech" protects vile racist crap that advocates massmurder. Communists want nothing to do with such "free speech"--we think that seriously dangerous anti-social ideas should be rooted out, not given freeplay. Bourgeois democracy protects creeps, while only democratic centralism encourages full and open discussion and criticism.

In short, bourgeois democracy helps a small elite that wants to hide its lies; bourgeois democracy encourages dog-eat-dog individualism; it forces most peopleto be passive while superstars take over politics. The problem with secret ballots, legislatures and civil liberties is not that the rich capitalists cheat on the rules for their own benefit. The problem is that the rules of bourgeois democracy guarantee that the great majority of people, the workers, are frozen out. If we were to institute bourgeois democracy after the revolution, that would only encourage the formation of a new capitalist class (On Democratic Centralism 1982).

I doubt they are the only party that feels this way but I’m not personally interested in tracking down opinions from other groups.

Many radical Marxist types I have overheard discussing how conflicted they feel about #occupytogether’s “horizontal democracy.” They have no experience with it, they don’t know if it will be effective, but there seems to be consensus that this is important somehow, if only because giving it a chance to empirically prove itself (or not) will be historically significant. They would prefer to see a clear working class message in the interests of recruitment; they feel that a real working class message will resonate with people, and I agree. On the other hand, a clear working class message would require centralized leadership, which would be contrary to the whole idea of horizontal democracy.

I’m going to throw myself into this curious but ambivalent faction, though I should mention that I have been at times far more ambivalent about democratic centralism (depending on the time of day). I have participated in three #occupyboston general assemblies (GAs)—one in the Common and two at the occupation at Dewey Square. This is how it works, as far as I can tell:

There are working groups to which anyone is invited to attend and talk or help. These groups are:

Tactical/Logistics
Media
Medical/Mental Health
Legal
Recess
Outreach
Messaging
Direct Action
Comm Team
Faith & Spirituality
Food

These groups are free associations of individuals and any individual or group of individuals can decide to form an additional group. Someone at last night's GA, noted that he wished to begin a new group, for instance. I do not believe that Faith & Spirituality was present at the planning GA's, but they formed and have been organizing like crazy since the encampment began. OccupyWallSt just began publishing their own newspaper, I wonder if a small working group (or perhaps a sub-committee of media) might emerge to fill this need for Boston.
These group make some decisions for the group; for instance, Direct Action decided (by their own small group consensus) the first night (9/30) that there would be a march the next day to Collegefest in the afternoon, and that there would be marches each morning and evening during the week. These were not put up to a vote by the whole group, but the times for the weekday marches were disputed and so were changed via consensus to a later time.
During the GAs important information is shared by each working group. In addition, issues that affect the entire group are voted on, such as how the GAs will be run (with “peoples’ mic” or not, what is the percent necessary to pass a motion, etc.) as well as big decisions like when the occupation will begin. Before votes, there is a temperature check, and then short one-minute-ish speeches by anyone who wishes to come forward (this is called “the stack”). Once the stack is exhausted, there is a final vote.
However, people in the minority during a vote can “block,” which means they think that a decision has been made which is so bad for the group that they might consider leaving. This is a way to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
Proposals can be submitted by the members of the GA at any time (I think that this process is in-flux; I believe that they are trying to get people to get proposals on the agenda ahead of GA; the process for counter-proposals is still a bit unclear, as well). Facilitators recognize who has the floor at any point in time, but because of people’s mic, the crowd participates in giving someone the floor.

On the second night of the occupation (10/1) there was a very interesting process for allowing a broad discussion of the group’s messages and ideas for demands. It was heavily related to democratic centralism. After announcements, the GA broke down into smaller groups and people were encouraged to share why they chose to come down to the occupation. After about 45 minutes, one person was selected from each group to share what had been discussed in the smaller groups. If anyone felt left out of the process, individuals were encouraged to join the stack so their ideas could be shared to the entire GA. This differs from democratic centralism because the entire process was transparent in the sense that every member got to hear the ideas of every small group as well as any individual that felt their thoughts were being left out. Additionally, those at the top did not form a “party line” from the information that was passed up.

These GAs can take a long time. Determining whether the occupation was going to start 9/30 or 10/7 took several hours on Tuesday night and the issue was not resolved until late Wednesday night. It is also not perfectly “leaderless.” I don’t know exactly who is behind the scenes, but someone is choosing, for instance, when GAs are and who will be facilitating. I think it is important to note that these are process-related decisions. There is, as far as I can tell, no “thought leaders” for the movement. This has been played up by the media and some malcontents, who think that the lack of a central message is a clear weakness and a sign that the movement is sophomoric, incoherent, and impotent. But what it is really a sign of is that no one feels comfortable speaking for the whole. And that might end up creating a whole new kind of movement.

I think it may be appropriate to think of #occupytogether as a community that operates with a certain kind of political process as opposed to being a party that people can shop around and select based upon a platform. In this sense they do not represent an alternative to mainstream "parties." It is not the "left wing equivalent" to the Tea Party. It is not an alternative to leftist Parties like the PL, the ISO, the Socialist Alternative. And, it is not an activist organization like City Life/Vida Urbana or US Uncut. The occupation movement might represent an alternative political process, a counter to the entire corrupted “democratic republic” that our legal system maintains. Which means that the demands that are produced will not be a party platform, they will be democratic decisions, in the same way that presidential elections are supposed to be. Such a movement could change the way the people think about social power and their relationships with each other. And that could end up being an extremely important development for the revolutionary movement.

Or maybe not. The worst case scenario is that the occupation movement will just produce an ineffectual counter-culture that is enjoyed by white out-of-work post-college 20-somethings. I don’t know, yet.

But I do know that I have never felt as much of a sense of community, mutual respect, or selfless devotion to the whole. Neither have I ever had a chance to engage in such satisfying exchanges of ideas face-to-face before. I am hooked, and feel as if I am glimpsing into the future of what humanity is capable of. As Saul Williams says,

"A call to the youth! Your freedom ain't so free, it's just loose, but the power of your voice could redirect every truth. Shift and shape the world you want and keep your fears in a noose--let them dangle from a banner star spangled. I'm willing and able to lift my dreams up out of their cradle. Nurse and nurture my ideals 'til they're much more than a fable. I can be all I can be and do much more than I'm paid to, and I won't be a slave to what authorities say do. My desire is to live within a nation on fire, where creative passions burn and raise the stakes ever higher. Where no person is addicted to some twisted supplier who promotes the sort of freedom sold to the highest buyer." -Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare)

A SUMMIT REVIEW: Informed Activism

2011-09-27T20:21:00.007-04:00

This past Saturday I attended Informed Activism: Armed Conflict, Scarce Resources, and Congo, an event billed as an international summit intended to convene NGO workers, students, scholars, and policymakers to discuss how to be “informed activists” on the subject of violence and exploitation in Congo. Speeches, panels, and sessions were held in order to expand our thinking about Congo’s mineral resources and their exploitation, the ongoing conflict and the horrendous violence being perpetrated—particularly on the bodies of women—and how our actions as “activists” (or maybe just as consumers) can effectively and intelligently address these urgent needs.

The issues I had with this summit (the topics covered, how they were covered, the lack of critical framework and the stifling ideological assumptions, who spoke and in what capacity) are quite layered and numerous. I feel that the best way to address them is to identify a set of problematic overarching themes to which I was very sensitive and, at times, by which I emotionally riled. Some of these issues are far more important and beefy than others and they are presented in no particular order.

1. Apparently, we’ve finally reached that lovely post-/neo-colonial space where it is mainstream to constantly discuss how (rich, white) outsiders ought to remain humble (or at least constantly verbalize their feelings of humility) in the presence of every insider, native, and/or indigenous participant.

Now, to be clear, I believe strongly in grounding all of our work in the experiences and struggles of the experts--the experts being those who are have lived in the community to which we are addressing. Ideally, all activists would be in solidarity with these indigenous experts in a very real and tangible way. Arguably this, real and tangible solidarity, would begin to deconstruct the categories of the helped and the helpers (the activists and the acted upon/to). Also, it is paramount that these insiders ought not be solely those individuals whom the outsiders have identified as appropriate for their framework and cause.*

What I believe we largely witnessed this weekend—every (white) person re-affirming publicly (to a captive audience) that they are humbled by and so respectful of the (black) insiders—was a theatrical event.

Why do I say this? Because I understand the ideologies, agendas, and positions of those verbalizing their humility. In fact, the few individuals who were most careful to cushion each remark with these “humble” words were those there from the most entrenched and empowered organizations, like the US State Department and USAID. These figureheads are the most explicitly empowered perpetrators of the violence in Congo. And these individuals, as representatives of their organizations, were those that care least to listen to the insiders, engage with them meaningfully, and acquiesce to their requests.

In fact, Chloe Schwenke—Senior Advisor on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance at the Africa Bureau of USAID—sat next to Congolese journalist and activist Chouchou Namegabe. Chloe expressed her gratitude and humility in sitting on a panel with such an expert as Chouchou from one side of her mouth; she then turned to the audience and said that the US Administration is ultimately doing all it can to support the Congolese (of course neglecting to address the administration’s support of Rwandan Paul Kagame) and that among the most successful programs she felt that USAID had carried out were those meant to change attitudes amongst individual men in DRC. Funny because Chouchou had made it a point in her keynote and initial commentary on the panel that it is vital to consider rape and mass rape as weapons of war, as part of a larger picture, and NOT as a problem of culture or individual behavior and attitudes. But, yes, audience, Chloe was so thrilled to be able to tell us all how much she and the rest of USAID love and respect those insiders.

Another anecdote: One Congolese panel participant, Kambale Musavuli of Friends of the Congo, presented his introductory remarks with incredibly refreshing reality-checking. We were over 2 hours into the event and we were just now hearing—from Kambale—that US foreign policy has in fact impacted Congo and continues to do so (shocker!). Kambale, thankfully, offered us some nice historical context (again, first time we were hearing this): he began with King Leopold and gave us the crash course, including the US-backed ousting of democratically elected leadership and the installation of General Mobutu in 1960 (Mobutu went on to be a very authoritarian and very rich man, but at least he was anti-communist!). Kambale also reminded us that US policy now, such as support of Rwandan strongman Kagame matters.**

Our friend Kambale pled with the audience, his colleagues, scholars, students, NGO workers, and activists to expand our dialogue behind the horrors or rape and the details of conflict minerals (and the ways consumers can lend a helping hand or at least feel better about themselves via purchasing power). He yelled out that this was not the story, that we were burying the lede, that we needed to dig deeper or nothing would ever change and we’d be back here next year having the same conversation.

Now, was this “insider” received with actual respect and support? Was his point of view not only listened to but also upheld as experiential and necessarily central to any narrative that we’d like to concoct about Congo? Did we re-evaluate the direction of the conversation and consider delving deeper, as Kambale eloquently and passionately urged us to do? Well, the audience received him well (likely because many people were just thrilled to hear someone willing to challenge something). But, the moderator predictably delegitimized his position and regained control over her panel by calling him “feisty,” and then later “fiery.” Yes, she did. The others on the panel masterfully acknowledged him (with the greatest respect and humility, of course) without actually acknowledging anything about what he had said. And, largely, once he had ceased speaking, the content of what he had said faded away with his voice.

2. I learned from this summit, that employees and directors of NGOs are henceforth synonymous with activists. Yep. (For great additional reading on this and what this means: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded)

3. The first 4 hours of this event was either speeches or panel discussions. Questions were only received from the audience when 15 minutes remained in each allotted session. They were collected on index cards (which of course take at least 5 minutes to trickle to the moderator) and then they were vetted and paraphrased to be posed by the moderator. At this time, panelists were free to dance around questions and repeat things they had already said or perhaps offer the audience a promotional tidbit for their home NGO. This is not how “activists” (or scholars or any group of engaged participants) ask questions to expand dialogue and understanding. This is not a respectful learning environment; this is a stilted and censored one (and obviously so).

Many people complain about the disruptive nature of many of these tactics…The argument is advanced that disruption violates freedom of speech and press. It’s our feeling that rights such as freedom of the press belong only to those who own one. The same applies to freedom of speech; if you don’t have access to the media, all you can do is speak to yourself.

If you seize control of a convention meeting you can create your own meeting, open up a real dialogue, and have true freedom of speech. Genuine and meaningful discussion cannot occur at a convention in America without first disrupting it. Turn the convention into a political education meeting. The disruption is a protest against the elitism, racism, and sexism which abounds at any professional convention, simply by virtue of its being a “convention of professionals.” (“How to be a Radical Therapist,” Rick Kunnes, p. 173 in The Radical Therapist, 1971).

4. The implicit assumption of (nearly) everyone I heard speak was so blatantly reformist that it was uncomfortably stifling. Apply above quote (again) and see below for a specific element of the conference that lacked the critical framework that more radical efforts and thinking necessitates.

5. The sub-theme of this conference was apparently our roles as “consumer activists,” “informed” ones—by the end of the conference—I suppose. This was the outro tagline that summit director Prof. Deborah Dwork provided in an interview prior to the event, “Our point is consumer activism, we have a role, we have a voice, and through our pocketbooks, we have a vote.” Of course, really questioning the design, paradigm, or concept of “consumer activism” was entirely off the table.

My partner (in life, crime, revolution, and conference-going) pushed this a bit in one session led by a Clark professor and representative from the Enough Project, but his points—I believe—were deemed too off-topic to be acknowledged by the discussion. So much for real debate about activism, let alone informed activism. The confluence of “consumer activism” and activism is disheartening (similar to the confluence of NGO work and activism) and if the confluence must occur, I think it is a reasonable expectation to approach the tactic or strategy (of consumerism) with some critical thinking (if not theoretically, then at least practically).

Without getting into this too much, I will offer some thoughts:

Practically, what more can “consumer activism” accomplish than creating a niche group of consumers who demand niche access to niche products that meet their “consumer activist” standards? At best, this means a change in production only to satisfy a small group of consumers (those who identify strongly as “consumer activists” and those with the capital to “vote with their pocketbooks”). How is this good enough? And interestingly, at this conference many people did speak out about the need for standards and certification (things that are unlikely to occur without government support, which means legislation and regulation, not consumers shifting demand), but no one spoke up to point out that the consumer-point-of-entry that so many were using and advocating for was essentially useless if the desired end result is legislation.
Now, theoretically (and this is over-simplified for the sake of space AND my tired brain), “consumer activism” places all agency onto individuals as consumers, which robs agency from workers (implicitly and explicitly) and civilians. This type of “activism” is privileging of certain groups, entirely neglects root problems, avoids real solutions, and manages to entirely objectify workers. Of course, worker and civilian organizing to improve the standards wherein our products are produced is the only long-term, sustainable, and broad-based solution.
One other side note: our desperate need to say something about ourselves via the consumer goods we purchase, wear, tote should not be surprising. It is a logical result of the corporations spending millions on branding and marketing. As such, it is, in fact, to be expected that “activists” who have incredibly good intentions and wish to identify as “activists,” or compassionate global citizens, or whatever would turn to their consumer options. It is this phenomenon, I believe, that makes people so defensive and emotional when you criticize the theoretical or practical merit of consumer activism (it is their identity under attack after all). So, I ask, A) Do you really want to try to beat corporations at their very own game, in order to improve labor and environmental conditions? Hint: No, they will beat your ass. B) Is this really a phenomenon we want buy into and perpetuate? Hint: No, it’s gonna beat your ass (and further alienate you from your identity as a citizen and your relationship with workers [as if by design…Oh wait! Brilliant!]).

6. Back-patting: Throughout this conference, those with the mic took precious time (the agenda was packed and often discussions were truncated due to unbending time constraints), to express just how amazing it is that we were sitting in the audience and how special this summit really is. Let me just say: a couple quick acknowledgements of the convened groups is fine, but the longwinded and insistent need to constantly let every audience member know that they are saints for sitting there is sickening. And also alarming; what are the conveners and speakers afraid of? That if we don’t hear constant affirmations of how great and passionate and smart we all are as “progressive” “activists” we will get disgruntled and walk? Also, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh? The summit cannot be deemed a special success at the beginning of it, let’s save that determination for the end? At 9 am Saturday AM, the only success is that at least some of the registered people managed to get themselves into the building. Next time, send a thank you email and spare me the back-patting ritual. This is, admittedly, probably the pettiest of my complaints, but I cannot let it go. Perhaps because I’m stubborn (which is definitely true) and/or because I believe, deep down, there is something quite significant happening here!

*At this conference, it is important to note that the outsiders—whom I was exposed to as panelists and speakers—were a very particular group who were engaged in various ways with represented NGOs. Please imagine how this might impact the characteristics and positions of this particular population of insiders.

** My historical knowledge on this is, admittedly, limited. Please do correct me:

President Kagame has been interested in the riches in the DRC for years. Rwanda, small and resource-poor, has long-experienced a somewhat porous border with its large, resource-rich neighbor. Rwanda’s army (RPA) invaded in 1996 to pursue Hutu fighters (essentially endorsed by the West) and then really invaded in 1998. While Hutu-Tutsi ethnic relations and major fall-out from the Rwandan genocide is certainly important context here, so is Rwanda’s desire to have access to (or to pillage) Congo’s enormous mineral wealth. The recent UN Mapping Report that was tasked with investigating the crimes and violence in DRC between 1993 and 2003 heavily implicates Kagame, Rwanda’s army (RPA), and the AFDL rebel force (led by Laurent Kabila) in the deaths of thousands of Hutu refugees in DRC.

(This is another example wherein overly simplistic narratives portraying the very good and the very bad guys in a complex political-economic situation have fallen very short. We all know the basic Rwandan genocide narrative and it is grossly lacking. For more on this and other problematic “genocide narratives” see: The Politics of Genocide. For the bottom-line (or the one I’m using today): oversimplifying that crisis as black-and-white ethnic cleansing has done us all a great disservice and has absolutely negatively impacted millions of Congolese. One would hope that US foreign policy operates with a more complex narrative than the one the general public understands about Rwanda, but evidence does not suggest so.)

Although Rwandan and Ugandan forces “left” DRC in the early 2000’s, their presence has remained strong, largely in the form of financial backing and security to rebel Congolese forces (e.g. Nkunda's AFDL rebel force). These forces are among those responsible for exploiting child soldiers, raping hundreds of thousands of women, and uprooting thousands of villages. The FDRL—Congolese Hutu militia—are also counted among the perpetrators. Together, these forces are greatly responsible for the massive destabilization the country has been feeling this past decade.

Kagame has long enjoyed US-backing (the 1996 invasion, Kagame’s membership in the “New African Leaders” club, etc.) and continues to (Obama’s state department requested immunity for Kagame in August 2011). Recently, Congolese president Kabila allowed Rwandan military forces back into the country (officially) to fight off FDLR rebel groups this as part of a deal following Rwanda’s arrest of warlord Nkunda—again head nods from the West. Since then, reports of violence against Congolese civilians have risen.

What does the Hyde Amendment really mean for women?

2011-04-21T22:43:00.006-04:00

First, for a look at the impact of the Hyde Amendment and the policy of excluding abortion funding from Medicaid, check out this paper that I wrote back in Fall 2009 (in the midst Stupak-Pitts Amendment craziness):Denied: Whom the Hyde Amendment Hurts

And then check out this hot-off-the-presses report that I helped compile data for as part of my work for the Jane Fund. This looks specifically at women's experiences with abortion care and state-subsidized insurance in MA (the state with the most comprehensive state-subsidized care):
Experiences of Women Seeking State-Subsidized Insurance for Abortion Care in Massachusetts

US Uncut Protest in Cambridge

2011-02-28T15:09:00.005-05:00

Last Saturday, Forecasting Rain attended a protest in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. The target was Bank of America--they, like many of the nations largest and more profitable companies, payed little in taxes last year. In some cases, they paid none. BOA is one of those cases. In fact, the bank netted after taxes the same number of federal dollars it would take to cover the cuts Obama proposed for LIHEAP (heating oil subsidies for the poor).

There were protests staged internationally (US and UK), including one particularly interesting sit-in at a BOA in D.C. The movement began in the UK, where they have been fairly successful in getting onto the political agenda that idea that putting pressure on large corporations to pay their proper share should take the place of steep austerity measures. Here is the UK website, the US website, and the Twitter accounts for the US and Boston (a more comprehensive list of local contacts can be found here).

Here is a fact sheet on BOA's tax dodging (word doc).

And here are some pictures!

If you are interested in finding out more about this movement, please let me know, as I am sure there are plenty more of these protests to come.

UPDATE: Looks like Glenn Beck has sniffed out the conspiracy here!

UPDATE II: There are a bunch of pictures of us on the Nation's website!

The Ghost of Tom Joad

2011-02-08T09:59:00.001-05:00

Since a lot of people on Twitter seem to think that my name is Tom, I thought I would provide a little info on my handle. The reference is to a Bruce Springsteen song which was inspired by a character in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
It was covered by Rage Against the Machine, which was where I first heard it many years ago and it had an impact on me, not because it changed my politics so much as it suggested to me that there were other people out there who were pissed off like I was and gave me a sense of solidarity for the first time.

Bruce Springsteen Version:

Rage Against the Machine Version:

Lyrics:
Man walks along the railroad tracks
He's goin' someplace, and there's no turnin' back
The highway patrol chopper comin' up over the ridge
Man sleeps by a campfire under the bridge
The shelter line stretchin' around the corner
Welcome to the New World Order
Families sleepin' in their cars out in the Southwest
No job, no home, no peace, no rest
No rest!

The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody as to where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad

He pulls his prayer book out of his sleepin' bag
The Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
He's waitin' for the time when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
With a one way ticket to the promised land
With a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Searching for a pillow of solid rock
Bathin' in the city's aquaduct

The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody as to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the Ghost of old Tom Joad

Now Tom said, "Ma, wherever you seen a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Wherever there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Ma, I'll be there
Wherever somebody's strugglin' for a place to stand
For a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, you'll see me"
You'll see me (x8)

The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody as to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of Tom Joad

Freedom Loving Americans

2011-02-02T12:09:00.001-05:00

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Remembering 'A Time to Break the SIlence'

2011-01-18T10:40:00.002-05:00

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence

Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam
Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
April 1967
At Manhattan's Riverside Church

Full text:
OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorage, leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.

Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.

Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor - both black and white - through the Poverty Program. Then came the build-up in Vietnam, and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political play thing of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the young black men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years - especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action. But, they asked, what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a Civil Rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed from the shackles they still wear.

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read "Vietnam." It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.

As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission, a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the "brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant or all men, for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved His enemies so fully that He died for hem? What then can I say to the Viet Cong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death, or must I not share with hem my life?

And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its re-conquest of her former colony.

Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not "ready" for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision, we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination, and a government that had been established not by China (for whom the Vietnamese have no great love) but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants, this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to re-colonize Vietnam.

Before the end of the war we were meeting 80 per cent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will to do so.

After the French were defeated it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva agreements. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S. troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while, the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy, and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go.

They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers destroy their precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least 20 casualties from American firepower for each Viet Cong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building?

Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets." The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts'? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers.

Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the NLF, that strangely anonymous group we call VC or communists? What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the North" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem, and charge them with violence while we pour new weapons of death into their land?

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than 25 per cent communist and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will have no part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant.

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and non-violence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know of his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded at Geneva to give up, as a temporary measure, the land they controlled between the 13th and 17th parallels. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which would have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again.

When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered. Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreements concerning foreign troops, and they remind us that they did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the President claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. Perhaps only his sense of humor and irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than 8000 miles from its shores.

At this point, I should make it clear that while I have tried here to give a voice to the voiceless of Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for our troops must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam and the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently, one of them wrote these words: "Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the hearts of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It' will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony, and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of her people.

In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing the war to a halt. I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmare:

1. End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.

2. Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.

3. Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military build-up in Thailand and our interference in Laos.

4. Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and in any future Vietnam government.

5. Set a date on which we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.

Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the NLF. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, in this country if necessary.

Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.

As we counsel young men concerning military service we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is the path now being chosen by more than 70 students at my own Alma Mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy, and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. We will be marching and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. The need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. With such activity in mind, the words of John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. When machines and computers, profit and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: " This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from re-ordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are the days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take: offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to ad just to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.