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Z MAGAZINE VOLUME 23 NUMBER 4 2010

Z MAGAZINE is an independent magazine of critical thinking on political, cultural, so-


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Ta ble of C o n t en t s A p r i l 2 0 1 0
Net Briefs 2
Various news items from the Internet

Special Report 3
The Social Earthquake in Chile
FAULT LINES: 3
Roger Burbach on the results of neoliberal policies, further exposed by the quake

Commentary 5
FOG WATCH: Big Government, Budget Deficits, Entitlements, and the “Centrist” Ploy 5
Edward S. Herman on classic double standards
DECISIONS: Court’s Money Ruling is a Red Herring 7
Jane Anne Morris on the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling
MEDIA MATTERS: Ethan Bronner’s Ties to the IDF: The Rule Not the Exception? 8
Alison Weir on conflict of interest among reporters/editors/bureau chief
GENDER & SPORTS: NBC’s Olympics: From Homophobia To The Cult of Personality 9
Sue Katz on ski jumping, figure skating, and Apolo Ohno’s headband

Activism 12
LABOR TODAY: Teamster’s Election Victory: How to Succeed After Failing 12
Carl Finamore on door-to-door efforts that paid off
PHOTO ESSAY: Protesting School Funding Cuts 13
Various photographers document student/faculty/worker actions

Interviews 15
Fortunate Rebel Son: An interview with Mark Rudd 15
Bill Nevins
Dolls and Drudges Don Pants: An interview with Gail Collins 17
Martha Rosenberg
A Journalist’s Responsibility: An interview with Dahr Jamail 18
Seth Kershner
The New Apostolic Reformation: An interview with Rachel Tabachnick 19
Bill Berkowitz
I Don’t See Much Difference: An interview with Noam Chomsky 21
Jon Hochschartner

Features 23
COMMUNIQUE: Obama’s Ironic Public 23
Rob Larson on shortchange we can believe in
GREEN TIDE: Land: The Greatest Excuse of All 27
Rachel Smolker on accounting tricks instead of climate crisis solutions
ECONOMIC POLICY: Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression? 31
Jack Rasmus on an alternative program for the financial crisis, part III
LOOKING FORWARD: Searching for Democratic Alternatives 37
Ideas for a New International (from zcommunications)

Reviews 39
In Vitro, In Vivo! 39
John Esther reviews some selections from the Sundance Film Festival 2010
The War Before by Safiya Bukhari, edited by Laura Whitehorn 41
Review by Hans Bennett
New York For Sale by Tom Angotti, foreword by Peter Marcuse 42
Review by James Tracy
Capitalizing on Disaster by Kenneth J. Saltman 43
Review by Robert Ovetz
American Counterinsurgency by Roberto Gonzalez 44
The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual by Concerned Anthropologists Network
Reviews by Kristian Williams

Zaps 46
Hotel Satire

NET BRIEFS
which businesses are influencing a Wildlife Refuge, as well as hydroelectric
In Truth given election, and to what extent. power, wind power, oil shale, natural
gas, gas hydrates, hydrogen, biofuels,
S ourcewatch.org alerts us to an
Interpress News Service article
(March 8, 2010). Apparently, the U.S. Move to Amend
solar power, clean coal, and nuclear
power.
media reported that a big, offensive Another Citizens United documen-
battle was taking place in Marja, Af-
ghanistan, a “city of 80,000 people” in M ovetoamend.org informs us that
activists against corporate “per-
sonhood” have formed a new move-
tary, Generation Zero, attributes the
“U.S. fiscal meltdown to undisciplined
baby boomers coming to maturity and
Helmand province, which was also the
“logistical hub of the Taliban.” The de- ment “that holds that large business gaining power.” Generation Zero is Citi-
scription gave the impression that the corporations are the most powerful in- zens United’s name for baby boomers
U.S. presence in Marja was a major stitutions in our society and the main who were “born into unprecedented
strategic objective. obstacles to rule by the people—or de- prosperity.... In the 1950s, because par-
mocracy. Move to Amend is a multi- ents determined that their children
In truth, Marja is not a city or even a
year project of the Campaign to Legal- should be sheltered from the economic
town, but a few farmers’ homes and
ize Democracy and is circulating a citi- hardships of the 1930s and the wartime
farmland encompassing much of the
zens’ petition, signed by 71,330 as of sacrifices of the 1940s; their offspring
southern Helmand River Valley. The fic-
March 11, which reads as follows (on- were coddled, growing up in a child-
tion that Marja was a city of 80,000 got
line at www.movetoamend.org). hood of Beaver Cleaver suburbs.”
started at a briefing given by officials on
February 2 at the U.S. Marine base,
Camp Leatherneck. Officials referred to We, the people of the United
Marja as a populous city. The Associ- States of America, reject the Su- You’re Kidding
ated Press subsequently reported, that preme Court’s ruling in Citizens
same day, that they expected up to
1,000 insurgents were “holed up” in the
United, and move to amend our
Constitution to: T ruthout.org makes note of the new
law allowing weapons to be carried
in national parks and wildlife refuges
“southern Afghan town of 80,000 peo- þ Firmly establish that money is not
ple,” a statement that evoked a picture speech and that human beings, and of the existence of a loosely orga-
not corporations, are persons enti- nized Bay Area Open Carry Movement,
of house-to-house urban street fighting. tled to constitutional rights a group that has been turning up at
The rest of the news media fell in
þ Guarantee the right to vote and to coffee shops (Starbucks is a favorite)
line, giving fake descriptions of a participate, and to have our votes with (unloaded) handguns holstered to
densely populated Marja. Finally, on and participation count their belts to raise awareness about gun
February 22, the Washington Post re-
þ Protect local communities, their rights.
ported that the decision to launch the economies, and democracies
big offensive against Marja was in- David LaTour, a student at San Jose
against illegitimate “preemption”
tended largely to impress U.S. public actions by global, national, and
State University, has been carrying his
opinion with the military’s effectiveness state governments Springfield XD 9mm handgun on his
in Afghanistan by showing that it could hip for about a month. California allows
achieve a “large and loud victory.” The its citizens to openly display and carry
false idea that Marja was a significantly FYI unloaded weapons without a permit,
large city center was an essential part of but many gun advocates complain that
the state is too restrictive when it comes
that disinformation message.
T he group behind Citizens United v.
FEC is an organization “dedicated to
restoring our government to citizens’
to issuing licenses to carry concealed
weapons. “I looked into concealed carry
permits, but unless you’re well-con-
Campaigning control.... Citizens United seeks to reas-
nected, it’s impossible to obtain,” says
sert the traditional American values of
LaTour. However, he says, “I personally
P R Watch.org reports on U.S. Cham-
ber of Commerce activities post-Cit-
izen’s United v FEC decision, noting that
limited government, freedom of enter-
prise, strong families, and national sov-
ereignty and security. Citizens United’s
prefer open carry because of the visual
deterrent. While we can’t legally carry
goal is to restore the founding fathers’ loaded guns, we can have ammunition,
the Chamber had spent more than $144
vision of a free nation, guided by the as long as it’s not attached to our weap-
million on lobbying and grassroots or-
honesty, common sense, and good will ons. You can, of course, have a func-
ganizing in 2009, before the decision,
of its citizens.” tioning loaded weapon in two seconds.”
far beyond the spending of individual
labor unions or the Democratic and Re- Citizens United has produced 11 doc- Nathan Wolanyk, an open carry ad-
publican national committees. umentaries since 2004, including Ron- vocate from San Diego, says the move-
ald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny ment is about informing the public. “If
The Chamber is expected to exceed
all you see are guns in the media used
that spending level in 2010. It has de- hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich
in a violent manner, that’s your percep-
veloped a system where corporations and We Have The Power, which “high-
tion of guns,” he says. “When we’re out
give them money and they, in turn, pro- lights America’s need to adopt our
in public with them, we’re interacting
duce issue ads targeting individual can- World War II mentality” of “Do It All,
with the public in a very nice manner.”
didates without revealing the names of Do It All Now” by exploring the vast
the businesses who are funding the ads. amount of oil and gas in the Outer Con-
The Chamber’s system keeps secret tinental Shelf, Alaska’s Arctic National

2 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Special Report

Fault
Lines

The Social Earthquake


in Chile
By Roger Burbach

C hile is experiencing a social earth-


quake in the aftermath of the 8.8
magnitude quake that struck the coun-
try on February 27. “The fault lines of
the Chilean economic miracle have
been exposed,” said Elias Padilla, an
Bachelet
anthropology professor at the Aca-
demic University of Christian Human- Pinochet
ism in Santiago. “The free market, economic system that dictates that only
neo-liberal economic model that Chile possessions and commodities matter.
has followed since the Pinochet dicta- The “gente decente” (the decent peo-
torship has feet of mud.” ple) and the media began referring to
Chile is one of the most inequitable them as lumpens, vandals, and delin-
societies in the world. Today, 14 per- quents. “The greater the social inequi-
cent of the population lives in abject ties, the greater the delinquency,” ex-
poverty. The top 20 percent captures plained Hugo Fruhling of the Center
50 percent of the national income, for the Study of Citizen Security at the
while the bottom 20 percent earns only University of Chile.
5 percent. In a 2005 World Bank sur- In the two days leading up to the ri-
vey of 124 countries, Chile ranked ots, the government of Michele Bach-
12th in the list of countries with the elet revealed its incapacity to under-
worst income distribution. stand and deal with the human tragedy
The rampant ideology of the free wrecked on the country. Many of the
market has produced a deep sense of ministers were on summer vacations
alienation among much of the popula- or licking their wounds as they pre-
tion. Although a coalition of center-left pared to turn over their offices to the
parties replaced the Pinochet regime incoming right-wing government of
20 years ago, it opted to depoliticize billionaire Sebastian Piñera, who was
the country, to rule from the top PiÔera sworn in on Thursday, March 11.
down, and to only allow controlled Bachelet declared that the country’s
elections every few years, shunting for two days. The chain supermarkets needs had to be studied and surveyed
aside the popular organizations and so- and malls that had replaced local stores before any assistance could be sent.
cial movements that had brought down and shops over the years remained On the day of the quake, she ordered
the dictatorship. firmly shuttered. the military to place a helicopter at her
This explains the scenes of looting disposal to fly over Concepcion to as-
and social chaos in the southern part of Settling Accounts sess the damage, but no helicopter ap-
the country that were transmitted
around the world on the third day after
the earthquake. In Concepcion, Chile’s
P opular frustration exploded as peo-
ple descended on the commercial
center, carting off everything, not just
peared and the trip was abandoned. As
an anonymous Carlos L. wrote in an
email widely circulated in Chile: “It
second largest city, which was virtu- food from the supermarkets, but also would be very difficult in the history
ally leveled by the earthquake, the shoes, clothing, plasma TVs, and cell of the country to find a government
population had received absolutely no phones. This wasn’t simple looting, with so many powerful re-
assistance from the central government but the settling of accounts with an sources—technological, economic, po-

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 3


Special Report

litical, organizational—that has been Stephens, “How Mil ton Fried man tion and real estate enterprises is now
unable to provide any response to the Saved Chile.” He asserted that Fried- the subject of public debate.” In the
urgent social demands of entire re- man’s “spirit was surely hovering pro- country at large, 2 million people out
gions gripped by fear, need of shelter, tectively over Chile in the early morn- of a population of 17 million are
water, food, and hope.” ing hours of Saturday. Thanks largely homeless. Most of the houses de-
What arrived in Concepcion on to him, the country has endured a trag- stroyed by the earthquake were built of
March1 was not relief or assistance, edy that elsewhere would have been an adobe or other improvised materials,
but several thousand soldiers and po- apocalypse.” Stephens went on to de- many in the shantytowns that have
lice transported in trucks and planes, clare, “It’s not by chance that Chil- sprung up to provide a cheap, informal
as people were ordered to stay in their ean’s were liv ing in houses of workforce for the country’s big
homes. Pitched battles were fought in brick—and Hai tians in houses of businesses and industries.
the streets of Concepcion as buildings straw—when the wolf arrived to try to There is little hope that the incoming
were set on fire. Other citizens took up blow them down.” Chile had adopted government of Sebastian Piñera will
arms to protect their homes and bar- “some of the world’s strictest building rectify the social inequities that the
rios as the city appeared to be on the codes,” as the economy boomed due quake exposed. The richest person in
brink of an urban war. On Tuesday, to Pinochet’s appointment of Fried- Chile, he and several of his advisers
March 2, relief assistance finally be- man-trained economists to cabinet and ministers are implicated as major
gan to arrive, along with more troops, ministries and the subsequent civilian shareholders in construction projects
turning the southern region into a mili- gov ern ment’s com mit ment to that were severely damaged by the
tarized zone. neoliberalism. quake because building codes were ig-
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary There are two problems with this nored. Having campaigned on a plat-
Clinton, as part of a Latin American view. First, as Naomi Klein points out form of bringing security to the cities
tour scheduled before the quake, flew in “Chile’s Socialist Rebar” on the and moving against vandalism and
to Santiago on Tuesday to meet with Huffington Post, it was the socialist crime, he criticized Bachelet for not
Bachelet and Piñera. She brought 20 government of Salvador Allende in deploying the military sooner in the
satellite phones and a technician, say- 1972 that established the first earth- aftermath of the earthquake.
ing one of the “biggest problems has quake building codes. They were later
been communications as we found in strengthened, not by Pinochet, but by Signs of Resistance
Haiti in those days after the quake.” It
went unsaid that, just as in Chile, the
U.S. sent the military to take control
the restored civilian government in the
1990s. Second, as CIPER, the Center
of Journalistic Investigation and Infor-
T here are signs that the historic
Chile of popular organizations and
grass-roots mobilizing may be reawak-
of Port-au-Prince before any signifi- mation, reported on March 6, greater ening. A coalition of over 60 social
cant relief assistance was distributed. Santiago has 23 residential complexes and non-governmental organizations
and high rises built over the last 15 released a declaration (on March 10)
Milton Friedman’s Legacy years that suffered severe quake dam- stating: “In these dramatic circum-

T he Wall Street Journal joined in


the fray, running an article by Bret
age. Building codes had been skirted
and “...responsibility for the construc-
stances, or ga nized cit i zens have
proven capable of providing urgent,
rapid, and creative responses to the so-
cial crisis that millions of families are
experiencing.
The most diverse organizations—
trade unions, neighborhood associa-
tions, housing and homeless commit-
tees, university federations and stu-
dent centers, cultural organizations,
environmental groups are mobilizing,
demonstrating the imaginative poten-
tial and solidarity of communities.”
The declaration concludes by demand-
ing of the Piñera government the right
to “monitor the plans and models of
reconstruction so that they include the
full participation of the communities.” Z

Roger Burbach lived in Chile during the


Allende years. He is author of The
Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and
Global Justice (Zed Books) and director
Students protest in Santiago; over 700,000 students struck in 2006 over of the Center for the Study of the Ameri-
increased fees under Bachelet cas (CENSA) based in Berkeley, CA.

4 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Commentary
military-industrial complex (MIC), large size results mainly from the ef-
Fog and right-wing protest cadres get agi- fects of the severe recession and the
Watch tated about big government. I refer inheritance of tax cuts and wars from
back to my old definition of con- the Bush years (although the wars con-
servatism: “An ideology whose central tinue and even expand under Obama).
tenet is that the government is too big, And they don’t really worry the finan-
Big Government, Budget except for the police and military cial community much, as evidenced by
establishment.” the very low rates of interest on gov-
Deficits, Entitlements, ernment securities.
and the “Centrist” Ploy Deficit Fears Reagan’s deficits almost tripled the

By Edward S. Herman T his differential treatment naturally


also applies to concern over bud-
get deficits. Bush inherited a $230 bil-
national debt, but the outcries from the
establishment were muted in light of
his service to them. The Congressional

T hese are words that come into


prominence whenever the right
wing and business community go on
lion bud get sur plus from Clinton,
which he quickly turned into large def-
icits. But he did this by cutting taxes in
Budget Office estimated in 2004 that a
continuation of Bush’s policies would
triple the national debt by the end of
the offensive. Big government was not a highly regressive way and gener- fiscal 2013, with a ten trillion dollar
featured by the right wing or business ously servicing the MIC, so the busi- increment, matching the performance
during the recent (2001-09) Bush years ness-financial-MIC communities were of “conservative” Ronald Reagan. But
because, although the federal govern- happy, and this fed into the “free” like Reagan, he was an effective class
ment and budget were growing, it was press keeping expressions of concern warrior, hence the muting of deficit
via an enlargement of the military and over budget deficits at a low key. With fears.
police budgets and an attack on the pri- Obama, there has been a new surge of In a classic illustration of the double
vacy and civil rights of ordinary citi- worry over budget deficits. Admit- standard based on fear of positive
zens, in the alleged interest of “na- tedly, these deficits are large, but their Democratic responses to the needs of
tional security.”
In the Reagan years, also, the size of
government grew, but this was not ob-
jectionable to the elite establishment
because the growth was in military ex-
penditures, with social budgets, orga-
nized labor, and environmental pro-
tections under attack. During George
W. Bush’s term, there were a number
of encroachments by the federal gov-
ernment on “state’s rights,” e.g., al-
lowing the feds to override state au-
thority on matters such as environmen-
tal rules (the EPA disallowed Califor-
nia’s attempt to limit auto tailpipe
emissions in 2007) and medical prac-
tice (the Department of Justice sought
to overturn an Oregon law legalizing
physician-assisted suicide in 2002 and
later).
There were no Tea Party-like cam-
paigns to protest this growth in gov-
ernment and attack on constitutional
(and state’s) rights in the Bush years,
because the growing and encroaching
government was in the right hands. It
is only when it gets into the wrong
hands and there is the threat that gov-
ernment will serve the undeserving
poor—or even the middle class—and
neglect the corporate community and
national “security” that business, the
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 5
Commentary

ordinary citizens and faith in Republi- Reagan in office the service to what The current prize entitlements de-
can commitment to the business-finan- Bush—speaking to an elite fund-raising manding attention are Social Security,
cial elite, in 1978, in the Carter years, audience of “haves and have mores” Medicare, and Medicaid. Of course,
former Citibank CEO Walter Wriston that he only half-jokingly called “my the Social Security “entitlements”
said that federal deficits were “divert- base”—is more assured. So is the ne- were paid for by those who are cur-
ing available capital from productive glect of, and systematic attack on, the rently, or will be later, getting pay-
private investments to finance public underlying population. Hence the ments. But those surpluses were used
expenditures. Only a reduction in the renewed focus on the threat of by the political elites to fund ordinary
federal deficit would reverse this government deficits. expenses—including vast outlays for
trend.” But with Reagan in office in MIC weapons purchases and wars—
1988, Wriston said that we must dis- Entitlement rather then to build an infrastructure
tinguish between capital and operating
budgets, and that the normal house-
hold does not treat its home as a cur-
E ntitlement is another word that has
taken on negative connotations,
suggesting claims that may be exces-
that would enhance future productivity
and help provide the resources for en-
titlement payouts. But the main reason
rent expense, so that we need not sive and at the expense of hard-work- these social programs are entitlements
worry, as there is “near balance in the ing, tax-paying Americans. Money for is that they service the general citi-
operating budget.” There had been no the varied components of the MIC is zenry, not just the elite. In the evolv-
distinction between operating and capi- never referred to as an entitlement, ing system of class war the elite targets
tal budgets with Carter. The busi- even though a very large part of it is such programs for cost savings to
ness-trustworthy Reagan could run wasteful, fraud-ridden, and pointless, themselves (and profits to Wall Street
deficits, Carter should not, and the even perverse in relation to any sup- with the hoped-for privatization of
rationalizations followed accordingly. posed “defense” function. It represents Social Security).
Obama, like Carter or Clinton, is capture by a segment of the power-
not trustworthy, even though, like his ful—the real and important “special in- Centrist
predecessor Democrats he leans over
backwards to prove his reliability to
the election-funding community and
terests”—in the same fashion as does
the TARP money that flowed so
quickly and massively to the banksters
A nother choice term linked to these
politically loaded word usages is
“centrist.” A centrist may be defined
his rejection of “populism” and any who engineered the current economic as one who recognizes and presses es-
substantial action that might meet the crisis. But the phrase “national secu- tablishment perspectives on “big gov-
needs of his popular base. But this rity” is a marvelous protective cover ern ment, gov ern ment def i cits and
never suffices, as a Clinton or Obama that rules out the use of a word with entitlements.” A centrist regularly sup-
will have to do something for their negative connotations like “entitle- ports de facto MIC entitlements, and
base beyond feeling their pain and ments.” Welfare mothers get entitle- any wars in hand or contemplated, but
vowing real action, however skimpy ments, but not military contractors, worries about the solvency of Social
that something and promised action fat-cat military officials, or bailed-out Security and the need to get it and the
may be. With a George W. Bush or a bankers. Medicare-Medicaid programs under
sound fiscal management. Of course,
the centrist will not support a sin-
gle-payer health-care financial pro-
gram, or even a public option, because
government is not a good manager and
such proposals are not politically feasi-
ble. We must curb big government,
but not at the expense of national secu-
rity. We must work hard on eliminat-
ing the budget deficit, but not by rais-
ing taxes—the centrists uniformly sup-
ported the great Bush (regressive) tax
cuts of 2001-03.
The mainstream media love centrists
and constantly call on the Democrats
to move toward the center in order to
win elections (notoriously, after they
have lost them) or to get legislation
passed in a bipartisan fashion. The me-
dia did not press Bush to move to the
center. Presumably, he had a “man-
date” (from the Republican majority of
the Supreme Court). Could it be that
what Bush’s “base” wants is the “cen-
ter” that the media also want? And that
6 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Commentary

the “centrists” they love struggle to


achieve those same Bush-base ends,
fending off or just ignoring whatever
the underlying population wants?
Obama recognizes this call and has
behaved accordingly. One of his re-
sponses to the threat of big govern-
ment, deficits, and entitlements has
been to support establishing a commis-
sion to study entitlements. Not the
massive and nationally debilitating and
unaffordable entitlements of the MIC,
but those benefiting the underlying
population. The class war goes on. Z

Edward S. Herman is an economist and


political, social, and media critic. He is
the author of numerous articles and
books, including the classic Washington
Connection and Third World Fascism.

The Austin case accepts that money mirror campaign contribution patterns,
equals speech (following the Supreme the quality of debate, the proportion of
Court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo deci- legislation clearly designed to benefit
Decisions sion), that corporations can spend trea- some corporate interest group, etc.
sury funds on initiatives and referen- McCain-Feingold recalibrated, rear-
dums, and that Political Action Com- ranged, and redecorated the loopholes
mittees’ (PACs) use of segregated used to determine how election money
funds are legal and constitutional. Aus- flows and is tallied. It did not eliminate
Court’s Money Ruling tin also affirms that corporations are that money or the influence it reflects.
“persons” with constitutional rights (For a current example, unrelated to
Is a Red Herring and that they have both First Amend- the Citizens United case, look at the
ment speech rights and Fourteenth New York Times front-page article on
By Jane Anne Morris Amendment equal protection rights. corporate influence: “In Black Caucus,
That such a case is regarded as the a Fund-Raising Powerhouse: Corpo-
Magna Carta of campaign reform ef- rate Donors Buy Access, and Push
B efore trying to counter the recent
Supreme Court decision in Citi-
zens United v. Federal Election Com-
forts must leave corporate counsel
hiding their smirks.
Agendas, at Lavish Events,” New
York Times, February 14, 2010.)
mission (FEC), we ought to sort out The Supreme Court decision in Citi- The previous major national parox-
what this decision does and does not zens United is a gift to the right wing, ysm of campaign reform was hardly
do. Despite dire claims that the deci- not the way many pundits claim, but more effective. The main claim to
sion is the nail in the coffin that it will because of the way that many in the fame of the Federal Election Cam-
shake the current election system to its mainstream media have reacted to it, paign Act—passed in 1971; amended
core, the decision changes very little in full denial that it is a red herring. in 1974; shredded in the 1976 Valeo
of the current situation. Let’s review where we were before decision; liquefied in the 1978 Bellotti
Just how small a change it will bring the Citizens United case was decided. ruling—was legalizing PACs. Do
can be illustrated by looking at one of After the 2002 McCain-Feingold those of us who lived through the
the cases overruled by Citizens United Act went into effect, the public no lon- Nixon years recall a sudden elevation
—the 1990 Austin v. Michigan Cham- ger had reason to suspect that corpo- of the quality of elections and political
ber of Commerce case, hailed by many rate lobbying, campaign contributions, discussion, and correlative diminution
as a ray of hope in the morass of cam- or corporate cash affected elected offi- of political corruption in the years
paign finance reform efforts. Austin cials’ votes on legislation or positions after its passage. Nope.
affirmed an extremely mild Michigan on issues. The McCain-Feingold Act The Citizens United case was pre-
law that essentially prevents the Michi- transformed elections into paragons of sented in a false frame: “Must we limit
gan Chamber of Commerce (one type open discussion, free sharing of ideas, speech in order to have free and fair
of nonprofit corporation) from spend- thoughtful parrying, and heartfelt, elections? Or must we accept corpo-
ing general funds to support or oppose non-partisan, pro-civic engagement rate-dominated political debate in order
a political candidate. That law specifi- orgies, right? to preserve free speech?” This false di-
cally defined “person” to include Look at any index: the role of lemma disappears if we reject corporate
corporations. money in elections, voting records that personhood with constitutional rights.
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 7
Commentary

Only if we pretend that corporations are Israeli military. It’s unclear when,
persons under the Constitution is limit- how, or even if his military service
Media ended
ing corporate “speech” a constitutional
Matters
infringement. Ø Richard Chesnoff, who has been
After the Citizens United ruling, this covering Mideast events for more
is still true. Corporations function like than 40 years, had a son serving in
retroviruses, taking over the rights and the Israeli military while he cov-
protections that we wrote for humans Ethan Bronner’s Ties ered Israel as US News & World
Report’s senior foreign correspon-
and then using them against us, their To The IDF: The Rule dent
human hosts. The opinion of the Court
is chock full of paeans to the nobility Not The Exception? Ø NPR’s Linda Gradstein’s husband
and preciousness of unfettered free was an Israeli sniper and may still
speech—of corporations. Rights we By Alison Weir be in the Israeli reserves. NPR re-
fuses to disclose whether Gradstein
the people fought for—at the cost of
herself is also an Israeli citizen, as
much life, liberty, and happiness—are
now used with great (and seemingly
invisible) regularity to shield corpora-
R ecent exposés revealing that Ethan
Bronner, the New York Times Is-
rael-Palestine bureau chief, has a son
are her children and husband
Ø Mitch Weinstock, national editor
tions from government “interference.” in the Israeli military have caused a for the San Diego Union-Tribune,
In response, Maryland Congress- served in the Israeli military
storm of controversy that continues to
person Donna Edwards’s proposed swirl and generate further revelations. The New York Times’ other corre-
Constitutional Amendment, inspired Family partisanship in an editor cover- spondent from the region, Isabel
by the Citizens United decision, would ing a foreign conflict is troubling—es- Kershner, is an Israeli citizen. Israel
guarantee that, “Congress and the pecially given the Times’ record of Is- has universal compulsory military ser-
states may regulate the expenditure of rael-centric journalism. vice, which suggests that Kershner
funds for political speech by any cor- Times management at first refused to and/or family members may have mili-
poration, limited liability company, or confirm Bronner’s situation, then re- tary connections. The Times refuses to
other corporate entity.” Would this fused to comment on it. Finally, public answer questions about whether she
amendment end corporate domination outcry forced Public Editor Clark and/or family members have served or
of our political process? Clearly not, Hoyt to confront the problem in a Feb- are currently serving in the Israeli mil-
since, beginning in the 1870s and ruary 7 column. After bending over itary. Is it possible that Times Foreign
1880s, federal judges have worked backwards to praise the institution that Editor Susan Chira has such connec-
hand-in-hand with corporate counsel to employs him, Hoyt ultimately opined tions? The Times refuses to answer.
haul into place the edifice of constitu- that Bronner should be reassigned to a Many Associated Press writers and
tional protections that exempt corpora- different sphere of reporting to avoid editors are Israeli citizens or have Is-
tions from the authority of the very the “appearance” of bias. Editor Bill raeli families. AP will not reveal how
states that created them. Keller declined to do so, instead writ- many of the journalists in its control
Rather than overstating the signifi- ing a column describing Bronner’s bureau for the region currently serve
cance of the Citizens United decision, connections to Israel valuable because in the Israeli military, how many have
offering measures that tiptoe around they “supply a measure of sophistica- served in the past, and how many have
the fundamental problem, and wallow- tion about Israel and its adversaries family members with this connection.
ing in the usual moaning and groaning that someone with no connections Similarly, many TV correspondents,
about corporate influence, let’s ad- would lack.” such as Martin Fletcher, have been Is-
dress the problem directly, something If such “sophistication” is valuable, raeli citizens and/or have Israeli fami-
we should have done generations ago. the Times’ espoused commitment to lies. Do they have family connections
Peek outside the democracy theme the “impartiality and neutrality of the to the Israeli military? Time Maga-
park and repeat after me: only if we company’s newsrooms” would seem zine’s bureau chief several years ago
pretend that corporations are “per- to require it to have a balancing editor became an Israeli citizen after he had
sons” under the Constitution is limit- equally sophisticated about Palestine assumed his post. Does he have rela-
ing corporate “speech” a constitutional and its adversary, but Keller did not tives in the military? CNN’s Wolf
infringement. And kick that red her- address that. Blitzer, while not an Israeli citizen,
ring out of the way. Z Bronner’s ties to the Israeli military was based in Israel for many years,
are not the rarity one might expect. wrote a book whitewashing Israeli
Some examples include: spying on the U.S., and used to work
Corporate anthropologist Jane Anne for the Israel lobby in the U.S. None
Ø Joel Greenberg, a previous Times
Morris’s book, Gaveling Down the Rab- of this is divulged to CNN viewers.
bureau chief—before he was bureau
ble: How “Free Trade” is Stealing Our
chief, but after he was already pub- Tikkun’s editor Michael Lerner has
Democracy (Apex Press, 2008), is cited in
lishing in the Times from Is- a son who served in the Israeli mili-
an amicus brief filed in support of the
rael—served in the Israeli army tary. While Lerner has been a strong
Federal Elections Commission in the Citi-
zens United case. She is working on a Ø Media pundit and Atlantic staffer critic of many Israeli policies, in an in-
book about the Supreme Court. Jeffrey Goldberg also served in the terview with Jewish Week, he ex-

8 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Commentary

plained: “Having a son in the Israeli be displeased to learn that the reporters provides information and media analysis
army was a manifestation of my love and editors charged with supplying on Israel-Palestine. Her articles have ap-
for Israel and I assume that having a news on a foreign nation and conflict peared in the Washington Report on
son in the Israeli army is a manifesta- are, in fact, partisans. Middle East Affairs, CounterPunch,
Project Censored’s series on investigative
tion of Bronner’s love of Israel.” While Keller claims that the New journalism, and elsewhere.
Lerner goes on to make a fundamental York Times is covering this conflict
point: “[T]here is a difference in my “even-handedly,” studies indicate that
emotional and spiritual connection to the Times:
these two sides [Israelis and Palestin-
Ø Covers international reports docu-
ians]. On the one side is my family; on menting Israeli human rights abuses
the other side are decent human be- Gender
at a rate 19 times lower than it re- & Sports
ings. I want to support human beings ports on the far smaller number of
all over the planet but I have a special international reports documenting
connection to my family. I don’t deny Palestinian human rights abuses
it.”
Jonathan Cook, a British journalist
Ø Covers Israeli children’s deaths at
rates seven times greater than they
NBC’s Olympics: From
based in Nazareth, writes of a recent cover Palestinian children’s deaths, Homophobia To The
meeting with a Jerusalem-based bu- even though there are vastly more
reau chief, who explained: “Bronner’s of the latter Cult Of Personality
situation is the rule, not the exception. Ø Fails to inform its readers that Is-
I can think of a dozen foreign bureau rael’s Jewish-only colonies on con-
By Sue Katz
chiefs responsible for covering both Is- fiscated Palestinian Christian and
rael and the Palestinians, who have
served in the Israeli army, and another
Muslim land are illegal; that its col-
lective punishment of 1.5 million T he U.S. experience of the Vancou-
ver Winter Olympics was shaped,
unfortunately, by viewers’ access to
dozen who, like Bronner, have kids in men, women, and children in Gaza
the Israeli army.” Cook writes that the is not only cruel and ruthless, it is broadcasts and reports. NBC once
bureau chief explained: “It is common also illegal; and that its use of again demonstrated its inability to un-
to hear Western reporters boasting to American weaponry is routinely in derstand this global competition and
violation of American laws the sports within it. Apparently, they
Ø Covers the one Israeli (a soldier) didn’t get the memo telling them that
held by Palestinians at a rate incal- the Winter Olympics is supposed to be
culably higher than it reports on the about the world coming together in a
Palestinian men, women, and chil- shared love of sports, exposing view-
dren imprisoned by Israel (cur- ers to new and old sports.
rently over 7,000) NBC’s nationalistic coverage, how-
Ø Neglects to report that hundreds of ever, wasn’t really about American
Israel’s captives have never even athletic superiority. Instead of actually
been charged with a crime and that covering the American teams, they
those who have were tried in Israeli promoted certain individuals who had
military courts under an array of bi- been deemed sufficiently white-bread,
zarre military statutes that make cooperative, and photogenic. NBC
even the planting of onions without turned the broad canvas of the Olym-
a permit a criminal offense—a legal
system, if one can call it that, that pics into a tabloid soap opera, com-
changes at the whim of the current plete with wretched production values,
military governor ruling over a pre-selected stars, baddies, exclusions,
one another about their Zionist creden- subject population and homophobic bullies.
tials, their service in the Israeli army,
Ø Fails to inform its readers that 40 X on XX’s Ski Jumping
or the loyal service of their children.” percent of Palestinian males have
Apparently, intimate ties to Israel
are among the many open secrets in
the region that are hidden from the
been imprisoned by Israel
Americans, whose elected represen-
O n the first day of competition, we
were treated to the gorgeous sport
of ski jumping. Until these Olympics,
American public. If, as the news me- tatives give Israel uniquely gargantuan the record for all jumpers at Vancou-
dia insist, these ties present no prob- sums of our tax money (a situation also ver’s Whistler Mountain was held by
lem or even, as the Times’ Keller in- not covered by the media), want and an Amer i can, Lindsey Van, who,
sists, enhance the journalists’ work, need all the facts, not just those that Is- according to NBC, “held the jump re-
why do the news agencies consistently rael’s family members decree report- cord of 105.5m for the normal hill at
refuse to admit them? able. We’re not getting them. Z Whistler until Swiss legend Simon
Quite likely the news media refuse Ammann bettered it on the way to the
to answer questions about their jour- gold medal in the 2010 Games.”
nalists’ affiliations because they sus- Former journalist Alison Weir is executive Ammann was able to out-jump Van
pect, accurately, that the public would director of If Americans Knew, which for at least one obvious reason: women
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 9
Commentary
were prevented from competing. The “femininity” and for setting a “bad ex- and power.” This from a guy who ad-
International Olympic Committee ample” by making boys who skate mits to having been called “twinkle
(IOC) wouldn’t agree to a women’s worry that they “will end up like toes” as a young skater.
event or allow women to compete him.” Goldberg called for Weir to In a February 19 interview, after
against men—with whom they train. pass a “gender test” and Mailhot an- Weir was ranked a disappointing sixth,
One side effect of the IOC’s stand is swered that Weir should be made to despite a beautiful, clean routine, the re-
that it diminishes Ammann’s achieve- compete in the women’s event. By spectful NBC commentator Mary
ment by sidelining top competitors. A conflating their homophobia, trans- Carillo asked Weir, “Could you have
dozen women ski jumpers took a law- phobia, and sexism, these sports an- done something that could have gotten
suit all the way to the BC Supreme nouncers raised the specter of the at- you on that podium?” He replied with
Court—pointing to the Canadian Char- tacks on the South African runner gracious comments about both his long-
ter of Rights and Freedoms, which Caster Semenya, forced into so-called time rival and teammate gold medalist
bars gender discrimination—only to be “gender testing” after a winning run in Evan Lycecek and the tough-guy Rus-
told that it’s up to the IOC. They’ve a 2009 international meet. The Quebec sian silver medalist Evgeni Plushenko.
unsuccessfully challenged this discrim- Gay and Lesbian Council has since de- Then he answered philosophically, “Po-
inatory ban year after year. manded an apology. litically, I don’t think it was possible for
Weir responded with impressive me to be on the podium. And figure
Bullying On Ice grace to this frantic gender stereotyp- skating is a political sport…. I kinda

S tuck in the Win ter Olym pics


among such hy per-dan ger ous
sports as the luge and moguls, figure
ing. Speaking afterwards with Olym-
pian skater Dorothy Hamill on “Ac-
cess Hollywood,” Weir was unapolo-
knew coming into these games that a
medal wasn’t really within my grasp for
me.” Later, in a discussion between
skating is forever on the defensive. getic. “Every little boy should be so Carillo and Stephen Colbert, the latter
Johnny Weir, a member of the Ameri- lucky as to turn into me,” he told her. insisted that Weir deserved the silver
can figure skating team, is a three-time At a subsequent press conference medal.
U.S. National Champion. As long as
he’s been in the world of competitive Lots Of Gay
skating, he has been the object of ho-
mo pho bic rid i cule and scorn.
Throughout the Vancouver Olympics,
Goldberg called for Weir to
pass a “gender test” and
T he Vancouver Olympics did not
utterly lack queer content. The
opening ceremony included at least
NBC broadcasters described his be- Mailhot answered that Weir two out gay Canadian performers on
havior as “flamboyant” and his often should be made to compete center stage—fiddle player Ashley
eloquent and elegant words as “sound in the women’s event MacIsaac and the singer k.d. lang. Ac-
bites”—in an attempt to marginalize cording to OutSports.com, there were
his joyful gender-bending. five openly lesbian competitors in
Johnny Weir refuses to discuss his where Weir joked, “I grew my beard Vancouver, none of them from the
sexuality, which he sees as a private out a little bit just to show that indeed I U.S. As a home away from home, two
matter, irrelevant to his work on the am a man,” he expanded on his re- Pride Houses were opened by the Van-
ice. He struts down fashion show run- sponse by talking about his hopes that couver LGBT community to serve ath-
ways, does photo shoots in stilettos, more children would have both his op- letes from around the world. One
and is filmed taking a bubble bath with portunities and supportive parents like Pride House was located in the heart
his best boy-pal, Paris Childers, in the his, who “let me be an individual, who of Van cou ver’s gay vil lage, away
documentary Pop Star on Ice. He de- gave me freedom, and taught me to from the Olympic facilities. Set up as
signs and sews his own glorious cos- believe in myself before anyone else an educational and social center, it
tumes, often pushing the boundaries of would believe in me.” provided visitors with resource materi-
camp. This is enough to provoke open Other outlets sought to match the als about queer places of interest. The
horror from skating officials who like French Canadians’ comments. Austra- other Pride House was established in
their men butch and their women lian sportscasters Eddie McGuire and Whistler, the second Olympic setting,
sweet, if not childlike. Mick Molloy sneered about the skat- where the major partying was reputed
The fans feel otherwise. They chose ers’ costumes and a rumor that one to go on. For some athletes, coaches,
him as winner of the 2008 Reader’s skater was straight, “But it definitely and parents, these history-making safe
Choice Award for Skater of the Year wasn’t this guy,” referring to Weir. A spaces were an invaluable break from
(Skating Magazine) and the U.S. Fig- facebook page was quickly established the pressures of the closet.
ure Skating Association was forced to named “Eddie McGuire is ruining the
announce this additional achievement. 2010 Winter Olympics coverage.” The Cult Of Personality
Despite Weir’s prominence in his
field, all assumptions about Canadian
good manners and good sense were
Then the former Canadian champion
Elvis Stojko struck out against “effem-
inate” male skaters, whom he blamed
R egarding NBC’s approach, despite
receiving criticism after the Sum-
mer Olympics, NBC again provided
negated by remarks made by the for preventing hockey fans from lov- tabloid-like coverage that fetishized a
French-language RDS broadcast net- ing figure skating. Stojko told Sa- few selected Americans at the expense
work’s Claude Mailhot and Alain lon.com that he only identifies with of, well, showing the events. So even
Goldberg, who criticized Weir for skating that has “masculinity, strength, as we were deprived of anything but
10 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Commentary

snippets of many events, American


viewers came away with clear impres-
sions of Apolo Anton Ohno’s neck
mole, Lindsey Vonn’s eyeliner, and
Shaun White’s cascading auburn curls.
At one point the cameras followed
Ohno’s floating head around the ring,
entirely severed from skating, compet-
itors, and the rink. Before the matches
we saw scene after scene of Ohno
yawning—long after we got the point.
We repeatedly saw him composing
himself before the race. But where
were his competitors? What was going
on while we stared at him chilling?
Where was the wide view of the rink
and the fans? Were there any fans
other than his dad?
And what about Lindsey Vonn, the
Alpine skier? One wonders if she was
promoted so much more than her
medal-winning teammates because, as
we found out later, she has been in
year-long discussions to appear on
NBC’s “Law and Order.” An earlier
cover photo of her ass up in the air
sold a lot of copies of Sports Illus- ette said was very shy, could not es- overall standings with four medals—
trated, which also didn’t hurt her cape NBCs intrusive parent-adoring two gold, a silver, and a bronze. Do you
NBC-constructed super-stardom. cameras, despite his obvious discom- recognize the names of these champi-
Meanwhile, Julia Mancuso (two sil- fort in the public cheerleading role her ons?
ver medals—about equal to Vonn’s mother had played.
gold and bronze) became the evil one Rochette’s story was indeed mov- Even the Ads Collaborated
when she quite sensibly pointed out
that the relentless focus on Vonn
throughout the competition hurt the
ing, her performances were impres-
sive, and I would have been happy to
see her interviewed once. Twice.
T he ads on NBC during the Olym-
pics were echoes of what we were
or were not seeing. There was more
rest of the American team. NBC Okay, I could have taken three times. cult of personality, with Apolo Ohno a
turned this into a duel, grilling Man- But she became part of the rotating ubiquitous huckster. There was the ho-
cuso about her “attack” on Vonn and stable of pretty faces used as fillers mophobic “joke” in the Verizon ad, in
interviewing Vonn so often that view- while competitive events were left which the father of a family blushes
ers were left begging for a bit of actual sight unseen or relegated to channels over accidentally admitting that he
Olympic coverage instead. no one could get. I wonder how many watches figure skating, to the scornful
Not only does the undue attention on other athletes at this Olympics were frowns of his entire family. There was
a few athletes affect the performance functioning under personal tragedies a torrent of sexist and maudlin P&G
of everyone involved, it also impacts and challenges. ads under the slogan “Proud Sponsor
their future. According to the New In fact, there were over 2,500 athletes of Moms.” So even during the breaks,
York Times on March 1, “For Lindsey in Vancouver. Perhaps I missed NBC’s there was no escaping the poverty of
Vonn, Apolo Ohno, and Shaun White, profiles of alpine skiers Anna Berecz the Olympic experience we were given
winning medals at the Winter Olym- from Hungary and Leyti Seck from Sen- and the frustration of knowing that,
pics in Vancouver is their ticket to fu- egal or of cross-country skiers Erdene- while the competitors and trainers
ture endorsements. Their success, Ochir Ochirsuren from Mongolia, Paki- were doing their jobs, NBC’s cameras
good looks, and compelling stories stan’s Muhammed Abbas, and Kazak- were caressing Ohno’s headband and
should add to their growing stable of hstan’s Elana Antonova. Even worse, Vonn’s pearly whites. Z
sponsorship deals with a variety of what did we hear about the Norweigan
companies, marketing experts say.” cross-country skier Marit Bjørgen who
In its only nod to international feel- won the most medals of any 2010
Sue Katz is an activist, author, journalist
ing, NBC saturated the airwaves with Olympian? An asthmatic with several and blogger offering frank talk about ag-
their coverage of Canada’s six-time piercings, this 29-year-old won three ing, sex, the Middle East, class rage, and
national figure skating champion golds, one silver, and one bronze at her ballroom dancing. She singlehandedly
Joannie Rochette, who won the Olym- third medal-winning Olympics. Another brought down the McCain/Palin ticket
pic bronze just days after her mother Norweigan, Petter Northug Jr., known with her book, Thanks But No Thanks:
passed away. Her father, who Roch- for his bravado, came second in the The Voter’s Guide to Sarah Palin.
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 11
Activism
dustries in the country, Continental passing this threshold by 300 votes,
Labor ramp agents were among the largest though the 4,102 workers who voted
Today single group of non-union employees. for the union were an overwhelming
Now they have made the nation’s majority of those voting.
fourth-largest airline a union shop Fortunately, the National Mediation
from top to bottom. The airline’s pi- Board (NMB), which administers
Teamster’s Election lots, flight attendants, mechanics, and RLA, has recommended changing the
Victory: How to Succeed now ground workers all have collec-
tive bargaining rights, giving them an
rule to a simple majority of those vot-
ing. Air and rail carriers are protest-
After Failing advantage in recovering some of the ing, but labor is confident the NMB
lost ground over the last few years. recommendations will prevail.
By Carl Finamore “Wages for the ramp workers start
at about $10 an hour,” said Chris “We Took A Gamble”
Moore, chair of the Teamsters Avia-
tion Mechanics Coalition, but only
“about half work full time.” After 10
I t was a remarkable risk for the
Teamsters to proceed with the Con-
tinental election under the old rules.
years, lead agents earn a little more “We took a gamble and it worked,”
than $21 an hour, he said. said Teamster President James Hoffa.
The lingering issue of low pay, Other unions, such as the Flight Atten-
combined with post-September 11, dants (AFA-CWA) and the Machinists
2001 draconian layoffs, certainly in- have postponed elections at Delta, for
creased union awareness among em- example, until the new rule change,
ployees, but the achievements of the which is expected to take effect in a
Teamster’s national strategy must also few months.
be recognized. The Teamsters orga- Airline workers are only asking for
nized 43,000 new members in 2008, the same rights as other voting Ameri-
affirmation of their strategy to train cans. With genuine majority rule elec-
hundreds of dedicated rank and file tions, airline unions would have won
members at organizer “boot camp.” every single contest in the past 20
years. Under the National Labor Rela-
Outrageous Railroad Labor Act tions Act (NLRA), which covers non-

Workers celebrate the vote—photo from


P rob a bly the most out ra geous
anachronism in U.S. labor law is
the 1926 Railroad Labor Act (RLA)
RLA workers, union elections are still
tainted by well-documented employer
threats of recrimination, termination,
the Teamsters regulation governing union elections and discrimination. The Employee
for rail and airline workers. The rule Free Choice Act is needed to allow
states that the union must win the sup- workers to indicate their choice of a
T he Teamsters Union’s February
12, 2010 election victory to repre-
sent 7,600 ground workers at Conti-
port of the majority of the total class
and craft bargaining unit. This is un-
union away from intimidating employ-
er scrutiny.
nental Airlines shows that old-fash- like any other election in the United Workers at Continental spoke for
ioned hard work might be making a States, where the outcome is decided millions who desperately need collec-
comeback when several hundred union by a majority of those who actually tive bargaining rights. Modernizing
organizers fanned out across the coun- cast a ballot and not on a majority of and democratizing election rights, in
try and knocked on doors in 24 cities the total eligible electorate. To make it both the RLA and NLRA, will greatly
in preparation for the vote. Teamster even worse, the bargaining unit in- advance opportunities for working
volunteers did not limit themselves to cludes those on layoff who are difficult people to organize themselves and to
the large Continental hubs in Cleve- to contact. express their demands and desires for
land, Houston, and Newark, as other In 2008, the Transport Workers Un- a better life. Z
unions had done in failed organizing ion (TWU) won a clear majority of
efforts over the last 12 years. “We’ve those voting, but lost the election for
been through this five times and I can Continental ground workers because
Carl Finamore has worked on several
say hands down that this is the best they fell short of this “super majority” Continental Airlines organizing drives
campaign, the strongest campaign requirement by 314 votes. The Ma- with the Machinists Union. He is a for-
we’ve had,” Gary Welsch told Team- chinists (IAMAW) union lost at Conti- mer president of Air Transport Employ-
ster Magazine in September 2009. nental under the same circumstances a ees, Local Lodge 1781, IAMAW and a
While air transportation remains few years earlier. This time the Team- delegate to the San Francisco Labor
among the most heavily-unionized in- sters narrowly won their election, sur- Council, AFL-CIO.
12 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Protesting School Funding Cuts
OAKLAND SAN FRANCISCO

SAN FRANCISCO

BERKELEY LOS ANGELES

SANTA CRUZ

LOS ANGELES

APTOS

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 13


Protesting School Funding Cuts
BOSTON NEW YORK

CHICAGO MILWAUKEE

PORTLAND
MINNEAPOLIS

SEATTLE

On March 4, students and education workers


around the U.S. demonstrated against draco-
nian budget cuts and privatizations—photos
from Indymedia and student activist websites.

14 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


INTERVIEWS
League college, placed on federal wanted lists, and driven
Fortunate Rebel Son into outlawry, Rudd kept in touch with his doting parents,
and they with him.
A talk with Mark Rudd On the eve of this spring’s publication of the paperback
edition of Underground, Rudd took the time to answer a few
By Bill Nevins questions.

NEVINS: In your preface, you explain that there were earlier


U nderground: My Life with the SDS and the Weatherman
is Mark Rudd’s candid story of his years in Columbia
University’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society
drafts of this book which you shelved. How does Under-
ground differ from your earlier efforts?
(SDS) and, later, as a reluctant fugitive associate—though
technically never a member—of the Weather Underground. RUDD: The book has been sitting around—in my mind and
(Full disclosure: I first met Mark Rudd in New Mexico two on a shelf—since about 1984, when Reagan was re-elected.
decades after his underground days ended, and I taught at The first version was a set of essays on the Vietnam War.
the Albuquerque college where he taught. I was never a Then I realized that my strength was in telling my story. But
member of Weatherman [sic], also know colloquially as the the draft I finished in 1989 didn’t sufficiently address the
Weathermen, though I did have some peripheral association problem of why I chose violence. I hadn’t figured it out.
with SDS in the late 1960s and early 1970s.) Also, the 40-year-old was always beating up on the 20-
Rudd grew up in a comfortable middle class family in year-old Mark Rudd. It took me 20 more years to gain any
suburban New Jersey, attended Columbia University in sort of balance and equanimity toward that kid. The pub-
New York City as a promising student, and became heavily lished version is a hell of a lot kinder and gentler toward the
involved in anti-racist and anti-war organizing in the late kid, and also lets him tell his story, too.
1960s’ Students for a Democratic Society. A charismatic,
photogenic personality, he was picked up by the media and What do your coming years likely hold for you?
made the visible white male star of the student New Left.
The fame—and, arguably, the youthful indulgences of the I’m doing a lot of speaking and writing on “organizing.”
time—seemed to have warped his judgment and direction, as Last semester I taught an American Studies course at the
he confesses in his book. Tragically, by conspiring to intro- University of New Mexico on “The Organizing Tradition in
duce proactive violence into the student movement—via the American Social Movements.” I’ve found that young people
Weatherman faction which took over SDS in a 1969 have little awareness of the fact that movements don’t hap-
putsch—Rudd helped destroy SDS and, consequently, to de- pen spontaneously. My book takes up this issue, but in re-
flate the momentum of the anti-war U.S. student movement. verse: I go from telling a story of good organizing (Colum-
Rudd expresses profound regret for this in the book. But he bia) to bad organizing (the demise of SDS and Weatherman)
also offers advice. to even worse (the Weather Underground). It’s a study of
When SDS imploded, the Weather faction deserted it, is- what not to do.
sued a bombastic declaration of war against American impe- I’m also working on various organizing projects, such as
rialism, and embarked on a futile, if largely symbolic, ter- a progressive’s run for Lt. Governor of New Mexico. I’d
rorist bombing campaign. Rudd, shocked and appalled by like to see the Democratic Party turned in a center-left direc-
the deaths of three of his Weather comrades—when explo- tion. It might be possible in a small place like New Mexico.
sives they were arming for an attack on U.S. soldiers and
police misfired in a Manhattan apartment—tried to quit the Have you read some of the other Weather Underground
Weatherman, which had renamed itself the Weather Under- memoirs by Bill Ayers, etc.?
ground Organization (WUO). However, he was wanted by
the Feds and forced to hide under false names from 1970 un-
til 1977.
When Rudd surfaced and surrendered in 1977, the fed-
eral charges against him were dropped because they had
been tainted by illegal government actions. Rudd eventually
settled in New Mexico under his own name and made a ca-
reer teaching remedial math at an Albuquerque community
college.
In 2002, a documentary film, Weather Underground, de-
voted much of its screen time to Rudd. While the movie has
been criticized as less than fully accurate, it propelled Rudd
into a second bout of fame, including a contract to produce
this book for a major publisher.
Underground is, in many ways, a wryly humorous recol-
lection and, despite having been expelled from an Ivy

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 15


Interviews

Billy’s book Fugitive Days is very moving, especially about We fell for the whole black leadership line. It was our re-
the townhouse where he lost his girlfriend and his best sponse to the earlier call for Black Power that had emerged
friend. A lot of it is fiction, however. Also, in general, Bill from SNCC, an organization I still have deep respect for. I
gives too much credit for good intentions and doesn’t take wish we had been much smarter than we were. As Marx-
crappy results into account. Cathy Wilkerson’s book, Flying ists, we liked to reduce the world to “central contradic-
Close to the Sun: My Life and Times As a Weatherman, is tions.” Since it was the era of decolonization, race oppres-
comprehensive as a history of the times. Well-researched, sion trumped sexism in the hierarchy of oppression. All of
well thought out. I often recommend it to students of the this is absolutely unintelligible now, but it made perfect
new left. Unfortunately, she portrays herself as being much sense to us at the time. Marxism is its own religion, with its
more passive than I remember her. Susan Stern’s book from own way of looking at the world.
the mid-1970s, With the Weathermen, is always of interest.
What did you think of the two dramatic films about 20th
Did the publisher or your editor suggest or insist on any century armed revolutionaries: Che directed by Steven
significant changes? Soderbergh and the German film The Baader Meinhof
Complex?
The draft I turned in to the editor included a long section
covering 1978 to 2008 in Albuquerque. He cut it out com- I appreciated the trajectory of Soderbergh’s two-part Che.
pletely, saying that the story should stop in 1977 when I The first was all heroism and victory, the second pure de-
turned myself in. He was right. He did give me a 25-page feat. It’s accurate. His theory was crap. The Baader
epilogue, though, which worked out okay. I can always use Meinhof Complex was good at creating the context for why
the material for further writing. Also, I wanted to name the some German New Leftists might have thought that they
book, Grandpa Was a Terrorist, which would have put me were living in fascist times and felt the need to take up arms
into Costco, but my editor and my wife nixed that. against it, as their parents did not. However, they degener-
ated into cops and robbers. Andreas Baader was portrayed
Following a political line with which you disagreed, but as a sociopath, which he very well may have been. Why
which prevailed in the organization, the Weather Under- succeeding generations of kids joined them, I still don’t
ground tried to build an insurgent army in the United States know. Maybe there was a deep need among some Germans
for the purposes of opening a military front in solidarity to transcend the good german Nazi history.
with the Vietnamese and Black revolutionaries in America.
Is that an accurate description? Did you help to write the statement issued by the Weather
Underground in the later 1970s in the booklet Prairie Fire:
Yes, it’s a fairly accurate description. The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism? Does that
position paper hold up over the years, in your opinion?
This seemed then, to many of us, to have been an absurd
and futile undertaking. Can you comment? As an indictment of U.S. history and of imperialism, Prai-
rie Fire is still useful. As a blueprint for revolution it’s ab-
Yes, it was absurd and futile. The motives were mixed. surd. Actually, though, I didn’t help write it. I helped build
Speaking only for myself, I wanted to be a hero like Che a printshop to produce the successor to Prairie Fire, a mag-
Guevara. I wanted to prove myself the way 20-year-old azine called Ossawatomie. I did help write the original
males have always proved themselves, in combat. I also Weatherman paper.
wanted to be “an agent of history.” We had studied Fanon,
Mao, Marx, and Lenin and knew well that it was the age of As you acknowledge in your book, there was a
decolonization, which would dismantle imperialism, the fi- kill-your-parents rhetoric and attitude in some of the New
nal stage of capitalism. You needed guts, like all great revo- Left, including the Weatherman. Yet, even in hiding, you
lutionaries, to push history to the next stage. It was quite and your parents maintained contact and they got material
utopian and grandiose. In a sense, too, we saw ourselves as help to you on several occasions, though they were not rad-
heirs to the great tradition of socialist revolution. Little did icals themselves. I found this both the most touching and,
we know that we were the last recruits to a war that was al- perhaps, the most disturbing aspect of your story.
ready lost. Capitalism won that round, for better or worse.
For worse, I like to think. The rhetoric was the politics of transgression. I don’t think I
So if you look at it that way, one could even now get ever engaged in kill-your-parents stuff myself. I was more
caught up in the heroism of the whole endeavor. In the long of the off-the-pig school. I was still a good Jewish boy. I
run, who’s more rational, Karl Rove or Bernardine Dohrn? tried to be accurate about that in my book.
I’ll vote for Bernardine.
You have been a successful teacher for decades now. You
There was a very ugly side to some 1960s-1970s radical- also helped form a faculty union at your college. Do you
ism. You recount that a Black Panther made a grossly of- see these professional roles as linked to your earlier orga-
fensive speech advocating sexual exploitation. Some Pan- nizing and revolutionary efforts?
thers came from what they described as “the lumpen prole-
tariat,” but most SDS and Weather activists came from
privileged or at least middle class backgrounds. Would you Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weatherman
by Mark Rudd, Harper Paperbacks, 352 pages
care to comment on this and, more generally, on male sex-
ist, violence-tripping attitudes then and now?

16 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Interviews

Organizing and teaching are the same. They both involve coming after the Fourteenth Amendment, some feminists
the question of how people learn things. They both involve were embittered. My book recounts the story of the
dialogue. They both involve long-term commitment and women’s rights parade in Washington in 1913 in which the
perspective. They both involve people in changing their feminist leader Alice Paul, not wanting to alienate Southern
lives. And the teacher/organizer is always learning. Z sympathizers, ordered black suffragists to march at the back
of the parade. Ida Wells-Barnett, the Chicago suffragist,
waited on the side of the parade and, when the white Illinois
Bill Nevins is a teacher and writer who was fired in 2003 delegation passed by, joined and integrated it.
for permitting his high school poetry students to speak out
against Bush’s Iraq War policy. He now teaches Creative Recently Nona Willis Aronowitz, daughter of feminist writer
Writing and Rhetoric for the University of New Mexico. Ellen Willis, and Emma Bee Bernstein took the pulse of
He has conducted many interviews with socially conscious feminism on college campuses in their book, Girl Drive:
artists that appeared in Z and other magazines in recent Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism. They found
years. that many young women were hostile to the term feminism.

That is no surprise. There have only been about three sec-


onds in history when women weren’t hostile to the term,
Dolls and Drudges which was always linked to images of unattractive man-hat-
ing women in ugly shoes, though its precepts—equal rights
Don Pants and opportunities—were widely accepted. Even in the days
of Sarah and Angelina Grimké, who were feminists and ab-
An interview with Gail Collins olitionists in the 1830s, people were shocked when
Angelina married the good looking abolitionist Theodore
By Martha Rosenberg Weld. Even then the attitude was: you mean you can work
for women’s rights and still land a “handsome hunk?”

G ail Collins joined the New York Times in 1995 as a


member of the editorial board and later as an “Op-Ed”
columnist. In 2001, she became the first woman to be ap-
College women and women born since 1980 seem to lack
appreciation for the rights that were won for them—and
pointed editor of the Times’s editorial page. At the begin- even awareness of what it was like for their mothers and
ning of 2007, she stepped down in order to finish her new grandmothers.
book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of
American Women from 1960 to the Present. She returned to Working for an issue that you knew was right and knew was
the Times as a columnist in 2007. going to win was a lot of fun. The lives of women today are
more complicated and lack those clearly marked lines. As
ROSENBERG: Your book When Everything Changed covers far as not remembering what it was like, young people are
the cascade of rights women won between 1964 and not particularly comfortable focusing on a time when their
1972—equal pay, the right to their own credit rating, the rights or freedoms were not there.
right to wear pants, and be called Ms. Why was this second
women’s rights movement necessary 50 years after women Recently, we’ve seen two governor’s wives engulfed in infi-
won the right to vote? delity scandals, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s
wife Silda and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s
COLLINS: While the suffragists succeeded in getting the wife Jenny. Did these women handle the situation differently
Nineteenth Amendment ratified in 1920, they also believed than they would have before everything changed?
that women’s roles should be at home as mothers and
wives. Without the economic power of participating in the I think the Spitzer case marked the end of the days when the
workplace and positions of influence in society, women’s wife would stand next to her straying husband, looking
status after getting the vote brave. Silda Spitzer is a
could not really change pretty formidable woman
much. and if her disaster had hap-
pened about six months
Here in Chicago, suffragist down the line, we probably
Frances Willard is remem- wouldn’t have seen her
bered for becoming the first standing there either. But
Dean of Women of the the bottom line in any mari-
Women’s College at North- tal crisis is always the ques-
western University in 1871. tion of whether you think
Yet her feminism and tem- your life would be better
perance stances sometimes with or without him. From
put her at odds with the ear- what Jenny Sanford has
lier abolition movement. said, it’s pretty clear she’s
decided happiness is going
Certainly, when women’s on her own and leaving her
right to vote was not forth- ex-husband to pick up the

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 17


Interviews

pieces of his mess. Silda Spitzer seems to feel she and her pated in this and it’s been going on since the beginning of
daughters are better off with Eliot in their lives, and I’m not the occupation.
prepared to second guess that decision. Other things that are happening—both in Iraq and back
home—are instances of soldiers standing up against parts of
How did you transform from editor of the Times Op-Ed the system that they don’t agree with. There are many
page to history writer? women now who are speaking out about being sexually as-
saulted in the military. It’s really astounding.
As the year 2000 approached, the Times asked me to write
an introduction for their millennium issue and I was aston- While researching your book, was the Pentagon trying to
ished to realize the breadth of changes U.S. women had un- clamp down on dissent? Or is it harder to see where the
dergone as I did the research. In less than ten years, over brass stands on the issue?
1,000 years of dogma about women was reversed. Writing
When Everything Changed gave me a chance to interview I think they take it on a case-by-case basis. Their overall ob-
some of these women who did amazing things that are still jective, most of the time, is to sweep it under the carpet. In
having effects today. Z most instances, the U.S. military chooses to do things like
they did with Ronn Cantu, a U.S. Army interrogator, who
testified at the Winter Soldier hearings on Iraq and Afghani-
Martha Rosenberg is a columnist and cartoonist based in stan. They’re either going to promote him so maybe that’ll
Chicago. shut him up or ignore it and not do anything (probably the
most common response). At the same time, there have been
a few instances—like with Lt. Ehren Watada—where the
military decides that it’s a high profile case, that the guy has
the potential of being a leader in a GI resistance movement,
so they’re going to throw the book at this guy.
A Journalist’s However, I should point out that, currently, Watada is in
Responsibility legal limbo, pushing papers at a desk, still waiting for reso-
lution. This is a situation where he is the highest-ranking
An interview with Dahr Jamail person to refuse orders to go to Iraq. And, to this day, he
hasn’t yet done a day in jail or had to go back to Iraq.

By Seth Kershner Do you see military resisters playing a constructive role in


discussions of U.S. foreign policy?

A s one of the first and only “unembedded” American


journalists to report from Iraq, Dahr Jamail’s work of-
fers an unfiltered look at the lives of Iraqis affected by the
Absolutely. The problem is that they don’t have a voice in
the mainstream media or to elected officials. An exception
occupation. A former mountain guide with no formal jour- to that would be the Winter Soldier hearings on the Hill that
nalistic training, Jamai’s dispatches have been published in occurred last year. But that’s the exception to the rule. If, at
the Guardian (UK), the Nation, and Le Monde some point, they could be tapped for their information, then
Diplomatique, to name just a few. I think we could really see some fundamental change.

KERSHNER: As you discuss in your book The Will to Resist: Would you ally yourself more with the European model of
Soldiers Who Refuse To Fight In Iraq and Afghanistan, journalism, whereby reporters and their papers quite openly
more and more American GIs have been openly opposing place themselves somewhere specific on the political spec-
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Could you talk about trum?
what military resisters are doing?
I think that I would. I’ve been accused
JAMAIL: I’ve found through inter- of being a populist. As a journalist,
viewing dozens and dozens of sol- that’s a compliment and that’s how I’d
diers that there have been many in- like to be perceived. I feel it’s my job to
stances of overt resistance in Iraq. go where the silence is, to give people a
Soldiers have really low morale. voice who are outside the government
They’ve become completely disgrun- or major media outlets. I think it’s our
tled by the situation and they’re do- job as journalists to monitor the centers
ing things called search and avoid of power and take them to task; to make
missions. They’ve realized that their them prove what they’re saying and to
patrols are not serving any purpose, make them give evidence. If we’re not
so they go out on fake patrols. doing that, then we’re not doing our
They’ll park in fields, radio in every jobs as journalists. Z
hour at scheduled times telling their
base that they’re searching for weap-
ons caches, etc., and then go back to Seth Kershner is a graduate student and
base after their shift is done. I’ve freelance writer based in Western Massa-
talked with soldiers who’ve partici- chusetts.

18 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Interviews

businesses. ICA Apostles work closely with the Interna-


The New Apostolic tional Christian Chamber of Commerce.
Reformation Leaders are encouraged to get involved in social services
to expand their influence in government and society. One
An interview with Rachel apostle, a former fitness instructor, is now listed as a policy
expert at the Heritage Foundation and claims to have distrib-
Tabachnick uted $30 million in gifts and donations during the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina. He has expanded his organizations to
By Bill Berkowitz Fiji, Poland, and Southeast Asia.
Wagner teaches that there will soon be a great transfer of

R achel Tabachnick is an independent researcher who spe-


cializes in End Times narratives. In 2008 she assisted
Bruce Wilson in publishing a video of John Hagee’s sermon
wealth from the ungodly to the godly and has set up struc-
tures to prepare. Wagner’s Leadership Institute teaches
courses in prophecy, but also in foreign currency exchange.
about Hitler being sent from God as a hunter of Jews. She
continues to provide research on the Religious Right for po- How has this movement grown so rapidly?
litical campaigns from local school boards to national orga-
nizations and was a presenter at the recent PA Progressive Church growth is the key concept. Other Christian domin-
Summit 2010 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where she spoke ion movements propose austere biblical law, but Wagner
on the “sacralization” of economic and political issues by explains in his 2008 book Dominion that theocracy will not
the Religious Right.

BERKOWITZ: Most people aren’t aware of the New Apostolic


Reformation (NAR). Tell us what we should know?

TABACHNICK: Imagine for a moment that a large block of


the evangelical world decided to re-organize themselves in a
hierarchy resembling the Roman Catholic Church, with
leaders in authority over each nation and region. Imagine
that every person—from the congregants to the top lead-
ers—has someone to whom they are accountable.
Although this is not the first time this has been tried, this
“second reformation” is having more success. It is organiz-
ing within a mega-block of Protestants larger than all the tra-
ditional denominations put together, as well as “post-de-
nominational” churches. It’s heavily charismatic, made up
of born again, but also “spirit-filled” Christians—sometimes
called neo-charismatics or neo-pentecostal. They believe be necessary. He believes rapid growth of the movement
that spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongues, casting out will allow Christians to take dominion inside a democratic
demons, and faith-healing powers, are signs and wonders framework.
that will help evangelize unbelievers in preparation for the Wagner, who will be 80 this year, was a professor of
End Times. church growth for 30 years at Fuller Theological Seminary.
C. Peter Wagner, a key figure in the movement, stream- He has mainstreamed cell church ideology, a strategy which
lined the ideology and named it the “New Apostolic Refor- began in Asia and South America and has resulted in con-
mation.” Wagner serves as the presiding apostle of the In- gregations of tens of thousands. Cell churches are organized
ternational Coalition of Apostles (ICA), which includes sev- like a pyramid marketing scheme with small groups, usually
eral hundred apostles across the U.S. and about 40 nations, with no more than 12, tasked with spinning off new cell
international training centers, and “prayer warrior” net- groups and growing the church. This also resembles a mili-
works in all 50 states and worldwide. Those in the top tier tary structure—each cell has a leader and lower level leaders
each have apostolic authority over other ministries, are accountable to their superiors on up the chain.
sometimes hundreds or even thousands. Such schemes used to be called shepherding, but, be-
Many of the leaders teach prosperity doctrine—or the be- cause of bad press and reports of coercive and abusive prac-
lief that the more you give to ministries, the more God will tices, they have been re-named “discipling.” Laypeople in
bless you. But this is not just a church movement. Market cells perform many of the functions that would normally be
apostles work in business, finance, communications, media, carried out by pastors—and pastors then become like corpo-
and lead the “Reclaiming the Seven Mountains of Culture” rate CEOs. The New Apostolics are now trying to apply
mandate. shepherding to entire communities and even nations.
“Kingdom” businesses play an important role. For in-
stance there is an apostle in Toronto whose ministry includes What do the terms spiritual mapping and spiritual warfare
an oil and gas company. Two ICA Apostles head Markets mean and where do they come from?
Unlocked, a business matchmaking system that connects
Kingdom business customers and suppliers, and claims ex- Spiritual warfare is not a new term, but the New Apostolics
clusive agreements for over a half billion dollars of products have now co-opted it. With the Lausanne Committee for
and services. Trained intercessors are now paid to pray for World Evangelization, Wagner promoted unique evangeliz-

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 19


Interviews

ing tools as part of a frenzied effort in the 1990s to evange- To give you an idea of how deeply entrenched the New
lize the world before 2000. Instead of slowly winning souls Apostolics are in this policy, consider one of the most cele-
one by one, Wagner proposed that entire geographic areas brated abstinence-only programs in the U.S. “Recapturing
and people groups be targeted, speeding up the process. the Vision” and “Vessels of Honor” are names for absti-
These new strategies include strategic level spiritual war- nence-only programs headed by Jacqueline del Rosario, who
fare and spiritual mapping designed to win territory. This is testified for Title V abstinence-based funding in Congressio-
accomplished by doing battle with demons or principalities nal hearings in 2002. Since 2001, her Miami organizations
that they believe cause entire ethnicities, religions, and geo- have received $3,147,589 of U.S. Department of Health and
graphic areas to resist conversion. After expulsion of the de- Human Services grant money, as well as significant sums
mons, the evangelized population can take “dominion” over from other public sources. This funding came despite the
local government and culture. Then the community suppos- fact that her organization was one of four in a long-term,
edly experiences a foretaste of “God’s Kingdom on Earth.” federally-funded study that showed no measurable results.
These mini-utopias are advertised as having reduced pov- Del Rosario was a speaker, along with Wagner and other
erty, corruption, and disease. This is the ultimate faith-based top apostles, at a conference in January where she was de-
initiative—remove the demons and society will be healed. scribed as an Apostle in the promotional literature. Her rela-
Spiritual mapping is the reconnaissance mission for spiri- tionship with the Apostles is not new, however. She incor-
tual warfare and involves the literal mapping of neighbor- porated her organizations in the mid-1990s with leading
hoods and cities to determine where the demons are. This Florida Apostle Diane Buker, head of Battle Axe ministries,
includes “generational curses” or those things in a city’s his- and Cindy Trimm, described as a “general in the art of stra-
tory that allowed demons to take hold of the entire populous. tegic warfare.” Buker is the author of God’s Power to Multi-
Spiritual mapping is the ideological foundation for the now ply for Wealth and her Battle Axe Brigade ministry website
popular “prayer walking” and the formation of many features a graphic of an arm swinging a medieval mace, as
citywide prayer groups. well as virulent attacks on Catholicism and other faiths.
Wagner, George Otis, Jr., Ed Silvoso, Ted Haggard, Another political area in which New Apostolics is deeply
John Dawson of Youth With a Mission, and others created entrenched is John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel.
an entire genre of books, texts, videos, and other media Hagee is still teaching that the Rapture may happen any mo-
teaching spiritual mapping and spiritual warfare, including a ment, but many of his directors and leaders teach that they
glossary of new terms. The Transformation DVDs produced must take dominion over the earth, including Israel, before
by George Otis, Jr. are promotional “documentaries” show- Jesus can return. These include ICA Apostle Stephen
ing prototypes of this process in which supernatural trans- Strang, who heads the Strang charismatic publishing empire,
formation of a community takes place, including the healing and regional director Robert Stearns, who publishes a New
of AIDS, instantaneous purifying of polluted streams, and Apostolic journal titled Kairos. Stearns also leads the largest
even growth of huge vegetables. These movies have been single international Christian Zionist event, involving
shown to millions globally, and Transformation organiza- 200,000 churches worldwide. His ministry has been en-
tions are attempting to replicate these prototypes in their dorsed by the Knesset’s Christian Allies Caucus and by
local communities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Transformation ideology originated from western
evangelicals—witch-hunting and all—and the prototypes Are there well-known politicians involved with the NAR?
have included cities like Hemet, California. Ugandan Julius
Oyet, who starred in one of the Transformation movies, is a The Transformation movies show that they have access to
key figure in the recent proposed draconian anti-gay many political figures, from Fiji to South America to Af-
legislation in that county. rica. Transformation Hawaii has the full participation of Lt.
Governor Aiona, who has spoken at conferences and writ-
How are these strategies put into practice? ten for the movement. Lou Engle, a prophet in Wagner’s
inner circle, has recently been in the news leading an
Although many of the claims made in the Transformation anti-health-care reform prayercast with Senator Jim DeMint
movies can be easily disproved, the movement’s advance- (R-SC), Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Representa-
ment appears to be partially due to the promotion of Trans- tive Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), among others. In May,
formations prototypes. Supernatural healings of AIDS, Engle led another televised event in which he prayed over
spontaneous destruction of property of other belief systems, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.
and even claims that the prayers of the movement have The New Apostolic movement more closely resembles a
killed other humans are featured in films shown worldwide, political campaign than a denomination. Wilson has written
including to mainline Protestant churches and “renewal” about PrayforNewark, a citywide project in which every
groups, which have subsequently broken from their parent precinct and street has been assigned to a volunteer and
denominations. mapped out for prayer. However, PrayforNewark is part of
The movies appear to have played a role in encouraging Ed Silvoso’s ITN, the same operation that is “transforming”
mythology that flourishes in the Religious Right and be- Uganda, and promoting the belief that homosexuals are pos-
yond, particularly in their assertion that thousands of cases sessed by literal demons.
of AIDS in Uganda have been miraculously cured. Medical
leaders are warning these claims are interfering with their Where does Sarah Palin fit into all this?
HIV/AIDS treatment. Since altering their AIDS programs to
abstinence-only, promoted by U.S. evangelicals, Uganda The movement made early inroads in Alaska through an
has had an increase, not decrease, of new AIDS cases. ICA apostle named Mary Glazier, who claims that a

20 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Interview

24-year-old Palin joined her spiritual warfare network.


These networks allow apostles to communicate and dissemi-
nate new prophecy to their prayer warriors. During the
presidential election this included such prophecies about
Palin, as when Glazier described a vision that Palin would
take the mantle of leadership after a period of national
mourning following the death of John McCain.
The first Transformation movie so impressed pastors in
Wasilla, Alaska that they contacted some of the religious
leaders featured in the movie—including Thomas Muthee,
shown driving a “witch” out of Kiambu, Kenya. The
Wasilla Assembly of God developed an ongoing relationship
with Muthee and a 2005 church video shows him anointing
Palin. Unfortunately, the press picked up on the witch part
of the story, not the more important fact that Palin has ties to
top leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Why should the American people be concerned about NAR?

I believe this movement’s threat to separation of church and


state is greater than some of the more overtly theocratic
movements of the Religious Right. Unsuspecting people are
becoming involved in New Apostolic activities without un-
derstanding its agenda.
Wagner’s ideas have spread widely into mainstream
evangelicalism with little public notice. Haggard, former
president of the National Association of Evangelicals, part-
nered with Wagner in founding the New Apostolic Refor- CHOMSKY: I don’t remember putting it that way. In earlier
mation and building its early headquarters, the World Prayer years, the U.S. supported coups outright or carried them out
Center in Colorado Springs. Despite the fact that Haggard for that matter. In fact, in 2004, they carried out the coup in
has written books on New Apostolic strategies, his partici- Haiti and in 2002 openly supported the coup in Venezuela.
pation in promoting this massive reformation of both church Obama did it indirectly. He joined the Organization of
and society is so little known, it could be described as Hag- American States in criticizing the coup. He wouldn’t call it
gard’s other secret. Z a military coup. He kind of dragged his feet.
Almost every country, even in Europe, withdrew their
ambassadors. The U.S. didn’t. The U.S., of course, has
Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering conservative enormous influence in Honduras. The military’s trained by
movements. the United States. They have very close connections, but
they didn’t do much at first. They didn’t try to use their in-
fluence. Then, as it proceeded, the Obama administration
ended up essentially supporting the coup regime. The U.S.
was almost the only country that recognized the elections
under military rule. It was the usual support for right-wing
military coups, but in a softer way than usual. That’s partly
I Don’t See Much a reflection of the change in power relations.
Difference What do you mean by that?
An interview with Noam Chomsky
Latin America’s become a lot more independent. Take
Brazil. Forty-five years ago the Kennedy administration
By Jon Hochschartner didn’t like the government in Brazil. It was a kind of mildly
social democratic government not very different from [cur-

N oam Chomsky is a renowned linguist who is perhaps


better known for his radical critique of America’s eco-
nomic and foreign policies. According to the Chicago Tri-
rent] President Lula’s. So they organized a military coup
and established a neo-Nazi style national security state. That
was the norm, one country after another through the 1980s.
bune, he’s “the most often cited living author. Among intel- It was a monstrosity. Latin America, finally, after 500
lectual luminaries of all eras, Chomsky placed eighth, just years, is moving towards integration for the first time and
behind Plato and Sigmund Freud.” I interviewed him on paying a little attention—in some cases, like Bolivia, a lot of
January 26, for the Industrial Worker, the IWW’s newspa- attention—to the needs of the poor majority, which is new.
per. It’s printed here with their permission. That’s made the continent a little more independent of the
U.S. The U.S. was kicked out of its last military base in Ec-
HOCHSCHARTNER: You wrote that Obama “broke ground” uador in September 2009. It now has seven new ones in Co-
in supporting the Honduras coup. Explain what you meant. lombia, which is the last holdout.

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 21


Interview

In Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, the “Yeah, we’ll continue the policy of not negotiating with
Supreme Court gave corporations free rein to spend as much you.” There’s about 85 percent opposition to that.
money they wanted on elections. What effect will have? The public wants cost-cutting, which makes sense. The
program’s out of sight. But you can’t have cost-cutting when
It’s a significant step beyond what was already intolerable. you hand it over to private insurance companies that are un-
Elections are pretty much bought. You can predict the vic- regulated. You can cut around the edges somewhere, but
tor in an election by who’s outspending whom. And the you can’t deal with the essence of the problem.
funding, of course, mostly traces back to corporations in
one way or another. But until now they had to do it in kind On the right, there’s been a lot of talk about the tea party.
of indirect, devious ways. The Supreme Court has now Do you see a third party coming from the left?
said, “Look, you can buy them off directly if you like. You
can run ads in favor of a particular candidate with corporate The tea party thing is a real sign of the failure of the left.
money.” That’s even more extreme than campaign funding. Those people, they’re a mixed group, but many of them—I
would say probably most of them—are the people who
The mainstream media’s tried to balance what’s going to be ought to be organized by the left. These are people with real
a huge influx of corporate spending by saying, “Well, the grievances. For the past 30 years—years of financialization
unions are going to be able to do it too.” But the idea that and neo-liberalism—for the majority, wages have stagnated.
the unions are going to raise anything comparable… Benefits, which were never very great, have declined.
Working hours have shot way up. They’ve gone into debt to
Not only that, but, even with all of their flaws, unions, basi- try to preserve the consumerist lifestyle that’s rammed down
cally, are democratic. Its workers who get together and are their throats by the advertising industry. So they’re in bad
supposed to be able to make decisions. That’s not what a shape. Not Third World-style bad shape, but bad shape by
corporation is. A century ago, corporations were identified the standards of the way a rich, industrial country is sup-
by the courts with management. Management is the corpo- posed to be.
rations. For this campaign spending, management doesn’t Those are the things the left ought to be organizing
even have to consult with shareholders. They’re pure tyran- around. Right now, people are very upset, and rightly,
nies. Labor unions are supposed to, at least, work for the about the giveaway to the banks and the high unemploy-
benefit of their members. Corporations are required by law ment. If you look at unemployment figures, which are al-
to work only for profit and for material gain. They’re not ways understated, in the manufacturing industry it’s back to
allowed to do anything else. How can you compare them? the level of the Great Depression. And people are not going
It’s just a joke. to get those jobs back. So they have every right to be mad,
but the left is not offering them anything.
After the Republican victory in Massachusetts, Democrats
have said they don’t think they have the votes for health Emma Goldman—I’m paraphrasing—said, “If voting changed
care. What’s your take on the situation? anything, they’d make it illegal.” Do you subscribe to that
kind of non-participation in electoral politics?
The election in Massachusetts was interesting. The statistics
came out on the voting. Brown won because of very strong I often don’t vote or I vote Green or something like that.
support in the wealthy suburbs and because of pretty much But there are times when I think it matters. So, say in 2004,
apathy in the poorer, urban, Democratic areas. So the rich I thought it mattered to keep Bush out. If you were in a
want even more. Nothing’s ever enough. The population is swing state, I thought it was important to vote for Kerry,
saying, “Look, we don’t like the way you’re giving every- holding your nose. I’m in Massachusetts, so I didn’t have
thing away to the rich.” So they just mostly stayed home. to. Similarly in 2008, I thought it was important to keep
The Republicans are not like any political party in Amer- McCain and Palin out. This is bad, but that would be a lot
ican history. There’s only one word in their vocabulary: worse. So it’s not as extreme as Goldman said. There’s a
“no.” Anything the Democrats propose, “no.” They’ve got- limited functioning democracy, which gives the population
ten the Democrats to concede on issue after issue—primarily some voice, and sometimes a lot of voice when they get ac-
because they don’t disagree all that much. But one of the tive and organized.
things they’ve gotten them to agree on is that everything has
to go to a filibuster. Filibusters have been used in the past, How would you rate Obama’s first year in office? I remem-
but they’re not the routine way of responding to proposed ber you quoting Condi Rice—that it was an extension of the
legislation. The Republicans are like the old Communist second Bush term.
Party. Everybody has to vote the same way. So what you
get is a Republican minority that can block any legislation I think that’s about what’s happened—a little variation here
just by threatening a filibuster. and there, but not much. He’s escalated the war in Afghani-
Returning to health care, a majority of the population is stan and Pakistan beyond what Bush was saying he was go-
opposed to Obama’s health-care program. That’s what the ing to do. He’s been a little bit more open to negotiations
headlines say and that’s true. But if you look at the polls, on Iran. He’s done nothing on Israel/Palestine, on Latin
they’re mostly opposed to it because it doesn’t go far America. He’s approximately the same as Bush. I just don’t
enough. He gave away everything. They gave away the see much difference. Z
public option, which there’s a strong majority for. They
gave away the Medicare buy in at 55. Again, very strong
majority. He made a deal with the drug companies saying, Jon Hochschartner is a freelance writer from Lake Placid.

22 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Communiqué

Obama’s Ironic Public


money were those
Shortchange we can believe in large enough to be po-
litically connected. This was confirmed when the New York
Times reported that banks were far more likely to get a
public rescue if an executive had sat on a Federal Reserve
Bank, had some relationship with a finance committee
By Rob Larson member, or had spent heavily on lobbying (NYT, “Banks
With Political Ties Got Bailouts,” 12/21/09).
Such relationships suggests that the large banks shaped
the government policy that will affect them. It could also be

I n September 2009, a high-profile meeting of the G-20


organization of developed countries took place in Pitts-
burgh, Pennsylvania. It was accompanied by 3,000 to
noted in this connection that the enormous banks were not
required to make any loans with the public’s bailout
money—banks have not increased lending and so the credit
4,000 demonstrators and a roughly equal number of crisis has continued. This is because the U.S. was uncom-
heavily armed riot police. Asked for his response to the mon among the developed nations bailing out their banks in
demonstrations, President Obama suggested that “many 2008 in not requiring the rescued banks to make any loans
of the protests are just directed generically at capital- that would relieve the credit crisis (NYT, “Paulson Says
ism.... Ironically, if they had been paying attention to Banks Must Deploy Capital,” 10/15/08).
what was taking place inside the summit itself, what they Another indication of this investment in politics is the
would have heard was a strong recognition…that it is im- failure by regulators to seriously reform the practices that
portant to make sure that the market is working for ordi- got the banks in so much trouble in the first place. The
nary people; that government has a role in regulating the G-20 meeting endorsed the new international banking rules
market…so I would recommend those who are out there proposed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision,
protesting, if they’re actually interested in knowing what which focus on quite limited measures, like higher liquidity
was taking place here, to read the communiqué that was ratios and leverage limits for big banks, as well as attempts
issued.” to adjust reserves to reflect the risk posed to insurers (Fi-
Reading the summit communiqué (pittsburghsum- nancial Times, “Dividend and Bonus Rules Face Reform,”
mit.gov) reveals that the real “irony” is that Obama has 12/17/09). This is an effort to somewhat “internalize” the
failed to even propose, let alone accomplish, the serious risk posed to other “external” parties when systemically
change promised in 2008. The document sheds a lot of important banks make decisions. Other possible changes in-
light on the current neoliberal policy, including the eco- clude forcing banks to hold a small part of the risk associ-
nomic crisis, the reappearance of the IMF, and global ated with loans which they “securitize,” meaning create
climate change. and then sell to others.
The bank bailout is a prime example. The $700 billion These modest regulations are somewhat valuable, but
bailout program was monumentally unpopular, to the point they clearly leave in place the basis of the banking crisis,
that Congress was forced (at first) to deviate from its usual including large volumes of speculative capital, securitiza-
role of banking industry rubber-stamper and instead reject tion of debt, and the expectation by large banks of a public
rescuing the biggest banks. Nevertheless, the Obama ad- safety net. While Obama promised change, and still main-
ministration recently announced its plan to continue the tains an adversarial public posture toward the banks,
program, “injecting capital” into banks near failure, with clearly the megabanks have a strong hold on finance pol-
some small-business window dressing (NYT, “Geithner icy. In fact, Obama’s pioneering candidacy was probably
Outlines Future for TARP,” 12/19/09). Of course, the “too part of the reason for his heavy support from finance, as
big to fail” banks that received the majority of the bailout Paul Street and others have observed (Z Magazine, “There
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 23
Communiqu¾

Is No Peace Dividend,” January 2009). This suggests that Ecuadoran executive on the process, but, of course, when
the investment theory of party competition has passed yet Citigroup was itself bailed out a decade later, it accepted
another test: despite strong expectations and public an- nothing like this imposition of harsh conditions against its
nouncements to the effect that the banks would be dealt will.
with harshly, their key profit activities have been left In the intervening decade the IMF has fallen on harsher
effectively unmolested. times: “As with the U.S. military during the Vietnam War,
people inside the IMF are bewildered, resentful and frus-
Structural Suffering trated, and don’t feel like suffering in silence any longer,”

T his same commitment to basic unchanging policies can


be seen in the Democratic leadership’s revitalization of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a means of man-
the Wall Street Journal tearfully related, on account of the
angry turn-of-the-century movement that prevented them
from enjoying their meetings (“IMF Weary of Criticism,”
aging the economic crisis. The primary means of doing so 9/22/00). Further, as some countries like Argentina sought
have been the structural adjustment programs (SAPs), successfully to “rid themselves” of the IMF, its importance
which were a major focus of popular protest movements to the global capitalist system declined along with its clout.
prior to 9/11. These SAPs involved heavy cutbacks in pub- More recently, a further complication emerged for, as
lic services, tax and interest rate hikes, and privatization of the business press puts it, “During past crises, the fund de-
public institutions. manded tough cuts in budget deficits, privatization of in-
The SAPs became infamous for “the strikes, riots, and dustries and liberalization of markets. In light of the re-
mass job cuts that the…orthodox reforms provoked,” as the sponse of the U.S. and western Europe to the current cri-
conservative Financial Times put it (“Price May be High sis, such conditions are clearly not tenable now. The IMF
for Spurning Tough Economic Reforms,” 6/24/99). When has to soften its stance” (FT, “All the World’s a Stage as
Brazil sought an emergency refinancing of its debt in 1998, Fear Grows,” 10/27/08). In other words, since expansion-
mostly from the 1980s era of U.S.-backed military dictator- ary Keynesian fiscal and monetary policy are what led to
ship, the IMF insisted that credit could come only with a growth, as shown by the use of them by the G-20 nations
severe SAP. The package consisted of tax increases, fuel when they get into trouble, the IMF must moderate its
subsidy reductions, and public service cutbacks that even depressionary demands on debtor nations, if only to save
the Wall Street Journal recognized “would mean a period face. When Iceland was headed for insolvency last year, it
of severe austerity for Brazilians” (“Brazil Promises Se- went so far as to appeal to Russia for capital before turning
vere Steps to Win IMF Aid,” 10/28/98). to the IMF.
Few noticed that the 2009 Pittsburgh meeting, including
its pledge to reinvigorate the IMF, came on the heels of the The Return of the Fund
10th anniversary of Ecuador’s acceptance of a typically
draconian International Monetary Fund SAP, which in-
cluded sharply regressive tax hikes, a dramatic lowering of
N evertheless, the Pittsburgh summit did commit to revi-
talizing the Fund—partly to deal with the risk of col-
lapse of small countries, its traditional neoliberal function,
the minimum-taxable income, and cuts to gas subsidies for but also to coordinate some multilateral policy responses.
the poor majority. The passage was difficult due to the “re- Ironically, one response is “reducing the economic disrup-
calcitrant Ecuadoran Congress” and its minimally demo- tion from sudden swings in capital flows.” Of course, the
cratic character (Wall Street Journal, “Ecuador Nears IMF was in part chartered to regulate capital flow before
Agreement With IMF,” 8/30/99). Citigroup advised the becoming a leading force to expand its power. But in an
ahistorical culture like ours, such
incongruity is rarely recognized.
This new mandate for the IMF re-
quires significant capital. To augment
their own strained resources, the rich
nations have finally agreed to a small
reapportionment of the IMF quota sys-
tem. In a moment of great munifi-
cence, the developed nations conde-
scended to increase the global south’s
share of the IMF voting quota by “at
least five percent,” insisting, however,
that the present quota formula be the
basis from which to work. This un-
characteristically generous move can
be explained by the need to collect new
capital for the organization, with Asian
currency stockpiles and oil export sur-
pluses being prime sources, if a few
quota percent will bring them around.
Keeping the IMF in place to dictate
depression to the world’s majority is
24 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Communiqu¾

hardly the change the world hoped


for when the Democrats took office.
On the other hand, the IMF has long
had the reputation of being the
“credit community’s enforcer” and
its new role in stabilizing world fi-
nance is in line with the demands of
world capital.
Another key thrust of the G-20
statement that the protesters “ironi-
cally” missed dealt with carrying
forward the stalled fight for global
“free trade.” Meetings of the devel-
oped nations routinely call for con-
tinuation of the Doha Round of free
trade talks, but the call was more
imperative this year due to the steep
fall in global commerce, by over 10
percent from 2008.
The cause of the delay is simple
enough: “Multilateral trade liberal-
ization has largely benefited the de-
veloped economies of the North.
They have opened their markets
when it was convenient and main-
tained trade barriers when it was
not—in agriculture above all—but
also in certain manufacturing indus-
tries” (FT, “Road from Cancun Leads to Brussels,” ure at Cancun (2003), as the major states of the south con-
9/16/03). This “has exposed the North’s hypocrisy,” which tinue to struggle to cope with surges of subsidized imports
would not normally be a big deal, since the fundamental into their countries under the neoliberal regime.
power relations have historically favored the North to the The message from Pittsburgh is a continuation of quite
point that it could dictate terms of trade. unpopular policies by Obama, as long as the policies bene-
But lately, this has begun to change as the major states fit the great corporations and banks, which is surely the de-
of the global south have partially freed themselves from sign of the International Monetary Fund SAPs and the
U.S.-backed dictators and International Monetary Fund Doha Round requiring poor countries to do without what
SAPs, and as popular “anti-globalization” movements in the rich countries insist on.
civil society in the north and south make demands for a
greater public role. Even the current leader of America’s Copenhagen Cop-Out
free trade process, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk,
admits that “people are afraid” of further trade deals, in
spite of low Wal-Mart prices, because “the pain of trade is
T he Copenhagen climate summit (December 2009), the
direct successor to Pittsburgh, was a perfect instance of
the Obama Democrats’ commitment to unpopular business
very real” (WSJ, “Blame Goes Global at WTO,” 12/3/09). as usual. The U.S. and China, both investment play-
The economics are simple: low prices don’t make up for grounds, blocked anything more than lip service to binding
lost employment and lower wages nor do they benefit the emission reductions. Their reasons are easy to understand.
countries firms choose to invest in. As the Wall Street Journal wrote, Obama is a “Washington
Shocking as this may sound to the ear of an orthodox liberal,” but a “Copenhagen conservative,” busy “support-
economist, the point is common in the business press: ing the least-aggressive steps, advancing the conservative
“Conventional wisdom is that the big challenge to trade co- position of opposition to strict world-wide limits on emis-
mes from embittered workers, many of whom didn’t enjoy sions that ask much more of developed nations than of
much of the gain from trade in the good times. They see poorer countries…the leader of the ‘haves’ in their dispute
imports and immigrants as a threat to their livelihoods, and with the ‘have-nots’” (“Obama: Washington Liberal, Co-
press elected politicians to protect them” (WSJ, “New penhagen Conservative,” 12/16/09). The energy industry,
Rules Have Potential to Alter Path of Global Trade,” of course, donated heavily to Obama’s 2008 campaign.
5/14/09). China’s move also makes some sense in light of the fact
The Battle of Seattle at trade talks in 1999 was a mani- that the developed nations are responsible for the over-
festation of the late arrival of this consciousness in the whelming majority of total historical greenhouse emissions
north. The collapse of the Doha Round, meant to further and therefore might be seen to bear the major share of the
loosen trade and investment regulations and barriers, was a responsibility, having benefited economically from the
manifestation of the far greater strength of this movement emitting industries. The EU is livid in Copenhagen’s
in the south. This was the background of the neoliberal fail- aftermath, and with China and the U.S. agreeing only to to-
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 25
Communiqu¾

ken future goals, the director of BusinessEurope is threat- public awareness and organized support for emission
ening that European corporations will move operations to reforms has grown.
world regions with less emission regulation (NYT, “EU Obama hardly deserves credit for this development, as it
Blames Others for ‘Great Failure’ on Climate,” 12/23/09). reflects the recognition by large-scale capital that the
If there is no progress on binding global emissions limits, changing investment climate now requires federal spending
the U.S. and EU may impose tariff duties on goods made to finance a major change in the industry. The break in the
in economies with no carbon taxation, a prescription for a normally monolithic energy industry and the hard work by
great trade war with unpredictable consequences. environmental organizers are the necessary conditions for
This is because even the U.S. is internally moving to- this political maneuvering.
ward a very modest greenhouse emissions taxing regime. Finally, it should be noted that the Obama administra-
The reason this small change has been allowed to move tion is being confronted with a budget-balancing hysteria
forward is the break within the powerful energy industry, similar to that which met the Clinton administration. The
with some retail energy providers and utilities recognizing situation is quite similar to Clinton’s years, actually. A pre-
they will benefit from future public spending to reinvent the vious Republican administration ran up monumental budget
energy system, while the energy industry proper is still in deficits in those areas which in the U.S. are considered
opposition (NYT, “Energy Firms Are Split on Bill to Battle most legitimate—increased military spending and decreased
Climate Change,” 10/19/09). The division has recently be- taxes on the richest households. Then the succeeding Dem-
come quite serious, with prominent corporate giants like ocrats are obliged to cut down the deficit run up by the
Apple and utility colossus Exelon splitting from the U.S. GOP, not by cutting imperial intervention or re-taxing the
Chamber of Commerce over its heavy spending to fight billionaires at previous rates, but by slicing back at the
climate change legislation. withered remains of U.S. social services.
This has led to emissions legislation suddenly becoming It was Clinton who decapitated AFDC, the main welfare
politically viable. As recently as 1997 the Senate voted program for poor families with children, in order to shrink
unanimously to recommend the U.S. not sign the Kyoto budget deficits run up by Reagan’s wars and upper-class
Protocol, yet now the prospects for the (still inadequate) tax chopping. Likewise, absent a powerful countervailing
American Clean Energy and Security Act and its public movement in defense of public services, it may be
cap-and-trade emissions regime are considered to be de- Obama who oversees the next great wave of austerity mea-
cent. The difference, of course, is not that several re- sures in the U.S., perhaps focused in severe cutbacks in
spected geologists and climatologists recently published a funding for state services. This has been anticipated by a
paper in Science describing how Arctic ice core and tree number of analysts on the left, notably Doug Henwood (of
ring records indicate that the 1999-2008 decade “was the the Left Business Observer). What this suggests is a biparti-
warmest of the past 200 decades” (“Recent Warming Re- san rotating door in state policy where the right pursues its
verses Long-Term Arctic Cooling,” 9/4/09). Terrifying regressive tax goals and imperial designs and center-right
scientific findings don’t scare policymakers unless they af- Democrats put the pain on the population in order to pursue
fect their power and privilege. Climate change is now an a centrist budget-balancing agenda. The modern political
issue because large-scale capital has split opinions and system has developed into a good cop-bad cop capitalist
management team.
In the end, Obama said the anti-G-20
protestors were “ironic” because the is-
sues they made such an impolite fuss over
are already addressed in the summit com-
muniqué. But each of the high points is a
continuation of the neoliberal status quo
which the demonstrators condemned and
which Obama implied he would alter. The
Democrats can promise all the change
they want, but with an economy run by
all-powerful corporate networks, you
can’t put your money where your mouth is
if you want to stay in office. Unless a pop-
ular movement arises to demand the
change they believed in, the historic
Obama presidency won’t be changing a
hell of a lot. Irony loves company. Z

Rob Larson is assistant professor of eco-


nomics at Ivy Tech Community College in
Bloomington, Indiana. His writing has ap-
peared in Z Magazine, Dollars & Sense,
and the Humanist.

26 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Green Tide

Land: The Greatest


Excuse Of All

Offsets and accounting tricks instead of real


solutions to the climate crisis

By Rachel Smolker

G reat news. We have found a solution to climate


change. After all the negotiating and hand wringing
there is, at long last, a way out of this dilemma. And the
from “soil carbon sequestration” as well as forests and tree
plantations, inside and outside Australia.
Meanwhile, Canada is similarly champing at the bit to
good news is that it won’t be hard at all. In fact, it requires take advantage of the new land-based sinks accounting
us to do pretty much nothing at all. Just put a fence around game. A proposal has been made to set aside a large area
a piece of the back 40 and christen it “offset,” and, voila, of their boreal forest to “offset” the Athabasca tar sands
you’ve got an excuse to keep on polluting. project, considered the largest single source of greenhouse
This may seem too crazy to be true, but it is happening gas emissions on the planet.
and it is why countries like Australia and the U.S. are sud- Why didn’t we think of this earlier? We did. Under-
denly agreeing to “reduce” their emissions (even if only by standing the history that got us to this point is revealing. In
a paltry amount). By pushing land-based “sinks” into car- the early stages of the Kyoto negotiations, the U.S., with
bon markets, countries can conveniently count their forests, allies like Canada and Australia, proposed that countries
grasslands, and other ecosystems on the “assets” side of should be permitted to include their forests and grasslands
their greenhouse gas accounting worksheets. Is this reduc- as sinks in part of their carbon accounting equations. Coun-
ing emissions? Of course not. It is no more than an ac- tries with a lot of forest and farmland could count the car-
counting trick. An article by Guy Pearse and Gregg bon sequestered in those lands as an offset for rather sub-
Borschmann in the Sydney Morning Herald on December stantial greenhouse gas emissions. This was not exactly met
14, 2009, “Green Pot of Gold Lures Politicians,” reports a with smiles by the rest of the world. A huge debate ensued,
“candid remark” from a climate negotiator in a private the essence of which is captured in this report on the UN
briefing in Copenhagen, who stated that Australia would be climate conference in 2000 (COP6) from the American
able to commit to a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emis- Geological Institute: “Negotiations at The Hague ultimately
sions by 2020 if proposed land-use rule changes pushed by broke down over disagreements between the United States
developed countries were accepted as part of a new global and the European Union on the role of carbon sequestra-
climate deal. “And all that without having to impose a tion. Language in the Kyoto Protocol focuses on reducing
nasty tax, set up a complicated emissions trading scheme, greenhouse gas emissions but leaves the door open for de-
or clean up a single polluting pipe. It is a political veloped countries to receive credit for sequestering carbon
win-win.” in long-term sinks such as forests and agricultural soil or by
Indeed, Australia has now proposed to offset 100 per- injection into deep wells. The U.S. government has sup-
cent of their emissions, having exempted their agricultural ported research in carbon sequestration and understanding
sector from an emissions cap and offered unlimited offsets the carbon cycle in hopes to use the results to maximize se-

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 27


Green Tide

questration credits. The European Union argued that doing were taken advantage of, the U.S. would not actually need
so would short-circuit the treaty’s central goal of emissions to reduce emissions for close to 30 years. In addition to the
reduction. Instead of completely closing the negotiations, fallacy of offsets being offsety (i.e., they are a lie, not re-
representatives have suspended the discussion until the ductions, unjust, unreliable etc.), they were to be supplied
COP7 meeting in Morocco in May or June of next year. almost entirely by agriculture and forestry. This has the
No matter how the election works out here at home, the ancilliary benefit of providing profitable opportunities for
debate over carbon sinks is likely to remain heated, initially developing and marketing technologies for measuring and
over whether to accept them and eventually over how to assessing carbon flows through ecosystems.
measure them.” Wait a minute, you say, “Isn’t industrial agriculture a
major source of emissions? How can it provide offsets?”
Land-Based Sinks As Offsets? Well, our wise leaders just decided that agriculture should

E ventually, a compromise (the Marrakesh Accord) was


reached that enabled some use of land-based sinks but
limited them to “afforestation and reforestation” (tree plan-
not be a “capped sector,” but rather “part of the solution”
in the grand carbon marketing scheme that is supposedly
going to rescue us. Colin Peterson, chair of the House Ag-
tations) and further limited their use by Annex 1 (industri- riculture Committee, essentially held the entire climate bill
alized) countries to only 1 percent of greenhouse gas emis- hostage by demanding that changes in agriculture practices
sion reduction obligations. At the time, the World Rain- should be subsidized by being made eligible to earn offset
forest Movement responded: “Climate negotiators chose to credits (under USDA, not EPA jurisdiction). What changes
ignore the increasing number of scientific studies which in agriculture practices will benefit? There is a list of eligi-
question the capacity of tree plantations to be a long-term ble technologies for agriculture offsets for the house bill
solution to climate change. They also chose to ignore that and another for the Senate partner bill (Stabenow’s “Clean
this mechanism will in fact result in a net increase of fos- Energy Partnerships Act”). Included are a long list of prac-
sil-fuel emissions in the North. And they also opted to ig- tices, including various sorts of methane collection, tree
nore the impacts that large-scale tree plantations have on plantations, carbon capture and sequestration, destruction
people and the environment.” of ozone depleting substances, and a suite of land, soil, and
The debates and disagreements were based on the fact agriculture technologies that will supposedly sequester
that forests (and other ecological systems), as well as plan- carbon or avoid emissions.
tations, are unreliable as carbon sinks. Trees die unexpect- A big winner is likely to be “chemical no till,” which is
edly—forest fires, droughts, beetle infestations, all manner the practice of leaving residues on the fields and planting
of possible disruptions could result in the carbon being re- seeds for the following crop by drilling them into the soil
leased into the atmosphere making it difficult to claim “per- through residues, rather than tilling. This is not a practice
manence.” The science of measuring carbon flows in and that your local farmers’ market provider cares about much.
out of forests or other ecosystems is in its infancy, very They grow a bunch of different crops in a diversified farm
complex, and as variable as the ecosystems themselves. On system. No, this is a concern for industrial growers of ge-
top of that, there are problems of “leakage,” when land use netically modified (GM) soy and corn—those vast
changes in one place result in a domino impact elsewhere. monocultures that feed the machinery of Monsanto,
(The classic example: if a parcel of forest is set aside and Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland. Monsanto has al-
protected while demand for timber products remains the ready been pushing to get chemical no-till agriculture into
same, cutting to meet the demand will simply move to a the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (off-
different parcel resulting in no net gain in protected forest.) sets) since 1998. No-till is already marketed extensively as
The absurdity of using land-based sinks as offsets for an offset in the voluntary markets on the Chicago Climate
fossil fuel emissions is nowhere more clear than in Canada. Exchange. Monsanto knows full well that if farmers grow-
The extraction of heavy crude oil from tar sand there is the ing their Roundup-ready GM soy can get offset credits for
reason Canada now has among the world’s highest rates of practicing no till, sales of their proprietary seed will sky-
deforestation. The areas to be set aside as offsets would be rocket. When farmers refrain from tilling the soil for weed
privatized, amounting to the largest act of enclosure in control, they resort instead to using more Roundup,
world history, and there is no scientific basis for a target Monsanto’s fabled glyphosate herbicide. Monsanto already
number to begin with. But the bigger problem is that the clears more than $1 billion per year in profits from the
boreal forest is dying. With massive areas infested by pine Roundup cash cow alone.
beetle, impacts of rapid warming, such as increasing forest Pretending to offset fossil fuel emissions by supporting
fires, and other forest health issues, the forest, alarmingly, GM soy and herbicide use may seem a bit off, but those
is shifting from being a carbon sink to a carbon source. more willing to compromise might accept the idea if it at
This does not bode well for its capacity to offset anything. least reduced emissions significantly below current prac-
The U.S. has persisted over the years in promoting car- tice. Not so. A number of studies seriously challenge the
bon markets, including land-based sinks. For instance, whole assumption that no till reduces CO2 emissions at all.
when it came time for a climate bill, it should have been no So even the tiny “better than the worst case” benefit may
surprise that forestry and agricultural (soils) offsets were be illusory. Meanwhile, as demonstrated by the Rodale In-
featured prominently. The U.S. House passed the Ameri- stitute and others, diverse organic farming methods not
can Clean Energy and Security Act in June 2009. Among only “reduce” emissions, but actually build soil carbon.
other little horrors, the bill provided two billion tons of off- (The Stabenow bill does in fact list organic farming meth-
sets. Is that a lot? According to International Rivers, if they ods, but we can hope organic farmers will not accept hav-
28 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Green Tide

ing their practices prostituted in the


name of offsetting fossil fuel burning.)
Biochar to Sequester Carbon?

A nother big winner would be


biochar. This is essentially charcoal
created by burning plant matter under
conditions of low oxygen. Some portion
of the carbon from the original plant
material is retained in the charcoal, and
proponents claim that burying this char-
coal in soils is one of the most “promis-
ing” means of sequestering carbon. The
International Biochar Initiative, an entity
comprised of entrepreneurs and academ-
ics, has diligently lobbied for inclusion
of biochar, or at least “soil carbon se-
questration,” in carbon markets to en-
sure that finances flow in their direction.
They claim biochar carbon is stable in
soils for thousands of years, based on
the Terra Preta soils of the Amazon,
created by indigenous peoples thousands
of years ago, which still retain their fer-
tility and carbon content. This, they say,
is proof that biochar is a reliable means
of storing carbon in soils and, therefore,
biochar should be considered not only for offsets, but as a concentration of toxins in char, which could then find their
viable climate geo-engineering technique. Some have sug- way from the soil into waterways and the food chain. Fi-
gested planting from 500 million to over one billion hect- nally, charcoal is a form of black carbon. When biochar
ares of industrial tree plantations, burning them, and bury- particles break down, as they are known to do, the very
ing the resulting charcoal in soils as a means of reducing at- small particles can become airborne and contribute greatly
mospheric CO2 levels. But this ignores the serious implica- to global warming as “soot,” the second leading cause of
tions of such massive land-use change—there are now warming besides CO2. Soot particles present a serious
about 1.3 billion hectares of cropland worldwide. threat to human health as they bypass the upper respiratory
However, the Amazonian Indians produced their “terra system and contribute to lung disease. In a recent test trial
preta” using a complex mixture of charcoal with other or- in Quebec, where biochar was applied to a large soy field,
ganic materials. So far we have failed to replicate their suc- they reported that over 30 percent of the biochar “blew
cess. Is it fair to assume our modern biochar will behave away” during application before it was tilled into the soil.
like terra preta? Not likely. The first self-proclaimed com- Wait. Isn’t tilling supposed to be a bad thing?
mercial retailer of biochar, “Eternagreen,” was, they
claimed, made by pyrolysis of garbage, including plastics Some Ludicrous Offsets
and old tires. (The parent company, Mantria Industries,
turned out to be engaged in a Ponzi scheme targeting el-
derly people with a desire to invest in “green practices”
S ome of the technologies proposed make sense, if not as
offsets, but others are ludicrous—for example,
“changes in diet for livestock that reduce methane.” In-
and has since folded under pressure from the Securities deed, there is a famous offset project involving TransAlta,
Exchange Commission.) the largest energy utility in Canada, which claims to offset
Meanwhile, biochar advocates claim that biochar will their coal burning emissions by paying farmers in Uganda
increase soil fertility, decrease agrochemical runoff, and to feed their cows pills that make them burp and fart less.
provide various other benefits. But soils are highly vari- “Avoided conversion” is another useful trick. This means
able, as are the properties of charcoal, depending on how you can claim that you were thinking of converting a piece
and from what they are made of. Studies of biochar indi- of forested land into pasture, but if you get paid enough by
cate that it can provide a boost in fertility, but this may be someone seeking to “offset,” you will change your mind.
temporary due to nutrients in the ash, in some cases fol- Forestry offsets include such vague phrases as “seques-
lowed by a decline or even collapse in soil fertility (oops). tration of greenhouse gases through management of tree
And if all your “wastes and residues” have been charred, crops” and the deeply troubling “adaptation of plant traits
there is little left to compost for nutrients. Some of the car- or new technologies that increase sequestration by forests.”
bon in biochar may be retained over long periods, but in That was clearly written with Arborgen, the creators of ge-
some cases biochar additions stimulate soil microbial action netically engineered (GE) eucalyptus, in mind. Arborgen
that oxidizes the preexisting soil organic matter (oops, seeks to field test close to 300,000 GE trees across the
again). On top of that, there are serious concerns about the southern U.S. Their vision is to provide fast growing pulp
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 29
Green Tide

and chips to satisfy new demands for biomass resulting “Copenhagen Accord” took center stage. The Accord re-
from mandates for cellulosic biofuels, wood-burning elec- fers to REDD, but does not specifically mention soils and
tricity, and heat production, which is where most federal agriculture. Rest assured, however, they will indeed be in-
subsidies for “renewable energy” are currently going. Fi- cluded in whatever comes out of the next stages of negotia-
nally, there is a push to include “durable harvested wood tions. Also in Copenhagen, a Global Research Alliance on
products” as offset eligible. I suppose this means that the Agricultural Greenhouse Gases was established and, judg-
old wooden rocker on your porch can offset coal burning ing from membership, it seems likely that a large part of
since that wood will be around longer than, say, pulp used their mission will be to propose methods for including soils
for mail order cataloges. All this makes sense to someone, and agriculture practices into the CDM and eligible for
somewhere, apparently. credits in various carbon markets.
Carbon Counting and Other Tricks Implications

T o make it all seem more reliable, new carbon counting


tricks are being developed, with the help of the ge-
niuses at the 25x’25 organization—who’s mantra is to pro-
D iscussions of causes and solutions to climate change
tend to focus on fossil fuels. Recognizing the impor-
tant role of land-use is essential. A recent study from Geor-
vide 25 percent of America’s renewable energy from farms gia Tech concluded that more than half of greenhouse gas
and forests by 2025. The trick is to devise ways to skirt the emissions from the U.S. results from land-use not fossil
annoying problem that fossil fuel emissions are permanent fuel burning. There is no question that restoring and regen-
and ecosystem carbon sequestration is—not. Thus, they erating lands could provide a huge benefit in helping to re-
say, we can get around using buffers, insurance schemes, duce the damages of warming already in the pipeline. But
credit reserves, and bundling of numerous short-term cred- doing so as an offset for ongoing pollution is a definite path
its as supposedly equivalent to “permanent.” Nothing a lit- to failure. Choosing the wrong techniques has the potential
tle “creative accounting” can’t take care of. to make things worse rather than better.
The agriculture and forestry offset provisions in the Further, inclusion of land-based sinks—forests, grass-
U.S. climate bills are now snaking their way into the post- lands, soils, agriculture practices—will effectively turn all
Kyoto agreement text. Discussions of “Reducing Emissions of the earth’s surface into a commodity of value to pollut-
from Deforestation and Degradation” (REDD) have been ers. When carbon becomes valuable, those who can afford
ongoing. Now there is talk of extending REDD to include to pay for it become owners. Such large-scale commodifi-
soils and agriculture or including them in the Clean Devel- cation of the commons is the biggest threat to human rights
opment Mechanism (CDM). Text to that effect was in- and well being imagineable. Already we are seeing the im-
cluded in late drafts of the Copenhagen agreement, but then pact as projects for testing REDD are getting underway.
(mercifully) all fell into disregard, at least for now, as the Indigenous peoples, many of whom are forest dependent,
have acted as stewards of forest eco-
systems for thousands of years. They
are now being evicted from their lands
while entrepreneurs seeking to profit
from the income generated by forest
carbon buy land out from under their
feet. Before REDD has even been rati-
fied it has resulted in bloody conflicts
in several locations around the world.
When other ecosystems, soils, and
agriculture come into carbon markets,
we will see massive escalation in con-
flicts over access to land, food, and
farming. As Wendell Berry stated
many years ago, “There is no gift
greater than a piece of good land.”
Conversely, as is clear from the state
of displaced rural farm and forest
dwellers forced to exist on the edges
of slums in the world’s big cities,
there is nothing worse than being de-
prived of that gift. Z

Rachel Smolker is codirector of Bio-


fuelwatch and an organizer with Cli-
mate SOS, and various climate justice
networks. She has a PhD in biology
from the University of Michigan and
lives in Vermont.
30 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Economic Policy

Epic Recession:
Prelude to Global
Depression?

Part III: An alternative program for 2010 by Congress, new home sales once again retreated in early
and beyond 2010. And it too is scheduled to soon expire. To make mat-
ters worse, the inventory technicalities are no longer a ma-
jor factor adding to GDP growth and China and Asia, once
By Jack Rasmus absorbing U.S. exports, have begun to tighten spending. So
the export push in manufacturing is now fading. The result
is that in February the Index of U.S. Manufacturing in the
U.S. once more reversed, falling from 58.4 to 56.5 (50.0

A year ago the Obama administration assured the nation


its $787 billion economic stimulus bill, and three-part
bank bailout plan would generate an economic recovery
represents no growth).
More than 2.5 million manufacturing jobs have been
lost in 2008-2009, hardly representing a recovery. Nor can
from the current economic crisis. My prediction at the time one assume other major sectors of the economy have re-
(Z Magazine, February and March 2009) was that it would covered. The construction industry declined by $200 billion
fail to generate any sustained economic recovery. The stim- in 2009 and shows no sign of turnaround with new home
ulus was not large enough for the U.S. economy, and its sales and home prices falling once again. And the far more
composition focused too heavily on business tax cuts, too important Services Industry Index, nearly ten times the size
little on immediate job creation, and did virtually nothing to of manufacturing in terms of jobs (95 million vs. 11.5 mil-
stop home foreclosures. In addition, the bank bailout pro- lion), has either continued to fall or remained flat through-
gram would prove equally unsuccessful, failing to jumpstart out the past year despite the stimulus, the tax cuts, and the
bank lending in the U.S. Federal Reserve pumping trillions into the banks.
While U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) turned posi- Finally, and most recently, in the last week of February,
tive in the second half of 2009, it is still almost certain that there appeared a renewed decline in consumer confidence,
there will be a slowdown in GDP growth in the first quar- a rise once again in new jobless claims to 500,000 a month,
ter of 2010. The $787 billion stimulus had only minimal (now 15 percent higher over last quarter), and the continu-
impact in 2009 on the economy and that will begin to fade ing surge in foreclosures (soon to surpass 7 million) with
by mid-year 2010. 20 percent-plus in mortgages in negative equity (predicted
What produced the extremely modest, hesitant recovery to reach 10 million). Reflecting the new reality, even the
in the second half of 2009 had more to do with special pro- stock market peaked on January 19, 2010 and has remained
grams like the first time homebuyers subsidy and cash for flat to falling since. In short, it all adds up to a scenario
clunkers added mid-year, and with technicalities involving representing anything but a sustained economic recovery.
inventory adjustments to GDP plus some manufacturing Profits of some of the big 19 banks have indeed risen,
growth tied to U.S. exports growth and more robust recov- but not due to the Obama administration’s early 2009
eries occurring in China and elsewhere. But the cash for three-part bailout program. The Obama administration
clunkers program has been discontinued, resulting at year maintained the bailout and finance programs (PIPP, TALF,
end 2009 in auto sales immediately retrenching once again. and HAMP) were necessary to get bank credit flowing
And despite the first time homebuyer program’s extension again. But lending declined every month throughout 2009.
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 31
Economic Policy

Banks instead borrowed funds from the Federal Reserve at March. One can support this latter legislation, but it will do
zero percent interest rates and loaned to hedge funds and nothing to generate jobs or a sustained recovery.
others at double digit rates to speculate in foreign currency,
offshore properties, commodities, and stock markets—or Theory and History
else they speculated directly in their own stocks or bet on
foreign government bonds collapsing, as in the case of
Greece and elsewhere. On the other hand, essentially noth-
A s Part 1 of this series noted, the current crisis is driven
by a set of unique characteristics quite different from
normal recessions that have occurred in the post-1945 period
ing has been done to aid the 8,000 small and regional in the U.S. Unfortunately, Obama administration policy-
banks, which are now failing by the hundreds, with another makers have yet to understand this, or else they do and refuse
702 on the FDIC’s danger list. to acknowledge the differences. They have approached the
A year later it is now abundantly clear that the Obama crisis as if it were a normal recession, perhaps somewhat
administration’s programs were never intended to generate worse in its dimensions, but normal nonetheless. That ex-
an economic recovery. These programs—the original stim- plains at least in part why the current Administration’s policies
ulus, the bank bailout programs, and special one-time pro- have failed to generate a sustained economic recovery. They
grams—all were designed to simply put a floor under the are essentially policies appropriate for normal recessions, but
escalating economic collapse at the time. That is quite dif- not for what I call an epic recession.
ferent than the government generating a true, sustained Epic Recessions are the consequence of major financial
economic recovery. Putting a temporary floor under the system implosions. In theoretical terms, those financial
collapse means the Obama strategy was designed simply to busts are the consequence of prior speculative investing ex-
buy time to allow a market driven recovery to take hold, to cesses, which drive debt and asset price inflation to danger-
be led by the banks renewing lending once again. But the ous levels. When the bust occurs, it produces greater than
banks didn’t lend, market forces have been unable to gen- normal debt unwinding that leads to deflation and defaults.
erate a sustained recovery, and except for the big banks, During the boom, speculative phase, the financial system
big multinational companies, and the stock markets, the becomes more fragile (i.e., sensitive to implosion) while
U.S. economy has been simply moving sideways—neither the rest of the real economy becomes correspondingly
collapsing further nor able to enter a sustained recovery. more consumption fragile. Both forms of fragility—finan-
It appears the Obama administration’s strategy will con- cial and consumption—fracture when the bust occurs, in
tinue into 2010. A paltry $15 billion so-called jobs bill, a turn exacerbating the debt-deflation-default processes that
good part of which is more business tax cuts that will have drive the economy in a downward spiral.
little effect, is mere tokenism at best. A similar criticism is However, the most fundamental forces are the conse-
appropriate for the recent Reid bill (introduced by Demo- quence of escalating global income inequality, exploding
cratic Senate leader Harry Reid) providing a mere $1.5 bil- global liquidity with an expanding global money parade of
lion for foreclosure aid to five states. Moving through Con- speculators, their new shadow financial institutions, and
gress is the more generous $145 billion to continue unem- new markets and financial instruments created for those
ployment benefits and medical insurance subsidies for 6 markets (most notably derivatives). The global money pa-
million workers whose benefits and coverage expires in rade, with more than $20 trillion on hand, drives the specu-
lative boom, in the process creat-
ing a mountain of debt in the sys-
tem. Following the bust, only
part of the debt is unwound.
Much of it remains, obstructing a
return to normal lending, invest-
ing, and household consumption.
Policies designed for normal re-
cessions do not address that
mountain of debt overhang, and
that is primarily the reason for
their relative ineffectiveness in
generating a sustained recovery.
To allow the logjam of debt to
be slowly worked off only results
in an extended period of relative
economic stagnation, not sus-
tained recovery. To simply trans-
fer it from banks and businesses
to the public balance sheet (U.S.
deficit and debt) does nothing to
remove it, but only shifts the cri-
sis to the public sector. Putting a
floor under the toxic economic
waste may prevent a meltdown
32 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Economic Policy

of the economy’s foundation and


core, at least for a while, but does not
remove the poisonous material from
the economic building. The debt load
workoff, in other words, must be ac-
celerated and expunged, not simply
shifted or transferred. That cannot be
achieved piecemeal and incremen-
tally. It must be done with major
structural reforms, not normal fis-
cal-monetary policies.
What is called for is a fundamental
restructuring of the financial and tax
systems, of income distribution by
various measures, a refocusing of
spending in a major way on job cre-
ation and foreclosure prevention, and
addresses the problem of the global
money parade of professional specula-
tors, individual and institutional alike.
The following is a brief summary
of the major points of an alternative
program (detailed more fully in my
forthcoming book). where small business is defined as businesses with less than
50 employees and less than $1 million in annual net
Job Creation & Housing Stabilization
income.
T here can be no sustained recovery so long as jobless
numbers remain in excess of 20 million (today roughly
at 22-23 million when properly calculated) and so long as
. Create new federal agency, HSBLC (Federal
Homeowner-business Loan Corporation), to
housing foreclosures, defaults and delinquencies continue administer nationalized residential mortgage
to rise, and prices and equity net worth continue to fall. and small business property markets
Housing is a problem not simply because of foreclosures, The HSBLC would provide direct lending to homeown-
etc., but because of major consumption fragility, or excess ers and small businesses. The initial task of the HSBLC
debt, that is a major logjam to the return of consumption would be to purchase existing mortgages in foreclosure, re-
levels, a sector constituting more than 70 percent of all eco- setting rates and principal according to the aforementioned
nomic activity. Consumption fragility is a function of both formulas. Thereafter, it would extend mortgage financing
excess debt and insufficient income. Housing is the debt is- to all potential home financing in the future. The HSBLC
sue; jobs are the income side of the problem. Both must be would be the primary agency administering nationalized
resolved simultaneously. The Obama administration has residential mortgage and small business property markets.
sidestepped both. The proposals that follow treat the The HSBLC would compensate current mortgage lenders
jobs-housing problem as a consumption fragility problem. not willing to participate in the interest rate and principal
. Reset mortgage rates and mortgage principle resets at a rate of 25 percent of their loan balance in the
to 2002-2007 levels first year of the resets, and another 25 percent amortized
over the remaining 30 years of the reset loans.
All loans issued between 2002-07 are included in this
provision, not just those facing foreclosure or default. Re- . 15 percent homeowners tax credit
setting all loans, not just those at risk of default and fore- All homeowners with mortgages, and those having paid
closure, is designed not only to reduce excess housing sup- their mortgages in full, are eligible for a 15 percent home-
ply coming on the market and driving down housing prices owners investment tax credit on their annual tax returns.
and causing further financial institution write downs and The credit would cover investment in items and categories
losses, but to serve as a general economy-wide consump- such as home repair, home upgrades, expansion, and major
tion enhancing measure as well. Boosting consumption in maintenance and improvements, as well as purchases of
this manner provides a continued, long-term consumption home consumer appliances like refrigerators, ovens,
effect—unlike one-time government spending stimulus washer-dryers, etc. The purpose of the provision is to al-
which, once spent, has no further effect. This measure also low homeowners not participating in the resets, the HSBLC
has the further effect of avoiding the necessity of additional mortgage purchases, or new issues to benefit from housing-
deficit creation. If it affected just 25 million of the 55 mil- related consumption measures.
lion residential mortgages outstanding and reduced mort-
gage rates by 2 percent on average, the result is more than . Moratorium on residential foreclosures and
$200 billion in ongoing consumption every year. The resets small business property and industrial business
may also extend to small business property mortgages, loans
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 33
Economic Policy

Tax Restructuring and Program Financing

T hree-decades of growing income inequality in the U.S.


have provided an important basis for the diversion of
trillions of dollars by wealthy investors and corporations to
the 27 offshore tax havens, mostly island nations, which
the IRS refers to as special jurisdictions. A conservative es-
timate in 2005 by the investment bank Morgan Stanley
found that total holdings in offshore shelters had risen from
$250 billion in the mid-1980s to $6 trillion by 2005. Other
more recent estimates place the amount up to $11 trillion.
With U.S. investors’ and corporations’ share of total world
assets estimated at approximately $47 trillion out of a world
total of $140 trillion in 2006, according to the business con-
sulting firm McKinsey & Co., it may be safely assumed
that U.S. investors share of the $11 trillion held in the 27
offshore tax havens is likely around 34 percent. That
translates into roughly $3.74 trillion at minimum.
. U.S. investors must repatriate at least half
their offshore shelter assets
This proposal means investors must withdraw and rede-
posit the $1.87 trillion in U.S. financial institutions located
A one-year moratorium on residential and small busi- in the U.S. Assuming a long-run return on assets when re-
ness property foreclosures is proposed in order to prevent patriated to the U.S. of around 15 percent, the $1.87 tril-
further consumption collapse from 4-5 million new foreclo- lion should yield annual revenues of around $280 billion,
sures. The moratorium will apply to small businesses fac- which thereafter would be taxed, per this proposal, at the
ing Chapter 7 default, suspending default on C&I (com- new capital gains rate of 50 percent and yield the U.S.
mercial and industrial) business loans incurred between Treasury roughly $140 billion a year in new revenue.
2002-2007 as well. . Foreign profits tax recovery
. $800 billion for job creation and retention In 2004 the estimated amount of shielded corporate
An effective alternative jobs program must carefully funds in this area amounted to as much as $700 billion.
consider the composition of employment generation. The Offshore corporate retained earnings are likely now in ex-
quickest way to retain and grow jobs is within existing in- cess of $1 trillion. The return of those earnings reinvested
dustries and businesses, not primarily by creating new in- in the U.S. economy would yield a tax revenue stream of at
dustries from scratch. Alternative industry infrastructure least $100 billion a year.
and energy jobs are part of the program but not its primary . Capital incomes tax cuts rollbacks
focus, due to long delays in job creation for new emerging
technologies and industries. A quick path to jobs creation is There are approximately 114 million taxpaying house-
direct hiring by government, in particular state and local holds in the U.S. The wealthiest 1 percent, or 1.1 million,
government and school districts. A fast path is promoting have increased their share of IRS reported income from 8
hiring in those industries having shown in the past high job percent in 1978 to more than 24 percent in 2007. This 24
growth rates, such as health care. The alternative job cre- percent share is equivalent to that which existed for the
ation-retention program also targets jobs in the $50K-$60K wealthiest 1 percent in 1928. No long-term recovery is
annual range on average, with workers receiving a pay therefore possible without a basic restructuring of the tax
level of $40K and benefits load of $10K. Proof of new hir- system in the U.S., starting with capital incomes taxation.
ing must precede government payments. The job creation This proposal rolls back tax cuts on capital incomes—i.e.,
and retention program targets $300 billion for infrastruc- capital gains, dividends, interest and rental incomes for
ture jobs, $300 billion for public sector jobs, $100 billion business—to 1981 levels, not 1993. That is, back to that
for growth sector jobs like health care, and $100 billion for point at which the major tax restructuring began in the U.S.
relocating manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. on behalf of earners of capital incomes at the expense of
earners of wage incomes.
. $200 billion for social safety net (unemploy-
ment insurance, medical coverage, food . Excess speculative profits surtax
stamps), trade job loss assistance, and job This proposal provides for a 70 percent excess profits
retraining surtax on returns from speculative investments that exceed
Unemployment benefits coverage for one year costs ap- a reasonable long-run average (10-15 percent). The tax
proximately $125 billion, with another $75 billion for full would extend to contracts on all forms of derivatives, in-
coverage for medical, food stamps, and job retraining cluding credit default swaps and other second and third
assistance. generation financial derivatives products.

34 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Economic Policy

. Financial transactions tax This proposal includes penalty provisions as disincen-


tives to resistance and non-compliance. For example, cor-
This means financial transactions covering traditional fi-
porations that refuse to return foreign profits income to the
nancial assets—such as sales of stocks and bonds, commod-
U.S. for taxation will be levied a 10 percent tariff on all
ities, as well as all securitized asset sales and other forms
their goods sold in the U.S. until compliance occurs. Simi-
of financial derivatives assets. This proposal is for a 10
larly, wealthy investors who refuse to repatriate their
percent tax on all such financial transactions. (The excess
offshored sheltered earnings will have an unreimbursable
speculative profits tax is an additional measure that applies
10 percent penalty levied on their remaining earnings or
thereafter to profits that may exceed a defined threshold
property in the U.S. for the first 90 days of noncompliance.
limit, apart from the 10 percent financial transactions tax).
The penalty fee may be increased further with continued
. Retroactive windfall taxes non-compliance.
This proposal re-captures taxes the oil-energy compa- Long-Term Income Restructuring &
nies should have paid on earnings above the companies’ Consumption Fragility
preceding ten year average. This retroactive windfall pro-
vision also applies to other companies that reaped rentier
profits during the period since 2001. These would include,
T here can be no long-term solution to the health-care
crisis in the U.S. (measured as deteriorating coverage,
rising costs, and declining quality of care for the majority)
at minimum, dominant companies in industries like bank- so long as the insurance companies remain a primary
ing, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. player in the system.
The retroactive windfall tax provision extends, in addi-
tion, to excess compensation received by individuals in . An interim single payer system
these companies and industries, in particular CEOs and As a step toward a Universal Single Payer system, this
their senior management teams who have typically received proposal creates an interim single payer system for the 91
excess compensation as a consequence of their companies’ million households earning less than $160,000 per year.
excess rentier profits position. Households earning above $160,000 (households within the
. Value-added tax on intermediate goods top 20 percent income distribution) would be exempt, but
could participate for a fee that would scale up with their
Intermediate goods are products and services sold by income level.
companies to companies before the final product is sold at
retail to consumers. The proposal is therefore not a tax on . National 401k pool
final, retail sales. The entire proceeds from the tax are allo- This proposal requires the U.S. government to national-
cated to provide financing for a national 401k retirement ize the employer-provided and managed 401k plan system
pool. The level of the VAT on intermediate goods would and create a single national 401k pool. Each participant
vary by industry, as well as with the funding requirements would be able to make individual deposits to the pool and
of the national 401k retirement pool. An initial tax level of withdraw limited amounts from it annually, just as under
2 percent is proposed. present employer-managed 401ks. Each account within the
. Payroll tax on incomes of wealthiest 1 percent pool would be 100 percent portable and immediately
households vested. Voluntary deposits by individuals into the pool in
With the collapse of defined benefit
pension plans and the total failure of pri-
vate 401k pensions to adequately provide
for retirement, more than 70 million retir-
ees in the next decade will experience in-
adequate levels of income to sustain a rea-
sonable standard of living. That condition
will severely exacerbate consumption fra-
gility within the general economy, already
in a dire state. Social Security must not
only be stabilized but expanded. Thus,
this proposal provides extending the cur-
rent payroll tax rate for Social Security
from earned incomes with a ceiling of
$107,000 today by adding a new provi-
sion that taxes all capital incomes of the
wealthiest 1 percent households (with
threshold earnings of $332,000 and
above) at the current payroll tax rate.
. 10 percent penalty tariffs and
non-compliance fees

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 35


Economic Policy

their own name would be matched by equivalent govern- banking activity and administered through a new structure
ment contributions. Government matching contributions to of utility banking. A new kind of Federal Reserve system
the pool would be funded by means of the introduction of a should provide necessary liquidity directly to consumer
2 percent national value added tax on the sale of intermedi- credit markets, with the credit disbursed by a new network
ate goods (i.e., a business-to-business sales tax) that all of local credit institutions administered through local gov-
businesses with annual sales revenues of more than $1 mil- ernment, regulated credit unions, or other non-profit
lion would be required to make. Government investing of institutional networks.
the pooled funds would be restricted to public owner- . Democratize the Federal Reserve
ship-public works projects or government loans to publicly
beneficial joint government-business projects such as It is necessary to take critical consumer credit markets
alternative energy, green technology, and the like. outside the private, for-profit, sometimes regulated, bank-
.
ing system and run it based on a new concept of utility
De-privatizing the student loan market
banking conducted at cost on behalf of consumers and not
The student loan market returns to a completely de-pri- for profit on behalf of private financial institutions. Provid-
vatized program where it will function according to its ing cost-only loans through the Federal Reserve, function-
original objective of providing financing to students at cost, ing as a lender of primary resort, the Fed could be restruc-
in the form of either grants or subsidized loans. tured in a new way that democratizes how it operates.
.
Two-thirds of Fed Board of Governors would be elected at
Re-unionization of the private sector
large by popular vote. Other proposals would further de-
workforce
mocratize the Fed and all Federal Reserve deliberations
A long-term program for restoring income to the bottom would be public record within 24 hours of meeting.
80 percent includes policies and measures to restore the . Utility banking vs. casino banking
unionization rate to at least the 22 percent level of 1980.
The first step toward re-unionization must include reforms There is a fundamental contradiction between the two
to level the playing field between workers, their unions, principles of banking—banking as a utility and as a specula-
and management regarding legal rights. This begins with tive profits center. The utility sector includes the now na-
implementation of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), tionalized (according to my earlier proposals) residential
which permits a fairer process for union organizing. mortgage and small business property mortgage markets
.
and consumer credit markets, especially for autos, student
Low and contingent wage indexation
loans, and installment credit for big ticket consumer
Contingent workers include those who are part time, es- durables products. Utility banking means credit extended at
pecially involuntary part time, and the escalating numbers cost and without a profit mark up in the key consumer
of workers transferred to various kinds of temporary work credit markets. It means the creation of a new network of
status. Contingent workers receive, on average, only 70 local financial institutions that take household deposits and
percent of wages of permanent employed and 10 percent of issue interest payments equivalent to no more than the cost
benefits. Part-time workers mostly receive no benefits and of credit. New local financial institutions in this system
typically half-time pay. These groups’ numbers have risen function on a non-profit basis. Their purpose is to provide
close to 50 million, approaching one-third of the work- the essential service of credit provisioning for consumer
force. The alternative program proposes the minimum markets. They may be local government based, non-gov-
wage be adjusted annually according to changes in infla- ernment local non-profits, or community credit-union like
tion, much like social security payments to the retired are financial institutions.
adjusted annually. This proposal for the first time also in- . Tame the global money parade
troduces a legislated minimum for wages and benefit levels
for contingent labor. To effectively tame the global money parade requires
getting control over its sources of money capital creation as
Banking System Restructuring & Financial Fragility well as its multiple, multi-directional flows. Until the

C onsumer credit markets are too critical and necessary


for the functioning of the consumption side of the
economy to allow these markets to remain exposed to spec-
global money parade is routed at minimum from its secre-
tive tax haven dens; until capital flows are taxed, moni-
tored, regulated, and controlled; and until the ever-rising
ulative investing. The following series of proposals pro- edifice of speculation is prohibited in what is a still growing
vides for restructuring the financial and banking system, house of cards derivatives system—the financial instability
focusing on three areas of the financial system that require and fragility in the global system will continue to increase.
major changes: the consumer credit markets, the Federal These proposals raise talking points for a debate on how to
Reserve, and the global money parade of speculators that address the continuing epic recession and, perhaps, reduce
have been increasingly, and repeatedly, destabilizing the its likelihood of transitioning to a consequent classic global
economic system in recent decades. depression in the coming two to five years. Z
. Nationalization of consumer credit markets
Residential mortgage, small business property mort- Jack Rasmus is the author of Epic Recession: Prelude to
gages, and student and auto loans markets should be na- Global Depression (forthcoming in May from Palgrave-
tionalized, walled off from speculative and profit-seeking Macmillan and Pluto Press).
36 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Looking Forward

Searching for
Democratic Alternatives
1. A new International should be primarily concerned (at
A New International? least) with:
• economic production, consumption, and alloca-
A proposal for a new International
has been circulating online and
collecting endorsements for some
tion, including class relations
• kinship nurturance, socialization, housekeeping,
months now. It has been signed by and procreation, including gender, sexuality,
Vandana Shiva, Noam Chomsky, and age
Fernando Vegas, John Pilger, Trevor • cultural community relations, including race,
Ngwane, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Susan George, Boris Kagarlitsky, nationality, and religion
Francois Houtart, and nearly 1,320 others. • politics, including relations of law and legisla-
The proposal originated with an article by Michael Albert tion
titled, “Fifth International!?” in response to a call by Presi-
dent Chavez of Venezuela to host an April gathering to dis- • international relations, including matters of mu-
cuss a new International. Albert’s article received a favor- tual aid, exchange, and immigration
able response from visitors to the Z Communications site. • ecology, including relations with the natural en-
Since there seemed to be significant agreement with the vironment and other species
proposal’s specific points, and since many people thought The new International should address these concerns
pursuing those points made sense, a draft of a “Proposal for without elevating any one focus above the rest, since (a) all
a Participatory Socialist International” was created and sent, will critically affect the character of a new world, (b) unad-
with a cover letter, to a number of individuals seeking their dressed each could subvert efforts to reach a new world,
endorsement. What follows is the proposal. and (c) the constituencies most affected by each would be
intensely alienated if their prime concerns were relegated
The Proposal to secondary importance.

PURPOSE: Different people could conceivably have differ- 2. OUR VISION for a Participatory Socialist future should
ent agendas, but what this proposal seeks in the eyes of its (at least) include that:
very first endorsers is only to: • economic production, consumption, and alloca-
(a) specify a set of features/values/procedures tion be classless, which includes equitable ac-
that the endorsers feel are worthy and workable cess for all to quality education, health care,
for a new International food, water, sanitation, housing, meaningful
and dignified work, and the instruments and
(b) urge that any process to create a new Inter- conditions for personal fulfillment
national should discuss, debate, assess, refine,
and implement these and other features that • gender/kinship, sexual, and family relations not
emerge from a wide discussion and gain favor privilege by age, sexual preference, or gender
among founding members any one group above others, which includes
ending all forms of oppression of women while
The purpose of the proposal is to promote discussion and providing day care, recreation, health care, etc.
debate and also offer some broad ideas for features that
ought to be included in the discussion and debate. This pro- • culture and community relations among races,
posal is not a call for a new International much less a map of ethnic groups, religions, and other cultural com-
all attributes a new International could have. Nor is it a munities protect the rights and identity of each
gathering of people intent on somehow themselves creating community up to equally respecting those of all
a new International. This proposal is simply a group of peo- other communities, which includes an end to
ple urging that efforts to create a new International should racist, ethnocentric, and otherwise bigoted
involve wide discussion and debate, including considering structures while simultaneously securing the
the points raised here. prosperity and rights of indigenous people

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 37


Looking Forward

• political decision making, adjudication of dis- tinue developing their views to establish their
putes, and implementation of shared programs merit or discover their inadequacies
deliver “people’s power” in ways that do not ele-
vate any one sector or constituency above others, 5. MEMBERS of the new International would be political
which includes participation and justice for all parties, movements, organizations, or even projects,
where:
• international trade, communication, and other
• members, employees, staff, etc., of each new In-
interactions attain peace and justice while dis-
ternational member organization would in turn
mantling all vestiges of colonialism and imperial-
gain membership in the International
ism, which includes canceling the debt of nations
of the global south and reconstructing interna- • individuals who want to be members of the In-
tional norms and relations to move toward an ternational but have no member group that they
equitable and just community of equally en- belong too, would have to join one
dowed nations • every member group would have its own
• ecological choices not only be sustainable, but agenda for its separate operations which would
care for the environment in accord with our be inviolable
highest aspirations for ourselves and our world, • each member group would be strongly urged to
which includes climate justice and energy inno- make its own operations consistent with the
vation norms, practices, and agendas of the Interna-
tional establishing solidarity, but also autonomy
3. The GUIDING VALUES AND PRINCIPLES informing in-
ternal strategic and programmatic deliberations of an Inter- • member groups would have a wide range of
national highlight at least the following values, which in- sizes, but since the International’s decisions
cludes implementing whatever structural steps prove essen- would not bind groups other than regarding the
tial to organizationally embody the values as well as possi- collective International agenda, a good way to
ble in the present: arrive at decisions might be serious discussion
• solidarity, to help align worldwide movements and exploration, followed by polls of the whole
and projects into mutual aid and collective bene- International membership to see peoples’ lean-
fit ings, followed by refinements of proposals to
• diversity, to spur creative innovation, respect dis- seek greater support and to allow dissidents to
sent, and recognize that minority views thought make their case, culminating in final votes of
to be crazy today can lead to what is brilliant to- the membership
morrow 6. PROGRAMMATICALLY what a new International
• equity, to seek wealth and income fairness chooses to do will be contextual and a product of its mem-
bers’ desires, but, some examples include:
• peace with justice, to realize international fair-
ness and fulfillment • a new International might call for international
events and days of dissent, for support cam-
• ecological sustainability and wisdom, to seek hu- paigns for existing struggles by member organi-
man survival and interconnection zations, and for support of member organiza-
• “democracy” or perhaps even a more inspiring tions against repression, as well as undertake
conception of people’s power, participatory de- widespread debates and campaigns to advance
mocracy, or self management, to foster participa- related understanding and mutual knowledge
tion and equitable influence for all • more ambitiously, an International might also
4. That a new International be THE GREATEST SUM of all undertake a massive international focus on im-
its parts, including rejecting confining itself to a single line migration, on ending a war, on shortening the
to capture all views in one narrow pattern. To achieve this work week worldwide, and/or on averting cli-
the new International should: matic catastrophe, among other possibilities. It
• include and celebrate “currents” to serve as vehi- might prepare materials, undertake education,
cles for contending views, help ward off sectari- pursue actions, carry out boycotts, support local
anism, and aid constant growth endeavors, etc.
• establish that currents should respect the inten- • general programs would be up to member orga-
tions of other currents, assume that differences nizations to decide how to relate to, yet there
over policy are about substance and not motive, would be considerable collective momentum for
and pursue substantive debate as a serious part each member organization to participate and
of the whole project contribute as best it could in collective cam-
paigns and projects since clearly one reason to
• afford each current means to openly engage with have an International is to help organizations,
all other currents to try to advance new insights movements, and projects worldwide escape sin-
bearing on policy and program gle-issue loneliness by becoming part of a larger
• guarantee that as long as any particular current process encompassing diverse focuses and
accepts the basic tenets of the International and united by agreements to implement various
operates in accord with its norms and methods, shared endeavors
its minority positions would be given space not
only to argue, but, if they don’t prevail, to con- More at www.zcommunications.org/newinternational.htm

38 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Reviews
Cane Toads: The Conquest is a lot of fun. Similar to, but a
In Vi tro, In Vivo! little more icky than The March of Penguins, audiences of
most ages should have a three-dimensional blast watching,
Sundance Film Festival 2010 while learning a lesson about ecological tampering.

Climate Refugees - If you


By John Esther think Haiti is a crisis,
wait until Bangladesh
meets the rising tide.
C inematic rebellion was the
artistic anthem of the 2010
Sundance Film Festival. From
Nearly 150 Million Ban-
gladeshis live at sea
script to screen, the most im- level. Rather than repli-
portant film festival in the coun- cate David Guggen-
try asked audiences, authors, heim’s An Inconvenient
and auteurs “to fight against the Truth, starring Al Gore,
establishment of the expected” director Michael Nash’s
and “to battle for brave new documentary puts the is-
ideas.” sue of climate change in
According to the public face of Sundance, actor-director terms of geopolitics. As
Robert Redford, during a post-screening discussion of the seawater continues to
documentary The Shock Doctrine: “The entire system is con- rise, an estimated 50
stipated at the top. Sundance can help because it really is countries are predicted to
grassroots and I think the power is going to come from the disappear within the next
collective. I hope the festival can help tell these stories be- 20-30 years. Since most
cause there’s not a whole lot left of this planet.” humans live by the sea, what are nations going to do when
Under the new leadership of John Cooper, this year’s fes- hundreds of millions of refugees start fleeing to foreign lands
tival ran from January 21-31. Many of the films (and panels) or to other parts of their country? In light of these predic-
had overt political, often progressive, themes, some with tions, it seems almost trivial to debate if humans are respon-
better storytelling skills than others. Here are a few of the sible for climate change. Climate change is here and people
films coming to you—some day. will be coming, and going, in alarming numbers.

Cane Toad: The Conquest - Cute little creatures defying Howl - Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, Howl
kooky bigger creatures, cane toads have been indigenous to looks at Allen Ginsberg, circa age 29, and his first published
Central and South America for millions of years. But in 1935 poem. Divided into four equal parts, this film uses different
an ill-fated idea to bring over 100 of the amphibians to the mediums to convey the power the poet and his poem “Howl”
northeastern part of Australia to eat the greyback cane bee- had on people and the powers-that-be. One part is essentially
tle, a sugarcane pest, was implemented. Rather than kick out theater, with Ginsberg (played by James Franco) reading his
the vermin, cane toads multiplied by the thousands and poem at the Six Gallery on October 7, 1955. The second part
started to go west across the continent. Today, approxi- uses animation (designed by Eric Drooker) to illustrate an in-
mately 1.5 billion cane toads have taken on mythological terpretation of the poem. The third part is the dramatic poetic
portions as pet, pest, and pariah. While some Australians justice of “Howl,” and thus free speech, which went on trial
keep the cane toad as a companion, others have lost their for obscenity (People v. Ferlinghetti). And the fourth is a
dog, cat, snake, etc., when they ate one of the poisonous pseudo-documentary where Ginsberg answers questions
creatures. This has led to great fear and misunderstanding of from an off-screen interviewer. While the poem “Howl” said
the toad—which is hardly a threat to humans—producing many things about America, the greatness in the film lies in
hysterical reactions. Presented in 3D, director Mark Lewis’s the fact that the producers managed to capture both Ginsberg
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 39
Reviews

and the essence of his work: the voice of desire and fulfill-
ment by and for those who have been ignored by society.

the rise of Milton Friedman’s theories and disaster capital-


ism. From Augusto Pinochet’s Chile to Boris Yeltin’s Rus-
sia to our current economic woes, Friedman and friends
have created problems in the name of profit by taking ad-
vantage of confusion and pushing through reactionary legis-
lation. There is hardly anything shocking about the observa-
tions found in The Shock Doctrine for anyone who has read
the likes of Noam Chomsky. And thanks to the artistic li-
Night Catches Us - Philadelphia, 1976. As white cops wail cense used in The Shock Doctrine, it will be easier for critics
on the poor, a former Black Panther named Marcus (An- to dismiss the documentary than Chomsky.
thony Mackie) needs to watch his step. His comrades ques-
tion his loyalty. The only comrade he can trust is Patricia
(Kerry Washington) who has become a sort of foundation
for the troubled neighborhood. As tensions mount, violence
and mistrust between cops and citizens arise, as well as trust
and love among the oppressed. Naturally, something has to
give and it will not be police misconduct. Finely crafted,
writer-director Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us offers
an insightful look at what it means to be black and poor in
America.

Nowhere Boy - Directed by


Sam Taylor Wood (Love
You More) and written by
Matt Greenhalgh (Con-
trol), this nostalgic biopic Sympathy for Delicious - Stuck on the streets of Los Angeles
focuses on the late teenage in more ways than one, life for DJ Delicious (screenwriter
years of John Lennon Christopher Thornton) has been too tough for too long—un-
(played by Aaron John- employment, crime, disability. Like the people around him,
son). Lennon lives with his Delicious needs an immediate fix. Then, one day, others
Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott discover Delicious has the hands of God and can cure ap-
Thomas) while trying to proximately 72 percent of the people he touches, such as the
reconnect with his mother, ones with illness, blindness, or paralysis. This leads to many
Julia Lennon (Anna-Marie kinds of exploitation and manipulation by Delicious and oth-
Duff). A rebellious sort, ers. Co-starring and competently directed by Mark Ruffalo,
John gets into all sorts of whose acting career was launched in 2000 with the
trouble at school, puts to- Sundance Film Festival hit You Can Count on Me, the
gether a band called the storyline of Sympathy for Delicious is a mixed bag. It is in-
Quarrymen with Paul teresting to watch how Delicious and others make money off
McCartney (Thomas Sangster) and George Harrison (Sam his talent, but, in this day and age, the idea of someone hav-
Bell). Unfortunately, many who are familiar with the Bea- ing supernatural healing powers is rather delirious.
tles and Lennon probably already know John had a strained
relationship with his mother and that her sister raised him Twelve - The Hollywood director who brought us Flatliners,
for most of his early life. Rather than add anything psycho- Falling Down, and Batman Forever, Joel Schumacher, has
logically productive to Lennon’s formative years, Nowhere adapted Nick McDonell’s novel about contemporary privi-
Boy disappears into a pointless void. leged youth on the upper eastside of Manhattan. Anyone
who has watched a movie about rich kids in the last ten
The Shock Doctrine - Based on Naomi Klein’s bestselling years has a good idea what is coming—money makes misery
book of the same name and co-directed by Michael and all that sex, drugs, and guns can only be fun for so long.
Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, this documentary traces At least there is no underground fighting ring. In a time

40 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Reviews

The War Before


The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping
the Faith in Prison, & Fighting for Those Left Behind
By Safiya Bukhari, edited by Laura Whitehorn
The Feminist Press, 2010, 320 pp.

Review by Hans Bennett

T he late Safiya Bukhari (1950-2003) is not the most famous


veteran of the Black Panther Party (BPP), but the compi-
lation of her writings, The War Before, edited by former polit-
ical prisoner Laura Whitehorn at the request of Bukhari’s
daughter, Wonda Jones, should be required reading alongside
the memoirs of BPP cofounders Bobby Seale and Huey P.
when the super rich are sticking it to people, Twelve at- Newton.
tempts to lay a “rich people are unhappy” sentiment to the The War Before makes many significant contributions to
public, while still inducing the masses of working class teen- scholarship, including its examination of women in the BPP.
agers to wish for such unhappiness. Scene after scene in Bukhari recognizes serious problems of sexism and misog-
Twelve gives images of beautiful, rich people moving about yny, but argues that this was symptomatic of the Left in gen-
in a milieu where there are more servants than working eral and, relative to other leftist groups, the Panthers had
teenagers, a Porsche is crashed and daddy will be angry, a gone much further to address the problem. Women were in-
teenage girl gets a nose job, shopping is habitual, and there volved in the party at every level and, in 1970, Huey New-
is barely a parent in sight. Twelve presents kids who are out ton issued an important public statement of support for the
of control, but induces us to believe that, if we could only women’s and gay liberation movements. Bukhari writes that
change places with the beautiful brats, we could handle it. the Panthers “may not have completed the task of eradicat-
ing sexist attitudes within the Party and in the community.
But we did bring the problem out in the open and put the
question on the floor.”
Bukhari was a 19-year-old pre-med student in New York
City when she was first introduced to BPP as a volunteer for
their free breakfast program for children. Later, Bukhari
and a friend witnessed police harassing a Panther for selling
their newspaper on a Harlem street corner. “Without a
thought, I told the police that the brother had a constitutional
right to disseminate political literature anywhere,” writes
Bukhari. Police responded by arresting her and her friend,
along with the Panther. Bukhari reflects: “I had never been
arrested before and I was naïve enough to believe that all
you had to do was be honest and everything would work out
all right. I was wrong again. As soon as the police got us
into the back seat of their car and pulled away from the
crowd, the bestiality began to show. My friend went to say
Vegetarian - After a series of nightmares stemming from re- something and one of the police officers threatened to ram
pressed childhood memories, Yeong-hye (Chae Min-seo) his nightstick up her if she opened her mouth again and then
decides to become a vegetarian. The stench of meat is ev- ran on in a monologue
erywhere and she will not participate in such behavior. In about Black people. I
her family, however, a life without meat is just crazy. Her listened and got angry.”
older sister, Ji-hye (Kim Yeo-jin), does not know what to do After her release,
about her sister’s change of diet so her video artist husband, Bukhari joined the Pan-
Min-ho (Kim Hyun-sung), decides to clandestinely assist his thers and was a
pretty, though gaunt, sister-in-law through the art of body full-time member by
flower power. This perpetuates various sorts of other behav- 1970. Following the
iors, putting Yeong-hye further into suicidal drive. While Party’s East Coast/West
the film’s appreciation of nature/body as art is admirable, Coast split in 1971, she
some vegetarian filmgoers, like a few at the Sundance became the communica-
screening (including me), were a bit nonplussed at the title tions and information
and the association the film makes between vegetarianism officer of the East Coast
and madness. Z Panthers. As the FBI
and NYPD’s infamous
COINTELPRO repres-
John Esther writes about culture and politics via cinema. His sion escalated, many
work has appeared in Z Magazine and numerous other publi- Panthers were forced
cations in print and online. underground into the
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 41
Reviews

newly-formed Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1973, who so often remain the unknown and unacknowledged fig-
Bukhari fled to the BLA as well. ures behind progressive mass movements.” Z
On January 25, 1975, Bukhari was arrested and later
convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to 40 years. She
recounts how she and two other members of the BLA’s Hans Bennett is an independent media journalist and co-
Amistad Collective entered a delicatessan in Virginia with- founder of Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal. He has written
out intending to rob it, but that the store manager initiated a for Alternet, Truthout, Color Lines, Black Commentator, Up-
gunfight (that Bukhari did not participate in). Her co-defen- side Down World, and other activist media.
dant, Masai Ehehosi, was shot in the face. Her bodyguard
had not drawn his weapon, but was shot and then stomped to
death by the store manager and his son. Bukhari tried to
press countercharges against them, but the Commonwealth
attorney said that it was “justifiable” homicide. New York For Sale
Following her arrest, Bukhari suffered from fibroid tu- Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate
mors, but was denied medical treatment at the city jail. On
By Tom Angotti, foreword by Peter Marcuse
entering the state prison in Goochland, Bukhari writes:
“During my initial examination upon arrival, a doctor told MIT Press, 2008, 323 pp.
me the tumors were the size of oranges and asked me how
long my sentence was. I told him 40 years; he told me to Review by James Tracy
come back to see him in 10…. So I followed the prison
rules. I filed a grievance. In response, I was told that the
lack of medical treatment constituted a difference of opinion
between myself and the doctor on whether treatment was
L eft to their own devices, markets tend to drop large Amer-
ican cities in two equally precarious positions. The disin-
vestment of Detroit and Flint serve as symbols of the fickle-
needed at this point.” ness of globalization. In New York for Sale: Community Plan-
Following the prison rules did nothing to get her the ning Confronts Global Real Estate, Tom Angotti maps out an-
treatment needed, so she made an important decision: “I other urban future where the development of cities are shaped
knew then that the only way I would get the medical care I by ordinary working class people through progressive com-
needed was to go out and get it for myself.” After two years munity planning methods.
at Goochland, Bukhari escaped. She was able to see two According to Angotti, director of Hunter College’s Com-
doctors before being recaptured two months later and they munity Planning and Development Department, this future
both told her that she could endure the pain or get surgery. may well exist within the shell of today’s economy. As evi-
After being recaptured, she writes: “I decided to use the dence, he points to over 70 community-driven plans in New
lack of medical care as my defense for the escape to accom- York City alone, many of which have sprung from the city’s
plish two things: (1) expose the level of medical care at the fights against displacement in the past 4 decades. A compre-
prison and (2) put pressure on them to give me the care I hensive survey of all such plans would take several vol-
needed.” As punishment for her escape, she was put in soli- umes, so only two are explored in detail: the 1961 Cooper
tary confinement from March 1978 to November 1980. In Square Alternative plan and the We Stay!/Nos Quedamos
June 1978, she was taken to the hospital for medical care. Plan in the Melrose Commons section of the South Bronx.
In August 1983, after eight years and eight months in In the case of Cooper Square, determined activists moved
prison, Bukhari was granted parole and released. She from protest to planning and forced the city’s developers to
jumped headfirst into organizing support networks for U.S. severely curtail a Robert Moses urban renewal scheme.
political prisoners. Laura Whitehorn, one of the prisoners They succeeded and, through the growth of community de-
who had been supported by Bukhari, writes that, “She found velopment corporations, were able to create new affordable
out what we thought and what we needed, then met with ac- housing and preserve existing stock.
tivists outside, encouraging them to support us and all the In Melrose Com-
political prisoners she encountered.” mons, largely Latino
Bukhari joined political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim and for- renters and small busi-
mer political prisoner Herman Ferguson in creating the Jeri- nesspeople mobilized
cho Movement, which organized a large demonstration in to confront a developer
front of the White House in 1998, calling for the release of who would have dis-
all political prisoners. Bukhari also created the New York placed over 78 home-
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYFMAJC) in support owners, 400 tenants,
of her former comrade, now on death row, whom she’d 80 businesses, and 500
worked with at the New York City Panther office. workers. Through stra-
Since Bukhari’s tragic death in 2003, the Jericho Move- tegic community orga-
ment and NYFMAJC have continued to grow. Mumia nizing, the We Stay
Abu-Jamal writes in The War Before’s afterword that “her group made the city ac-
passing wasn’t the only tragedy; the tragedy was that more cept a plan based in
people didn’t know her, learn from her, or grow from her 168 neighborhood con-
fund of hard-won wisdom.” In the foreword, former politi- sultations.
cal prisoner Angela Y. Davis writes that Bukhari’s “words Angotti’s vision of
compel us to recognize how much unacknowledged labor city planning is an am-
dwells inside and behind social justice movements…. Hope- bitious one. He uses
fully it will teach us respect and reverence for the organizer, the term progressive
42 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010
Reviews

community planning to describe a process that can “achieve Capitalizing on Disaster


local and global equality, social inclusion, and environmen- Taking and Breaking Public Schools
tal justice.” In part, this description is made as an attempt to
differentiate the planning Angotti proposes from racist, By Kenneth J. Saltman
NIMBY-driven “community plans,” which serve to exclude Paradigm: Boulder, 2007, 173 pp.
and further dislocate low-income communities.
Accessible from the start, New York for Sale is meant to Review by Robert Ovetz
be useful to grassroots activists and progressive planners
alike. Most of the organizations Angotti listens to are rooted
in low-income communities of color. Throughout the book,
knowledge and expertise are found within and outside the
C harter schools. The destruction of New Orleans. The
Asian tsunami. Gentrification. No Child Left Behind
(NCLB). The invasion and occupation of Iraq. What do these
walls of the university, dignifying the work of organizers all have in common? For Kenneth Saltman, they are illustra-
and academics alike. Yet Angotti isn’t content to rest on tions of the latest phase of the neoliberal assault on the
simplistic formulas of “working-class good” and “develop- hard-won gains of people to ensure public education, housing,
ers evil.” His multilayered approach takes complexity and and public ownership over natural resources among other vital
contradiction head-on, asking the questions that all con- social services. Saltman’s book Capitalizing on Disaster ex-
cerned with the American city should be contemplating. plores these interconnections in the struggle over public edu-
A crucial question is that of development in the global cation. For Saltman, natural catastrophes, acts of war and ed-
city. Displacement by development is common, but so also ucation policies can each provide a context to “set up public
is displacement without development. In fact, abandonment schools to be dismantled and made into investment opportuni-
and disinvestment is, in most cases, a prerequisite for gen- ties.”
trification. The groups here do not conform to simple “anti- Meticulously documented, the central focus of Saltman’s
development” stereotypes of neighborhood groups. Indeed, book is the privatization of Chicago’s public schools under
in a global economy, development corporations are often the leadership of current Secretary of Education Arne
able to out-organize organizers by appealing to a commu- Duncan while he was superintendent of Chicago Public
nity’s need for jobs and income. The irony is that the deci- Schools. As a professor at DePaul University in Chicago,
sions that robbed the community of good paying jobs were Saltman has a personal stake in what is happening in that
often made by the same people. At Cooper and Melrose, the city. Saltman documents how the business sector’s Renais-
call is for participatory planning and safeguards of the right sance 2010 plan was picked up by local school districts and
of place as well as class and racial justice. city elites in order to pave the way for gentrification and
Such stands might make some sections of the anti-dis- backdoor privatization of public education. Historical disin-
placement movement uncomfortable. They inherently re- vestment in public housing and public education has become
quire compromise, contain legions of unintended conse- a perfect storm, setting them up for failure under the oner-
quences, and offer the ever-present possibility of cooptation. ous mandate of NCLB. Saltman describes in detail how
Heavy on context, the book contends that community schools located in areas with prime real estate are unilater-
plans are but a point in a long history of resistance in New ally declared “failures” and privatized by stripping local
York City—connecting slave rebellions; Henry George’s community control over the schools, smashing unions, clos-
run for mayor in 1886; the Depression-era unemployed ing schools, and setting up new schools run for profit and
workers movement; the post-World War II struggles against non-profit charter corporations.
urban renewal; and the era of economic globalization. While This “smash and grab” is hardly restricted to the U.S.
each social movement shares a logic of people before profit, Saltman details the rise and emergence of a little known defense
progressive community planning’s clearest lineage descends contractor, Creative Associates International Inc. CAII has fig-
from the environmental justice movement. As communities ured prominently in U.S. foreign policy projects, with contracts
of color have challenged both corporate America and the to train demobilized
priorities of mainstream environmentalists, campaigns for contras, prop up the Haiti
community-controlled develop ment have taken root. coup government, and,
At its conclusion, New York for Sale offers a ten-point more recently, to privat-
plan—one specific enough to be of practical use while broad ize Iraq’s public educa-
enough to avoid being overly prescriptive. Reclaiming the tion system. Interest-
commons, the public sphere, in an age of privatization, is no ingly, CAII received its
easy task. Behind each point, such as creating community Iraq contract months be-
land trusts, land banking, and re-regulation, lie enormous fore the U.S. invasion
and costly fights. Yet, it’s clear that someone will emerge as occurred, thus raising
a winner from the latest phase of the housing crisis. Angotti new doubts about the
recognizes that in order for communities to win, movements claim that the U.S. did
are necessary. He has created something more powerful not plan for the occupa-
than a road map for those who would take up the fight. New tion. Saltman’s analysis
York for Sale is a tool to show what happened before in or- of the U.S. neoliberal
der to build global cities rooted in global justice. Z model being applied to
education is the first to go
beyond a focus on Iraq’s
oil and agriculture sec-
James Tracy is a Bay area-based organizer active in a San Fran- tors, both of which have
cisco community land trust and housing partnership. gotten nearly all the at-
Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 43
Reviews

tention. By doing so, Saltman convincingly confirms David


Harvey’s premise in A Brief History of Neoliberalism that
neoliberalism is also a cultural, as well as economic, project. As
a cultural project, it seeks to capture and reform education, me-
dia, and other ideological institutions in order to shift public be-
liefs, norms, and values so that the hegemony of the market over
every aspect of life is ultimately seen as commonplace and un-
questioned.
After 30 years of vicious assaults, neoliberalism has
hopefully made fewer inroads into public education, because
it has been defended so adamantly by students, faculty,
staff, and families from across the political spectrum. This
struggle, Saltman insists, must mean that “public education
remains a crucial site and stake of struggle for critical forms
of public democracy” from below. Z
turally specific propaganda campaigns, co-opt local leaders,
or target suspected enemies for abduction or assassination.”
Robert Ovetz is an adjunct professor at two California commu- González places the human terrain concept at the inter-
nity colleges. He is one of the organizers against budget cuts section of several historical narratives. He traces the term
and neoliberal attacks at these colleges. human terrain back to a House Un-American Activities
Committee report on the Black Panther Party. He compares
the HTT approach to that of the CIA’s notorious Phoenix
Program, which used broad data collection to target what
was euphemistically called Viet Cong “infrastructure,” re-
American Counterinsurgency sulting in approximately 25,000 assassinations. González
Human Science and the Human Terrain then details the current collaborations between anthropolo-
By Roberto J. González gists and the military and relates them to the discipline’s his-
Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009, 134 pages torical complicity in colonialism, especially in Mesopotamia
and Nigeria.
The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual
Notes on Demilitarizing American Society
By the Network of Concerned Anthropologists
T he second book, The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual
is not, despite the logical implication of its title, a pro-in-
surgency handbook, but a collection of essays thematically
Steering Committee centered on responses to FM 3-24, the U.S. Army’s “Coun-
Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009, 195 pp. terinsurgency Field Manual.”
The contributors attack the military guide from every an-
Reviews by Kristian Williams gle. Catherine Lutz critiques the culture of militarism that
makes public and academic acceptance of counterinsurgency
theory possible. Hugh Gusterson describes the military’s
T wo recent books from Prickly Paradigm Press examine
current U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine and consider its
implications for society and, more particularly, for the social
co-optation of academic research, and the corrosive effects
it has had on related disciplines. David Price attacks the
sciences. Roberto González’s American Counterinsurgency quality and integrity of the manual’s scholarship, accusing
and the Network of Concerned Anthropologists’ Coun- the authors of outright plagiarism. Greg Feldman argues
ter-Counterinsurgency Manual each offer concise, yet thor- that the radical new counterinsurgency approach is really
ough, analyses of specific elements of contemporary military just the old, reactionary colonial system with a new label.
practice. Each book focuses particular attention on the role Roberto González offers a shorter, tighter, more powerful
anthropology and anthropologists have played in the formula- version of the argument from his book. Catherine Besteman
tion, popularization, and implementation of counterinsurgency weighs the implications of the counterinsurgency doctrine
theory. for Africa. Andrew Bickford considers the similarities and,
The first of the pair, American Counterinsurgency, pro- especially, the differences between anthropology and spy-
vides an overview of the emergence of the Human Terrain ing. Kanhong Lin relates the pressures and dilemmas facing
Teams, HTTs, which conduct what (broadly speaking) new anthropologists as they enter an increasingly militarized
might be considered anthropological research into the peo- discipline. And David Vine offers some “Proposals for a
ple, societies, and cultures found in the U.S. military’s areas Humanpolitik,” which only represent a modest liberal
of operation. The information they collect and the insights menu:
they produce are then used to form counterinsurgency strat- † withdrawal from Iraq
egies tailored to the local context. † a “police-based counterterrorist strategy” in
González writes: “HTS [the Human Terrain System] rep- Afghanistan and Pakistan
resents a subversion of social science because it puts at risk † reductions in military spending
Afghans and Iraqis who share information about their lives † multilateralism and adherence to international law
with embedded social scientists. Brigade commanders to † developmental aid and poverty reduction
which HTT members are assigned can use data to create cul- † research toward clean and renewable energy

44 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


Reviews

† abolition of nuclear weapons, and a commitment to But surely, as experts in culture, the contributors under-
human rights stand the difference between the stated principles of an insti-
tution and the actual norms governing its behavior. (Much
The book includes a two-page “Pledge of Non- participa- of The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual is devoted to
tion in Counterinsurgency,” which can be signed and mailed teasing apart just these differences with regard to the mili-
in to the Network of Concerned Anthro- pologists. tary.) If the principles of the Code of Ethics really were in-
The book offers a refreshing anecdote to the media’s herent to the project of anthropology in such a way that vio-
cheerleading for General Petraeus and his clique of warrior lation of the norms would represent a fundamental betrayal
scholars. The essays present new insights into the theory, of the anthological project (similar to, for example, faking
practice, history, and the propaganda-value of counterinsur- your evidence), then the history of anthropology, and its ties
gency. to colonialism, would have been very different. Instead, we
must remember that the ethics statement is itself the product

B oth books have the marks of a critique that remains under


construction. The passion of the arguments, the vague
conclusions, and the weak proposals all point to this fact.
of political processes and subject to political pressures. (It
was conceived during, and in response to, the Vietnam
War.) In other words, the professional ethics rely on the
That’s not to dismiss the contribution the authors make to the politics and one cannot expect a statement of principles to do
study of counterinsurgency—in fact, quite the opposite. If the the political work of demilitarizing the discipline.
arguments seem a bit raw and unformed, The bigger question, though, is whether
it’s because they represent an ongoing dis- the emphasis on professional ethics may not
cussion rather than a final conclusion. itself be part of the problem. While the mil-
These two books, responses to and inter- itary anthropologists in the Human Terrain
ventions in conditions that are themselves Teams may be behaving unethically, it
evolving, show us something of the pro- doesn’t seem fair to say that they are be-
cess by which ideas unfold and knowledge having unprofessionally. It may, in fact, be
develops. their consummate professionalism that al-
Yet the greatest ambivalence concerns lows them to put aside their personal feel-
the nature of the critique itself: is the ings about the military or their doubts
problem under consideration that anthro- about its mission in the Middle East. In a
pologists are participating in counterin- military context, isn’t this exactly what
surgency or is the problem counterinsur- “professionalism” means? It is the sense of
gency itself? And, if the latter, do the au- professionalism, after all, that compels us
thors object to the counterinsurgency to subordinate our own judgment to the
strategy or to the wars in which it is being standards of the institutions of which we
employed? Is it these wars in particular are a part. Professionalism substitutes the
(as unjustified wars of aggression), or ends inherent in “the work” for the ends of
war and militarism per se? The question the people who do the work.
becomes: is this an ethical critique or a Professionalism, in short, is
political critique? Does it concern only just alienation in nicer
the narrow professional responsibilities of clothes.
anthropologists or does it concern the relationship be- The relevant standards for
tween the university and the military, the role of these debating military policy and
institutions in our society, and the uses to which they are people’s participation in or
put? resistance to it are not those
The authors move between these questions without of anthropology, but of hu-
definitely seizing on one or the other, often as though manity. Certainly, social sci-
they do not see the difference. I suspect the reason is that entists ought not use their
the motives behind the arguments of American Counter- professional skills to help
insurgency and The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual immiserate or oppress other
are fundamentally political, but the audience they seek to human beings. (It is a sepa-
influence is defined professionally. The result is political rate matter as to whether
criticism couched in terms of professional ethics. Quite a their work aids or harms the
lot, unfortunately, gets lost in the translation. interests of the particular
The political arguments are actually the stronger. One people they happen to study.)
need not refer to the norms of one’s profession to find This requirement, however,
reasons to object to wars of aggression, the subjugation is not a question of profes-
of foreign peoples, and the militarization of our culture. On sional ethics, it is just a question of ethics. In particular, it is a
the other hand, it’s not at all clear that the professional eth- question of justice. And people are liable to disagree about
ics the authors cite are sufficient for the job at hand. It is what justice means, and how it is best served, which leads us
true that the American Anthropological Association’s Code back to politics. Z
of Ethics demands that, “Anthropological researchers must
ensure that they do not harm the safety, dignity, or privacy
of the people…who might reasonably be thought to be af- Kristian Williams is the author of American Methods: Torture
fected by their research.” and the Logic of Domination (South End Press, 2006).

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 45


ZAPS
Contact: www.greenfestivals. Contact: www.earthday.net; dependent and community me-
org. www.SBEarthDay.org. dia.
Events Contact: mmp2010@yorku.ca;
HUMAN RIGHTS - The 15th an- BENEFIT - A fundraiser for the
MUMIA - A one-day conference, nual Get On The Bus for Human Maia Project for clean drinking www.makingmediapublic.word
“Live From Death Row: Mumia Rights, scheduled for April 16, water and the Middle East Chil- press.com.
at the Crossroads in the Age of draws upwards of 1,200 partici- dren’s Alliance is scheduled for SPACE WEAPONS - The annual
Obama,” is scheduled for April pants riding buses, commuter Sunday, April 25 from 3-6 PM membership meeting of the
3 at Columbia University, Bar- trains, and carpooling to New at UMass Boston Campus Cen- Global Network Against Weap-
nard College Campus, in NYC. York City to take peaceful ac- ter, with speakers Laila ons & Nuclear Power in Space
Workshops are scheduled during tion in front of embassies, con- Farsakh, Noam Chomsky, is scheduled for May 9 in NYC,
the day, with speakers (Vijay sulates and corporate headquar- Nancy Murray, and Ziad Abbas; in conjunction with other inter-
Prashad, Kathleen Cleaver) in ters in support of human rights. plus a slide show, music, and a national events centered around
the evening. Sponsored by Amnesty Interna- benefit sale. the UN’s Nuclear Non-Prolifer-
Contact: Educators for Mumia tional USA Local Group 133 of Contact: water4gazaboston@ ation Treaty (NPT) Review
Abu-Jamal, www.emajonline. Somerville, Massachusetts. gmail.com; www.justicewith Conference.
com. Contact: kelly@amnesty133. peace.org/ upcoming-events. Contact: Global Network
org; www.gotb.org. Against Weapons & Nuclear
BOOKFAIR - The 4th Annual Power in Space, PO Box 652,
NYC Anarchist Bookfair is Brunswick, ME 04011;
scheduled for April 17-18 at the 207-443-9502; globalnet@
Judson Memorial Church in mindspring.com; www.
Manhattan. There will be an ex- space4peace.org.
position of books, zines, pam- CLASS CONFERENCE - The
phlets, art, film/video, and other Center for Study of Working
media productions, plus panels, Class Life is hosting its 2010
presentations, workshops, and conference How Class Works
skillshares). June 3-4 at the State University
PERMACULTURE - Eco Homo: Contact: info@anarchist of New York at Stony Brook.
NUKE TREATY - Anti-nuclear
A Queer Co-Creative Permacul- bookfair.net, www.anarchist Contact: Center for Study of
groups and activists from around
ture Gathering is scheduled for bookfair.net. Working Class Life, Department
the world are coming to New
April 3-11 at Wolf Creek Sanc- of Economics, SUNY, Stony
PEOPLE’S LOBBYING - York City for a two-day confer-
tuary in Oregon and will feature Brook, NY 11794; 631-632-
Educating, organizing, and lob- ence, “For a Nuclear Free,
a hands-on ecological explora- 7536; michael.zweig @stony
bying, sponsored by SOA Peaceful, Just and Sustainable
tion of sustainable living and brook.edu; www.stony
Watch, are scheduled for April World,” on April 30 through
culture preservation, from brook.edu/workingclass.
17-19 in Washington, DC. The May 1, and to celebrate an Inter-
wildcrafting to grey water har-
School of the Americas Watch national Day of Action Against
vesting.
works in solidarity with the peo- Nuclear Weapons on May 2
Contact: Nomenus Wolf Creek ple of Latin America and the with a march from Times
Sanctuary, PO Box 312, Wolf Caribbean to close the U.S. mil- Square to the UN for a Peace
Creek, OR 97497; 541-866- itary’s infamous death squad Festival. The events are timed to
2678; farmerzakk@ hotmail. BIKING - Join Bikes Not Bombs
school and to change oppressive coincide with a meeting of gov-
com; www.nomenus.org/perma- ernment leaders for the Nuclear Sunday, June 6 for their 23rd
U.S. foreign policy. annual Bike-A-Thon and Green
culture.html. Non-Proliferation Treaty Re-
Contact: School of the Americas view Conference starting in Roots Festival in Boston, Mas-
ABORTION RIGHTS - The annual Watch, PO Box 4566, Washing- May. sachusetts.
CLPP conference “From Abor- ton, DC 20017; 202-234-3440; Contact: Bikes Not Bombs, 284
tion Rights to Social Justice: info@soaw.org; www.soaw.org. Contact: International Planning
Committee, C/o Peace Action Amory St., Jamaica Plain, MA
Building the Movement for Re- 02130; 617-522-0222; mail
productive Freedom” is sched- CLIMATE CONFERENCE - The New York State, PO Box 600,
Peoples’ World Conference on JAF Station, New York, NY @bikesnotbombs.org; www.
uled for April 9-11 at Hamp- bikesnotbombs.org.
shire College in Amherst, Mas- Climate Change is scheduled for 10116; 646 723 1749; info@
sachusetts. The event features April 19-22 in Cochabamba, peaceandjusticenow.org; www. RADIO - The 35th Annual Com-
more than 40 workshops and Bolivia. The conference was an- peaceandjusticenow.org. munity Radio Conference is
trainings. nounced by President Morales in scheduled for June 9-12 in St.
response to the failure of the UN MAY DAY - A May Day Unity
Contact: Civil Liberties and Coalition is planning events for Paul, Minnesota, with discus-
Copenhagen conference to ad- sion, affinity groups, and dozens
Public Policy Program, Hamp- dress the underlying causes in May 1, 2010 in NYC.
shire College, 893 West Street, of workshops.
the capitalist model, and instead Contact: May 1st Coalition for
Amherst, MA 01002; 413-559- offer real solutions and plans. Contact: National Federation of
Worker and Immigrant Rights,
5416; clpp@hampshire.edu; Community Broadcasters, 1970
Contact: www.cmpcc.org. 55 West 17 Street, #5C, NY, NY
clpp.hampshire.edu. Broadway, Suite 1000, Oakland,
10011; 212-633-6646; MayDay
EARTH DAY - April 22 is Earth 2010@peoplesmail.net; CA 94612; 510-451-8200; con-
GREENFEST - Green festivals ference@nfcb.org;
are scheduled for San Francisco Day, with diverse local actions www.may1.info.
around the world promoting a www.nfcb.org.
(April 10-11) and Chicago (May
sustainable ecology, and a festi- MEDIA - The Making Media
22-23). A joint project of Global LABOR - The Pacific Northwest
val scheduled for Santa Barbara, Public Conference is scheduled
Exchange and Green America, Labor History Association’s
California on Saturday and for May 6-9 in Toronto, Can-
Green Fests feature speakers, 42nd annual conference, “The
Sunday, April 17-18. ada, focused on focused on four
workshops, displays, music, and Union Makes Us Strong: Inspi-
interrelated themes: history, la-
other events. ration, Guidance, and Hope
bor, policy, and alternative/in-
During Hard Times,” is sched-

46 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010


ZAPS
uled for June 11-13 in Portland, the unjust blockade against workshops, formal and infor-
Oregon. Cuba, before an orientation in mal. This year’s event is titled
Contact: PNLHA, 27920 68th Texas July 18-20, followed by “Capitalism and Global Climate
Ave. East, Graham, WA 98338; travel to and from Cuba until Change” and is scheduled for
253-875-9498; pnlh1@aol.com; August 3. People can participate August 15-18 in Camp Deer
www.pnlha.org. by attending or hosting local Run in Pine Bush, New York.
events, donating materials, or Contact: Union for Radical Po-
traveling along. 10-13 in San Antonio, Texas,
SOCIALISM - This year’s annual litical Economics, Gordon Hall,
with workshops, presentations,
Socialism Conference (with two Contact: IFCO/Pastors for and panel discussions. University of Massachusetts,
sessions) is scheduled for Chi- Peace, 418 W. 145th St., New 418 N. Pleasant St., Amherst,
cago (June 17-20) and San Fran- York, NY 10031; 212-926-5757; Contact: NCLR Headquarters MA 01002; 413-577-0806;
cisco (July 1-4), featuring talks cucaravan@igc.org; www. Office, Raul Yzaguirre Building, urpe@labornet.org;
and panel discussions. pastorsforpeace.org. 1126 16th Street, NW, Washing- www.urpe.org.
ton, DC 20036; 202-776-1718;
Contact: Socialism 2010, c/o www.nclr.org.
NUKE-FREE - The Nuclear Re- VETERANS - Veterans for Peace
Center for Economic Research
and Social Change, PO Box sister, Nukewatch, and the Oak celebrates its 25th anniversary at
DEMOCRACYFEST - The 7th
258082, Chicago, IL 60625; Ridge Environmental Peace Al- this year’s annual convention
liance (OREPA) are hosting a Annual DemocracyFest will be August 25-29 in Portland,
773-583-7884 info@socialism held July 23-24 in Las Vegas,
conference.org; www.socialism national gathering July 3-5 at Maine, with workshops, talks,
Maryville College in Maryville, Nevada. DemocracyFest is a po- and strategy sessions, with a fi-
conference.org. litical festival for liberal and
Tennessee to declare independ- nal day rally and march.
ence from nuclear weapons and progressive activists, which fea-
MEDIA - The 12th annual Allied Contact: Contact Veterans For
power, culminating with nonvio- tures training, speakers, and en-
Media Conference will be held tertainment; teaching people Peace, 216 S. Meramec Ave.,
June 18-20 in the McGregor lent direct action at nearby Oak St. Louis, MO 63105; 314-725-
Ridge, where OREPA has sus- how to make a difference and
Conference Center at Wayne have fun doing it. 6005; www.vfpnationalconven-
State University in Detroit. Par- tained a nonviolent campaign for tion.org.
ticipatory workshops and over 20 years. Contact: DemocracyFest,
skillshares will emphasize DIY Contact: Felice and Jack Co- info@democracyfest.net;
alternative media to advance vi- hen-Joppa, The Nuclear Re- www.democracyfest.net.
sions of a just and creative
world.
sister, 520-323-8697, nuke re-
sister@igc.org, www.nuclear
EDUCATION FORUM - The Resources
Rouge Forum 2010 conference,
Contact: Allied Media Projects, resister.org; Bonnie Urfer and “Education in the Public Inter-
420 Cass Ave., Detroit MI John LaForge, Nukewatch, est,” will be held at George Wil-
48201; www.alliedmediaconfer- 715-472-4185, nukewatch1 liams College conference center
ence.org. @lakeland.ws, www.nukewatch. in Williams Bay, Wisconsin
com. from August 2-5.
DIRECT ACTIONS - The Cam- Contact: fwilson@aurora.edu;
paign to Legalize Democracy www.rougeforumconference.org
has called for communities to
declare their independence and CO-OPS - The 2010 National
demonstrate against corporate Worker Cooperative Conference
rule and “personhood” on July is scheduled for August 6-9 at TAX RESISTERS - Find out more
4, from floats in town parades to Clark Kerr Conference Center at information about the huge costs
sit-ins and giant Monopoly UC Berkeley in California. of militarism and the war tax re-
boards. Info sheet with sugges- Contact: U.S. Federation of sisters who courageously oppose
tions available at the DUHC Worker Cooperatives, PO Box it. Learn the facts to counter the
SOCIAL FORUM - The second website. coming spin by the right and
170701, San Francisco, CA
United States Social Forum is corporate media.
Contact: Democracy Unlimited 94117; 415-379-9201; info@
scheduled for June 22-26 in De-
of Humboldt County, PO Box usworker.coop; www.us Contact: War Resisters League,
troit, Michigan. The social fo-
610, Eureka, CA 95502; worker.coop. 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY
rum movement has brought to-
gether thousands of people 707-269-0984; info@DUHC. 10012; 212-228-0450; wrl@
COMMUNITIES - The Communi- warresisters.org; www.warre-
around the world working for org; www.duhc.org/ deepDe-
mocracy.html. ties Conference is a networking sisters.org. And the National
participatory grassroots alterna- and learning opportunity for
tives to a hierarchical system of War Tax Resistance Coordinat-
COMMUNITY MEDIA - The Alli- anyone interested or involved in ing Committee, PO Box 150553,
corporate exploitation of peoples co-operative or communal life-
ance for Community Media Brooklyn, New York 11215;
and the environment. The theme styles, with workshops, events,
2010 National Conference is 800-269-7464; nwtrcc@nwtrcc.
of the USSF is Another World Is and entertainment scheduled for
scheduled for July 7-10 in Pitts- org; www.nwtrcc.org.
Possible, Another U.S. Is Nec- August 13-15 at the Twin Oaks
burgh, Pennsylvania. Hands-on
essary. Community in Louisa, Virginia.
workshops and skillshares will
Contact: USSF Detroit 2010, be offered by this grassroots co- Contact: Twin Oaks Communi-
877-515-8773; detroitinfo@ussf alition of community media
2010.org; www.ussf2010.org. groups.
ties Conference, 138 Twin Oaks Wanted
Road, Louisa, VA 23093; 540-
Contact: ACM, 1100 G Street, 894-5126; conference @twin ESSAYS - The Daniel Singer
CARAVAN - The 201st annual
NW, Suite 740, Washington, DC oaks.org; www.communities Millennium Prize Foundation in-
Pastors for Peace Caravan to
20005; 202-393-2653; www. conference.org. vites submissions to the 2010
Cuba is scheduled for July 3
alliancecm.org. Daniel Singer Prize competition,
through August 3. Through URPE - Each summer, the Union up to 5,000 words, on the topic:
mid-July, volunteers will travel for Radical Political Economics
LA RAZA - The annual National “Given the devastating effects of
across the U.S. and Canada col- (URPE) holds a 4-day work-
Council of La Raza (NCLR) the present crisis on working
lecting aid and educating about shop/retreat with papers and
Conference is scheduled for July people, what proposals for radi-

Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010 47


ZAPS
cal reform can be raised which ers Emily Kunstler and Sarah Contact: Penguin Group, 375 Contact: War on Want, Devel-
are both practical to the vast ma- Kunstler explore the life of their Hudson St., New York, NY opment House, 56-64 Leonard
jority while moving us towards father, the late radical civil 10014; www.us.penguin St., London EC2A 4LT UK;
the goal of socialism?” Deadline rights lawyer. group.com. www.waronwant.org.
is July 31. Contact: www.disturbingthe uni- HEALTHCARE WORKERS - La- LYND - From Here To There:
Contact: The Daniel Singer Mil- verse.com; New Video, 212-206- bor‘s Civil War in California: The Staughton Lynd Reader of-
lennium Prize Foundation, PO 9001; www.newvideo.com. The NUHW Healthcare Work- fers a new collection of the long-
Box 2371, El Cerrito, CA ers‘ Rebellion by Cal Winslow time left activist and author’s
94530; danielsingerfdn YES MEN - The Yes Men Fix the
World is the true story of two documents the grassroots rise writings, edited and with an in-
@gmail.com; www.daniel and struggles of a new troduction by Andrej Grubacic.
singer.org. conscientious mischief-makers
who pose as the representatives healthcare union. Contact: PM Press, PO Box
PROPOSALS - The 2010 Rouge of companies they despise, with Contact: PM Press, PO Box 23912, Oakland, CA 94623;
Forum for progressive educators bitingly humorous results. 23912, Oakland, CA 94623; 510-658-3906; info@pmpress.
is scheduled for August 2-5 in Contact: www.theyesmenfixthe 510-658-3906; info@pm org; www.pmpress.org.
Chicago, and proposals for pa- world.com; Docurama Films, press.org; www.pmpress.org.
pers, panels, or performances MELTDOWN - In And Out Of
800-314-8822; www.docurama. Crisis: The Global Financial
are being accepted through com.
mid-April. Meltdown and Left Alternatives
by Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin,
Contact: fwilson@aurora.edu; and Greg Albo analyzes the rela-
www.rougeforumconference.org tions between politics and eco-
Books nomics and the possibility of left
alternatives within the current
CAPITALISM - In Low Wage recession.
Videos Capitalism, Fred Goldstein de-
Contact: PM Press, PO Box
scribes this economic approach
as demonstrably unfair, irratio- 23912, Oakland, CA 94623;
nal, and prone to intermittent 510-658-3906; info@pmpress.
crises—available online or in org; www.pmpress.org.
print. ORGANIZING - Creative Com-
Contact: www.lowwagecapital- munity Organizing: A Strategy
ism.com. Manual for Rabble-Rousers, Ac-
tivists, and Quiet Lovers of Jus-
tice by Si Kahn offers an inspi-
GAZA - In This Time We Went rational biography and educa-
Too Far: Truth and Conse- tional motivation to act.
ANIMATIONS - Political cartoon-
quences of the Gaza Invasion,
Norman Finkelstein shows how Contact: Berrett-Koehler, 235
ist Ted Rall is producing, along Montgomery Street, Suite 650,
with David Essman, political an- the massive destruction visited
on Gaza was not an accidental San Francisco, CA 94104;
imations available online. 415-288-0260; bkpub
byproduct of the Israeli invasion
Contact: www.rall.com; www. but its barely concealed objec- @bkpub.com; www.bkcon-
youtube.com/user/tedralltoons. tive. nection.com.
BLACK RADIO - In Disappear- Contact: OR Books, orders ORIENTALISM - In The Pen and
ing Voices: The Decline of Black @orbooks.com; www.orbooks. the Sword: Conversations with
Radio offers a history of African com. Edward Said, David Barsamian
American radio and suggestions offers five wide-ranging inter-
HUMAN RIGHTS - In A Shameful views with the internationally
for a revival.
Business: The Case for Human renowned Palestinian scholar
Contact: Black Waxx Multime- Rights in the American Work- and critic Edward Said from
dia, Inc., PO Box 349, Rocke- COAL - In Climate Hope: On the place, James A. Gross issues a 1987-94; re-released with new
feller Center, New York, NY Front Lines of the Fight Against call for the transformation of the preface.
10185; 212-696-8562; dis- Coal, Ted Nace reveals the or- American workplace based on
appearingvoices@blackwaxx. ganizing methods and political genuine respect for human Haymarket Books, PO Box
com; www.disappearing tactics that enabled underdog ac- rights, instead of the terrible 180165, Chicago, IL 60618;
voices.com. tivists in state after state to take conditions that exist today. 773-583-7884; info@haymarket
on and defeat Big Coal. books.org; www.haymarket
FISH - The End of the Line Contact: Cornell University books.org.
delves beyond the surface of the Contact: CoalSwarm, 1254 Utah Press, Box 6525, 750 Cascadilla
seas to reveal a troubling truth St., San Francisco, CA 94110; St., Ithaca, NY 14851; 607-277- RELIGION - In God and His De-
beneath: an ocean increasingly 415-206-0906; info@cmNOW. 2211; cupressinfo@cornell.edu; mons, Michael Parenti explores
empty of fish, destroyed by de- org; www.climatehopebook. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. the evil created in the name of
cades of over-fishing; based on com. “god,” and the threat posed by
IRAQ - The graphic novel Iraq: fundamentalists.
the book by Charles Clover.
COOPERATION - In Transform- Operation Corporate Takeover,
Contact: Bullfrog Films, PO ing Power: From the Personal to written by Sean Michael Wilson Contact: Prometheus Books, 59
Box 149, Oley, PA 19547; the Political, activist Judy and illustrated by Lee O’Con- John Glenn Dr., Amherst, New
800-543-3764; info@bullfrog Rebick advocates for methods of nor, outlines how present day York 14228; 800-421-0351;
films.com; www.bullfrog co-operation and consensus over Iraq is a classic example of how www.prometheusbooks.com.
films.com. confrontation and partisanship in corporations reap profit from
achieving political goals. conflict.
LAW - In William Kunstler: Dis-
turbing the Universe, filmmak-

48 Z MAGAZINE APRIL 2010

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