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angela davis
Ilhan Omar Won't Be Cowed by Trump
Whether Trump likes it or not, “our country” is also Omar’s country
May 02, 2019
Last Saturday, the final day of the Jewish holiday of Passover, 19-year-old white supremacist John T. Earnest allegedly walked into the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California, raised his AR-style assault rifle and began shooting. He reportedly killed congregant Lori Gilbert Kaye as she stood in front of her rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, protecting him. Eyewitnesses said Earnest shot Goldstein twice, blowing off part of his finger, and injured two others, then fled. He was arrested a short time later. A manifesto surfaced, which he allegedly wrote and posted online, riddled with anti-Semitic language. In it, he also took credit for an attempted arson of a mosque in nearby Escondido a month earlier. A message left on the mosque parking lot referenced the massacre at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 50 Muslim worshippers were gunned down. In his own manifesto, the New Zealand shooter described President Donald Trump as "a symbol of renewed white identity."
On Saturday, Minnesota Democratic Congressmember Ilhan Omar tweeted: "My heart is breaking after today's deadly shooting at Chabad Congregation in San Diego -- on the last day of Passover and 6 months to the day after the Tree of Life shooting. We as a nation must confront the terrifying rise of religious hate and violence." She ended with "Love trumps hate."
Since taking office in January, Omar, one of the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress and the first in Congress to wear a hijab, has been frequently targeted by Trump. Most recently, he tweeted a video alternating between images of Omar and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She has been targeted for her unabashed criticism of U.S. support of Israel's occupation of Palestine. Death threats against her have spiked, and she's been vilified by the right-wing media. Angered by the threats and vitriol, a group of prominent African American women rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, at a rally they called "Black Women in Defense of Ilhan Omar."
"When [Trump] chooses to attack me, we know that that attack isn't for Ilhan. [It's] the continuation of the attacks that he's leveled against women, against people of color, against immigrants, against refugees, and certainly against Muslims."
"It is about time that we stepped up to defend those who represent our political vision on the front lines of struggle," legendary activist, author and scholar Angela Davis said at the podium. "The attack against Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, while it is clearly directed at her as an individual, is also designed to dissuade all of us from speaking out on issues that are considered controversial ... the numerous threats of assassination from white nationalists and their supporters are a way of sending messages to other black women, to all who hold radical and progressive political views, that they, too, can be made into targets of vitriolic, violent racism: 'Be quiet, or you will suffer the fate of Ilhan Omar.'"
Joining Angela Davis was historian Barbara Ransby, an adviser to the Movement for Black Lives. Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor spoke, as did Alicia Garza, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter. "From R. Kelly to Donald Trump, what we can no longer accept is the silencing of black women!," said Ayanna Pressley, the first African American congresswoman ever elected from Massachusetts. Rashida Tlaib, the only other Muslim congresswoman, also spoke.
The crowd rose in a resounding ovation as Congressmember Ilhan Omar arrived. Her 17-minute speech was a damning indictment of Trump, saying he "and his allies are doing everything that they can to distance themselves and misinform the public from the monsters that they created, who are terrorizing the Jewish community and the Muslim community," she said. "Because when we are talking about anti-Semitism, we must also talk about Islamophobia. It's two sides of the same coin of bigotry."
Trump said of Omar in a recent TV interview, "She is somebody that doesn't really understand life, real life ... she's got a way about her that's very, very bad for our country."
Whether Trump likes it or not, "our country" is also Omar's country. At the rally, she said: "I don't only represent one marginalized voice, because in this country being black is enough of being marginalized. But I also happen to be a woman. That's a second marginalization. I happen to be a Muslim. And I also happen to be a refugee and an immigrant ... So, when [Trump] chooses to attack me, we know that that attack isn't for Ilhan. [It's] the continuation of the attacks that he's leveled against women, against people of color, against immigrants, against refugees, and certainly against Muslims. We are collectively saying, 'Your vile attacks, your demented views are not welcome here.'"
Ilhan Omar fled to the United States as a refugee from war in Somalia. "If I survived the militias," she said, standing against the backdrop of the Capitol dome behind her, "I certainly can survive these people."
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Criticizing Israel Isn't Anti-Semitic. Here's What Is.
Pro-Israel politicians don't speak for young Jews like me. They shouldn't pretend to.
Mar 05, 2019
Weeks ago, when the first accusations of anti-semitism were being leveled against Representative Ilhan Omar, I was deeply agitated.
Not long ago I saw her address these accusations at a local town hall. She reminded the world that, as a Black Muslim woman in America, she knows what hate looks like -- and spends her life laboring against it. Her words were clear, bold, and unflinching.
When members of Congress not only continued to gang up and falsely smear Omar as anti-semitic, but even created a House Resolution painting her words as hateful, I wasn't just agitated. I was absolutely disgusted.
Omar has criticized the U.S. government's support for Israeli actions that break international law. And she's spoken out against the role money in politics plays in shoring up that support.
Neither is anti-semitic.
What is anti-semitic is the cacophony of mainstream media and politicians saying that criticizing U.S. policy toward the state of Israel is the same as attacking Jewish people.
Like most American Jewish youth, I grew up knowing Israel. During holidays, I sang prayers about Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel. In Hebrew school, I learned about the country's culture, its cities, its past prime ministers. At my Jewish summer camp, we started every day with the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah.
My image of Israel was a rosy one. When I finally visited it in college, I was spellbound by the lush landscapes and sparkling cities, certain I would one day move to this golden ancestral home myself.
All this emotional buildup made it all the more sickening when, in the years that followed, I learned the realities of the Israeli occupation.
The modern state of Israel was established by Zionists -- a nationalist movement started by European Jews with the aim of creating a "Jewish state" as a refuge for persecuted Jews.
It's true that Jews have faced centuries of brutal persecution in Europe. But the Zionists' project shared unmistakably European colonialist roots.
In 1948, Israel's war of independence led to the Nakba, an invasion driving 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. These Palestinians were never allowed to return, creating a massive refugee population that today numbers over 7 million.
While I was able to travel freely up and down Israel, the Palestinians who once lived there are legally barred from returning. While I wandered the marketplaces trying stews and shawarmas, Palestinians in Gaza can't afford even the gas to cook their food because of the Israeli blockade.
Zionism didn't create an inclusive Jewish refuge either. In fact, the diverse Mizrahi -- or Arab -- Jewish population that was already thriving in Palestine was pushed out of Israeli society as Ashkenazi -- or European -- Jews became the elite class.
What it did create is an imperialist stronghold that continues to break international law by building settlements deeper and deeper into Palestinian territory, giving Jewish Israelis superior legal status to Arab Israelis and Palestinians, and attacking all who protest.
Since Israel's origin, the U.S. has supplied tens of billions of dollars of military aid and ardent political support. Congress consistently ignores dozens of UN resolutions condemning Israeli abuses, and year after year gives it more resources to violently oppress impoverished Palestinians.
Pro-Israel lobbying groups' considerable political influence has even pushed Congress to consider bills punishing Americans who support Palestinian rights. (Around half of all states already have such laws.)
More broadly, they rely on villainizing critics with false claims of antisemitism -- especially when the criticism comes from a person of color, as we've seen with Angela Davis, Marc Lamont Hill, and Michelle Alexander before Rep. Omar.
I, along with an increasing number of young American Jews, want to discuss U.S. support of Israel. Talking foreign policy is not anti-semitism.
What is anti-semitic -- always -- is saying that all Jews support violence and imperialism.
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I'm Jewish, and I Find the Hypocrisy of Republican Islamophobes Hounding Ilhan Omar Breathtaking
It is no surprise that the first elected officials defending Palestinian human rights are facing such fierce opposition from defenders of the status quo
Mar 05, 2019
Representative Ilhan Omar is facing censure in the House, brought in part by her own party leaders. She is also facing shockingly Islamophobic attacks calling her a terrorist, simply because she is a Muslim. And all the while, other congressional leaders are tweeting out unabashedly anti-Semitic messages with abandon.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking enough at its own right, but it is also an indicator of the fight between an emerging progressive coalition that seems different than Congressional generations of old, and which increasingly integrates Palestinian rights into its agenda, based on universal rights and the need for equality and freedom for all people.
Representative Ilhan Omar is also part of a class of newly elected Congresspeople who don't look much like Congresspeople of generations past: dynamic women of color from communities (Black and Muslim in Ilhan Omar's case,) who face some of the fiercest racism and xenophobia in this country.
Not coincidentally, it is young people, women, and people of color who make up the emerging coalition of progressive people that support Palestinian rights as a natural part of an agenda based on fairness, dignity and freedom. This is the context around the accusations of anti-Semitism and islamophobia in the last weeks centering on Representative Omar. While some critics of Representative Omar's tweets made them in good faith, too often they were part of a cynical strategy to paint this emerging progressive coalition as anti-Semitic.
As one of two of the first Muslim-American women in Congress, Ilhan Omar is facing a specific set of demands and attacks. Accusations of anti-Semitism are being used to silence her criticisms of Israel. An obvious form of Islamophobia coming from the right is attacking her directly for her identity. A soft form of Islamophobia is evident in the lesser degree of concern expressed for the far more outrageous attacks on her personally. And many more liberal elected officials and others are making a false claim of equivalence between calling out of Omar's tweets (which were about Israel) and calling out Islamophobia against Omar herself.
Rep. Omar has engaged with critics who brought up good faith critiques of her language and has shown true commitment to live up to her values--unlike other members of Congress who continue to promote anti-Semitic messages
Even before the West Virginia GOP posted a heinous Islamophobic poster linking Representative Ilhan Omar to the attacks of 9/11 because she is Muslim, the Islamophobia at play in the attacks on Omar was blatantly clear. As Omar tweeted: "My Americanness is questioned by the President and the @GOP on a daily basis, yet my colleagues remain silent." At the same time, Congressional leaders are making actual anti-Semitic statements--like the tweet posted over the weekend by Rep. Jim Jordan, spelling Tom Steyer's name with a dollar sign instead of an S, or then-Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's tweet about Jewish donors which are going all but unnoticed, and certainly unpunished.
anti-Semitism--specifically as an expression of right-wing white supremacy--has never been in such proximity to power, at least in my lifetime, and Jewish people from across the political spectrum are rightfully frightened. Charlottesville, what feels like a cascade of graffiti and physical attacks on Jewish people--and above all else, the murderous attack in Pittsburgh--are making many of us revise our belief of our safety in this country, especially those of us who are white and who have not been singled out as directly for abuse, in recent lived experience.
That makes it confusing when critiques of Israel, support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), or even anti-Zionism are presented as part of the continuum of anti-Semitism that Jews in the U.S. are facing in this era.
It has never been more important to be able to distinguish between the critique--even the harshest critique--of a state's policies (Israel,) and discrimination against a people (Jews.) Israel does not represent all Jews. Not all Jews support Israel. Speaking out for Palestinian human rights and their yearning for freedom is in no way related to anti-Semitism, though the Israeli government does its best to obscure that. And yes, there are anti-Semites who support Palestinian rights. They have no place in any movement for justice, which Palestinian leaders of the movement have made very clear.
We also know that in the last several months, leading Black scholars and activists, from Angela Davis to Marc Lamont Hill to Michelle Alexander have spoken out strongly on behalf of Palestinians--and found themselves targeted in return. The policing of people of color, including Ilhan Omar, who speak out on Palestine--the higher standards to which they are held, and the assumptions of bad faith by which their words are judged make their leadership on this issue all the more remarkable, but it means they are also paying an almost unbearable cost.
The exhaustion and rage that so many people--Muslims, Palestinians, Black people, Jews of color, and Jews who support Palestinian rights--are feeling as these battles continue to play out does have one silver lining. The only antidote to the pro-Israel lobby is building a strong, grassroots movement of people willing to stand up for Palestinian rights. That's what ended U.S. support for apartheid in South Africa, its what won limited civil rights victories for Black Americans, and it's what shifted American views on gay marriage over the course of ten short years. And that's what we're seeing today.
It is no surprise that the first elected officials defending Palestinian human rights are facing such fierce opposition from defenders of the status quo. Omar herself is not backing down, firing back at her critics: "Being opposed to Netanyahu and the occupation is not the same as being anti-Semitic. I am grateful to the many Jewish allies who have spoken out and said the same... We must be willing to combat hate of all kinds while also calling out oppression of all kinds."
Omar will be joined by many more, but only if we're willing and able to fight to defend them--by speaking about anti-Semitism with precision, by challenging racism and islamophobia, and by holding our institutions and elected officials accountable.
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Progressives Must Stop Weaponizing Charges of Anti-Semitism Against Critics of Israel
It is shocking that the main targets of outrage over anti-Semitism have been members of marginalized communities on the progressive left who are critical of the administration and Israeli policies, as opposed to those posing a real threat to Jews, Muslims, and Blacks alike in our country
Feb 26, 2019
As an American Jew and an American Muslim, we find the cycle of attacks on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Angela Davis, and others deeply troubling. These attacks reflect a weaponization of the "anti-Semitism" charge against certain individuals (especially Muslim and/or Black leaders supporting Palestinian human rights), which turns progressive allies against each other and ignores the real source of physical threat to our Jewish (and Muslim and Black) siblings.
There is no doubt that anti-Semitism is alive and well. The FBI reported a 37% increase in anti-Semitic crimes from 2016 to 2017 (the most recent year for which data is available). Islamophobia has also increased sharply in recent years, as we face some of the highest levels of anti-Muslim hate crimes in our nation's history along with hateful rhetoric and policies from the highest levels of our government (such as the Muslim Ban). And Black Americans are still victims of hate crimes more than any other group in our country, with a 16% increase from 2016 to 2017.
With the Jewish, Muslim, and Black communities (among others) under increased attack, it is worth inquiring into the source of the threat. Research makes clear that it is predominantly white men from the extreme right who perpetrate hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, and Black Americans (not to mention against immigrants, Latinx people, Asians, transgender people, and other marginalized communities). The rhetoric, proposals and actions of the current administration have further provided fuel for the increased hate in our country, and constitute direct attacks on the rights of many marginalized communities.
Despite all this, and even after a neo-Nazi gunman last year committed the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history (the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh), it is shocking that the main targets of outrage over anti-Semitism have been members of marginalized communities on the progressive left who are critical of the administration and Israeli policies, as opposed to those posing a real threat to Jews, Muslims, and Blacks alike in our country. (Notably, the final straw that motivated the Pittsburgh shooter was the synagogue's work with Muslim refugees.)
It is important to ask why marginalized community members are the main targets of outrage, and who benefits when marginalized groups are pitted against each other.
It is important to ask why marginalized community members are the main targets of outrage, and who benefits when marginalized groups are pitted against each other. Indeed, who benefits when progressive movements are undermined?
Rep. Ilhan Omar, an outspoken and successful American Muslim Black woman, embodies the very threat to patriarchal white supremacy and colonialism that many in power find so disturbing. That alone is enough to provoke predictable attacks against her from some. But she has further broken the majority silence by US politicians when it comes to pro-Israel lobby efforts, and -- with Rep. Rashida Tlaib -- openly supports the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement to pressure Israel to comply with international law. Given the widespread support for Israel from politicians of both parties, her statements have also provoked attack from liberals, and it is these attacks that we find particularly disturbing -- and, indeed, dangerous to Jews, Muslims, Blacks, and other marginalized groups.
While we do not excuse, endorse, or seek to explain away all statements made by Muslim or Black leaders, it is crucial that we separate legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and its policies from unwarranted accusations of anti-Semitism. Criticizing Israel (or lobby groups that promote pro-Israel policies) is not anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish, just like criticizing Saudi Arabia (or lobby groups that promote pro-Saudi policies) is not Islamophobic or anti-Muslim.
Our moral convictions and faith values demand that we speak out and challenge injustice anywhere. We therefore strongly criticize the injustices of the Israeli occupation and discriminatory laws and policies against Palestinians.We also strongly criticize the injustices committed by the Saudi authoritarian regime including attacks in Yemen and anti-Semitic rhetoric. The same is true for injustices elsewhere.
Rep. Omar's critiques of pro-Israel lobby efforts are especially necessary given ongoing efforts to silence criticism of Israel. Five days before the storm of attacks on Rep. Omar, the Senate passed a bill, S.1, which would provide federal protection to states that pass laws penalizing Americans who participate in boycotts aimed at Israel and its illegal settlements in occupied territories. The ACLU and others have condemned anti-free speech, anti-BDS bills like this. But unfortunately, 77 Senators voted to support it. This bill was backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobby group in the US and the one explicitly mentioned by Rep. Omar in her tweet.
We need to accept in our American political discourse that anti-Zionism does not equate to anti-Semitism. When we fail to do this and instead conflate the two, the American Jewish community becomes less safe.
Bills like S.1--and the allegations of anti-Semitism targeting those who have spoken out against the bill or who otherwise support the BDS movement--are particularly dangerous, since they risk dividing progressive movements that should otherwise be allies in seeking justice for all. While we fully expect some on the political right to target progressives in this way, it is discouraging to see similar attacks come from those on the left--in the case of S.1, from Democratic politicians and mainstream Jewish organizations (even as some internally recognize how such efforts hurt Jews, too). When those on the left join the chorus of criticism, they play into the divide-and-conquer strategy that those in power have used again and again to undermine the struggle for justice and equity for all.
Further, by focusing on progressive figures such as Omar, Tlaib, Sarsour, and others who speak out against the Israeli government and their lobbying allies in the US, we risk ignoring and simultaneously emboldening those who actually hate Jews and pose a physical threat to our communities. We need to accept in our American political discourse that anti-Zionism does not equate to anti-Semitism. When we fail to do this and instead conflate the two, the American Jewish community becomes less safe.
We must stand with those who speak truth to power, and we cannot allow progressive communities to be divided. Nor can we accept the concept of "progressive except Palestine" anymore. Instead, it is long past "time to break the silence on Palestine," as Michelle Alexander (author of The New Jim Crow) wrote last month. Because it is only when we recognize that our various forms of struggle are connected and we advocate for the liberation of all that we will truly be free.
From our own experiences, we know that things can -- and must -- be different. In our work, we help Muslims and Jews (and others) come together to solve the challenges in our cities, while also supporting those among us who are most vulnerable, including immigrants, refugees, people of color, LGBTQ people, and more. We educate people to reduce Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and all forms of hate. And we know first-hand that while discourse around Israel and Palestine is fraught and emotional, we must engage deeply and honestly if we truly believe in justice for all.
If we are to be successful in building a just and equitable society, one that lives up to our American ideals, we must not forget where the threat really lies. If we attack those who are our allies, and who themselves are targets of oppression in this country, we will never achieve freedom and liberation for all.
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Why Martin Luther King, Jr., Would Support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
We aren’t typically exposed on television to King’s anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and anti-war message
Jan 20, 2019
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, at 29, has become a lightning rod. She was recruited to run against a corporate Democrat by activists of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has become a significant caucus within the Democratic Party. Her advocacy of a higher marginal tax rate (no, she doesn't want to raise taxes on you) and of a host of practical measures for addressing the exponentially increasing inequality and injustice in American society, has attracted the attention of the capos of the billionaires- the hatchet men working for the odious Rupert Murdoch and the mindless minions of the mountebank Trumps.
Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the DSA advocate Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions on Israel because of its extensive catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity in its treatment of the stateless, Israeli-Occupied Palestinian population. That position is seen by the Israeli government's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, headed by Gilad Erdan, as dangerous to that government's propaganda effort. Virulent Jewish-nationalist groups like the Zionist Organization of America and others have also attempted to marginalize especially African-American and minority voices who take up BDS. Thus Marc Lamont Hill was fired from CNN for a speech upholding Palestinian rights within a one-state framework, and Angela Davis was denied a human rights award in Birmingham for her position on BDS. Other new members of Congress such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have also been attacked on these grounds.
Pooh-bahs of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party such as Harry Reid and Aaron Sorkin have attempted to shush the outspoken Puertorriquena, to no avail. As for the Murdochist trolls, AOC lithely bats them away on Twitter, the way Kitana wields her Steel Fans in Mortal Kombat as she utters her battle cry, "You will learn respect!" So far it has been white supremacist Mean Men 0, AOC 110,000.
The American elite, people like Dick Cheney, had opposed the establishment of Martin Luther King Day, but once it was voted as a Federal holiday, they have attempted to defang it. King was a gentle radical, deploying nonviolent noncooperation to dismantle Jim Crow structures of systematic discrimination on the basis of race. We are permitted to hear the "I have a dream" speech over and over again because its diction does no more than express a mild hope for racial equality, and racial equality is now given at least lip service outside white supremacist circles.
If he were alive today, he would certainly be a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and would certainly lend his enormous charisma to the promotion of younger activists such as Ocasio-Cortez.
But we aren't typically exposed on television to King's anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism and anti-war message. If he were alive today, he would certainly be a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and would certainly lend his enormous charisma to the promotion of younger activists such as Ocasio-Cortez.
In the course of a love letter to Coretta Scott of July 18, 1952, King said he had just read the nineteenth century writer Edward Bellamy's science fiction novel, Looking Backward 2000-1887, which imagined a futuristic Boston without social conflict where workers were treated equitably. Bellamy's work went viral, rivaling Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur as a Victorian best-seller.
King used the novel as a springboard to discuss his own commitment to democratic socialism and to critique both capitalism and communism:
- ... I have just completed Bellamy's Looking Backward. It was both stimulating and fascinating. There can be no doubt about it Bellamy had the insight of a social prophet as well as the fact finding mind of the social scientist. I welcomed the book because much of its content is in line with my basic ideas. I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, viz., to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human system[s] it [fell] victim to the very thing it was revolting agai[n]st. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. So I think Bellamy is right in seeing the gradual decline of capitalism.
I think you noticed that Bellamy emphasized that the [change?] would be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This, it seems to me, is the most sane and ethical way for social change to take place. This, it will be remembers is one of the points at which socialism differs from communism.
Very little in the program of the Democratic Socialists of America is all that new (some of it was predicted by Edward Bellamy in 1888). King associated himself with precisely these ideals. We cannot commemorate him today, cannot annually celebrate him, if we narrow his message to one feel-good speech, the ideals of which were are anyway very far from attaining. His was a full, impactful life cut short by an assassin's cruel bullet, and his was a wide-ranging critical intellect that put the unhealthy foundations of capitalist America under the microscope of a seasoned pathologist.
Those who say they support King's ideals should consider whether the final remnants of Jim Crow- the practical economic and geographical segregation of African-Americans- can truly be addressed without democratic socialism of precisely the sort King dreamt of and AOC seeks to implement.
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There's a Growing International Alliance of Right-Wing Demagogues
From Brazil’s Bolsonaro to the Philippines’ Duterte to the leader of them all, Trump
Oct 24, 2018
This is what it has come to.
Lula in His Cell
Lula da Silva--Brazil's former president--is sitting in his prison in Curitiba, a small town southwest of Sao Paulo. He should not be there. Evidence of corruption against him hangs on the words of a felon. Lula should have been on the ballot. But the oligarchy refused to allow this most popular man to run for the presidency. Lula is visited by Pastor Anete Roese of the Evangelical Lutheran Confessional Church of Brazil. The pastor steps outside the prison and makes a statement. She says that Lula is concerned about the escalation of violence in Brazil. People are being murdered when they express their political support for the Workers' Party candidate for president--Fernando Haddad. "The gates of violence are opening," said Pastor Roese. The election--on October 28--will signal an "unprecedented avalanche of violence," warned the pastor. Lula, sitting in his cell, unjustly incarcerated, worried with her. It is the poor who will suffer. It is always the poor who suffer.
Bolsonaro's Fraud
Jair Bolsonaro, the candidate of the far-right who is now the candidate of the oligarchy, leads in the polls. He is nostalgic for Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1985) and wants to use unconstitutional force against those whom he sees are a problem for Brazil. His targets are the poor and the social minorities--Afro-Brazilians, Gays, Leftists. The oligarchy flooded the Bolsonaro camp with money. Democracy needs lubrication, and money does the trick. Some corporations used their money to create WhatsApp groups that carried fraudulent messages about Haddad, who is running against Bolsonaro. This is illegal. The hashtag #Caixa2doBolsonaro zipped across the internet. The whiff of fraud should have triggered an immediate investigation. It did not happen. It is Lula in prison. Bolsonaro hides his fangs behind his smile.
Bannon's Fascist International
Steve Bannon said as he left the White House that the shackles were off his hands. He was no longer imprisoned by propriety. He wanted to be in the trenches, building his white supremacist, fascist international. Bannon calls his group The Movement. One of Bolsonaro's sons said that Bannon has advised his father's campaign, that Bannon--in sum--has drawn Bolsonaro into The Movement. Bolsonaro hastily denied this claim. To be linked to Bannon is not an advantage. Nor to Bannon's fascist international directly. Nothing Bolsonaro says is varnished. He called people from the African continent, from Haiti and from the Arab-speaking world the "scum of humanity." Bolsonaro's moral geography mirrors that of Donald Trump, who called many of these places "shithole countries." Of Afro-Brazilians, Bolsonaro called them lazy and obese, saying, "I don't think they're even good for procreation anymore." Another member of the fascist international--Marine Le Pen of France--said that Bolsonaro's comments are "extremely unpleasant." Bolsonaro distressed her. This is Bannon country. Precise and clearly articulated hatred and venom.
Gunmen
Bolsonaro has been proud to say that he is "Brazil's Trump." But this is not a good comparison. It is clearer to say that Bolsonaro is Brazil's Duterte. Rodrigo Duterte is the president of the Philippines. He came to office with a gun in his hand. Duterte was the mayor of Davao, where he empowered death squads to kill anyone deemed to be a criminal. "Kill them all," he said in 2015 in reference to criminals. "Kill a drug dealer and I'll give you a medal," he said. He likes to be photographed with a gun in his hand, preferably a machine gun. Duterte would like to give out 42,000 guns to deepen the civil war in his society. Violence is the antidote to social problems. No policy of economic and social reform is sufficient. Gunfire is Duterte's solvent. It is the glue of the Bolsonaro family. Jair Bolsonaro's son--Eduardo--won re-election to the Federal Assembly on October 7 with a massive margin. In a video from last year, Eduardo holds a 50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle and says of the school shootings in the United States, "Thanks to you who support gun-free zones and this initiative to disarm people--you are responsible for these massacres." Duterte also likes high-caliber sniper rifles, the M-4 Armalite being a favorite. These are men with guns, men who believe that guns make good policy.
Money and Monsters
In August, Steve Bannon told New York magazine that the rise of Trump--and the other neo-fascists (or monsters)--can be directly linked to the financial crisis of 2008. "The legacy of the financial crisis is Donald J. Trump," Bannon said. "You know why the deplorables are angry? They're rational human beings. We took away the risk for the wealthy." Wall Street dislikes this analysis. They would like to maintain a firewall between their shenanigans and the rise of what they like to call "populists." Bannon is both right and wrong. He is right that the neoliberal "moderates" drove a policy from the 1980s onward that allowed the rich to avoid paying taxes and to avoid investment, while the working people failed to earn their share from the gains of productivity and technology. High inequality rates around the world drained the legitimacy of the neoliberal "moderates." The neo-fascists that emerged with acid on their lips did speak clearly about the fraud of the system, the theft from ordinary people by the oligarchy. But they did not point their fingers at the oligarchy or at high finance. Instead, true to form, the neo-fascists pointed their guns at migrants and refugees, at the urban poor and the rural distressed. For them, social marginality is the crime. Under cover of the monsters' corrosive rhetoric, the oligarchy and the bankers have continued their plunder. None of these neo-fascists wants to implement Basel-III, a framework to regulate banking by increasing capital holdings. Nor do they want to make sure that corporations bear the downside of risks, rather than take the profits and burden taxpayers with losses. None of these elementary reforms are on the lips of the neo-fascists. They are too busy oiling their guns.
Hunger and Illiteracy
Hunger hangs heavily over the Brazilian poor. In 1960, the Afro-Brazilian writer Carolina Maria de Jesus wrote in her diary, "What a surprising effect food has on our organisms. Before I ate, I saw the sky, the trees, the birds--all as yellow. But after I ate, everything became normal to my eyes." Hunger is blistering. It is what Lula's government focused upon with its Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) program. According to the UN, hunger was almost eradicated by Lula's government. Haddad was Lula's education minister. They used public funds to expand Brazil's public university system. Food and reading were at the heart of the Workers' Party agenda. Poverty was reduced by 55 percent, while extreme poverty was reduced by 65 percent. No guns were needed. Lula's agenda was to expand democracy. Bolsonaro's agenda is to deepen neo-fascism.
No Neutrality
Five hundred people of good sense--from Bernie Sanders to Angela Davis, from Noam Chomsky to Pablo Iglesias--signed a short document, an international declaration against fascism in Brazil. The document calls upon the Brazilian population to reject Bolsonaro, whose presidency would be a "threat to any free, tolerant and just society." Brazilians will have to choose between "liberty and pluralism" on one side and "retrograde authoritarianism" on the other. "There can be no neutrality," the signatories write, "in the choice between democracy and fascism." This is a document. It might have a small impact. But it will not be able to compete with fake news and with hatred. Hatred is a more powerful emotion than love. It is what so easily undermines democracy. If Bolsonaro wins, asks the Portuguese political theorist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, will Brazil still be a democracy?
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The War on Assange Is a War on Press Freedom
The ruling elites, who refuse to accept responsibility for profound social inequality or the crimes of empire, have no ideological veneer left to justify their greed, ineptitude and pillage
Jul 16, 2018
The failure on the part of establishment media to defend Julian Assange, who has been trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012, has been denied communication with the outside world since March and appears to be facing imminent expulsion and arrest, is astonishing. The extradition of the publisher--the maniacal goal of the U.S. government--would set a legal precedent that would criminalize any journalistic oversight or investigation of the corporate state. It would turn leaks and whistleblowing into treason. It would shroud in total secrecy the actions of the ruling global elites. If Assange is extradited to the United States and sentenced, The New York Times, The Washington Post and every other media organization, no matter how tepid their coverage of the corporate state, would be subject to the same draconian censorship. Under the precedent set, Donald Trump's Supreme Court would enthusiastically uphold the arrest and imprisonment of any publisher, editor or reporter in the name of national security.
Trump is not Vladimir Putin's puppet. He is part of the wave of right-wing populists, who have harnessed the rage and frustration born of an economic and political system dominated by global capitalism and under which the rights and aspirations of working men and women do not matter.
There are growing signs that the Ecuadorean government of Lenin Moreno is preparing to evict Assange and turn him over to British police. Moreno and his foreign minister, Jose Valencia, have confirmed they are in negotiations with the British government to "resolve" the fate of Assange. Moreno, who will visit Britain in a few weeks, calls Assange an "inherited problem" and "a stone in the shoe" and has referred to him as a "hacker." It appears that under a Moreno government Assange is no longer welcome in Ecuador. His only hope now is safe passage to his native Australia or another country willing to give him asylum.
"Ecuador has been looking for a solution to this problem," Valencia commented on television. "The refuge is not forever, you cannot expect it to last for years without us reviewing this situation, including because this violates the rights of the refugee."
Moreno's predecessor as president, Rafael Correa, who granted Assange asylum in the embassy and made him an Ecuadorean citizen last year, warned that Assange's "days were numbered." He charged that Moreno--who cut off Assange's communications the day after Moreno welcomed a delegation from the U.S. Southern Command--would "throw him out of the embassy at the first pressure from the United States."
Assange, who reportedly is in ill health, took asylum in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sexual offense charges. He feared that once in Swedish custody for these charges, which he said were false, he would be extradited to the United States. The Swedish prosecutors' office ended its "investigation" and extradition request to Britain in May 2017 and did not file sexual offense charges against Assange. But the British government said Assange would nevertheless be arrested and jailed for breaching his bail conditions.
The persecution of Assange is part of a broad assault against anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist news organizations. The ruling elites, who refuse to accept responsibility for profound social inequality or the crimes of empire, have no ideological veneer left to justify their greed, ineptitude and pillage. Global capitalism and its ideological justification, neoliberalism, are discredited as forces for democracy and the equitable distribution of wealth. The corporate-controlled economic and political system is as hated by right-wing populists as it is by the rest of the population. This makes the critics of corporatism and imperialism--journalists, writers, dissidents and intellectuals already pushed to the margins of the media landscape--dangerous and it makes them prime targets. Assange is at the top of the list.
I took part with dozens of others, including Daniel Ellsberg, William Binney, Craig Murray, Peter Van Buren, Slavoj Zizek, George Galloway and Cian Westmoreland, a week ago in a 36-hour international online vigil demanding freedom for the WikiLeaks publisher. The vigil was organized by the New Zealand Internet Party leader Suzie Dawson. It was the third Unity4J vigil since all of Assange's communication with the outside world was severed by the Ecuadorean authorities and visits with him were suspended in March, part of the increased pressure the United States has brought on the Ecuadorean government. Assange has since March been allowed to meet only with his attorneys and consular officials from the Australian Embassy.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled Friday that those seeking political asylum have the right to take refuge in embassies and diplomatic compounds. The court stated that governments are obliged to provide safe passage out of the country to those granted asylum. The ruling did not name Assange, but it was a powerful rebuke to the British government, which has refused to allow the WikiLeaks co-founder safe passage to the airport.
The ruling elites no longer have a counterargument to their critics. They have resorted to cruder forms of control.
The ruling elites no longer have a counterargument to their critics. They have resorted to cruder forms of control. These include censorship, slander and character assassination (which in the case of Assange has sadly been successful), blacklisting, financial strangulation, intimidation, imprisonment under the Espionage Act and branding critics and dissidents as agents of a foreign power and purveyors of fake news. The corporate media amplifies these charges, which have no credibility but which become part of the common vernacular through constant repetition. The blacklisting, imprisonment and deportation of tens of thousands of people of conscience during the Red Scares of the 1920s and 1950s are back with a vengeance. It is a New McCarthyism.
Did Russia attempt to influence the election? Undoubtedly. This is what governments do. The United States interfered in 81 elections from 1945 to 2000, according to professor Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University. His statistics do not include the numerous coups we orchestrated in countries such as Greece, Iran, Guatemala and Chile or the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. We indirectly bankrolled the re-election campaign of Russia's buffoonish Boris Yeltsin to the tune of $2.5 billion.
But did Russia, as the Democratic Party establishment claims, swing the election to Trump? No. Trump is not Vladimir Putin's puppet. He is part of the wave of right-wing populists, from Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson in Britain to Viktor Orban in Hungary, who have harnessed the rage and frustration born of an economic and political system dominated by global capitalism and under which the rights and aspirations of working men and women do not matter.
The party elite, including Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, is a creation of the corporate state. Campaign finance and electoral reform are the last things the party hierarchy intends to champion.
The Democratic Party establishment, like the liberal elites in most of the rest of the industrialized world, would be swept from power in an open political process devoid of corporate money. The party elite, including Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, is a creation of the corporate state. Campaign finance and electoral reform are the last things the party hierarchy intends to champion. It will not call for social and political programs that will alienate its corporate masters. This myopia and naked self-interest may ensure a second term for Donald Trump; it may further empower the lunatic fringe that is loyal to Trump; it may continue to erode the credibility of the political system. But the choice before the Democratic Party elites is clear: political oblivion or enduring the rule of a demagogue. They have chosen the latter. They are not interested in reform. They are determined to silence anyone, like Assange, who exposes the rot within the ruling class.
The Democratic Party establishment benefits from our system of legalized bribery. It benefits from deregulating Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry. It benefits from the endless wars. It benefits from the curtailment of civil liberties, including the right to privacy and due process. It benefits from militarized police. It benefits from austerity programs. It benefits from mass incarceration. It is an enabler of tyranny, not an impediment.
They divert the public's anger toward demonized groups such as Muslims, undocumented workers, people of color, liberals, intellectuals, artists, feminists, the LGBT community and the press.
Demagogues like Trump, Farage and Johnson, of course, have no intention of altering the system of corporate pillage. Rather, they accelerate the pillage, which is what happened with the passage of the massive U.S. tax cut for corporations. They divert the public's anger toward demonized groups such as Muslims, undocumented workers, people of color, liberals, intellectuals, artists, feminists, the LGBT community and the press. The demonized are blamed for the social and economic dysfunction, much as Jews were falsely blamed for Germany's defeat in World War I and the economic collapse that followed. Corporations such as Goldman Sachs, in the midst of the decay, continue to make a financial killing.
The corporate titans, who often come out of elite universities and are groomed in institutions like Harvard Business School, find these demagogues crude and vulgar. They are embarrassed by their imbecility, megalomania and incompetence. But they endure their presence rather than permit socialists or leftist politicians to impede their profits and divert government spending to social programs and away from weapons manufacturers, the military, private prisons, big banks and hedge funds, the fossil fuel industry, charter schools, private paramilitary forces, private intelligence companies and other pet programs designed to allow corporations to cannibalize the state.
The irony is that there was serious meddling in the presidential election, but it did not come from Russia. The Democratic Party, outdoing any of the dirty tricks employed by Richard Nixon, purged hundreds of thousands of primary voters from the rolls, denied those registered as independents the right to vote in primaries, used superdelegates to swing the vote to Hillary Clinton, hijacked the Democratic National Committee to serve the Clinton campaign, controlled the message of media outlets such as MSNBC and The New York Times, stole the Nevada caucus, spent hundreds of millions of dollars of "dark" corporate money on the Clinton campaign and fixed the primary debates. This meddling, which stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders, who probably could have defeated Trump, is unmentioned. The party hierarchy will do nothing to reform its corrupt nominating process.
WikiLeaks exposed much of this corruption when it published tens of thousands of messages hacked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's email account. The messages brought to light the efforts by the Democratic Party leadership to thwart the nomination of Sanders, and they disclosed Clinton's close ties with Wall Street, including her lucrative Wall Street speeches. They also raised serious questions about conflicts of interest with the Clinton Foundation and whether Clinton received advance information on primary-debate questions.
The Democratic National Committee, for this reason, is leading the Russia hysteria and the persecution of Assange. It filed a lawsuit that names WikiLeaks and Assange as co-conspirators with Russia and the Trump campaign in an alleged effort to steal the presidential election.
But it is not only Assange and WikiLeaks that are being attacked as Russian pawns. For example, The Washington Post, which has sided with the Democratic Party in the war against Trump, without critical analysis published a report on a blacklist posted by the anonymous website PropOrNot. The blacklist was composed of 199 sites that PropOrNot alleged, with no evidence, "reliably echo Russian propaganda." More than half of those sites were far-right, conspiracy-driven ones. But about 20 of the sites were major progressive outlets including AlterNet, Black Agenda Report, Democracy Now!, Naked Capitalism, Truthdig, Truthout, CounterPunch and the World Socialist Web Site. PropOrNot, short for Propaganda or Not, accused these sites of disseminating "fake news" on behalf of Russia. The Post's headline was unequivocal: "Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during the election, experts say."
In addition to offering no evidence, PropOrNot never even disclosed who ran the website. Even so, its charge was used to justify the imposition of algorithms by Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon to direct traffic away from the targeted sites. These algorithms, or filters, overseen by thousands of "evaluators," many hired from the military and security and surveillance apparatus, hunt for keywords such as "U.S. military," "inequality" and "socialism," along with personal names such as Julian Assange and Laura Poitras. These keywords are known as "impressions." Before the imposition of the algorithms, a reader could type in the name Julian Assange and be directed to an article on one of these targeted sites. After the algorithms were put in place, these impressions directed readers only to mainstream sites such as The Washington Post. Referral traffic from these impressions at most of the targeted sites has plummeted, often by more than half. Challenged by these algorithms and the abolition of net neutrality, these sites will be pushed further and further to the outer reaches of the media.
If the United States had a public broadcasting system free from corporate money or a commercial press that was not under corporate control, these dissident voices would be included in the mainstream discourse. But we don't.
Any news or media outlet that addresses the reality of our failed democracy and exposes the crimes of empire will be targeted. The January 2017 Director of National Intelligence Report spent seven pages on RT America, where I have a show, "On Contact." The report does not accuse RT America of disseminating Russian propaganda, but it does allege the network exploits divisions within American society by giving airtime to dissidents and critics including whistleblowers, anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, Black Lives Matter activists, anti-fracking campaigners and the third-party candidates the establishment is seeking to mute.
If the United States had a public broadcasting system free from corporate money or a commercial press that was not under corporate control, these dissident voices would be included in the mainstream discourse. But we don't. Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Malcolm X, Sheldon Wolin, Ralph Nader, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, Angela Davis and Edward Said once appeared regularly on public broadcasting. Now critics like these are banned, replaced with vapid courtiers such as columnist David Brooks. RT America was forced to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). This act requires Americans who work for a foreign party to register as foreign agents. The FARA registration is part of the broader assault on all independent media, including the effort to silence Assange.
WikiLeak's publication in 2017 of 8,761 CIA files, known as Vault 7, appeared to be the final indignity. Vault 7 included a description of the cyber tools used by the CIA to hack into computer systems and devices such as smartphones. Former CIA software engineer Joshua Adam Schulte was indicted on charges of violating the Espionage Act by allegedly leaking the documents.
The publication of Vault 7 saw the United States significantly increase its pressure on the Ecuadorean government to isolate and eject Assange from the embassy. Mike Pompeo, then the CIA director, said in response to the leaks that the U.S. government "can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us." Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Assange's arrest was a "priority."
It is up to us to mobilize to protect Assange. His life is in jeopardy. The Ecuadorean government, violating his fundamental rights, has transformed his asylum into a form of incarceration. By cutting off his access to the internet, it has deprived him of the ability to communicate and follow world events. The aim of this isolation is to pressure Assange out of the embassy so he can be seized by London police, thrown into a British jail and then delivered into the hands of Pompeo, John Bolton and the CIA's torturer in chief, Gina Haspel.
Assange is a courageous and fearless publisher who is being persecuted for exposing the crimes of the corporate state and imperialism. His defense is the cutting edge of the fight against government suppression of our most important and fundamental democratic rights. The government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia, where Assange was born, must be pressured to provide him with the protection to which he is entitled as a citizen. It must intercede to stop the illegal persecution of the journalist by the British, American and Ecuadorean governments. It must secure his safe return to Australia. If we fail to protect Assange, we fail to protect ourselves.
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"Things That Make White People Uncomfortable": Michael Bennett's Essential New Book
"Why does the world even have to be like this?"
Apr 04, 2018
Today, my good friend Michael Bennett, former Seattle Seahawk and current Philadelphia Eagle, releases his new book, "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable"--the memoir/manifesto that he wrote with my other dear friend Dave Zirin.
I am going to assume my position as a teacher here and officially assign you homework: read this book! Take notes. Report back on it to your community. Then take action. It is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand why so many players today are refusing to just shut up and play and are creating the new national pastime of protest and play. But this book is much more than just an expository essay about the new Black athlete.
This is one of those rare books you read that will change the way you understand yourself and your place in the world. Only a few books have had that kind of impact on me. Books like "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and "Angela Davis: An Autobiography." Uncomfortable has me feeling like a kid again, remembering how those amazing autobiographies turned me upside down and inside out.
"Whether I die tomorrow or in sixty years, if the only things about me that people talk about are the Pro Bowls and the Super Bowl appearances, I will have failed. I want my legacy to be what I did in the community and the positive changes this work might have created in people's lives."
These have been the rare books where the authors have fully exposed their souls to the world, and in that vulnerability allowed me to confront my own deepest fears. These have been the books that helped me to see that I'm not alone, that others have suffered from racism, oppression, isolation, feelings of inadequacy, and have turned that pain into a powerful force for good in the world. I too have felt the anxiety that Michael describes that comes from confronting power--and seeing that it's okay to talk about it publicly was liberating. He writes, "It's harder than they warned you: the anxiety will scratch at your insides like the creature in Alien, except it never bursts out of your chest, it just stays there, scratching."
Uncomfortable, like the great autobiographies of Malcolm and Angela, has helped me understand the meaning of dedication. Michael writes, "The more success you have, the more you hear a voice suggesting sweetly and seductively to rest on those laurels and just skip it or dog it, go half-assed. That voice asks you, 'Why are you working that hard? You got it!' But to be great, you have to continuously put yourself in the mind-set where you don't got it. You have to think about the times you were hungry, you were struggling, you were a kid being pushed around." And Michael takes this attitude both into the gym and around the organizing table: "Whether I die tomorrow or in sixty years, if the only things about me that people talk about are the Pro Bowls and the Super Bowl appearances, I will have failed. I want my legacy to be what I did in the community and the positive changes this work might have created in people's lives."
Michael is just as committed to the struggles for women's empowerment, Palestinian rights, LGBTQ rights, and human rights--and he applies the framework of intersectionality to understand how multiple oppressions can overlap to create deep and complex forms of injustice.
I can tell you from having worked closely with Michael over the past couple of years, he has walked this talk over and over again. I have been with Michael as he sat with youth listening to their perspectives on the movement for Black lives and their perspectives of what needed to change. I have seen him support the Black Lives Matter at School movement. I have seen him speak at the Locker Room Talk forum at my high school where he took on the responsibility of athletes to speak out against sexual harassment, relationship abuse, and violence against women. I have seen him give a young student activist the Black Education Matters award. I have seen him sit down with the family of Charleena Lyles, a pregnant Black mother of four who was killed by Seattle police, and organize a rally and benefit for her family. I was there when Michael brought the Freedom School program to the Seahawks training camp and exchange ideas about the struggle for equitable education.
True, Michael has been one of the most visible leaders in this massive upheaval of athletes around the country who have protested for racial justice during the national anthem. But what you will learn about in this book is that Michael is just as committed to the struggles for women's empowerment, Palestinian rights, LGBTQ rights, and human rights--and he applies the framework of intersectionality to understand how multiple oppressions can overlap to create deep and complex forms of injustice: "Intersectionality clicked for me when I thought about Charleena Lyles. She was killed because of racism, no doubt, but her life as a Black woman--not just a Black person--is critical to understanding her death. Charleena had suffered sexual assault and violence, and she called the police in the first place because she was worried that an abusive former lover was coming back to hurt her."
Uncomfortable will teach you that if you have truth on your mind, you can go ahead and just say it, unfiltered: "Being born black is a preexisting condition in this society, with a set of stressors that you can't understand without living in our skin. It's not just the fear that you'll be the next James Byrd or Trayvon Martin or Sandra Bland. It's hearing dumb shit in school about America being the land of the free and having to speak up to remind my teacher of slavery and seeing all the faces change expression, from getting red with anger to others rolling their eyes, with looks of relief on the faces of people who had been thinking the same thing. I felt like Kevin in The Wonder Years, if Kevin had been Black and had to face an ass-whooping every day for trying to tell the truth."
Uncomfortable will teach you that we can talk openly about the many forms of trauma we face. Writing in a chapter about the unpaid labor of student athletes and the NCAA racket, Michael writes, "I think PTSD in players also results from a loss of identity. Little by little we conform to what our coach wants, what the program wants, what the academic advisor wants us to study so we stay on the field and bit by bit, chip by chip, we lose the foundation of where we are. We get stuck in a character. Then it's all over, and the PTSD becomes a sports version of postpartum depression."
And it will teach you that it's okay to laugh out loud as we fight hard for justice: "Part of the mythology of sports is people think it breaks down barriers and makes us more equal. That's miseducation...It's going to be people realizing that we're all human: everyone takes a shit and everybody pisses. Some of us sit, some of us stand up, some of us have colostomy bags, but other than that, we do it it exactly the same way."
Finally, "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable" will teach you that it's okay to ask the biggest questions about how our world is organized. Michael writes about his trip to Haiti with his Haitian teammate Cliff Avril and says, "it reminded me of being young and asking my mother, "Why?" As in, Why does the world even have to be like this? If you don't ask why you'll never be attacked or criticized. No one is going to go after you or your family. But if you don't ask why, nothing not a damn thing, is ever going to change."
Whether you are a football star, or a teacher, or a student, or locked up, we can all ask the questions that cause discomfort--and also produce the change that is so desperately needed.
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Why is DHS Labeling Protesters "Domestic Terrorists"?
Mar 10, 2017
The United States government considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist until 2008. Mandela was a designated terrorist 18 years after he was released from prison, 15 years after he won the Nobel peace prize, and 14 years after he was elected president of South Africa.
Let that sink in for a moment.
In 1962, the U.S. government considered Mandela to be "the most dangerous communist" outside of the then Soviet Union. It was subsequently revealed that a CIA agent provided the South African government with the information necessary to apprehend him and land him in prison for 27 years.
"The impact of unchecked law enforcement rhetoric threatens our precious right to speak out against oppressive government."
The indignity suffered by Mandela during every visit to the United States -- as a "terrorist" he had to get special clearance to enter the country -- was finally wiped clean by an act of Congress just five years before he died.
Nelson Mandela, and his organizing in South Africa, was not protected by the First Amendment, a freedom afforded by the U.S. Constitution only to those in the United States. But we should not forget that Angela Davis, Malcom X, and yes, even the now-beloved Martin Luther King, Jr., were at varying times labeled enemies of the state during their struggle against segregation in the United States. The First Amendment protected their organizing. But it did not stop our federal law enforcement agencies from watching, labeling, and arresting them. We are fortunate that these heroes of racial justice did not cower when faced with jail time, but instead spoke louder.
Earlier this week, we learned that people in Portland organizing against police killings of Black men, white nationalist politicians, and the countless systems of racism throughout our local, state, and federal governments are now considered "domestic terrorists" by Department of Homeland Security. Why? Because the Portland Police Bureau labeled the November 10, 2016 protest a "riot."
At the time, we criticized the then-mayor's call for an end to protest in Portland. We knew the indiscriminate use of the term "riot" was dangerous. It is counterproductive when people express their anger and frustration with violence and vandalism, but these events do not justify the silencing of peaceful protest or the labeling of organizers of peaceful protests criminals.
A little over a week ago, ACLU of Oregon staff met with Mayor Wheeler and Chief Marshman to discuss the disproportionate and dangerous response by Portland Police on President's Day and prior protests. Our conversation was tense when we argued about whether "riots" occurred in Portland. Mayor Wheeler defended the city's decision to call the protest a riot. I doubt he knew that his insistence on using this term for vandalism at the hands of a few people -- out of several thousand peaceful protesters -- would land his city in a Homeland Security report and earn our activists the label "domestic terrorists."
This proves a simple point: Words matter. And when they are put into a report that is disseminated to law enforcement agencies across the country through enigmatic DHS Fusion Centers, they matter a lot. Fusion Centers, located throughout the nation, serve as a hub of information sharing for local, state, and federal law enforcement. They were created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks as a way to share information about terrorism. Under the cover of "national security," they have little oversight. For whatever protection they have provided the public, they have also sown distrust about their ability to discern actual threats.
Last year, Oregonians were shocked to learn that an agent in the Oregon Department of Justice searched Twitter for the hashtag "Black Lives Matter" and used results to determine that the head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division was a potential threat to the police. The agent decided to search for the hashtag Black Lives Matter, at least in part, because of a report disseminated by the Fusion Center that warned law enforcement of scheduled Black Lives Matter protests. The implication was that these protests may be a threat against the lives of law enforcement. This was racial bias spread through a nationwide system with little oversight resulting in a horrible mistake. The Oregon DOJ's director of civil rights was not targeting police -- he was sharing the cover of a hip hop album.
It is hard to know the future implications of labeling Portland protests "riots" or protesters "domestic terrorists," but the parallels to the actions of our government in the 1960s should give us pause. The surveillance, labeling, and incarceration of protesters, especially Black protesters, because of their alleged criminal or terrorist activity is a well-worn trope. And while it may not surprise, it should still shock.
The impact of unchecked law enforcement rhetoric threatens our precious right to speak out against oppressive government. We must demand that our local leaders respect this right as we see those who lead our federal government erode it without hesitation.
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Wild Cats Grab Back
The big wild cats are dying. The leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, lions, pumas, snow leopards, and tigers…
Feb 19, 2017
The big wild cats are dying. The leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, lions, pumas, snow leopards, and tigers...
Each of these cats leaps from the top of their own ecosystem, and yet we humans are above the cats and we're killing them all. We are the apex predator in the era we've named after ourselves, the Anthropocene.
Big animals continue their world-wide decline. The position of governments seems to be that humans won't be one of the animals that dies. The Environmental Movement never seems scared enough. The EM has staged endless marches and rallies and raised billions of dollars. But their protests haven't slowed down the extinction wave. The apocalypse is roaring toward us like a freight train.
But we're all sensing--something new is in the air. The resistance of Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter, of the Women's March and the airport "Let Them In" uprisings, are now accomplishing what the EM could not. These are not just bigger gatherings--they are radically different. This is the future of resistance.
The Women's March of January 21st was joyous, crowded, and liquid. The 650 marches seemed like ecosystems streaming down the avenues of the world. The police retreated in the face of the pink, fleshy signs. The JFK Terminal Four siege of the customs officials felt like the intense expression of natural life. Life flooded everything. The gray Washington buildings haplessly waited for the flood to recede. Were those guys from Exxon and Goldman Sachs in the darkness behind those windows wondering about this soft tsunami of pussy-capped resisters?
In Washington, the police couldn't square themselves in relation to Cartesian shapes that would put order into their law. They wanted to know "Who's in charge?" to put some structure on the mess. Pussy was in charge. We pussied around in circles. Nobody was in charge, there was no center. Wild cats ran things. There were a million centers.
John Berger's statement that "a forest wants to be thick" comes to mind. A healthy forest is intensely crowded with insects, salamanders, wood thrushes, and generations of trees--young seedlings and old trees fallen in dramatic rot. And yes, also hawks and big cats gazing down from the high places. Each individual life presses at surrounding life in a state of energetic chaos.
In these new political gatherings, the victims of Earth-killing are the best carriers of the story that must be told. Brown and black mothers from sacrifice communities like refinery-poisoned Newtown Creek in Queens; the tar sands refinery in Marktown, Indiana; the decades of Monsanto's PCB's in Anniston, Alabama; or the methane leak of Porter Ranch, California... such people carry better information in a sigh than all the flashy documentaries of destruction you can screen.
At the Women's March, Angela Davis, fugitive from racists and teacher to generations of activists, was standing there before us. She deflected our adulation: "We follow the lead of the First Nation's peoples who despite massive genocidal violence have never relinquished the struggle for land, water and culture for their people. We especially salute today the Standing Rock Sioux."
I happened to see a group of Sioux women who traveled to Washington that day. They seemed at home in the swells and eddies of the many species of humans pushing up against the monuments of dead presidents. There was Kandi Mossett, Eagle Woman of the Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara nations--a stalwart of Standing Rock. She was surrounded by a circle of dancing plains women in blue fringed dresses.
"She is a force of nature." That is a phrase that we call people with surprising power. These new protests are far more powerful than Trump. There may be a time when the number of us raging in public space is reduced. But if we have the Earth inside us storming, then that wall will come tumbling down. The sidewalk in front of the Ferguson police station was held in the late summer of 2014 by a modest number of young African Americans, but they had the force of nature.
Then I remembered Standing Rock, when Indigenous peoples sang water songs created from the form that water takes in their homelands. At once praying and protecting, they sang the salt marshes, thunderstorms, snow, the turquoise waterfalls pouring into the floor of the Grand Canyon, the freshwater swamps and aquifers and swelling Polynesian tides and streams of the Black Hills...
Somewhere a wild cat was watching this with old eyes.
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