People Before Profit blog

Reza Aslan, FOX News, and Islamophobia

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 13:04:00 +0000

In 1944, shortly after the liberation of Paris by Communist-led partisans and Anglo-American-French troops, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an essay on the hatred that the Nazi occupiers had used to justify their crimes against the French people and all others. The essay, titled "Anti-Semite and Jew," was widely translated in the 1950s and came to be considered a classic.

Sartre's most important point was that bigotry is always about the bigot, his or her failures, frustrations, problems, not about the bigot's target. For that reason one cannot use reason, logic, and the rules of evidence to argue with the bigot and his or her close followers.

To tell them that Judaism is a world religion, not a "race," that people of the Jewish religion are of many nationalities, are both secular and religious, can be found in all of the major social classes and in parties and movements across the political spectrum, has no meaning. They will say and print the same things over and over.

I thought of Sartre's "Anti-Semite and Jew" when I heard about the recent FOX News television interview with Reza Aslan, a scholar who has written widely on the relationship of religion to politics in the contemporary world.

I also thought of a discussion I once had with a Frenchman visiting the U.S. who had been in the French resistance during World War II. He hadn't been in the U.S. for a long time. He told me that he had been listening to right-wing talk radio and the Fox TV gang and they all reminded him of the French Nazi-collaborationist Vichy radio, blaming everything on Communists, Jews, and selected foreigners, using religion to justify war against the Soviet Union and proclaiming a mission to purify France from domestic and foreign enemies.

The targets, my friend said, were different, but if you substituted Muslims for Jews, and made a few other substitutions, it was pretty much the same.

Aslan has written a book titled "Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" (now number 4 on the New York Times bestseller list). Lauren Green, the FOX News anchor, started off her interview by asking why he, a Muslim had written a book a book about Jesus.

She kept on asking that question, over and over. Unfortunately, Aslan became defensive, mentioning his scholarly credentials, his 20 years of writing and teaching about religion, contending that he was not anti-Christian. Green kept on quoting right-wing sources attacking his view of Jesus without any explanation even of those sources, except that they were "Christian scholars" and thus supposedly more knowledgeable than Aslan.

When Green finally gave him a chance to speak, Aslan impressed me by his portrayal of Jesus as a political revolutionary in the context of his times. But Green kept ignoring him, as if she were some kind of Inquisitor.

At one point, she even accused him of not admitting in the work that he was a Muslim, even though it was in his book. It pretty much ended there, with Aslan contending that he was a scholar of religion and that his Muslim faith, which he never hid, did not disqualify him from studying Christianity any more than a Christian should be disqualified from studying Islam.

I felt sorry for Aslan although some might say that anyone who goes on FOX News should expect such treatment.

If I were him, I would have told those viewers with the capacity to listen that Islam is a monotheistic religion that developed over 1,300 years ago out of a relationship with both Judaism and Christianity; it is the third in chronology of the world's monotheistic religions. Just as Christianity, the second, incorporated Judaism and Judaism ignored Christianity, so Islam incorporated Judaism and Christianity while both ignored Islam.

But that would be the end of my use of reason.

I then would have told the audience to look at Green's Murdoch FOX employers, for whom right-wing politics and its associated religious and ethnic prejudices are a kind of racket, as it was for the old Hearst press in the U.S.

Islam is a world religion with more than a billion adherents among many nationalities through the world. It has many schools of thought who differ on questions of the relationship of religion and politics, the responsibilities of believers, etc.

Saying that to FOX News, though, would be like saying similar things about Judaism and Jewish people to the Vichy government or the Nazis in Sartre's pre-liberation France.

Fortunately, FOX News doesn't have the power to send its opponents to concentration camps, or even blacklist them from employment as its predecessors did in the U.S. during McCarthyism, if they refuse to say, "I am not now nor have I ever been a Muslim."

For the rest of us, though, it is FOX News, not scholars like Aslan, who threaten free thought everywhere.

Photo: RezaAslan.com

Henri Alleg, 1921 to 2013: Exposed French torture in Algeria

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 10:07:00 +0000

Henri Alleg, a journalist and a long-time member of the Algerian and French Communist Parties, died on July 17. Few readers in the U.S. know who he was and what he contributed to the struggle, but his story should be told, because he was a true hero of the struggle against state violence. As the French Communist newspaper, L'Humanite, put it: "A man of courage -physical and moral - , a man of conviction, a man of loyalty: What greater qualities could one imagine?"

Alleg, the son of working-class Polish-Jewish immigrants, was born in London in 1921. His real name was Harry Salem; the surname "Alleg" was his battle name in the resistance. He moved first with his parents to Paris and then, on his own, to Algeria in 1939. From that moment, he was involved in the communist movement and the struggle to free Algeria from French colonialism.

Alleg got involved with a left-wing French-language Algerian daily, Alger Republicain (Republican Algeria) of which he became the head in 1951. This newspaper was one of the few which openly spoke out in opposition to French control of Algeria, and so it was no surprise that at the beginning of the Algerian war of independence, the authorities cracked down on it, driving Alleg into clandestinity in 1955. Alleg continued writing articles for the newspaper of the French Communist Party, L'Humanite until, on June 12, 1957, he was arrested along with another comrade, Maurice Audin, by the notorious parachute forces that were the spearhead of French efforts to cling on to Algeria.

Audin died under torture (the record said "trying to escape"), but the authorities wanted to know who had been helping Alleg and what his contacts were. They imprisoned Alleg himself in the Barberousse prison in the Casbah of Algiers, where he was injected with sodium pentothal to loosen his tongue and subjected to waterboarding, electrical shocks, burns, and other forms of savagery. The torturers threatened to go after his wife to make her talk, but Alleg held firm.

In the prison, he began to document the torture regime to which he was subjected, smuggling the manuscript out via his attorneys. The result was the 112 page book "La Question" (the Question). The title of this book was derived from the old euphemism the Holy Inquisition had used for torture, to "put someone to the question" but also implied that the French nation should question whether torture should be tolerated. The book was published by the left-wing editorial house la Minuit in February of 1958.

When it dawned on French authorities that this was an expose of their torture practices in Algeria, employed on vastly more people, mostly Algerians, and not just Alleg, they put an end to further printing. Government censors tried to suppress discussion of the book in the French press. But more than 60,000 copies had already been sold, and eventually, through one mechanism or another, at least 128,000 copies were in circulation. Major French literary and political figures used this book to denounce what the French colonial administration was doing in Algeria. "La Question" was translated into several languages and reviewed and discussed worldwide. From it and from other revelations of the barbaric practices of the French civil and military administration in Algeria, the reputation of France's "civilizing mission" in its colonies took a major hit.

No independent doctor was allowed to examine Alleg in prison, but his account was widely accepted.

Alleg had been tried by a kangaroo court in November 1957 and found guilty of being an external danger to the French state, and of having tried to reconstitute an entity which had been dissolved by the government (the Algerian Communist Party). He was given a 10-year sentence (the maximum), but escaped from prison in Rennes, France, where he had been transferred for health reasons, in October 1961, finding refuge in socialist Czechoslovakia.

After the 1962 Evian Accords, which resulted in full independence for Algeria, Alleg returned there. However, when Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, seen as allied with the left, was overthrown by Houari Boumedienne in 1965 and the Algerian Communist Party once more suppressed, Alleg had to move again, this time permanently settling in France where he continued his activism in the French Communist Party, as a "modest rank-and-file party member."

In the middle of current discussions about government spying and secrecy and the prosecution and punishment of whistle blowers, Henri Alleg's courageous actions take on a new and special importance.

His experience also shows how empire and democracy are incompatible, and how the effort to keep an empire inevitably destroys democracy and justice both in the colonies and in the imperial power.

People like this are of tremendous value, and should be defended, as well as remembered.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

Cuba’s July 26: Honoring heroes of Moncada

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 12:26:00 +0000

On July 26, 1953, 153 men, under the leadership of Fidel and Raul Castro, attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba (an additional 24 simultaneously attacked the barracks at Bayamo). The alarm was given before the Moncada Barracks was infiltrated, and the insurgents were outnumbered 10 to one as a result. Nine of the insurgents were killed in the fighting; an additional 56 were taken prisoner and slaughtered by the regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Fifty-one of the group who attacked the barracks were captured and tried, along with 65 defendants who were leaders of the political opposition to Batista. Nineteen defendants were acquitted, while the remainder, including Raul Castro, received lengthy prison sentences. Fidel Castro was sentenced to 15 years. The Movement of the 26th of July was founded to carry on the struggle.

Many of the Moncada Barracks insurgents, including Fidel and Raul Castro, were amnestied in 1954, owing to Batista's conviction that they were no significant threat. By 1955 Fidel and Raul had fled Cuba, where their lives were constantly under threat from the Batista regime, for Mexico.

On Dec. 2, 1956, the Castros and 80 men returned to Cuba aboard a boat named Granma. Immediately attacked by Batista's air force, they took heavy casualties and were forced to fight their way to the Sierra Maestra mountains. Only 12 of the original 82 made it to the mountains. But thousands joined the Movement of July 26th in the mountains and made a guerrilla army which entered Havana victoriously on Jan. 2, 1959, as Batista fled into exile.

The history of the Movement of 26th July is, thus, a history of triumph over great adversity: the defeat at Moncada led to the emergence of a popular movement, the reverses of the Granma led to the guerrilla army that toppled Batista.

As the Movement of 26th July evolved into the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution and eventually the Communist Party of Cuba, it has continued to meet and overcome great adversity with revolutionary heroism. On July 26 people around the world again hail the courage, resilience, and revolutionary fortitude of the Cuban people.

Since October 1960, Cuba has faced the U.S. economic blockade, a cynical campaign to impoverish the Cuban people because of their socialist revolution. Increasingly it has been the United States which has been weakened and embarrassed as many nations of the world have normalized relations and trade with Cuba. The General Assembly of the United Nations has passed resolutions by large majorities every year since 1992 demanding an end to the blockade, with only the U.S., Israel, and a handful of other states opposing. Despite that the blockade remains a cruel imposition on the Cuban people.

On this July 26 let us vow to redouble our struggle to end the U.S. blockade.

Even more than maintaining the blockade, the U.S. government has sought to harm the Cuban people by training, arming, and offering sanctuary to Cuban exile terrorist groups. In 1997 several terrorist bombings were carried out in Havana on the orders of CIA asset Luis Posada Carriles. Posada previously participated in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, murdering 73 people.

As a result of the Havana bombings, Cuba dispatched five intelligence officers to infiltrate Cuban exile terrorist groups in Florida to give the Cuban government warning of future attacks. They were arrested by the U.S. government, tried on espionage and other charges in a highly questionable court proceeding, and sentenced to terms ranging from life to 15 years. The Cuban Five have been condemned for succeeding in what the CIA was pilloried for failing at after 9/11: infiltrating a terrorist group to prevent an atrocity.

While one of the five was paroled and permitted to return to Cuba for his father's funeral, effectively freeing him, the other four remain in American prison.

On this July 26 let us pledge to continue the struggle to free the remainder of the Cuban Five!

Let's stand vigilant to oppose the lies and attacks of the U.S. government and the ultra-right on the accomplishments of the Cuban people as they build socialism.

Long live the Movement of the 26th of July! Long live the Cuban Revolution!

Photo: Fidel Castro on his arrest after the attack on the Monacada Barracks. Wikimedia Commons

New York voters want a mayor with a heart

Tue, 23 Jul 2013 17:04:00 +0000

NEW YORK - "A clear majority of the city's voters say empathy is the most important trait in the next mayor, far more important then temperament, management experience, or the ability to recruit new businesses according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College," the Times reports.

Even though a plurality agree that current Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is stepping down, has done a good job, "65 percent say they want to move the city in a new direction."

Most voters (53 percent ) say if Bloomberg endorses a candidate it would not affect their vote. Bloomberg has been mayor for 12 years and that's how much influence he has with voters. Twenty-eight percent say they would likely not vote for a candidate the mayor would endorse.

With no candidate polling over 30 percent of the vote at this point none of them can afford a 28 percent solid opposition that the mayor's endorsement would bring.

When the United Federation of Teachers endorsed Bill Thompson for mayor, Bloomberg said it was "almost the kiss of death." If the poll is accurate it seems that the mayor may be quite a political grim reaper himself.

New Yorkers want a mayor with a heart. The poll showed that voters are most concerned about the economy and jobs, followed by education, crime and housing. A majority are not satisfied with the quality of public schools in the nation's largest school system. According to the poll, 45 percent feel "stop and frisk" is "acceptable" while 50 percent feel it is excessive.

Only 15 percent say they want a mayor who can attract businesses to the city. Only 11 percent say they want a mayor who has successfully managed a large organization in the past. Sixty-one percent say that the most important thing is electing a mayor who understands the problems of ordinary New Yorkers.

When Bloomberg was first elected, some voters bought into the idea that a super-wealthy mayor could not be bought and would be independent. But Bloomberg didn't have to be bought: he was already on the side of Wall Street and biggest of the big-moneyed interests. This billionaire mayor's heart is with his ruling class chums. He has no sympathy for working people, He is anti-union, out to break the public workers unions, and price low-income people out of New York City. His corporate policies have ruined our public schools.

Bloomberg openly defends racial profiling. His "stop and frisk" is based on the same racist rationale as "stand your ground." Ask the families of Sean Bell or John Collado. Under Bloomberg, black and Latino communities have been under siege.

The priority of a billionaire mayor is to protect the interest of billionaires. That is why the people of New York City want a mayor who will move the city in another direction.

What does that mean?

They need a mayor with a heart. A mayor who respects working people, will fight for jobs, respect union contracts, raise the minimum wage and hire more teachers. A mayor who is willing to tax the rich.

Photo: Brooklyn Bridge. Martin CC BY 2.0.

"We've got a long way to go" for decent health care

Tue, 23 Jul 2013 14:06:00 +0000

Recently I have had the misfortune of visiting the emergency room twice - once with my father, who had had a stroke, and once as a patient, due to a dislocated knee.

In both instances the care was top-notch. The hospital emergency room staff, the nurses and the doctors all took very good care of us.

However, my father and I have two very different health care situations. I have health insurance, and simply have to pay a modest deductible for all of the care I received. My father though, has no health insurance and is currently trying to figure out how to pay the hospital, the doctors, etc.

While my father and I don't see eye-to-eye on everything, he's a pretty decent guy. He proudly served our nation in the Navy. He was an autoworker before that. And he is also part Choctaw Indian.

I mention all of this as context. He is a 63-year-old veteran living on Social Security, and he doesn't have a lot of financial options.

He's too young for Medicare. However, due to his low income he is in the process of applying for Medicaid. He's also inquiring about VA benefits and medical care with the Choctaw Nation.

Needless to say, unless something is figured out he is going to be stuck with hospital bills totaling $23,000, which he really can't afford to pay.

Oh, and let me repeat myself: He's a veteran without health care.

In a nation that supposedly honors its veterans we seem to be doing a piss-poor job of taking care of them after their service. In fact, 1.8 million veterans lack health care. In all, almost 6 million American veterans and their family members lack health care. And nearly two-thirds of these veterans are employed, like my father until he had a stroke.

To make matters worse, since my father doesn't have health insurance he will likely be charged more for the care he received than if he did.

What do I mean? Put simply, in today's for-profit health care industry those who can least afford to pay for health insurance are usually charged more for their health care needs than those who can afford to pay for health insurance.

Let me explain with an example from my hospital visit.

About a month after my injury I started receiving hospital bills: one bill was for $2,461.25, another was for $2,173, and another was for $275, and then there were a few smaller bills.

Obviously, I was concerned about the prospect of having to pay these bills. When I called my health care provider, a very nice lady in customer service said, "Don't worry about those bills, as they were probably issued prior to [the insurer] making payment based on your policy agreement, though you will still need to pay your deductible."

Then I asked a few questions and found out that the insurer negotiates a lower rate for its members. So for example, the hospital bill for $2,461.25 was now $1,550, she told me, almost $1,000 less.

I then asked her, "Does that mean if I hadn't had insurance I would have to pay $2,461.25 instead of the insurer paying $1,550." She politely answered, "Yes," and I'm sure similar negotiated rates have been applied to the rest of my bills as well. All of which strikes me as irrational.

But maybe that's the point. Our current health care system is irrational.

Veterans, service men and women, people who proudly served in our armed forces and their families, deserve universal health care coverage. Veterans should be able to walk into any hospital or doctor's office in the country and receive top-notch health care for free - we all should.

Veterans, or anybody else for that matter, should NOT put off going to the hospital or doctor's office.

My father had his stroke on a Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, but waited until Thursday afternoon to call me. His speech was slurred, his eyesight was blurry and he had vertigo. I literally had to drag him to the emergency room, because he didn't know how he was going to pay for the care he received.

While I know single-payer, cradle to grave, health care is a far cry from where we are at today, can't we at least make sure all of our veterans and their families have health care? Can't we at least make sure that those without health care aren't arbitrarily charged more for the care they receive than those with health insurance?

The Affordable Care Act has taken some modest steps in the right direction. However, we've got a long way to go.

Photo: Medicaid rally and lobby day, Jefferson City, Missouri, April 16.. Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition Facebook page.

Why Rolling Stone's "Bomber" cover triggered explosion of outrage

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 15:36:00 +0000

On April 15, pressure cookers exploded at the Boston Marathon, wounding 264 people and killing three others. Earlier this week, Rolling Stone magazine generated immense controversy when they placed suspect Tsarnaev Dzhokhar on their cover, in a flattering image that portrayed him as some sort of rock star. Many believe it was a terrible move - and they may be right.

In the photo, Tsarnaev looks casually at you off the magazine rack with seemingly friendly eyes and nicely-tousled hair. Superimposed over him are two bold words: "The Bomber." It's a seemingly perverse juxtaposition of camera-ready glamour and dark, troubling words. The 19 year-old Chechen-American who struck fear into the hearts of Bostonians is here depicted beneath the same sort of spotlight that has been shone on major musicians and actors; that alone is troubling.

Not long after the cover photo went online, it sent people throughout the country into fits of fury.

The International Association of Firefighters, whose union workers responded to the disaster, called the cover photo "despicable," and added, "Journalism is one thing. Blatant glorification of a murderer in the name of selling magazines is wrong."

The Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts (PFFM) decried the decision to publish an "empathetic-looking" photo of the terrorist. "We witnessed firsthand the trauma that unfolded that day." The Tsarnaevs "are not victims. They have not been failed. They are cowards. They killed people and caused disabling permanent injury to hundreds." The PFFM subsequently called for a boycott of the magazine.

Celebs were no less infuriated. Actress Eliza Dushku tweeted, "Bad taste doesn't even cut it, Rolling Stone," concluding that with the hashtag 'BostonHorrified.' Game show host Tom Bergeron tweeted, "Just saw the latest Rolling Stone cover. Unbelievable. Was this instead of their al-Qaeda swimsuit edition?"

Hard rock musician David Draiman tweeted, "I used to dream of making the cover of Rolling Stone...until this. You have glorified this cowardly and unforgivable act. You validated the act to a whole new generation of wannabe terrorists seeking martyrdom and infamy. I condemn this act, this notion, and this magazine."

Strong words, the perspective behind which some may disagree with. But nonetheless, such comments are reflective of how angry and hurt people feel by Rolling Stone's decision.

MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell went a step further, criticizing the content of the Rolling Stone article itself. "It spends most of its time in romantic reminiscence of what a great kid [Dzhokhar] was. And we never discovered anything in the article that we didn't already know."

After reading the piece on Dzhokhar, I drew more or less the same conclusion as O'Donnell. The writer goes to painstaking measures to show us just how normal, fun, and charming young Tsarnaev was, noting how he was popular with girls and that people insisted that Tsarnaev was "a good kid," and it doesn't make sense how he became a "monster."

Not only did the article come off as a bit of a sympathy case for the terrorist, it also became an exercise in redundancy, repeatedly raising the same question: how did this seemingly good kid go bad? It never provides any answers, except by shifting the guilt from Dzhokhar onto his older, more radicalized brother Tamerlan, suggesting that the former was "brainwashed" by the latter.

Neither profound nor revelatory, the writer presented a snapshot of a young terrorist's life - not unlike that of a celebrity. That, combined with the cover, succeeded only in glamorizing that which is contemptible. It did not focus on the people affected by the attacks, or the first responders that came to their aid. Instead, it promoted a harsh notion: the aggressor is the one who walks away with a legacy, while those who suffer fade into obscurity.

Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University, thought along the same lines, remarking, "Rolling Stone sends young people this message: If you want to become famous, kill somebody."

"I can't think of another instance in which one has glamorized the image of an alleged terrorist," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, communications professor and director of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. "This is the image of a rock star. This is the image of someone who is admired, of someone who has a fan base, of someone we are critiquing as art."

"Victim Jeff Bauman, who lost both legs, should be on the cover," wrote one commenter on Rolling Stone's Facebook page; his post was liked over 1,428 times.

Rolling Stone had every intention of generating controversy. This was done in the name of capitalism and consumerism, and it isn't hard to see the logic behind it: controversy sells magazines. And yes, we have something in this country called freedom of press, but some feel that it does not justify the exploitation of tragedy.

In fact, publications like Rolling Stone have a heightened responsibility, in the spirit of journalistic integrity, to provide the facts of the matter. In short, was there really a need to spend five pages pontificating about the true nature of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Of what does this inform the reader? That Dzhokhar is just like any of us? There are plenty of people who, as the article said, "feel alienated" from society and become depressed; not all of them become killers.

Stores including CVS, Walgreens, 7-11, Rite-Aid, and Stop 'n Shop have refused to carry the issue of Rolling Stone. Dosomething.org has a petition that can be signed to let the magazine company know just how outrageous their decision has been. And the article itself can be read here.

Writer Matt Murray, meanwhile, had a bit of advice for publications looking to cover these sorts of tragedies in the future: "After September 11^th," he said, "we all became New Yorkers. After the Boston bombing, we all became Boston Strong. Remember the heroes, not the villains."

Photo: A scene of the pain and devastation caused by the Tsarnaev brothers. AP Photo.

Justice for Trayvon Martin

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:40:00 +0000

After the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's admitted killer George Zimmerman, America found itself confronting the long-standing flaw in the democratic promise of "justice for all": race and racism. While there is a spectrum of views on the case and the verdict, two contradictory trends have become apparent quickly. One is denial that race or racism played any part, and the other is the view that race and racism is central to the whole case. We, like millions of others, agree with the latter. To deny the role of racism is to deny reality staring us all in the face.

Racism in our country is many-sided and systemic. One could spend considerable ink discussing the numerous ways it led to the killing of Martin and the ensuing legal case. Suffice it to note that it took a monumental struggle just to bring charges against Zimmerman for killing of the unarmed African American youth.

But the multi-racial Justice for Trayvon movement - led by Trayvon's incredibly courageous, dignified and loving parents - is becoming a cornerstone on which to build a far-reaching new civil rights movement. These next days are critical to getting the Department of Justice to act and uphold Trayvon Martin's civil rights. You can sign petitions on the NAACP, American Federation of Teachers, ColorOfChange and MoveOn websites or host a neighborhood, town or city-wide vigil for justice. Building a massive 50^th anniversary March on Washington this August could be a game-changer in the fight "to realize the dream."

Voting rights, civil rights and dangerous laws like Florida's so-called Stand Your Ground have to be among the issues that mobilize massive numbers for the 2014 mid-term elections. The National Rifle Association, oily billionaire Koch brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council and their tea party, ultra-right ilk are counting on a low turnout. If they are successful in repressing and depressing the vote, getting Congress to reinstate the Voting Rights Act, recently gutted by the ultra-conservative Supreme Court ruling, will be a monumental task instead of an attainable one. The same for common sense gun laws on the state and federal level.

From district attorneys to state lawmakers, racism has to be addressed.

When a Black teenager is profiled as a criminal and then killed because someone like Zimmerman supposedly feared for his life, it brings up too many other similar cases. Emmett Till, Oscar Grant and Amadou Diallo come to mind. But one of the clearest examples of racism in practice is the case of Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, Fla., who fired warning shots at her husband after she felt her life threatened. She got 20 years for defending herself. Alexander is Black. So much for the equal application of the Stand Your Ground law.

The modern day criminalization of Black Americans has its roots in the rise of the ultra-right, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the implementation of anti-99-percent social and economic policies, including the so-called War on Drugs. It has helped to create a criminalization atmosphere for all of society. Need an abortion? You're a criminal. On unemployment? You need to be drug-tested. Look like an immigrant? Show us your papers. In a union? Thug! Parasite!

As documented in Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," these policies have led to the mass incarceration 2 million working class people - mainly Black and Latino men.

This in turn has led to the justification of other reactionary policies that have severely crippled democratic rights and educational and economic opportunities. For example, "three strikes you're out," "stand your ground," "stop and frisk" and racial profiling. Racism justifies decimating funding for public housing, education, food stamps and other vital programs that serve tens of millions, of all races. It justifies unequal treatment before the law, unequal education, unequal employment opportunities and unequal pay. In short, while millions are influenced by racism in their attitudes and beliefs, the bonds and barriers of racism serve ruling class interests, diametrically opposed to their own.

This could be an "aha" moment for millions, particularly white Americans, raising new awareness of the persistence of racism, why it exists, how it distorts and twists democracy for 99 percent of the population and how its systemic nature serves the interests of the 1 percent ruling elite. Racism, like war and violence, destroys communities and human decency. It has a physical and psychological toll on all - perpetrator, target, or bystander. It's the most un-American of American-made systems.

In July 2008, then-AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka gave a profound speech on labor, racism and the importance of electing Barack Obama president. Declaring, "there is no evil that has inflicted more pain and suffering than the evil of racism in our country," Trumka said, "We have a special responsibility to fight this evil. Not by calling anyone racist, but by educating those who won't vote for Barack Obama because he is Black." These are lessons we can draw from today.

Photo: From a 2012 Sanford, Fla., protest (werthmedia).

Toshi Seeger, mother, activist, filmmaker, dies at 91

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 10:21:00 +0000

Toshi-Aline Ohta Seeger, wife of folk music icon Pete Seeger, passed away overnight on Tuesday, July 9^th. She was a mother, an organizer, an activist and filmmaker ... and an essential part of all of her husband's work. She was 91.

As much as Pete is a consummate dreamer and optimist, Toshi had a strength and brilliance that was at least his equal. Theirs was a true partnership. Without Toshi's counsel and support, and always outspoken and direct opinions, it's clear to anyone who ever met these two remarkable people that, without Toshi, Pete would never have had the foundation and freedom to do the work that made him so legendary.

But Toshi, despite her profound wisdom, strength, morality and courage, was also extremely modest and self-effacing. Often rebuffing attention paid to her, and always doing a loving job at making sure that Pete was always grounded and clear about how his work, his missions, were always bigger than a single man or woman.

Toshi was born in Munich, Germany, to an American mother and a Japanese father. Her parents brought her to the U.S. when she was six months old, as soon as it became legal for the two to be married here. They found an apartment in New York City, where her father found work as the building's caretaker.

Toshi grew up in a family of progressives. She went to the High School of Music and Art, and. after a few years of friendship, meeting Pete at square dances around NYC, Pete and Toshi were married in 1943, just before Pete was about to ship out overseas. She was age 21 at the time. Pete wrote in his autobiography that they "found we had much in common. Her parents were extraordinary people. We were all very close. Her mother, descended from Old Virginny (slave owners), had declared her independence from that racist part of her tradition, moved to Greenwich Village, married a Japanese who was in political exile, as militarists were taking over his homeland. He did important and dangerous work for the U.S. Army in WWII."

While he was overseas during the war, Pete and Toshi corresponded via letters incessantly.

In 1949, following the war, the two moved to Beacon, NY, where they raised their children Danny, Mika and Tinya. They built a cabin for shelter, and lived in that beautiful woodland mountain ever since.

Over the last decades, Toshi became a key leader and artistic programmer for the Great Hudson River Revival, the annual fundraiser for the Clearwater organization, and a true mecca for those of us who adopted Pete and Toshi's view that music could be a tool to help focus activism. She also played a pivotal role in Clearwater sloop voyages. Pete often sang her praises as an organizer: "after having to organize me for 66 years, no wonder."

Toshi's credits also included filmmaking, recording Texas inmates performing hard labor. The film, "Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison," is part of the Library of Congress archives. [Pete Seeger and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced this rare document of of work songs by inmates of the Ellis Unit.]

Pete's career became a consuming part of her life, and he spent many days away from the home. After being acquitted after the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Toshi had said "Never again. Next time no appeal. Let him go to jail."

But the two remained strong throughout the years. She took care of the home, always gardening and was a terrific cook, raising their children and making a wonderful home as Pete traveled the world making his music.

Toshi suffered from ailing health these past few years, and her trips around the Revival "campus" during the festival had stopped ... but the love and admiration we all had for this great lady was not diminished one sliver. She will be greatly missed ... and we send our deepest condolences to Pete and the rest of the family.

Mark D. Moss is the editor of Sing Out! Magazine.

Reprinted with permission from Sing Out! July 10, 2013.

"Sing Out! Sharing songs for more than 60 years! Out mission is to preserve and support the cultural diversity and heritage of all traditional and contemporary folk music, and to encourage making folk music a part of our everyday lives."

Photo: Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Facebook page.

When capitalism can’t

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 12:58:00 +0000

Today science stands on the cusp of developing new productive methods and capacities that will increase many fold the quantity of surplus value [privately-owned profit]. Today, there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who are and remain permanently in the "reserve army of the unemployed." Twenty-two million of these unemployed workers are in the United States alone.

The new productive capacities stemming from the developing sciences not only will increase surplus value at blinding speeds but threaten the need for and existence of human beings in the production process to create that surplus value. The reserve army of the unemployed will grow with the same intensity, and will have to organize its struggle for survival within every country and jointly, around the world.

The responsibility for the world's unemployed rests on the shoulders of the capitalist system in each country and the government and laws under which they operate.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, "When capitalism cannot provide jobs for the unemployed, then the government(s) must act before it loses the power to do so."

Capitalism cannot provide jobs for the hundreds of millions of unemployed, nor does it have any interest in doing so. Capitalism is in business to make profits, not jobs. When it needs workers, it will hire them; when it no longer needs them, it will fire them. As the new production technologies develop and the rate of production is intensified, workers will be needed for shorter and shorter periods of time.

Although capitalism cannot provide jobs for everyone who is willing, ready and able to work, we must wring out every job possible. Under the new lightening speed commodity production, fundamental changes in the economy are necessary. The old rules and relations which produce mass unemployment have to be sharply amended or replaced. Governmental processes which have always been in the control of capitalism must be redirected to meet the new production situation.

It is time for the labor movement, the unemployed, African Americans, Latinos, economists, progressives, liberals, in short, the "99 percent", to enter into a dialogue; to probe what it will take to win permanent, ongoing job-creating programs. Everyone's ideas for solutions should be discussed.

In order to change direction, it is necessary to examine and challenge the fundamentals of capitalism and make changes as they become necessary, to ensure the implementation of such job creation programs.

For example, capitalist propaganda makes the claim that it is the superior economic system. Why then, does the number of permanently unemployed continue to mount like snowflakes in a blizzard; why is it necessary for the government to continue to pump trillions of dollars into the Wall Street banking system while ever greater numbers of the "47 percent" fall into poverty. Why is it necessary for government to suppress democratic participation (example, voter suppression).

Another example is the granting of patents. Patents that cover inventions which receive public financing should be granted on the condition that the production for use and profit shall be shared with the government, and that the production takes place in the United States.

The U.S. government's budget provides billions of dollars to universities, laboratories and private industry for research and development. How long can we tolerate these jobs being sent abroad?

A good jobs creation program must contain vast reconstruction and reclamation projects. It should lay the basis for the progressive shortening of the work day and work week with higher wages. It should provide for substantial leisure time for workers and public facilities for the enjoyment of that time.

There are countless ways to discuss and develop a "new people's normal." A good place to start is by read the speech given last February at the University of Georgia by Communist Party Chair Sam Webb, entitled, "Is full employment possible under capitalism?" Webb argues, "It's hard to see where the economic dynamism and jobs are going to come from without action by the federal government, and the restructuring of the economy on a scale that only a few in Washington are ready to embrace."

It is the people's movement that will change this so that we can move forward towards full employment and a more just society.

Photo: Connecticut Center for a New Economy

Paula Deen, Inc. filled America with junk food

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 13:05:00 +0000

Paula Deen lived by the cleaver and she died by the cleaver. The southern chef skyrocketed to fame and fortune based on a caricature. She provided a basket full of Southern belle styled "y'alls" heavily coated with butter and sugar, harkening back to a time where that heapin' helpin' hospitality was comfort food for the national consciousness; the nation ate it all up and fell into its post-meal stupor, sleepy, satisfied and feeling a bit guilty for overstuffing.

Then, surprise-surprise, scratch the surface of that shiny southern portrayal, and lo and behold there is some ugly stuff. The more than 100 pages of legal transcripts, in which she hoisted herself on her own petard, are an eye-popping read. Deen, the supposedly savvy businesswoman, knows nothing about employment laws, workplace decorum, professional relationships or, frankly, decency. She tacitly condones men watching pornography in the workplace with female subordinates. She says it is okay to use the "n-word" for jokes, but not in a "mean" way.

Time and again the problems of racial, sexual, and homophobic harassment and discrimination happening at her brother's restaurant (owned by Deen) were brought to her attention, and she chose to ignore them and blame others, enabling these practices to continue. Even when she hired a company to do a workplace audit, she refused to listen to their findings because people "out to get her and her brother" supposedly had the investigator's ear.

Deen has become a lightening rod for the country because she represents - in one bite-sized portion - the one thing so many in the country do not want to talk about, let alone acknowledge or confront: racism. One of Deen's own stories may hold a few clues for the firestorm. She went to a restaurant "in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere" that was fashioned after an antebellum plantation. All the servers were black men and Deen fell in love with the whole idea of being surrounded in elegance, while being served by black men in antebellum costume. She wanted to bring that plantation-style setting to her brother's wedding.

Call it the "Gone With the Wind" phenomena: the idea that you can celebrate a culture built on slavery without mentioning the slave part. Denial is more than a river, as the song goes. The brutal, twisted, and oppressive racial dynamics that come with a system built on white supremacy surrounds and affects all of us everyday. Like the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, racism too is a pollutant with a structure, origin, cause, and effect. Deniers whether of climate change or of racial inequality endanger humanity.

Deen reduces racism to what's in one's heart, which pretty much is what most people think too. Particularly white people, who don't face the sharp edge of racial oppression on a daily basis, and can sometimes be perpetrators of supremacy, it is easier to reduce racism to personal attitudes, instead of the complex system of attitudes, beliefs, policies, and practices rooted in historical and present day social-political and economic conditions.

Study after study show whites are less inclined to see structural barriers that African Americans (and other people of color) face than those who face barriers. Such magical thinking - that racism is based on personal attitudes - is like walking into a house and noting the musty odor of mold, and choosing to use an air freshner to cover it up instead of looking for the root of it, perhaps in a faulty structure or cracked pipe.

Deen's denial, however, is not limited to racism. It extends to other issues, like the health effects of a cooking ideology that encourages millions of people to slather on that butter and use Coca Cola, consequences be damned.

While Deen enabled her brother to be accused of being the worst boss ever, who enabled Deen to be such a well-known icon of southern mythology? Just a few big corporate names like Random House, Walmart, Food Network, Smithfield, and Novo Nordisk, to name a few. Many of these giants have more than a few cases of racial and sexual discrimination against them. Their interests aren't in bringing about racial or gender equality. Deen, a white woman from humble beginnings, fit a corporate image of the new South, without any of that old South slavery-Jim Crow-lynching baggage. They all became hucksters, filling their coffers while filling Americans' minds and stomachs with processed garbage.

But some knew that a fraud was being perpetrated. Deen's style is "almost like a spoof of Southern cooking," one white southern chef told The New York Times; she "did not invent the hush puppy," a black chef said in that same article. "I wish the Food Network would call me. I could show them a few things about the real South," another black chef said, who also expressed sympathy for Deen.

Black people - enslaved and free - have contributed mightily to the creation of Southern cuisine and - one might add - to who gets to eat it and where, whether at a lunch counter or five-star restaurant. Native American, Spanish, Cuban, Mexican, French, and Vietnamese are among the many contributors to the region's cuisine, like a globalized, ever evolving, stone soup. Reportedly, Deen never credited these contributions.

"There is another America," that "Southern Patriot" Anne Braden once said, urging people to choose an anti-racist path. "You do have a choice. You don't have to be a part of the world of the lynchers. You can join the other America." She also said, "The first task of whites in these struggles is to be vocal and visible." Good advice for all who are weary of the corporate caricatures, fraud and hypocrisy, and yearn for a more democratic society. Struggling against racism is a key ingredient towards creating one.

Photo: This meme was created after it became public - through a drug endorsement deal -that Paula Deen had been diagnosed with diabetes three years prior. Critics accused Deen of opportunistically keeping her diabetes a secret. Deen said she "chose not to share it." (via diabetesmine.com)