Posts Tagged analysis on politics & race

By Seth Wessler

Some of my favorite left-of-center magazines have been running a peculiar ad recently. It presents an ominous image of a bulldozer clearing away an opening in the middle of a lush green forest. The large font below the image reads “One of America’s best selling Vehicles.” At first pass, the ad appears a clear, and reassuringly old-fashioned environmentalist plea to save the forests from development and suburban sprawl. But look any further at the print below the image and you’re quick to notice that the ad’s real concern is not conifer growth but “population growth”; or, to be more precise, the growing population of immigrant families in this country.

The ad is part of campaign run by a number of reactionary anti-immigrant groups including the notorious FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), American Immigration Control Foundation, NumbersUSA among others calling themselves “America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population-Immigration-Resource Planning”. Their mission: to stop the torrent of immigrants who, they say, are responsible for “ripping up some of the most beautiful farms and forests in the world and turning them into concrete and asphalt suburbs”, in addition to the no less important issues of overcrowded schools and emergency rooms and the worst traffic problems in the world.

The ad offers up restrictionist drivel of the kind we might expect from Fox News. So what are these ads doing in some of this country’s most widely read and respected sources of left-liberal journalism and criticism? Anti-immigrant racists, it would seem, may be changing their tact, betting on the possibility that liberals may well put their environmental concerns above their social ones if they can be convinced that the two are mutually exclusive.

Countering this tactic will take a broad and energetic progressive agenda that centers those who are most marginalized, in this case immigrants. Immigrants along with other communities of color are much less the cause of environmental degradation than the recipients of its most vicious side effects. Environmentalists should concern themselves with the fact that communities of color are filled with toxics emitting factories owned by corporations. These and government’s refusal to take planetary health seriously are the real targets.

Via RaceWire

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By Anonymous

Among all the buzz surrounding the upcoming convention protests in the United States has been a palpable silence surrounding the question we will inevitably face: after the delegates are blockaded from the conventions, after the tear gas, the arrests, the media spectacle, trauma and recovery, what will happen next? I am writing this essay with the hope that we begin trying to answer this question now and through discussion over the coming months, rather than wait for the day after expecting that momentum will carry us forward.

Among all the buzz surrounding the upcoming convention protests in the United States has been a palpable silence surrounding the question we will inevitably face: after the delegates are blockaded from the conventions, after the tear gas, the arrests, the media spectacle, trauma and recovery, what will happen next? I am writing this essay with the hope that we begin trying to answer this question now and through discussion over the coming months, rather than wait for the day after expecting that momentum will carry us forward.

To begin with, whether or not we succeed with our goals at the convention protests, it is clear that the milieu surrounding the RNC and DNC will in effect represent a resurgence, at least in terms of visibility, of anarchist direct action organizing in the United States.

In many ways, this could not come at a better time. The conventional forces that co-opted the anti-war movement and what has passed as anti-establishment protest over the past several years have proven themselves not only impotent to transform public discourse around the war (among other policies), but have repeatedly shown themselves willing to compromise their most basic principles in the interest of the electoral regime, i.e. the Democratic party.

Not only has this represented a defeat for “the movement”, it has driven thousands of people away in frustration and despair. While discontent may be growing in this country, there has been no large-scale forum through which this can be channeled in a way that concretely challenges the system. This situation presents an opportune moment for a “coming out” party for anarchist direct action politics.

So, in August and September of this year, we will make a splash. Perhaps a huge one, perhaps smaller – either way, anarchists will likely receive more attention in its aftermath, and we should be prepared to think about what we will do with it.

Many critiques have been presented concerning mobilization around the party conventions – that the conventions themselves are essentially symbolic, and successfully blockading them will accomplish nothing materially. While this critique is legitimate, there have also been good arguments presented in favor of mobilization. Either way, it is too late to turn back the energy and enthusiasm that continue to grow related to these protests – and those who participate should make the most of this opportunity to successfully confront the system, if only in symbolic terms.

But let’s face it – after September 4th, the wars will still be raging, the planet will still be facing extinction and climate crises, and our communities and lives will continue to face an onslaught of capital and it’s desire to shape everything in its image. Many of us will still have jobs to grudgingly return to on September 8th. Racism and patriarchy will still define our culture. So what comes next?

Considering where we are

Like Seattle in 1999, the energy, tactics and organization going into the DNC and RNC are not emerging out of a vacuum; recent years have seen an increase in creative, courageous and smart organizing against global warming, infrastructure and the war machine among anarchist circles.

Groups like Rising Tide have been developing active networks across the continent and successfully challenging both the discourse and infrastructure that are fueling the climate crisis. Campaigns against infrastructure development and resource extraction (such as I-69 and mountain-top removal) have catalyzed regional campaigns whose support extends well beyond the limited circles of the anarchist sub-culture. And the energy growing around groups like SDS is bringing a new generation into the front-lines of anarchist organizing. The courage displayed by SDS chapters like the one in Olympia, Washington – who day after day faced pepper gas and arrest blockading the shipment of military equipment – have not only been inspiring, but set a challenge to the rest of the anti-war movement; if such actions became the norm for the movement, we could actually talk about bringing the war to an end rather than appealing to indifferent Democrats.

These groups and campaigns are encouraging, and provide living laboratories for libertarian, anti-capitalist organizing. However, to create the kinds of changes that the world and our communities so desperately need, we obviously have a long way to go.

On November 4, either John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected president. In January the eight-year nightmare of the Bush regime will come to an end, to be replaced by yet another four to eight years of darkness under either would-be ruler.

So, let’s talk about the limitations and opportunities that the political climate we are about to enter may offer.

President Obama

First, Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the imaginations of a lot of well-intentioned, idealistic people have been captivated by Obama’s candidacy. Obama himself has cynically manipulated this enthusiasm, describing his campaign as a “movement”, as though such a hierarchical organization, let alone a political operation could legitimately be considered as such.

In the unlikely event that Obama wins the election, the left liberals who’ve fallen under his yolk will initially greet his presidency with elation. It is possible that Obama will prove a progressive reformer – a capitalist Gorbachev; however, even if he truly desired to reign in the worst excesses of capitalist American hegemony, he will be at the head of a system that depends on extraction, colonization and repression for its survival.

More likely, Obama will pursue the same kinds of policies as Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush – shrowded in the language of “hope” and progress. In time, as the material conditions of their lives fail to improve and socio-ecological crises worsten, many people may become disillusioned. For the past eight years, a great deal of “oppositional” sentiment in the U.S. has been channeled through the Democratic party apparatus; with the Democrats in power, we will have an opportunity to open new fronts of resistance and demonstrate what “opposition” can really look like.

And we are well positioned to call the liberals out on their bullshit and pull away the curtain with which the Democrats enshroud their politics. By manifesting our opposition to the systems that are detrimentally affecting peoples’ lives, and insisting on radical change that, while necessary, Obama will have no capacity (or desire) to deliver, we will expose the Democrats’ inability to offer any meaningful change.

President McCain

More likely, however, the voters in this country will prove too racist and mean to elect as president a black man with a “muslim” name, despite his legitimate shortcomings. In spite of the current electoral trend Democratic, our next president will be John McCain.

One of the consequences of McCain’s election will be bitter disappointment and frustration among the thousands of people who have invested their passion, energy and hope in Obama’s candidacy. This disillusionment will be something that we can tap into, inviting people to bring their energy to a movement that genuinely confronts the systems they oppose, offering a much more gratifying feedback on their frustration.

Of course, McCain will continue to pursue many of the same policies of the Bush administration. These should all be familiar by now, along with the failed politics of opposition that have dominated the Bush era. The Democrats will continue to try and manipulate opposition to their ends, but more and more people will know better, and we can do our part to expose their charade.

The insanity of the policies McCain wishes to pursue will only push the system further into crisis, and while this will have real-world, frightening consequences for people and the environment, it will also present opportunities for creative opposition and confrontation, and the ability to fill the political vacuum that will emerge in the aftermath of the election.

McCain will keep troops in Iraq, and will expand the war. McCain will continue a campaign of repression against dissent at home and abroad. McCain will pursue an energy economy based on fossil fuel extraction, and neoliberal economic policies projected around the world. So will Obama.

So what?

Of course, we know better than to pursue our desires through or become too concerned with the outcome of electoral politics; however, the electoral apparatus does affect the cultural landscape within which our actions and organizing take place and are understood. Regardless of the outcome of the election, we need to expose the lie of this sham democracy and expand the organizing work that many of us are already engaged in. We already have a good foundation to build upon, and there are many lessons, good and bad, to be learned from current examples of anarchist organizing. More importantly, we ought to reflect on and consider the pitfalls of recent movement history, so as to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of the past.

One of the dangers around the convention protests has been a manifest nostalgia for the tactics and ambiance of the heyday of the anti-summit movement. The “anti-globalization” era, with its focus on large-scale mobilizations and summit blockades, proved unsustainable for a number of reasons. Many have blamed the premature decline of the movement on the post-September 11 political climate; however, it was clear to many even before September 11 and the IMF/World Bank protests scheduled for later that month that the movement had begun to run its course. Police very quickly adapted to our tactics – and each successive summit blockade necessitated an escalation of tactics in order to claim success, leading toward levels of repression we were ill prepared to deal with. The assassination of Carlo Giuliani represented a turning point, and by the Miami FTAA protests it seemed clear that we were done for; in the face of overwhelming force employed by the state, we lacked the local bases of support and community power necessary to sustain long-term confrontation.

This is not to say that the anti-summit era was ultimately misguided or without value – the large-scale mobilizations radicalized thousands of activists and popularized anarchist process, from decentralized affinity groups and consensus decision-making to direct action-oriented politics. The mobilizations, for a while, built energy that fed into a growing sense of possibility, and large-scale confrontation with power is always healthy. But the seeds of the movement came from long-term organizing, relationship and capacity building that had been ongoing throughout the nineties. When this became overshadowed by summit blockades, the ground beneath us slowly fell away.

Following the collapse of the anti-summit movement, liberal and authoritarian groups moved into the space we left behind, promoting a top-down movement model whose self-understanding was overwhelmed with 1960s nostalgia. One could write endless critique of the last five years of anti-war “organizing”, and I have already stated that it was thoroughly ineffective. However, what I’d like to highlight here is the overwhelmingly ahistorical nature of the 1960s mythology promoted by many among the recent wave of organizations and activists.

By and large, by 1971 much of the radical milieu of the 1960s had imploded in on itself. Part of this was due to government repression, Cointelpro, etc. However there were key weaknesses that made the movements and organizations dominant in the 60s especially vulnerable to this kind of infiltration and sabotage. Most important was the patriarchal and authoritarian nature dominant in the movement, including its “radical” wings (SDS, the Black Panther Party, etc.). Emblematic of these attitudes was an infatuation with Mao Tse Tung, one of the most dystopian political figures of the 20th Century. This is not meant to deride the courage and commitment of many who participated in these struggles, but to point out the structural weaknesses that were never addressed until many of these groups self-destructed.

The upshot of the 1960s were the myriad liberation struggles it spawned, including the queer and feminist movements which explicitly sought to address the ingrained hierarchies that had plagued their predecessors. The 1970s and 1980s saw creative, energetic movements against patriarchy, nuclear power, environmental destruction and the wars in Central America – during which many of the horizontal movement tools we now take for granted were developed. We owe a lot to these generations of struggle.

It goes without saying that the anti-war movement as it existed during the late 1960s did not bring an end to the war, despite the narrative that many nostalgic baby-boomers and movement leaders would have us believe. The war in Vietnam dragged on until 1975, long after the hey-day of 60s protest. Ultimately, what ended the war was the courage and tenacity of the Vietnamese people and anti-war organizing among the U.S. armed forces, leading to the collapse of order up and down the chain of command. The belief that non-violent marches led to an end of the war lacks any historical basis. Yet for five years the leaders of the current anti-war movement have insisted that we replicate this narrative.

There were, without a doubt, some wonderful moments and ideas that came out of the 60s – there was certainly a feeling of possibility that emerged from the upheavel of 1968, particularly the uprising in France and myriad other liberation struggles. Yet, overall, the 1960s belong in the dustbin of history, and we’ve come a long way since. The last thing we need is to “recreate ‘68”.

Finally, a note on direct action. Among the lessons we ought to reflect upon are tactical priorities and how our attachment to them can become unhealthy, hindering our effectiveness. Direct action is a tactic to achieve concrete goals – nothing more. Our tactics are valuable to the extent that they move us toward the larger aims of our movements and struggles. It’s dangerous to lose our sense of creativity, to glorify extremes or to glorify martyrdom. And it’s dangerous to confuse tactics with strategy, analysis, and politics.

During the anti-globalization era, many of us lost our ability to rethink both tactics and strategy. It was as though for more than four years we kept trying to repeat the narrative of Seattle – long after it stopped working. For movements, especially anti-systemic movements, to remain effective, we need to be able to step back from ourselves, analyze and adapt. We failed to sufficiently do so.

Around the same time, a different set of tactics became popular within the radical environmental movement, with many individuals taking great personal risks for outcomes that in the end may or may not have proven worthwhile. While we need to understand campaigns of repression such as the Green Scare as being situated within a larger effort by the state to criminalize dissent, we also need to recognize that, without the support of strong social movements behind a set of actions, they rarely have lasting impact, and those who engage in them become all the more vulnerable to the counter-attack of the state.

Confrontation with power is healthy. So is mockery, evasion and the construction of alternatives. Extreme tactics do not necessarily make us radical, even if sometimes they may be warranted; what we need most of all is to build our capacity to fight the system, and win.

Looking to the future

Anarchists have a great deal to offer the world. In times of crisis, people frequently innovate horizontal structures to tackle whatever it is they’re confronted with (the asambleas in Argentina and grass-roots responses to Katrina are good examples). We have developed many tools, along with analysis, that allow us to creatively address the problems that our communities and society face, while dismantling hierarchy and oppression. This summer’s convention protests will be an opportunity to put these on display.

By successfully disrupting the RNC and the DNC, we will present a spectacular intervention in the electoral charade. The question that many people will be asking as a result will be: so what? We need to be prepared to answer that question. While our desires obviously extend beyond blockading the delegates, we must make them explicit.

As anarchists we have time and again proven our ability to shape the direction of society, if in limited ways – from winning an eight-hour workday to preventing the expansion of nuclear infrastructure in the 1970s and 80s, to effectively neutralizing the WTO and the FTAA. We can build on these successes in relation to the crises that face us today – the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, capitalist infrastructure development, global climate change and a culture of repression – all the while setting our sites on a radical transformation of society, the decolonization of daily life, and popularizing a horizontal and libertarian form of politics.

This form of politics will be manifest this summer in the streets of Denver and St. Paul. Where will we go afterward?

Large mobilizations can represent a crescendo of organizing activity, or a launch pad that injects energy into our movements and leads to ever-greater confrontation with power. It’s up to us, now, to ensure that the milieu surrounding the convention protests leads to a deepening of our struggles – that our goals extend beyond the blockading of delegates toward the very bases of exploitation and repression in society. We have only the world to win.

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By Marie Trigona

Lucio Urtubia could be described as a modern day Robin Hood, a man who stole from the rich to give to the poor. Lucio, a 76-year old Spanish anarchist and retired bricklayer carried out bank robberies, forgeries and endless actions against capitalism. His actions helped to fund liberation movements in Europe, the US and Latin America.

Outspoken and charismatic, Lucio speaks like a true anarchist. When asked what it means to be an anarchist, Lucio refutes the misperception of the terrorist, “The anarchist is a person who is good at heart, responsible.” Yet he makes no apologies for the need to destroy the current social order, “it’s good to destroy certain things, because you build things to replace them.”

Lucio has old friends in the Southern Cone. Funds from the forgery operatives helped hundreds from revolutionary organizations exile and finance clandestine actions against the bloody dictatorships which disappeared ten thousands of activists, students and workers during the 1970’s throughout Latin America. In Uruguay, funds from falsified Citibank travelers’ checks funded the guerilla group Tupamaros, in the US the Black Panthers and other revolutionary groups throughout Europe.

During his recent visit to South America, Lucio stayed at the worker run BAUEN Hotel in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires. He was astounded by the accomplishments of the workers without bosses. At the BAUEN hotel, workers are putting into practice workers autogestíon or self-management. Self-management has been a mainstay of anarchist thought since the birth of capitalism. Rather than authority – obey relationship between capitalists and workers, self-management implies that workers put into practice an egalitarian system in which people collectively decide, produce and control their own destinies for the benefit of the community. But for such a system to work, participants have to be hard working and responsible, one of the most important attributes a man or woman should have according to Lucio. “The anarchist movement was built by workers. Without work we can’t talk about self-management, to put self-management into practice we need to know how to do things, to work. It’s easy to be bohemian.”

Lucio explains that his anarchism is based in his poor childhood in fascist Spain. “My anarchist origins are rooted in my experience growing up in a poor family. My father was leftist, had gone to jail because he wanted the automony of the Basque country. For me that’s not revolution, I’m not nationalist. With nationalism humanity has committed a lot of mistakes. When my father got out of jail he became a socialist. We suffered a lot. I went to look for bread and the baker wouldn’t give it to me, because we didn’t have money. For me poverty enriched me, I didn’t have to make any effort to lose respect for the establishment, the Church, private property and the State.”

In Spain, fascism persevered 30 years after the end of World War II. Hundreds were placed in jail for resisting the Franco dictatorship. Anthropologists have estimated that from the onset of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 to Franco’s death in November 1975, Franco’s Nationalists killed between 75,000 and 150,000 supporters of the Republic.

Lucio exiled to France where he discovered anarchism. He had deserted the nationalist army and escaped to France. Paris in the 1960’s was a bourgeoning city for anarchist intellectuals, organizers and guerillas in exile. It was there that Lucio met members from the anarcho-syndicalist trade union, Confederación Nacional de Trabajo (CNT). He was anxious to participate.

During his early years in France, Lucio met Francisco Sabate, the legendary anarchist and guerilla extraordinaire. At this time Sabate, otherwise known by his nickname “El Quico” was the most sought after anarchist by the Franco regime. French police were also looking for Sabate, who led resistance against Franquismo. “When I met Quico, I was participating in the Juventud Libertarias. They asked me if I could help Sabate, me an ignorant, I didn’t know who he was.” Sabate used Lucio’s house as a hide out. The young Lucio, listened to Sabate’s tales of direct action and absorbed whatever wisdom he had to offer, like methods for sniffing out infiltrators. “I met guerillas that put me on the road to direct action and expropriations. Sabate taught me to lose respect for private property.”

It was then that Lucio began participating in bank robberies. “There are no bigger crooks than the banks,” says Lucio in the defense of expropriation. “[This was the] only means the anarchist had, without funding from industry or government representatives to fund them. The money was sent to those suffering from Franco’s regime.” Student organizations and worker organizations received the funds to carry out grass roots organizing. In other cases the money was used for the guerilla actions against Franco’s regime, such as campaigns for the release of political prisoners in the nationalist jails.

To save the lives of exiles, Lucio thought of a master plan to falsify passports so Spanish nationals could travel. “Passports for a refugee means being able to escape the country and lead safe lives elsewhere,” he explains. Not only in Europe but in the US and South America, dissidents used false ID’s to lead their lives and direct actions.

In 1977, Lucio’s group began forging checks as a direct form to finance resistance. Lucio was essentially the “boss” of the operation­he made, distributed and cashed the checks. The checks were harder to falsify than counterfeit bills. Lucio thought they should target the largest banking institution in the world, National City Bank. The distribution of the checks went to different subversive groups who used the funds to finance solidarity actions. Lucio explains that “no one got rich” from the checks. Most of the funds went to the cause. All over Europe, these checks with the same code number were cashed at the same time.

Lucio’s master plan cost City Bank tens of millions of dollars in forged travelers’ checks. But many say a much larger sum was expropriated. City Bank was at the mercy of the forger, who had cost so much that the bank had to suspend travelers checks, ruining the holiday for thousands of tourists. At the time, people did not use check cards or credit cards. Lucio was arrested in 1980 and found with a suitcase full of the forged checks. In the meantime during Lucio’s arrest, Citibank continued to receive false travelers’ checks.

Citbank became worried. Representatives from the bank agreed to negotiate. Lucio would be released if he handed over the printing plates for the forged checks. The exchange was made, and Lucio became a legend for his mastermind plan. Although his life as a forger ended at 50-years-of-age, his life as an anarchist continued.

Lucio had always worked as a bricklayer. “What’s helped me the most is my work, Anarchists were always workers.” Lucio–bricklayer, anarchist, forger and expropriator has left a legacy like his predecessors. “People like Loise Michel, Sabate, Durruti, all the expropriators taught me how to expropriate, but not for personal gain, but how to use those riches for change.” At 76-years-of-age he does not apologize for his actions. “I’ve expropriated, which according to the Christian religion is a sin. For me expropriations are necessary. As the revolutionaries say, robbing and expropriation is a revolutionary act as long as one doesn’t benefit from it.”

Marie Trigona is a writer, radio producer and filmmaker based in Argentina. Lucio is one of the most fascinating people she has met in her experience interviewing people. She can be reached at Toward Freedom

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By asabagna

“BP: While I completely acknowledge the historical fact of white responsibility …how long do we wait for white folks to change? And what do we get out of continuously speaking truth to someone who can’t hear? We have so much changing and growing to do ourselves yet have the time to muse on when the drunk will finally put the plug in the jug and stop. It may likely never happen.

Whites have no incentive, NONE, to change. What’s the downside of racism/white supremacy for them? It is our people who need to change because Plymouth Rock rests on us – those of us who can change that is – and we need to ally ourselves with anybody who is “truly” conscious….whatever that means.

“Organization presupposes unity,” so said Kwame Nkrumah. We need to organize and let those other chips fall where they may. What is our vision for a new world? Where are we going? What do we want to do? “Appealing to the moral conscience of white folks,” who have neither morals nor conscience according to Malcolm, seems like a futile exercise, no matter how much truth we invest in the telling.” thefreeslave

Every once in a while (unfortunately not often enough), I read something which causes my inner being… my soul to applause. The above comment by Lubangakene, aka thefreeslave, on the post “When Will America Take Responsibility For Slavery?” is one of those moments. It hits at the heart of my beliefs on what we need to do as a community… as a people… to empower ourselves.

Brotherpeacemaker dropped a powerful post on why white people in America are historically responsible for slavery and the benefits they continue to reap even today from the status quo it created. In asking the question: “When Will America Take Responsibility For Slavery?” , it is necessary to ask ourselves also: “What do we expect America, white people in particular, to do to take this responsibility?” Are we seeking an acknowledgment of their sins through an apology? Are we seeking a humble plea for forgiveness? Are we seeking reparations? Are we hoping that white people will take us to their bosoms, accept us as their brothers and sisters, and treat us like one of their own? Lubangakene is right on point when he states that white people have no incentive to change… so we must change… and unite.

One of the life changing realizations I came to during my pilgrimage to Africa, was that the beliefs and values of the eurocentric society in which I lived… it’s way of thinking… it’s way of seeing and defining the world… was not as powerful as I had always believed. I immediately became emancipated of it’s grip on my spirit, soul, body and mind. I then made a conscious decision to embark on a process (which continues to this day) to change: to empower myself… to strip away the fear to embark into unknown territory… to continually redefine myself as the basis of my ever transforming relationship with God, other people and society in general.

In regards to the eurocentric dominant culture, this has meant four things. One, I no longer felt any responsibility to be their teacher (and/or confessor… as a way for them to ease the angst of their white privilege) on the effects of white supremacy – eurocentric superiority thinking and practice on people of colour. Two, I had no desire for the material and/or societal trinkets which signifies “success” in their society. I could no longer be bought. My soul… beliefs, values and principles… are more important to me than to “gain the world”. Three, I don’t expect anything from white people. I don’t expect them to be fair. I don’t expect them to be just. I don’t expect them to be empathetic to my situation or to the struggles of people of African descent. I don’t expect them to take any sort of responsibility for their past, present or future behaviours. Finally, I care about all people… regardless of nationality, ethnicity, colour, religion, gender, age and sexual orientation… who are oppressed and/or taken advantage of. I don’t compare and rate oppressions on a scale. However with that being said, the issues concerning people of African descent are first and foremost in mind… because I am one of them… and what we need to do, not only to overcome to survive, but more importantly, to empower ourselves to live, is the core of my cause.

The most significant consequence from this renewed mindset is that I no longer focused on what the dominant society (or white people for that matter) do or did not do. Their value system is not important to my existence. My focus became taking control of my existence by continued empowerment through personal responsibility. Simply put, I realized that I had no power over what others did, but I was responsible for what I did and how I go about doing it. Life is dynamic. It’s about making choices. It’s about accepting or rejecting the opportunity to change… to grow. As I gain more spiritual and intellectual knowledge, as well as life experience, I go through the process… most often a painful process… to let go of what I had believed and valued… and change so I can grow.

Now this does not mean that I live in a dream world or believe that we will achieve nirvana anytime soon. The “damning” effects of racism aka white supremacy – eurocentric superiority thinking and practice, on the everyday lives of people of African descent worldwide, is real. It is entrenched… and due in part to globalization, it is widening, growing and deepening (another post for another day). It needs to be confronted and defeated daily! This certainly takes community commitment and community responsibility. However, it starts with personal commitment and personal responsibility. “Organization presupposes unity.” Well said.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” Proverbs 29:18.

Lubankagene poses these life affirming questions: “What is our vision for a new world? Where are we going? What do we want to do?” The issue then becomes: where should we focus our energies? He provides a key to this answer: “Appealing to the moral conscience of white folks, who have neither morals nor conscience according to Malcolm, seems like a futile exercise, no matter how much truth we invest in the telling.” Sweet!

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” Bob Marley.

Via AfroSpear

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Corporatism has reveled its ugly head on a grand scale. The quest for natural resources has shown no boundaries nor concerns for the inhabitance regardless of treaties or rightful ownership of lands. Its the same ole same ole when it comes to the final outcome of these events. Tribes are systematically relocated, murdered, or simply tainted with diseases because of natural resource greed and the corporate bottom dollar.

Indonesia has secretly declared war on the tribal people in New Guinea. Since their occupation in New Guinea in the early 60’s over 100,000 tribal people have been murdered. Ethnic cleansing and thirsting for natural resources located on tribal land has been the culprit. Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda was quoted by Australian journalists, “You should not think that if not much access is given that we are hiding something” This statement was in response to queries as to why journalists and aid workers were restricted from entering Indigenous regions. He has a point because if journalists were given access they would only confirm what was already known by this brutal government. Tribal people have been under siege, murdered and plagued with a host of diseases once not common to them. With no right to protest and artificially silenced from the outside world the Indigenous population is voiceless. Outside corporate interests have taken the lead with Indonesian Military assistance in ridding the land from its inhabitance, all for the corporate dollar. When it comes to corporate interests, rape, torture and murder are excepted techniques for removing people from their land. Human rights is only a word.

The Brazilian Government has turned a deaf ear to the pleas of Indigenous people as squatters encroach on their tribal land. With no protection from zealous illegal logging companies tribal people have been systematically murdered. Their villages burned to the ground and their pristine forests denuded of trees. Squatters with support of the state government of Roraima have petitioned the federal government of Brazil to renege on a treaty recognizing Raposa Serra do Sol as Indigenous land. Squatters also hired gunmen to shot Natives on site wounding 10 Makuxi Indians in the process. Regardless of constitutional rights given the Indigenous people corporate interests are the priority. Death marches on as the siege continues with no world response.

Peruvian Natives, including the Cacataibos, Isconahua, Matsigenka, Mashco-Piro, Mastanahua, Murunahua, Nanti and the Yora tribes have been targeted with similar fates as their Brazilian counterparts regardless of treaties and agreements. With natural resources on their land the government has turned their backs on them in favor of corporate interests such as oil, timber and gold. Illegal logging roads dot their tribal lands. The quest for resources has no boundaries and honors no treaties whence corporate greed enters the mix. They truly are under siege. The Peruvian governments response to this was “Peace and Tranquility” reigns in this region. The Matses Indians rejected Peruvian plans to explore for oil on their land. In spite of this fact the government drew up plans for exploration that deliberately overlapped onto their tribal space. Though promised great opportunities for them whence drilling began they held firm their objections. They noted these as fantasy since other regions with similar promises were left contaminated and the tribal people impoverished.

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve was designed to provide sanctuary for traditional people such as the Gana, Gwi, Tsila and Bakgalagadi Bushmen. But in the early 80’s diamonds were discovered and you know the routine. These humble Bushmen were hunted down and placed in resettlement camps in a series of three round ups. Their villages destroyed, schools raise and their way of life forever altered to the negative. Wracked with diseases, alcoholism and despair these people have been relegated to a life with no hope nor future. In order to assure their demise the government passed laws forbidding them from using their watering holes, bringing livestock to the resettlement camps and disallowed them from hunting for food. Arrests and beatings go on with no regard to human rights and untold people have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Their culture was destroyed for the sake of diamond mining interests.

A British mining company, Verdanta through an Indian subsidiary Sterlite, has waged an assault on the Dongria Kondh of the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa India. The prize, aluminum ore bauxite. With stealth Verdanta’s agent Sterlite has prepared to explore this region. A far contrast to what exists now, lush green forests full of game,fertile soil, flowing rivers and streams teaming with fish, open pit mines will level the mountains and pollute the rivers. Monetary compensation was never an option for these people since their belief system dictates they are the descendants of the mountain g*d. Guess their sin was not having a lusting for money and material wealth. Their self sufficient way of life will soon be a memory as “progress” destroys their culture.

This is only the tip of the iceberg fore there are more cases of corporate greed world wide. Dare I mention the plight of Native Americans such as the Shoshone who are facing off a gold mining company eager to mine their sacred mountain? For all intents and purposes the good ole USA has kept quiet the wholesale mistreatment of US tribes since time immemorial. Living in third world conditions and unaddressed social ills, despair and alcoholism are the norm. Ironically these social ills are common within the Indigenous populations where conquering people have stolen their traditional land. Ah, but who cares anyway? So you can buy an wooden end table cheap, who cares if the wood was illegally harvested in the forests of Viet Nam or Laos. Its all about the money Paisan, its all about the money. Corporate greed has taken over [the] planet and left Indigenous cultures in ruins for the corporate bottom line.

Your Devil’s Advocate
Buffalohair

Via Mostly Water

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By Thanubian

If we Black people are to be a part of the future a reality of truth must prevail. We can no longer survive as a race hanging on to given white lies.

While we Blacks today are not singulary monolithic in our opinions , religion,
affiliations, nor thoughts, but we must however unify against a massive detremental threat against our future existence as a people. Today we African Americans are faced with a masive covert and sophisticated system of white institutionalized racism more lethal and proficient than any type we have ever faced before .

Although the United States Government portrays itself as the leading ethical and moral authority of the world and professes equal rights for all American citizens, its oldest and most important objective has always been an unyielding commitment towards the preservation of its White dominance and control. This objective has always directly correlated with the necessity to suppress the advancement and growth of its Black population. If the U.S. government treated its Black population in a manner which did not promote maintaining White dominance and control, it would be diametrically opposed to itself. Therefore, it secretly uses every conceivable means and opportunity to suppress its Black population; even those that contradict its own stated ethical values.

The U.S. government’s unyielding commitment towards maintaining its white dominance by implementing methods of suppressing its Black population has not been abandoned. It has rather instead been more sophisticatedly reincarnated. Though Blacks today are measurably more successful than their predecessors in every field, the U.S. Government is resolute in its objective of White domination through sophisticatedly reincarnated methods designed to suppress them. Today, African Americans are still the largest, most racially devalued, most deliberately exploited and suppressed class in America, only the methods for doing so have changed. The methods currently used by the U.S. Government avoid the conventional, blatant, now morally unacceptable methods used in the past.

Today America’s white elites aggressively uses the modern behavioral sciences to persuade, coerce and manipulate the American public into accepting its governmental objectives. As a means of meeting its objective of continuing White dominance and control the U.S Government secretly implemented its largest ever covert operation against its Black population through its educational, judicial, and prison systems, but most detrimentally through a national campaign of mass psychological manipulation that uses the psychology of deceit perpetuated through negative propaganda, false statistics and, fictitious media reports devaluing, demonizing, and marginalizing African Americans. A national marketing campaign designed to assault the Black psyche, corrupting many African Americans?sense of unity, self love and reason while facilitating a national consensual environment of where in which African Americans are more easily mistreated and exploited.
Because this article exposes the hidden, conspiratorial, and profound dimensions of racism that secretly still exists at governmental levels in the United States, these are therefore very dangerous areas that I am exposing. For if this truth were to become more commonly known among African Americans, the U.S. Government would most certainly dispute it and initiate a national campaign of spin control and coverage through the national media and the Internet with experts lined up to dismiss its premises as a means of protecting its national interest.

The reason of why is because I am offering the truth for those who will listen for it. And that truth is that the many problems now facing Black America will not be corrected by implementing outdated strategies of foot marches, speeches, or the commemoration of fallen Black martyrs, nor by preaching from religious texts, be they Christian or Muslim, but instead by exposing and the eradication of the fiercest and most lethal system of institutionalized racism now facing Black America.

Today, the most deadly system of racism adversely affecting Black America is neither police brutality, racial profiling, nor is it the Ku Klux Klan. It is instead, an elaborate, modern, and massive system of covert White racism. It is so subtle, pervasive, well-organized, complete, and proficient that it may be the single most aggravating factor behind the persistent national disparities and culture of failure now afflicting Black America; yet most African Americans are totally unaware of its existence.

Unlike the blatantly overt system of racism used before that resulted in African American unifying themselves against it, this modern system of racism is not easily comprehended by Blacks. It is so well disguised that many of its Black victims are oblivious to it. Most African Americans may instinctively feel endangered, but the latent toxicity of this system nullifies the ability to detect and conceptualize it sufficiently so that they can defend themselves. It is so sophisticated that even very bright African Americans have little, if any hope of extricating themselves from its psychological effects. Most African Americans are totally unaware of this method of analyzing White racism; therefore many will find it overwhelming and too shocking to contemplate. Nevertheless, it is directly intertwined with the extensive challenges negatively impacting Black America today.

As a means of maintaining its white dominance and control, the U.S. government now uses a modern covert system of white racism that uses false disinformation disseminated through the national media that is deliberately designed to confuse, and divide its Black population and to create a consensual environment of where in which Blacks are more easily exploited and ultimately suppressed. This revamped system of covert white racism is so proficient that it directly contributes to the myriad problems now adversely affecting Black America. However, because of its immense degree of sophistication, that hides and prevails behind the psychology of deceit, realizing this monumental disclosure will be quite difficult and very uncomfortable for many African Americans. Since most Blacks have never heard of this method of asserting White racism, therefore many will find it too shocking and stunning to contemplate. In order to recognize it requires that African Americans reexamine some of their most basic beliefs and prior assumptions. African Americans must also overcome a psychologically ingrained white is right?preferentiality that has been thoroughly indoctrinated upon the Black psyche. Nevertheless, the benefit of reading this literature will be a change from feelings of hopelessness and despair to an awareness of the most urgent issue of our time.

In spite of increased social mobility and an apparent lessening of racial discrimination, present-day America remains largely divided along Black and White racial lines. It is a separate and unequal society, one thriving and intact (White) and the other severely disenfranchised, struggling, and, far too often, Black. Multigenerational poverty in America remains largely a Black problem. In fact, today’s generation of African Americans are seemingly more plagued with disparities, and in many ways far worse off, than past generations. Widespread division and internalized racism among 21st-century Black Americans compared to the unprecedented degree of racial pride and unity so prevalent among African Americans during the 1960’s supports this notion. Additionally, the psyches of many African American youth are comparatively more fragile than their parents before them. For never before have so many Black male youth so openly admired the criminal behaviors of thugery and pimping. And never more before have more of our young Black girls so routinely denigrated their gender. The African-American high school drop-out rate is also beyond that of previous generations.
It is presently above fifty-one percent. Generally, internalized racism in the Black community is more problematic now than at any other time in history. Never before have African Americans most favorably referred to themselves as niggers?than they do now; never more than now, upon attaining wealth and success, have a greater number of Blacks deliberately rejected all potential Black spouses, preferring to marry only White spouses. And never more than now have even the poorest of
Blacks spent a greater percentage of their yearly earnings on Europeanizing cosmetic surgeries, bleaching skin creams, chemical hair softeners, and hair weaves. Internalized racism is at an all-time high for Blacks in America.

The troubling question is here is not only how have we (Blacks) become self-hating, living contradictions of our former selves, but also considering White America’s atrocious mistreatment of Blacks, how can the majority of African-Americans function as amnesiacs ?forgetting this barbarity and simultaneously developing profound admiration for Whiteness and contempt for their Blackness? How has the White race, with its unparalleled racism, subjugation of all other races, as well as unjustifiable wars and crimes against humanity is now perceived as the most ethical and moral racial group. What explains the present favorable perception of whites that contradicts historical facts?
Clearly there is something terribly wrong here, but what?

Racism is still at the core of the problem, but the method used today is not conventional. Today, unfortunately, whenever the topic of racism is discussed among African Americans, this implies (for most) the images of police brutality, consumer profiling, driving while Black, and, of course, the Ku Klux Klan and similar White, anti-Black organizations. While these are all serious elements of racism that collectively deserve our attention, they are neither the most prevalent nor do they represent the most detrimental form of racism faced by African Americans today. Because the past, blatant methods of insuring White dominance caused momentum for resistance because they were so obviously immoral and unjust, the U.S. government secretly implemented a far more sophisticated methods of maintaining its white dominance. In fact, one may compare America’s old system of white racism used against African Americans in the past, to its modern type by saying that the previous system had a GED while today’s methods have a PhD. For today’s system is far more sophisticated, elaborate and proficient than any system of racism previously faced by African Americans ?even slavery. Because the U.S. Government’s sociologist and psychologist were well aware of the fact that those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable, it became necessary to create a more sophisticated system of white racism that deliberately wears only the appearance, if any, of being totally self afflicted by African Americans themselves. A sophisticatedly racist governmental system that provides the United States Government with a far more insidious and covert method of ensuring that its white dominance is maintained that is concealed behind a clever shroud of secrecy and deceit by way of an extensive strategic psychological operation. It is in this way that the evils of racism thrive best when its victims no longer recognizes the evil. Although the formal covert
Counterintelligence Program [COINTELPRO] operations employed by the FBI directed against African Americans during the period of 1956-1971 was discontinued [upon the surface]. However, in truth today there is a far more sophisticated and massive counterintelligence program being implemented against the entire African American population. Because the nineteen sixties were a period of massive black rebellion and unrest that caused the U.S. Government to fear the uprising of a violent revolution?oupled with its unrelenting commitment towards the preservation of its white dominance and control— the U.S. Government did not actually cease its formal domestic counterintelligence programs against African Americans, but instead actually advanced it more broadly and secretively by means of planned campaigns of extensive strategic psychological operations .

Today, in carrying out many of its social-engineering agendas, the United States Government now conducts planned campaigns of extensive strategic psychological operations through the national media to influence and direct the perception and climate of the nation towards its governmental objectives. Its unrelenting objective of maintaining white dominance and control resulted in the U.S. Government using these same proven methods of strategic psychological operations against its Black population. The U.S. Government now secretly deliberately disseminates false deplorably racially devaluing statistics and propaganda of its Black population that are designed to corrupt African Americans sense of unity, cohesion, and reason and to foster a consensual national environment of which its Black population is more easily divided, exploited and ultimately suppressed.

While although this modern system uses the American educational system to mortifyingly mis-educate and disesteem black students and the judicial and prison systems to severely reduce Black America’s ability to procreate and reduces Black upward mobility by the lost of voting rights upon conviction.
However, its most significantly detrimental aspect is its method of using psychological operations to manipulation and shapes the minds and collective consciousness of its African American population. When most people hear the term of psychological manipulation they usually think in terms of the classic “conspiracy theory” that refers to overt mind control such as mind altering drugs with carefully hypnotic programming. However, the real and true dangers are the well proven methods of psychological manipulation that works by affecting the unconscious mind through deception, using the psychology of deceit to adversely affect the recipient group in terms of their behavior. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles.

Today the U.S. government now manipulates, and shapes the minds and collective consciousness of the public through the usage of misinformation disseminated through the mass media. The basis of this concept of mind manipulation is that the human being’s most critical aspect is the mind and it works by affecting the unconscious mind through deception. Its weapon is the message that it carries and the way that it adversely affects the targeted recipient group in terms of their behavior. Here is a simplified example of how this is being implemented against African Americans. Let us, for example, imagine that a crew of people was aboard their own massive ship and that this ship was being shadowed by another neighboring ship that was constantly broadcasting derogatory messages to the first group. Such messages as that their ship was lesser, smaller, not seaworthy, perhaps slowly sinking or that their crew was incompetent and was planning a mutiny. With time, the group receiving the negative messages, being unable to refute or to confirm these derogatory messages and deficiencies will grow weary and paranoid of the negative messages and will eventually comes to accept these negative assessments of themselves. The perception created by the taunting now unconsciously influences how the taunted group perceives themselves, subsequently causing them to become distrustful of themselves, doubting themselves, hating themselves and, eventually, fighting among themselves. The taunted group may even become so besieged by deep feelings of inadequacy that they may even jump into the sea and attempt to swim towards the taunting ship now believing it to be superior to their own ship even if their own ship was in fact better.

Within a real life setting this mortifying psychological manipulation is precisely what is being done to African Americans through an immense campaign of false derogatory misinformation and false negative media reports and statistics that are created by U.S. governmental agencies and then leaked to its collaborators in the news media, which either knowingly or unknowingly carry the stories as their own. These false information about African Americans is then disseminated unrelentingly everywhere; it is deliberately perpetuated through news releases in magazine articles, radio, television, press releases, documentaries, and false census reports perpetuating and framing the myth of Whites?racial, moral, and ethical superiority over its Black population. However, the weapon is not in how the message is carried, but is instead within the messages that it carries and how these messages affect the targeted recipients and shapes society as a whole.

The constant relentless bombardment with deplorably negative images of themselves that of which African Americans are so inundated with throughout the media is a very carefully and deliberately designed psychological conditioning program. It is designed to subject African Americans to seeing, through a controlled national media, only the worst in themselves– while insinuating that they admire, respect, and trust only Whites. This unrelenting daily assault on the Black psyche is designed to corrupt African Americans?sense of racial unity and cohesion, mold the character of self-hatred, and engender self-doubt, self-loathing, and distrust among their group. Many Blacks may even begin to feel that there is something not quite right about their Black humanity. To the detriment of Blacks, this system of applied psychological conditioning has been an extremely effective. It has successfully conditioned many African Americans to accept the dominance of Whites and white institutions over their lives by misleading them to believe that they are, themselves, their own worst enemies, therefore engendering an aberration of internalized self contempt that pulverizes Black unity and halts Black upward mobility.

Moreover, all African Americans have experienced the burden of this psychological warfare, some more severely than others have. It is experienced every time we [Blacks] read a newspaper, watch the evening news, enter a classroom, and read its racially biased textbooks. And while many Black Americans have successfully navigated through the psychology mortifying mine field and have gone on to lead successful, productive lives, but for far too many African Americans this immense devaluation can seem inescapable and tragically, over time, many begin to accept subconsciously and painfully the negative portrayals of themselves. Many also become discouraged by the acceptance that their society is also preconditioned to see the worst in them and that, therefore, if they were ever to gain acceptance, if it is to be won at all, that success would be hard won and likely to manifest negative internalized psychological pain and distress within many African Americans that can take many forms. In fact, this governmental mortifying psychological warfare against African Americans may be the most aggravating, if not core, factor of the national phenomenon of self hatred; loss of educational aspirations; loss of unity, cohesion and racial pride; and fragile psyches of many African Americans today. Moreover, this type of psychological manipulation program has been proven very effective in rapidly destroying a group’s ethical and moral values and engendering negative cultural norms with regard to violence, brutality, and even murder. All people are products of cultural conditions and their worldviews operate outside of their level of consciousness. Therefore, no group can be preconditioned to see only the worst in themselves and not exhibit some degree of negative psychological impact.

This mass psychological conditioning program also significantly influences society as a whole. Its ultimate goal is to foster a consensual national setting of where in which Blacks are more easily divided, exploited and ultimately suppressed. The media’s constant negative imagery of Black Americans is not only fraudulently inaccurate but is actually being done to engender a shift of victimization that changes the root problem of racism in America to be due to Black’s behavior rather than White’s proclivity for racism. Therefore insinuates that America would be a better society as a whole if African Americans were gone, thus engendering increasingly prejudiced distorted perceptions and acrimonious beliefs about African Americans that are designed to makes the nation and the entire world insensitive to their plight, tranquilizes efforts on their behalf, lessens pressure for social change on their behalf and makes any serious criticism of White racism almost impossible today and attempts discourage miscegenation between Blacks and whites. It also creates a false justification for the legal system’s mistreatment of African Americans. Wherein they are disproportionately incarcerated, given stiffer sentences, and are more likely than other racial groups to be treated brutally, beaten, and fired upon by police officers while they are unarmed. These injustices now goes ignored because the perception has become that it’s all now justified.

When contempt of Blacks is made to appear to be justifiable, it is the most fiercest and effective type of racism because its witnesses, bystanders, and even world audiences will sit by idly allowing African Americans to be brutally mistreated disproportionately incarcerated under the belief that it is justified.] It also affects attitudes that when enacted through governmental policies, laws, and other legislation actions, serve to ensure that African Americans will not advance. Its effects are manifested in ideas, education, governmental policies, economic stratification, social segregation, housing markets, hiring and promotion practices, psychological issues, and minority access to a variety of social services and opportunity. This campaign successfully stripped African Americans of the national and international support that was acquired during the 1960’s civil rights struggles. This anti Black governmental campaign of psychological warfare also creates a false justification for the legal system’s mistreatment of African Americans wherein they are disproportionately incarcerated, given stiffer sentences, and are more likely than other racial groups to be treated brutally, beaten, and fired upon by police officers while they are unarmed. Moreover, some studies have shown that this shift of victimization now reflects increasingly acrimonious beliefs and prejudiced perceptions about and against African Americans that are arguably stronger today than they were after emancipation.

This concept of the U.S government using psychological warfare through the national media as a weapon to influence and control its Black population is not at all ridiculous. The U.S. Government has an extensive history of using the national media to conduct psychological warfare operations. Cable News Network (CNN) and National Public Radio (NPR) have acknowledged that members of the US Army 4th Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Group served as interns in their news divisions and other areas during the Kosovo war. PSYOPS is a highly specialized unit of the military whose personnel are trained in the production and dissemination of US government propaganda, including on television and radio programs. According to CNN executives and military officials, five PSYOPS personnel’s were assigned to the network’s Atlanta headquarters, Three PSYOPS personnel also worked at the Washington DC headquarters of NPR, a publicly-funded radio network. On March 29 1999 top CNN officials acknowledged the presence of the military personnel in a written reply to the media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), which had issued a media alert two days before, entitled Why were government propaganda experts working on news at CNN?

The story was first reported in the US by such web sites as emperors-clothes.com and on CounterPunch by its coeditor Alexander Cockburn, a columnist for The Nation. In its original action alert FAIR stated: ?hat makes the CNN story especially troubling is the fact that the network allowed the Army’s covert propagandists to work in its headquarters, where they learned the ins and outs of CNN’s operations. This revelations is only but one of the countless of times that the US Government use the national media to employ its mass psychological operations objectives.

The media is corporate owned and government controlled. How else is it possible that these so-called independent newspapers and independent television channels remain so succinctly synchronized in their news presentations each and every day? Clearly the free press in America is a myth, for no matter what happens in the world, and no matter what channel you turn to, you hear the identical news reports from network to network — only the faces reading the reports changes. This is far too much of a coincidence given that the media have separate journalists. Much of the news comes from syndicated news sources and these accounts for the overlapping identical news report and explains how is it that the national media may be used to controllably influence, and therefore socially engineer society.

This isn’t to say that all things on TV are geared towards psychological manipulation. They’re not. But clearly the media’s fraudulently inaccurate deplorable depiction of African Americans and its produce outcome of causing internalized turmoil among their group are totally consistent with those applied psychological mind-conditioning programs and systems developed by the federal government. These systems were already perfected by members of the U.S. military and were then turned over to the intelligence sectors for other applications. The intelligence sector, in turn, deliberately and successfully undertook to have this same kind of highly negative, destructive and effective conditioning applied to targeted group and society as a whole.

Furthermore, more than a century ago, Charles Darwin predicted in his book, “The Origin of Species” (1859) “the evolutionary theory would one day provide a new foundation for the science of psychology.” The truth in his words where realized when the science of psychology, through the methods of propaganda techniques was codified and applied in a scientific manner by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays early in the 20th century. Bernay’s was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and one of the most skillful and amoral expert of all the experts in mass manipulation.

During World War I, Lippman and Bernays were hired by then United States President, Woodrow Wilson, to participate in the Creel Commission, the mission of which was to sway popular opinion in favor of entering the war, on the side of Britain. The war propaganda campaign of Lippman and Bernays produced such an intense anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress America’s governmental elites with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion. Edward Bernays advised US presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Eisenhower and served numerous corporations and business associations. One of his biggest fans was Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, a fact about which Bernays bragged proudly. A common pattern used over and over again by Bernays was to turn a harmless entity into a fearsome enemy through lies and manufactured news items. Then use the “threat” to justify attacking the entity. Clearly one would have no trouble seeing that this very same method is being used today against African Americans

Edward Bernays coined the terms “group mind” and “engineering consent”, important concepts in practical propaganda work. Bernays said in his 1928 book Propaganda, that; “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. The current public relations industry is a direct outgrowth of Lippman’s and Bernays’ work and is still used extensively by the United States government.

Over time the techniques increased in their sophistication as modern advances in the understanding of the genetics of social behavior ushered in Sociobiology; a controversial new science of the biological study of social behavior of humans. Since the 1950’s, U.S. experimental psychologists and Cognitive scientists have developed ideas about the unconscious mental process that proposes that most of our mental processes happen outside of our awareness suggesting that the ability to control the behavior of people around us subconsciously is now a distinct possibility. Moreover, over the past five decades, human sociobiology has transformed into an evolutionary psychology that has gained science the means and ability to control and, therefore, predict the actions and feelings of individuals or groups merely by the messages conveyed against them. According to this controversial use of psychology, the human mind is the most extraordinary part of the human body, and there seems to be little doubt, wrote biologist David Barash, “that the unconscious is real and that in certain obscure ways the forces of culture are all-powerful in shaping human behavior. Advances in these studies resulted in governments using psychology as a weapon for maintaining White dominance.

This effectiveness of the usage of the psychology of deceit to profoundly influenced and control individuals and mass groups was made obvious as a result of one of the most infamous mistakes in history. It happened on Oct. 30, 1938, when millions of Americans tuned in to a popular radio program that featured a plays directed by, and starring, Orson Welles. The performance that evening was an adaptation of the science fiction novel The War of the Worlds, about a Martian invasion of the earth.
But in adapting the book for a radio play, Welles made an important change: under his direction the play was written and performed so it would sound like a news broadcast about an invasion from Mars, a technique that, presumably, was intended to heighten the dramatic effect. News of the panic was conveyed as a via genuine news report. As the audience listened to this simulation of news broadcast, created with voice acting and sound effects, a portion of the audience concluded that it was hearing an actual news account of an invasion from Mars. This quickly generated immense scare. People packed the roads, hid in cellars, loaded guns, fought among themselves, even wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from Martian poison gas, in an attempt to defend themselves against aliens, oblivious to the fact that they were acting out the role of the panic-stricken public that actually belonged in a radio play. These people listening to the false broadcast were taken in by the totally false accounts and became confused, disarray and distrusting of their neighbors even resulting in immense violence. This example proves more potently than any argument, that beyond a question of a doubt, the enormous effectiveness of the media at affecting masses of people.

Furthermore, according to researcher Mack White, Psychologist Dr. Hadley Cantril conducted a study of the effects of the broadcast and published his findings in a book, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic, (1939). This study explored the power of broadcast media, particularly as it relates to the suggestibility of human beings under the influence of fear. Dr. Cantril was affiliated with Princeton University’s Radio Research Project, which was funded in 1937 by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also affiliated with the Project was Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) executive Frank Stanton, whose network had broadcast the program. Stanton would later go on to head the news division of CBS, and in time would become president of the network, as well as chairman of the board of the RAND Corporation, the influential think tank which has done groundbreaking research on, among other things, mass brainwashing.

Two years later, with Rockefeller Foundation money, Cantril established the Office of Public Opinion Research (OPOR), also at Princeton. Among the studies conducted by the OPOR was an analysis of the effectiveness of “psycho-political operations” (propaganda, in plain English) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Then, during World War II, Cantril and Rockefeller money assisted CFR member and CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow in setting up the Princeton Listening Center, the purpose of which was to study Nazi radio propaganda with the object of applying Nazi techniques to OSS propaganda. Out of this project came a new government agency, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS). The FBIS eventually became the United States Information Agency (USIA), which is the propaganda arm of the National Security Council. Thus, by the end of the 1940s, the basic research had been done and the propaganda apparatus of the national security state had been fully established.

Given the preceded noted history and facts, clearly then connecting these dots should be made rather easy. Furthermore, the objective of the United States government has always been to maintain its White dominance over its Black population, and clearly, psychological warfare meets this need. It was the logical choice because it covertly provides the U.S. Government the ability to both influence the national climate and engender personal psychological feelings among its Black population that meet the U.S government objectives of maintaining its white dominance. Furthermore, history overwhelmingly demonstrates that the White race’s innate proclivity for racism, control, and dominance is much too deeply ingrained for them to just merely give up their practices of implementing suppressive methods over its African American population. The records of history show that the reincarnation of suppressive methods into forms more acceptable to the changing times is a common practice of the United States government as seen after the abolishment of slavery wherein its methods of using racist, oppressive treatment of its Black population was reincarnated into Jim Crow laws. And let us not forget the many sorts of devious strategies and methods used to prevent Blacks from becoming registered voters. The historic and demonstrative evidence overwhelmingly reflects the reality that the U.S. government does manifest a proclivity for reinventing devious methods to suppress its Black population. This proclivity has led to the U.S. Government now using its proven method of psychological operations to control the advancement and growth of its Black population. It was the next logical choice for it provides the Government the benefit of the appearance of conducting humanitarian efforts to help its Black community while covertly seeking only to maintain its White dominance.

While this may still sound, for many, as being incredibly ridiculous, unbelievable or even a bit like bad science fiction, however psychological Warfare is a real and well-proven method of warfare that exceeds the territorial limits of conventional warfare to penetrate the proposed target and it is commonly used by the U.S. Government. This method of psychological manipulation works by affecting the unconscious mind through deception. It uses the psychology of deceit to adversely affect the recipient group in terms of their behavior. It is implemented by, first, simply learning everything about the targeted group, their beliefs, likes, dislikes, strengths, and vulnerabilities. Once you know what motivates your target, you are ready to begin psychological operations against them.
In fact, the U.S. Government’s usage of psychological warfare has been ongoing throughout the entire combat operation in Iraq from the initial battle thru the so-called rebuilding of Iraq. The United States Military dropped propaganda leaflets on Iraq and planted favorable stories about the new Iraq in the Baghdad press, radio, and television media and, under the guise of merely removing all mentions of Saddam Hussein from the Baghdad grades school educational curricula, rewrote the Iraq schools curriculum to be more favorable in its depiction of westerners/Whites. Moreover, its methods of rewriting the Iraq schools curriculum to one of in which educates Iraqi students to now revere westerners/Whites, and using the Iraqi national media to perpetuate propaganda and misinformation to facilitate their easier exploitation and suppression, are remarkably consistent with the current social conditions and experiences of African Americans.

Moreover, this type of psychological warfare has been used by the military since World War II. The British Special Operation Executives (SOE) was pioneering this form of propaganda during the Second World War. The British Government, between1930-1940, conducted psychological warfare against Germany, by putting together a massive department staffed by many former journalists that conducted secret journalism and planted favorable stories in the world’s press. Generally using friendly newspapers editors, but also using bribery to get pro-allied stories in print, British pilots also dropped propaganda leaflets and spread rumors concerning Germany’s relations with France and other aspects of the war.

This is just one example among a long list of many, in which government-led psychological warfare was use to influence U. S. citizens. Every act of the government has an enduring psychological impact, such as President Bush’s media coverage stunt where he landed upon a U.S. Naval battle carrier dressed as a pilot. Likewise, U.S. soldiers pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, to the staged rescue of Jessica Lynch, had the same effect. These strategies are all part of the sophisticated system of psychological warfare, and they continue, all around us, all of the time. Psychological warfare is a real, sound, proven governmental technology that has been used by the U.S. Government for many decades, and on through to present-day America. As recently as July 2004, a story was reported by the New York Times that the Defense Department had paid the Rendon Group, a Washington-based international consulting firm, $100,000 per month to help the Office of Strategic Information (OSI) with a broad campaign that would include negative propaganda or disinformation. The report stated that the OSI was established to spread positive messages about the war on terrorism, but it would also use disinformation and misinformation to mislead friends and foe alike. The report went on to say that the Office of Strategic Influence had been set up to disseminate truthful information openly but also to spread what senior pentagon officials called “the Blackest of Black programs. The organization works on ways to influence and mislead the media abroad and domestically in America, by spreading positive messages about the war on terrorism or perpetuating disinformation through its frequent collusion with news media personnel.

There are countless numbers of mind-control projects in operation which target specific subjects and groups using vast panoply of different mind control technologies which are currently being deployed against the citizens of the United States of America by certain segments of our national government. There are also mind control and mind manipulation activities that target masses of people and ethnic groups in large geographical regions at the same time. The intention here is to merely demonstrate within a constructive manner rather than an accusatory one, that since the methods of maintaining white dominance and control over its Black population used in the past are no longer morally and socially acceptable, that the U.S. government’s societal elites have modified their methods of meeting this objective into a form more socially acceptable with contemporary times through the usage of these same proven methods of psychological manipulations through the media. The objective of the United States government has always been to maintain its White dominance over its Black population, and clearly, psychological warfare meets this need–because it covertly creates a national climate that allows the government to suppress consensually the advancement of its African American population and to maintain its White dominance and national stability.

The preceding information are excerpts from the book entitled the Black Matrix: The modern mental and social supression of African Americans under national interest (c) 2006, 2008 by Franklin G. Jones aka Thanubian.

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By Michael Novick, ARA-LA/People Against Racist Terror

I would like to struggle about what I feel are some potentially fatal weaknesses in the Bring the Ruckus statement. I focus on those rather than on areas of agreement, because I think it is vital to have some real political discussion, and I hope this will help contribute to it. Similar to the Race Traitor perspective which it derives from, the BTR statement is predicated on two fundamental political errors. First, it situates “whiteness” exclusively in relation/opposition to Blackness and racial slavery. Second, it proposes a strategy based around the notion of an “American working class” as an agent of revolutionary change.

These positions discount the central importance of land and of settler colonialism in the creation of capitalism and of white supremacy. Whiteness developed internationally, (and not only in America or the US), not only out of race-based chattel slavery, but out of the conquest and settlement of a vast land mass and the genocidal annihilation of its people. Empire was a project not solely of the ruling class but of other classes whose relationship to the means of production was and is mediated not only by white skin privilege but by a social relationship among people and between people and nature based on private ownership of land, and particularly of the private expropriation of commonly held land and of OTHER PEOPLE’S LAND.

Regarding the question of Marxism and/or anarchism, I think it is vital to critique and transcend the eurocentrism that plagues both those schools of thought. Marx, for example, although he opposed racial slavery and the slave trade, and supported the Union in the US civil war, also supported the US conquest of Mexico (which was a war of aggression to expand the purview and territory of slavery) because, he said, the Anglo-Saxon Protestant settlers from the US would make better and more productive use of the resources of the territory that the semi-feudal Catholic Mexicans, and thus hasten the development of productivity that would lay the basis for socialism.

Any revolutionary cadre organization in this continent must be based on a recognition that the state and society that exists here is based on settler colonialism; that the sovereignty and rights of the indigenous people must be respected; that not only the imperial state but the entire social order must be toppled. The liberation of Native land, of Hawaii, of Puerto Rico, of occupied northern Mexico, the decolonization of African people are central to a revolutionary project in this society, polity and land mass.

The odd formulation of the BTR/Race Traitor/New Abolitionist perspective, that whiteness is apparently simultaneously the strongest bulwark and the weakest link of class society in the US, grows out of an essentially topsy-turvy, tail-wagging-the-dog approach to this question. Whiteness and white supremacy are the consequence, not the cause, of colonialism, land theft, genocide, and racial chattel slavery based on the kidnapping of millions of Africans. Whiteness and white supremacy will end as a consequence, not a precondition, of decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, reparations and the destruction of capitalism and imperialism.

The question of colonialism and the idea of decolonization are vital because they help us understand the real nature of this state and of the class relations undergirding it. The Irish did not only become white because they feared competition from Black labor. They became white (in Ireland as well as America) because of the lure of land, and their willingness to participate in a settler colonial project initiated by the British empire, despite their own colonization by that empire and its implantation of settlers within their land and society. Irish settlers in colonial era Pennsylvania, for example, sought to break up the existing agreement between native people and the Quaker regime in order to be free to expel more indigenous people and seize more land for cultivation, and they eventually drove Ben Franklin out over that issue. Such a “safety valve” for the class and national contradictions of Ireland itself had inevitable negative consequences on the consciousness and struggle of the Irish in Ireland as well. And the same process took place throughout European societies, as the American safety valve, the American ability to satisfy the land hunger of European peasants turned-proletarians, defused the revolutionary potential and resistance of European workers (along with the booty of other imperial conquests and holdings in Africa, Asia and Latin America). Far from being merely the US equivalent of European social democracy, whiteness, white supremacy (and the settler colonialism unacknowledged by the RT/BTR position) formed the basis for social democracy and class collaborationism in Europe itself. The European bourgeoisie AND proletariat (and obviously even more so the Euro-American equivalents) owe their existence to conquest, settlement and slavery.

And this is not just ancient history. Talking about this as something that happened in the past is the real white blind spot. The US is a settler colonial society to this very moment. It constantly and continously violates by force of arms the sovereignty of the indigenous people. American identity and white identity are a settler colonial identity in every aspect of current consciousness and social, economic and political relationships. The reason Copwatch is a strategically important project is because the police ARE an occupying army in communities of color and an internal border guard in more privileged areas. The reason the prisons have swollen in the last two decades is as part of a consciously genocidal program of ’spatial deconcentration,’ ethnic cleansing and colonial mass incarceration.

The other important point about anti-colonialism and decolonization is that they set the tasks and strategies of ‘white’ people on the same ground as everyone else. The ‘old’ abolitionism was led by Black people because they were the slaves and they were seeking to abolish their own servitude and a legally imposed situation that denied their fundamental human rights. There is not today a comparable mass movement of Black people or other people of color to abolish the white race, whiteness or white privilege; there is a movement of people of color to terminate their oppression, exploitation and colonization.This is the cutting edge of the class struggle throughout the world, and “whites” who seek to imbue themselves with revolutionary class consciousness, who seek to end their own exploitation and oppression, who want to secure a future for their children and the planet, need to embrace the same exact struggle against settlerism, colonialism, and imperialism/capitalism.

The indigenous societies of Asia, Africa and America met colonization with a primarily military resistance that failed in the face of superior military technology and the colonizers’ ability to divide and conquer using pre-existing contradictions, as well as to numerically overwhelm using settler populations. Once European and American capitalism developed on that foundation of conquest, the Euro-American working class launched a struggle (whether led by anarchists or Marxists) that was predicated on a Eurocentric model of an army of labor. More recently the wave of national liberation struggles for independence have crested and broken, exposing the inability of those struggles to overcome neo-colonialism, “globalization,” and the entrenched power of the imperial political, economic and social system.

If we are getting ready to launch a new wave of struggle that can carry through to the successful overthrow of this system, we better make damn sure we learn the lessons of those past failures. Prairie Fire Organizing Committee was a “predominantly white” cadre organization, but at least it had the context of operating in direct solidarity with particular revolutionary national liberation forces inside and outside the borders of the US. It grew out of and struggled with a large, preexisting “white left.” Times are much different now. It is great that there are growing movements again, but to the extent that there is still time to forestall the consolidation of a “white left” predicated on privilege, we should make sure that our efforts are consistent with a strategy to do so. Constructing a predominantly ‘white’ cadre organization out of a predominanty ‘white’ anarchist tendency is not likely to move us toward where we want to go.

The reason politics is vital is because the color line is not the only line in the world. Would it were so. The battle would’ve been won long ago. The class struggle, the struggle for human liberation and planetary survival, goes on within individuals of all nationalities, ethnicities and “races,” and within those social formations as a whole. Any thinking human being, whether born into colonizing or colonized groups, privileged or oppressed, must make ultimately independent political decisions about what is correct or incorrect, right or wrong, liberatory or oppressive, not only in their own actions but those of others. Being victims of Hitler’s genocide and of many other pogroms did not turn Jews into saints; being victims of zionism and colonialism does not sanctify Muslims or Arabs. A vast array of political positions, ideologies and practice can be found among Black people, in the US or elsewhere. Yet one can and must distinguish between Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson; or between Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan; or between the Taliban and the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. This is not national chauvinism, white nationalism, or anything else than upholding one’s social, political and moral responsibilities as a human being.

I am neither a Marxist nor a Leninist (though that does not mean I do not believe in class struggle). But Lenin made a great contribution to understanding the nature of class struggle, which was substituting’the slogan, “Workers and Oppressed People of the World Unite — You have a World to Win” for “Workers of the World Unite, You have nothing to lose but your chains.” Also, the Bolsheviks were advocates of “revolutionary defeatism” — wanting to see the defeat of “their own” bourgeoisie at the hands of other imperialists if it would advance their ability to smash the power and the state of that bourgeoisie (or that national sector of the imperialist bourgeoisie). So Lenin and Trotsky, unlike the Mensheviks, were prepared to sue for peace with the Germans on any terms rather than allow the Russian workers and peasants to be bled another minute by the imperialist war. To win that peace they were prepared to sign away enormous tracts of Russian imperial territory to the Kaiser.

I do not put forward either the analysis of Sakai in “Settlers” that all white workers are a reactionary labor aristocracy, nor the view espoused by MIM that all workers in the US without exception, even including Black, Latino, Asian and indigenous people, are bought off by a bribe provided by the super-exploitation of workers in the exterior Third World, so that nobody in the US is exploited but actually all enjoy material privileges in excess of the value they actually produce. These views are incorrect.

What is the case is that throughout the international working class, and indeed throughout the human race, privilege and oppression/exploitation are commingled and inter-related, existing in a complicated and contradictory unity. One particularly central form this takes is “white skin privilege” or “whiteness.” But it takes many other forms, including neo-colonialism, warlordism, patriarchy, etc. Individual members of all oppressed and exploited groups participate in oppression and exploitation, including their own oppression. The class struggle does not take place only between classes, but within classes and within the individuals comprised in a “class.”

There is a material basis for reaction in the working class, alongside and interpenetrating with a material basis for revolution. Struggling to consciously realize and strengthen the latter means consciously struggling to identify and uproot the former. This does not distinguish working class white people in the US from anybody else on the face of the planet struggling to become a freedom fighter and (self) liberator, and to help transform society; it just has certain particularities and tenacities among white people — and certain ramifications for the global anti-capitalist, anti-oppression struggle for human and planetary liberation because of the enormous wealth, power and reactionary impact of the US empire.

But the course of all revolutionary struggles in human history demonstrate quite clearly that without unremitting struggle, revolutionary organizations and even societies turn into their opposite because of the material roots of oppression and exploitation even within the exploited and oppressed and their organizations. Redemption is not a one-time shot. We redeem ourselves through a struggle for class consciousness, and the effort to liberate ourselves by struggling to end all exploitation and oppression, not only our own. And that will go on for many lifetimes.

There is neither a white working class, nor an “American” working class. There is an international working class, within which real material divisions exist based on colonialism, particularly settler colonialism, patriarchy, and many other factors. People who participate in their own oppression, or who identify with their own oppressors (worse yet, who identify as oppressors) can never be free. This is true for white people, Black people, Palestinians, Israelis, Irish, English, Boers or Azanians. But people who are struggling for freedom, however, can begin to see a way out of participating in their own oppression or holding on to their privileges at the expense of their future.

I am not pessimistic in the least. On the contrary, my optimism is based exactly on the enormous and insoluble contradictions inherent within capitalism, imperialism and settler colonialism, material contradictions which make the so-called “white working class” and the “white race” inherently unstable and in a sense self-destructive social formations. In this regard, they are fundamentally unlike he bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, and the labor aristocracy, of all nations, but particularly oppressor and colonizing nations, which are strata and class fractions whose position in society is based on a generally unified coincidence of class, national, and imperial interests, and from whom only a minute fraction of class/race traitors can be won to participation in revolutionary struggle as anything but rank opportunists. Oppressed and working people, of all nations and “races,” on the other hand, embody an explosive contradiction in our lives, psyches, and social and economic realities and relationships. It is this contradiction which it is the task of revolutionaries to expose, clarify, heighten and ultimately resolve in favor of mass self-liberatory action that will eradicate all pre-existing forms of oppression and exploitation in favor of a classless, “race”-less, and stateless human society. However, this process will take a lot more than “convincing” people to “surrender” their privileges.

My point in engaging in this struggle is not to dismiss the politics of BTR or to bid them adieu. I have learned a great deal from Race Traitor analyses and political thinking and its antecedents over many years. I believe there are affinities and that you are grappling with and struggling for an analysis and practice that holds great promise. I would hope that you would rethink some of the seemingly self-contradictory formulations you adhere to, and that you would hopefully go slowly in constituting a cadre organization around them without a great deal of additional struggle (and I would point out that you have not even addressed the question of the relationship of a cadre organization apparently based in the white working class to revolutionaries from oppressed and colonized nations and people within the US). By setting this struggle on the grounds of a difference in analysis and “pessimism” about the white working class, in fact, you have liquidated the argument and discussion about the nature of the struggle and goals of colonized peoples and what form their decolonization and liberation will take. This is a huge and fundamental flaw in your thinking, upon which many other well-intentioned efforts at revolutionary struggle in the US have come a-cropper.

Via Anti-Racist Action

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By Sherman Austin

The idea alone that a white-led and white-founded institution (being the democratic party) would put it’s power and resources in the hands of a negro is beyond unrealistic. It’s not just the element of racism that makes this unrealistic , it’s the fact that the white power structure is too smart to let a negro or any other person of color control the economics and resources of it’s community and political network. It’s not intelligent.

What we see is just another attempt to further legitimize the falsehood of white supremacy by putting a black face on white american politics to fuel the agenda of a system and it’s political circus that uses false pretexts such as “change” and deceptive themes of “integration” to divert your attention from the real motives.

Fabricating themes of “integration” is used to reinforce and sustain the very dogmatism of a country somehow changing and moving forward, when in reality the power structure has already decided how to strategically sustain control. For example we are countlessly tricked into believing that white-led institutions and enterprises moving into and controlling the resources of the black community somehow means “integration”, when these very same institutions and enterprises would resist violently deeming it intolerable and unacceptable if it was the other way around.

And yet amidst the much recent blatant and publicly demonstrated racist attacks on black america from the response to Hurricane Katrina to the NYPD killing of Sean Bell, we’ve yet again been deceived into thinking that the power structure is somehow open to change and integration and is capable of moving forward. Funny how hope always spurs at the perfect moment.

Unfortunately many are still unfamiliar with the marketing schemes too common with the so-called democratic process of american politics. When a president is extremely right-wing, conservative, and pro-war, it’s not long before the masses are eventually fed up and dissatisfied with the end result, so the next step is to introduce and market something less extreme, something that resembles the opposite, promoting “solutions” and a “new direction”, fabricate themes of change and hope, only to keep the very same agenda and direction intact.

The white power structure in america might just take it as far as letting Obama “win” the elections. After all it would make it easier for those really running things and making the rules to continue their agenda without the looming threat of an increasing number of people becoming fed-up with the political system. America has mastered the technique of keeping you pacified.

If you oppose the war, you can protest. Sign a petition. Write your congressman. While they still kill thousands, you can vote. False satisfaction in which the result is always the same; Nothing changes. If I was wrong then I wouldn’t be writing this today.

What about revolution? The idea of revolution isn’t necessarily difficult to introduce to people in america – what’s actually difficult is trying to initiate the idea. Pacification is a technique mastered by this system and it will go to any length to instill it, even if that means the system has to look like it’s compromising it’s own principles by pretending to turn it’s self around. This is easy for a system without principles. It makes the objective simple; keeping an agenda, and doing so by any means necessary.

Don’t get bamboozled.

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About time someone took on Amiri Baraka’s frequent minstrelsy on behalf of the Obama campaign.

By Littlehorn

I decided to write a response for several reasons:

1. I completely reject voting for Obama
2. The arguments used by Baraka are widespread among the Liberals, and it is thus handy to have a serious reply at one’s disposal
3. Baraka himself uses very strong words against the Right and Imperialism, and I could never let such a man betray us with a vote for Obama.

I use the word ‘betray’ because I believe a line has to be drawn between imperialists and anti-imperialists.

After reading this text, I wondered who the author might be. I expected Baraka to be a person with a pretty extremist past, but then mellowed out in the course of his life. I thought he went from being a radical socialist, which would explain the first paragraphs extreme vocabulary depicting the Right (always a pleasure by the way), to being a Democrat loyalist, which would explain his call for radicals to vote Obama, in the name of the lesser of two evils argument, as always.

However, according to this Wikipedia entry, he considers himself, still to this day, a marxist. That makes this response even more imperative. Think about all the young folks he will convince with this kind of revolutionary cred.

So let’s start the bitching.

Baraka’s text characterizes radicals from the 3rd to the 11th paragraph, that is, about the time where he starts finding some use for them: they can vote for Obama. Here are the words he uses in association with them, prior to this revelation: “pimple,” “so disant intellectuals” [that's soi-disant], “self-advertised radicals,” “criminal,” “mirror worship,” “empty idealism,” “dangerous,” “windy egotism,” “self-congratulatory,” “solipsistic fist pounding,” “elitism,” “so-called left,” “would-be radicals,” “pipsqueak,” “stand on the sidelines,” “hip.” And of course, let’s not forget the title, “rascals.”

All these insults derive from one problem: the radicals oppose Obama. This is what Baraka considers criminal. Because voting for McKinney is, in the end, voting for McCain. And McCain wants Americans to “keep dying in Iraq,” and “keep our taxpayer money fed to Halliburton.”

There are serious flaws in these positions.

The first of which is that Baraka forgets to explain how Obama’s plan will stop American deaths in Iraq, how it will stop our taxpayer money from being fed to Halliburton, and in general, how Obama will stop anything McCain intends to do, or expand. Any amount of reflection on the matter will show that it won’t. Whatever makes it criminal to “vote McCain”, therefore, makes it criminal to vote Obama. And while he rails against radicals for using the lesser of two evils argument on McKinney and Obama, he does the same with Obama and McCain. [May I also add that I too would rail against these radicals, but because McKinney is precisely not evil, contrary to Obama.]

The second flaw lies in the statement that a vote for McKinney is a vote for McCain and that’s just intolerable. McCain is such a horrible person and candidate, we are led to think, that Baraka embarks on a crusade to intimidate radicals who would have this horrible horrible person elected. Two questions: how is Obama so much better ? And also, how could a Republican candidate ever be such an acceptable possibility that Baraka wouldn’t mind alternative candidates ? It could not be so, and Obama, as a candidate for the oval office and as someone who approves Imperialism just as much as McCain does, is as horrible a person as McCain is. So then, while Baraka tries to portray his position as reasonable, the only result that can be drawn from the obvious reality of American politics is a completely locked-up two-party regime, with obviously no hope for real change.

Finally, if you’re going to call people’s decisions ‘criminal,’ maybe you should go check again the voting record of the same Barack Obama you want for president. He consistently funded the Iraq occupation, the same occupation that studies show has killed between at least 100.000 people and more than a million of them. Surely, Baraka would talk about the “political context” to explain that away. One would be tempted to call it a ‘criminal’ political context, but alas, there was no radical to intimidate while this occupation was funded in Congress. But then, Obama is the Democratic nominee, and he will be influenced by a “solid left bloc”, that has yet to actually exist.

This is what Baraka envisions for us: after he’s done insulting us, that is, telling us how stupid, selfish, arrogant, useless we are, he finally shows us the way to salvation from his pathetic diatribe: we shall form a left bloc and we shall push Obama to the left, but while supporting his candidacy anyway. Or else! He will be “pushed inexorably to the right.” By whom ? Well, Baraka doesn’t say, so I’m going to suppose a bunch a right-wing aliens abducted Obama’s secret son and are forcing him to say naughty things during a presidential run.

For all the rants about McKinney supporters’ idealism, arrogance, selfishness and lack of seriousness, his own vision is quite “grandiose.” (I can mock elitist radicals with French words too)

Let’s go: sometime before the election, progressives, radicals, and revolutionaries are supposed to come together to form a bloc. Baraka does not explain how this will be done. He just wishes it would happen. Let’s grant it will. Then, this bloc will support Obama, even though, as the subject of this whole call shows, almost all the members of this bloc will think Obama is an Imperialist, unworthy of support. I imagine Baraka intends to use his poetic skills and insults to turn these guys around. That will work. Maybe he will personally send a postcard to each and every one of them, with the words “You’re useless. Vote Obama.” Or some kind of poetic variation of that.

But let’s imagine that this solid left bloc will indeed reluctantly vote for Obama. Then, when the election day comes, and if there’s a “larceny” like in 2000 and 2004, the bloc will agitate so the election is not stolen. So not only will Baraka’s bloc vote for Obama, against its beliefs, it’s also going to march on the streets, fuck ship up, “agitate” and even “internationally” ! They’ll go to prison, they’ll get tasered, some of them may even die! But it’ll pay out in the end, cause then Obama, that guy whom they think is an Imperialist, will reach the oval office.

Unlikely you say, but I was a little dishonest there. Fortunately for logic’s sake, there’s a purpose to all this: when Obama is finally elected, installed in the oval office, then it will finally be time for the solid left bloc to be “loud and regular in its demands for the changes Obama has alluded to in his campaign.” There is “a potential” for a new “path”. And what changes did he allude to ? The famous talks. The progressive, radical, revolutionary bloc will vote for Obama, agitate, fuck shit up, and in the end it will manage to push Obama to the left, because, sometime before the primaries ended, Obama said he would hold talks with the “Bourgeois enemies.”

To be sure, this is a very serious and realistic plan. McKinney, contrary to what you would think from reading Baraka’s call, does not fool herself into thinking she will win the presidency. She aims to reach 5% of the national vote so as to reach the status of 3rd party. That would give them some platform for later and bigger gains. This, in my arrogant, selfish, stupid view, seems a lot more realistic than Baraka’s plan.

Baraka also uses the good old secret agenda/political context/majority argument, to explain all the foul language and naughty votes employed by Obama before and after the nomination, but especially after. That’s certainly one very credited explanation among Liberals. And proved by History many times over: how often do we see Presidents do exactly the contrary of what they announced after their nomination ? I stopped counting myself a long time ago. Boy, do I hope someone can help with that. Baraka certainly will.

But seriously, where has Baraka been all these years ? What’s the point of calling yourself a marxist ? How about this other, much more plausible explanation: the real agenda of the candidate is exposed after his nomination. Before, the candidate is not sure he will be nominated, he must secure as many votes as he can, and that is when he panders to the left, or whatever stream will get him nominated. After, all he has to do is steal votes from the right, please the rulers, say the “serious” things, and appear presidential. Baraka would have you believe the constraints are placed after the nomination, and that this is why Obama has to say right-wing stuff. It’s the other way around: the constraints are placed before, when Obama must actually convince people. After that, and precisely for the reason that is given in the very same call by the very same Baraka, he’s absolutely free. That reason is : no one Liberal would vote for anyone else but Obama, because he would take that to be a vote for McCain, just like Baraka says. Thus Obama only has to pretend and Democrats are never made accountable.

And now it is high time someone speaks the truth.

One is not responsible for the actions of others, but only for his own.

A vote for McKinney is not a vote for McCain.

A vote for McKinney is a vote for McKinney.

Only a vote for McCain is a vote for McCain.

Baraka wants us to think it is not true.

But I’m asking you:

If you bring a friend to a concert, and a madman kills that friend, does that make you guilty of his death?

If I vote for McKinney, but McCain wins, will I be guilty of all the murderous things McCain will do?

No.

The madman is guilty. McCain and his supporters are guilty.

This is the simple truth that everyone understands in real life, but that no one applies to politics.

Well, not Amiri Baraka anyway.

There are several other minor (and obvious) problems within this call, I just want to point them out quickly:

• At some point, Baraka says he will qualify what positions he shares with radicals on Obama. But he never gets to that anywhere in the text.
• He claims Obama’s skin color will change the country if he’s elected, because of the country’s history. I take it then that McKinney is white. Also, the skin color of the POTUS is now officially magical (the KKK will be happy to hear that), or has at least much political meaning. (Clarence ?)
• The fatherless children are rampant in Black communities, to the point it’s impossible to ignore them. Well, not so much. Then again, Baraka lives and had children there, so I guess his partial knowledge weighs more than scientific study.
• He then advances that fatherless children make up most of the gangs, but seeing that he was wrong on their predominance in Black communities, I have difficulty trusting him on this. Also, you will be pleased to learn that white racists in France advanced this very reason (bad parenting) to explain away the kids’ participation during the riots. Nice.
• This guy manages to mention the deaths of his sister and his only daughter [may they rest in peace] with such casualness, I didn’t understand this was serious until the third read. Quote:
  

  As I answered one irate e-mailer who was pissed off at Obama for leveling that challenge, a Negro man killed my only sister, a Negro man killed my youngest daughter.
  I can’t give no mealy mouth slack about that, we need to Stand Up!

• When the left bloc will supposedly be created, it will take the same kind of importance as AIPAC and the Gusanos lobby. And then the masses truely wanna go to the left, they’re just waiting for some good left bloc document to do so. I’ll begin writing a draft right away. Expect to see the Communist Party revived in a few months.

To finish on a compromising note, I will say that I do agree that the forces on the left need to get up and form a bloc. This is even desperately needed.

But to then support Obama would be a huge mistake. Obama will never listen to such a bloc. The “talks” were all show and he disavowed the left not long ago. To attach that bloc to such an obvious scam of a progressive would most probably end up with its self-destruction.

Via Connection

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By Bill Weinberg

The New York Times’ City Room blog reports a strange spectacle from 6th Ave. July 17:

As thousands of people, mostly of Tibetan and Nepalese ancestry, streamed out of Radio City Music Hall on Thursday afternoon, where they had gone to hear the Dalai Lama give a lecture on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, they found themselves in a chaotic scene on the Avenue of the Americas.

About 200 members of a Buddhist sect, the Western Shugden Society, were outside the hall protesting the Dalai Lama, who they said had persecuted monks who supported the sect. Some among the thousands coming out of the lecture began shouting at the protesters. The crowd began to swell, and eventually thousands were shouting “Long Live Dalai Lama” and waving dollar bills at the protesters, asserting that they had been paid by the Chinese government.

Police officers on horseback, and dozens on the ground, began scrambling to set up barriers and push the crowds off of the streets, but the avenue was closed for about 20 minutes around 5 p.m. Office workers stood at windows along Rockefeller Center’s office buildings, gazing down at the crowds, which grew louder and larger.

Some of the Dalai Lama supporters began approaching the protesters and were shoved away by police.

After his lecture to a sold-out house at Radio City, where some supporters paid as much as $1,000 a ticket, the Dalai Lama took questions that audience members had submitted in advance. The second question was whether he had anything to say about the protesters outside, who had begun setting up long before the Dalai Lama’s lecture began at 2 p.m.

The Dalai Lama said he used to follow their practice, known as Dorje Shugden, from about 1951 until the early 1970s, but that he had given it up because it was intolerant of other Buddhist teachings.

“This is just spirit worship,” he said. “After I read more about it, I realized my mistake and dropped my practice.”

He added: “I think 99 percent of Tibetans follow my practice. Some small portion worship this spirit. I am committed to freedom of speech, freedom of talk. So I say to them, enjoy freedom of talk.”

He also argued that two past Dalai Lamas had restricted the practice, and that he was following tradition.

The Western Shudgen Society asserts that the Dalai Lama has more than a decade “been fostering a campaign of intimidation, humiliation, and ostracism” against practitioners of Dorje Shugden.

Kelsang Pema, a spokeswoman for the Western Shugden Society, said she had flown from England to engage in the protest. More than half of the protesters appeared to be Westerners, although Ms. Pema said 100 Tibetan monks also took part in the protest.

Although the crowd who attended the lecture at Radio City contained a sprinkling of Westerners, most were of Himalayan ancestry and they were the ones shouting at the protesters from across the Avenue of the Americas and from the north side of 50th Street.

The protesters were on the southwest corner of 50th and Sixth, behind police barricades. There did not appear to be any arrests. Ms. Pema said of the Dalai Lama, “He’s a Hollywood monk. If you ask him something serious, he smiles and laughs and pretends he doesn’t know English.” (The Dalai Lama answered the question in English, with some help with words and phrases from a translator seated near him on the stage.)

Ms. Pema said people had come from 18 countries to participate in the protest. She denied that her group had been paid by the Chinese government. “We get no money from the Chinese. They can check our organization. We’re clean.” The protesters handed out literature explaining their position.

The Times fails to note that the idiot-left group Fight Imperialism-Stand Together (FIST) also had a contingent at the anti-Dalai Lama gig. Here’s their press release. Note the last sentence:

A protest of Washington’s anti-China policies is planned for July 17 when the Dalai Lama will be speaking at Radio City Music Hall here. The U.S. government has been involved in the “Free Tibet” campaign from the beginning, while the media facilitates its execution.

The latest efforts began in mid-March, when the Dalai Lama covertly encouraged Tibetans to riot. The rioters looted, burned and attacked non-Tibetan ethnic groups, killing and wounding scores. Then in April, protesters attacked Olympic torch runners in several countries in a clear campaign against this year’s Beijing Olympics. These attacks and accompanying protests were glorified by a media that has failed to exhibit similar enthusiasm for covering anti-war protests.

The Dalai Lama and the U.S. imperialists have worked hard to erase the Dalai Lama’s past as a feudal leader, and these days hardly anyone in the Western media questions the fact that he is supposed to be a living deity. “Spiritual” leaders, it seems, are condemned or elevated according to their strategic utility to the ruling class. In the U.S., the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for example, was raked over the coals by the media for his preaching against racism. But Washington, which was comfortable with Tibet’s status as a part of China before the Chinese Revolution, now considers the Dalai Lama to be of great importance and therefore greatly “spiritual.”

The Dalai Lama also supports past and present U.S. military operations in south Korea, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Iraq. He is hardly a representative of peace.

Not everyone has such short memories, however. The twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo, Tibet’s only living female Buddha, a critic of the Dalai Lama and vice-chairwoman of Tibet’s regional government, says that “Old Tibet was dark and cruel, the serfs lived worse than horses and cattle.” (Reuters)

We won’t ask how FIST professes to know that the Dalai Lama “covertly” encouraged Tibetans to riot. More interesting is the reference to the twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo. If you look up the April 30 Reuters story (which FIST fails to either date or link to), you will find that it cites China’s official Xinhua agency—and that the twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo is a vice-chair of the Beijing-compliant Tibetan Autonomous Regional People’s Congress!

Tibet’s only female living Buddha, Samding Dorje Phagmo, who is also a top regional official, accused the Dalai Lama of violating Buddhist teachings, referring to the riots in Lhasa last month.

The twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo said Tibet’s incorporation into Communist China has transformed it from the backwards feudal society of largely illiterate serfs with little medical care.

“Old Tibet was dark and cruel, the serfs lived worse than horses and cattle,” she told the official Xinhua agency.

The 66-year old woman was chosen as the incarnation of the deity Vajravarahi. Head of the Samding monastery, she is also a vice-chairwoman of the standing committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Regional People’s Congress, or regional parliament.

“Watching on television a tiny number of unscrupulous people burning and smashing shops, schools and public property, brandishing knives and sticks to attack unfortunate passers-by I felt boundless surprise, deep heartache and indignant resentment,” she said.

China has accused the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, of plotting the riots and unrest that spread across many ethnic Tibetan parts of the country, in a bid to overshadow the Olympic Games and push for independence.

“The sins of the Dalai Lama and his followers seriously violate the basic teachings and precepts of Buddhism and seriously damage traditional Tibetan Buddhism’s normal order and good reputation,” the Samding Dorje Phagmo was quoted as saying.

The Dalai Lama rejects China’s claims, saying he supports the Olympic Games and seeks only greater autonomy for Tibet.

We’ve already noted some of the surreal politics of the officially atheist Chinese state’s game of divide-and-rule with Tibet’s Buddhists. It is perversely amusing to see FIST (the latest front group for the retro-Stalinist Workers World Party) drawn into the game…

Via World War 4 Report

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Jay Smooth lays out the knowledge in this video.

Via Ill Doctrine

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By Counterhegemony

Sometimes a social movement does not get to select its spokesperson. Who knew when the civil rights movement began that a baseball player such Hank Aaron would become such a durable symbol of equality. Aaron’s contribution? He endured the savage threats of white racists and constant pressure of the commercial media which came along with breaking Babe Ruth’s long standing home run record. Aaron accomplished this with a quiet dignity that spoke volumes about the abilities and determination emerging from the African-American community.

Yesterday, such a role was thrust upon another commercial star who also happens to be an African-American. It seems that the legally embattled hip-hop artist DMX was arrested for using the false identity of “Troy Jones” to avoid paying a $7,500 medical bill. The bill was incurred during his visit to the Scottsdale, Az. Mayo Clinic. Most of the major media outlets connect this latest arrest with DMXs recent string of arrests for offenses such as driving without a license and animal cruelty.

Perhaps, though, there is another story here. Taking a page from the civil rights movement we can argue that an immoral law ceases to be a law. A moral person is then encouraged if not mandated to break such a law. Charging a human being for receiving health care is immoral. I therefore applaud DMXs attempt to avoid payment and would even encourage organized groups to follow his lead. The provision of healthcare should be a human right offered to all people in this society regardless of their ability to pay.

There is a long list of negative consequences as a result of having a health care system monopolized by private companies. 47 million have no insurance, more than 20 million more are under insured and some 100,000 people per year die from health problems which could have been solved with the proper attention. Even senior citizens are being targeted by private companies as the public system of Medicare is slowly placed into private hands. Finally and directly related to DMXs actions, health care debts are the highest cause of personal bankruptcy.

So, move over Henry Aaron, DMX may be the new super star face of a social movement. DMX would do well to publicly endorse the resolution currently in the House of Representatives known as H.R. 676, or the National Health Insurance Act. This bill would provide health care to everyone – it would cover DMX and the millions of “Troy Jones’” suffering under a privatized health system.

Via Counterhegemonic

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By Kai Wright

George Mitchell’s wife, Lillian, took her last breath in the house she loved, on New Year’s Day 2006. “Right there in that spot,” says George, 77, nodding to the far end of his worn, floral-print couch. “I think the last words she spoke was my name.”

“Yup,” confirms his youngest daughter, Chandra Chavis. “I was trying to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation at the time.” She points out the living room window to the small, sloping front yard and drive. “There was no address on the house, so I had to stop doing that to get the ambulance to come in.” But Lillian’s heart had seized, and Chandra knows there’s not much she could have done anyway. She figures if even the trauma team at Atlanta’s century-old public hospital couldn’t revive her mom, she must have been long gone. “Nobody can bring you back if the Lord calls you,” concludes an older daughter, Gwen Russell.

It was Lillian’s tenacity that led the Mitchell family to Atlanta’s Westwood neighborhood, in 1968. “She was determined,” Chandra explains, “not to have her children in an apartment–I know the story; I’ve heard it a million times–so she found somebody, a real estate agent, and they came out and they looked in this neighborhood. I don’t know what brought them to this part of town, ’cause at the time they were living in Dixon Hills”–then an up-and-coming black neighborhood–”but she decided she wanted a house, and this is where she found it.”

“All I did was sign the paper,” says George with a shrug.

That made the Mitchells one of the first African-American families to move into Westwood. Atlanta has long been known as the “black Mecca,” a place where African-Americans have been able to claw up the socioeconomic ladder and plunge into America’s consumer culture. Nowhere is that striving more visible than in the massive subdivisions of large, new homes that Atlanta’s black bourgeoisie have erected, reaching far into the suburbs. But the process began generations ago in a cluster of inside-the-beltway neighborhoods wedged into the city’s southwestern corner, including Westwood. Today that area is reeling, having been one of the nation’s communities hardest hit by the one-two punch of subprime lending and home foreclosures. The Mitchells have not been spared. Like hundreds of thousands of Americans, they are scrambling to keep the house Lillian found for them.

Nearly 18,000 homes faced foreclosure in the Atlanta area during the first quarter of 2008, an almost 40 percent jump from the first quarter of 2007. In Fulton County, which encompasses most of the city’s core and is heavily African-American, one in 122 homes was in foreclosure in the first week of April. A digest of Atlanta’s March 2008 “foreclosure starts” was as thick as the phone book, and the Mitchells’ 30310 ZIP code topped the list.

The area boasts an old stock of quaint, midcentury houses painted in bright yellows and crisp blues, accented with quirky touches that now feel more haunting than homey. On block after block, as many homes sit vacant or bank-owned as not. Boarded-up windows lurk behind white-columned front porches, and the yards are slowly going to weeds and trash. On one block, eleven boarded-up houses line the street, making the area look like it’s been hit by a natural disaster.

But the disaster is depressingly man-made. And this neighborhood reveals a deeply troubling dimension of it, one that will echo long past the recovery everyone hopes will soon come: for black America, the “mortgage meltdown” looks less like a market hiccup than a massive strip mining of hard-won wealth, a devastating loss that will betray the promise of class mobility for tens of thousands of black families.

As the mortgage crisis unfolded, observers of all political stripes repeated a boilerplate line: the “affordability products” that have flooded the lending market in recent years–from subprime to interest-only loans–have done more good than bad by fueling a surge in black and Latino homeownership. But while minority homeownership may have grown in the short term, the long-term outlook promises quite the opposite, as southwest Atlanta painfully illustrates.

First-time homebuyers have originated less than a tenth of all subprime loans since 1998, according to a 2007 Center for Responsible Lending analysis. As recently as 2006, just over half of all subprime loans were refinances of existing home loans. The expected foreclosure toll from these loans will outpace the ownership gains by nearly a million families, the center estimates.

That’s particularly true in established black neighborhoods like Westwood, where banks and brokers targeted vulnerable longtime homeowners and lured them into needless and rapidly recurring mortgages they clearly couldn’t afford and from which they never stood to gain. More than half of all refinance loans made to African-Americans in 2006 were subprime, according to an analysis by the advocacy group ACORN. That’s nearly twice the rate among white borrowers. Among low-income black borrowers, 62 percent of refinance loans were subprime, more than twice the rate among low-income whites.

“It actually started in communities like Atlanta,” says Nikitra Bailey, a Center for Responsible Lending researcher who has studied the Southeastern US housing crisis. “A lot of our older African-Americans were house rich but cash poor. So lenders came up with these scams to siphon the wealth away.”

It’s a loss black America can scarcely afford, because black wealth has long been enormously dependent on home equity. In 1967, the year before the Mitchells bought their house, homes accounted for 67 percent of black wealth, compared with 40 percent of white wealth. The disparity has only grown, pushed by the turn-of-the-millennium stock market boom. Without counting home equity, black net worth in 2004 was just 1 percent of that for whites, according to research by New York University economics professor Edward Wolff.

This wealth gap makes the disaster unfolding in neighborhoods like Westwood all the more catastrophic. As the Mitchells sit in George’s cluttered living room, wending their way through their past, they bump against memories of family after family who are in quandaries just like theirs–friends and neighbors struggling to hold onto homes they bought decades ago. “It’s a crying shame,” Gwen rails. “People been living around here forever! I think it’s wrong,” she complains, throwing up her hands in resignation. “But what can I say?”

The Mitchells mark time by the particulars of their history. They know, for instance, that George retired from thirty years of delivering mail to his neighbors in 1985, because that’s when Chandra came back from Germany with her newborn son. And they know they moved into this house forty years ago, because that’s when Gwen had her child. “Yup, Kipper would have been 40 this year,” Gwen says, nodding for emphasis as she mentally links the house’s life span with that of her son, who died in 2000 in a car accident. “Forty years in this house right here.”

George doesn’t remember his white neighbors giving the family any trouble when they moved in, but they didn’t roll out the welcome mat either. He still laughs at one neighbor’s reaction when he and the realtor stopped in front of the guy’s house. “The dude, he broke out the house like somebody hit him with a hot poker! He was talking about how he built this house and he did it for his family and he didn’t want nobody in it. And all I did was look at the house. But I tell you, the next time I went through there it was some black ones in it– ’cause he was gone.” Before long, so were all of the Mitchells’ white neighbors.

George and Lillian took over a previous owner’s $16,000 mortgage for their 1,600-square-foot home. With two incomes, they easily managed the monthly note. Then and now, the house offered the family security and stability.

“I was 6,” Chandra proudly declares of the age at which she began living here. “My son grew up in this house, too,” she adds. They’ve all lived here at some point over those decades. George’s four kids and six grandchildren have spread out around the South–a son in Fayetteville, Georgia; a middle daughter in Birmingham, Alabama–but this has always been what Gwen calls the “home house.”

Gwen stays here three days a week, when she’s off from her job as a live-in nurse. Chandra and her husband own a home a few neighborhoods over. But her 20-year-old son, Marcus, lives here with his aunt and grandpa. Chandra frets that “the knucklehead” won’t get his life together and go to college or take real steps toward his dream of opening an auto-body shop. But she knows he’s got a roof over his head and, in time, will sort it out. “You can always come home to Momma and Daddy when times get tough,” Gwen says affectionately.

George and Lillian were lucky to get the house, because African-Americans were largely locked out of the massive mid-twentieth-century public-private effort to expand access to credit and homeownership.

America hasn’t always been a majority “ownership society,” as George W. Bush likes to call it. The nation’s first homeownership boom came after World War II, when the government used the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) mortgage insurance to lower the cost of buying. Banks extended credit lines to middle-class borrowers in ways that encouraged long-term ownership–thirty-year mortgages covering 80 percent to 90 percent of the buyer’s costs with interest rates of about 6 percent. By 1960, the American homeownership rate had shot up from less than half before the war to nearly 65 percent, where it remained until the modern housing market took off.

Black communities were excluded from this rising tide. The FHA’s underwriting manual guaranteed insurance for segregated white neighborhoods only, until a series of court cases between 1948 and 1953 struck down the rule. Even then, the policy changed in word alone: 98 percent of the 10 million homes federal money had backed by 1965 went to whites, and banks’ redlining of black neighborhoods went on for years thereafter. As a result, the black-white disparity in homeownership hasn’t dropped below 20 percentage points since 1940; it was at 25 percentage points in 2007.

The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) aimed to end the lending bias in the housing market. The complex law boils down to a simple principle: anywhere a federally insured bank or thrift takes deposits, it must give out credit. The law also set up regular audits of the institutions’ lending practices to police compliance.

Today, when industry backers aren’t touting the good that subprime mortgages have done, they’re arguing that the CRA set the stage for the market’s current collapse by encouraging lending to “risky” borrowers. But subprime lending didn’t start with the demand that banks serve the community; it grew out of the removal of usury laws that governed how much banks could charge for their lending services. Having fought the CRA tooth and nail in the late ’70s, by 1980 the banks were pushing for regulatory changes that would allow them to profit from the requirement. Says the Center for Responsible Lending’s Nikitra Bailey, “It’s like once we got in the game, the rules changed.”

So did the loan products offered by banks. Subprime loans emerged in the 1980s and slowly multiplied, driven in part by the new deregulation and in part by an explosion of brokers and other unregulated lending entities–many of them subsidiaries of traditional, otherwise regulated banks. These products were supposed to be tools to firm up poor credit and bridge low-income borrowers to prime loans. For years, they remained a tiny, if troubling, share of overall lending, accounting for just 5 percent of all mortgage originations in 1994. The problems started when the housing market took off at the turn of the millennium, driven by historically low interest rates, skyrocketing sales prices and the resulting global rush to invest in the US mortgage market. Suddenly, subprime loans turned into trapdoors–increasingly exotic products through which lenders, desperate to feed the mortgage investment beast, lured people into needless debt. By 2004 subprime loans were 20 percent of home loans–and half of all home-purchase and refinance borrowers had one in 2006.

The Mitchells, for their part, started out OK. Guarded by Lillian’s caution, they leveraged their new house to get opportunities otherwise beyond their grasp. The Mitchells paid for the final two years of Chandra’s bachelor’s degree at Clark–one of Atlanta’s famed historically black colleges–with their first refinance, in 1981; her Clark sticker is still in the upstairs window. “I thought she needed an education,” George explains. “She wanted one. So I saw to it she had it.”

And for the next two decades, the Mitchells’ lending history remained a relatively quiet, measured affair–a few more mortgages on the home, all for less than $40,000. Then, in 2003, the deed record for their house suddenly erupts into a line of increasingly large refinance loans, falling one after another in quick succession.

It starts with a $68,000 loan in May 2003–that’s the one they made for the new siding. By that December, they’d already refinanced for $100,000. In December 2006, there’s another loan, with now-defunct NovaStar Mortgage, for just over $116,000. Two months later there’s a package of two more loans, totaling about $125,000 and owed to California-based IndyMac Bank. The IndyMac loan package is a classic subprime product–interest-only payments for five years, at a fixed rate of just over 6 percent, then adjusting upward to about 9 percent plus the principal.

“That is just not an appropriate loan product for someone who’s 76 years old and who’s on a fixed income,” says Atlanta Legal Aid Society attorney Sarah Bolling, who’s representing the Mitchells in their effort to keep their house. “The only calculation that would make this make sense is to say, ‘Well, we’ll give him a low rate and in five years he won’t be alive.’ But that’s pretty cynical.” Not that it mattered: George managed to pay the loan for only two months before falling behind. Within a year, he was in default.

It’s a familiar story in 30310. Not far away from the Mitchells, the Hoods are desperately trying to hold onto a house they bought in 1975. A retired couple living largely on Social Security, they owe $176,000 on a house that may be worth just over $100,000. A broker from Maryland had cold-called them and talked them into a series of refinances. Another senior citizen, Jennie McCaslin, bought her house in 1970. In 2005 a broker sold her a $67,000 rehab loan, then flipped her through a series of refinances that left her owing $102,000, with an adjustable interest rate that can reset as high as 17 percent. One of the loans was co-signed by a 21-year-old niece, another by a son who was in jail at the time. McCaslin is functionally illiterate.

The Mitchells, Hoods and McCaslins are the “risky” and “irresponsible” borrowers cited in press coverage and policy debates about the foreclosure crisis. For months, the Bush Administration’s mantra has been that whatever remedy Washington comes up with, it mustn’t let borrowers off the hook for making bad choices. “I believe most Americans want to protect homeowners who played by the rules. They don’t want to reward risky financial behavior,” Assistant Secretary for Housing Brian Montgomery told the House Financial Services Committee in April.

The Administration and industry lobbyists have buttressed this rhetoric with claims that large numbers of those facing foreclosure are merely “speculators.” “The strength of our economy relies on the willingness of people to take risks,” Mortgage Bankers Association chair-elect David Kittle told an April 16 House Financial Services subcommittee hearing, “but risk means one does not always win.”

It’s a stunning statement when considering just how much risky speculating lenders themselves have engaged in during the past decade. The vast majority of homes facing foreclosure are owner-occupied. Aggregate data on those homeowners is spotty at best, but consumer advocates insist they look a lot like George Mitchell–people shoved into large, needless loans so that lenders could profit from the fast-growing securities market.

Much has been written about the role of the byzantine derivatives trade in the housing market’s balloon and bust. Investment banks have been bundling pools of mortgages and selling them as securities since the mid-’80s. But when the housing market exploded in the early 2000s, those pools became immensely profitable. Banks started gobbling up mortgages from lenders, who in turn frantically cranked up their lending volume to cash in on the new demand. Brokers raked in money as banks offered incentives for them to close larger and larger loans. Investors worldwide poured cash into the profitable mortgage pools that formed.

If the securities market was the bonfire, borrowers were the kindling. Had lenders not sought out and made loans to people without regard to their ability to pay, the fire would have burned itself out long ago. Instead, when the supply of reliable borrowers was depleted, the subprime lending products that Reagan-era deregulation helped usher in kept the flames lapping. Undocumented loan applications, interest-only payment plans and teaser interest rates are all just the tools lenders used to forage for new borrowers. “The purpose of those products was to convince these people that they could get in,” says Legal Aid attorney Bill Brennan.

George Mitchell, who, his daughters believe, suffered at least two strokes between 2003 and shortly after his wife’s 2006 death, barely remembers taking out the February 2007 IndyMac loan that he’s now suffocating under. Asked to recount how and why he took out any of the refinances he’s made since his original 2003 siding loan, George furrows his brow and stares out from his thick gray beard in silence.

“Papa don’t remember,” a frustrated Gwen explains. She suspects he got calls from banks and brokers offering him new loans. “I’m almost sure,” she says, noting that the house phone rings incessantly with marketers asking for her father by first name, as if they’re old friends. “He orders things off TV. He doesn’t realize he orders it. The pimple stuff?” She shoots a disgusted look at her dad when recalling that absurd package’s arrival. “He says he didn’t order it, but it came.”

Despite their close role in George’s life, none of the Mitchell children knew about the recent loans until February 2007. That’s when George called Chandra and asked her to come by the house to witness him signing for one of the two loans in the IndyMac package. “I came over here with the intention of not signing the papers,” Chandra says, recounting the frenzied afternoon. But the IndyMac loan officer, who Chandra says was at the house for just fifteen minutes, convinced her otherwise. “She told me you could not cancel the loan.”

George explained to Chandra that he’d had trouble keeping up with that loan and with his credit cards since Lillian’s death, due to the loss of her $500 a month in Social Security. “I read through what I could understand,” Chandra says of the few minutes she was given to browse the IndyMac package. “It was really thick, and I don’t know legalese, especially when it comes to loans. The only question that I had for her was, Could he cancel it, honestly?” Having been persuaded he could not, Chandra signed as a witness and hoped for the best.

George’s signature is scrawled on the bottom of each of the loan’s densely packed pages, as well as those of his initial loan application. But when Legal Aid’s Sarah Bolling reads the application details back to him, he nearly leaps out of his recliner with shock. It lists his income as $4,725 a month. He collects $300 a month from Social Security and $1,400 a month from his Postal Service pension. Nothing in the loan file documents the inflated income claim–a practice known as “no doc” and “low doc” lending that has displaced the once-standard step of proving income to an underwriter.

The application also says George had nearly $8,000 in the bank at the time. “No way!” he gasps. “Ain’t never been that kind of money in there.” Again, nothing in the file documents the claim, and nothing about it raised flags for IndyMac’s underwriters. Nor did it matter to the underwriters that the application appraised the house at more than $135,000. “The tax assessor thinks it’s worth $73,000, and that’s on the public record,” says Bolling. “I mean, it might only be worth $70,000 at this point.”

Even without these whoppers, it should have been clear to the bank’s underwriters that George never stood to gain a thing from the loan–other than a larger, more dangerous debt burden. All but $361.74 of the $125,000 that didn’t go to pay off NovaStar went to IndyMac’s fees and closing costs. He nominally lowered his interest rate for a few years, but the loan value had ballooned so high–to more than double the original 2003 loan–that the interest rate was irrelevant. Whatever choices George made, the most dubious decision was IndyMac’s willingness to make such a plainly bad loan.

“He was in foreclosure the day he signed the papers,” says Legal Aid’s Bill Brennan. Brennan has been fighting predatory lending in Atlanta for three decades, and to his eye the current crisis has less to do with exploding interest rates than the fact that banks, eager to profit from the surging securities market, simply approved any loan that came in the door. “They ran out of legitimately eligible borrowers a long time ago,” he says.

The rapidity with which borrowers have fallen into foreclosure is telling. Georgia law requires lenders to publish foreclosure filings once a month, so Brennan’s research team culled through Fulton County’s 1,600 listings for last November. Three-quarters of the foreclosures were for loans made since 2005, half were made in 2006 and one in ten had been made that same year. That sort of turnover used to be remarkable. “Even a few years ago, it was unusual to see a foreclosure that occurred in less than two or three years,” Georgia Tech researcher Dan Immergluck told the Georgia business newsletter Daily Report. He added that he has not seen foreclosures turn over that fast in the fifteen years he’s been following the local market.

It’s also clear that banks and brokers targeted African-American neighborhoods when mining for these loans. The Dekalb County community development office likes to show two maps to illustrate the point. One map shows Atlanta neighborhoods with the densest populations of people of color who could benefit from CRA lending. They are clumped together in a butterfly, centered on the city’s south side. A nearly identical butterfly appears on the second map, which shows neighborhoods that had a foreclosure rate over 20 percent between the first quarters of 2000 and 2005.

“It used to be that you couldn’t get credit, but now I tell people to just stay away from it,” Brennan says. “You don’t want it. It’s toxic.”

After taking the IndyMac loan, George Mitchell kept the seriousness of his financial troubles to himself until last summer, when the kids were all home for the Fourth of July. He told them then that the gas company was about to shut off his service. “We found out when everything was behind and the hounds was at the door,” Chandra says.

He’d been paying the mortgage intermittently, but by the time he told his children about the problems he was at least two months behind. He’d also fallen even further behind on his already substantial credit card debt. The gas card had racked up. The water and light bills were past due as well.

“Once I paid the mortgage, there wasn’t enough to cover–” George starts to explain, but Chandra cuts him off. “Actually, there was.” She shares her mother’s discipline, and she chides George for not adapting to the situation his IndyMac loan put him in. “Holly Golightly here wanted to go out and do other things. But you don’t have money to do extra things now.”

Chandra’s frustration is understandable, because the crisis has affected more than just George’s finances. All of the kids are chipping in to cover the sprawling costs. Gwen pays the water bill. Chandra and her husband pick up the phone bill and keep everybody fed by cooking enough for both households–that way George can focus on his mortgage payments and credit card debt. “Sometimes it’s hard,” Chandra says, “but this is family. And you have to do what you have to do for family.”

Economists say this dynamic of wealth and resources flowing backward–from kids to parents–rather than forward is typical in black families, and an important part of what separates blacks and whites who, by other measures, are nominally of the same class. Researchers are hotly debating the details of what is expected to be a historically large intergenerational transfer of wealth in America over the coming decades. But one fact is clear: blacks won’t participate in it. In 2004, one in four whites reported having received an inheritance; fewer than one in ten blacks said the same, and the amount they got was, on average, half that of whites.

The foreclosure crisis makes the picture look bleaker still. Estimates vary on the amount of wealth lost, but they are all in the hundreds of billions of dollars. A United for a Fair Economy estimate in January put the wealth loss for people of color at between $164 billion and $213 billion, roughly half the nation’s overall loss.

State Senator Vincent Fort pads around the Georgia Capitol with the wan look of a man who knows where the bodies are buried. Fort, who represents the tract of Atlanta that’s been hardest hit by foreclosures, saw the crisis coming. He wrote and managed to pass a law that would have averted the whole mess–if financial industry lobbyists hadn’t flooded Georgia and got it repealed a year later. Now he’s relegated to the role of gadfly, resubmitting the prescient bill each session and getting nowhere. Sitting in his office after the close of this winter’s session, he rocks back and laughs at it all: “It’s like getting pickpocketed at eighty miles an hour.”

Fort’s bill passed in 2001, with the strong-arm help of Democratic Governor Roy Barnes [see Bobbi Murray, "Hunting the Predators," July 15, 2002]. The law was meant to strengthen a 1994 Congressional measure, the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act, which polices high-interest loans but has proven ineffective because its trigger is set too high. The Georgia law lowered the interest ceiling at which tougher rules kick in. And among other things, it forced lenders to demonstrate a “tangible net benefit” to the borrower for any refinancing of a home loan less than five years old.

The law was based on a 1999 North Carolina bill. Together, the two measures were the tip of what looked to be a building wave of state-level efforts to head off subprime lending–and the financial industry went all out to stop them. According to the Wall Street Journal, between 2002 and 2006 industry lobbyists poured tens of millions of dollars into state-level campaigns to prevent or undo subprime lending regulations.

Ameriquest, the now-defunct mortgage company that was one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders, led the fight in Georgia. It handed out tens of thousands in political donations, according to the Journal, and threatened to stop doing business in the state unless Senator Fort’s law was repealed. Standard & Poor chimed in, announcing that it wouldn’t offer ratings for any mortgage securities with Georgia subprime loans in them, citing liability concerns.

“What we had in 2002 and 2003 was the most powerful companies in the world focused on Georgia,” Fort says with a sigh. He relates how he was deluged from the moment he announced plans to write the bill, after hearing a presentation on subprime lending at a Department of Housing and Urban Development conference. He stood up and announced that he planned to address the problem in Georgia, and an industry lobbyist immediately approached him to offer “help.” “I guess I learned a lesson: don’t tell your enemy what you’re going to do.”

Within months of Standard & Poor’s announcement, the Georgia Legislature repealed Fort’s law and replaced it with one that removed the requirement that lenders show a tangible net benefit for refinance loans. The same process unfolded in New Jersey, where the Legislature passed a tough law in 2003. Lobbyists, led by Ameriquest, descended on the state. Standard & Poor repeated its refusal to rate securities with subprimes from New Jersey. And in 2004 the Legislature unanimously replaced the tough law with one that deleted the tangible-net-benefit rule.

“It’s useless,” Brennan says of the new Georgia law. “They would not have come back to Georgia if the 2001 bill had stayed in place. That was the purpose of the bill, to drive the predatory lenders out of the state.” Indeed, North Carolina, where the net-benefit law held up, is today one of the states least impacted by the foreclosure crisis.

As Washington gears up for its belated response, industry lobbyists are once again warning against regulating lenders’ behavior. During his April 16 House testimony, Mortgage Bankers Association’s David Kittle described at length his members’ voluntary efforts to work with borrowers to prevent foreclosure. “The key is to find solutions that help borrowers but do not violate the agreements with investors who now own the securities containing these loans,” he cautioned.

The Bush Administration has joined the industry in opposing any measure that would force lenders to restructure loans or write-down their values. Bipartisan bills in the House and the Senate would do just that by empowering bankruptcy judges to force loan modifications for borrowers facing foreclosure on mortgages larger than the market value of their homes. Neither bill has gained traction.

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats and the Administration have agreed on using the Federal Housing Administration to spur voluntary loan restructuring. They disagree mightily on how far to go, however.

An Administration plan announced in early April would let select subprime borrowers who are behind on their payments refinance into an FHA-insured loan; for loans larger than a house is worth, lenders would have to write the principal down. The Administration predicts the plan will help 100,000 homeowners. In June the Senate reached a compromise for a competing Congressional plan–a version of which passed the House in May–that would offer the same deal but with larger write-downs and would be available to far more borrowers, an estimated 400,000. The White House threatened to veto it, citing its cost and added taxpayer liability.

The Senate deal had enough support to override a presidential veto. But more than 2 million loans were at least sixty days delinquent in April, according to data from the Hope Now program, set up by the banking industry to facilitate voluntary workouts of troubled loans. Which means Washington will ultimately have to revisit the question of how to save people’s homes, not to mention how to prevent new predation once this crisis passes.

Notably, Barack Obama has backed housing advocates’ primary demand: allow bankruptcy courts to modify loans. He’s also supporting a key part of the Senate plan, which would create a fund for local governments to buy foreclosed properties and thereby reverse the building glut of vacant, unsold housing. John McCain, meanwhile, has shifted his stance, initially echoing industry rhetoric about not aiding “irresponsible” borrowers, then unveiling a plan he said would help about 200,000 borrowers.

The Senate’s homebuying fund is key because, as the slow machinery of Washington grinds along, neighborhoods like Westwood are falling further and further into decay. The ugly reality is that banks can foreclose on properties, but they can’t resell them. With thousands of already overvalued homes up for sale, the market is flooded, further driving down property values. Banks, however, are hostage to the securities on which they gambled and cannot price the foreclosed homes at their actual value.

So the houses sit there, many with overgrown lawns, busted windows and piling trash. Squatters and drug dealers break in; scavengers mine them for copper and other valuable metals. Municipal tax bases drop, even as the vacant properties spawn crime and fires, which demand greater public service costs. “It’s a major drain on the community and its resources,” says Senator Fort.

The Atlanta Legal Aid Society is trying to slow the decay one house at a time. For senior borrowers like George Mitchell, Brennan’s team is betting on a strategy using a reverse mortgage. Under these complex deals, a lender gives an older borrower a loan for an agreed-upon percentage of the house’s appraised value–usually about 60 percent. The borrower never has to pay that loan, but it accrues interest until the borrower dies. At that point, whoever inherits the estate has twelve months to either pay the principal plus interest or turn the house over to the lender.

Legal Aid secures a reverse mortgage, then offers the money from it to the foreclosing bank as a settlement–along with a threatening letter outlining the ways they believe the borrower was preyed upon. The message is clear: take this much and call it even or deal with a messy lawsuit. It’s no universal solution, but as of January Brennan and Bolling had used it to save a couple dozen homes.

The Mitchells are hoping to join the list, but it’ll mean a seemingly endless struggle to stay ahead of foreclosure. The eldest daughter, Patricia Taylor, is approaching retirement, when she had planned to move back to Atlanta from Birmingham and take over the Westwood home. The family figures if it can get George a reverse mortgage and make a deal with IndyMac, Patricia can in turn get her own reverse mortgage to pay off George’s. That’ll be a victory, of course, but one born from a sobering reality: forty years after George and Lillian Mitchell achieved the hallmark of American socioeconomic stability, their children embark upon a decades-long hustle to rescue what should have been capital-building equity from the grasp of paralyzing debt.

Via The Nation

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By kyledeb

Much ado has been made over McCain’s “flip-flop” on migration. Mainstream progressive bloggers used to call migration a “pet issue” that wasn’t worth blogging about. It used to be a monumental struggle for bloggers like myself to get people to pay attention to migration policy. Policy that I felt would not only define the future of the United States, but the future of the entire hemisphere, maybe even the world, for centuries to come.

It’s hard to believe how far we’ve gotten since then.
Now, not a day goes by where Media Matters forgets to remind us that McCain has changed his stance on migration. Alternet, led by Joshua Holland, has it’s own special migration section, and Firedoglake has brought on David Neiwart to blog mainly on migration.

Pro-migrant bloggers like myself, and Latino bloggers have united to create the community blog, The Sanctuary, which was recently contacted by CNN after the presidential candidates failed to answer a questionnaire we put out. These are all good developments. The SanctuarySphere is alive and growing.

Still, as migration has moved from a “pet issue” to something most progressive bloggers familiar with, a tension is emerging between the pro-migrant stance and the progressive stance. The mainstream progressive blogosphere, led by blogs such as Daily Kos, Open Left, MyDD, and Firedoglake, exists to elect “more and better Democrats” as has been stated over and over again. My mission as a pro-migrant blogger, by contrast, is to advance the cause of migrant justice. At times these goals overlap, but not always.

The issue of how to treat McCain is a primary example. As a migrant advocate, my job is not to deride McCain for “flip-flopping”, but to rebuke him when he sells out migrants, and to praise him when he advances the migrant cause. In fact, the only political power that migrant advocates have in a national two-party system, is when they are able play the two major parties off of each other.

Despite the fact that McCain “flip-flopped” on migration his selection as the presumptive Republican nominee has been a very good thing for migrants. You see, people forget that there is a subset of Democrats that are very anti-migrant.

As McCain was battling for the Republican nomination, Democrat congressman from North Carolina, Heath Shuler, was pushing the very anti-migrant SAVE Act. If Mitt Romney or Tom Tancredo had been selected as the Republican nominees, Democrats would have had no qualm with pushing the SAVE Act forward because migrant advocates like myself would have nowhere to run. We’d be forced to elect a Democrat anyway.

Even with the relatively pro-migrant McCain at the forefront of the Republican party, according to a recent Politico article, “House and Senate Democrats have been outbidding the White House on spending for immigration enforcement”. Where was the mainstream progressive blogosphere when that article came out?

It’s like I said, ‘Progressive’ does not always mean pro-migrant.

Via Citizen Orange

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