U.S. Backed Genocide of Christians, Alawites, and other Minorities in Syria

[Photo, Senator John McCain with Mohammad Nour, identified by two Shi'ite kidnapping victims as the chief spokesman and photographer for the Free Syria Army's Northern Storm brigade in the operation that that kidnapped them and 9 other civilian Shi'ite hostages a year ago. Attempts are still being made to release the 9 other Shi'ite hostages.]

U.S. Backed Genocide of Christians, Alawites, and other Minorities in Syria

By Steven Argue

From the beginnings of the U.S. backed Sunni uprising in Syria, a slogan chanted in the streets has been, “Alawites to the grave, Christians to Beirut.”  Alawites, like Christians, are a religious minority in Syria.  With the backing of western imperialist aid to the so-called “Free Syria Army” and its other Islamist allies, both directly and through weapons from U.S. client states in the region, promises of a genocidal counter-revolution are now a terrible reality in rebel controlled territory.

On Monday, May 27th the Fars News Agency reported the entire Christian population of al-Duvair village (outskirts of Homs) was slaughtered by the U.S. backed Free Syria Army.  According to the report, all were killed, men, women, and children.  This fits an ongoing pattern of genocide against Christians being carried out by the Islamists of the U.S. backed “Free Syria Army” and its Jabhat al-Nusra allies. 

Homs, under rebel control and under sharia (Islamic) law has had nearly its entire Christian population of 80,000 people forcibly expelled.  The same has been done to Christians who were living in the cities of al-Burj al-Qastal, Quasyr, as well as in some of the rural areas of Latakia and Idlib.  In government controlled Damascus, the rebels are using car bombs to deliberately kill and terrorize civilians in Christian and Alawite communities.  At least fourteen minority churches, mosques, shrines, and a synagogue have also been deliberately destroyed by the rebels.  Between 200,000 and 400,000 Christians have fled Syria since the start of the war.  In comparison to their numbers in the Syrian population, this is a disproportionate number that reflects the systematic genocide that is being carried out by the rebels.  In Turkey, Christians have also been driven out of the government run refugee camps by Jabhat al-Nusra rebels.

In addition, a video released by the rebels shows them cutting an unarmed Christian man's head off. His name was Andrei Arbashe, 38, a taxi driver who had recently married. After murdering him, his body was cut-up and he was fed to the dogs.

In Khalidiya, Christians and Alewites were rounded-up by rebels, put in a building, and then blown-up with dynamite.

For its part, the Syrian government’s shelling of neighborhoods is also a war crime. Part of the irony, however, is seeing western reporters on TV sitting in these neighborhoods and reporting the horror of being shelled, when at the same time, these same “news” outlets never covered the same story as the U.S. military carried out similar atrocities against neighborhoods in Iraq, or as the Israeli military carries out similar attacks against neighborhoods in Gaza.

One of the most outrageous massacres in the current civil war has been the rebel’s mass murder of 150 Alewite civilians in Aqrab.  The massacre took place after rebels held about 500 Alawite civilians hostage, including babies, without adequate food or water for nine days.  Truckloads of the prisoners were then released, but about 150 Alawite civilians were massacred by rebel forces.  As has been the case throughout this war with the corporate media, the New York Times published reports from the Free Syria Army blaming the Syrian government, without even investigating the matter.  Independent investigations have, however, revealed those reports to be blatant lies and that it is the rebels who were responsible for the massacre.

Open Promises GENOCIDE against Alawites by the U.S. Backed Free Syria Army

On May 19^th, 2013 Free Syria Army spokesman Colonel Abdel-Hamid Zakaria told Al-Arabiya television that if the Free Syria Army was defeated in Al-Qusayr, the entire communities of Alawite and Shiite minorities in Syria would be “wiped off the map”. He went on to say, “It’s going to be an open, sectarian, bloody war to the end.”  The Alawites and Shiites are religious minorities in Syria. They are hated by the U.S. backed Sunni religious extremists of the Free Syria Army (FSA) that have already carried out massacres of men, women, and children in Alawite communities.

In a major defeat for the Free Syria Army, Al-Qusayr was in fact taken the same day as Colonel Abdel-Hamid Zakaria's promise of genocide. The combined forces of the Syrian Army and Hezbollah took the town and took 2,700 FSA soldiers prisoner.

The United States government is already openly aiding the Free Syria Army, both through so-called non-military aid and through the weapons, ammunition, and troops being sent in by U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel. In addition, the United States and the European Union are rapidly moving legislation forward for sending direct military aid to the Free Syria Army.

U.S. backed rebels in Libya made similar promises of genocide before they took power. And they delivered on those promises. Only difference was their hate was directed at black Africans living in Libya. The U.S. and U.S. allies brought those rebels to power with air strikes, troops on the ground from Qatar, and direct military aid to the rebels.

Everything moved backwards under that imperialist imposed counter-revolution in Libya, yet imperialist oil companies are profiting from the war, including U.S. based Conoco Phillips, Italy's Eni SpA, and France's Total SA.

The U.S. directly participated in that war that helped put racist rebels in power that jailed Black Africans, murdered Black Africans, made hundreds of thousands of Black Africans refugees as they fled the country in fear for their lives, and now routinely uses torture and murder against opponents of the new regime. Yet it is a government more friendly to imperialist oil interests. This is the reason Obama lies to us saying the new regime in Libya is "democratic".

Likewise, the lie of the sectarian and chauvinistic "Free Syria Army" being democratic is also being propagated both by the western imperialist press and by many fake socialist groups. Today, a hell on Earth is emerging in Syria in areas controlled by the FSA and their Islamist allies. This is similar to the suffering created by the U.S. - Saudi Arabian and Pakistani backed mujahideen and Taliban in Afghanistan. What took place in Afghanistan truly was a counter-revolution, eliminating the pro-woman gains of Afghanistan’s PDPA revolution. So close are the connections, the Free Syria Army even has an “Osama bin Laden Brigade”.

Everywhere the FSA and its allies have taken power they are setting up Islamic governments with shariah Law. Nowhere are they setting-up secular governments. And similar to the mujhideen and Taliban, the Sunni religious extremists of the FSA and their allies are carrying out atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities. This includes direct attacks by the FSA on liberated Kurdish territory controlled by the YPG. In stark contrast to the FSA’s governance, the YPG has set-up democratic and secular government, thrown off the yoke of Assad’s oppression of the Kurdish language, and taken steps on behalf of women’s liberation. The forces of the FSA have, however, carried out direct military attacks on this revolutionary process. In fact, besides attacks on the real revolution that is taking place in Kurdish territory, the FSA and their allies are even a step backward from the semi-secular governance of Assad’s capitalist regime. All of these things together, including the FSA’s attacks on liberated Kurdish territory, make the FSA and its other Islamist allies a decidedly counter-revolutionary force.

Meanwhile, many fake socialist groups are supporting the imperialist intervention in Syria by supporting the Free Syria Army. In contrast, legitimate Trotskyists and other anti-imperialists demand: US, EU, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Israel Out of Syria!

For the Defense of Kurdish Liberated Territory!

Under the rule of President Assad the Kurdish language as well as much of the Kurdish culture was illegal. Kurdish political organizations were also banned and 20% of Syrian Kurds had their citizenship rights completely stripped from them.

Today the Kurdish region of Syria has been liberated by troops of the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) that have fought both the U.S. backed religious extremists of the Free Syria Army (FSA) as well as Assad’s military. A secular and democratically elected government has been established with a volunteer police force, women’s centers have been established to advance women’s rights by educating women about their rights and self defense, schools are now teaching in Kurdish (but facing a crisis of qualified teachers), and Kurdish cultural centers have been established. These are all significant gains for a long oppressed people.

In YPG controlled territory, the dominant political party is the communist influenced Democratic Union Party (PYD) which is the Syrian wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK has long been fighting against the oppression of Kurdish people by the U.S. backed Turkish government. U.S. weapons have been used to carry out warfare against the Kurdish population and a U.S. operation captured PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan who now sits in a Turkish prison.

In Syrian Kurdistan, Vice chairwoman of the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD), Asya Muhammed Abdullah points out, "For 30 years we Syrian Kurds have been fighting for our rights, that's why so many of our friends have been arrested and tortured to death by the regime."

Yet Kurds have also been the victims of the U.S. and Turkish backed Free Syria Army. Instead of pretending the FSA's imperialist backed counter-revolutionary forces represent a "revolution", as fake Trotskyist outfits like the International Socialist Organization (ISO) do, legitimate Trotskyists call for the military defense of the Kurdish and Assad governments from U.S. imperialism. Unlike the ISO, Lenin was very clear on the right of nations to self-determination.

In addition to the national liberation achieved by the PYD, sweeping socialist revolution is also needed. Sixty percent of the oil wells of Syria are currently in the hands of the Kurds. The other 40% is controlled by the Islamists of Jabhat al-Nusra and the Free Syria Army. Economically, Syria’s Kurdish region depends on electricity produced in Arab regions. In terms of practical economic considerations, the revolution liberating Syrian Kurdistan cannot be limited to Kurdistan because neither the Turkish backed Islamists nor the Assad regime are friendly to Kurdish national self-determination. Within these contexts, the PYD’s program is far too modest to address essential revolutionary tasks, including long-term national liberation. The needed program is one for the overthrow of capitalism as well as for the overthrow of all of the capitalist regimes in the region including those of Assad, the FSA, and Jabhat al-Nusra. Victories for national liberation must be deepened to include the overthrow of capitalism and extended beyond Kurdish territory with the advocacy of socialist revolutions that can establish a united federation of socialist republics of the Middle East which would include Kurdish, Arab, Turkish, and Hebrew speaking republics.

Despite the deficiencies of the PYD’s program, their achievements have brought real gains for the Kurdish people. Yet, those gains will remain precarious without a sweeping socialist revolution.

For Socialist Revolution in Syria

The Ba’athist Assad dynasty’s oppression and opposition to the national rights of Kurds is in direct contradiction to the program of Lenin and Trotsky who, upon taking power in the October 1917 Russian Revolution, ended discrimination and oppression of national minorities.  Language rights of traditionally oppressed nationalities were encouraged rather than outlawed.  For instance, the Kurdish minority of the young Soviet Union under Lenin and Trotsky’s leadership created a Kurdish Republic where children learned the Kurdish language in school.  After Stalin’s conservative wing of the bureaucracy crushed those who agreed with Lenin and Trotsky’s ideas, some of the original gains of the Russian Revolution were lost.  For instance, Stalin crushed the Red Kurdistani Republic of the USSR.  Yet, not even Stalin could destroy all of the gains of the Russian Revolution, and most of the language rights and republics that were created under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky remained.  In fact, the socialist planned economy was used to create preferential investment in the historically less advanced republics, helping raise-up the economies of those republics with the rest of the USSR. 

In addition to helping liberate oppressed nationalities, the USSR’s planned socialist economy was used to turn one of the poorest countries in the world into an industrial powerhouse, capable of defeating two major imperialist invasions (including smashing Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich) and then rebuilding to provide everyone with a guaranteed job, health care, and education.    

In contrast to a socialist economy, while parts of the Syrian economy were nationalized under the Ba’athist Revolution in the 1960’s in Syria, much of Syria’s economy is owned by capitalists.  This is in part due to the pro-capitalist reforms carried out since the Assad dynasty took power in 1970, overturning a number of gains first made when the Ba’athists took power in 1963.  For instance, there are several privately owned banks.  In contrast, in a socialist society there would be a fully state run banking system that, instead of making private profit, reinvests in the economy where needed to meet human needs.  This is a critical ingredient to building a socialist planned economy.  That ingredient is missing under Bashir al-Assad’s capitalist regime.

While many claim that Syria has a socialist economy, not enough of the economy is planned to sufficiently meet human needs as is possible with a planned socialist economy.  For instance, Syria has had both a public and a private sector that builds housing.  In a truly socialist economy, proper investment by the state in building housing would better meet needs for housing while providing jobs.  The continuation of a capitalist sector in the Syrian economy, on the other hand, produces a corrupting wealthy capitalist class that prefers little to no investment in the state run economy.  These kinds of problems under Syria’s mixed economy are reasons why Syria hasn’t adequately dealt with housing problems or meeting other human needs.  This is also why Syria hasn’t eliminated unemployment, unlike what was done with a number of socialist economies after fully overthrowing the capitalist system. 

Of course, the massive refugee crisis produced by the genocide carried out by the Free Syria Army is creating a far worse housing crisis today.  Likewise, the imperialist economic sanctions against Syria in support of the Free Syria Army have also hurt the civilian population greatly.

Similar to housing, Syria’s state run health care system has been on the decline.  While Syria’s population increased by 18% between 1995 and 2001, the number of hospital beds in state run hospitals declined.  Meanwhile, there was a big increase during that same period of capitalist healthcare provided to those who can afford it.  While life expectancy increased dramatically after the Ba’athist revolution, the growth of capitalist health care, decline in public investment in socialized health care, and the return of a two tier system of health care, one for the wealthy and another for the rest, represents a capitalist attack by the Assad regime on the people’s health care no different than what has occurred under the neo-liberal policies of any pro-imperialist capitalist government in the world.  Life expectancy for Syrians in 2006 was only 72 years, far better than many countries that are completely under the thumb of U.S. imperialism, but far worse than what has been achieved under Cuba’s socialist health care system.

Also unlike the deformed workers states, Syria under the Ba’athists has not brought the gains to education found in “communist” deformed workers states in terms of women’s liberation and literacy either.  For instance, Cuba and China have provided their entire populations with good universal education which has brought literacy rates for the entire population, including women, to nearly 100%.  In contrast, under the Assad dynasty, big improvements have been made in education, but illiteracy has remained a problem.  Women’s literacy in Syria in 2004 was 78%.  While far worse than the deformed workers states, this does reflect a 200% increase in female literacy since 1970, and is far better than what has been produced by the U.S. imposed mjahideen, Taliban, and Karzai dictatorships of Afghanistan.  Those U.S. imposed governments have produced a female literacy rate of 12% in 2012 after destroying the pro-woman and pro-literacy PDPA government of the 1980’s.

Whatever may be said of the deficiencies of the Syrian Revolution, over and over again the U.S. imperialists have shown their counter-revolutions to be far worse than what they overthrow.  The genocidal and U.S. funded counter-revolutions in Libya and Afghanistan are prime examples.  Both the Assad government and the Kurdish democratic government should be defended from imperialist attack and sectarian Islamic counter-revolution, while at the same time giving no political support to Assad’s capitalist dictatorship.      

Leadership must be built to overthrow Assad's capitalist government in a proletarian revolution, not in an imperialist sponsored capitalist counter-revolution led by chauvinistic religious extremists. What is occurring in YPG controlled territory is far different than what is being done by imperialist backed Islamists of the FSA who have attacked Kurdish territory. Revolutionary leadership in Syria must distance itself completely from the Free Syria Army which has carried out many atrocities against civilian Kurds, Christians, and Alawites and has promised genocide against Alawite and Shiite communities. They have also set-up sharia (Islamic) law everywhere the FSA has taken power. Unfortunately, the fighters of the “Trotskyist” Leon Sedov Brigade of the Free Syria Army are giving their lives to bring these Islamists to power. This reflects a tendency among those types of fake Trotskyists to support any uprising in an opportunistic manner, no matter its program, to avoid the hard work of fighting for an authentic revolutionary socialist program and party.

Forward on the Revolutionary Socialist Path Laid Down By Lenin and Trotsky!

US, EU, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Israel Out of Syria!  End the Imperialist Sanctions!

Down With the Anti-Kurd, Anti-Alawite, Anti-Christian, Anti-Woman, Anti-Secular, Sectarian Religious Fanatics of the Free Syria Army!

For the Defense of Kurdish Liberated Territory!

For A United Kurdistan as Part of a Federation of Socialist Republics of the Middle East!

For the Overthrow of U.S. Imperialism through Socialist Revolution in the United States!

*****

Steven Argue is a member of the Revolutionary Tendency.

Join the conversations of the Revolutionary Tendency (no longer part of the Socialist Party) on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/RevolutionaryTendency/

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free

(not associated with the paper by the same name of the Stalinist PSL who stole our name)

https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Check out these other articles from Liberation News:

Afghanistan: Misogynistic Hell Hole Made in the U.S.A.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/16/18717635.php

For Women’s Liberation through Socialist Revolution!

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/08/18733326.php

End U.S. Imperialist Attacks on Liberated Syrian Kurdistan!

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/03/18733059.php

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DO NOT CALL VA CRISIS LINE!!!!!

If you are a Vet in crisis and in need of help do NOT call the VA Crisis Line! Turn to a friend, family member, fellow vet, or look deep inside yourself. Because if you call the VA they will enter your "confidential" conversation into your records with arm chair diagnoses and use it for punitive purposes to the extent that they may deny health care that you really need. They will also use it to deny your rights under the constitution by labeling you and taking your rights to make decisions for yourself.

Just don't do it. It is better - and more noble - to die than to ask your government for the help that they owe us.

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The Verdict is in: The Veteran's Administration is NOT your friend

I have been trying - more like begging - for the Veteran's Administration to address a very real physical problem for several months, a problem for which I actually had documented evidence to support. I had a CT scan from a local hospital which clearly indicated gall stones almost an inch in diameter. The very reason that I went to the Emergency Room in the first place is because I had been sick and vomiting for weeks. The VA Primary Care provider that I went to referred me to a surgeon almost 250 miles away indicating that he suspect that the gall bladder was indeed causing me pain, nausea and discomfort.

The VA Surgeon in St. Louis, Jane Tenquist, decided upon reading all of the scurrilous and slanderous claims repeated over and over in my St. Louis VA records which indicate that in their professional opinion I am a danger to myself and that I have "major recurring depressive disorder" and "personality disorder" - among many other insulting invectives, that there was nothing wrong with me and that she felt I would be better served to have the VA stick a camera up my ass. EVEN AFTER VIEWING THE CT SCAN SHOWING THE GALL STONES!

I really have trouble understanding the VA compulsion to stick stuff up your ass! That seems to be their treatment de jure for anything that they don't want to face head on. But I digress....
I was so sick that I HAD to find SOMEONE - ANYONE - who might treat me for the problem. Which I did. This (non-VA affiliated) surgeon recognized immediately the seriousness of the matter and set up surgery for as soon as he could get me in. When he got inside of me and saw just how serious the matter had become he made the decision to document the procedure with photographs. The nurse told me that my gall bladder was "nasty" and that one of the largest stones had begun to traverse into the common bile duct. If you are uninformed on this complication, this can and likely will be life threatening!

When I returned from hospital I sent in a request for my VA medical records for the past six months. Those pages, when simple lab reports are removed, numbered somewhere around 30 and were riddled with fallacious statements made by "social workers" alleged conversations with me in person and via the telephone which painted me as a crazy person. And in those pages my alleged psychiatric condition is discussed more than anything else! Along with the allegations cited above they claim that I am a chronic substance abuser... without a shred of evidence to support those claims other than their word.

The simple fact of the matter is that, once again, the St'. Louis VA did all in their power to deny me much needed health care and treatment. I say "once again" because from '05 to '06 I complained of feeling as if "an elephant is setting on my chest". I had to ask help from US Congresswoman JoAnn Emerson's office to get them to recognize the fact that I needed emergency heart surgery.

Please stay tuned as I fully plan to post my medical records and pictures of this most recent surgery here. You don't have to believe me, you can decide for yourself.

But if you are a Veteran, heed this warning: The Veteran's Administration is the LAST place you need to go for help of any kind.

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I have been posting less here. My health is failing. If you wish to keep track of what little I am able to post and inform, please check out People Basically Suck!

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Hunger Strike is over and canned Spam is better than the comments here

Yeah, I quit on the hunger strike after day six. Nobody gave a fuck. Especially the Veteran's Administration at whom it was aimed. I've sicked my State Representative on them. For all the propaganda that is pumped out about how much this suck ass country wants to honor and care for its Vets one could use it to build a causeway from Miami to Cuba complete with Circle K stops... and a few titty bars!

But the thing that I find most annoying is the spam comments that these posts have generated. This blog was linked to by CNN for over a week at one time. I had regular readers. I had thoughtful comments. I met wonderful people. Now, all I get is spam. I kind of like canned spam once in a while. But the crap that appears here (awaiting moderation as I have that option turned on) are nothing short of insulting.

Capitalism is sooooo wonderful. I'm posting shit about my health deteriorating and the VA doing nothing when it is contractually their obligation and all anyone wants to say in their comments is "come to my website and buy my shit". So, capitalism is doing exactly what it is created to do: benefit from the suffering of others.

I'm a heartbeat away from turning comments off completely. I tire of seeing that crap. If you don't have anything to say about what I am writing - good, bad, or indifferent - then simply move along. I don't care if you like me or agree with anything I say. And I don't care if you say so! But if you provide a link to some "buy my shit" bullshit in a comment IT WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED!

So, read or don't read. Comment if you like so long as your comment has anything at all to do with the post. If I keep getting spam I'll just turn the shit off... you blood sucking capitalist pigs.

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Day 4 of VA Hunger Strike

It's storming ice and snow here now. Has been for a few hours. Then I remembered that the ramp to my front door can be a challenge when iced over. So, I slipped some clothes on over my bedclothes and made the arduous trip out to my shop where I stored the salt from last year.

I've gotta tell ya, sleet propelled by 50 mph wind striking you in the face is kind of like getting sand blasted. It's no fucking fun at all. But then, neither is begging the government to live up to its end of the military service agreement.

Ooops. Gotta go. A tree limb just came through my roof.

Oh, and fuck the VA and the USA.

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New Directions

I know of at least one veteran who has gone on a hunger strike because the Veteran's Administration won't treat him. On day 3 now.

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Yep, that ought to fix everything!

Compounding my multitude of health problems, I have lost three significant others recently. I called my psychiatrist at the Veteran's Administration who told me to come ASAP for a review and augmentation of my anti-depressant therapy.

When I arrived, we spoke for a few minutes. Then, as if this were his prescription, he said, "I think you ought to go to church". He then said he'd see me again in four months.

Of course, I objected and he made some minor changes to my therapy.

I checked my "Pocket Constitution" real  quick, just to be sure, and there under the First Amendment it read:

AMENDMENT I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I find it highly offensive to hear an employee of a federal institution tell me that I need to go to church while acting in an official capacity.

Besides that, yeah, I'm sure chanting to some imaginary friend in the sky will fix everything!

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Death Panels

Well, the death panels are at it again. I've ranted here about the VA and their lack of interest in maintaining my health. So, I went to Missouri Medicaid. Now, they have terminated me... in violation of the Ryan White Act, I might add. Asked for a hearing. Preparing to die. Fuck this world.

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It's that pot/kettle thing again

So, Rupert now says:

"Scientology back in news," Murdoch tweeted. "Very weird cult, but big, big money involved with Tom Cruise either number two or three in [hierarchy]."

The owner of Fox News, Wall Street Journal and New York Post followed the "cult" comment with another tweet.

"Watch Katie Holmes and Scientology story develop," Murdoch wrote. "Something creepy, maybe even evil, about these people."

While Cruise is often associated with Viacom's Paramount Pictures, the Los Angeles Times noted, he has also starred in films for 20th Century Fox--the studio owned by News Corporation--and is "known for being prickly about being challenged about his involvement with Scientology."

Murdoch, though, is standing by his comments.

"Since Scientology tweet hundreds of attacks," he wrote later. "Expect they will increase and get worse and maybe threatening. Still stick to my story."

After a user asked Murdoch for his thoughts on Mormonism, he responded: "Mormonism a mystery to me, but Mormons certainly not evil."

Source

I'm not one to often leap to the rescue of religion. For my part they are all weird! But this simply strikes me as the pot calling the kettle black. And, besides, isn't it the Amerikun way to kill anything that is "a mystery" or different in any way?

And, evil? Jeez, ya wanna talk evil? How about money? Doesn't the Bible, Capitalisms primary minions cattle prod, explicitly state that money is the root of ALL evil? Doesn't Rupert have a boat load of that stuff? Wouldn't that, aside from all the truly creepy and evil stuff we all know he does, make him evil?

Maybe Scientology is creepy. But Rupert is a creep in his own right... a creep to be held up as a shining example to aspiring creeps.

Those Crazy Amerikuns!

The whole point of this blog from its beginning is to point out how stupid Americans have allowed themselves to become... not that they were ever that bright. But what we have here now is simply willful ignorance. Much of it is fueled by that fantasy world known as religion; some of it is just plain lazy slothfulness. When one consumes a steady diet of myth and fantasy (religion, patriotism) and misdirection and propaganda (CNN, DWTS, "reality tv", game shows, etc.), one makes ones' self clay for the potters' hands.

Again, I am ashamed of my small role as a United States Marine. I also often regret my service with the Department of Health. It was all lies, and I wanted to believe.

I occasionally wear a USMC ball cap. Here in the mid-south it either garners one a small measure of respect in an otherwise disrespectful culture, or it allows one to go on ones' way unmolested by the "crazies". The day before yesterday I wore it to the intensive care unit where my mother currently is and a nurse placed her hand on my shoulder and said, "I'd like to thank you for your service". I never quite know what to say when this happens. So, as usual, I simply replied, "You're welcome". If folks only knew what was really going on inside my head...

America: Drugged Up, Dumbed Down and Crazy Dangerous

By Robert Bridge

...

If you were planning to conquer the world, or at least a broad swath of it, the war would necessarily start at home. After all, no general worth his salt would rush into battle with his rear exposed. You’d have to muzzle the media, severely curtail political choice and dissent, while preaching to the world about democracy and human rights to cover your tracks. You’d have to construct the mother of all propaganda machines, which proclaims over every available wavelength that it’s the best darn civilization since Atlantis sunk to its watery grave thousands of years ago. It would be a bit like decorating the halls of a mental asylum with idyllic nature scenes. You’d also have to hire an army of loud-mouth talking heads to shout down any and all dissenters, accuse them of being conspiracy theorists and lunatics and commies, while keeping a paramilitary police force on the standby 24/7 should the bullying tactics fail.

You’d have to spoon-feed the populace with a liberal dose of anti-depressants, Jersey Shore, American Idol and 24-hour shopping channels with easy credit to prevent them from giving a moment’s thought to real-time, third-dimensional issues. You could also fuel battles over trifling cultural issues, like homosexuals in the military, Mel Gibson’s latest rant and Charlie Sheen’s complicated love life. What we are left with after the smoke has cleared bears no resemblance to a classic, text-book democracy. What we are left with is an obese, drug-addled Burlesque Empire, bursting at the seams with electronic circuses, cocaine and corn puffs, physically and mentally incapable of finding the remote control when the scenes of war become too unappetizing.

We are overstretched at home, and like despotic Rome, overstretched overseas. Now it is anybody’s guess where this depressing joyride will take us. 

Source

This this article was first published at RT

US Military caught endorsing Christianity... again

The Crusades never really ended, did they. The problem, as I see it, with gallivanting around the globe killing folks in the name of spreading Christianity is that it shows the "missionary expedition" as exactly what it is: ignorant, arrogant, judgmental pricks with no understanding of (nor desire to understand) their fellow man... nor the teachings of their own prophet - or is that "Profit". They make no effort to know or understand the culture of the people they choose to dominate.

A little understanding and tolerance could go a long way toward bettering the world in which we live. But just try telling that to a bunch of Bible Thumpers with guns!

Do you really expect me to believe that all four branches of the armed forces are only just learning of this clear and direct violation of The Constitution? HAYELL no! They are only just realizing that they may be held to account.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Following efforts by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), all four branches of the U.S. Military have revoked their approval of the Military series of Holman Christian Standard Bibles (HCSB). The Holman Bible is a modern English, Baptist translation that was completed in 2004 and is published by LifeWay Christian Resources’ Holman Bible Publishers, a subsidiary of the Evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist Bible Convention. These editions were prominently emblazoned with exact replicas of the trademarked emblems of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.

Read the article...

What's in a Post Titile, I told ya so's, and more...

Really. What's a post title for? It doesn't really matter to anyone anyway. I've prattled on for years screaming warnings at the top of my lungs to no avail. Not that I am important in any way - I am not. But when someone, ANYONE, speaks truth and no one even thinks enough of it to comment, let alone actually try to take some corrective action, it makes me wonder why I even bother. But then I remember the words I wrote to the right - "This blog is therapy". So, it's not really even about you, the reader - if there actually are any, anyway.

Yes. I'm a crotchety old cranky asshole. No one likes me and I know it. But that's OK. I don't really like anyone else, either. My last post was a bit fatalistic. And why not? My own physicians cannot hear the words that are coming out of my mouth! They insist on prescribing medications to which I have KNOWN AND DOCUMENTED ADVERSE REACTIONS EVEN AS I REMIND THEM OVER AND OVER! I've been down that "refusing to follow a doctor's recommendations" road before. I know how that turns out! And when I have an adverse reaction to their treatment, and then remind them that I reminded them over and over, their response is, "Well, you shouldn't have taken it if you knew it would make you sick." NO, COCK SUCKER, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE PRESCIBED IT IF YOU KNEW IT WOULD MAKE ME SICK - AND YOU KNEW IT WOULD - ASSHOLE!

But I think the thing that I find most offensive about this whole thing is that this is the way the Veteran's Administration treats its Veterans. And what's more, a Constituent Services Representative from Representative Jo Ann Emerson's Cape Girardeau office has been basically holding my hand through all this VA shit since the early to mid 2000's. It's not like our elected officials don't know how broken the VA is... or the entire medical establishment in this country is, for that matter! And they may actually care - they just don't give enough of a fuck to do anything to fix it.

I'll also mention here in passing that the Veteran's Administration, by decree of Congress, practices institutionalized, legislated discrimination. But that's a whole other post! I'll say this now, though: I have it in writing. And when I write that other post I will be including that documentation, in somewhat redacted form of course. (Hey, they do it. So, what the fuck?!) So, stay tuned for that update coming soon.

But what I really wanted to do with this post is ask a rhetorical question about the current economic crisis. You know, the one about which the current party line is "It's getting better every day"? (You know it's not really, don't you?). I just want to ask how anyone could have read this blog, or one of many others like it, and not known the bastards were robbing us blind? It's not like I didn't warn of its coming.

So, I'll leave you for now with this jeer and the following link - it's certainly no surprise to me. Of course, my head isn't burried in the sand and my eyes are wide open. I may be considered a radical crank but at least I'm aware.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/pers-j04.shtml

External links do not necessarily mean that I endorse those sites or the views expressed by them.

Goodbye again...

I don't have the energy to continue this blog nor any of my other activities and activism. Why? Not that anyone cares, but primarily because I am sick and in pain and cannot seem to motivate the Veterans Administration, nor anyone else for that matter, to help me.

I received a letter in response to my complaint to my Congressional Representative about discrimination and the lack of staffing to handle anyone other than what I call "New Millennium Veterans", those who have served in Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom, which reads in part:

"[VA Staff] explained to [the Heartland Heretic] that the [New Millennium Veterans] are not given preferential treatment but that VA is mandated by Congress to provide certain staffing to ensure these Veterans needs are met."

 My written response to this preposterous response to my allegation of discrimination read simply:

"Legislated Discrimination is still discrimination, is wrong, and is still illegal."

I would like to make clear that I don't believe that a single consideration given to New Millennium Veterans should be taken away. If anything they also are under served. It is my contention that ALL Veterans deserve the same considerations and services.

All Veterans have been duped and used by the greedy imperialist powers that be.

It is with deep sorrow and physical pain that I resign myself to lay down my keyboard and my head to await the inevitable. But I leave you with these thoughts:

There is no point to this life other than pain and suffering. And the vast majority of that is inflicted upon us by out fellow man. Death awaits each and every one of us and most of us deserve a painful death for our apathy in reaching out to each other and protecting one another from those of us who seek to inflict pain upon others out of greed and selfishness.

Because in reality it is greed that drives us all. It is uncontrolled greed that kills us all.

Goodbye.

Rep. Jenkins caught lying again, Ms. Smith speaks out
by Mike Nellis

Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 09:04:13 AM PDT

Rep. Lynn Jenkins' terrible awful no good very bad August is definitely extending into September.

Yesterday, her parade of failure marched on. Elizabeth Smith, the uninsured single mother Jenkins laughed at, is now telling her story. Last night on the Ed Show, she made it clear that she was "frustrated" with her Congresswoman and that she "wasn't looking for a handout" in insurance reform.

After this week, I bet Lynn Jenkins can't wait to get back home to Washington. Video below the fold...

* Mike Nellis's diary 

Here's the video of Ed Schultz's interview with Ottawa's Elizabeth Smith. I'd post it but there seems to be some trouble getting it to embed here.

Elizabeth Smith wasn't just speaking out on the Ed Show. She took her story to the streets last night speaking at a health care rally in Ottawa. We haven't been able to get our hands on the video but reports from the event says it was well very attended and organized.

Now, you might be asking yourself, how can Lynn Jenkins dig a deeper hole for herself? Apparently, by more lying. Jenkins released this statment via Scott Rothschild from the Lawrence Journal World:

Instead of playing gotcha politics on blogs and zipping off press releases to MSNBC, and using the young woman?s situation as a fundraising appeal for her political party, Congresswoman Jenkins?s office is looking into current resources available to the mother in existing programs.

There are two problems with this statement. First, in what is an obvious attempt to marginalize her, that statement implies that Elizabeth Smith is a Democrat. She is not -- she is a registered independent. Second, the LJ World spoke with Ms. Smith and she hasn't heard from Jenkins or any member of her staff. How can they help her, if they aren't talking to her?

What we've done is found Lynn Jenkins failing to do her job again. Kansans are starting to have buyers remorse. Lynn Jenkins has failed to read legislation she's voted on, she failed again by saying she won't read the health bills she opposes, she failed on a compassion level when she laughed at Ms. Smith last week, and now's she failing to do her job and help her constituents.

It's a pattern, and it's a disturbing one. Failure is the name of the game with Lynn Jenkins.

But like I wrote yesterday, it won't mean a thing if we don't have resources to build an infrastructure for our eventual candidate in the district. So many of you dug deep and helped us yesterday, but we still need your help.

Here's what I wrote yesterday for reference:

Can you help us build our party by making a small donation of $10? The stronger we are, and the more resources we have, the better chance we have of being successful in 2010. Every penny will go toward building a grassroots infrastructure -- both online and offline -- that we will utilize to ensure victory in November. Any support you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for your continued support and friendship.

To execute or not?

So, ya really dig the "eye for an eye" philosophy of Christianity when Jesus actually taught to "turn the other cheek"?

The Future of our hellth care

No. I didn't misspell "health". I mean that all we have to look forward to is more hell

We're more alike than we are different...

Raha Iranian Feminist Collective has written an extraordinary article "Solidarity and Its Discontents," that should be read by every peace activist and anti-war group in this country. The article concludes with these words:

"There is no contradiction between opposing every instance of US meddling in Iran--and every other  country--and supporting the popular, democratic  struggles of ordinary Iranians against dictatorship. Effective international solidarity requires that the two go hand in hand, for example, by linking the struggles of political prisoners in Iran and with those of political prisoners in the US, not by counterposing them. Iranian dissidents, like dissidents in the US, see their own government as their main enemy. The fact that Iranian activists also have to deal with sanctions and threats of military action from the US only makes their work and their lives more difficult. The US and Iranian governments are, of course, not equal in their global reach, but both stand in the way of popular democracy and human liberation. US-based activists must not undermine the brave and endangered work of Iranian opposition groups by supporting the regime that is ruthlessly trying to crush them.

We are calling for a rethinking of what internationalism and international solidarity means from the vantage point of activists working in the US. Internationalism has to start from below, from the differently articulated aspirations of mass movements against state militarism, dictatorship, economic crisis, gender, sexual, religious, class and ethnic oppression, in Iran, in the US and all over the world. For activists in the US, this means being against sanctions on Iran, whether they are in the name of human rights or the nuclear issue. It means refusing to cast the US as the land of progress and freedom while Iran is demonized as backward and oppressive. Solidarity is not charity or pity; it flows from an understanding of mutual--though far from identical--struggle. It means consistent opposition to human rights violations in the US, to the rampant sexism and homophobia that lead to violence and destroy peoples lives right here. But we don t have to hide another state s brutality behind our complaints about conditions in America. We have to be just as clear in condemning state crimes against activists, journalists and others in Iran, just as critical of the Iranian versions of neo-liberalism and oligarchy, of attacks on trade unions, women and students, as we are of the US versions."

Homeland Security Coordinated 18-City Police Crackdown on Occupy Protest

http://alturl.com/hhqzg [Washington Blog]

Posted on November 16, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog

National Coordination Goes Against Protection of Local Accountability

According to Oakland Mayor Jean said that 18 cities coordinated police crack downs on Occupy protests.

Wonkette reports that Homeland Security likely organized the crack downs:

Remember when people were freaking out over the Patriot Act and Homeland Security and all this other conveniently ready-to-go post-9/11 police state stuff, because it would obviously be just a matter of time before the whole apparatus was turned against non-Muslim Americans when they started getting complain-y about the social injustice and economic injustice and income inequality and endless recession and permanent unemployment? That day is now, and has been for some time. But it's also now confirmed that it's now, as some Justice Department official screwed up and admitted that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated the riot-cop raids on a dozen major #Occupy Wall Street demonstration camps nationwide yesterday and today. (Oh, and tonight, too: Seattle is being busted up by the riot cops right now, so be careful out there.)

Rick Ellis of the Minneapolis edition of Examiner.com has this, based on a "background conversation" he had with a Justice Department official on Monday night:

Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.

[...]

According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.

***

(And for those who are understandably doubtful about Examiner.com as a news source, here's an AP story from a couple hours ago that verifies everything except the specific mention of DHS coordination.)

Yves Smith notes:

The 18 police action was a national, coordinated effort. This is a more serious development that one might imagine. Reader Richard Kline has pointed out that one of the de facto protections of American freedoms is that policing is local, accountable to elected officials at a level of government where voters matter. National coordination vitiates the notion that policing is responsive to and accountable to the governed.

=====
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes.

--

The Heretic

Missouri, United States of Amerika

Rural American Progressive

The Heartland Heretic

In Unity is Strength

The State of the U.S. Left and What We Can Do About It

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By Michael Albert and Gregory Wilpert

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Gregory Wilpert: What is the situation of the US left progressive forces, that is, left of the Democratic Party?

Michael Albert: I think the first honest answer is that we have no idea, that is to say, there's never been an accounting that I know of that is particularly revealing of the left, much less of what people are doing or are inclined to do. The problem is that my answer or anybody's answer is going to be a guess. My guess would be that there are a lot of people in the United States who are left of the Democratic Party, they might think the party is the lesser of two evils, but they are way left of any Democratic candidate. I think there are a huge number of people like that but they are completely separated from one another. They don't identify with any activism, they just comment on the day's events at the dinner table and are furious but are not part of an organized left.

Suppose we ask what about people who have a critique of the electoral political system and are seriously left. Now the numbers go down, but I think they are still in the hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. But the numbers of those who then also have any significant ties to one another or do anything beyond perhaps reading and talking about politics around the dinner table is much, much, lower.

So now we get down to a much smaller group, perhaps a few tens of thousands. These are people who are involved in local activities and organizations of many sorts. Peace might be the biggest but also around economic issues, race issues, gender issues. These folks often have ties to other people around the same priority but very few ties to people outside of their priority.

Next, if you're asking about the ideological left, or people who identify around all of these issues and who have at least some working ties to people who identify with all of these issues, then the numbers go dramatically down. Yet that's the part on which any kind of comprehensive change depends. No matter how radical or revolutionary or focused around a single issue many folks may be, they are still focused around that one issue and there is no long-term future transition to a better society imbedded in that.

Now, we ought to ask, I think, what are the obstacles to having a whole lot of people who are a whole lot more committed and a whole lot more informed about the gamut of issues and who are intent upon new kind of social structure or society. I suspect this is mostly asking how do we get people into the first biggest group and from the biggest group into the smaller group and so on… I think the obstacles are many but unlike many other folks, I think the least important is the power of the state, fear of the police, things like that, which many people point to first. I suspect those things are real but relatively small in terms of preventing people from being part of the left. I think much more important are the attributes of the left. That is, the tendency of people who are in the Democratic Party and don't move beyond its goals, so that they are not even in that first biggest group, and then all the way down… the tendency to not to go another step is probably very substantially affected by the feeling that taking another step is taking a step into insanity. It's taking a step into aggravation, frustration, and pain, whether consciously or not. People are afraid of the next step toward greater commitment if they feel taking it gains little and costs a lot in terms of personal well-being and mindset and their ability to go about their daily business. So that's one obstacle. The only solution to that obstacle is to have movements and organizations with features that make people's lives better instead of worse when they take that extra step.

The next obstacle, which is related to the previous one, is a feeling of hopelessness and despair about going any further. So if around the dinner table someone asks you what you think of the attack on Libya or the events in Wisconsin, you have an opinion. But as far as acting on that opinion in any way, you feel it's a waste of time because nothing will be gained and it will take time and it may involve aggravation. That's in part because there's very little understanding of how you win change and of how possible it is to win change and, at the grandest level, of what it would be like to win change, not just on a single issue but toward attaining a whole new social system. There's little vision or strategy, people don't know it, people don't feel like what they are contributing to activism will somehow contribute to the desired outcome. So I think those are some the biggest problems.

Partly fear, partly time-constraints and structural things that have to do with the character of the United States. Some of these things we could help with, we could have movements that are more protective of their member and movements that as one of their demands free up people's time. The second part is people's expectation of alienation and frustration if they participate in another step to the left, the aggravation, etc., with no real gain. That can only be correcting by altering the nature of our movements. Finally there is the more general despair and hopelessness that there is no alternative and therefore even well conceived activism is a waste of time because "I don't want to be part of that, only crazy people do that."

GW: So it sounds like a vicious circle, if on the one hand you're saying people are resistant to getting more involved because of despair and because of their fears, and on the other hand, in order to become involved, some sort of organization is necessary, but then again we cannot have an organization without the people wanting one and contributing to it - so this is a vicious cycle, is that correct?

MA: Yes. And we have to find a way to break the circle. But this shouldn't surprise us. When we look at why the left isn't larger and more effective, after all, we should expect to see a serious and difficult problem because if we don't see that, then why hasn't the left at all those levels we talked about earlier, grown dramatically in the last four decades? There have to be serious obstacles - we would have overcome trivial ones a long time ago. If you look and you don't see serious obstacles, you are not yet seeing well. So I agree with you, yes it's a vicious circle. And yes, that's the problem to overcome.

One thing to wonder is why does the right seem to do so much better?

The tea party is appealing to a considerable degree – not only, since they also appeal to racism and fear-mongering and so on - but to a considerable extent they also say look, your lives are a mess, there is pain and suffering and there are rich powerful people who are benefitting from this and we need to get together and take back our country. It's asking people to "Step outside of the norms," which we ask, too. So why do they do better?

Well, they do better partly because they have a lot of money, because they have a lot of resources, because when you align with them you do not look like you are from Neptune to everyone else – by joining them you only look odd to us. We think it's weird, but for the mainstream joining them you seem just angrier at something that everybody's angry at, because you're not taking the left stance, which is ridiculed. The nice thing about a vicious cycle, however, is that it can work both ways. Once you get going it can have the opposite effect. So once the tea party gets going, now there's some hope, some momentum, and so it grows.

The same thing with Egypt. They went from relatively little, to huge, very quickly. It's because they're overcoming a lack of hope. It isn't as if everybody all of a sudden became fantastically smart or fantastically more knowledgeable. They all knew what they thought of Mubarak ten weeks earlier, too. That isn't what happens. What happens is that hope rises, and the feeling of efficacy rises. People start to feel, if I go out on the streets of Cairo something may happen, we may win.

In contrast people here feel, if I go out on the streets in Washington, then I lose a day I may get hit, I may look like an idiot to my friends. I become more alienated. So why should I do that? It is easier for me to ridicule the people who do it than it is for me to endure the ridicule. So for a while a vicious circle of hopelessness is very hard to overcome.

But consider the Vietnam War era. Back then it was not a question of a lack of vision that bred hopelessness, a lack of generalized hope, it was that to be against the war was so discordant, was so different from the mainstream, so contrary to common sense belief in America, that that alone made you a pariah. So in the beginning there was a Catch-22, since you didn't have a movement, people had to go out and do the hard work of talking to an anti-war audience that was six people, two of whom were hecklers. That was the early days. But some years later, not too many years later, it became a movement that was sweeping the country. What happened was the assumptions, the beliefs were countered and overcome. That was a different task than we face now, because it is different beliefs at work.

GW: That actually gets me to my next question, which asks you to take a historical look back. How would you say has U.S. activism evolved in the last 50 years? If there was a surge of activism in the late 60's and early 70's, why did it collapse since then?

MA: First of all, why did it get going? People are going to say different things. There were certainly many factors, but the one I want to point to is that people got angry. Why did they get angry? They got angry because they discovered that everything was a lie. If you go back and look at the songs and the music, or you interview people who really were there, and are objective about it - that's what happened. People discovered they'd been tricked, hoodwinked. They discovered that it was all a lie, that it was all hypocrisy.

There were revelations about racism, about the war, about poverty, about sexism. In every case people were finding that some injustice that they sort of knew was there, was much worse than thought. So, for example, you might know that you were being abused by your husband, but you didn't know the number of people who were in that same position, and you didn't know that it was so pervasive, that that it wasn't just a bad guy you got stuck with, but something bigger, more systemic. You knew that there was racism, of course, but you didn't quite get the scale of it, and you didn't realize the extent to which it was, again, systemic. The war was another massive revelation that touched the whole society. You thought that the United States was a positive international actor, caring, freedom loving, but then you found out that the United States was a horrible international actor, that the United States was doing this horrendous stuff and you got pissed and that's when the youth movement just exploded in anger. Couple it with a rejection of the lifestyle of the times - and it added up to what is called the Sixties.

Now, the difference between then and now is that it's absolutely impossible to replicate that any longer. The reason it's impossible to do it in the same way is because nothing surprises anyone anymore. We were surprised, indeed shocked, by the revelations of injustice, back then. Now, in contrast, no matter what you reveal, the response is, "OK, uh huh, yeah, sure they do that, I get it." Everybody now knows, at some level, what we had to work incredibly hard in '67, '68, '69, '70, to get people to even notice. And when they realized, "Oh my God, this is horrible," they went berserk. But now, there is no revelation, they know, already.

Nowadays, that is, everybody knows the situation is horrible, at some deep level. You can see it all over popular culture. You can hear it at every dinner table. So movement can't happen the same way. There is nothing dramatic to reveal. What happened in the Sixties was that it got big, got angry, people thought they were going to change the world but it didn't turn out to be that easy. So after a while people started to get worn out, frustrated, started to have doubts about what they were doing, at least about changing society. In fact, much was changed. The war ended, tremendous gains were made in civil rights, around gender, even around poverty… Huge advances, but at the same time, very little structural lasting movement apparatus emerged. Getting back up to that big scale of mobilization and organization proved to be very difficult. The number of people who were involved in the no-nukes movement, about ten years later, or in Nicaragua or El Salvador, in the labor movement, in gender and race movements, these numbers were very high, but the difference was that people didn't have the anger, the spirit, or the inclination to want it all and to want it now, that characterized the Sixties. So it became movements that were trying to win important things, but at the same time as the people in those movements were trying to live their life normally. In the Sixties one was trying to win important things quickly, yes, but at the same time presuming that life was not going to go along in the way it was before. It was going to be fundamentally altered.

To get back to that transformative mentality, which leads to real solidarity and militancy, requires, nowadays, since we are now feeling that everything is hypocritical, that people come to know that everything is not just bad but grotesquely criminal and especially unnecessary because there is an alternative. As long as people think that there is no alternative, why should they get angry? You don't get angry at cancer or at aging – maybe a little bit, but you don't form a social movement about those things. When you don't think there is any alternative to the world as we know it, except perhaps in some small area where you can make some modest gain, mostly at the expense of someone else in some other area, then you don't work incredibly hard to create a type of movement seeking to change the whole society, because you think there is no such thing as changing the whole society. So, it's that absence of vision and associated hope that is a very big part or the difficulty, I think.

But then there are also some important structural things. For example, in the Sixties the campuses blew up and to a considerable extent it was initially at elite campuses. If you look at campus activism more recently, however, the elite campuses were largely quiet. It was working class colleges that were most involved. Why? Well, the system realized that it was a big mistake to give people a whole lot of resources and confidence at elite schools and not to be very careful to be sure that they would be compliant. So a lot was done in terms of raising fees for elite schools and making people indebted, and they did a pretty good job at that, when you see the relative quiescence at elite campuses, it was sought and attained. The downside is that in places where people have more access, more freedom to move, they don't move, so it's harder to get a youth movement going. However, the upside is, once it gets going it will be led by poorer students, by working class students, and so therefore it will be more substantial and more important to the future of the country.

Basically, the difference between now and the Sixties is that back then we could form a militant revolutionary movement that saw itself as being very aggressive, that saw itself as planning a new society, that became the focal point of the lives of its participants, but it really wasn't any of those things, in the end, because it had no lasting structures, it had no coherent ideology or vision for doing those things. Now, we have a situation where we can't even have a really big and militant and angry movement unless it really is a movement that wants to change the whole society and really believes in doing that. If that's true, then it means that the task for the U.S. left now is not to keep crying out about the injustice of particular things – not that we shouldn't do that somewhat – but the reason why that isn't as high a priority as before is because everybody knows the hundreds of specific reasons that things are bad. Speaking and writing about that is trying to convince people of something they already know. at least broadly. Even the right knows! It's just that people think the suffering is inevitable; it's a necessary evil, in their view.

The real task, instead, is to show that there is a different way of operating, and that here are short-term gains we can win now and here is a long-term changed circumstance that illuminates our problems and that is the end point of these endeavors and is worth our time. If we can convey that, vision and strategy, then we are conveying information that can sustain anger, commitment, and passion all in a rich diverse and broad movement that could make people's lives better and that could win gains and move on to change society. But without being able to convincingly and inspriationally communicate vision and strategy - if we only tell people this hurts, that hurts, this is unjust, that is unjust, then I think we won't get far.

GW: What does this mean in terms of concrete organizing? What would be the role of electoral politics, for example? What kind of organizing are you talking about?

MA: Whether one is moved by a revolutionary vision of a new society and a lifelong commitment to attain it, or just by being upset about a particular situation, one still organizes around wars, poverty, ecological calamities, continuing sexism and racism. So the focuses remain. The difference is in what you do.

One thing that is different when you organize around these things strategically in light of a long term vision is that you talk about them and make demands about them in ways that challenge the whole system, in ways that move forward people's commitments and thinking toward a broad attachment. You connect these different short-term aims. You have movements around each contribute to movements around the others. You fight for the short-run gains in ways that would be different than if you fought for them when all you have your eye on is the particular thing you are fighting about. The difference is how you talk about your short term aim, the kinds of ideas that emerge in the discussion and that lead to further demands and to keeping fighting instead of going home. That's how you build an organization that isn't oriented only to achieving one thing and then dissipating, but that is dedicated to bringing about a new society and that in winning something simply becomes stronger and more adept and more able to win more, rather than going home. That is all a little vague and would take a lot of time to give specific examples. It is a different mindset and a different approach.

Some people think that when you're fighting for X you should only talk about X, you should never talk about Y or Z. Their logic is, if you only care about getting X you should talk only about that one issue so you don't upset anybody. But what if you care about sustaining X once you get it, and what if you care about getting Y, W, and Z as well? Then the logic begins to falter and what you need to do is fight for X in a way that talks about X leading beyond that one issue. So you talk about higher wages, say, as the one issue, but while you are fighting for higher wages you talk about it in a way that that leads to an understanding of what a truly just income would be and that would lead to the next demands, to make income more just.

The second thing you do is you tie these things together and develop real solidarity. Let's say we had a national movement around a shorter workweek with no change in income for those at the low end. In other words, those with low incomes now work less but get the same income as before, despite working many fewer hours. And at the high end people work less too, but they get propostionately less income. So it's a redistribution of income from the top. If we are fighting for this campaign, which I think would be a fantastic campaign to fight for, not only because it redistributes income and prevents unemployment, but because it creates a situation in which it is easier to win more gains because people have more time – itself also a very, very important gain. But then I think you fight for it in a way that says what is actually really just is that people should be remunerated for how long they work, for how hard they work, and for the onerousness of their work. Not only should the poor be getting an increase, but they should be getting more than the people who have very cushy jobs. Do you still have strikes? Sure. Do still have rallies? Sure. You do all those things, however, with a criterion that in doing them you should attract more people, not less. With a criterion that you should make life in the movement better not worse for those who are in it. And also with a criterion that you should raise social costs to win the demands you are trying to win.

So then you ask, what is the role of electoral politics? Honestly, I have no idea. I don't think anybody does. The idea that there is a principled reason why it has no place on the left makes no sense to me. The idea that there is a principled reason why it should have a primary place also makes no sense to me. The question is whether electoral politics can be used now or in the future as part of a broad array of approaches that the left employs to win more and more gains, to win more and more power, to win more and more people, while becoming ever more capable of still more victories.

Some might think that we can use electoral politics in a way that will raise consciousness, that will give us access to resources and power strengthening our prospects, and that will lead to great changes in the long-run. Others might think, no, it's a dead end because the dynamics of electoral politics and the implications of seeking to win elections for our agendas and thinking are to diminish our abilities, to diminish our capacity to win changes, to distort our consciousness, to weaken our prospects.

The really big question isn't which view do you believe, but what do you do if two such views exist? I think the answer is, it doesn't make any sense to fight this out. The people who think electoral politics is a bad idea should be ecstatic if someone shows it to instead be a good idea. They should not think it's a bad idea and want to be right that it is a bad idea. They should think it's a bad idea want to be wrong because every good idea for change is beneficial for their agenda.

The people who think it's a good idea should hope that they are right but not feel that they cannot acknowledge being wrong. If they are wrong, they should feel grateful for finding it out, so that they can put their efforts to better means.

The minute we have these mindsets, actually, I think it is a single mindset that places success over ego, where the goal is to win and not to be right about a particular choice, then the idea of exploring more than one choice makes sense. Those who think it is important to use some approach should try it, even as others doubt it will help or even fear it will hurt. We can respect each other. The same thing goes for almost all tactical choices, but not all. Some tactical choices are so detrimental, so harmful, that a political organization would have to say not only that it is a bad idea, but that we cannot be involved in that and that no one involved in our organization should be involved in that. But that's not true for most decisions. I don't think these questions have to be resolved in advance for everyone, they just need to be resolved for some. We do not have to have unanimity, which is impossible and is not a good idea in any case because diversity is vastly better.

Suppose it was the case that we had a big movement in the United States. Suppose we have a 20,000 person revolutionary organization mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people. We aren't about to win tomorrow, but we are getting bigger. Suppose in the organization 80% think electoral politics is stupid and a distraction. Should they annihilate the 20% and have nobody do it? No, that's not the right answer. The 20% will not be good at something else if they really believe in electoral politics. You shouldn't have to duke it out. You discuss and debate, of course. But we are trying to create a new and better society and unless we are Stalinists, we don't think that there should be one approach to every issue in a whole society. So we shouldn't have one approach to every issue inside the movement either.

GW: You talked about the objectives of such an organization, but I would like to get a little bit more specific. For example, you said such an organization would have to be oriented around multiple issues embody a vision for new society. However, I'm wondering if there's any issue that stands out that would serve as a vehicle for elaborating that kind of vision. Is there any issue that is particularly pressing right now?

MA: In a particular moment in time one thing or another will be pressing. Suppose the nuclear power plant outside of New York City melts down tomorrow. That would be pressing and would be on everyone's mind in the country. Everybody would be paying attention to it. So any rational movement would pay very very close attention to it. But that's different than saying the movement should focus around one issue. Also, we don't know what that's going to be.

GW: But what do you think is a pressing issue right now?

MA: I don't think that there is one. There is what is happening in Wisconsin. It wasn't war, and it wasn't climate, it was some economic and political changes that would affect collective bargaining and it was powerful enough to yield one of the most important activist upsurges that we have seen in a long time. So someone could say, well, that is the issue. But others could say the war is the issue. After all, people are dying and we are blowing people up and certainly that motivates lots of people. Or climate change is the issue; after all, the future is at stake.

It is a dumb debate, I think. My feeling is, suppose you want to win on budgets, or on war, or on climate change, what does it mean? It means you want to win some gains now, and eventually you want to win a society that doesn't generate pursuit of profits, or war making, or a use of energy and an allocation of goods and resources that destroy the environment.

Suppose you want to organize around the economy and to change income distribution, or around foreign policy and to end war, or around nuclear power and to win green policies. In any of these things what you are trying to do is big. You are  trying to win something major that elites in power care a lot about. So you have to ask, why would they give in? On any issue that galvanizes lots of people over a longer period of time, you're going to be fighting about something that matters to elites, such as in the case of these issues. Otherwise they would give in right away. So why would they give in on something they don't want to give in on?

The answer is because the movement raises costs and creates a specter or threat, due to which they say to themselves, "If we don't give in, then this threat is going to grow and it's going to be more damaging to us than giving in is." That's the calculus that they use. If they give in to a budget movement, or antiwar movement, or global warming movement, it's because they feel that to not give in is going to hurt them more. And what hurts them enough to be more is a threat that the whole system will change.

When you get to the level of wars and the treatment of the whole ecology and income distribution, then elites have to feel that to persist with what we're seeking to end risks too much. What will convey that message to them?

If we turn out 100,000 people against a war in Washington, it's a cost but it's a relatively small cost because all they have to have to clean up the park. Even if we do it month after month, so? The demonstrations are only a real cost if there is the threat that the movement will get bigger and bigger. It is only threatening if it seems likely to change the mindset of the population and even more, if it threatens to address not just the war, but all of foreign-policy and beyond foreign-policy, domestic policy. If it threatens any of these things, in a growing way, it is raising the costs. But if it's just going to stand pat after 100,000 people or even 250,000 people, then it's no cost at all. The minute that it is not growing, the movement is no longer a cost, no longer a threat, because elites can just wait it out. The movement threat resides in growing numbers. The movement threat resides in growing relevance. And the movement threat resides in the growing diversity of demands.

Do the demands move from a particular focus toward changing the system? If they do, that's scary for elites. Same with the movement growing. In the Sixties the reason the antiwar movement was such a big threat was that a) it was growing and b) it included a spectrum from: against the war gently, to against the war moderately, to against the war militantly, to against foreign policy, to against the whole damn system. What you saw at each level was a growth of the broader level leading to growth of the more committed level as well. There was a continuing process, which in time said to the government, "You want to defend the war in Vietnam in order to enlarge your power and wealth and to maintain the system the way it is. What happens when the day comes when you realize the pursuit of this war, while it is in your interest in the sense of holding back change in Indochina, is not in your interest in the sense that it is polarizing and organizing the U.S. population in such a way that pretty soon they will be challenging your wealth and power across the board."

If you go back and look at the point at which elites started changing sides on the war, such as senators and business leaders, you see that they said not that it's immoral and our people are dying. No. They said, "Our streets are in turmoil and we are losing the next generation, society's fabric is being torn asunder." In other words, they were saying, "I got into this war in order to increase my wealth and power, but now it seems that if we continue to pursue the war it will risk my wealth and power even more than giving in to the demands to end it, so now I'm against the war."

So to come back to your point, suppose there is that meltdown or the war on Libya expands and gets much, much, bigger, or states across the country are doing what the governor of Wisconsin did, and it becomes a focal point. Or even there is a big ecological calamity. What I am saying is to win any one of them, it is incredibly advantageous that all of them are being sought. For example, that's why Seattle worried elites a lot. Honestly, it wasn't all that big. But the threat was that it was not just about globalization. It carried the threat of the labor movement, the green movement, the antiwar movement, the women's movement, everyone working together. So many in the elite sectors felt, "Our policies are creating the mess that we are trying to avoid." That was the threat. So sure, if there is a focus that attracts everybody's attention, okay, by all means, addressed sensibly, that can help us, but to get caught up in one focus, to make the mistake of thinking that everything should be geared to that one focus and we should set aside everything else, misses the point of how you win even short-term, much less long-term gains.

This is the first of a series of interviews on the state of the U.S. left. You can find this and more at zcommunications.

Rural American Progressive

In Unity is Strength