Why now? Part of the reason is because the majority of US troops are out of Iraq, thereby leaving a minimal number of American soldiers available for Iranian retaliation. A related reason could be the loss of prestige to Washington with the withdrawal of those troops. It’s not like Washington won its war in Iraq; it’s more like it was a stalemate with Tehran still holding on to a couple key cards. Israel, with an element of its ruling elites always ready to attack any perceived enemy, is of course a constant element in the drive to destroy Iran, as are the ruling families of certain Arab Gulf states that compete with Tehran in the oil market. Iran’s alleged support for various resistance movements in the Middle East and Asia provides Israel with but one more reason to call for war, especially since those resistance movements are primarily opposed to Israel’s expansionist anti-Palestinian policies.

For those warmongering pundits who haven’t yet quite jumped on the bandwagon for either an Israeli or joint US-Israeli attack comes an article in the January/February 2012 Foreign Affairs, a policy journal written by and for the US elites. The piece, written by Council of Foreign Relations member and Georgetown professor Matthew Kroenig, is titled “Time to Attack Iran.” While the title of the article leaves nothing to the imagination, Kroenig’s long-winded piece utilizes an almost Jesuitical argument as to why the United States should attack Iran now.

Briefly put, the argument goes like this. Since it is clear that Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons and Israel is intent on preventing that, it would be best if the United States military launched a limited attack on Iran’s nuclear-related facilities before Israel does and starts a war with much greater consequences. After all, continues Kroenig, Washington’s forces are sophisticated enough to limit civilian casualties and take out the necessary targets. Furthermore, any retaliation would be limited, suggests Kroenig, because most of what Tehran says regarding retaliation is bluster. If some US troops die, that risk is worth it. After all, for men like Kroenig a nuclear Iran is too great of a threat to US national security, human lives be damned.

Let me briefly address this piece of idiocy. First, Kroenig does not provide any proof for his supposition that Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons. Instead, he accepts the common presentation of IAEA reports made in the Western press, a presentation that has been shown time and time again to be a misrepresentation of the facts in those reports. Naturally, that misrepresentation suggests that Iran is ready to go live at any time with a nuclear weapon and wants to do so. Second, Kroenig easily dismisses the possibility of Iranian retaliation. From the comfort of his office at Georgetown University he makes the statement that Washington could tell Iran certain acts would be subject to massive retaliation, while others like “token missile strikes against U.S. bases and ships in the region” would be acceptable. It’s as if Mr. Kroenig was talking about a game of World of Warcraft instead of an action that might start World War Three.

It is not time to attack Iran. It is time to back away from the insanity expressed in the recent GOP debates about the need to attack Iran. It is also time to end the nonsense put forth by men and women like Mr. Kroenig. Their use of neutral and technical language to demand an attack on Iran or any other nation is more reprehensible than the demagoguery of Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich. When I read the ramblings of technocrats like Mr. Kroenig, I can not help but be reminded of Adolf Eichmann and his office as they sent memos back and forth discussing the destruction of the European Jews. The language those men used was bureaucratic and neutral. The results were anything but.

Washington does not like the government in Tehran. The reasons for this are many, but the primary one is simple. Tehran opposes Washington’s designs for the region. It also opposes Tel Aviv’s. Washington aligns itself with Tel Aviv no matter what it does. Until Washington alters its “special relationship” with Tel Aviv so that other interests in the region are considered in a fair manner, Iran’s presence will always be a threat to Washington’s interests. As has been written many times over, Tehran has good reason not to trust the words and motivations of the United States. The last sixty years of history between the two nations is one that includes a CIA coup against a popular government; years of support to an autocratic and despotic regime whose secret police tortured and killed unknown numbers of opposition members; a secret deal between some of the most reactionary elements of the post-1979 Iranian revolutionary government and the Reagan administration that helped destroy the democratic socialist and secular elements of the revolution; and a series of attacks on Iranian ships, civilian aircraft and, most recently, its scientists.

Once again, it is not time to attack Iran. Opposing war and sanctions on that country is not equivalent to supporting the Tehran government. However, it does mean demanding that Washington to stop edging towards war on Iran, end the sanctions and do everything in its power (including suspending ALL aid and loans to Tel Aviv) to prevent Israel from launching an attack. If nuclear weapons really are the issue, then it would seem that it is time for all parties in the Mideast to begin unconditional talks establishing a nuclear free zone. It is certainly not the time to begin a war that will only convince more nations that nuclear arms are the only way they can ensure their continued existence. We must step back from the precipice.

The DC march was also politically similar to previous marches. The January 27 date had been originally reserved by the left-liberal antiwar network calling itself United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). ANSWER, the other group organizing against the US wars, then had agreed to working with UFPJ in order to make the largest possible showing on that date. This was despite some very sharp political disagreements between the two organizations.

I took a bus from Asheville, NC to that protest. It was one of seven very full coaches from that small city in the mountains. When we arrived at the New Carrolton Metro stop around 7:30 in the morning the parking lot was already full of buses from cities and towns up and down the US East Coast and from as far away as Cleveland and other points west. The Metro system was running extra trains, and it seemed like everyone riding those trains was going to the protest.

After disembarking and imbibing a couple cups of coffee, I headed to the Mall. On the way I ran into several friends from various places and exchanged greetings and conversation. The ultra-right group Free Republic had a couple dozen folks hanging out on the grass in one of DC’s traffic circles harassing protesters and questioning everything from their manhood to their politics. I joked to a friend I was with that being called a communist never bothered me since I pretty much considered myself one anyhow.

I couldn’t tell you what the speakers said that day. I wasn’t really listening that closely. Most of the signs that people were carrying were provided by UFPJ and ANSWER. Most of them simply called for the troops to be brought home immediately. Most of the speakers didn’t mention Washington’s adjunct war in Afghanistan and neither did the pre-printed signs. Some protesters did carry signs demanding an immediate end to that war, too. I asked a friend of mine whose organization had been involved in planning the protest why the war in Afghanistan was not being mentioned. His answer was that the leadership of UFPJ could not agree as to whether or not they opposed that war. His organization had argued to include a demand for immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan as a key demand but had been voted down. The reason given by the leadership was that such a demand might diminish the size and message of the protest. His take was that the leadership of UFPJ was too interested in maintaining good relations with the Democratic Party, especially with the presidential elections coming up.

Since that January day there has not been another large antiwar protest. Several smaller ones took place in the following years, but even the larger ones that took place at the Pentagon and in New York City had little or no effect. UFPJ fell apart and many of its members, including elements of the leadership, allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into campaigning for Barack Obama, preferring to believe that campaigning for his presidential hopes would be a more effective way to end the imperial wars of Washington than actually organizing against those wars. We all know how that idea turned out.

But wait, they say, the war in Iraq is over. My response is that this is partially true. Very few US GIs are dying there any more and most of them have indeed been removed from that country. Some of them have been sent to Afghanistan and some have been sent to one of the other 737 military bases the Empire maintains around the globe. Many more have been sent back to the streets and hometowns of the United States to work out the demons they are now possessed with, thanks to their war experiences.

Meanwhile, in Iraq the number of bombings is increasing as various groups fight over turf and control while the democracy and freedom promised by George Bush and heralded by Barack Obama continues to be a figment of some DC speechwriter’s pen. The world’s largest CIA station outside of Langley, VA. operates at will from Baghdad, stirring up trouble in Iraq, Iran, Palestine and other nations in the region while the US client state in Tel Aviv continues to ramp up the war rhetoric against Iran while tightening its grip on the people of the West Bank and Gaza (and the political system of the United States).

Let’s not forget Saudi Arabia, whose autocratic monarchy just purchased 84 F-15s at the cool price of approximately $25 billion.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the guerrilla war waged by the Taliban and other anti-occupation forces continues, as does the close-to-$200-million-per-day US effort to destroy that resistance. Over the Afghan mountains the people of Pakistan wonder if they will be the next targets of US ground troops while US-armed drones fly and kill almost daily into some areas of that country.

There is no group of protesters in the United States currently addressing this. The Occupy Wall Street movement, for all of its positives, has yet to loudly and clearly make the connection between the war industry’s role in the plights they protest against. This is partly due to the organizational structure of Occupy (in fact, unlike many other Occupy camps the DC and Oakland Occupy groupings have worked hard to make this connection), but another reason for this failure is the lack of antiwar organizing in the Occupy movement. The sole remaining national antiwar network–the United National Antiwar Coalition–has been holding the torch in the years since its inception in 2008 and is currently organizing protests against the May meetings of global capital and its army (the G8 and NATO) in Chicago. Indeed, this coalition of political, religious and labor organizations is holding an organizing conference the weekend of March 23rd in Stamford, CT that will focus on these protests.

Despite recent pronouncements by the Obama administration and the Pentagon that the US military is going to shrink, the occupations and wars of the Empire will not just disappear. neither will its aspirations for full-spectrum-dominance. The new Pentagon Plan, titled “Sustaining US Global Leadership:Priorities for 21st Century Defense” has as its goal “protect(ing) the broad range of U.S. national security interests… (maintaining) the free flow of commerce… preventing Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon capability… standing up for Israel’s security… (and) continu(ing) to place a premium on U.S. and allied military presence in – and support of – partner nations in and around this (the Middle East) region.”

Despite its claim that the US military will no longer be depended on to occupy and “build” nations, a key element of this plan is “to assure access to and use of the global commons….” In other words, to go wherever capital demands the military goes, then the military will go there and stay there until capital’s work is done. A close reading of this document will tell the reader that nothing has changed and the military remains ready and happy to do Wall Street’s bidding. All of which balances out to the continued domination of the war-based economy.

This month PM Press, the Oakland, CA. publisher founded by AK Press founder Ramsey Kanaan and others, is publishing Gilbert’s memoirs. The book, titled Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond, is certain to be included in the top tier of books having to do with the period of US history known as the Sixties. There is no self-pity within these pages, but lots of self-reflection. In what can only be considered a refreshing approach, Gilbert takes full responsibility for the path he has chosen and explains that path in an intelligently political manner and with a decidedly leftist understanding. Love and Struggle combines objective history, personal memory, and a critical perspective into a narrative that is at once an adventuresome tale and a political guide through the past fifty years.

Gilbert begins his story by describing his youth and his developing awareness that the United States was not what he had been led to believe it was. An Eagle Scout who believed the myths inherent in American exceptionalism, he was unprepared for the cognitive dissonance he underwent while watching the attacks by law enforcement on civil rights marchers in the US South. That sense of conflict deepened when he headed off to Columbia University. By 1965, angered by the US war on the Vietnamese and armed with a well-researched understanding of why the US was really involved there, Gilbert was organizing Columbia students to join antiwar protests. Like many of his contemporaries, by 1968 he was an anti-imperialist and working full-time against the war in Vietnam and racism in the United States. By 1969, he was one of the original members of Weatherman and by April 1970 he was underground.

Gilbert tells his story with a hard-learned humility. Occasionally interjecting his personal life–his loves and failures, his relationship with his family–with his political journey, it is the politics which are foremost in this memoir. A true revolutionary, every other aspect of Gilbert’s life is subsumed to the revolution. This kind of life is not an easy one. Indeed, it arguably makes the life of an ascetic monk look easy by comparison. After all, the monk is only trying to change himself, while the committed revolutionary wants to change the world into one where justice prevails; a world that by its very structure resists such change.

Love and Struggle carefully examines the history of the periods Gilbert has lived in. From the early days of the antiwar movement and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to the public street-fighting arrogance of early Weatherman; from Weatherman’s transition to the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) and its growing isolation from the New Left it was a part of; and from the post-Vietnam war US left to the Brink robbery and its aftermath, Gilbert keeps the politics front and center in his text. In his discussion of the period between Weather’s publication of its essential work Prairie Fire and its immediate aftermath, Gilbert provides an insight into the debates inside WUO and among its supporters in the years after the peace treaty was signed with northern Vietnam. His portrayal of the differences around theory being debated in the WUO serve as a broader description of the debates raging throughout the new left as the US intervention in Vietnam’s anti-colonial struggle neared its end. For those of us who were politically involved at the time, the debates ring with familiarity: national liberation over class; the interaction between race and class in the US; the oppression of women and white male privilege. In a testimony to his writing abilities, Gilbert’s discussion of the issues makes them as alive in this book as those arguments actually were in the mid-1970s. His keen political sense reveals the interplay between different political perspectives, understandings of history, and the always present contests of ego. The political arguments outlined by Gilbert (especially when describing the battle inside WUO) are still relevant today. Their echoes are present in the General Assemblies of the Occupy Wall Street movement and in forums more specific and less specific across the nation. Gilbert’s presentation of the essential WUO arguments that challenges the overriding role of class in the nature of oppression is not only reasoned and impassioned, it is worth studying and makes points useful to the future of anti-imperialist struggle in the United States Furthermore, the book includes an ongoing and excellent discussion of the nature of white supremacy and white skin privilege. For anyone who has spent time involved in the Occupy movement the past few months, the relevance of this latter discussion is all too familiar.

For those looking for a sensationalist account of life as a revolutionary or a confession, they should look elsewhere. David Gilbert’s memoir is a political account of a political life. Every action undertaken, every decision made is examined via the eye of a leftist revolutionary. This does not mean there are no page-turning moments in the book, however. Indeed, the sections describing Weather’s move underground and Gilbert’s daily life off the grid are interesting and revealing, as are those describing the attempts by WUO members to evade capture. The descriptions of Gilbert’s clandestine life and his subsequent moving back aboveground and then back under are also riveting.

Underlying the entire narrative is a current of what is best described as self-criticism; of Weather, the New Left, armed struggle and, ultimately, of Gilbert himself. As anyone who has experienced something akin to a self-criticism session can attest, such sessions can be emotionally wrenching episodes of retribution and petty anger. They can also be tremendously useful when conducted humanely. Gilbert’s written attempts at this exercise in Love and Struggle lean toward the latter expression while also providing interesting and useful considerations to the aforementioned issues (along with issues related to those criticisms). Gilbert’s realization that his ego occasionally caused him to make decisions that weren’t based on politically sound rationales is something any radical leader should take into account. In fact, Gilbert’s continuing struggle with his ego and it’s place in the decisions he made while free reminded me of a maxim relayed to me a couple times in my life; once by an organizer for the Revolutionary Union in Maryland and once by a friend from the Hog Farm commune. That maxim is simply: if you start believing that the revolution can’t exist without you, then it’s time to leave center stage and go back to doing grunt work where nobody knows (or cares) who you are. In other words, you are not the revolution so take your ego out of it.

In the well-considered catalog of books dealing honestly with the period of history known as the Sixties in the United States, Love and Struggle is an important addition. Borrowing his technique from memoir, confession, and objective history-telling, David Gilbert has provided the reader of history with the tale of a person and a time. Simultaneously, he has given the reader inclined to political activism a useful, interesting, and well-told example of one human’s revolutionary commitment to social change no matter what the cost.

The 1989 novel, titled The Third Reich, is the diary of a German office worker named Udo Bergen and his vacation in Spain. There is a girlfriend, a couple they meet, the hotel owner Frau Else, a man named Quernado who rents paddle boats to tourists and has grotesque burn scars on his body. The girlfriend leaves after a fright; the man in the couple drowns and the hotel owner’s husband is taken away to hospice with terminal cancer. The presence of a board game based on the second world war and also called The Third Reich hangs over the story like a surreal presence. Udo is an expert in board games based on World War Two and even makes extra money writing about strategies for different gaming magazines. For most of the book he and Quernado are engaged in a the Third Reich game. Udo is hoping that he can win as Germany while Quernado’s pieces represent the allies. It is as if the game is as real as life and life is only a game. Bergen even says to his game-playing friend Conrad upon his return from Spain: “We (are) all essentially ghosts on a ghostly General Staff.”

It seems that Quernado identifies Bergen as not only an opponent in the game, but as a potential embodiment of Nazi Germany itself. This is despite Bergen stating specifically to Quernado that he is much more of an anti-Nazi than any Nazi at all. Quernado ignores Bergen and plays the game as if he were fighting the war. Like much of Europe and certainly Germany, the fact of World War Two’s horrors defines everything, albeit in a rather murky manner. The game is nothing but a game except when it becomes more, as it does in the mind of Quernado. History has a similar trajectory. As long as it remains in books and museums (or games) it has little threat. It is when history becomes real that it constitutes something potentially more dangerous.

Like most of Bolano’s novels, The Third Reich comes across as if it were written in a detached fog. Although the narrator Bergen is part of every scene that occurs, his narration of the life he is in the middle of is simultaneously distant and intimate. Like fog, the closer one gets to the situation or person being described, the clearer Bergen’s tale become. Observations about the other characters in the novel are provided with an omniscience that, once considered, are mostly Bergen’s selfish perceptions. As one follows the interactions of the various characters in Bergen’s beach vacation, the egocentric nature of modern individuated society becomes apparent. Every single person portrayed lives alone amongst the crowd in the Spanish resort town. Relationships easily formed are just as easily dismissed. Friendships seem to be anything but that and love is barely more meaningful than renting a room.

Bolano is a master of style and story. The seemingly innocuous life of Udo Bergen the office worker and gamer is on second glance not what it appears. Death, sex, intrigue and the threat of violence simmer beneath the thin flesh of Bolano’s tale. After all is said and done little has changed. That is our curse. I am reminded of the line from Eliot’s The Waste Land: “Oed’ und leer das Meer.” Post industrial equals post-meaningful. Nothing plus nothing is still nothing. The charm is in the telling, not necessarily in the living. Bolano comprehends this fact and tells his story well.

Occupy! Scenes From Occupied America is a well-conceived and attractive book about the first weeks of the Occupy Wall Street movement that was recently published by the Left imprint Verso Books. It reads like a journal, except the entries are not from just one writer, but a collection of several. They range from the well-known like prison activist and Black Panther Angela Davis to a young activist named Manissa Mahawaral. Edited by a small group of occupiers and the editors of the journals n+1, Dissent, Triple Canopy, and The New Inquiry, this text primarily covers the scene at the Zurcotti Park encampment in Lower Manhattan where the Occupy Wall Street movement more or less began. Part diary and part reflection, some of its most compelling moments come when the younger occupiers write about various realizations they have during the course of the occupation.

My favorite anecdote of this type is from an activist involved in the Occupy movement in Oakland, CA. When she first began participating, she found the dislike of the police from certain members of the camp to be disturbing. After all, they too were part of the so-called 99%. However, after a few days in the camp and the violent police attacks on the Oakland camp and protests following the first raid on Oscar Grant Plaza, her understanding of law enforcement’s role in protecting the wealthy and powerful changed dramatically. “I am ashamed,” she writes. “I was so naive about the cops in Oakland, but even more than this I am furious… that the police are allowed to brutalize people….” It is moments like this where the Occupy movement becomes transcendent and more than the collection of individuals, groups and and encampments that it is. Interspersed throughout the book are a number of drawings and collages that are not only visually appealing but also clever statements about the essential issues involved.

The book is not just a collection observations from the frontlines. Also included are analyses of the economic reasons behind the movement from Left Business Observer editor Doug Henwood and a fascinating discussion of the history of the space where Occupy Atlanta was situated. This latter piece is also one of several pieces that discusses the role of people of color in the movement.

As one of the first of many books about the Occupy movement to be published, Occupy! Scenes From Occupied America sets a high standard. One hopes it is read by many, especially among those that couldn’t or didn’t make it to an Occupy camp before the State’s onslaught on them. This movement should not die.

Hot on the heels of the aforementioned book come OR Books addition. Titled Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action That Changed America, this work covers similar ground to Occupy! Scenes From Occupied America. What it lacks in graphics, it makes up for in content. Written in a continuous narrative broken into chapters, Occupying Wall Street differs from the collection of vignettes contained in the Verso Books text, while also maintaining a more or less chronological telling of the original Zurcotti Park encampment from its beginning to its eventual destruction by the police on November 15, 2011. In addition, Occupying Wall Street spends more time placing the Occupy movement in the context of the international wave of protest that has swept from Greece to Britain to Tunisia and Egypt to the United States and a multitude of other localities around the globe.

Written by a larger collective of writers who modestly call themselves Writers for the 99%, the OR Books text functions as a description of life at Zurcotti Park and within the Occupy movement over the period noted above. If Occupy! Scenes From Occupied America is a journal of the Occupy Wall Street movement, then Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action That Changed America is the literary equivalent of a wonderfully written diary. These two books are not exclusive to each other. in fact they are companion volumes that read together provide an engrossing and well-told description of one of the most hopeful protest movements to erupt in the capitalist world in decades.

The Young Lords Rise From the Pages

Speaking of attractive books to arrive recently on my bookshelf, the Haymarket Books reprint of the Young Lords 1971 book Palante: Voices and Photographs of the Young Lords, 1969-1971 certainly deserves a mention. The Young Lords Party was a revolutionary group of Puerto Rican youth that organized primarily among the young and working-class residents of New York’s Puerto Rican barrios during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Borrowing some of their style from the ideologically similar Black Panthers, this group was a dominant force in barrio politics during much of their existence. Their straightforward approach to solving some of the economic and political inequities in the barrio attracted thousands of supporters in the barrio and hundreds of powerful enemies in Christie Mansion and other edifices of power in New York. When I attended briefly attended Fordham University in the Bronx from Fall 1972 through Spring 1974 one of my smoking buddies was an active member of the group. His knowledge of Marxist theory was impressive as was his commitment to the struggle in the barrio. Needless to say, he and I had many intense discussions that taught me — as no book possibly could — the colonial situation of the Puerto Rican people and helped me unlearn years of misinformation about that island nation.

Palante is a history, explanation and discussion of the Young Lords Party from the perspective of its members in 1971. There is no bourgeois nationalism repeated in these pages. Instead, in the best tradition of other revolutionary nationalism, Palante argues that cultural and social freedom for the Puerto Rican nation is inseparable from economic freedom and a socialist revolution. For those uncertain of the difference, let me quote writer Earl Ofari from a 1969 article he wrote about the two phenomena as they relate to the black people of the United States :

“Revolutionary nationalists, unlike cultural nationalists, recognize that it is impossible to resolve the problems of black people under the structure of American Capitalism. This has led Huey Newton to correctly point out that one who adheres to the philosophy of revolutionary nationalism must of necessity be a socialist. For revolutionary nationalists, by and large, take the position that in order to oppose capitalism it is mandatory that one adopt an outlook of international working class solidarity with particular emphasis on the struggles of Third World people against Imperialism.”

The Young Lords believed the same analysis applied to the situation of the Puerto Ricans.

Looking at it today, the most striking aspect of this book is not the audacious (by today’s standards) writings calling for a revolution in the United States and an independent Puerto Rico. It is the collection of photographs. Difficult to pry one’s eyes away from, the photos herein rank up there with the best photojournalism has to offer. The struggles of the young revolutionaries and the people they worked with are evident in the faces on these pages and the places and actions set down in a darkroom forty years ago. The pride of a people realizing its power and the anger of that people realizing why and who has wronged it radiates from the stark black and white images that fill the last half of this beautiful work.

There have been a number of books written about this underground press. The granddaddy of them all is most certainly Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press by retired Northwestern University professor Abe Peck, who began his journalism career as a member of Chicago’s groundbreaking Seed. More recent endeavors include John McMillan’s Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America and the just-released On the Ground: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S. Edited by Sean Stewart, On the Ground is essentially an oral history that features the recollections of several people that were involved with underground papers from around the United States. Unlike McMillan’s work which runs toward the academic side of things, Stewart’s text has a populist feel to it. The recollections are straight from the speakers’ mouths; sometimes angry, sometimes humorous and always honest.

The best part of the book are the graphics. As I read through the memories of the folks Stewart spoke with for On the Ground I was repeatedly surprised at how well I remembered various illustrations and photographs Stewart reprinted throughout the text. Like the papers his interviewees are remembering, the most striking thing about On the Ground is the layout. Even though I know the book was composed on a computer screen, the book looks as if it were laid out via the old cut and paste method by folks possibly stoned on weed and a day or two with minimal sleep–just like many issues of almost every paper Stewart discusses.

Being in the Movement and the counterculture was generally an upbeat experience. So was being in the Sixties underground media. Most folks were young and full of hope and those that were not necessarily young in years were where it counted–in their approach to life. Reporters did not cover stories as much as they took part in them and then wrote about it afterward. As Abe Peck says about working at The Seed: “We were very determined and unless something terrible happened–like [the murder of] Fred Hampton–up, just pretty upbeat.” Politics was omnipresent, whether it was at a very political paper like The Black Panther or a paper that had a more countercultural bent like The LA Free Press. This was because, as far as the authorities were concerned, everyone involved with the underground press–writers, printers, cartoonists, sellers and readers–were on the wrong side of the law and had to be watched. Sometimes, they were dealt with by methods legal and otherwise. This meant things like the stores selling papers being harassed by police and vigilantes; the withdrawal of advertising because of pressure from the FBI and other agencies; and assaults against persons involved by cops and others.

When Richard Nixon took over the White House in 1969 the repression of the Movement and counterculture intensified. Naturally, this meant that the media that represented these phenomena would be under greater attack. Black Panther papers were destroyed enroute to cities across the country and even to military bases overseas. Storefronts that newspapers worked out of were firebombed by vigilantes and shot at by police. Obscenity charges were brought against newspapers that then tied up the papers’ funds in court costs. High school underground press writers were thrown out of school and administrators suspended students selling and reading those papers. Although the reasons given for the expulsions usually had to do with attendance and other disciplinary infractions, the reality was that high school disciplinarians resented the threat to their authority and power. A friend of mine in Montgomery County, Maryland was suspended from the progressive John F. Kennedy High School for selling The Washington Free Press on campus. The issue in question featured a cartoon of a judge that had been involved in efforts to shut down the paper. The drawing showed the judge masturbating. Underneath the drawing was the phrase (made popular by the TV show Laugh-In) “here com da judge.” The cartoon was a response to a series of rulings made by the judge forbidding the distribution of the Free Press on high school grounds. These rulings and the school board decisions that preceded them were being challenged by the ACLU.

As the 1960s turned over into the 1970s, many folks that had been on the front lines began to retreat for the sake of their sanity. Others just fell into the trap of individualism and self-satisfaction–an easy trap to fall into in the US of A. By 1974 or thereabouts, the curse of identity politics had taken over much of the political discourse on the left and effectively limited the reach of the Movement as people separated according to their gender, sexuality, and ethnic origins. Intentionally or not, this trend hastened the demise of the underground press and the movements it was a part of. However, its legacy remains. There are many websites and even some print journals that are more than observers of the protests and movements they report on. Journalist Alice Embree notes that “The underground press was the connective tissue; it spread the news …” When the papers began to fail, the connectiveness was lessened. The underground press was a vital part of what happened in the sixties. Sean Stewart’s wonderfully edited text On the Ground lets the reader know how and why that remains true. The striking graphics and compelling recollections in this text are at once a popular history and an inspiration.

The German philosopher and sociologist Max Weber wrote in his book Politics As Vocation that one condition of a legitimate government depended on how “its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim on the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in the enforcement of its order.” When that government feels it is under attack and believes that nothing but force will work to end those attacks, then it brings out the police and gives them free rein. In the United States in 2011, that means tear gas, pepper spray and truncheons; in Egypt of 2011 it means that and much more. Nor does it matter if one government is an elected nominally liberal civilian government, a dictator, or a military regime.

As far as the US and the wave of protest occurring there goes, the State has a firm monopoly on violence. Indeed, the increasingly violent police attacks on Occupy protests have been met with an even greater chorus of civilians calling for nonviolent witness. Any protester that challenges this insistence on nonviolence is quickly challenged as a potential police provocateur, a selfish jerk, thug or some other variant of deviant. While the fact exists that nonviolent witness is an incredibly powerful tactic of protest, it is a moral protest. Therefore, it assumes that those whose actions one is protesting actually have morals similar to the protesters and can be convinced to change policies by the moral power of the protesters’ arguments.

Unfortunately, such is often not the case. For example, the chancellor of University of California (UC) Davis, whose actions created the situation last week where several students were pepper-sprayed at point blank range by campus police, seems to be truly shaken by the police actions her orders unleashed. However, given the history of UC policing, I doubt very much that there will be a sea change in how UC police use force on campus. Furthermore, one has to wonder if that chancellor would be having the moral misgivings she seems to be having if the pepper-spraying incident had not received the coverage it has.

Do I think the recent police violence against protesters in the US means that it’s time for protesters to move to armed struggle or even throw rocks at cops? No, of course not. My only intention in pointing out the limits of nonviolent resistance is that those limits are something that the authorities don’t necessarily recognize or care about.

Like many folks that have been involved in opposing the state, I have had my share of physical run-ins with the police. Truncheons, tear gas, pepper spray, all of it. Yet, the worst beating I ever received from the police was not at a protest. It happened when the police answered a noise complaint at an apartment I was at one night. After an argument between the cop and one of the apartment residents, the cop kicked in the door, tearing it off its hinges. He called for backup. I went outside through a back door. As I tried to leave one of the six policeman standing around saw me and attacked. Within minutes I was on the ground with three officers on me. One was twisting my arms around to cuff me and the other two were pushing my face into the concrete of the sidewalk. Another was beating my legs with his nightstick. I was thrown into the car of the cop who began the whole episode and as we drove to the station he told me that my friends and I were dead meat if he ever saw me when he was not in uniform. I said nothing. When we got to the jail he placed me in a holding cell and began to beat me with his fists and club. If it weren’t for the jailer arriving, he probably would have beat me unconscious. This experience is not that uncommon, especially in poorer neighborhoods (and especially in neighborhoods populated by people of color.)

Police handled the attacks on the Occupy camps, which in the authorities’ minds were nothing but magnets for those without houses, much as they do any attempts to roust the homeless. The fact that these attacks were played out in the media occurred because the camps were protest camps instead of non-political camps of the homeless.

Furthermore, the presence of college students, labor activists and other “middle-class” residents not only brought cameras to the camp roustings, but people with some connections capable of speaking the language of the authorities and the media. This presence made what is a common occurrence to the people living on the streets into a national news story. In other words, the police violence visited on the homeless every day was exposed, if only briefly, to the world.

Historically, police violence is a fact of life in every society. In a society based on a capitalist economy, the police serve those that have the most money and property. When the authorities and their policies are under attack, the police will always be called in to protect the former. No official should be shocked when the police act brutally. There is a reason the most thuggish of the uniforms are often the ones called to disperse angry crowds. If there are officials shocked or upset at the brutality unleashed by the police under their command, they can resign like two members of the Oakland mayor’s staff did in the wake of the police raids on Occupy Oakland or they can defend their thugs like Mayor Bloomberg. As for the chancellor of UC Davis? Only time will tell if those tears she recently shed at a speakout on campus are genuine. Meanwhile, hardly any one but their friends and family weep for those the police brutalize off campus.

Peter Bohmer has been an organizer and participant in the struggle for social and economic justice since the 1960s. In recent years, his political activities have taken him to Venezuela, Cuba, Greece and a number of US cities. He teaches political economy and has been a faculty member at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA since 1987.

Peter and I go back over twenty years. The conversation that follows is but one of many we have had since we met. We share it as a springboard for thought and discussion. At the same time, we do not claim any special knowledge and pretend to no higher wisdom. We hope that the dialogue is received in the spirit of revolutionary camaraderie.

Ron Jacobs: Do you remember last spring you said in an email (during the Arab Spring stuff before NATO and Libya) that this could have the same impact as 1968? Can you briefly explain that perception?

Peter Bohmer: I was very inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt beginning at the end of last year and early this year, 2011. The growing numbers in the face of murderous repression, the courage, the participatory democratic process of the occupiers, and the call in their statements and in the actual occupation for democracy and economic and social justice really resonated with me and captivated me.

Movements and uprisings tend to spread within and between nations as people begin to feel that there are alternatives to resignation to the status quo and the sense of powerlessness that so many people feel. When I said that I hoped 2011 would also be a world historic year, I thought it was somewhat likely these movements and upsurges would burst forth first in countries where there was growing economic inequality and poverty, where austerity programs were in place and where the majority of the population had no power over the direction and policies of their country. I thought of places as ripe for major rebellion such as Greece which I had visited in September 2010 where the IMF and the European Union was increasingly calling the shots and particularly in other nations in North Africa and the Middle East where the people were following what was happening in the region’s largest country.

Although the resistance to budget cuts in Washington Stare where I live was somewhat limited, I also thought it possible that the examples of the occupation in Egypt and the labor led protests in Madison against their Tea Party Governor, Scott Walker’s frontal attack on State workers and their unions would spread throughout the U.S.

RJ: And now we have the occupy movement, which seems to be inspired by the events in Tahrir Square. Despite it’s indecisiveness in its agenda, it has captured the hopes of many and the wrath of most of the corporate right wing. I have concerns about what I consider a lack of focus but at the same time there is a part of me that understands that the current political understanding of people in the US would reject something more directed. In fact there are those in the occupy movement that lump unions right up there with corporations. What this says to me is that they are confusing union leadership with the rank and file and misunderstanding the role of unions in a capitalist economy, not to mention an unawareness of that history. Nonetheless these types of political misconceptions exist. Is the movement a step forward?

PB: As a result of observation and participation in the still-growing “Occupy Movement”, an alternative to the pervasive feelings of powerlessness and resignation are emerging. There has been for quite some time in the United States widespread opposition to the growing inequality of income and wealth, to total corporate control over all parts of our life, to global warming, to a government that tortures and is totally beholden to Wall Street, to homelessness and losing our homes, to unemployment and underemployment, to growing debt and poverty, to the imprisonment of over two million people, to militarism and endless wars, and this list is incomplete. At the same time, resistance although greater than reported in the mainstream media has been somewhat limited and ineffective. The importance of this movement is that active resistance is increasingly being seen as valid and the right thing to do. There is a growing feeling beyond the occupiers that hopelessness and escape or maybe voting for the lesser of two evils are not the only options.

Common to the growth of powerful social movements have been people who are willing to resist the status quo and take a stand who by their bold actions strike a chord with much larger numbers of people. This causes them to then change for at least a period of time the organization and activities of their lives and also change their values and ideology towards a less self-centered and me first system of belief and towards solidarity and cooperation, and towards a commitment to economic and social justice. This is happening right now, something is in the air.

Having a physical space which people occupy makes this movement visible and also possible for new people to join it. In Olympia, Washington, it is creating dialog and community between homeless people, young people, anarchists and other activists, retired people, etc (many people belong to more than one category). Although in Olympia and in many other places there are no visible demands and somewhat limited discussion of what kind of society we want and how to get there or what we want in the short and medium run, occupiers needs for food, shelter and increasingly health care are being addressed and increasingly met as is the question of self-government. So to say, this occupation is not political is a very narrow definition of political.

RJ: If the occupy movement is at the forefront of left-oriented popular struggle, how do we move forward? What might forward look like?

I’ve been in a few occupation/liberation actions over the years, as have you. In fact, I think we were involved in two or three together. Anyhow, whether it was Peoples Park in 1979, a campus building sometime in the past few decades or the Occupy encampments in our respective towns, the fact is these actions usually end. Many of the ones I was involved with ended with some kind of compromise agreement between the bureaucrats involved and the occupiers. Peoples Park ended with a temporary truce and the park still a park. As I involve myself and observe the Occupy movement, I am also doing what I can to make it into something beyond the occupations. However, I am not sure what. We saw one possibility at the end of the Oakland Strike day when folks took over the foreclosed Travelers Aid building in Oakland’s downtown. Although the timing was obviously wrong (it’s not a good idea to occupy a building while the cops are down the street ready to kick ass), the impetus behind the action makes a lot of sense. In fact, I have been a part of discussions about squatting foreclosed buildings here in Vermont and also with folks online in other parts of the world.

A sidebar to this is how long can the occupations remain meaningful before they become like so much graffiti in the minds of the supportive observer?

PB: As of today, November 7, 2011, most of the occupations are maintaining their momentum. This is a very positive accomplishment. For example, in Olympia, many people in Occupy Olympia are looking ahead to November 28, 2011, to confront the Washington State Legislature when it is being called back into a special session by the Governor Gregoire, a Democrat, in order to make further cuts in a State budget that has already severely reduced needed spending for health care, for education at all levels and for poor people. Occupy Olympia is committed to maintaining the occupation of a downtown park at least until the legislative session and possibly beyond.

Nonetheless, as Michael Albert pointed out in his ZNet article, “Occupy to Self-Manage,” occupations and the related general assemblies, the decision-making group for most occupations, tend to decline over time in numbers and enthusiasm. So it is key to bring in new people and create an atmosphere that is welcoming of new people so that we do not wither away. Let us not unconsciously exclude people who have not been part of the left or activist communities. It is also important that we use our occupied sites as a base to for actions and education outside of our sites.

We need to consciously make movement building one of our goals of this phase of the Occupy Movement. This means developing organizations, institutions, and people who have a deepening analysis and critique of capitalism, with growing capacity and skills to confront this system, and to put forward and win non-reformist reforms. Hopefully this will last beyond these set of occupations. By non-reformist reforms, I mean reforms that meet people’s expressed needs, that build our understanding of the limits of capitalist reform, and that also build our capacity to struggle for and win more fundamental and radical transformation of this oppressive and unsustainable society.

For example, Occupy Olympia is trying to develop a set of tents where there would be free medical care, traditional and non-traditional, on-site. This would meet an important need and also point towards a system of free and universal health care as a basic human right. A next step could be to demand and/or occupy indoor and permanent space that could be used a free health clinic, to provide quality health care and also does popular education in the broader community that healthcare should not be a commodity.

I like the idea of creating housing by squatting in unoccupied buildings as you suggested in Oakland. Whatever we do must be done in a way that large numbers of people beyond the occupation understand and support our actions. That will increase the likelihood that if there is police and government repression our movement will grow rather than become isolated.

Overcoming defeatism and resignation and furthering community and beliefs in the importance of collective action is happening, that is a great start. We do not have the power during this period of the “Occupy Movement” to create a participatory socialist society nor even to seriously reduce the obscene inequality of income and wealth in this country. Hopefully some limited short-term goals will be won.

It is a long struggle. Building healthy networks, institutions, organizations within and between communities and cities; that create the basis for a more conscious, powerful and visionary and radical occupy movement in the not too distant future is a goal. It will make this current movement worth the time and effort and commitment of so many people throughout this country and beyond. Most of the specific occupations of space may come to a close in the not so distant future but the movement can and should continue.

RJ: There are those that say part of the reason the movement of the 1960s and early 1970s was able to be as effective as it was is because the establishment media covered it. Most the time, the coverage was negative, but the coverage itself spread the word and highlighted injustice. Since then, most of the movements against capitalism and its symptoms (war, poverty, environmental degradation, etc.) have been mostly ignored by that press. Occupy seems to be changing that. Perhaps it is because there are so many young middle class people involved, but nonetheless, the coverage is there. Consequently, the numbers may not be as big, but the message is reaching further, at least for now. Meanwhile, there are the new Internet social media. What’s your take on the role that these various media play today?

PB: Certainly in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the mass media coverage of the protests, Black Freedom, anti-Vietnam war and the TV images of the U.S. war against Vietnam, and of the women’s liberation movement contributed to the growth of these movements. Probably even more important was a vibrant “underground” and radical press such as the Black Panther Party newspaper which was national, the Guardian which was also a national weekly newspaper and papers in many, many cities such as the Berkeley Tribe, the Old Mole (Cambridge, MA), the San Diego Street Journal and OB Rag (San Diego), and the Fifth Estate (Detroit). There were also important papers by the women’s liberation movement such as Off Our Backs, and the GI movement and a news service that provided news and graphics for these papers, Liberation News Service. These papers had significant circulation. They were an integral part of the new left and other movements of that period. Today these types of movement papers are few and far between although for example in Olympia, Works in Progress, plays that role to some extent. On the other hand, social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, play an important role in spreading the word about actions although providing less context and analysis than the “underground” papers of the 60’s and early 70’s. Democracy Now today plays a very important and positive role in providing an alternative analysis to the mainstream media and in covering social movements such as the Occupy movement. So do websites such as Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, ZNet, and Alternews (among others). They lack some of the boldness and creativity of that earlier “underground press” but are very valuable. We need to tell our own stories.

The mainstream media has given a lot of coverage to Occupy Wall Street and the growing national movement. Although much of it is negative, it does as you say spread the word and has helped publicize the obscene economic inequality in the United States. I am not sure why it has gotten so much coverage. Its novelty may be a factor.

RJ: These last several months of worldwide anger organized against the neoliberal capitalist economy reminds me of a number of historical events. 1968 is but one. The Occupy movement is somewhat reminiscent of the IWW’s free speech crusade when their insistence on exercising their free speech rights by setting up soapboxes on street corners throughout the US West and the subsequent arrests and harassment by police exposed the myth of free speech in the US. Could this be that spectre that Karl Marx wrote about? Immanuel Wallerstein wrote in his book Antisystemic Movements about the years 1848 and 1968 as failed revolutions that ultimately changed the world’s consciousness in greater ways than the revolutions that preceded them (France 1789 and Russia 1917). “The fact that they were both unplanned and therefore in a profound sense spontaneous explains both facts,” he writes. “The fact that they failed and the fact that they transformed the world.” Perhaps the events of the past year and a half–from Greece to Egypt to Tunisia to Britain to Europe and North and South America–will be perceived similarly. I think it is much too early to tell. In the meantime, there is a growing surge of calls to converge for a number of actions in the spring.

PB: I think we are at the beginning of a huge upsurge, the beginning of a transformative social movement not just a movement that made a big splash for two months and then fades quickly. There will be setbacks. From what I saw and read, the demonstration in New York, today November 17th, was huge and powerful. The occupation of land may be winding down because of repression, the weather and fatigue but hopefully the Occupy movement will find new forms and really blossom in this coming spring. The high unemployment and poverty rates in the United States are not going to improve and may get worse. They are going to worsen in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and many other countries. The causes for action are not going to go way nor is the anger nor is the growing understanding of the need for collective action. We are part of a global movement. That capitalism is being named as the problem by many of the participants, not just the banks, is very exciting. Also necessary and beginning to happen although clearly a lot more needs to is a slowly growing awareness that anti-racism and the need for all forms of equality, economic, gender, racial, LGBT, is central both inside the movement and in the greater society.

The coordinated repression of many of the occupations, e.g., NY, Portland, Oakland, is clearly connected to the fear that much of the economic and political elites have of the potential power of this movement. Because of the widespread anger and the resonance this movement has with growing numbers of people, police brutality has rather than scared people increased participation. Bold and creative actions need to continue and grow. So does popular education of participants in these occupations and of the rest of the 99% in the causes of the economic and social crisis and of all forms of oppression. Equally important is further discussion of what kind of society we want and how to get there in the short, medium and long run. We need to consciously build organizations and institutions that can improve people’s lives now, particularly those suffering the most, while also building the capacity to revolutionize this society.

The movement is much bigger than those who have been occupying various sparks and sites. It includes those who have in ways big and small contributed to it, e.g., bringing food down to the occupiers, discussed and supported it at union meeting. One challenge here in Olympia and the Pacific Northwest more generally is to be more inclusive, to welcome and listen to and reach out and include more people who identify with the goals of the Occupy Movement but do not feel comfortable at the sites or the marches or direct actions.

It is a very exciting time to be alive. There is something in the air that I haven’t felt for a long time. In spring, 2013 I intend to co-teach a full time program at the Evergreen State College comparing and contrasting the liberation and social movements of 1968 to 2011 in the U.S. and globally. There will be a lot to examine for 2011 and we still have six weeks to go. I am confident 2012 will be hotter than 2011.

Power to the People!

RJ: I myself think it’s a bit early to tell if this is the spectre that Karl wrote about or if Wallerstein is correct. The underlying politics of the movement are too muddy right now. As far as I have seen, the relationship between the US wars and occupations and the 1% has only begun to become part of the conversation. This relationship needs to be addressed and brought to the forefront of the movement.

There are those in the movement who are anti-leftist (and I don’t mean the various non-left anarchists) and many more that haven’t consciously considered left politics. However, I can’t help but agree with you when you say it is an exciting time to be alive. This is especially the case after the events of N17 in New York, Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Indeed, although the numbers were smaller here in Burlington, VT., the spirit of resistance and hope present across the nation and in Greece and Italy on N17 permeated the march and teach-in here, as well. I concur: Power to the People!

The location of the camp in Burlington is in a small city park adjacent to the City Hall building. This park has been a traditional gathering spot for some of the homeless, transient and out-of-work population of the city for decades. After Occupy moved in, some police and city officials attempted to blame the long-term situation of the homeless in the park on the presence of the Occupy tents. Years of alcohol abuse by a few individuals and accompanying crude remarks, arguments and the occasional fight were suddenly blamed on the Occupy camp. Police told the local Gannett media outlet that these folks and the incidents they created were only occurring because the occupiers had set up their camp. Of course, this was nonsense and was quickly rejected by the bulk of Burlington’s residents. However, the issues associated with a few of the park’s more-or-less permanent denizens remain for the Occupy encampment to deal with.

In economic terms, the homeless represent the ultimate failing of the capitalist model, especially its neoliberal form. Those that lost their homes in the housing/credit default crash of 2008 are but the most recent examples of what’s wrong with this model of finance capital. However, even those that social service agencies label as hard core homeless are homeless because monopoly capitalism has failed them. Perhaps they lost their job when the corporation moved overseas. Perhaps they served in the military fighting some war for capital that destroyed their ability to function without drugs and alcohol. Perhaps they are mentally ill and have no support system beyond the SSI check they get (if they get one at all). This latter can be seen as an exaggerated form of what Marx termed social alienation. In other words, that process exacerbated by the emphasis that capitalism places on individualism as the agent that drives history and society, whereby people become foreign to the world they are living in.

The presence of the homeless in the camps is eye-opening for many of the occupiers that have a place indoors to return to. For many, it is an exercise in reversing the “otherness” of the homeless. No longer are they men and women one might have crossed the street to avoid or dropped a coin in their cup. Nor are they mere demographic statistics or anecdotal people that shore up one’s theories of government policy and its shortcomings. In the camps, the homeless become people with whom one must figure out a way to get along with. For those very few that just don’t want to get along, other avenues of dealing with them must be made apparent. Key to this process is forgetting the label and seeing the persons.

Other media reports about the Occupy movement seem to work overly hard at separating the long term homeless from the occupiers. These “real” homeless, state these articles, resent the presence of the occupation while acknowledging that the tents in the park make it easier for them to exist without police harassment. In other words, this type of press represents an attempt to create class divisions between those whom the neoliberal economy has already discarded with those that are fighting to prevent that economy from destroying more lives. This reportage is nothing new. In fact, the mainstream media has long represented those without homes in the capitalist world as creatures whose existence deserves at best pity and the occasional meal. For those with less compassion than your average member of the church social justice committee, the homeless deserve nothing. Not even dignity. Then again, handouts that demand access to one’s soul (like those provided by Salvation Army and many other faith-based organizations) don’t leave one with much dignity either. My anecdotal evidence suggests that most of the homeless involved with Occupy are glad for the camp not only because it makes it easier for them to survive on the streets, but because it gives them something meaningful to do beyond mere survival.

In occupations I was involved with in the past–most notably at Berkeley’s People’s Park in 1979–it was the homeless that protected the space from police and other ne’er-do-wells. Unafraid of the violence they knew the police and their unofficial allies (usually right wing frat boys in the case of Berkeley) to be capable of, these men and women stayed in the camp for weeks. They excised threats of physical violence with words, intimidation and the occasional fist. When fellow campers stepped out of line regarding women or fighting, the occupiers chosen by the rest of us to enforce certain levels of respect did so.

It seems rougher on the streets now then back in 1979. Times have changed and issues are somewhat different. Generally speaking, the men and women without homes who are with the Occupy movement are not symbols to be romanticized nor individuals to be ostracized. Besides being witness to the harm capitalism can do to a person’s livelihood, they are allies and, like the rest of us, come with their own suppositions, hopes and problems. While we try to effect change in the world we can also effect change in ourselves and those we occupy with.

The success of the strike action in Oakland has led to a very predictable situation. Debates around tactics and attempts to exclude various elements from the group because of their use of tactics unacceptable to others seem to be the causes of this situation. In short, there were a few dozen (from most reports) protesters that broke from the peaceful marches and broke stuff. Some of the attacks made sense from a political point of view, although not from a tactical one. For example Whole Foods is not a simple health foods store. Like most of the organic foods industry, it is a big grocery chain that acts a lot like Safeway that would like to have a monopoly on the health foods retail business. The reason for the attacks on the Oakland store was a rumor that the store manager did not honor the strike and refused to let his workers take the day off. This rumor apparently was false. Would I have joined in the trashing of the store? No! Do I think those that did were cops or should be ostracized from the movement. No!

As for most of the the other targets–banks, etc–I have no problem with trashing them at the appropriate time. Was November 2, 2011 the appropriate time? I don’t think so. The focus of that day was shutting down the port and that could only be achieved by amassing large numbers of people at the port’s entrances. To Occupy Oakland’s credit this action was a success.

On to the evening. From what I can garner from news reports and conversations, email interchanges and other exchanges with friends and acquaintances who hung in the November 2 actions all day and into the early morning of November 3rd, the action ended with an attempt to take over the empty and foreclosed Traveler’s Aid building in downtown Oakland. Great idea and one that was approved by the Oakland General Assembly in principle. According to a friend who was at this action, the initial building takeover went okay. The trouble began when the police gathered into formation and began to move down Telegraph to retake the building. The crowd was rather frenzied and the ensuing attack and reaction by the crowd only served to exacerbate the situation. Unfortunately, several people were injured on both sides and the building was lost to the defenders of the bank’s property. In press releases immediately following the clashes, the police said they moved in because they assumed that there were some in the crowd of civilians that were starting fires to burn down the building. While this was not apparently the case (why would you burn down a building you wanted to occupy?), the excuse flew until it was dropped for a better one. The underlying lesson here is that if people are serious about squatting foreclosed buildings and turning them into living spaces, then they shouldn’t try and occupy them at 3 in the morning while the cops are watching, tired and ready to kick some ass. Were the occupiers right to fight back against the police? It seems to me that if they hadn’t even more protesters might have been hurt by the cops. Should they have provoked the cops by occupying the building and allowing fires to be built in trashcans and so on? See my remark above where I question the idea of occupying buildings while a bunch of angry cops are watching.

Okay. That is the situation as I understand it. A very successful strike/direct action took place in Oakland on November 2nd. It was primarily peaceful, militant and moved the struggle against the excesses of monopoly capitalism forward. No matter how hard the capitalist media tries, it can not change this objective fact. This is where the overwrought focus on the actions of a few comes in. As far back as I can remember (and that’s at least back to 1968), the mainstream media has always focused on the more histrionic actions that take place at almost every protest worth its salt. My dad used to say that that’s what sells papers. He’s right of course, but there is also something more sinister going on. The intentions of those editors who encourage their reporters to highlight the instances of violence against property and clashes with cops is to discredit the movement that organized the protest. It’s not necessarily even a conscious effort by the editors. It’s just how they are “educated” to think. In fact, it’s how most of us are “educated” to think. Many of the people that actually participated in the protest read this media too. They then began to accept that media’s framing of the protest, forgetting what they know form their own experience: that the protest was not very violent and was very successful. This acceptance then too often turns into a moral rejection not only of the scattered violence that occurred, but a rejection of those the “peaceful” protesters think carried it out. Simultaneously, the police are let off the hook for the violence they provoke and create all on their own. After all, says the capitalist press, they were only doing their job. This may be true, but begs the very real question: what exactly is their job? A simple and honest answer is that for the most part their job is to protect and serve those that own the means of production. In other words, the wealthy among us. This doesn’t deny their humanity. It just makes it clear that their jobs proscribe a certain mindset. It is important to remember that police are not nonviolent any more than any other military force.

The discussions reverberating online and in Occupy camps around the country over the trashing and clashes with police that took place in Oakland are instructive for a multitude of reasons. The primary debate is around the question of trashing. The opposition to this action that essentially involves breaking stuff runs from those who see it as a tactical error at this point of the movement to those that have a moral repugnance to it. Among those in the latter camp are those whose repugnance has led them to label the “trashers” as everything from moral cowards to provocateurs to punks and scum. This type of reaction is not only as juvenile as the name-callers consider the trashing actions to be, it misses the point. The fact is, there will always be an element in every movement worth its salt that sees trashing as a legitimate act. Some in that element may well be cops, but most are just impatient, often frustrated, and individualistic at least in terms of the longer view. They should not be ostracized (unless they are cops) but informed about the need for thoughtful actions appropriate to the time and place. Those that say they will divorce themselves from the movement unless the movement disowns the “trashers” are being every bit as selfish as those they want removed.

Another criticism from the people opposed to trashing and fighting back against the police is that those who are doing this must be outsiders and not from the “good” protesters’ Oakland. This kind of comment is mostly silly. We aren’t fans at a sporting event. This isn’t about Oakland or New York or Asheville, NC or Berlin. It is an international struggle. There is no home team. The opposition is organized internationally. The Occupy movement and those that support it must do the same. Your Oakland is my Oakland just as much as the planet Earth belongs to us all. There are no geographical outsiders, only ones defined by their class. I am in solidarity with Oakland and Berlin and every other place where, like the song says: working men (and women) defend their rights.

The issue about trashing is first and foremost, like Boots Riley continues to insist in his Facebook posts, a question of tactics. It will not be solved by dividing the movement into those who support one tactic and those that don’t. It is a serious question that should be discussed, but the stance that those who are not pacifist or nonviolent do not belong in the Occupy movement is a bullshit stance encouraged by those that wish to see the movement fail. The true violence that goes on every freaking day is precipitated by those that the movement calls the 1%. That is the thought we need to keep at the front of every conversation about violence. Not as a justification for violence by protesters, but as a reminder of the real purveyor of violence on this planet.

I want to borrow a line or two from an old leaflet I have hanging around. It was distributed back in 1984 after San Francisco police attacked a protest against Henry Kissinger (talk about purveyors of violence) and beat dozens of them. After the protest, mainstream media attempted to divide the protesters into good protesters and bad ones. The good ones were the ones that obeyed the police when they told people to move away from the hotel where Kissinger was speaking. The bad ones were those who didn’t and remained to resist the police charges and attacks.

“The media works with the government to red-bait and attack militant demonstrations. We need to reject such charges. They are attempts to force us to give up our militancy and independence and to accept the state’s terms for protests.”

The protest on November2nd, 2011 in Oakland was militant. The trashing that occurred during the day did not add to that militancy and was tactically inappropriate. The most militant action was achieved by thousands of people closing down the Port of Oakland in a nonviolent direct action. The clashes with police early the next morning were the result of the tactically poor decision to try and occupy the foreclosed Traveler’s Aid building while a bunch of angry, tired and ready-to-rumble police and protesters faced off on Telegraph Avenue. The idea to squat empty buildings is a great one. Sometimes it is appropriate to break bank windows. From my perspective, November 2nd in Oakland was not the right time for either of these actions. At the same time, the fact remains, the day of action/general strike was an outstanding success for the movement.

Thirty years later, many social functions of these formerly public services no longer exist. Other functions operate at a much reduced level. In short, any social functions of these public services that get in the way of profit have been eliminated, leaving many people without any services while others pay considerably more than they would have prior to their privatization. The social functions of public services have been replaced by profit-making functions, the public be damned. Furthermore, those services that continue to receive some kind of public funding or benefit remain under attack. Every funding cycle, the US passenger rail system known as Amtrak faces extinction as its government subsidies are challenged. Public schools and libraries struggle with reduced budgets and minimal staff. Roads and bridges fall into further disrepair. Public transportation is a bad joke in most US burgs. Even the military is challenged to further privatize its functions. The US postal service, which lost any direct public funding when it was re-organized after the 1970 strike, risks losing its constitutionally guaranteed first rights to deliver the mail as the US government looks to cut those services.

Into this latter challenge comes the postal worker unions. The result of an immensely successful and illegal strike against the US government in 1970, the postal worker unions have successfully fought back every previous attempt to destroy their employer and their jobs. Recently, however, the employees of the postal service have come under what is perhaps the fiercest attack on their livelihoods since 1970. Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have pushed a bill onto the House floor with provisions that would reduce “door delivery” by 75 percent, end collective bargaining and virtually guarantees that massive layoffs would take place. Estimates of the numbers of workers that would be laid off go as high as 120,000.

While it may be Republicans that have pushed this bill through committee, it is the Obama administration’s Postal Service executives that have called for the “consolidation” of services. As the numbers quoted above attest, this consolidation is not really a consolidation; it is, pure and simply, destruction. Furthermore, it’s not destruction because it doesn’t work. It is destruction because it does work and those who would destroy it want to bleed it dry of proifts, destroy the unions and remove one more historically public service from that ever shrinking lineup.

Until its reorganization in 1971, the US post office was a Cabinet level agency mandated under the US Constitution. The reorganization that came in the wake of the 1970 strike removed that designation from the agency and essentially created an independent government agency with the sole right to deliver mail in the United States. That right has been modified in recent decades, but the USPS remains the only mail carrier that can deliver first class mail and use USPS mailboxes. Conservative and liberal fans of privatization have been calling for the end of what they see as a government monopoly on mail delivery for years.

The current attack is the most serious in years. Its champions will tell you that total privatization of mail delivery will not increase prices that much if at all. Instead, as Richard Geddes of the right wing Hoover Institute wrote in 2000: “customers are unlikely to be without service under competition; they would simply have to pay the true cost of delivery to them, which may or may not be lower than under (government) monopoly.”

As previous deregulation has shown, consumer costs often go down immediately after said deregulation only to rise considerably once the natural trend of capitalist enterprises to get bigger reduces competition thereby providing profit-making monopolies the opportunity to increase prices to whatever level they determine.

The so-called government monopoly on mail delivery is not a monopoly in the same sense as monopolies that exist to make profit since profit is not the motive in the former.

The 1970 postal strike is noted for its militancy. Indeed, the very fact that the strike was illegal signifies that militancy. Since 1970 labor actions of the associated unions have not approached that militancy. That may be about to change. Earlier in Fall 2011, informational pickets were set up by postal workers and their supporters in front of post offices and congresspersons’ offices around the United States. The turnout was better than anticipated. Not long after that day, the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 214 passed a resolution calling for a national campaign and rally organized around the following demands:

· No reduction in postal service – keep 6-day delivery!
· No Post Office closings! Most shutdowns are in poor and rural communities, where service is needed most.
· No layoffs! Save our jobs and services that the people need! Whole communities will suffer, when formerly well-paid unionized workers can no longer afford their mortgages.
· Congress must pass HR 1351 to stop bleeding the Postal Service and let it function normally! No interference in our union contracts!

Like so many of the recent crises in the international capitalist economy, the USPS crisis is a crisis manufactured by forces for which everything has a price. Those forces are present in all political parties that consider capitalism the ultimate economic system. According to these forces, there is nothing that cannot be bought and sold; the public should expect that government is not there to provide them with anything other than rulers and a military to defend those rulers’ interests. At the same time, they add to their coffers by reducing their taxes and through government bailouts. The postal service fight is but another front in the battle against those without souls who would steal yours and then sell it back at a profit should you not take care of it.

It is impossible to put every one involved in this movement into one ideological box. In its current state, it is reasonable to portray the Occupy movement as one where multiple ideologies are competing to be heard. Libertarians and socialists; anarchists and liberals. They are all present and they are all vocal in their attempts to represent the movement. Yet, if there is one dominant trend in the literature, speeches, and encampments of the movement, it would be that of militant liberalism. Perhaps it is best to look at the anarchist classic The Floodgates of Anarchy for a definition of this political trend. In a backhanded manner, the authors Christie and Meltzer describe militant liberalism by “its inability to understand the class struggle, without the recognition of which social change is impossible.” Despite a few signs about class war, the reality of the movement at this point is better revealed in its mantra regarding the 99% and the 1%. This oversimplification of who owns the so-called means of production ignores the relationship of the so-called 99% to that means and does not demand a change in that ownership to those that actually produce the wealth.

Some in the mainstream media, along with various loudmouths on the far right, have criticized the Occupy movement because it has too many demands. What does it really want, they ask? This is a legitimate criticism and further illustrates the underlying liberalism of the movement in its current form. Every ill that the movement has highlighted: foreclosures, bank bailouts, unemployment, austerity measures and (rather belatedly) the wars of Washington, are related to one phenomenon. That would be the current manifestation of the economic formation known as monopoly capitalism. Call it what you want — globalization, global capitalism or imperialism — the fact is that all of the ills highlighted by the Occupy movement are economic at their most fundamental. The only way to cure them is to end the economic system which by its very nature created those ills.

Making the banks smaller will not end the housing crisis or end unemployment. Nor will it fix the schools or create single-payer health insurance. It may encourage banks to lend money again, but the very nature of capitalism is for smaller economic units to compete for profit for themselves so that they can buy out their competition, thereby beginning the cycle of monopolization all over again. It is the very competition that creates monopolies, which by their creation end competition. The history of the United States — perhaps the ultimate capitalist nation — proves that government induced reforms designed to prevent the excesses of monopoly capitalism are always temporary, no matter how well meaning the reformers original intentions.

It is no longer possible to reform capitalism. Its current ruthlessness is unsurpassed in human history. The countless millions who toil at its mercy along with those that toil despite its existence can no longer be saved by liberal politicians or reformers. Nor can they be saved by green capitalists or those that operate on the Ben and Jerry’s model. While the efforts of these corporations are commendable in their own limited way, the very fact that they subscribe to the capitalist mode ensures their inability to solve the ills that economic system creates. While it is certainly true that some capitalists are crueler than others, the fact is that when times are tight and profits are squeezed, the very nature of capitalism forces any corporation desiring to survive to exact some kind of heartlessness if they wish to survive. This is why monopoly capitalism itself is the problem. If the Occupy movement had only one demand that would address all of those demands attributed to it, it should be to abolish monopoly capitalism.

The left should be heartened by the Occupy movement. It should also be wary of those that would turn it into another MoveOn or Progressive Democrats organization. The reign of Obama should have proven once and for all that there are very few differences between the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States, just like there are few differences between the Tories and Labor in Britain or the SPD and CDU in Germany. All of these political groupings sold their souls to the neoliberal pipedream decades ago and no matter what they do or say, they are no longer in control of their politics or the outcome of those politics. Furthermore, the trends towards free market libertarianism within the Occupy movement should be addressed. Small time mercantilism and entrepreneurship has its place and a certain allure, yet the financial giants behind the capitalist libertarian movement are neither small time nor entrepreneurs. They are some of the cruelest capitalists on the planet.

The organic (as in its free flow and non-hierarchical, not what it eats) nature of the Occupy movement is its strength and weakness. Occupying is, in itself, a radical statement. Yet, as a veteran of numerous occupations/liberations I can honestly say that the fact of occupying can often become the raisin d’etre of a movement, thereby preventing further political action beyond that involved in maintaining the liberated space. Those of us with an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist analysis would do well to involve ourselves in a manner that is neither forceful nor foolish.

The PATCO strike was a watershed event in US labor history. The mass firing of the controllers and their replacement with less-skilled replacements (or scabs as I prefer to call them) created a new dynamic in capitalism’s ongoing battle with labor unions. In addition, the misguided perception that workers paid by the government were somehow less worthy of the wages they received gained a foothold in the public mindset. Of course, this perception was fanned by the anti-union, right-wing corporate administration nominally headed by Ronald Reagan.

Labor historian Joseph A. McCartin’s recently published book Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, The Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America, examines this labor action and its effect on unionism in the United States. Expertly researched, McCartin’s text describes the history of the union, its always tenuous relationship with the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), the controllers’ understanding of that relationship, and PATCO’s relationship to the rest of the labor movement. Furthermore, Collision Course provides an instructive look at the pitfalls of workers’ organizations that emphasize their differences with other wage earners instead of their similarities.

This latter phenomenon is one common among wage earners that are considered professional. In the union organizing drives that I have been involved at in universities and government agencies, one of the biggest obstacles to overcome was the idea among my fellow workers that we were somehow different from the folks that ran backhoes, swept floors or mowed lawns. After all, our jobs were “professional” in nature. Some forks refused to acknowledge that, when it came down to the nitty gritty, the only that really mattered to management was the fact that we worked for them. Our job descriptions were irrelevant. After all, we sold our labor the same as any other worker. Usually, the only way to convince so-called professionals that this was the case was when management made across the board cuts or increases in premiums. Only then did it become clear that all those selling their labor were perceived in a similar way by management no matter what their job entailed.

PATCO was founded on the assumption that their work was different from that of airline mechanics, stewards and other non-pilot employees. In fact, air controllers saw their jobs as something akin to that of the pilots. Indeed, that argument is true for all practical purposes. However, as the recent history of labor relations between airline pilots and management makes clear, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, management does not see pilots any different than they see baggage handlers. In other words, any and all are expendable. when they affect the bottom line.

According to McCartin, the air controllers union was one of the stronger unions composed of federal government employees. He provides multiple examples of this strength throughout the text. Their strength and cohesive front was able to win air traffic controllers pay raises and improved working conditions from the 1950s through the late 1970s. Even though most of these successes occurred during relatively good economic times for US capitalism, they were not achieved without struggle. They were also achieved when the public perception of unionism was quite positive. It was a change in this perception that provided management with a means to destroy PATCO. Like a scenario from an Upton Sinclair novel, the growing recession after 1973 combined with a resurgence of a pro-business right wing political movement in the US made it possible for corporate media to convince many US residents that fair wages and those demanding them were the cause of their economic misery, not the corporate world and its greed. The election of Ronald Reagan and his right wing cabal ensured the further demise of pro-worker sentiment in the United States.

Collision Course is the story of one union’s contradictions. Socially conservative and pro-war while simultaneously pro-worker and anti-management, PATCO reflected the political schizophrenia of most US labor unions during the period of its existence. There were very few African-American members or women, even thought the FAA was hiring more and more controllers from both demographics, thanks to affirmative action regulations. Just like the building trades unions and their well-publicized refusal to allow black Americans into its hiring halls, PATCO’s white male culture prevented a solidarity that would certainly have strengthened its membership and bargaining power. The inability to see the necessity for solidarity beyond their white middle class aspirations contributed to the collapse of the union when threatened by Reagan’s battle ax. In addition, the lack of support from AFL-CIO leadership provided other unions’ rank and file with a mixed message.

No union is stronger than its members. No labor movement is stronger than its unions. If labor’s rank and file are unwilling to support their fellow workers in their workplace struggles, the likelihood of management getting its way in the workplace and in the political scene increases exponentially. This is McCartin’s clearest message. The blame for current state of US labor is not only to be found in the bank accounts of corporate CEOs and the pro-business policies of the Republican and Democratic Party leaders. It can also be placed on the backs of unions that crossed picket lines set up by fellow workers; on labor leaders more interested in cozying up to politicians then in forcing them to defeat anti-labor legislation; on unions that increase their membership by destroying other unions; and, more generally, on union policies that still fail to truly embrace a strategy that sees the entire working class of the planet as one against an international corporate class. Like the song says: Solidarity Forever….

That memoir was titled Fugitive Days and was written by former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers.  It would become the fodder for a fight by the fascist right to put us all under their boot.  It was a fight that would be joined by cowering liberals and Democrats across the country.  The targets were the gains made by blacks, Latinos, women, gays and others during the 1960s.  It was the anti-imperialist understanding brought about by years of opposing the US war on Vietnam.  In his memoir, Bill Ayers did not express the proper type of regret.  Indeed, instead of regretting the actions of the Weather Underground and other militants in the antiwar movement of the Sixties, Ayers regretted that these folks did not do more to stop the US aggression in southeast Asia.

Very few New Yorkers in Manhattan had a chance to read the New York Times review of that book that day.  Most may have been on their second cup of coffee when the planes begin flying into the Towers.  If they were reading anything, it was a newspaper front page, their morning emails or a sports section.  I was getting ready to go back to Vermont after spending a couple days and nights with my friend A. My secondary (and somewhat ironic) reason for visiting Manhattan had been to speak about the history and meaning of political violence as practiced by those opposed to the state.  After kissing A. goodbye before she caught the bus for her job near Canal Street, I packed my bag, left her a note and headed out the door of her apartment building.  She lived between 9th and 10th Avenue.  As I approached the corner of 9th Ave., I noticed a rather large crowd of people looking south.  Naturally, my head turned that way, too.  There was a plane stuck in the tower and smoke was billowing forth.

While my mind attempted to assimilate what I was seeing, another plane crashed into the other tower.  An African-American guy that always hung out this corner listening to his boom box and asking for change said it all: “Holy shit!”  The crowd concurred.  I figured that I would not be leaving Manhattan that day.  I returned to A’s apartment and called the airlines.  All flights canceled.  I returned to the corner just in time to see the first tower collapse.

I walked east toward a Radio Shack store.  My plan was to buy a small transistor radio and walk south listening to the news as I walked.  Every single bar and restaurant along the street had set their television either on the sidewalk or in the front window and were broadcasting the unfolding events.  People walked by curious, shocked and scared.  I went into the second bar and ordered a beer.  I needed time to think about this.  The sound of sirens was now everywhere.  School buses filled with soldiers and cops were parking on 23rd Street, their passengers emptying out, receiving orders from their commanders and assuming various positions around the city.  While I waited for the beer, the second tower collapsed on the television and several blocks south from where I was.

A man dressed in several layers of clothing stood in the doorway and repeated that it was not the end of the world.  The Lord, he said, was giving us another chance to get along.  The bartender said fuck getting along, he wanted revenge.  I agreed with the guy in the doorway but said nothing.  I asked the bartender for some food and he called back into the kitchen.  Minutes later, he delivered a meatball sub and another beer.  The fellow in the doorway had moved on to the next open door.  Nobody bothered him and nobody ignored him.  New Yorkers were willing to listen to anyone who might explain what was happening in their city.

The sirens were louder and continuous.  People from the scene of the destruction were beginning to appear in the Chelsea neighborhood having made their way up from southern Manhattan.  None of these folks were saying much and some were visibly distraught.  I couldn’t help thinking that this was what the US military had done to to other peoples multiple times just in my lifetime.  Of course, I kept that thought to myself, knowing that expressing it was tantamount to asking for a beating.  After my second beer I decided to see if I could get into the Port Authority terminal.  Maybe I could get a bus out of here by tomorrow.  As I walked north, various people walked by.  Many were going about their business, but everyone with sight was keeping an eye on the activity south of them.

War was on the horizon.  Someone would pay for this mess, even if they weren’t responsible.  Bill Ayers and others willing to express their opinions against US imperialism would end up being among them, although they might not see it that way.  I finally ran into A. in Washington Square Park.  We hugged each other with visible relief and went to buy a beer or two.  After wards, we sat in the park listening, talking, watching, and smelling the chemical toxins released by the burning buildings.  Eventually, a peace circle was formed and people sang a couple songs.  Some frat boys threw epithets and rocks at the circle, demanding an immediate attack on someone, somewhere.  Meanwhile, anybody who looked like they hailed from the Middle East or Central Asia made themselves scarce.

By the time I was able to leave Manhattan two days later, the US government was rounding up men from those areas of the world and locking them up.  I had to show my ID three times before I boarded the train back to Vermont.  I had never shown it once in all of my previous train trips.  The police and military presence in Penn Station and on train platforms along the route reminded me of being in West Germany in 1972 during the first round of urban warfare by the Red Army Fraktion.

The roundups continued and an omnibus law that had obviously been sitting somewhere in the national security state’s bureau was passed almost unanimously.  That law is known as the PATRIOT Act and did more to restrict human and civil rights in the United States than any other law passed in the previous fifty years.  We have grown used to its restrictions, just like we have grown used to wars that never end.  To pretend that wars of aggression and false security prevents political attacks on a system designed to dominate the world is more than folly.  It is suicidal.

Founded in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis and including only five nations at the time, the G8 is one of the answers of the monopoly capitalists to the crisis of capitalism that began in 1973. Designed to resolve intercapitalist rivialries and provide a united front against those nations and peoples that oppose it, the G8 functions much like a business association or international crime syndicate. Coincidentally (or not), the time of the G8′s creation also saw the establishment of the Trilateral Commission; a group of capitalist and government leaders convened to address the threat of “too much democracy” that resulted from the worldwide revolutions and rebellions that rumbled around the planet after World War Two and culminated in the period we now call the Sixties. As the recession of the 1970s crept into the Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1980s, workers and others left behind as a result of the recession watched while the safety net and worker reforms they and previous generations had fought for were stripped away. Unsurprisingly, the response of the capitalist powers to the failure of their system to sustain itself was to attack those who actually produced the wealth. Despite long and occasionally violent struggles around the world, the Reagans, Thatchers and their ilk eventually won. Personal and national debt grew as corporations forced open markets to sell their cheaply produced goods (now that union labor had been forced to lie down and begin the Europe and the US) and earnings for the wealthiest soared.

Under the guise of bringing the free market and freedom to the world, Wall Street and its international henchmen (and women) forced itself on previously closed markets in the former Soviet Bloc and China. In addition, capitalists forced countries in the southern hemisphere to accept debt and bank loans to pay off the interest on that debt as international capital searched for more resources to consume, labor to exploit and markets to create. Countries where income was once reasonably equitable across the board found themselves with a disparity between the haves and the have-nots at greater ratios than ever before. Naturally, wars broke out in many of these nations as religious and ethnic identities were exploited by the elites for their own gain. Even Europe experienced this when the nation of Yugoslavia disintegrated before the world’s eyes.

And then there’s NATO. Originally formed to keep the Stalinist states of the Soviet Bloc at bay while the capitalist nations secured their position in postwar Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should have met its end when the Stalinist nations fell in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Instead, NATO expanded its mission and became the military wing of the G8 and its neoliberal globalization project. As neoliberal champion Thomas Friedman stated in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15….” From Bosnia to Afghanistan to Libya, NATO has consistently proved that it is there to provide the cover of a coalition for attacks on states and peoples that do not agree with the G8′s ideas for global capitalism.

Despite the fact that they share a common motivation, the member governments of the G8 have not always agreed. There have been times when various national interests have prevented unanimity. Most often, the capitol that squawks the loudest is Washington, which is used to getting its way. As with many of its other alliances and agreements, Washington uses the power of the G8 and NATO when their goals and methods match Washington’s. Otherwise, Washington goes its own way, intent on prevailing. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is perhaps the best and most recent example of this, while the invasion and ongoing war in Afghanistan is a prime example of Washington using NATO as a cover for its designs.

Over the past decade, meetings of the G8 have been met with massive protests. Those protests have been met with repression. Actions include preventing protesters from crossing borders to preemptive arrests and detention. The sheer scope of the repression of the protests proves a concerted effort by law enforcement that stretches across borders and involves intense surveillance and infiltration. The police forces at the protests themselves have not been shy either. In fact, at a protest in Genoa, Italy in 2003 a young protester named Carlos Guiliani was shot and killed by police who then ran over him repeatedly with their vehicle.

The next meetings of the G8 and NATO are scheduled to be held in Chicago from May 15-22 2012. An August 28, 2011 meeting is being called by the United National Antiwar Conference (UNAC) network and other groups to organize against the G8/NATO legacy of poverty, greed and war. Already, law enforcement and other government officials are threatening activists. In fact, Chicago’s superintendent of police Gene McCarthy recently spoke of mass arrests and violence against protesters. One can fairly assume that his stance has the support of the Chicago Mayor’s office and other law enforcement agencies like the Secret Service, FBI and so on. In response, the UNAC and the Committee to Stop FBI Repression have issued an open letter demanding Mayor Emmanuel guarantee civil liberties for the protesters and that he call off his dogs in the police department. The legacy of police violence against protests in Chicago is a long one, stretching at least from the attacks on the Haymarket protests in 1886 through the repression of the labor, racial and antiwar struggles of the 20th century. While the effectiveness of such a letter is questionable should law enforcement decide to prevent the protests, it is important that the word on law enforcement’s intentions gets out. It is even more important that these meetings do not pass without protest.

Unfortunately, in recent years, the number of people actually willing to do so seems to have diminished to a relative handful. Of that handful, even fewer are known outside their own circles. Even this latter group finds it difficult to be acknowledged by the greater population. Much of this inability to get publicity can be attributed to the mainstream media machine whose sole purpose is to gear the population up for the next invasion and accompanying repression of rights at home. Occasionally, however, an act so dramatic and courageous creates a situation that not even the corporate media machine can ignore it.

One of those instances occurred on September 1, 1987 outside of the Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS) in Concord, California. It was on that day that military veterans Duncan Murphy, David Duncombe and S. Brian Willson sat down on some train tracks outside of CNWS as part of an attempt to block trains carrying weapons and other materials bound for Central America. In Central America, these materials were being used by the El Salvadoran military to kill revolutionaries and their civilian supporters. In Nicaragua and Honduras those materials were being used by US-funded paramilitaries and the Honduran military to destroy the popular government of Nicaragua. Protests like the one that took place that day in 1987 had been going on for weeks. The trains had always stopped before reaching any protesters on the tracks and waited for local police to arrest the protesters. On September 1, 1987 the train did not stop. In fact, it sped up as it headed towards the three men. Two of the men were able to extricate themselves from the tracks at the last moment. Willson could not. In seconds his legs were crushed and his skull pierced. His body bounced around under the still moving train as the men driving it continued on their way back on to base property. If it had not been for the medical knowledge and quick action of Willson’s fellow protesters, he would have died. Given the impact the attempt on Willson’s life had in the national media, one can be fairly certain that there were those involved in waging the US wars in Central America who wished he had died.

As it turned out, Willson lost his legs, but otherwise recovered. He was hailed as a hero by the Nicaraguan people and became something of a moral beacon for the anti-intervention movement in the United States. His memoir, Blood On the Tracks, was recently published by PM Press. The tale he tells is one that is not completely unique to Willson, although the specifics certainly are. Born in a small town in the eastern US, he played sports in high school, went to college, went into the military and served in a war. His particular war was Vietnam. Like most of his fellow GIs, Willson never seriously questioned or understood why he was being sent to Vietnam before he was in country. However, once he got there, the murderous contradictions began to challenge his very core. When eh wondered aloud why civilians were being killed and labeled as the enemy, he was told to shut up. When he didn’t shut up, his tour was shortened and his military life was essentially over. Thus began what would become his future as an antiwar activist, even though he did not know it at the time.

Willson’s narrative is a deeply personal story contextualized by a growing awareness of the avaricious and murderous history of the country he always called his own. This growing awareness created a situation quite common amongst Willson’s compatriots of the 1960s and 1970s–a situation best described as cognitive dissonance. In other words, everything he had been led to believe about his nation was a lie. Furthermore, he was complicit in living and perpetrating that lie. His (and our) complicity is so complete that even if we do nothing to support Washington’s wars and Wall Street’s rapaciousness, we remain complicit by the fact of our citizenship. Willson’s realization is what motivated him to untangle himself from the web of complicity all US citizens are tangled in. Like so many others, his journey involved opposing the wars of his nation. Unlike so many others, it cost him part of his physical body.

S. Brian Willson doesn’t just acknowledge his and our complicity; he demands that we challenge it. Even more, he demands that we work to end it. As anyone knows, this is not an easy or necessarily desirable path. Yet, in the moral universe of Willson, there is no alternative to certain destruction unless every U.S American confronts their role in maintaining the machinery of death and greed we call America. Like the revolutionary Mario Savio told a crowd at UC Berkeley in 1964, you must “”There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” Blood On the Tracks is the story of one man’s attempt to change the direction of that machine or, failing in that, preventing it from working at all.

I remembered this incident while reading Joe Allen’s newest book People Wasn’t Made To Burn. The story therein is of a man, James Hickman, who loses two of his children in a fire that was almost certainly set by his landlord as a means of chasing the tenants from the building so that he could increase his income. At the time of the fire, the living conditions were already unsafe and unhealthy, yet greed compelled by the desire to increase profit rendered any concerns about this irrelevant. His children’s deaths eventually drove Mr. Hickman into such depths of depression that he killed the landlord. After seeing justice for his children’s death denied by the system, Hickman saw no other course but to administer his own. The murder of the landlord inspired a movement to defend Mr. Hickman and change the nature of rental housing in Chicago. Allen takes this tragic story and renders it into a chilling narrative that reads like a novel. Simultaneously, Allen’s description of the efforts undertaken by socialists and others in Hickman’s defense read like an organizing primer.

It was the presence of socialists and other like-minded folks that made sure that the movement against the prosecution of Hickman was bigger than Hickman or his act. Under the direction of these activists, the movement around Hickman’s defense became an indictment of a system that let slumlords get away with murder. During the period that this story takes place there were so-called covenant laws that forbade blacks from renting in certain neighborhoods, thereby allowing unscrupulous landlords to charge exorbitant rents for buildings they did not even attempt to maintain. This aspect of legal institutional racism endangered the poor, especially African-Americans.

Furthermore, it was the system of profit that encouraged landlords to let their properties slip into dangerous disrepair while overcharging their tenants. It was also the system of profit that encouraged corruption amongst the very officials hired to guarantee safe living conditions. As labor leader Willoughby Abner told a rally on the opening day of Hickman’s trial: “The same government which failed to heed the need of Hickman and millions of other Hickmans is now trying to convict Hickman for its own crimes, its own failures.” Indeed, it is that system that continues to insure that abuses like this continue to this day.

Allen has written a masterpiece of historical narrative. The story of James Hickman and his family is an emotionally wrought story on its own. Allen’s retelling leaves none of that emotion out. Although it is history he is writing down, the manner of the telling makes that history as current as the latest breaking news. The book is further enhanced by the inclusion of artist Ben Shahn’s illustrations reprinted from a 1947 Harper’s magazine feature about the Hickman case. Allen ends his story with a description of a 2010 fire in Cicero, Illinois, which is right outside of Chicago. There were no fire escapes in the building and it was overcrowded. The people who lived there were violating occupancy laws because they could not afford separate apartments. That fire killed seven people and was found to be deliberately set by the landlord and his maintenance man. This time around the authorities were able to get an indictment of the men responsible for the deaths. In fact, the prosecution intends to seek the death penalty. However, the system that Willoughby Abner said “failed to heed the need of Hickman and millions of other Hickmans” continues to force people to live in unsafe living conditions while making it likely that unscrupulous landlords will continue to choose profits over the safety of those who rent from them. Indeed, it will continue to make it likely that certain landlords would rather burn their properties than take care of them.

After Obama reversed his decision to end military tribunals and release the pictures of US torture, and the Democrats refused to close Guantanamo, liberal and progressive pundits in the media began wringing their hands asking how this could be. After all, they say, this is the neocon agenda, not the agenda for change that Obama got elected on. How can we change this? What kind of hold do Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich and the rest of the rabid right-wingers have on the liberals we voted for? The question none of these hand-wringers have asked is a very simple, indeed, a very radical one. That question is, is the foreign policy of Washington the same no matter which party is in power? The reason why this question isn’t asked is as simple as the answer (which is of course, yes) — it is not a policy, it is an economic and political system that incorporates both political parties, the media, the educational system, and the commercial life that is the US.

The accepted understanding since September 11, 2001 is that the events that day changed everything in the world. The truth is the opposite. Nothing changed at all. Nothing, that is, except for the justification used by the Pentagon and Wall Street to continue their rigged game against the world. Instead of communism or the yellow hordes, it became terrorism.

The war on drugs. This exercise in futility (if one accepts its premise that it is being fought to end the influx of illegal drugs into the US) hasn’t ended illegal drug trade and its accompanying murder and mayhem, but it has put US bases in regions where there were none. It has also been used as part of the imperial struggle against national liberation and indigenous movements that are contrary to US interests — Sendero Luminoso in Peru back in the 1980s and 1990s to the narco-traffickers in Mexico of today.

The global war on terror hasn’t ended terror but has put bases in places where none were before–with the added attraction that they are in areas rich in resources and also encircle Russia and China — potential capitalist rivals. In addition, it has strengthened Israel’s position in the Middle East, leading to further and more brutal oppression of the Palestinians while increasing the possibility of war with Iran. On top of that we now have the selective bombing of various Muslim and Arab countries in the name of supposed freedom struggles whose very alignment with Washington and its NATO surrogate make the possibility of real freedom less likely with each “Made In USA” bomb dropped or missile fired. Meanwhile, Israel, that supposed beacon of freedom in the Middle East, continues to shoot Palestinian protesters at will.

The control of WMD. If nothing else has shown the vacuity of this policy, the war on Iraq has. Initially undertaken to find and destroy WMD in Iraq, it soon became apparent in the weeks after March 20, 2003 that there were no such weapons. Indeed, the previous administration had already forced the elimination of any such weaponry via its regimen of deadly sanctions, illegal flyovers and bombings and occasional missile attacks on Iraq. Although US policymakers were concerned about WMD in Hussein’s Iraq, this concern had a lot more to do with the challenge they represented to Washington and Tel Aviv’s dominance in the region than they had to do with concern for proliferation of said weapons. This is the case in the ongoing campaign of half-truths and threats against Teheran’s nuclear power endeavors. In the 1990s, northern Korea went along with the program to end its nuclear weapons development with an understanding that the US and other nations would help them develop power that could not be converted into weapons. Washington failed to uphold its end of the bargain under Clinton and Bush put the nation into Washington’s axis of evil. Now, Pyongyang is testing the right wing government in Seoul while keeping DC at a distance. The hypocrisy of this policy against WMD is laid bare by the complete and total refusal of Washington to address either the US or Israel’s nuclear weapons program at all.

The immigration battle. US capitalism requires cheap labor. An economy that exists because of its early dependence on slavery can not readily give up labor that comes cheap. Since the end of slavery, immigrants have historically filled the lowest positions in the labor pool. They have also been subject to some of the worst violations of their rights since the time of slaves. Indeed, today a whole system of prisons exist solely to lock up immigrants primarily because they are essentially excess labor. As prisoners, they prop up another domestic part of the Empire: the prison system.

I am of the opinion, like many other folks, that prisons are the present day embodiment of the system of chattel slavery. An unneeded and unwanted part of the population is put in chains and forced to work for meals and a minimal stipend, oftentimes because they have been convicted of a crime that was written with their demographic in mind. Do the differences between the original penalties for crack cocaine and its powdered version ring any bells? The other aspect to this labor arrangement is that it is the taxpayers who make up the difference. Yes, even when the prisons are privately owned (a situation that creates another form of injustice), the taxpayers pay through the nose even while the owners make a profit.

There’s an argument that says the State needs enemies to justify its existence and, if it doesn’t have nay, it will create them. The preceding list is a clear indication of that as far as the United States is concerned.

That novel is now in bookstores. It was worth the wait. Yes, it is a war novel, but it is also a war novel that has aged like good moonshine forgotten in a jug out in grandpa’s barn. Not necessarily smooth, but much easier to swallow now than when it first came out of the still. Much of this could be related to the stretch of time between the distillation fifty years ago and its consumption now. After all, perspective often takes away those sharp, biting edges that framed our perception back then. Yet, like good moonshine no matter how ancient, Babbs’ story still occasionally bites and stings as its going down. Time hasn’t made the war he writes about any less horrific. It’s only made the telling of it easier.

The novel, titled Who Shot the Water Buffalo, takes place in the year 1962. This was well after the United States had replaced the French in their colonial role but well before the rapid escalation of the war after 1965. The reference to water buffaloes is of dual meaning. Apparently, the soldiers’ name for the water tanks containing fresh water on the makeshift bases were known as water buffaloes. There is a scene in the novel where one of those gets shot up. The second meaning is more ominous, at least for the US troops engaged in their “advisory” role. Guerrilla fighters would hide behind water buffalo in the fields and shoot at South Vietnamese and US troops. This created a scenario where US troops would wantonly shoot water buffalo. In one instance, an old farmer is killed without any indication that he was shooting anything at anyone. As any student or participant in that (and most other subsequent war) the practice of shooting unarmed civilians was an all too common occurrence.

The story itself is a story about men at war. Drinking and bravado. Fear and just plain idiocy. Comradeship and testosterone-fueled brawls. The arrogance of imperialism and the embarrassment of men who question the propriety of their task. Babbs writing is rhythmically attuned to the lives of men who wonder as to the rationale of their being sent to a foreign land to kill some of its inhabitants in the name of the others. Like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 or the writing of John Sack on Vietnam, Who Shot the Water Buffalo illustrates the brutal futility of America’s recent wars and hints at the damage these wars have done not only to the nations where they occur but to the psyches of the US troops who fought them and the nation they served. Babbs characters share the cynicism of the invader in that they know their mission is most likely a losing cause. At the same time, they are unable to understand the commitment of the forces they oppose.

Who Shot the Water Buffalo opens with an innocence tinged with a cynicism that grows ever more pervasive as it goes on. In Babbs’ telling, the pointlessness of the operation is already apparent to the men involved. So is the brutality. So is how it will end.. The lies of America’s wars are all here. The lies the invaders tell themselves about the honor of their mission and the lies the locals live pretending they appreciate that effort. The lies that politicians and generals use to keep the gravy train and the war going. And of course the ultimate lie that war makes things better.

Barack Obama told the British Parliament that the longing for freedom “beats in every human heart.” He also stated that American and British leadership of the world remains “essential to the cause of human dignity.” What he did not acknowledge was the fact that these two nations and their Empires have made human dignity an unattainable reality for millions who toil under their economic regime. Likewise, the history of these two nations on the world stage includes some very ugly episodes involved in denying the very freedoms Mr. Obama claims are the result of these nations’ leadership.

As far as history goes, perhaps Mr. Obama should review his. Referring to the current uprisings and rebellions across the Arab world, he compared them to the struggles against the former states associated with the Soviet Union, South African apartheid and dictatorships in Southeast Asia and Latin America. By confusing the struggles against the totalitarian states of Eastern Europe with the struggles against dictatorships in Latin America and apartheid South Africa, Mr. Obama is essentially comparing apples to oranges. After all, it was the US (especially) and Britain that supported not only the dictatorships in Latin America, but also the apartheid regime in South Africa. This support was not only monetary and political but, in the case of Washington, also military. In contrast, it was the Soviet Union that supported the struggles against these regimes while also opposing the US-created and supported dictatorships across Southeast Asia. For Mr. Obama to suggest otherwise is misleading and just plain false.

Yet, it is not the least unusual. The view from the White House and Capitol Hill compares quite favorably to that from Parliament and 10 Downing Street. What looks like freedom from the Oval Office and Buckingham Palace looks a lot more like servitude and economic despair on the ground in the NorthWest Frontier of Pakistan or the camps of Gaza. The fact that a man with dark skin now shares the same view as the one enjoyed by Disraeli does not make it any less imperial. It only shows the ever-expanding sophistication of those behind the thrones of capital and the willingness of those whose ancestors fought the empire to serve its modern day equivalent.

When I was younger, my family was stationed in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Air Force base we lived on was a small station devoted to spying on the USSR and China. It had some connection to the U2 flights that changed when Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet territory. My dad had one friend whom we did not address by rank. We called him Mr. S. I found out years later that he was most likely with the CIA. That was why he had no rank. Not only did he not have a rank, he also did not live on base. Instead, he lived in a hotel left over from the time of the British Raj. Every few weeks, he would come by our house on base with his driver and pick me up. After stopping at the hotel where we sat on the porch and ate various Pakistani dishes, his driver would take us out to one of the villages in the surrounding area. While Mr. S. discussed things in Urdu with various older men and the occasional Pakistani military officer, I would play with the local boys. Then we would eat a very tasty dinner roasted over a fire. Dinner was usually over by dark and then we departed, leaving the villagers in their village while I was taken back to my air-conditioned home on base.

This childhood existence is a partial metaphor for the imperial view Mr. Obama touted as freedom to the British Parliament. As a part of the US military presence in Pakistan, I was quite free to come and go as I pleased as long as my military or military-affiliated escort was present. Mr. S. was even more able given his adult age. Yet, it was his work and the work of the US military in that country that ensured that any freedom the Pakistani boys I played with would come only at a price their entire nation would pay. In fact, those boys may very well have already paid with their lives. If not, and if they have joined forces opposed to Obama’s vision of freedom, a drone could cash in their payment at any time. Freedom does have a price and the rest of the planet has been paying for Washington’s for a long time.