This week, O’Connor launches a California book tour, beginning in the San Francisco Bay Area. On Monday, O’Connor sat down for a video interview with Prison Radio, where he discusses aspects of this story not addressed in this text interview. Marking the book release, Prison Radio has recorded a special message from Kevin Cooper himself. To learn more about Cooper’s case and what you can do to help, visit his website.

Prison Radio:  How did you get involved in Kevin Cooper’s case?

J. Patrick O’Connor:  During the fall of 2008, I was in the Bay Area on a book tour for The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal.  During the tour, supporters of Kevin’s approached me at various venues and asked me to consider writing a book on Kevin’s case.

PR:  How did you go about writing this book?

JPO:  I took on this project with no preconceived notions of Kevin’s guilt or innocence. Each case is different, radically so.

My first step was to read and notate the trial transcripts, documents of over 8,000 pages.  I then read all the police reports, witness interviews, and various newspaper accounts. I reviewed the most shocking crime scene and autopsy photos I’ve ever seen — and those I will never forget.  The autopsy reports on the four victims spoke of an incredibly frenzied killing field inside the Ryens’ master bedroom.

Finally, I read all of the appeals and the judicial rulings.  By this time I was ready to begin interviewing various people involved in Kevin’s trial and his subsequent appeals.

PR:  What’s the main obstacle to researching a case that is 25 years old?

JPO:  The biggest problem is that a number of key people involved in the investigation and trial have died, have retired, or have simply forgotten important factual details.

Another obstacle is that because Kevin technically still has appeals open to him, the San Bernardino County D.A.’s Office refused to discuss the case with me.  Nonetheless, I was able to interview Kevin’s trial attorney, his investigator, and the lead prosecutor at his trial as well as many other people familiar with Kevin’s trial and appeals.  For important background on the Ryens, I was able to interview Peggy Ryen’s half-sister and Doug Ryen’s sister.

PR:  Did you ever interview Kevin Cooper?

JPO:  I visited with Kevin for nearly three hours at San Quentin in the summer of 2009.  During this intense interrogation — I was in the process of deciding whether to take on this book possibility — I could sense Kevin felt a number of my questions were intrusive, if not insensitive.  There were things about his past and about his stay at the hideout house, and his fleeing to Mexico that I simply had to know to be able to go forward.

By the end of the interview I was taken with his equanimity and his resolve to prove he was wrongfully convicted of the gruesome Chino Hills murders. Over the next two years, I was able to pose many other questions to Kevin in written form, through his defense team at the Orrick law firm.

PR:  What convinced you that Kevin was innocent of these crimes?

JPO:  A lot of different things. To just cite one here: The prosecution and the police withheld and destroyed evidence that would have exonerated Kevin — evidence that was so exculpatory to him that had it been revealed Kevin would not have even been on trial for these murders.

PR:  Can you provide some background on Kevin Cooper’s case?

JPO:  Kevin Cooper was convicted of the brutal murders of a Chino Hills, California family and a young houseguest in 1985, and has been on death row at San Quentin since then. Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and The Framing of Kevin Cooper, shows how the sheriff’s office and the district attorney’s office of San Bernardino County framed Cooper for these horrific murders and how the justice system has failed him at almost every turn in his long, drawn-out appeal process.

If it were not for a court-ordered moratorium on executions in California over the lethal injection controversy, Cooper – with no appeals remaining – would have been executed by now. It is expected the moratorium will not be lifted until at least 2013.

Two days before the murders of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 11-year-old Christopher Hughes, Cooper escaped from a nearby prison and holed up in a vacant house 125 yards below the murdered family’s hilltop house.  Two days after the San Bernardino sheriff’s department established that Cooper had hid out there, it locked in on him as the lone assailant despite numerous eye witness reports that implicated three, young white men as the perpetrators.

From that day forward, four days after the murders were discovered, the sheriff’s department discarded information that pointed at other perpetrators, destroyed evidence that exculpated Cooper, and planted evidence that implicated him.

PR:  What eyewitness testimony is there pointing to other perpetrators?

JPO:  The only survivor of the attack, 8 1/2-year-old Josh Ryen, told ER personnel and a sheriff’s deputy that his assailants were three white men. Cooper is black.

Around midnight on the night of the murders, a couple, attempting to exit a driveway in their truck, saw three, young white men driving rapidly down the only road that leads away from the Ryens’ house in a station wagon that it turned out was stolen from the murdered family.

Shortly after that sighting, two women in a nearby bar saw two young white men, one wearing coveralls, with blood splatter on their faces and clothing.

Four days after the murders, another woman turned into the sheriff’s office bloody coveralls her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, had left on the floor of her closet.  The woman stated she had other information that implicated her boyfriend in the murders but wanted to be interviewed by homicide detectives.  She would have told them that her boyfriend’s hatchet was missing and that he no longer had the tan T-shirt he wore the Saturday of the murders.

PR: What aspects of the crime scene challenge the case against Cooper?

JPO:  The murders were committed with at least three, and probably four, weapons: a hatchet, an ice pick and one or two knifes. The theory that one perpetrator could or would use three or four weapons, is fundamentally counterintuitive.  At trial the prosecutor argued that Cooper was ambidextrous, which he is not.

Nor could one person control two able-bodied adults and three children running around the house, one of whom, Jessica, made it outside the house during the attack. The adult victims were each fit, 41-year-old chiropractors and both were mobile during the onslaught and fought hard for their lives, sustaining numerous defensive wounds to their hands and arms.

The crime scene evidence, according to the medical examiner, showed that the mother was cradling the daughter before the mother died, which meant one of the attackers had brought Jessica back into the house.  More than anything else, this meant there had to be more than one assailant because each parent kept a loaded gun in the master bedroom where the assault occurred.

There was an uncommon viciousness to the attack as though the killers meant not only to murder but to send a message of payback or retribution.  The medical examiner counted 144 wounds on the four murder victims, including 28 fractures and two amputations.  While Cooper’s trial was in progress, an inmate in a California prison told prison authorities and a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detective that his cellmate had confessed to the Chino Hills murders, stating it was an Aryan Brotherhood hit but the three killers had gone to the wrong house.

PR:  What about the destroyed evidence you cited earlier?

JPO:  During Cooper’s preliminary hearing, the sheriff’s office destroyed the bloody coveralls.  The sheriff’s office claimed it never conducted any tests of the coveralls and admitted it never sent homicide detectives around to interview the woman who had turned them in.

The sheriff’s office also destroyed a bloody blue T-shirt discarded not far from the bar. Coupled with a tan T-shirt found the next day near the bar, the two bloody T-shirts were strong proof that at least two assailants had murdered the Ryens and Chris Hughes.  Testing of the tan T-shirt showed the blood on it matched the blood profile of Doug Ryen and no one else.

PR:  You also said that evidence was planted?

JPO:  Years later, in 2002, as Cooper was attempting to prove his innocence with DNA testing now afforded death row inmates by the California Legislature, his blood was now found on the tan T-shirt. To Cooper and his appeal attorneys, this showed rank tampering and planting of evidence, a belief that was greatly reinforced when it was revealed in 2004 that the vial containing Cooper’s blood, taken from him when he was arrested and kept all those years in the crime lab, was discovered now to contain the DNA of at least one other person.

A hatchet sheath and a bloody green button from a prison jacket were found at the hideout house a day after two detectives had searched the house and found nothing of evidentiary value.  Under oath one of the detectives denied looking in the bedroom but crime scene technicians lifted his fingerprints from the door of the closet where Cooper slept.  It would be established at Cooper’s trial that when Cooper escaped he was wearing a brown jacket, not a green one.

PR:  In 2004, Cooper came within hours of being executed before an extremely rare en banc ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed his execution and granted him a successive habeas corpus hearing in federal district court in San Diego. Can you explain more about this 2004 ruling?

JPO:  In particular, the Ninth Circuit ordered the district court to conduct DNA testing on the numerous blonde or light brown hairs found clutched in Jessica’s hand and other similar hairs deposited on other victims.

The Ninth also ordered EDTA testing to determine if Cooper’s blood had been planted on the tan T-shirt.  EDTA is an anti-clotting substance used in crime labs to preserve blood in vials, to prevent it from coagulating and breaking down. If tests conducted showed high levels of EDTA on the blood attributed to Cooper on the T-shirt, it would establish tampering.  If tampering were established, it would call into question all the forensic evidence the prosecution used to link Cooper to the crime scene.

It seemed that Cooper, after nineteen years of asserting his innocence from death row, would be vindicated.  At a minimum, the district court would have had to order a new trial or exonerate him outright.

Federal District Court Judge Marilyn Huff was not going to let that happen.  She had turned down both of Cooper’s previous habeas appeals, finding evidence of his guilt “overwhelming.”

PR:  How did Judge Marilyn Huff treat Cooper’s third habeas appeal?

JPO:  Over a period of a year, Judge Huff periodically held evidentiary hearings.  As she did, she methodically thwarted Cooper’s attorneys at every turn, refusing to allow Cooper’s experts to participate in the EDTA testing.  When the private lab the court hired to test Cooper’s blood on the T-shirt found elevated levels of EDTA, Judge Huff allowed the lab to retract its findings three weeks later on the grounds the lab itself was contaminated with EDTA during the testing.

Judge Huff dispensed with any further EDTA testing by ruling that the EDTA testing of the tan T-shirt conducted was not conclusive and that EDTA testing in general was an unproven science and of no value.  She was wrong on both counts:  both Cooper’s expert and the private lab found high levels on EDTA on the samples tested from the tan T-shirt and EDTA testing is a proven science.

The extreme bias against Cooper that Judge Huff displayed with impunity throughout the evidentiary hearings was at its most obvious when it came to the DNA testing of the hair clutched in various victims’ hands ordered by the en banc Ninth Circuit.  When a portion of those hairs had been tested in 2002, they were found to have no antigen roots, denoting that the hairs had fallen out rather than been yanked out during the assault.  Those hairs, the tests showed, were either from the victims themselves or were dog hairs.

There could be no purpose in retesting those hairs. However, over half of the hairs in the victims’ hands or adhered to their bodies had not been tested in 2002 and may well have contained antigen roots.    If the mitochondrial testing of those hairs resulted in a DNA that excluded all the victims and Cooper, there would be proof positive that someone other than Cooper was a perpetrator.  Judge Huff, incredibly, ordered testing only of the already tested hairs.

PR:  Did anything new come out at this point?

JPO:  During the evidentiary hearings, Cooper’s lawyers inadvertently learned for the first time about the bloody blue T-shirt found not far from the bar.  How could Judge Huff get around the implications of a bloody blue and a bloody tan T-shirt found one day apart near the bar?

In addition, the prosecution’s not disclosing the blue T-shirt to the defense was a major Brady violation that was so exculpatory to Cooper on its own that it mandated a new trial.

Judge Huff’s way around this inconvenient hurdle was to find that the blue T-shirt was in reality the tan T-shirt, even though the blue shirt was found the day before the tan shirt in a different location from the bar and the woman who found the bloody blue shirt testified at the hearing that the shirt she found was blue.

Judge Huff’s handling of Cooper’s habeas proceedings led Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Fletcher to write, “There’s no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform the two tests.”

PR:  Judge Fletcher also made a strong statement about Cooper’s case, as a guest speaker at Gonzaga University School of Law on April 12, 2010.

JPO:  Yes, Judge Fletcher delivered a lecture on the subject of the death penalty, holding that the problems with the administration of it are widespread and endemic rather than merely regional or local.

To illustrate he cited the Kevin Cooper case, stating “The case I am about to describe is horrible in many ways.  The murders were horrible.  Kevin Cooper, the man now sitting on death row, may well be – and in my view probably is – innocent.  And he is on death row because the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department framed him.”

Judge Fletcher, a Rhodes Scholar who roomed with Bill Clinton at Oxford University, said what happened in the Cooper case “is a familiar story.  It is by no means the usual story.  But it happens often enough to be familiar.  The police are under heavy pressure to solve a high profile crime.  They know, or think they know, who did the crime.  And they plant evidence to help their case along.”

PR:  A closing thought?

JPO:  Kevin Cooper has now spent half of his life on death row for a crime he had nothing to do with.  He is, in a word, a scapegoat.

In her book, Nelson writes that “the Party’s focus on health care was both practical and ideological.” On a practical level, the BPP provided free community health care services, including preventative education. Simultaneously, the BPP railed against the medical-industrial complex, declaring that health care was “a right and not a privilege.” Ronald “Doc” Satchel, the minister of health for the Chicago BPP, wrote in the BPP newspaper that “the medical profession within this capitalist society…is composed generally of people working for their own benefit and advancement rather than the humane aspects of medical care.” A newsletter published by the Southern California chapter argued that “poor people in general and black people in particular are not given the best care available. Our people are treated like animals, experimented on and made to wait long hours in waiting rooms.”

By 1970, People’s Free Medical Clinics had become a requirement for every BPP chapter. In 1972, the BPP revised point six of the founding ten-point-platform, adding a demand for “completely free healthcare for all black and oppressed people…We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventative medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide ourselves with proper medical attention and care.”

While citing Martin Luther King’s 1966 declaration that “of all forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane,” one chapter provides an important historical context for the BPP’s health activism by detailing what Nelson calls “the long medical civil rights movement,” that began long before the BPP. “Mobilized in response to the distinctly hazardous risks posed by segregated medical facilities, professions, societies, and schools; deficient or nonexistent healthcare services; medical maltreatment; and scientific racism, activism challenges to medical discrimination have been an important focal point for African American protest efforts and organizations. The Panthers were heirs to health activism that directly reflected tactics drawn from this tradition,” writes Nelson.

Nelson says the central focus of her scholarly work is on “the intersections of science, technology, medicine and inequality.” She has co-edited Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (2001) and Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History (scheduled to be released in March, 2012). To learn more, please visit Alondra’s web site.)

Angola 3 News: In our recent interview with Billy X Jennings from It’s About Time BPP, one theme explored was how, with rare exception, the mainstream media has misrepresented the BPP. However, it seems that even the radical and anti-capitalist media has generally underreported the health activism that is the focus if your book. How did the BPP’s health activism relate to their better-known stances against white supremacy, capitalism, and police violence?

Alondra Nelson: Yes, it’s true. The Black Panthers’ health activism has been under-reported across the ideological spectrum. Their critics obviously did not want to cast them in a positive light. And, as your question suggests, even the Party’s supporters said little about this important aspect of the BPP’s work. I think it’s plausible to say that many on the Right and some of us on the Left — in very different ways and for completely opposite reasons — were captivated by a vision of the Party that did not include its health politics. Depictions of African Americans working in their neighborhoods, wearing white medical coats, was unspectacular compared to images of Black radicals wearing leather jackets and carrying guns.

It is ironic that our collective memory of the Panthers remains so incomplete because their health activism — from their political writing about medical issues in The Black Panther newspaper to their practice of DIY healthcare — exemplified the anti-racist, anti-capitalist stance for which they are known. In fact, the reality of health inequality brought the BPP’s political perspective into sharper relief because it offered stark and specific examples of how economic and racial oppression literally damaged bodies, families and communities.

As you know, the BPP was originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, a name that reflected that protecting communities from police brutality was a primary motivation for the group’s founding. The BPP exposed the misuse of power whether it was at the hands of police officers or physicians. So, it’s also useful to think of the Panthers as being engaged in medical self-defense.

In Los Angeles, Party members Ericka Huggins and Elaine Brown, nursing professor Marie Branch, Dr. Terry Kupers, and others established that chapter’s People’s Free Medical Clinic. But, like all of the BPP’s health activism, this work extended beyond the clinic, including in this case, confronting police brutality. (Branch shared meeting notes with me from the 1970s from her personal archive where the formation of BPP health programs and prisoners’ protection from medical discrimination were seamlessly discussed). The LA Panthers advocated for, and provided health care for, incarcerated persons; some of these men and women needed medical attention because they had been abused while in police custody.

A3N: How does the story of the BPP’s health activism, as presented in your book, contribute to and challenge the traditional presentations of the BPP by both the mainstream and alternative media?

AN: Body and Soul offers an account of the BPP that moves away from the narrow confines of the so-called “culture wars,” in which the Party can only ever be a positive force or a negative element. Paying attention to the Party’s health activism calls into question the inaccurate stereotype of the activists as aimless thugs.

We also gain a different perspective on things we thought we already knew about the BPP; like the fact that the Panthers were avid followers of Fanon, Che and Mao, whose writings were required reading for all members. Through the prism of health, one can see very clearly the influence of Fanon’s dissection of colonial medicine in Algeria on the Panthers’ understanding of medical discrimination in the U.S. We can take seriously the fact that Fanon and Che were physicians as well as political thinkers. We can appreciate that Mao, who established the “barefoot doctors” lay health worker program, made available to the Party not only broad revolutionary principles, but also specific ideas about health care as political practice.

A3N: What do you think were the most successful tactics employed by the BPP as part of its health activism? Strategically speaking, what lessons from the BPP’s health activism do you think are most applicable for today’s activists to learn from?

AN: In addition to setting up their own clinics, they used legal approaches not dissimilar from the NAACP to voice their opposition to problematic biomedical research. The Party leadership realized early on that “policing the police” would not be the only method they used in their effort to topple racism and capitalism. The Panthers were pretty flexible tacticians.

One of the lessons that the BPP offers today’s activists is that they should be more loyal to the desired outcome than to the tactic. The sit-in came to be associated with the southern civil rights movement just as the mic check is now emblematic of the Occupy movement. But these groups also used other tactics: marching, occupying, sermons, etc. Social movements are dynamic phenomena; circumstances are constantly changing. So too should tactics.

One of the BPP’s more fascinating tactics was what I call, after sociologist Lily Hoffman, the “politics of knowledge.” Working in this vein, the Panthers engaged and reinterpreted scientific ideas about race and disease. They reinterpreted scientific theories about the causes of sickle cell anemia, for example, by placing the prevalence of the disease in the context of the history of the transatlantic slave trade, the medical-industrial complex and contemporary racism.

The Panthers’ use of this tactic — the politics of knowledge — should remind today’s activists that “framing” matters. It is important to be able to translate political arguments — health-related ones and other ones — into language, into stories, really, that resonate with the broader public. The Party could be expert at this.

The Nixon administration and mainstream philanthropies would ultimately co-opt the issue of sickle cell anemia. But the BPP played a key role in raising awareness about the disease and in situating it in a powerful political language that could mobilize communities.

A3N: Along with chapters focusing on the BPP’s free medical clinics and the campaign to educate the Black community about, and test for, Sickle Cell Anemia, another chapter focuses on the BPP’s involvement with a diverse coalition that successfully organized against the formation of the Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence at UCLA in 1973. You write that BPP felt that the Center’s “biologization of violence” line of research would ultimately “craft a narrative of Black and Latino violent pathology” that would serve to “make already marginalized populations more vulnerable to medicine as a tool of social control,” and “effect the further criminalization of social groups—black males, the incarcerated—and in turn justify calls for increased surveillance and social control.”

While writing that the defeat of the Center was a “notable triumph,” you note further that it “was somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory for Newton and his allies, as blocking resources to the center as an entity would not prevent individual researchers from pursuing other sources of support for their investigations.” With this in mind, how has biologization of violence research progressed since the 1970s? How much influence has it had on public policy?

AN: Attempts to attribute the causes of violence to biology (and closely related to this, criminality) are a very old story. In the late 19th century, the influential Italian criminologist, Lombroso, claimed that new methods (e.g., phrenology) and theories (e.g., social Darwinism) showed that the tendency toward criminal behavior was inherited.

More than one hundred years later, similar ideas persist. In the 1990s, during the first Bush presidency, Louis Sullivan, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, set-up a “violence initiative” to explore the biological models of social unrest in urban settings. Your readers may recall that around the same time another Bush official, referencing studies on violence among non-human primates, said that disproportionately black and brown “inner cities” were like “jungles.” (The initiative and controversial commentary around it would recall the heated debate the Panthers were engaged in over plans to form a “violence center” at UCLA in the 1970s that may have had an especially harmful impact on black and Latino youth and men).

Recently behavioral researchers have aimed to link the presence of what has been called the “warrior gene” to violent, criminal behavior. At a time when we are learning even more about the complexities of genetic inheritance, about the epigenome and the systems biology, it simply does not make sense that one single genetic marker could have such a dramatic, determinative effect.

A3N: What role has biologization of violence research played in justifying the mass incarceration explosion that began in the 1970s, increasing the prison population from 300,000 to 2.4 million today, giving the US the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prisoner population in the world?

AN: To the extent that the longstanding efforts that I have just described have kept in circulation the fallacy that there is a definitive link between human biology and violence, theses ideas have indeed served as a justification for the expansion of the carceral system.

This is where the policy implications of the biologization of violence come to the fore: If violence is “in your genes” or “in your blood,” then one can justify policies that lock people away because these people are “lost causes.”

And, in turn, the idea that there is a innate predisposition to violence contributes to the decline of support for rehabilitation and reparative justice programs.

A3N: Since the 1970s, has the US come any closer to realizing the BPP’s public health goals? If BPP co-founder Huey P Newton were alive today, what do you think he would say about President Obama’s “Affordable Care Act?”

AN: The revised ten-point platform was prescient in capturing one side of the recent debates about widening health inequality in the U.S. and what to do about it. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that Newton and the Party would have appreciated the historic nature of what President Obama accomplished — a feat that many administrations before his had variously tried to accomplish and failed to do. Perhaps Newton would have even observed that the Affordable Care Act is a very small step in the right direction.

However, some journalists and pundits have noted the similarity between President Obama’s historic Affordable Care Act and the national insurance plan that former President Nixon backed unsuccessfully. Given the animus between the Party and Nixon, and the way this administration and its agents worked to destroy the BPP, it is hard to imagine that Newton would have been in strong support of recent healthcare reform legislation. There would have certainly been opposition to the fact that President Obama’s plan is a boon for insurance companies because the Panthers demanded, “healthcare for the people, not for profit.”

Angie Tibbs:  Dr. Ezzat, let’s start at the beginning.  In January 2011 hundreds of thousands of Egyptians began their Tahrir Square occupation; you were on the ground there as a journalist and as a medical doctor. Would you recreate the mood of the demonstrators, and, in fact, of the country?

Ashraf Ezzat:  Egyptians still refer to those 18 days (January 25- February 11) as the glorious days of the revolution. Those days will undoubtedly carve their place in the modern history of Egypt. And contrary to what the mainstream media concluded, the Tahrir Square saga that captured the world may have been called for by some activists using the internet social media, but it was mainly fueled and triggered by years of political corruption and oppression. The build-up for this uprising has been brewing for years and specifically after Mubarak made it clear he was bequeathing the presidency for his son, Gamal.

Hence, the general mood of the Egyptians was a blend of dissatisfaction, anger and a potent urge for change. It is funny but it seems that the Egyptians had a clear-cut idea what they wanted from the first day they took to the streets. I joined the protests from the second day; the people on the streets were not divided about their demands.  You could see it in their eyes and hear it as they chanted “Bread, freedom and social justice” … and those three demands are what the “Tahrir Square” is still fighting for.

Dr. Ashraf Ezzat in Tahrir Square

AT:  One of the demands of the protesters was for President Mubarak to step down, effectively ending his 30 year authoritarian rule.  This he did on February 11, at which time the military council took over the country, promising to bring about democracy and to respect the wishes of the people. Did this happen, and did anyone expect it would happen?

AE: The military council of armed forces (SCAF), whose generals are Mubarak’s handpicked appointees, did nothing in the last ten months to promote democracy in the country; on the contrary, the generals, and through their ineptness or unwillingness actually to restore security on the street, have helped to bolster the tide of the counter-revolution.

And hadn’t it been for the thousands who lately returned to Tahrir Square to denounce the military rule and ask for a hand-over of power to a civilian salvation government, the revolution would have been done with and declared dead.

The majority of the Egyptian people kind of hoped the military would lead them out of these difficult times but while most of Egyptians didn’t doubt the capability of SCAF to do so, a lot of activists and political analysts suspected that the way SCAF has been handling things would eventually put the country on the road to democracy.

AT: Are you saying that there were those who believed that in time the SCAF would have, if left in power, brought about democracy?

AE: No, I meant to say that the downfall of Mubarak was so abrupt that nobody actually had seen it coming, not even the military which is part and parcel of the despotic old regime. And while stunned by the uprising’s rapid pace, military generals were following how this people vs. regime uprising was going to end, and they decided not to take sides until this whole thing was almost settled.

And when it was obvious, despite the White House’s pro-Mubarak stance, that the people were gaining the upper hand in this uprising the military, only at that moment, decided to side with the people and this is when the protesters in Tahrir square chanted “ The people and military are joined hand in hand”

But not everybody was fooled by this “wait and see” approach by the military. A lot of activists and political analysts knew that the self-serving generals would try to somehow steer this transitional period in their favor. And that is exactly what they did when they proposed a new draft for a constitution that would shield the military from parliamentary scrutiny and which declares the military the guardian of “constitutional legitimacy,” suggesting the armed forces could have the final word on major policies.

AT:  How did Egyptians feel about the military and the police from the commencement of the Mubarak regime up to the demonstrations of January 2011?

AE: Actually Mubarak’s regime was just a police regime. A giant police apparatus that stifled dissent by violent means and that only served and protected the corrupt elite and the president. The citizen/police relation has been quite tense over years of coercion and misconduct. Throughout most of Mubarak’s rule Egyptians feared and somehow distrusted the police.

But in the last couple of years and prior to his ouster they began to loathe the corruption that swept across the whole security apparatus that turned the policeman into a thug with a badge, placed him above the law and allowed him to get away with almost anything … even crimes.

The famous case of the killing of Khalid Saeed, young Egyptian man from Alexandria, who was beaten to death by security forces after he was indicted on framed charges, has incited unprecedented anger and helped trigger the revolution in January. 

While the majority of Egyptians had negative feelings for the police they honored and respected the military for its patriotic role of protecting the sovereignty of the state and for the long and heroic confrontation with Israel especially after the 1973 war.

But I hope that Egyptians will make the necessary and fair distinction between the military forces or the army as a whole and the generals in the military council when they come to judge the conduct of SCAF in the transitional period that followed January 25 revolution.

AT:  In the months since the occupation of Tahrir Square ended, have there been any changes meaningful to Egyptians?

AE: Though a lot of things have remained the same if not for the worse, I would say that the only thing that really changed in the life of Egyptians is their ability to say NO to anything and anyone. And also to vote freely, as we all have witnessed the huge turnout for the first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections.

The Egyptian people broke the fear barrier and this, for people who have been enduring under tyranny for centuries, is quite an achievement. Moreover, I truly believe that once placed on the path of real democracy, the whole world will witness a new and amazingly different Egypt.

AT: Since the demonstrations ended in February, thousands of people have been arrested and tried before military tribunals, yet throughout the occupation of Tahrir Square there appeared to be good relations between the protesters and the security forces.  What caused these widespread arrests and are they continuing?

AE: As I mentioned before, many of the Tahrir activists viewed the stance of the military with suspicion and as days went by it became obvious that the generals were trying to give the old regime a comeback chance. The scenario of chaos and sectarian violence that Mubarak threatened would engulf the country if he was to step down was beginning to be unleashed.

Shortly after the toppling of Mubarak, Egypt began to witness months of unrest, economic plunge, lack of security forces on the street, sectarian violence and a series of churches attacks which culminated in the lethal clashes with a Coptic rally on October 9 that left 27 killed by the military forces in what is now known as the Maspero massacre.

But this was not what the revolutionary youths and activists demanded when they initiated the January uprising. This was not why people got killed in the protests. The people didn’t topple Mubarak to have a military dictatorship instead.

So this is why the honeymoon with the military didn’t last and it wasn’t long before many activists began to point the finger at SCAF for all the scenarios aimed at thwarting the revolution tide. And it wasn’t long either before the thousands – almost 15,000 according to Human Rights Watch – were thrown behind bars and tried before military tribunals until this very day.

AT:  Protesters have again taken to the streets of Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt, and the police are responding, thus far killing over 30 people. What has prompted this, and what do you anticipate happening as a result?

AE:   According to the counter-revolution plan, which the United States fully backed, the military was supposed to grab the power permanently. To set the stage for such scenario, the military in the last ten months has done everything possible not only to thwart the advance of the revolution but to turn the Egyptians against the idea itself as the plan augmented the sense of vulnerability and insecurity of the average Egyptian citizen and cunningly linked it to the revolution.

And just when the generals thought they had managed to hijack the revolution, they were in for a big surprise.

Emboldened by the power they’ve got and by the American support, the generals dared to propose a new draft for a constitution that could only pave the way for a military fascism and this is where they went wrong.  This blatant exploitation on part of the military council triggered the pouring of thousands into Tahrir Square once again in what is now dubbed “the second revolution”.

AT:  The military council is now promising presidential elections before July of 2012.  Is this a satisfactory response to the current uprising? Will the Egyptian people accept this or will they view it as an attempt by the military to divert world attention from its ongoing crackdown? Furthermore, do Egyptians accept the military as a caretaker government? 

AE: Egyptians didn’t flock back to Tahrir Square to demand elections. The protesters in Tahrir Square have made it clear that they don’t want the military council as a caretaker and moreover they insist that the council should step aside and hand over power to a civilian salvation government. In January the protesters in Tahrir Square wanted Mubarak to step down, and in November they wanted the military to step aside.

AT:  Were you surprised to hear the US State Department initially praising the “exercise of self-restraint and professionalism” of the Egyptian security forces with respect to the present demonstrations?

AE:  There seems to be a growing number of people in and around the Tahrir Square angry at being fired on by weapons supplied from countries like the US, making nice noises about democracy and restraint in Egypt. The US government and its weapon companies continue to supply tools of repression, usually for profit, to those who they well know will use them to violate human rights and repress their own citizens.

So once again the unexpected course of the Egyptian revolution – and contrary to the conspiracy theorists who view the Arab revolutions as orchestrated by the CIA & the neo-cons – has exposed the flagrant American double standards in the Middle East and especially in regard to the Arab spring.

The mere fact that protesters refused to meet Mrs. Clinton, the American secretary of state, on her first visit to Cairo after the ouster of Mubarak should tell us how the revolutionary youths of Egypt view the United States’ stance on their revolution.

AT: Do you see a connection between the Egyptian military and possible US and Israel future plans for Egypt?    

AE: I doubt the Egyptian military would undertake any move that could jeopardize its patriotic history, but I would certainly be relieved if this current top command of Egypt military could be replaced soon.  No matter how we look at it, those generals of Egypt military council are part of the old regime.

Indeed our reading into the current turmoil and change gripping Egypt and the rest of the Arab world is bound to open our eyes to a brand new Arab world in the making right now – but not the Condoleezza Rice’s new Middle East. New forces are emerging and the United States will soon have to relinquish its old diplomacy in Middle East that relied mainly on the so called strong allies/dictators and try to prepare for the rise of a new political front – most probably of Islamists – that will rule in Tunisia, Libya, and Cairo and maybe Syria.

AT:  What is happening in Egypt today, and what is the mood of the people?

AE: The parliamentary polls opened amid escalating protests that reject the newly appointed prime minister and a build-up of public opinion that demands the generals must go back to their barracks. The general mood is split between the youths who seem determined to take the revolution to the farthest limit and the older generation who believe that stability and compromise is what the country needs right now.  It is split between the conservative front who thinks it is time we gave our support for the Muslim Brotherhood (the longtime outlawed Islamist political group) and the liberal groups who, despite their modest preliminary showing in the parliamentary polls, believe that we should separate the mosque from the state.

In that sense, you could say the current struggle is between the old and the new or the past and future; in other words, between the conservatives and the liberals. But I don’t think Egypt, the land of moderate Islam and the liberal hub of the Arab world, will get lost as long as the Tahrir Square spirit remains with us.

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!

An example: During a meeting of environmentalists about shaping the public conversation on our most pressing ecological crises, folks were wrestling with how to present an honest analysis in accessible language — how to talk about the bad news and the need for radical responses, without turning people off. During the discussion about the effects of climate change, Wright offered a simple suggestion for a slogan: “No more water, the fire next time.”

Those words from a black spiritual, made famous by James Baldwin’s borrowing for his 1963 book The Fire Next Time, are usually invoked metaphorically. Wright was suggesting that we might want to consider the phrase literally. After a summer of drought and forest fires in Texas where I live, Wright’s comment reminded me that climate disruption isn’t part of some science-fiction future, but is unfolding around us in ways that are both complex and hard to predict, but devastating simple: We’re in deep trouble, ecologically and culturally, as we try to face up to unprecedented planetary problems in a society in denial.

Wright is one of our most astute observers of these troubles. His willingness to face these issues, and his ability to grasp the interplay of complex systems, is no surprise to readers of his book The Death of Ramon Gonzalez: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma, first published in 1990 and revised for a 2005 edition. Looking at one region in Mexico, Wright explains how political and economic power, combined with the arrogance of experts who believe they have all the answers, have radically changed people, communities, and land — mostly for the worse.

Though Wright speaks bluntly about these grim realities, he hasn’t given up trying to change the trajectory of a society that so often denies or minimizes the threat. A retired professor of environmental studies at California State University, Sacramento, Wright is the chair of the board of The Land Institute, which is committed to the research and organizing necessary for a truly sustainable agriculture. His writing also focuses on those issues — he is co-author of To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement in the Struggle for a New Brazil (with Wendy Wolford) and Nature’s Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation, and Food Sovereignty (with Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer).

Because Wright has a knack for presenting complex ideas in plain language, I asked him to respond to some crucial questions about how to understand our predicament and options. Can we face reality honestly without feeling overwhelmed? Wright suggests we can.

Robert Jensen: Your invocation of “the fire next time,” with its Biblical roots, suggests a moral warning and the potential catastrophe if we are not up to the moral task. Before we get to questions of politics and science, what do you think is the right moral framework for understanding the ecological crises?

Angus Wright: There certainly is a moral question, but I think we in the environmental movement have wasted a lot of time dealing with it at the wrong level. I get frustrated with the deep tendency of so many Americans to be more worried about the task of saving their souls rather than solving the problem. I am not as interested in the purity of intention or personal practice as I am concerned about correctly identifying the nature of problems and getting to work in an organized way to solve them.

The emphasis, for example, on whether individuals are hypocritical when their personal consumption is out of sync with their political/ecological views has been a diversion. It undermines effective organization and helps to maintain the myth that it is personal rather than collective action that really matters. When we think we are saving ourselves, we tend to become self-righteous in ways that separate us from the other people we need to work with in order to effect societal change. The important moral question is social, not individual. How do we collectively figure out ways to live that don’t require that we destroy the planet’s capacity to sustain life?

RJ: What are the two or three most important things we need to understand about humans, psychologically and politically, if we are to avoid that destruction?

AW: Humans are capable of immense creativity and sacrifice, which has been demonstrated in crisis situations such as wars, famines, migrations, and in the building and defense of homes and communities. In my work, I have been frequently reminded of the incredible sacrifices Mexican immigrants make to earn a little money to send back to their families over years, sacrifices that have both an individual and a community aspect. Many of us know how hard and how creatively our parents and ancestors worked to provide us with the lives we now take for granted. Of course, such effort can have negative as well as positive aspects — for example, the creation of the majority European culture of the Americas at the expense of Native Americans and Africans. People are also capable of stunning complacency, greed, and divisiveness.

The secret we seek is what inspires humans to act positively and creatively in the face of huge challenges. As humanity faces the environmental crisis, this is its greatest challenge: How do we elicit the kind of collective and individual action and creativity that will be needed? I think previous experience implies that it cannot be fear alone, nor opportunity alone, nor persuasion alone, nor organization alone, but a blend of these elements, with much else. We have been able to lump these things together successfully in the past in something called patriotism — a powerful force for good and ill — and now we need something like a planetary patriotism. But no planetary patriotism can be built without acknowledging and dealing with the major things that divide us as well as the challenge that must unite us. Putting on a happy face won’t cut it.

RJ: If we have a considerable body of knowledge concerning the seriousness of the ecological crises and we have the capacity to respond to threats, what are the key impediments to change? Is the problem in the political leadership of recent decades? The economic system? Something we can’t yet identify?

AW: One problem is an economic system that impels each company within it to pursue growth — each company must seek new investment funds by demonstrating greater growth potential than its competitors. Another problem is a political system that is so heavily corrupted by corporate cash, exacerbated by the absurd legal fiction that a corporation is a person with constitutional rights to free speech. Without those problems, we could have the kind of largely publicly funded campaigns adopted by other countries. I also think that for all its virtues, the constitutional checks and balances built into our system have brought us to gridlock — we really might want to consider the advantages of a parliamentary system in which the executive branch is headed by the leader of the majority party, as in England and many other parliamentary democracies.

We have to be enlightened enough to take aggressive and expensive actions primarily for the benefit of our children and grandchildren. While individuals and families have been able to do this throughout history, it has proven very difficult for whole societies to do so. All these barriers are so daunting that we become overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it all. Here we face fundamental philosophical and psychological problems at both the individual and collective levels.

RJ: You said the solutions aren’t going to be individual. But how do you evaluate the efforts of people who focus on their everyday lives? That can range from being diligent about recycling, to buying “green,” to biking to work, to planting a vegetable garden. If we don’t naively believe those things can solve all our problems, are they worth doing?

AW: Our most important problems can only be solved by collective action — new policies and laws taken by government. That requires that we act, above all, as citizens. I have watched over the past 40 years as nearly every important institution in our society has gradually shifted to encouraging us to see ourselves as individuals and consumers as opposed to group participants and citizens. We are all aware of this in advertising, but it has also become a powerful trend in education and in government itself. We are encouraged to believe that we can bring the changes we need by exercising our “consumer vote” in the marketplace more effectively than by exercising our citizenship — not just in voting, but also in public debate, in participating in political parties, in the exercise of our professional judgment, in educating our children, in participation in labor unions and professional associations, in speaking out in our communities. Our “vote” through marketplace purchases can only bring about very limited change, and by thinking of ourselves more as consumers than as citizens we diminish our very dignity as human beings. We become a mouth that eats rather than a voice that speaks.

That said, I am all for making the changes at the individual level that can help to create a culture of frugality, help us realize that we don’t really need the great quantity of junk our civilization produces, help us understand that we can make major social changes while actually improving our lives. Most of us want sociability and conviviality more than we want consumer goods. We can set a good example for others by showing that we can live more happily by consuming less. All of this can also help us live within a discipline of conscious choice rather than of allowing advertising to manipulate us.

RJ: In my experience, academics tend to focus on narrow questions they think they can answer. You seem to gravitate toward big questions that defy definitive conclusions. I wonder if that’s because of your training and teaching — you’re a historian who taught environmental studies. We might say that the object of your inquiry has been everything that happened before today, and the interconnectedness of everything happening today. What lessons have you learned about intellectual life from your career?

AW: When Wes Jackson (president of The Land Institute) recruited me to help him create an environmental studies program at Cal State-Sacramento, I was the all-purpose humanities and social science person in a small core faculty. I learned all I could from Wes about biology and genetics, and from other colleagues about oil and mineral depletion, nuclear power, city and regional planning, environmental law. It was a wonderful kind of second graduate school experience that lasted through an entire career.

I had always been attracted academically to what might be called the “pan-disciplines” such as geography, anthropology, and history, disciplines that can reasonably take on almost any topic in human affairs. Salina, our small Kansas city, was known nationally for having one of the best public libraries of its size, and I spent a lot of time camped out in its stacks. My parents — intensely intellectual people who were too poor to go to college — assumed that any reasonable and moral person would be interested in nearly everything, and they hadn’t been beaten into submission by professors to think differently. They were good models who were eager for knowledge of all kinds. They were looking for clear words and straightforward thinking, and they assumed that good thinking led to social responsibility and political action, to which they were dedicated.

RJ: Thinking about that need for clarity, one last question. As an environmentalist, you can’t ignore the stark reality of the data about our ecological crises. As a historian, you can’t ignore the record of human successes and failures. When you weigh all that up, what advice do you have for how we should face the future? Many people find it hard to face the changes that are likely coming, which I once heard you describe as “dramatic and potentially highly unpleasant.” Are we facing “the fire next time”? Is there a way out of the trap we’ve set for ourselves?

AW: I don’t know if there is a way out, but we have to try. My own expectations are pessimistic because I don’t see enough people having sufficient awareness, understanding, and determination to bring about the major changes we need.

And of course, contradicting what I just said, we don’t really have to try. We only really have to try if we want to maintain our self-respect. If we want to stumble forward drunk while whistling in the dark, we could choose that. I maintain a certain faith that many people are going to make the right choices, and we can hope that is enough. I think Gramsci had it right when he said that he lived with “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” And you have to take that seriously from a guy who wrote while in prison for his political beliefs.

Denmark elected a staunch right winger as prime minister. Denmark joined in military attacks with imperialist states against weaker states. I turned to journalist Ron Ridenour, who lives in Denmark, to give a first-hand voice to what is taking place.

I support revolution against occupation, oppression, exploitation; however, I hold that the long-term viability of a revolution must be rooted in the people — not in a personality. Therefore, I have reservations about “leaders” — for example, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez — who (besides implementing socialism for the masses) seemingly covet the esteem, if not the perks, of governmental office. Ridenour speaks Spanish, has lived in Cuba, written many books about the revolution there, so he is an informed go-to person for reflections on the revolution there and elsewhere.

Ridenour, notably, has also given voice to the very marginalized plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, has long been active in journalism, has his own website, and in his own words, “Besides using words in an effort to eradicate racism, inequality and wars, I have been an activist against wars, racism, chauvinism and for socialist solidarity.”

This week, I interviewed Ridenour about Denmark, Cuba, and the leaderless revolutionary stirrings against the financial elitists.

Kim Petersen: Denmark is supposed to be a peace-loving state with an envious social safety net. You pointed out in a recent article that the Danish political landscape has slanted rightwards? What caused this? And how can progressivist politics become predominant?

Ron Ridenour: The causes are several, both historical and contemporary. Leftist parties and unionists in Denmark, like people in most of the world, lost faith and hope in socialist-communist solutions due to the atrocities and corruption of Communist parties in power, and then with the fall of those governments in eastern Europe. Even those governments still calling themselves communists base their economies on capitalism today.

One of the main problems of nearly all leftist parties and governments is that they do not believe that the mass—unionists, unemployed, family farmers, students—are actually capable of ruling “sensibly.” One of the best of benevolent “dictators,” Fidel Castro, does not believe such either. Most leaders believe in themselves and not the mass. So, in fact, real socialism has yet to be attempted. No party in power has ever really begun the process of educating workers+ to use political power and then turning over power to the working class, as our ideology calls for.

Another factor, especially Danish, is a national inferiority complex. That is, “We’re just a little country, you know,” so we can’t expect to run things ourselves. This was actually a folksy saying of one of Denmark’s best known politicians, Erhard Jacobsen. For decades, Denmark relied upon Germany and since WWII it relies on the US, first for its economic Marshall Plan and since for its military might. And today Denmark is not a peace-loving state. It is involved in four wars alongside its Big Daddy.

Then there is the national complex of indifference, or “ligegladhed.” There has been a lot of charitable giving of money to the poor abroad but little engagement or true solidarity. Even the left-ish parliamentary party, Unity List (Enhedslisten), opposes support for opponents of the terrorist terror laws, or for armed resistance by the invaded of US-NATO wars.

One can never answer fully what causes policy without taking the economy into account. Danes still live comfortably economically, almost all, in relationship with others even European neighbors. I think that the left parties rely on parliamentarian politics because of this. They do not believe that significant numbers of people will actually support grass roots radical struggles. And the unions long ago aligned themselves with capitalist reformism and oppose extra-parliamentary struggles, including sustaining strikes, of any consequence. Why risk being arrested, losing your job and then your mortgage, your car or one of them simply to do the “right thing”?

How can progressive (?) politics become predominant? Well, if progressive means pushing for reformist policies within capitalism that is becoming dominant now for the two Danish so-called socialist parties in parliament. (Unity List and People’s Party/SF), and it has been so for the major Social Democratic party for decades. But if progressive means radical, then the economy has to collapse, or when it is in deep crises as it is now, then grass roots groups have to take to the streets and stay there just as is possibly happening with Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Uproar, perhaps in Spain and Greece. We have to kick the parliamentary-based politics out of our movements. We have to feel the power in ourselves and push the politicians out.

Yes, there must also be strong unions and workers must strike and/or join Occupy Wall Street. Radical-revolutionary political parties must educate and protest with sensible and morally just programs. They should not act against the more autonomous oriented grass roots groups but in parallel.

KP: This touches on the previous questions, in many countries, people scoffed that Americans could “elect” a born-again, foot-in-mouth, right-winger such as George W. Bush as president. Yet Canadians soon found themselves with Prime Minister Stephen Harper (a man to the right of Bush), and Danes wound up with Anders Fogh Rasmussen as prime minister (also a hawkish right-winger). Why do you think this is happening in much of the western world?

RR: Precisely because the left gave up actually being left. It was too difficult and most got too comfortable within the capitalist system. The left adopted the bourgeois democratic premise of making policy within parliaments whose role is to protect finance power. In Copenhagen, Wall Street is Børsen and its building is literally next door to parliament and the executive government.

When finance crises occur, you only have two sources to acquire money to pay for it: from the workers-pensioners-students or from the owners of capital and industry. The latter approach would mean that the rich will refuse to pay for their crises and so, you must nationalize their “private” property, that is, the production centers where wealth originates and the banks that manipulate the wealth for a few. But that takes guts, struggle, sacrifice.

PM Fogh Rasmussen was awarded the greater job of being the commander of NATO. He is loved by the warmongers on Wall Street and the Pentagon, and hated by the peoples who are invaded, but all the parliamentary parties here congratulated him. He should have been ostracized as well as the biggest of capitalists here, AP Møller-Mærsk, the world’s biggest shipper and a major warmonger. Instead his supermarkets, which take in half the food sales, are much of the left’s favorite stores because they are cheap.

We have to find that indignation that many Arabs have found, that some Spanish and Greeks are finding, that is part of OWS, and that us oldies had in the 60s-70s. We have to practice what we preach. Boycott the worst companies (like Mærsk and Coca-Cola…). Go on strike. Refuse to do the system’s bidding. Find our inner strength and alternative life styles. Act in solidarity with the oppressed-exploited-invaded.

KP: The progressivist image of Denmark is further diminished now with its participation in the NATO (currently headed by Fogh Rasmussen) invasion of a sovereign state. There are reports of Danish troops engaging in torture and massacres. How do you read this playing out on the streets in Denmark?

RR: Unfortunately, nothing is happening regarding these atrocities. There is one small group of pacifists who conduct a vigil in front of parliament daily since the beginning of the war against Afghanistan. But it is more of a curiosity than a threat. The anti-war movement died, in part because the Unity party dropped out of protesting because its leaders wanted “influence” with lucrative jobs in parliament. And the climate movement has so far refused to take up wars as part of their anti-pollution protests albeit wars are a major cause of pollution and adverse climate changes. I think they are just too scared of being accused of being outsiders or radicals….

KP: You hinted at a “shaky future” for the Cuban revolution. Do you see Cuba falling further away from the socialism won through the revolution? Who will stand to benefit (or lose) from Cuba’s opening to capitalism?

RR: Yes, I am afraid that what I foresaw in that piece nearly a year ago it occurring rapidly now. More and more openings for capitalism have been adopted even before the Communist party national conference body has met and decided on precise policies to propose to the state. Raul Castro as both leader of the state and the party, following his brother, has already decided. Now, private property (housing) can be bought and sold; cars can be bought in hard currency at big prices, which very few Cubans can acquire legitimately; small enterprises are encouraged to employ workers, and thereby opening up officially for exploitation of labor.

Who will benefit is a new class of small capitalists and real estate hustlers, and speculation will become widespread. Relatives of Cubans in Miami and Spain will be even more privileged than those Cubans without such remittances. Wall Street will benefit in the end, because the blockade against Cuba will be lifted in the not distant future. Other Wall Streets in the world already benefit.

KP: In a summer article on the state of the revolution in Cuba, you defined ethics partially as “We act so that no one person, race or ethnic group is either over or under another.” You added, “We struggle to create equality for all.” If, indeed, the revolution is a revolution of the people and not about a personality or personalities, what does the unbroken political “leadership” of Fidel Castro from 1959 to 2008 speak to such ethics?

You also quoted from Che that “one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into an isolation from the masses.”

In general I support much of what Fidel Castro has helped to bring about in Cuba, but I find that his one-man leadership of the revolution is dangerous in that it embeds the revolution in a person (in this case in a family) rather than in the people. Is Fidel Castro the only person besides his brother fit to “lead” (and do the people require a leader?) the revolution for Cubans?

RR: The points you quote from my piece and your question are part of dialogue, both fraternal and violently hostile, the non/anti-capitalist left has had for more than a century. In my own view, after half a century of struggle and thought that also embraces these points, my conclusion is NO to your question. And that, of course, holds true for Hugo Chavez (and all other leaders), albeit most of the left in Venezuela, as well as a large sector of the general population, believes Chavez is unique and most be their one and only leader for, perhaps, a lifetime. That was also the case with the Cuban people and Fidel for the first decade or so. Well, that is what the Arab uproar wants to end, albeit those gruesome dictators cannot be compared to the kind-hearted Fidel.

The main problem with one leader syndrome is that it saps the vision, inspiration and energy from the mass. I have seen this happening before my eyes during the eight years I worked in Cuba and lived with the people. They lost hope that socialism could actually be the best solution when they always had to wait for answers/permission/resources/materials from above. The same happened in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Now it has come to past that most Cubans, I think, really don’t believe socialism is worthwhile and they want a chance to try supply-demand marketing. This will split the people into classes and further antagonize the true solidarity amongst themselves and with other peoples that they had assiduously built. And that is the essence of what Che meant in the cited quotation—the state and the party have become isolated from the mass and they see no other way out than capitalism with some bourgeois democratic-oriented reforms, such as what the big powers are endeavoring to impose on the Arab rebellion.

Another major mistake that Cuban leaders made is not separating some powers between the state and the Communist party. As the unity strategy goes in Cuba when the state makes a policy for short-term economic benefit or for some diplomatic reason—such as backing the genocidal, brutal governments of Sri Lanka against the entire Tamil population—the party is disallowed from criticizing this or for showing solidarity with, for instance, the much discriminated-against Tamils.

KP: There is growing dissent in the United States, but it is marginalized and propagandized in the corporate media (nothing surprising there). The Occupy Wall Street movement in the US seems to be gathering momentum, having staying power, and perhaps causing ripples in the system. If the grassroots activism proves influential in the US, how do you think this might affect Europe?

RR: I see that 66% of the people Gallop polled in the US want the rich to be appropriately taxed, and 54% want all politicians out of a job. It is that spirit that has to take root, and that is growing in Europe too.

The most important and radical elements in these protests are that they are 1) anti-capitalist, 2) not led by self-interest seeking persons or parties. In fact, OWS is more radical than what we created in the 60s-70s, because it is primarily aimed at the true enemy: capitalism, which is the main cause for adverse climate changes and aggressive wars.

The first solidarity demos with OWS in Denmark are taking place Saturday (October 15) alongside hundreds other cities in scores of lands. This initiative was taken by the indignados in Spain. There, and in other countries on the verge of bankruptcy such as Greece, there is greater potential for sustained radical movements than there is right now in Scandinavia and Germany. But this economic crisis will not just melt any time soon—a spell of anger is mounting. I think in a few European countries protests will arise and continue sporadically, at least.
I see it as a positive development, in fact, that in the recent Danish election, the so-called red block won and with it the Unity party and SF have dropped key programmatic elements of any socialist nature. I think the Unity Party/SF sellout will help create a backlash that could become a true protest movement. But we must also recognize that too few people are really hurting enough economically here to cause them to develop a real sustained fight. I hope I’m wrong.

In Denmark, we must not go to a demo to hear jazz music and a handful of “leaders” speak and then go home to TV or to a cafe for beer and wine. We must find that inner indignation and with it empower ourselves. We must develop leadership in all of us. We must take over tactical areas and stay there. We have one big problem, even greater than the might of police brutality, and that is the weather. Already temperatures are falling to freezing in the evenings in some of Europe and in NYC it is getting cold too. We might have to postpone our staying power over the cold, raining, snowy winter months and return in even greater numbers and strength in the spring.

I close with a quote from Naomi Klein’s talk at Wall Street, October 6. “We have picked a fight with the most powerful economic and political forces on the planet. That’s frightening… Always be aware that there will be a temptation to shift to smaller targets… Don’t give in to that temptation… Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is the most important thing in the world.” “It is!” and she points to her favorite sign: “I care about you!”

Further south in the Americas, civil society organization over the past decade brought social movement leaders to state power and marginalized peoples’ rights to national agendas. In this interview, Uruguayan intellectual and journalist, Raúl Zibechi, gives us a South American perspective of the momentous changes taking place globally, through a focus on the inaugural mobilizations in the Middle East. As the Occupy Wall Street protests gain ground, U.S. activists may well engage with such locally rooted yet transnational conversations aimed at the transformation of globalized power structures.

Raúl Zibechi is one of the foremost political theorists writing on, and working with, social movements in Latin America. His work combines acute, generative and ethical analyses of socio-political developments in Latin America with collaborative efforts to support grassroots transformation in the region. He is international section editor of the acclaimed Uruguayan weekly Brecha, lecturer and researcher with the Multiversidad Fransiscana de América Latina and a regular contributor to the Americas Policy Program and to La Jornada in Mexico. His recent books include Dispersing Power (2006, English translation 2010) and Territorios en Resistencia (2008). In order to contextualize the following interview with Zibechi in his wider body of work, our conversation is interspersed with selected translations from some of his essays previously available only in Spanish.

From “The Revolutions of Ordinary People”

(First published in La Jornada, 03 June 2011. Translation of entire article available here.)

The inherited and still hegemonic conception of revolution must be revised, and, in fact, is being revised by current events. Revolution as exclusively focused on the capture of state power is being replaced by another concept of revolution, more complex and integral, which does not exclude a state-centred strategy but supersedes and goes beyond it. In any case, the conquest of state power is a bend in a far longer trajectory, one which seeks something that cannot be achieved from within state institutions: to create a new world.

Traditional politics – anchored in forms of representation that replace collective subjects with managerial professionals, professionals of deception – are of little use in the creation of a new world. Instead, a new world that is different from the current one implies rehearsing and experimenting with horizontal social relations, in sovereign, self-controlled and autonomous spaces, in which no one imposes on or directs the collective…

Beyond their diverse circumstances, the Tahrir Square and Puerta del Sol movements in Cairo and in Madrid, form part of the genealogy of “All of them must go!” declared in the 2001 Argentinian revolt, the 2000 Cochabamba Water War, the 2003 and 2005 Bolivian Gas Wars and the 2006 Oaxaca commune, to mention only the urban cases. These movements all share two characteristics: the curbing of those in power and the opening of spaces for direct democracy and collective participation without representatives.

Cristina Cielo: Is such a concept of revolution based on horizontal relations similar to Hardt and Negri’s concept of the multitude? What is the difference between their multitude and your idea of dispersed power?

Raúl Zibechi: Hardt and Negri’s multitude is linked to post-Fordism and to non-material work in cognitive capitalism. This mode of production is still in the minority in Latin America and I believe in the Arab world as well. So while it is interesting, their idea of multitude cannot be employed to understand what is happening here. My take on the collective is quite different. We live in societies that are “variegated”, an interesting concept developed by the Bolivian René Zavaleta Mercado to describe social relations in his country. These are societies in which many different types of traditional and modern social relations co-exist.

The best example of this is the Andean market, or the urban market in the peripheries of cities like Buenos Aires. These are spaces in which many families live together in a small area, with various businesses that combine production and sales in different fields, with diverse modes of employment – familial, salaried, in kind, commissioned – that is, a “variegated” mode that implies diverse and complex social relations that are interwoven and combined. In this way, if one of these relationships is modified, the rest are as well…

My proposal of “dispersing power” is rooted in communities in movement, non-formal communities, which, once set into motion, can disperse state power. How? Simply because they are composed of mobile powers… These cannot confront the state frontally, because they are annihilated. They surround it, embrace it, paralyse it, penetrate it subtly. That is what we saw in Tahrir when protesters slept under tanks, when women approached soldiers.

CC: Reports on Tunisia and Egypt’s uprisings emphasized the use of Facebook, Twitter and the internet as media for the horizontal organization of the protests. Your own work has focused on the territorial character of Latin American social movements. What are the implications of the differences between the virtual spaces of Arab mobilizations and the physical territories of the Latin American movements?

RZ: I don’t believe in virtual spaces. Spaces are always material as well as symbolic. It’s another matter to speak of virtual media of communication among people in movement…. For me, territories are those places in which life is lived in an integral sense, they are settlements, as we say in Latin America. These have existed for a long time in rural areas: indigenous communities or settlements of Brazil’s Landless Movement, ancestral lands or lands recuperated in the struggle.

What was new in the 1970s onward was the proliferation of urban land occupations. In some cities, more that 70% of urban land, and therefore of households, are illegal yet legitimate occupations. In some cases, this marks the beginning of another type of social organization, in which semi-craftwork production – including urban gardens – is combined with popular markets and informal modes of distribution. In the decisive moments of struggles against the State or at times of profound crisis, these territories become “resistor territories,” that is, spaces that are in some senses liberated from state power and from which challenges to the system may be launched.

CC: What is the importance of urban spaces in popular mobilizations?

RZ: There is a double use of spaces. One is the daily spaces of the neighbourhoods, the markets, all the spaces of daily socialization. The other is the space of protest, the mega-space such as Tahrir Square in Cairo or the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. These spaces are occupied for a time, sometimes for longer periods such as the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, but they are not permanent spaces in which people live their daily lives, because they have to go to work, go home to sleep, etc.

It seems to me necessary to make this distinction and at the same time to establish links between both kinds of urban spaces. I agree with James Scott’s point that people tend to “rehearse” their public actions in spaces that are distant from power, spaces that they can control and in which they feel secure. In contemporary cities, those spaces are the markets, the churches or mosques, social or cultural clubs, youth gangs. It is important to understand what is happening in those spaces, because it is from there that people come out to take Tahrir Square. It is in those spaces that powerful rebellions are spun, that is why they are so important. And, of course, the family. The changes in family, the role of women, of children, the number of children, all of these are indications of what is to come. I don’t believe that great popular uprisings can take place without some shift in the role of patriarchy in the home.

From “This is No Time to be Given to Distraction”

(First published in La Jornada, 25 February 2011. Translation of entire article available here)

With the Arab revolts, the global systemic crisis enters a new phase, more unpredictable and increasingly beyond control. Until now, the main actors have been the financial oligarchs, the powerful multinationals and the leading governments, particularly the United States and China, followed at some distance by institutions such as the G-20. Now, as popular sectors around the world enter the scene, a momentous shift has taken place. It implies a deepening and speeding up of the global transformations taking place…

The activation of popular sectors modifies our analytic axes, and above all, imposes ethical choices. The scenarios of inter-state relations will increasingly collide with the scenarios of emancipatory struggles…

We are entering into a period of systemic chaos that at some moment will shed light on a new order, perhaps better, perhaps worse than the capitalist order. That system was born with the demographic catastrophe of the Black Plague, which killed a third of the European population over the span of a few years. It will not surrender on tiptoes and with fine manners, but rather in the midst of chaos and barbarity, as with Gaddafi’s regime.

From “The Arab Revolts and Strategic Thinking”

(First published in America Latina en movimiento, 4 February 2011. Translation of entire article available here)

It is a matter of understanding the lines of force, the relations of power, the strong and weak points in international relations understood as a system. It is like understanding that the bricks on a wall are what sustains the structure; if these bricks are removed or affected, the whole building – despite its appearance of stability – may tumble….

To say we are traversing a systemic crisis, however, is not to say that the capitalist system is in a terminal crisis. The point, rather, is that the international system will not continue to function as it has since its last great re-structuring, which took place more or less in 1945, at the end of the Second World War. While systemic analyses do not pretend to specify exact dates for such profound changes, they do indicate stages characterized by important tendencies. For example: the crisis of U.S. hegemony. [Some of these systemic shifts include] not only the decline of U.S. power, but also the growth of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China, to which South Africa has now been added). Turkey’s geopolitical shifts have also been noted, as it has slowly abandoned Washington’s sphere of influence. But the Arab revolts constitute a pronounced turn of the screw.

CC: Why has the coverage of events in the Middle East portrayed these as ‘revolts’, ‘rebellions’ or ‘uprisings’ rather than as social movements, as popular mobilizations in Latin America tend to be portrayed?

RZ: Social movement is a Eurocentric concept that has been useful in describing what happens in homogeneous societies that revolve around the capitalist market in which there is one basic form of social relations. In Latin America, the concept has and is used by academic intellectuals whose perspective is external to popular sector organization. If they were on the inside, they would see that, in fact, there are two societies: the official one, of the upper and middle-upper classes, and the other society, the informal one, of use values and of the popular sectors. When I say that there are two societies, I mean to say that each of these is shaped by different types of social relations, and as such, by diverse relationships of power. That is why when the alternative, popular society sets itself into action, it makes more sense to speak of societies in movement, or alternative societies in movement, rather than of social movements. The difference is critical.

In any case, I suspect that in the Arab case the international media has not spoken of social movements because of issues of racism, of colonialism, as if it takes some level of modernity – which they don’t consider the Middle Eastern people to have achieved – to have a so-called civil society, which is also a Eurocentric construction. I prefer to speak, along with Partha Chaterjee, of political society, because it is only by doing politics that it can exist.

CC: If socio-political transformations in different regions point to a global systemic crisis, how do particular events in one region influence the processes or possibilities in other regions? That is, are there ways in which such diverse and disperse forces can transform each other, or transform into something else?

RZ: Fundamental processes and situational junctures respond to different logics and views. There is no mechanical relation between the two; rather, we must focus our attention on the longer processes, and insert events into those, as Braudel taught us. The fundamental tendency is: a crisis of the centre-periphery relationship, a crisis of U.S. domination and of the unipolar world, and now, also, a crisis in Western hegemony. In this transition, which has been taking place over the last four decades, we must insert current processes.

What I mean to say is that the Arab and Latin American revolts disrupt previous equilibriums, or better said, they accelerate the processes of the crises of older structures. And when there are cracks in the imperial Occidental construction, emergent tendencies are strengthened: for example, China, India, Brazil. At the same time, we can register changes in micro structures such as the family, school, health system, the city itself; that is, in spaces of discipline that are undergoing very powerful transformations. Macro and micro transformations must be jointly examined, included within the same description. If we do that, we see a world in movement, one that enters into situations of systemic chaos at particular moments, such as the present one. We do not know what will come, but we are sure that it will be very different. All the cards say: Asia, multipolarity, emergent nations. I hope that some of the cards also say emancipation, but nothing is certain.

From “Everything Solid Melts into the Street”

(First published in America Latina en movimiento, 15 February 2011. Translation of entire article available here)

The people in the street are a spanner in the works in the accumulation of capital, which is why one of the first “measures” taken by the military after Mubarak left was to demand that citizens abandon the street and return to work. But if those in power cannot co-exist with the streets and occupied squares, those below – who have learned to topple Pharaohs – have not yet learned how to jam the flows and movements of capital. Something much more complex is needed than blocking tanks or dispersing anti-riot police. In contrast to state apparatuses, capital flows without territory, so it is impossible to pin down and confront. Still further: it traverses us, it models our bodies and behaviours, it is part of our everyday lives and, as Foucault pointed out, it shares our beds and our dreams. Although there is an outside to the State and its institutions, it is difficult to imagine an outside to capital. Neither barricades nor revolts will suffice to fight it.

Despite these limitations, the hunger revolts that became anti-authoritarian revolts are a depth charge to the most important equilibriums of the world system. These will not remain unscathed by the destabilization in the Middle East… We are entering into a period of uncertainty and increasing disorder. In South America, the emergent power of Brazil has assembled a regional architecture as an alternative to the one that has begun to collapse. Everything suggests, however, that things will be far more complicated in the Middle East, given the enormous political and social polarization in the region, the ferocious interstate competition and because both the United States and Israel believe that their future depends on sustaining realities that can, in fact, no longer be propped up.

The Middle East brings together some of the most brutal contradictions of the contemporary world. Firstly, there are determined efforts to sustain an outdated unilateralism. Secondly, it is the region where the principal tendency of the contemporary world is most visible: the brutal concentration of power and wealth…. It is possible that the Arab revolts may open a fissure in the colossal concentration of power [which] has been manifest in the region since the Second World War.

Only time will tell if what is brewing is a tsunami so powerful that not even the Pentagon will be able to surf its waves. But we mustn’t forget that tsunamis make no distinctions: they sweep up rights and lefts, the just and the sinners, the rebels and the conservatives. Nevertheless, they are in many ways similar to revolutions: they leave nothing in their place and they provoke enormous suffering before things return to some kind of normalcy, better perhaps than before, or maybe just less bad.

Recently I interviewed Christine about her new book, which details the plight of an Alaska Eskimo community struggling to save their land that is disappearing as a result of climate change.

Joshua Frank: Christine, what prompted you to investigate what is happening to the people of Kivalina?

Christine Shearer:  A few things. In 2007, I was part of this interdisciplinary research project at UC Santa Barbara, assessing the biggest “human impacts” to marine ecosystems. To do this we collected data from over a hundred scientists. And it really started to hit me how severe climate change is, particularly how quickly it is happening.

Also, I recently remembered this: we also went to get data from indigenous fishers, to include their traditional knowledge. So I went to a Native American reservation in the state of Washington and handed one of the fishers there this really complicated survey tool we had developed, and he was just kind of like, ‘What is this?’ And rather than fill it out, he walked me to the shoreline and showed me how the water was lapping at one of their buildings and said, ‘This is the biggest problem.’ He was talking about sea level rise.

And so one night I was in an environmental law class, and the teacher read a news headline about this lawsuit, this tiny Alaska Native village suing fossil fuel companies for damaging their homeland and creating a false debate about climate change, and I just knew I had to write about it.

JF: So you traveled up to visit these people? Can you tell us a little about their culture and history?

CS: They are Inupiat, tracing their ancestry to the northwest Arctic back thousands of years. They are fishers and whalers and live mainly off subsistence, and are pretty cued into the land and its rhythms, because they rely on it for their needs. So the changes in the Arctic have been pretty hard on them – making traveling and hunting more dangerous because the ice is thinning – let alone now that the small barrier island they are located on is eroding away.

I did not know much about the area before going, so I did a lot of reading in the Kivalina school library of their oral histories while there, and also asked questions. I was probably annoying, but they were always incredibly open and friendly, inviting me into their homes, happy to talk and share. When you think about how they live and have lived, it’s pretty amazing, and you can see how the strong social and community bonds would help them survive. The Arctic is not for wimps.

JF: You write about Kivalina’s grievances against ExxonMobil. What prompted it and where does the fight currently stand?

CS: Yeah, the reason the island is eroding is because of warming Arctic temperatures — sea ice now forms later and later in the year, leaving the shoreline vulnerable to erosion from storms. In 1992, Kivalina residents voted to move, and in 2003 and 2006, U.S. government reports said Kivalina had to be relocated within the next ten to fifteen years, due to erosion from warming temperatures.

Around the time of the government reports an environmental justice lawyer – Luke Cole – was working with Kivalina residents because their water was being polluted by a nearby mine. And that began the conversation about filing the climate change lawsuit, because Luke saw that the island was eroding, and the people had been trying to relocate for over a decade with little success or public attention.

So in 2008, Kivalina filed a public nuisance claim against ExxonMobil and 23 other large fossil fuel companies for their relocation costs. They also charged a smaller subset with conspiracy and concert of action for creating a false debate around climate change — Kivalina’s representation includes some lawyers that had been involved in both sides of the tobacco lawsuits.

In 2009 a judge dismissed Kivalina’s claim as a “political question” for the executive and legislative branches, and unsuitable for the judicial branch. The judge also denied Kivalina legal standing to bring the lawsuit. This meant that the secondary claims — which had to do with the climate change misinformation campaign — were thrown out without being commented on. The decision is being appealed, and Kivalina is waiting on that. In the meantime, they are still trying to relocate themselves.

JF: So who is actually to blame for what’s transpired in Kivalina? With the lawsuit against ExxonMobil, will you explain why are they being targeted here?

CS: Under public nuisance law, you can hold people or companies accountable that make a “meaningful” or “substantial” contribution to a harm. The 24 fossil fuel companies were chosen for being among the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters, while a smaller subset face claims of conspiracy and concert of action for going — in Luke Cole’s words — “above and beyond” in their efforts to try and mislead people about the science on climate change.

So, following the logic of the lawsuit: the companies are substantial contributors to the harm now facing Kivalina, and many of the companies knew of the harm they were creating, and tried to deal with it not by cutting back on emissions, but by misleading people to protect their business. Kivalina is therefore seeking damages – the cost of their needed relocation.

JF: Who is helping Kivalina relocate? What options do they have at this time to preserve their culture and integrity?

CS: There is no formal relocation policy in the U.S., and no U.S. government agency specifically tasked with helping communities relocate. So a lot of the efforts involved in trying to relocate have fallen on the people of Kivalina themselves, and they are working with different agencies at the federal, state, borough, and tribal levels to try and coordinate a relocation. Many government workers are doing what they can for Kivalina, like building a seawall, but they can only act within their prescribed roles and boundaries, which are becoming outdated with climate change.

The Government Accountability Office has recommended that a U.S. government agency be tasked with relocation — I think that would help Kivalina out immensely. But now you have Congressional representatives who don’t “believe” in climate change and are trying to cut funding for adaptation and even disaster management, which is incredibly dangerous.

JF: Is the Kivalina situation an anomaly, or is this something that is happening in other locations of the world as well, where people may also be displaced as a consequence of global warming?

CS: I think Kivalina is an anomaly in the sense that most of the discussion around the biggest impacts of climate change are usually focused on the Global South. Kivalina offers an example of how Alaska Natives in the U.S. are being heavily impacted as well, and also face inadequate resources and assistance.

But, yes, people around the world face displacement. There seems to be two types of impacts from climate change. One is the steady threat of displacement, like the people of Kivalina and other Alaska Natives facing erosion and flooding, and the small island states — although I used to think of the threat of erosion as slow, but now realize it can be quick and sudden, putting people in danger. The other type of impact is the increase in the number and severity of “extreme” weather events, like increased droughts, fires, and flooding, which may also make previously inhabited places unlivable, and cause migrations.

JF: What would you tell those who want to get involved in the issue? How can people reach out to the folks in Kivalina?

CS: Yeah, a reduction on greenhouse gas emissions — mitigation — is still very important, but communities like Kivalina show we also need to focus on adaptation policies.

I think the most important thing for Kivalina is that a government agency is tasked with relocation, and a relocation policy is put into place. This will give the people of Kivalina a blueprint for what to do and what they can do. The groups Native American Rights Fund and Three Degrees Warmer are trying to streamline the process of relocation, while human rights lawyer Robin Bronen is trying to institute a relocation policy at the international level grounded in human rights law – climigration. There might be more efforts out there. These groups could use help and support.

Also, we need to communicate to our political representatives that cuts in disaster management and adaptation — which are currently being debated — are unacceptable. The answer is smart policy, not none at all. Climate change is here, and we have to deal with it.

Banned in Vermont
By Rosemarie Jackowski
Publisher: Shire Press
Manchester, VT (2010)
Paperback, 251 pages
ISBN: 978-1-60571-100-3

Kim Petersen: The title Banned in Vermont refers to antiwar protest being banned in the state?

Rosemarie Jackowski: That and more. I really am talking about the whole issue of freedom of access to information. The problem is that when something is banned — people don’t know that it exists. When a candidate for elected office is banned from debates and forums the voters are unaware of it. This happens during every election in Vermont. Candidates are arrested if they try to participate — unless they are members of the Democratic or Republican Party. Ironically, when copies of BANNED IN VERMONT were donated to the public library, the library banned the book. In my view, that makes it more worthy of being read.

KP: Patriotism. You make a distinction between blind patriotism and informed patriotism. Yet even if people were informed about the great crimes committed by their government, wouldn’t that negate any patriotic sentiment? How can a person love a country that exists because of a genocidal past? I submit that people have to get past loving a geopolitical entity and love people wherever in the world they may live.

RJ: I agree with your thought behind this question. Maybe one can’t love a country with a genocidal past… but in that case, the highest form of patriotism might be in working toward reparations for those who have been victims. An immoral or unjust act cannot be forgiven until amends are made. This is important for the victims but also for the victimizers. I like your point about getting past loving a geopolitical entity and loving ALL people. I often make that point in the book when I say that no one should be given any privilege because of the location of his mother at the time of his birth.

KP: “Any candidate who participates in a forum, which excludes others on the ballot, shows contempt for voters and the democratic process.” What you write is sound insofar as respect for the democratic process; however, for there to be a democratic process, there should be a democracy. Do you consider the United States a democracy?

RJ: No, the United States was never a Democracy. That word gets thrown around a lot. I do believe that there could be a ‘democratic’ process. It would be very hard to achieve, and there would be the issue of the influence of group-think and the pecking order in any attempt at getting to a democratic process.

KP: You consider the topic of justice often and deeply in your book. Have you ever considered that capitalist society has utter contempt for justice, that justice is just a slogan to be wielded for the ends of those who hold power?

RJ: I love this question. I don’t know if there can ever be any justice in a capitalistic society. But, the concept of justice is very important to me… maybe more important than anything else because it encompasses everything. Justice for everyone is even more important than love for all of our fellow beings. Love is an emotion that may or may not result in humanitarian acts. Working for justice for all is a very concrete concept. Working toward justice for all is the ultimate moral dedication of anyone’s life… an important matter of conscience. That is why the back cover of the book states: “Where there is no Justice, nothing else matters. War is the ultimate injustice, because it imposes Capital Punishment on those who have not been Tried or Convicted. Therefore, every Officer of the Court should be openly and actively opposed to war.” There will never be a completely just society, but we surely can do better than what we have now.

KP: What do you mean by your “profound respect for the rule of law”?

RJ: I have respect for some Libertarian and also some Anarchist philosophy. Because people are aware of that, it seemed important to state that I do have “profound respect for the rule of law”. Boundaries on human conduct are necessary because without them we would have rule by ‘the pecking order’. The rich and powerful would have no limits. That is sort of what we now have because the ‘system’ is used as a tool of those in the upper economic class. I have a lot of respect for the rule of law and almost no respect for the legal system as it is. If we had a just legal system, everything would be different. War criminals would be prosecuted. The economic system would be fair – because if it wasn’t, there would be legal recourse.

KP: The reason I asked that question is because law is usually written by those who hold power, not by the unempowered. Therefore, laws can be written to protect the interests of the powerful against the unempowered.

RJ: I see your point. To me the Rule of Law implies Justice — not always the law as it is written. An unjust law would be trumped by the concept of fairness and what is just. Nullification is required when the law is unjust, unethical, or in violation of human rights.

KP: You often mention 1492, yet you wrote, “our government will not regain its legal and moral authority until it gives up its life of international Crime…” Do you believe that the government of the United States ever had legal and moral authority? Given that the country is situated on land gained by the murder and dispossession of its Original Peoples, it seems the only moral and legal action would be to pay reparations and return whatever has been stolen to its rightful owners.

RJ: The legal part is a hazy area. Laws change. Laws are written by whoever happens to be in power at the time. Slavery was legal. Original Peoples have a moral right to reparations. This creates a conundrum. How far back should we go historically? Actually, this is an issue that I think about often because of the suffering of the Palestinians, the Chagossians, and many others. Maybe there is a somewhat fair way to look at this… a formula… mathematically decreasing the reparations over long periods of time. That would mean that land confiscated 50 years ago would deserve greater compensation than land confiscated many, many centuries ago. The bottom line is that it is impossible to undo an immoral or unjust act.

KP: A few things struck me from your answer. First, with all due respect, I submit the bottom line is that morals and human decency demand people of conscience to, as far as possible, atone for the immoral acts of forebears that the descendants are benefitting from now. Living on, and from, that dispossessed from others would seem to fit that bill. Furthermore, there is no statute of limitations for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide under international law. So if how to atone is based in “profound respect for the rule of law” (and I have little respect for laws created by plutocrats, national or international) then surely justice should be carried out according to the law. Second, your formulation posits the longer a people have suffered dispossessions, the lower the reparations would be. Is that not a formula that encourages the dispossessors to draw out the dispossession as long as possible and profit to the maximum before international justice, if it does at all, enforces its tardy laws? Third, and this overlaps somewhat, but your question “How far back should we go historically?” is dangerous because it might encourage the creation of long-term facts on the ground, something Israel is often accused of (and it seems to be a successful strategy for Zionists because few people talk about the legally [which does not imply morally] recognized 1948 borders anymore but refer to the 1967 borders gained through aggression (which is, I submit, a sop to the “supreme international crime”).

RJ: I agree with what you say. My thought was that, for example, justice would require us to place some value on the fact that the land that the USA now occupies was owned by others in 1492. Simply returning all of the land now to the previous owners would punish those who had no responsibility for the original crime. After many generations have passed, that fact has to be considered relevant. On the other hand, the descendants of slaves are closer in generation and still suffering some of the harm of slavery, while others are enjoying some of the benefit. Therefore reparations for slavery would be higher up on the scale. You mention the Zionists and the 1948/1967 borders. What would you say to those who say Israel has the right to land there because they had been there thousands of years ago? Maybe a claim that goes back thousands of years is diluted by time???? How would you answer those who suggest that the nation of Israel should have been located in Europe? Holocaust survivors deserve compensation, but why from the Palestinians? Why not from the Europeans? This topic always reenforces my belief that all religions should be respected. This is currently not a popular view. Many of my friends are absolutely opposed to all religions. They are Evangelical Atheists. I understand their view, but do not agree with it. My view is that actions should be judged, not religious systems. Borders changed through aggression should not be recognized by the international community.

KP: With all due respect, your sentence that vegans “have reached a higher moral plane than the rest of us” sounds hyperbolic to me. For example, what should humans living in Arctic regions subsist on to reach the higher plane?

RJ: You got me with this one. I do believe that vegans have reached a higher moral plane, but I also believe that respect for human life takes precedence for those who have no access to other food. I have had discussions about the morality or immorality of using antibacterial soap, or taking antibiotic medicine. Great topic for philosophical debate, but I come down on the side of human life when forced to choose whether or not to protect the life of a microbe.

KP: You wrote, “The main challenge to 9/11 conspiracy theorists comes from Osama Bin Laden. He explained why the attack occurred.” I do not understand the logic presented since you later call into question the government’s story. Also, how does someone’s view on the reason underlying an attack connect to how the attack was carried out? Why do you label those who question the government’s version of what happened on 9-11 as “conspiracy theorists”?

RJ: I do not believe that the government directly planned and caused 9/11. I refer to 9/11 as ‘the goose that laid the golden grenade’ because the US used it as an excuse for unending war. The government has a long history of lying and is not above sacrificing US citizens. It just seems to me that Blowback is the more likely cause. I am often confronted on this issue by those who disagree with me. Actually, on this issue I am sort of agnostic. The more important question is: “Would it make any difference if someone came forward with absolute proof that 9/11 was a government act?” Probably not — it is on the public record that the USA has killed 500,000 Iraqi children, that 45,000 US citizens die every year from lack of access to health care, that WikiLeaks has exposed government secret plots… on and on. I am convinced that most citizen/voters have very little interest in what the government does and hardly notice. If someone came forward with absolute proof of a government connection to 9/11, it would make the headlines for a day or two and then public interest would be refocused on the latest football scores or which celebrity is sleeping with someone else’s spouse.

KP: I wished you had asked John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in your interview why it took so long for him to figure out he was a gangster for capitalists. It seems he knew a long time before he gave up the perks he received from his part in the gangsterism.

RJ: That would have been a good question. In a way, maybe many of us share that with Perkins. Living under Capitalism gives the illusion of ‘perks’ to all of us. The pressure from society to ‘fit in’ is a very powerful force. Speaking out against the system is very hazardous and anyone who does it pays a high price. It takes a long time to overcome the toxic misinformation that comes to us from the culture. This makes me think about how many are ‘for peace’ but unwilling to actively oppose war. To oppose war it is necessary to oppose the entire war machine – that includes those who finance the weapons, manufacture the weapon systems, and also those who use the weapons to kill. As a former flag-waver, I do not exonerate myself. Now I finally ‘get it’ and understand the influence of the culture and the school system. There was a time when I believed what the textbooks and teachers taught me. As I say in the book — in the town where I grew up, the only heroes were the ones in military uniforms. Those who are selected as heroes in any culture can have a powerful influence on a young person. Sad to say, now there are uniformed troops going into elementary school classrooms. This is done to honor the troops as role models and instill patriotism in the young student.

KP: Finally, what do you feel is the moral responsibility of judges who rule on laws that they know are immoral and unjust?

RJ: Actually [former New Jersey Superior Court] Judge Andrew Napolitano talks about this often. He talks about Natural Law. In my view this is not even a close call. Morals and justice come first. Maybe that is why I would not be a good lawyer.

In response to the hunger strike, Assembly member Tom Ammiano and the Public Safety Committee in the State Assembly of California will hold an informational hearing on August 23 regarding conditions and policies of the Security Housing Units at Pelican Bay. Activists have initiated a statewide mobilization around this hearing, in order to pressure state legislators and the CDCR to make substantial changes.

A statement written by the Short Corridor Collective, composed of some Pelican Bay hunger strike leaders, explains that on July 1:

A collective group of PBSP-SHU inmates composed of all races began an indefinite hunger strike as a means of peacefully protesting 20-40 years of human rights violations…. The decision to strike was not made on a whim. It came about in response to years of subjection to progressively more primitive conditions and decades of isolation, sensory deprivation and total lack of normal human contact, with no end in sight. This reality, coupled with our prior ineffective collective filing of thousands of inmate grievances and hundreds of court actions to challenge such blatantly illegal policies and practices (as more fully detailed and supported by case law, in our formal complaint available online here) led to our conclusion that a peaceful protest via hunger strike was our only available avenue to expose what’s really been going on here in CDCR-SHU prisons and to force meaningful change…. We ended the hunger strike the evening of July 20, 2011, on the basis of CDCR’s top level administrators’ interactions with our team of mediators, as well as with us directly, wherein they agreed to accede to a few small requests immediately, as a tangible good faith gesture in support of their assurance that all of our other issues will receive real attention, with meaningful changes being implemented over time.

On August 3, the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition announced that it had just received a letter from the hunger strike leaders at Pelican Bay, dated July 24, explaining that strikers have given the California Department of Corrections and Reform (CDCR) a deadline of two to three weeks from July 20 to come up with some substantive changes in response to their five core demands. Todd Ashker, one of the leaders of the hunger strike, explains that if the CDCR does not follow through, prisoners at Pelican Bay plan to go back on hunger strike:

It’s very important that our supporters know where we stand, and that CDCR knows that we’re not going to go for any B.S. We remain as serious about our stand now as we were at the start, and mean what we said regarding an indefinite hunger strike peaceful protest until our demands are met. I repeat − we’re simply giving CDCR a brief grace period in response to their request for the opportunity to get [it] right in a timely fashion!

Hugo Pinell, one of the hunger strikers at Pelican Bay State Prison, has now been held in continuous solitary confinement for over 40 years—longer than any other US prisoner known to date. In a letter written during the strike to journalist Kiilu Nyasha, Pinell explained why he was fasting:

I have to get with it because it’s for a great cause and if good changes come about, I could get a break too. At this point, a move to a mainline would be great, being that my keepers are determined to keep me until I die. On a mainline, we could have contact visits again! It’s been too long since I’ve touched my Mom and all of my loved ones…I wasn’t prepared for a hunger strike, so I don’t know how well or how long I can hold on, but I had to participate…I don’t even think in terms of doing or saying something wrong, for that would strike against everything I live for: freedom, becoming a new man and the New World. So, Sis, this hunger strike provides me with an opportunity for change while also allowing me to be in concert with, and in support of, all those willing to risk their precious and valuable health.

Our previous interview with Solitary Watch about the Pelican Bay hunger strike examined the broader issue of solitary confinement in prisons throughout the US. In this follow-up report, we place the strike in context, alongside a statewide grassroots movement calling for cuts in prison spending to address California’s budget crisis, and a recent US Supreme Court ruling that calls for the reduction of California state prisoners by at least 30,000, in response to overcrowding.

We interviewed Isaac Ontiveros for an inside look from within California’s anti-prison movement. Ontiveros is the Communications Director for Critical Resistance, a national organization that is working to abolish the prison-industrial complex and is a member of the Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) alliance and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition.

Angola 3 News:  What is the latest news from the hunger strikers?

Isaac Ontiveros: As far as we know, the leaders of the strike at Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit have called an end to the strike—based on what they see as some movement on the part of the CDCR beginning to address some of their demands.

At the peak of the strike at least 6,600 prisoners across at least a third of California’s 33 prisons participated.  These are official CDCR numbers, so we can confidently assume actual numbers were higher.  Right now, our struggle is to determine how many other prisoners, in what prisons, are continuing to strike.  Given how isolated prisoners are throughout the system, this is a challenge, to say the least.

A3N: Why have the Pelican Bay hunger strikers declared victory?

IO: The prisoners made very important, historic gains.  That the strikers were able to move the CDCR at all was no small feat, especially when working under some the most horrendous conditions possible.  The fact that they were able to coordinate among themselves despite extreme isolation is also impressive.  Furthermore, solidarity was able to spread throughout the California system. This solidarity crossed the racial and geographic lines that we are taught are uncrossable; and strike leaders were able to incite strong support of people outside of prison on an international level. This is all very important when we think about victories, especially if we understand victories as being stepping-stones to further and greater victories.

As far as the specific concessions made by the prison administration, the details are still coming, but it seems that CDCR has moved a bit on the prisoners demands around providing and expanding some of the privileges and programs they have access to in the SHU.  These gains—for example, some around cold weather clothing and access to calendars—may seem modest, but for people in such extremely oppressive conditions, these things take on a different weight.   Also, it seems like there could be some movement on some of their other demands, perhaps some review of the “debriefing” process.

A3N: How can our readers support the next phase of this struggle?

IO: The next phase is to hold the CDCR to good faith negotiations, and to continue our push for all of the strikers’ demands to get met.  It is very important for supporters to continue their solidarity work on the outside, with particular attention toward defending strike leaders from retaliation from the prison administration.

Many people are coordinating actions all over the US and in other parts of the world.  A potentially important legislative hearing on conditions in Pelican Bay’s SHU is happening on August 23rd in Sacramento—there is lots of talk about that being a big point of mobilization.

Folks should stay tuned to the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity web site for more information.

A3N: In recent months, CURB has organized statewide mass protests against California prison politics. In response to the use of California’s budget crisis as an excuse to cut state programs serving low-income residents, CURB presented a “Budget for Humanity” that called for dramatic reductions in prison spending and the number of prisoners. How does this campaign support the recent hunger strike?

IO:  I think CURB’s fight is absolutely related to the strike because more prisons mean more torture, more SHUs, more people be locked up, more communities devastated economically and socially—all of it.

The demands of the strikers were particular to the conditions of Pelican Bay’s SHU, and the SHU has a very specific function, but the fact that solidarity spread throughout the California system also speaks to how common the conditions the strike leaders were talking about are to all prisoners—deadly lack of health care, poor food, torture, overcrowding, breaking up of political organizing, and more.  These conditions are also connected to those on the outside, primarily in Black and Brown communities.

Right now CURB’s main platform, as outlined in the Budget for Humanity, is demanding an end to all prison and jail construction; an immediate reduction of prison and jail overcrowding; the releasing of tax dollars from the grip of imprisonment; and an end to cuts to the most vital services, along with a reprioritization of  how California uses it resources to create what and for whom.  These demands feed and are fed by each other.  Ending prison and jail construction frees tens of thousands of people along with billions of dollars.  Ending the attack on basic resources like education, health care, meaningful employment, creates strong communities for people to come home to and to thrive in.

We also have to understand that this is not just a matter of fiscal sense-making and balancing the budget. This is also about political power. This is about capitalism and white supremacy. We need to understand that SHUs, the prison system in general, and police are tools of repression used to thwart peoples’ efforts and abilities to fight back, build up their communities, and build self-determination.

This also links CURB’s work with prisoner strike solidarity, along with community struggles against gang injunctions, police violence, ICE raids, and more. So I think CURB’s work—along with the work of so many other organizations and coalitions—is a step toward building larger and stronger grassroots movements that will make larger, stronger, and more thoroughgoing economic and social changes.

A3N: Can you give a history of California’s “budget crisis”? How far back does this go? How does it relate, if at all, to the accelerated incarceration rates in the US that began in the 1970s, where the number of prisoners increased from 300,000 to over 2 million today?

IO: The best answer to this question is the wonderful and very important book “Golden Gulag” by Ruth Wilson Gilmore.  The book explores these questions in great detail and I really can’t recommend it enough.

But, roughly, we can understand that in the late 60s and early 70s, the powers-that-be in the US responded to social uprisings against racism, social and economic inequality, and other forms of oppression in the US — linked to anti-imperialist struggles happening all over the planet at the time — by making war primarily on communities of color in a variety ways, including the expansion and further militarization of policing and the expansion of imprisonment.  This is intertwined with a crisis in the capitalist system occurring at the same time.  So we saw an assault on organized labor and social services and programs that was basically the rise of neoliberal economic models—creating a deepening in the divide between the haves and have-nots (already pretty deep for those marginalized to begin with).

Into the 1980s we saw the war on drugs—which we should understand as a war on Black and Brown communities—go into full gear with the passing of thousands of laws, tougher and longer sentences, and the activation of all sorts of media stories and images that aggressively criminalize and dehumanize poor people and people of color, especially Black people.

Even though the so-called crime rate started dropping steadily in the early 80s, the economy, this fear-mongering, increased policing, mixed with the proliferation of anti-social ideas that social services are a waste, created the perfect storm for a gigantic increase in imprisonment.  And the cycle perpetuated itself from there with harsher probation and parole conditions that made it easier to deny essential services and to land more people back in cages for longer amounts of time. Tying it back to the 60s and 70s, this cycle makes it more difficult for social movements to change the oppressive social and economic relationships the system is predicated on.

So California, with one of the largest economies in the world, is situated in this history.  The gutting of social services, the attack on labor, the loss of jobs, tax revolts, the abandonment of certain industries, financial speculation, the disuse of farmland, housing bubbles, energy speculation, “dot-com bubbles”, the criminalization of people of color, anti-immigrant hysteria, the passage of the three strikes law, etc., leads to one the largest prison expansions in world history.

Between 1982 and 2000, California’s prison population grew 500%.  Between 1984 and 2005, at least 20 prisons were built. In this period, only one university was built.  And right now, these prisons are close to 200% of their holding capacity.

Obviously this history is cursory, simplistic, and leaves out a lot, but in engaging with any crisis there are questions we need ask, patterns we need to identify, and actions we need to take. In thinking about budget crisis, we need to ask ourselves: why does everything (education, health care and services, wages, jobs, etc.) except corrections get cut?  What does this mean for the health of our communities? How does this relate to further economic crisis?  How are we prepared to organize around this crisis?  What are our opportunities?

A3N: Have there been any examples of other states reducing their prison populations as a response to budget issues?

IO: Yes,  even right now, states are reducing prison spending, closing facilities and releasing people in response to the economic havoc caused by prisons.   Now to be clear, much of this reduction is not based on progressive or humanitarian politics, or even an opposition to imprisonment.  But, in the past year, New York, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Florida, and Connecticut have all implemented a variety of schemes to shrink imprisonment.  Some of them have to do with sentencing reforms and parole and probation reforms, some schemes involve outright prison closure.

I think the key here is for organizations and individuals that want to see longer-term and deeper changes to organize around making these shrinkages permanent, and then to battle to have funds no longer wasted on prison spending be put towards repairing and building up the communities imprisonment has devastated—so that people coming home can stay home.

A3N: Further influencing California prison politics is a recent US Supreme Court ruling that calls for the reduction of California state prisoners by at least 30,000, in response to overcrowding. How significant is this ruling?

IO: This ruling is very significant.  It says even the Supreme Court—which is far from a politically progressive entity—recognizes that the California prison system is scandalous, devastating, and deadly.  It says change needs to happen immediately.

The Supreme Court decision gives us a chance to address the human rights crisis in California prisons, and to change the system itself, hopefully so that we can avoid further crisis.

Acting strongly here also positions us to take steps to address human rights crises happening outside the prisons, in the communities from which these thousands and thousands of prisoners are taken.

A3N: Since the CDCR released their proposal responding to the US Supreme Court ruling (that has been criticized by CURB in an open letter to Gov Brown) has there been any response from the state government?

IO: Unfortunately, but maybe not surprisingly, Gov. Brown and the CDCR’s plan is to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.  They came up with a scheme called realignment where, rather than let people out of cages, reforming parole conditions, and using the tens of millions of dollars that would free up to support these prisoners return to their communities. they have decided to shift these 33-40,000 prisoners to the county level; ie., jails.  Brown and the CDCR are responding to one crisis by creating the conditions for 58 crises.

For example, Los Angeles County is 33% of the entire California prison system.  Its jails are already overcrowded and have been the subject of human and civil rights abuse scandals.  Brown and CDCR’s realignment scheme would add at least an extra 11,000 to that system.  Their scheme does nothing to address sentencing guidelines, and there seems to be a not-so-hidden construction scheme bubbling away on the side burner already.  So, they propose more disaster.

What’s hopeful is that, luckily, people all over the state are more imaginative and humane than Brown and Co. and are ready for some serious changes.  A recent poll shows a vast majority of Californians oppose cutting key state services and increasing taxes to pay for more prisons and jails: 80% of Californians favor paroling people who are terminally ill or medically incapacitated, and 60% support reducing life sentences for third strike prisoners.

People are ready for changes, and I’d wager they are ready to think about even greater changes.  If Brown and the CDCR want to shift the burden to the county level, then, with some strong organizing, residents, organization, and coalitions like CURB can meet them on their own turf, and say, “the only solution is to bring our friends, family members, and neighbors all the way home.”  And we can move forward from there.

• This article was first published in Alternet.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Cambridge’s European Trust Society and he was the first Jarvis Doctorow Fellow at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford.

His latest book, A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilisations: Us and Them Beyond Orientalism was published in 2011 by Hurst & Co. and Columbia University Press.

As described by Amazon.com:

Adib-Moghaddam’s investigation explains the conceptual genesis of the clash of civilizations and the influence of western and Islamic representations of the other. He highlights the discontinuities between Islamism and the canon of Islamic philosophy, which distinguishes between Avicennian and Qutbian discourses of Islam, and he reveals how violence became inscribed in western ideas, especially during the Enlightenment. Expanding critical theory to include Islamic philosophy and poetry, this metahistory refuses to treat Muslims and Europeans, Americans and Arabs, and the Orient and the Occident as separate entities.

He joined me in an in-depth interview and answered my questions regarding the continued controversy over Iran’s nuclear program, the Western media’s black propaganda against Iran, the future of Iran-West relations and the prospect of Iran’s Green Movement.

Kourosh Ziabari: Over the past years, the United States and its European allies imposed several rounds of UN-authorized and non-authorized sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. The general policy of the West towards Iran brings to mind several questions. First of all, I would like to ask you, as a political scientist, why is Iran singled out over its nuclear program? Who has put forward reliable evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, or has the intention to do so? Does the West’s hostility toward Iran simply emanate from Iran’s nuclear program? If so, then why did the former U.S. President George W. Bush label Iran as part of an Axis of Evil under President Khatami who was a reformist and an open-minded politician?

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam: You are right, and one has to stress that on every occasion, lest the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq will be repeated: There is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon. No IAEA report, not even national intelligence agencies hostile to the Iranian state such as the CIA and the Mossad in Israel have provided any evidence to that end. So the nuclear weapons allegation is a political mirage, a tactical manoeuvre to outflank Iran on other matters.

I think Chomsky is right when he says that it is Iran’s insistence on an independent foreign policy that is being punished. The allegation that Iran is developing nuclear weapons is a Trojan horse to legitimise the comprehensive sanctions regime and to contain Iran’s regional power. Having said that, I don’t believe that Iran is facing a coherent ‘western’ block. Even in the United States, where the image of Iran is professionally manufactured by anti-Iranian lobbying groups, there are differences of opinion on how to engage the country. There is a difference between Barak Obama and George W. Bush. In Europe too, we have been engaged in fostering a different kind of approach to Iran, one that is not reliant on myths, but the reality on the ground.

The fact remains that Iran is a regional superpower with influence in all the hotspots of the region. The sanctions policy, the policy of containment, has largely failed. It has not changed Iranian behaviour on strategic matters. If anything, the politics of aggression has emboldened the rather more hawkish elements in the Iranian state, because it is them who thrive on the rhetoric of confrontation. You mention the axis-of-evil speech of George W. Bush. It came after the reformist President Mohammad Khatami made major concessions, offering support for the war against the Taliban in the aftermath of the terror attacks on 9/11. President Khatami went out of his way to offer medical support to US pilots who would be downed on Iranian territory, a major confidence building step. It was reciprocated with the axis of evil speech, one of the most disastrous and murderous foreign policy speeches in the history of the United States.

It should also be noted that Khatami suspended the enrichment of uranium in response to a deal with the European Union. But the EU, under the sway of Tony Blair and others, did not adhere to their side of the bargain. This was a major diplomatic blunder. Khatami was left with nothing. The right-wing in Iran was quick to capitalise on the situation. It was then when the Ahmadinejad faction accused the reformers of selling out the national interest of the country. With nothing to present, Khatami was robbed of a counter-case. Here he was talking about a dialogue amongst civilisation, condemning calls for the death of America in Iran, suspending the enrichment of uranium, supporting the campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, reaching out to the American people on CNN, only to be demonised and placed along Saddam Hussein and Kim-Jong Il in the axis of evil.

But there is no time to reminisce or to be apathetic. The apostles of war are preaching again and they are taking their orders from Netanyahu. It is an ongoing battle. They are inventing myth in order to advocate military aggression. We are working on the truth. They wield sword and sceptre above our heads. We stick to the pen and the lectern. Theirs is a case of hate and destruction. Ours is geared to peace and reconciliation. Their conscious is pragmatic, ours is principled. We resist, they exercise power.

KZ: Israel is the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Several international organizations, including the Federation of American Scientists, have confirmed this fact. Why doesn’t the international community, especially the United States and its European friends, take action to legalize Israel’s nuclear program and investigate its atomic arsenal? Why doesn’t Israel comply with the UNSC resolution 487 which called on Tel Aviv to put its nuclear facilities under the IAEA safeguards?

AA: From a legal perspective, there is a nuance, of course. Israel, like Pakistan and India, never signed the Non Proliferation Treaty. But let’s leave that aside for a moment, for it doesn’t really answer why the Israeli state is treated different than the Iranian government. It is ironic that Israel has done everything Iran is accused of: Iran is accused of terrorism; Israel openly admits that it pursues a policy of assassination all over the world. Iran is accused of meddling in the affairs of Arab countries; Israel has launched two invasions against them in the past five years killing thousands of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. Iran has been accused and sanctioned for developing nuclear weapons without any evidence; Israel has nuclear weapons and boasts of close trade ties with the United States and the European Union. Moreover, Israel is the only country in the world that colonises territory in clear violation of international law and under the auspices of the ‘international community.’ This is called the ‘settlement policy’ in the official jargon of the Netanyahu administration. Not even the condemnation of President Obama, important in its own right, changed the situation. So Israel is what Iran is punished for. It should be said that there are many dissidents in Israel itself that disagree with the policies of Netanyahu and the strategy of colonisation of Palestinian territory.

So far Israel has been shielded from international law by successive US administrations. It is the veto of the US that prevents any serious UNSC resolution against Israel. When it comes to Israel, and consequently western Asia and North Africa, the United States continues to be hostage to the pro-Israeli lobby in the country. However, the tide is turning. There are signs of a progressive counter-discourse gaining ground. Obama and Netanyahu are at odds, let there be no doubt about this. And there is resistance to the influence of the Israeli right-wing on US domestic politics and foreign affairs. But for the moment the political elites in the US are not sufficiently independent to think in terms of their national interest in western Asia and North Africa.

I have argued in A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilisations that justice in world politics is the surface effect of a series of constellations that can be manipulated towards particular ends. So justice is a product of politics and diplomacy rather than an objective value that is universally applicable. At the same time I reject the notion that world politics has to be anarchic, that the Hobbesian idea of a war of all against all is inevitable. It was Europe and then the United States that constructed and supervised this unjust order. It is not due to some kind of natural law. So it can be changed. The Israeli nuclear programme must be seen within this larger context of an unjust world order that continues to produce hypocrisies on major issues facing human kind. I mean, it is not as if we could detach from all of this. Politics affects everything we do, from birth to death, cereal to nightgown. The reform of the international institutions must do away with the hierarchy inscribed in them. One way of dealing with this would be to turn the UNSC into a rather more representative body that would reflect the emerging non-western world order.

KZ: The sanctions of the United States and European Union against Iran have targeted Iran’s medical sector, oil and gas industry, energy sector and even automobile and food industries. Ordinary Iranians are deprived of having access to the most rudimentary necessities of their daily life as a result of these crippling sanctions. Tens of patients suffering from chronic disorders die each year because the foreign firms don’t allow their products to be exported to Iran. Even the reformist leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mirhossein Mousavi have condemned the crippling sanctions of the West against Iran. What’s your idea? Aren’t these sanctions some kind of violation of human rights?

AA: There are two assumptions in the question that I would like to challenge. First, I think the Iranian economy is doing well if we take into consideration that the country has been under international sanctions for three decades now and that it is absorbing the ‘baby boom’ generation after the revolution. There are many problems, of course, unemployment, inflation, economic mismanagement, etc, but the macroeconomic indicators of Iran – economic growth, foreign direct investment – are sound. Recent reports by the World Bank, UNCTAD and the IMF indicate these positive economic trends quite clearly.

After all, Iran continues to be an affluent country. From my own experience in Iran there is no shortage of medical provision and the country continues to have an intricate and wide ranging social welfare system with several foundations and institutions that are dedicated to the plight of the poor. They continue to function against all odds. To my mind the sanctions policy has largely failed. A country like Iran with the second largest gas reserves in the world and the second highest production of crude oil cannot be effectively isolated. But I take your point that economic sanctions hurt civilians rather than the state. Especially in the aviation industry the sanctions policy is killing Iranians. In that sense, it is true that they violate human dignity.

Yet I don’t think that the sanctions have in any way ‘crippled’ Iran as Hillary Clinton and others put it. The term “crippling” is very discriminatory and distasteful by the way, given that many US soldiers come back disabled from the many wars that the US is engaged in. It is even more disrespectful than the so called ‘carrot and stick’ policy applied to Iran, a phrase that is used for donkeys. Terms and phrases like that indicate the discursive violence enveloping Iranian-American relations. It is equally prevalent in Iran, of course, for instance the calls of death to America. To my mind, progressive independence, independence that is not only material, but psychological too, begets that Iran does away with slogans demonising or praising any country.

As for the second part of the question: In fact, the Iranian opposition is by far more hawkish on the issue of nuclear negotiations, for they do not hold the responsibility of power. As you know I have never accepted the discourse of human rights as a part of the foreign policy of the state. Human rights are the prerogative of civil society. The state is merely there to execute our demands in that regard. I don’t think any of us need Nicolas Sarkozy to enlighten us about human rights. But it should be said in the same breath that the human rights situation in Iran is problematic.

Again, why would we look at the representations by the ‘west’ in order to assess how we treat each other? Isn’t this a form of dependency? And does it not invite the other side into Iranian affairs? What we need is a transparent, legally grounded policy of human rights that defines the dignity of Iranians and their rights within the context of the social, religious, cultural and ethnic realities of contemporary Iran. An autonomous human rights shura, if you want, not in order to present Iran as a particularly tolerant country to the outside that would be an automatic side effect, but in order to assess why there are so many complaints about the human rights situation in Iran by Iranians living in the country itself.

The weakness of the system in this regard has serious national and international repercussions. The national security of a country starts with the nation— the citizenry which is the most precious commodity for the security of a country. The revolution was quite clear on this aspect, the centrality of the “tudeh”, “mardom”, the “ummah”. Surely, we are not saying that other countries are responsible for the dignity of the Iranian people?

There is a splendid excursus by Ali Shariati on this matter, on the differences between “bashariyat” and “insaniyat” between being human in biological terms and humaneness. “Insaniyat” or humaneness requires caring for the plight of the ‘other’, the hamsay-e or neighbour with whom we literally share our shadow, “ham – saye”. I have used this differentiation of Shariati to criticise the inhumane treatment of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq by the US army. I don’t mean to sound too dramatic but I believe that we need the discourse of insaniyat in Iran today, probably more than ever.

KZ: Your articles and commentaries have appeared on several mainstream media outlets and you have been in close contact with a number of them. Don’t you believe that all of these media outlets have an anti-Iranian approach which prevents them from maintaining impartiality and objectivity? Don’t you trace the footsteps of a concerted anti-Iranian propaganda in these media? Why don’t they ever write anything of Iran’s rich and sophisticated culture? Why don’t they ever write anything about Iran’s scientific progresses? Why don’t they ever write about Iranian artists, scholars and scientists and the richness of Persian culture and literature? What we read of Iran in these media is simply confined to Iran’s alleged sponsorship of terrorism, nuclear program and violation of human rights. Why is it so?

AA: No, I don’t think so. I certainly don’t see a concert of anti-Iranian propaganda. It is more of a cacophony. By that I mean that there is no government or agency that could control every aspect of the international media, otherwise the demand for some of my writings would not penetrate the mainstream as you put it. So I don’t think there is some kind of a conductor when it comes to the media concert on Iran. There is no monolithic coherence or a consensus that is all-encompassing. There is a real difference between Fox News and CNN, and there is a difference between The Sun and The Guardian of London. But it is true to say that there are many people shouting, and that the megaphones are readily available. It is surely easier to get published with a story that is anti-Iranian, rather than one that aspires to objectivity.

But the reason for that is not an all-encompassing conspiracy, but the composition of the mainstream media in the ‘west’ itself. At the margins there is room for dissent, but the bulk of the news stories have become a part of what Theodor Adorno aptly called a ‘culture industry’ decades ago. This culture industry reacts to market forces by far more than it reacts to the truth. As a current example: Here, in the UK the government of Prime Minister Cameron is currently grappling with a major corruption case involving several newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s company News Corporation. There have been arrests; Murdoch and his son had to appear in front of a parliamentary commission and so on. The allegations range from bribery of police officers who leaked information to journalists to the illegal hacking of phones and computers. It is a right mess. Murdoch co-owns Fox News together with the Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Murdoch also owns The Sunday Times, The Times, and several tabloid papers. So there is a concentration of power here that creates its own political economy of truth. This is unhealthy for a democracy and it is unhelpful to understand complex countries such as Iran.

But, again, from a critical perspective, and in this case it means self-criticism, one has to ask why it is so easy to write nonsense about Iran and why it is that Iran’s image is so far removed from the reality? I don’t think that the power of the mainstream media is analytically possible without the absence of a functioning counter-discourse. Why is the international media not flooded with experts from Iran itself? How many of Iran’s cultural attaches in the embassies do their job properly? How many conferences do they organise on the media representation of Iran? How much outreach is there? And what about the media landscape in Iran in terms of its international appeal? An image can only be manipulated if the resistance to that manipulation is not sophisticated enough. To put it in simple terms: Iranians in Iran are the best authors of their narrative, highly educated, internet-savvy, most of them truly brilliant, it is just a matter of disseminating their message, so that there is a second opinion on the country.

KZ: The critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believe that he isolated Iran in the international community with his harsh policies and uncompromising stance, especially with regards to the nuclear issue. They say that Iran has other important priorities than its nuclear program and should not sacrifice its position and prestige in the international level by insisting on enriching uranium which is a sensitive issue for the Westerners. What’s your take on that?

AA: Success in international diplomacy is not merely dependent on the demand, in this case enriching uranium on Iranian soil, but on the way that demand is packaged. It is not what is in the package that is determining the reaction, but the way it is enveloped.

President Ahmadinejad stands accused of using the wrong wrapping paper. His rhetoric, his demeanour, his overall discourse has been largely anti-diplomatic and confrontational. The Supreme Leader was quite aware of this at an early stage of the Presidency which is why he nominated a foreign policy council to oversee his performance. In that sense President Ahmadinejad is quite comparable to George W. Bush who was equally inept to articulate the national interest of the United States, which is why he plunged the country into a political and economic mess.

Having said that, Iran is not isolated, per se. Iran continues to be supported by those countries who are preparing for a new world order that will be distinctively multi-polar and non-western. The initiative of Turkey and Brazil is indicative of the future, the emergence of China as a global player is probably the most important factor, and the Arab revolts are very consequential too.

The puppets are falling and the puppet-master is running out of characters. The shah, Ben-Ali, Mubarak, their primary sin was that they were considered to be subservient to external demands. It was their colonial mindset, the notion that they simply can’t do it on their own that sealed their fate. The Iranian revolution has to be seen as a step in the direction of a multi-polar world order because it offered an alternative to superpower politics. In fact, the Cold War in Iran ended with the revolution.

KZ: The United States and Israel have long advocated a regime change in Iran and used every opportunity to sabotage Iran’s security by supporting terrorist groups such as PJAK and MKO or assassinating Iranian scientists and high-profile politicians. Don’t you believe that those Iranians living in Diaspora who support these American-Israeli efforts are betraying the cause of their compatriots living in Iran?

AA: To my mind, those fanatical opposition activists who cheer everything that is going wrong in Iran are delusional. They deserve compassion, not vitriol. Exile has a strange effect on the mind. It creates a dangerous duality. In terms of their mental habitat, many exiles continue to live in Iran. Yet because they are not there, everything that happens there appears in slow motion to them. They can’t keep up. You can take the individual from Iran, but you can’t take Iran out of the individual. Iran is like a magnetic nodal point that draws you in. It is really difficult to escape the lure of the country. Now if the duality of the exiled mind is not tempered with a good dose of reason, it creates a split personality, cultural schizophrenia in Dariush Shayegan’s words.

The idea that “they” have taken away “my” country from “me” turns into the idea that I have the right to take it back now. Iran is traded as a commodity that can be owned, rather than a bond that we all have to invest in, in order to yield results that are non-discriminatory. I don’t think, however, that any Iranian condones the murder of innocent scientists in their homeland.

There aren’t many of those delusional opposition activists left really, apart from the handful who have set up their satellite TV stations in their basement and who don’t really have serious influence on anything that is being said and written about Iran. But, ideally, even they would be included in an extended parenthesis behind the meaning of contemporary Iran which would safeguard the right to contribute to the future of the country. Such a vast parenthesis would encompass all of those who identify themselves as Iranian, irrespective of political orientation, ethnic background, religious loyalties, etc.

You are an Iranian if you say so. Who am I to deny you the right to be one? Such an understanding of Iran as an open ended idea has a central function: It turns the politics of the country, including the dialectic between the Diaspora and Iranians living in Iran, from an antagonistic mode to an agonistic process of mutual acceptance, from the zero-sum politics of today, to the positive-sum policies of tomorrow, from the vilification of the political enemy to the acceptance of him/her as a legitimate competitor. The Iranian self, the “khodi”, has always been cosmopolitan and politically promiscuous. Unless this reality is accepted, the politics of the country will be decided on a limited ground that does not encompass the transnational vastness of the meaning of Iran. After all, Iran transcends. That much we can all agree upon. Hence, a politics of transcendence, the maximal autonomisation of the meaning of Iran is merited.

KZ: The European Union has recently taken the name of MKO off its list of terrorist organizations. Moreover, MKO was legalized in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2008, six months after winning a court battle over its legality. The U.S. congressmen are also making efforts to persuade the government to remove MKO from its terror list. What’s your estimation of this action? Isn’t it contrary to the claims of the American and European politicians who usually boast of their loyalty to the Iranian people and their support for the freedom and democracy movement in the country?

AA: Of course, it is. The MKO is a terrorist sect with rigid organisational structures that would make any fascist rise in applause. But why is the case against Iran easier to build than the case against other countries; for instance, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia or Nicaragua, states that are allied to Iran? This is the real question that the political elites in Iran need to address. And then there is a second responsibility for what is happening: The primary reason why the MKO can act is the vacuum left behind by Iranian diplomacy in the last years. We can’t start the analysis with the effect. We have to look at the causes. Where are the cultural attaches protesting against the activities of the MKO? Where are their outlines for concerted PR campaigns that would reveal the atrocities that the MKO committed? How many international conferences have been organised on the links between the MKO and Saddam Hussein? Why is this little organisation an issue in the first place?

What is needed in order to safeguard Iran’s national interest is a politics of friendship and reconciliation that stretches as far as possible to the realms of international diplomacy: state to state, state to society, and most importantly civil society to civil society. The dialogue between societies encapsulates the true essence of the term dawat that was so central to the libertarian aspects of the Islamic revolution. Inviting the ‘Other’ to listen is a virtue. Obviously an invitation requires a language that is empathetic rather than confrontational. As a Persian proverb has it: betamarg, beshin and befarma all mean sit down, but the polite befarma will probably yield the best reaction.

KZ: And my final question is about the prospect of the Green Movement in Iran. I strongly believe that the United States and European countries betrayed the Green Movement by explicitly supporting it and giving the hardliners an excuse to associate this reformist movement with the U.S. and Israel. The Western mainstream media also played their own role in this betrayal by portraying Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi as opposition leaders, while they were simply reformist candidates who wanted to implement soft reforms within Iran’s current political establishment, not opposition leaders who wanted to subvert the regime. What’s your idea?

AA: I don’t see the causal link between western policies and/or media representations and events in Iran. The politics of the country has its own dynamics. There is too much focus on what the media in the ‘west’ says, as if a journalist in New York has more power to decide the future of Iran than a university student in Tehran. Here, I disagree with post-colonial theorists and the Radical Left who keep telling us that imperial power is all-encompassing. To believe that, is not only analytically flawed but it creates a dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy. As for the Green Movement: it is the reincarnation of previous reform outfits such as the Second Khordad movement named after the date Mohammad Khatami was elected President.

It is the surface effect of the demands of Iranian civil society which will continue to be articulated beyond personalities such as Mousavi and Karroubi who, themselves, are merely the effects of those demands for reform. And you are right to say that these are calls for reforms to the Islamic Republic and not for a fundamentally new order. At the height of the demonstrations I wrote that they did not amount to a revolution. Most people disagreed. When it comes to the Iran story the degree of hypocrisy and opportunism is staggering. Sometimes it is depressing. But one shouldn’t feel helpless in the face of the colossal lies that are being printed about Iran. There is room to resist and to fight for the truth. To my mind, this is primarily an intellectual jihad which requires research, patience and a good dose of cross-cultural empathy. It is not enough to speak truth to power from the outside any anymore. It is necessary to perfect resistance strategies that penetrate power from within. And isn’t this what the brave activists from Tahrir Square in Cairo to Syntagma Square in Athens are demanding as we speak?

In his debut book, Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement under Siege, independent journalist Will Potter  details one such assault on freedom and democracy, the targeting of environmental and animal-rights activists. In recent decades, corporations whose profits depend on degrading the ecosphere started to worry that those activists posed a real threat to their operations. Politicians and law-enforcement agencies responded with laws and tactics targeting not only the illegal actions of some of those groups but also the constitutionally protected speech and association of a wider range of groups. The fear-and-smear campaigns take their toll on the activists.

In a book that alternates between reporting and reflection, Potter not only details the strategy and tactics of corporations and the state, but also gives readers a feel for the human costs for the activists. In an interview, I asked Potter to explain the threat posed by these campaigns.

[Full disclosure: Potter was a student in two of my classes at the University of Texas at Austin. Since his graduation, I have followed his work and now think of him as a colleague rather than a former student.]

Robert Jensen: Let’s start with what you don’t mean by the title, Green is the New Red. You say in the book that you aren’t suggesting the environmental/animal-rights movements are directly analogous to the left/radical/socialist/communist movements that were targeted in the Red Scares of the 20^th century in the United States. If the scope of those Red movements was wider and the repression faced much more severe, what is the title intended to communicate?

Will Potter: Although I make clear that what’s going on now is not the same or worse than the Red Scare (nor is it the same or worse than what Arab and Muslim people have experienced since September 11), these current events need to be understood in a historical context. Coordinated campaigns to target and repress dissident voices have taken place throughout U.S. history, and foremost among them is the Red Scare. For most Americans, of all political stripes, that term is synonymous with using fear to push a political agenda — it is a dark era of U.S. history where lives were ruined, and freedoms chilled, in the name of national security. Beyond those big-picture similarities, though, there are eerie parallels between the Red Scare and this Green Scare, in terms of the specific tactics used by corporations and politicians to instill fear and silence dissent.

RJ: Whatever the size or current influence of these radical environmental movements, you write that they are challenging core notions of what it means to be a human being. Based on your experience as an activist and your reporting, how do you assess these movements?

WP: These movements, like all social justice movements, have diverse components. Although it has become fashionable to “go green,” the true nature of the environmental and animal rights movements goes much deeper than promoting hybrid cars and energy-saving light bulbs. They are about more than promoting a quick-fix or advocating environmentalism through consumerism.

These movements are challenging deeply held religious and cultural beliefs that the interests of human beings are always paramount, and that we have the right to use the earth and other species in whatever ways we see fit, costs be damned. These movements recognize that behaving as if human beings are the only species on the planet is destructive, but their critique is more than an appeal to self-interest. It is about critically examining our relationship with the natural world, and all other species on the planet, and questioning what it means to be a human being.

RJ: Do you think that is the reason those movements are being targeted, because people in power in government and corporations understand how fundamental that challenge is, and want to suppress it?

WP: Absolutely. In fact, that’s how the threat is often described by these individuals themselves in Congressional hearings, internal corporate documents, FBI memos, Homeland Security reports, and in the media. At first I dismissed much of this as political theater — exaggerating the threat in order to justify the crackdown. For instance, it was hard not to laugh when the CEO of Yum Foods (KFC’s parent company) testified before Congress that PETA represents the threat of a “vegetarian world.” He called them “corporate terrorists.” But this culture war rhetoric stops being funny when you see how it plays out in real life. PETA, along with other mainstream groups like the Humane Society of the United States, have been attacked as “terrorists” by corporations and politicians, and investigated by the FBI. The only way we can explain that groups like the Humane Society are being investigated as terrorists alongside the Animal Liberation Front is that all of it — the aboveground and the underground, the mainstream and the radical — represents a cultural threat.

RJ: Let’s go back to your reference to the specific tactics used, by both government and corporations, in this campaign. What are some of the most common tactics, and what is the strategy behind them?

WP: The comparison of today’s political climate to the Red Scare was particularly useful in identifying and classifying the tactics used in this campaign. The tactics, then and now, can be grouped into three main areas: legal, legislative, and a third I would call extra-legal, or scare-mongering. The courts have been used to push the limits of what constitutes “terrorism,” and to hit activists with disproportionate penalties and prison sentences. In this realm the word terrorist is used early, and used often, to skew public opinion against defendants before they ever set foot in a courtroom. At some point these legal tactics have limitations, though, and so corporations and politicians have lobbied for new laws that go even further. Federal laws like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, coupled with state-level legislation, are being used to single out activists based on their political beliefs. The intention with these legislative efforts is not only to enact new laws, but to use Congressional hearings and political theater to shift cultural perceptions of these movements. The final element is perhaps the most dangerous of them all. During the Red Scare, court cases and legislation sent people to prison, but scare-mongering tactics (PR campaigns, press conferences, ads, reckless use of language to demonize people) leveraged the weight of fear and incarcerated many more.

The strategy behind these tactics is fragmentation. In discussing this, I think it’s helpful to visualize social movements as having a “horizontal” and “vertical” component. The intention is to separate these movements horizontally, and create rifts between them and the broader left. Animal rights activists and environmentalists are therefore depicted as ideological extremists who, if they have their way, will stop you from eating meat and driving cars and having pets. There are, of course, already tensions between these movements and the more traditional left, but campaigns by corporations and politicians intend to exacerbate them. If these movements are not seen as part of a broader social justice struggle, it is easier for other leftist and progressive groups to turn their backs on their repression.

Similarly, there is a campaign to fragment these movements vertically. Aboveground lawful groups are told that they must condemn underground groups, and if they do not, they will also be treated as terrorists. This two-prong strategy — breaking these movements away from other social movements, and breaking the aboveground away from the underground — isolates those who are being targeted and intensifies the repression.

RJ:  Whatever one thinks of the specific analyses or tactics of groups such as the Earth Liberation Front, the accelerating pace of ecological collapse suggests their call to consciousness about the larger living world is more important than ever. After your investigation into the Green Scare, what is your assessment of the likelihood the culture will listen?

WP: As the scale of the ecological crisis we are facing becomes more apparent, and as the backlash against social movements that are challenging our self-destructive culture intensifies, it is difficult to not feel dark, to feel helpless. I certainly feel that way quite often — not just because of the content of my own work, but from the near-blackout in the mainstream press. Unfortunately, I do not see any of this changing anytime soon. As the ecological crisis accelerates, the accompanying crackdown by corporations and people in power will intensify as well. The people who have the most to lose will cling desperately to that culture as it is threatened, and this includes not just CEOs but much of the overwhelmingly privileged United States and so-called First World.

After all of that, this will probably sound quite odd, but in the face of this I would argue that there are reasons to be inspired. Through my work, and in particular through book and media tours, I have been fortunate to meet people all over the country from diverse backgrounds. What has been striking to me is that, even if people are unfamiliar with the Green Scare or the targeting of political activists, they are rarely surprised. People may not know the specifics, but they know that corporations have more power than people. They know the scope of ecological destruction is increasing. They know we have no choice but to change but that people in power will not change willingly. I’m not convinced that the question at hand is whether or not the culture will listen, because I think that so many people already feel this. I think the question is: Will we find the courage to be heard?

Silvia Cattori: How many Turks are here in Athens waiting to sail with the “Freedom flotilla”?

Huseyin Oruç: We are about twenty people from Turkey ready to participate in the “Freedom flotilla II” in different ships. There are only a few places in the boats. In each boat there is a Turkish participant. We have people in the Canadian boat, the Spanish boat, the French boat, the Greek boat, the International boat.

SC: So, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) has not withdrawn from the “Freedom flotilla II” as reported by many commentators? Is that correct?

HO: We did not withdraw from the coalition. We are part of the coalition. We officially are continuing to support the “Freedom flotilla”. IHH is one of the members of the Steering Committee of the “Flotilla 2”. I am the deputy of IHH (Humanitarian Relief Foundation) and a coordinator of the “Freedom flotilla.” The only thing is that the Mavi Marmara ship could not join the vessels in this second mission of the “Freedom Flotilla” since repair and maintenance works on the ship have not been completed.

SC: I would like to make clear that the non-participation of the Mavi Marmara is it not a Turkish government decision?

HO: It is not a government decision. It is an IHH decision. It is a decision of the registration of the Mavi Marmara. We have announced 20 days ago to our partners that, technically, we had difficulties in participating with Mavi Marmara. That for technical reasons we could not participate in this “Flotilla”. We wanted to allow all other organizers to prepare themselves accordingly. We announced that we were not cancelling but rather postponing the participation of the Mavi Marmara. We will continue our mission. You have seen the high commitment of IHH people in the coalition and you will continue to see it.

As we have declared it hundreds of times, the Mavi Marmara is not merely a Turkish ship. It is an international ship. It does not depend only upon the Turkish initiative. It is the symbol of the Palestinians; one of the symbols of all oppressed people in the world.

The Mavi Marmara became a very important figure. We are not cancelling our participation with the Mavi Marmara. Whenever the Palestinians need it, the Mavi Marmara will go. We cannot give you a time but we say that we will sail. In any case it will not be a Turkish ship but an international ship. The Mavi Marmara became the conscience of the world. There will be many nationalities on the Mavi Marmara when we will decide to go. There will be about 500 people from all over the world. And it will continue. It is not the end of the “Flotilla”. Until this illegal siege is lifted, this “Flotilla” will continue; with new perspectives, with new surprises, not to repeat itself; and it will continue to change the history.

SC: Because the Mavi Marmara represents a great and beautiful symbol it was a shock for the people in Gaza to learn that your ship could not be part of the “Flotilla II”. Was it a realistic decision for the flotilla organizers to set sail without the Mavi Marmara?

HO: Of course the Mavi Marmara was one of the largest ships in the Flotilla that can carry about 500 passengers. The fact that it is not participating now in the “Flotilla” has a negative side and a positive side. We need to use whatever is happening to our advantage. The fact that we have deferred the participation of the Mavi Marmara puts us in a favourable position. We are maintaining the pressure on Israel. Anyway, we are still participating in the “Flotilla 2” and of course we are one of the supporters among the Committee members; we are one of the founders of this “Flotilla” organisation.

Remember what the Israelis have been saying throughout the last year. They have targeted Turkish people, they have targeted the Muslims, they have targeted IHH, and they have targeted the Turkish government who organized this Flotilla. But on the other side the Israelis have never done anything against our colleagues from the West. And now that the Turkish participation is less prominent, look what is happening.

Now that we are not participating with the Mavi Marmara, what is the reason to attack the boats? What is the reason to stop the boats? The main reasons are being removed from their agenda. Now the Israelis are showing their real face. They are not acting only against the Muslims, not only against the Turks; they are acting against everybody. And they want to control the West. They feel they oversee things at the highest level and that Westerners have their orders. It is the position now and European people need to understand that it is not related to religion. It is not related to beliefs, to nationality. It is completely related to the bad Zionist policy. And this policy is not only against the Muslims. They are not making any differentiation between religions. Whoever is against them, they are ready to kill them: Americans, Greeks, Germans and whatever they are.

SC: I entirely agree with your analysis. But the Turkish diplomacy regarding the Middle East seems to have changed. What is your interpretation about that?

HO: Let me say first that Turkey did not change. And let me say that the decision of IHH is totally independent. One month ago, just five days before deciding not to participate in the Flotilla with the Mavi Marmara, we, the Steering Committee met here in this hotel ; we sat together and, very frankly, we explained the situation. Everybody knows us; knows who IHH is, how serious we are; how we are working, what we have done in the “Freedom flotilla I”. All members of the Steering Committee know that, if IHH takes a decision, it is not in favour of someone else, it is in favour of the Palestinians. This mission is totally related to the oppressed Palestinian people. And whatever we are planning, we are doing it for the benefit of the Palestinians.

For all decisions taken by IHH, without any pressure from anyone, we have checked everything. And when you look at the problems of the “Freedom flotilla”, it is very important to know that it is not the problem of a single society, but it is because of the Israeli policies. What the Israelis have done in the last one year? They have been attacking the “Freedom flotilla; they target all civilians. On the one hand, you have a big government and one of the most effective diplomatic machines in the world using all their powers. On the other side, you have some civilians. This allows us to surprise them; the Israelis do not realize what they are doing. They are not targeting Turkey, they are not targeting America, they are not targeting Greece; but they have created big enemies for themselves with their own hands.

SC: The Israelis are trying to invent all sorts of scenarios to divide people as in the past; to make Christians more acceptable than Muslims. This is their policy. By the way, it sounds a bit strange that this time the “Freedom flotilla” sails under, respectively, the flag of France, the flag of the United States, the flag of Sweden, etc… Is this not a way to make it easier for the Israelis to divide you?

HO: No, it would not be easy because, in this mission, everybody understands what is going on. Not only the Israelis but the Flotilla people have learned diplomacy. Everybody is aware of what is going on. Our cause is the same. We do not keep something silent. We do not hide anything. And whenever we are talking about something in the Steering Committee, it is very open. Even if the Israelis try to use their intelligence, if they want to act wisely, they could easily manage this crisis; in a very easy way. But they cannot, because they do not believe in rights, they believe in power. They believe that, when they slam someone they will win, when they kill someone they will win. But this does not agree with reality or history. With power you cannot be successful. I do not believe that they can understand it, but they will see it.

The motivation of the participants is very high. And it is a very flexible coalition. We have opened the way for all initiatives, for all countries to do something by themselves. All initiatives work independently. We came together but it is not a centrally organized “Flotilla”. Each one organized its own internal campaign; and the Steering Committee brings everyone together in the actions.

SC: Thank you very much.

Panitch is also the author of Global Capitalism and American Empire and his most recent release American Empire and the Political Economy of International Finance. In addition to his university affiliation he is also a co-editor of the Socialist Register the latest volume of which is “The Crisis This Time.”

His articles and commentaries are published on a variety of online and print publications.

Shirazi is widely acclaimed for his precise and accurate analysis of the Middle East events and the U.S. foreign policy.

The world-renowned author and political scientist Norman Finkelstein has praised Nima Shirazi’s work, saying that he is “a very smart fellow and remarkably well informed. It’s worth taking the time to read what he writes.”

Jeremy R. Hammond, political journalist and the editor of Foreign Policy Journal has said about him: “Nima Shirazi is a brilliant analyst whose writing gets right to the heart of the issue without any messing around. Reading articles in not only the mainstream media, but also on alternative and independent websites and blogs, is generally a frustrating experience, for the broad adherence of most (actually, almost all) commentators to a limited manufactured framework.”

What follows is the complete text of my interview with Nima Shirazi with whom I discussed on a variety of issues including Israeli-American relations, Iran’s nuclear program, the death of Osama Bin Laden and the Western media propaganda against Iran.

Kourosh Ziabari: As you have pointed out in your articles, over the past decade Israel has been continuously threatening Iran with preemptive military strikes. War threats have been an inseparable part of the U.S.-backed, Zionist-run propaganda project against Iran. The question which I want to raise is that, from a legal point of view, shouldn’t incessant war threats by a fake political entity against a sovereign nation be followed by the decisive action of the international organizations, such as the United Nations Security Council? Why doesn’t this aggressive fear-mongering have any punitive consequence for the Israeli regime?

Nima Shirazi: Considering no amount of actual Israeli aggression, whether in the form of ethnically cleansing East Jerusalem, shooting unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank, dropping bombs and white phosphorous on a besieged civilian population in Gaza, or murdering Turkish peace activists in international waters, is met with anything but unconditional support by Western powers, it’s hardly surprising that Israel has been getting away with threatening a military attack on Iran for decades now. While it is true that both “the threat or use of force” is forbidden by the United Nations Charter, and therefore a breach of international law, it has long been clear that Israel is immune to such scrutiny as its ongoing violence is repeatedly justified, endorsed, and funded by the United States.

One of the primary reasons for this impunity is the successful promotion of Zionist mythologies in American political discourse. These mythologies, which go unquestioned and are often repeated by both Israeli and U.S. officials, serve to cast Israel – a heavily militarized, nuclear-armed hegemonic power – in the role of perpetual victim, always on the defensive. The result is emotional blackmail on an international level. This perennial victimhood completely inverts cause and effect. As a result, the oppressed becomes the oppressor, the culprit becomes the victim, occupation is security, illegal colonization is cultural liberation, aggressive expansion is righteous reclamation, genocide is self-defense, apartheid is justice, resistance is terrorism, and ethnic cleansing is peace.

The fear-mongering over a phantom Iranian nuclear bomb, a manufactured specter of death and destruction promoted by the U.S. and Israel for the past three decades, is invariably coupled with allusions to the Holocaust in which the Islamic Republic of Iran is the new Nazi Germany, Ahmadinejad is Hitler, Israel’s very existence is threatened, and Jews worldwide face imminent extinction. As an Israeli Iran expert once explained to Trita Parsi, “You have to recognize that we Israelis need an existential threat. It is part of the way we view the world. If we can find more than one, that would be preferable, but we will settle for one.”

The consequence of such dishonest and dangerous analogies is clear, as Peter Beinart pointed out last year in The New York Review of Books, “In the world of AIPAC, the Holocaust analogies never stop, and their message is always the same: Jews are licensed by their victimhood to worry only about themselves.”

Recent comments by both Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu are both illustrative and instructive. Obama, speaking the other day at the 2011 AIPAC Conference, managed to weave a string of Zionist talking points together in one dazzling sentence: “When I went to Sderot and saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an eight-year-old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket, and when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I was reminded of the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map — face of the Earth.”

Naturally, there is no mention or acknowledgement of the daily terror experienced by Palestinian children in Gaza who are subject to, not only deliberate sonic booms and collective punishment, but also U.S.-supplied Israeli fighter jets, attack helicopters, unmanned aerial drones, missiles, bombshells, bullets, and chemical, banned, and experimental weaponry. Needless to say, terming Ahmadinejad a “dictator” demonstrates a distinct lack of understanding about the Iranian political system. There is absolutely no evidence Iran is seeking nuclear weapons — Obama’s own intelligence apparatus has consistently confirmed this — and the absurd “wipe Israel off the face of the map” quote has long been debunked. For the American president to repeat all these lies — in one sentence, no less — demonstrates the power and pervasiveness of Zionist mythology.

Netanyahu used a nearly identical formulation is his recent speech to a special joint session of Congress. “As for Israel, if history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously,” he declared.”We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust. When we say never again, we mean never again. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself.”

Netanyahu’s turn of phrase is ironic considering the title of former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg’s 2008 book, The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes, in which Burg exposes the purpose of playing the victim. “Victimhood sets you free,” he wrote. Over thirty years ago, in 1980, Israeli journalist Boaz Evron put it another way: “If we assume the world hates us and persecutes us, we feel exempted from the need to be accountable for our actions towards it.”

The United States, which wields unparalleled power over international institutions such as the UN Security Council, has long dedicated itself to promoting this narrative and protecting its partner-in-war crimes Israel from any diplomatic or political scrutiny.

KZ: In your recent article, you referred to the remarks made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who said in an interview with Charlie Rose that Iran does have the courage to announce its intention to build nuclear bombs if it ever has one. My question is that, are the United States and its European allies, really unaware of the fact that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and doesn’t intend to build them? It’s quite inconceivable that with its sophisticated intelligence structure, the United States hasn’t really come to the point that Iran doesn’t have nuclear bombs nor does it intend to make one. Is it all about black propaganda and fear-mongering to discredit Iran and derail its status as a regional superpower or a simple lack of sufficient information?

NS: Despite all the war-mongering rhetoric, the United States government is well aware that Iran’s nuclear energy program remains peaceful and fully monitored by the IAEA. Its own intelligence agencies have consistently reaffirmed the non-military nature of the program, from the recently updated National Intelligence Estimate to its Annual Threat Assessments, and maintain that Iran’s military strategy is purely defensive, not aggressive.

Iran is one of the only nations in the world that refuses to back down from its own inalienable rights in the face of Western, namely U.S., pressure. While Obama often declares his solidarity with the Iranian people which he sees as unsupportive of its own government — another fallacy based mostly on Western wishful thinking, he ignores that, according to a recent RAND Corporation survey, 87% of Iranians strongly favor the “Iranian development of nuclear energy for civilian use,” while a whopping 98% believe that the “possession of nuclear energy is a national right.” By insisting that Iran relinquish its rights as affirmed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran has been a signatory for over four decades, Obama reveals himself as a hypocrite and a bully.

KZ: The United States is apparently clinging to double standards when it comes to Israel’s nuclear program. Almost everyone knows that the Israeli regime is the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. It does possess up to 200 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, and none of the international organizations, including IAEA have ever dared to question or investigate this dangerous arsenal. Once in an interview with me, the Antiwar.com writer Joshua Frank said that the “United States doesn’t have to justify its double standards to anyone,” because of the arrogant nature of its statesmen and the complicated structure of what Hamid Golpira calls its “corporatocracy.” What’s your viewpoint in this regard?

NS: The duplicity of both the United States and Israel when it comes to the nuclear issue is astounding. During his recent speech to Congress, Israel Prime Minster Netanyahu actually suggested with a serious face that “a nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,” as if his own country — with its own massive nuclear stockpile — either didn’t exist or wasn’t in the Middle East.

It is both official Israeli and U.S. policy that Israel’s nuclear arsenal goes unacknowledged. This policy was established between President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969. A declassified memo from Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger, dated July 19, 1969, notes, “While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact.” Accordingly, Nixon formally suspended all inspection of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant in 1970 and ceased demands that Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The next year, the Nixon administration sold Israel hundreds of krytons, a type of high-speed switch necessary for the development of nuclear warheads.

When Obama first met with Netanyahu in May 2009, he confirmed the continuity of the secret agreement, a stance one Senate staffer reportedly described as “call[ing] into question virtually every part of the president’s nonproliferation agenda” and which was tantamount to giving “Israel an NPT treaty get out of jail free card.”

Israeli nuclear expert Avner Cohen has described the denial policy as the equivalent of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Yet, when officials are occasionally asked, the policy invariably becomes “don’t tell, then quickly change the subject to the manufactured Iranian threat.”

In recent years, there have been efforts by NPT members to pressure the IAEA to investigate and inspect Israel’s nuclear arsenal. These actions have all been opposed by Western states, led by the U.S. Last year, all 189 member nations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty including both the United States and Iran agreed to “the establishment of a Middle East zone, free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.” Unsurprisingly, Israel denounced the accord, describing it as “deeply flawed and hypocritical” and declared, “As a nonsignatory state of the NPT, Israel is not obligated by the decisions of this Conference, which has no authority over Israel. Given the distorted nature of this resolution, Israel will not be able to take part in its implementation.”

In June 2010, IAEA Director General Yukiyo Amano asked all member states to submit their review to support the implementation of a 2009 IAEA resolution which expressed “concern about the Israeli nuclear capabilities, and calls upon Israel to accede to the NPT and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards.” In response, Obama reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to double standards when it comes to Israel during a meeting with Netanyahu. After decrying efforts to supposedly “single out” Israel, Obama proceeded to do just that, claiming that, of all countries in the world, “Israel has unique security requirements.” He then vowed that, with regards to any international efforts towards weapons control and decommissioning nuclear weapons, the “United States will never ask Israel to take any steps that would undermine their security interests” and promised to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” in the region. In September 2010, after intense U.S. lobbying on behalf of Israel, IAEA members narrowly rejected the resolution with a vote of 51 against, 46 for, and 23 abstentions. The hypocrisy continues.

KZ: You may admit that the image which the Western mainstream media have portrayed of Iran is basically distorted, unrealistic and misleading. Many American citizens who believe that Iran is working on the development of a nuclear bomb have simply heard the name of Iran in the form of stereotypes such as the ongoing controversy over its nuclear program and mass demonstrations in which people chant “Death to America.” They are credulously ignorant of Iran’s brilliant civilization and culture and even assume that Iran is an Arab country. The Western state-run media have introduced Iran as a promoter of extremism and what they call Islamic fundamentalism, turning a blind eye to the fact that their staunch allies such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt are the motherlands of international terrorism. What’s your viewpoint regarding the portrayal of Iran in the Western media? How is it possible to change the viewpoint of the Western citizens about Iran and acquaint them with its concealed realities?

NS: The negative image of Iran as presented by Western media is nearly impenetrable. The reason for this is simple. Iran is one of the only countries in recent history to have successfully challenged Western imperialism and assert its independence from U.S. hegemony. As a result, it is mercilessly demonized in ways countries with far worse human rights records are not. In the United States, rampant anti-Iran propaganda serves to inure an increasingly militarized American populace to the reality of devastating sanctions which harm the Iranian public, sometimes with lethal consequences in the form of air safety, for example, and the possibility of military assault.

Despite the fact that absolutely no evidence has ever been found to support allegations of election fraud in June 2009, the Western press still pushes that lie to great effect. It is no wonder that, just last year, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that 71% of Americans believed Iran already had nuclear weapons.

Iranian women make up well over half of university students and hold high level jobs in all kinds of professions; they are business owners, doctors, lawyers, university professors, filmmakers, artists, writers, and Cabinet ministers. Iran is home to an ancient, vibrant, and proud Jewish community, which is the largest in the Middle East outside Israel. Yet no one seriously promotes sanctioning or bombing Saudi Arabia, America’s staunch monarchical ally and business partner that arrests women for driving cars. Quite the contrary, in fact. Just last year, the United States made a deal to sell the Saudi kingdom $60 billion worth of military equipment. And yes, that’s billion with a “b.” Such is the power of propaganda.

Challenging popular perceptions about Iran is difficult, which is why the excellent work of analysts like Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, Hooman Majd, Sharmine Narwani, Cyrus Safdari, Jeremy R. Hammond, Abolghasem Bayyenat, Phil Wilayto, Jim Lobe, Ali Gharib, Eli Clifton, Gareth Porter, and Eric Brill, among a number of others, is invaluable and important. Hopefully, by supplanting war-mongering propaganda with facts, a more honest discourse about the future of the relationship between the West — notably the U.S. — and Iran can emerge, a discourse not influenced primarily by Zionist talking points and American exceptionalism.

KZ: Let’s move on to the recent developments in the Middle East. The Arab Spring seems to have emerged quite unexpectedly and abruptly. An unassuming street vendor poured inflammable liquid over his body and set himself alight before the municipality office in Tunisia in protest to the female officer who had insulted him, tens of thousands of his fellow citizens took to the streets to express their sympathy with him, their demonstrations turned violent and gradually changed into a revolution and the revolution soon encompassed the whole Arab world and resulted in what we are witnessing these days. What’s your viewpoint about the Arab world uprisings? What factors did contribute to the emergence of these chained revolutions? Is the United States, which calls itself the champion of democracy, happy with the pro-democracy movement of the Arab nations?

NS: While there is plenty of evidence that the United States has long been engaged in so-called “democracy promotion” in the region (ironic to say the least considering that the most despotic and dictatorial regimes in the region have been primarily financed and supported by the U.S.), I think it is indisputable that the recent events are indigenous and genuine.

While it is true that Zionist-influenced NGOs and pseudo-NGOs may advocate for “democratic change” in predominately Arab and Muslim countries, and the hypocrisy and duplicity of these organizations are obvious (especially since the same groups encouraged the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and support the ongoing occupation and apartheid in Palestine), I don’t believe this necessarily translates into their blanket support of what’s actually happening now across the Middle East and North Africa.

Advocating “democracy” has far more to do with encouraging technocratic Western- and Israeli-friendly movements among Arab youth sectors, movements that — ideally — would embrace neoliberal economic policy and neoconservative foreign policy. In my view, these “democracy promoters” have seen their talking points backfire and genuine movements of self-determination, sovereignty, and representative foreign policy have emerged to challenge the decade-long stranglehold of Western-backed dictatorships across the region.

In short, I don’t think what we’re seeing is one big American or Zionist ruse, though we are obviously seeing a lot of panicked backtracking, frantic horse-backing, embarrassing sidestepping, and misguided wishful thinking.

Recently, former IDF prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg posted an interview he conducted with Hillary Clinton, in which Clinton noted this: “Israeli commentators [are] saying they’re not so sure that change in Syria is in Israel’s interest.”

Still, I find analysis of Western and Israeli promotion of color revolutions (the impressive research of Maidhc Ó Cathail comes to mind) to be vitally important in assessing the many complex dynamics of what directs U.S. and Zionist foreign policy. “Democracy promotion” is an imperial and post-colonial construct that hopes to engineer and capitalize (pun intended) on changing and nascent power structures. I think the democracies both the U.S. and Israel would want to see emerge in the Middle East — since the dictatorships they have long propped-up are clearly unsustainable — are vastly different than what is actually happening. And that’s certainly a good thing.

KZ: Israel seems to be quite anxious about the Middle East revolutions since it is losing its allies in the region one after another. The homicidal assault of the Israel Defense Forces on the Freedom Flotilla in May 2010 cost Israel its friendship with Turkey. Now, with the ouster of the U.S. puppet Hosni Mubark, Israel is losing another ally. What will be the impacts of the Middle East uprisings on the future of Israel? What’s your analysis of the political prospect of Israel in the light of the recent unity deal between Hamas and Fatah brokered by the new government of Egypt?

NS: With regard to Egypt’s (hopefully) burgeoning democracy, I think it’s clear Israel is terrified, as it no longer has a reliable partner in occupation and collective punishment, and has seemingly lost a willing participant in their ongoing propaganda campaign of demonization against Iran. On May 5, the Washington Post published an interview with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil El Araby, during which El Araby clearly stated his pride in and took credit for the recent “reconciliation” between Fatah and Hamas and new Egyptian initiatives to “alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza.” He also said that “Iran is not an enemy. We have no enemies.”

Soon thereafter, the Post published another interview, this time with Amr Moussa, longtime secretary-general of the Arab League and current Egyptian presidential hopeful, in which Moussa echoed the sentiments of El Araby. He stated, “Iran is not the natural enemy of Arabs, and it shouldn’t be. We have a lot to gain by peaceful relations — or less tense relations — with Iran,” in addition to noting the hypocrisy of the United States when it comes to the nuclear issue. “The nuclear issue in the Middle East means Israel and then Iran,” he said, clearly making a point about which one is more pressing and dangerous.

None of this plays into Israel’s hands and I don’t think this is a long con.

Granted, not every development has been positive. In mid-May, for example, over 350 protesters were injured and 150 arrested when Egyptian military and riot police forces broke up a protest commemorating the Palestinian Nakba at the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Still, as governments in the region become more beholden and responsive to the wills of their citizens, the American and Israeli stranglehold will continue to lose its grip.

KZ: You wrote on your website that the accounts of Glenn Greenwald, David Sirota, Chris Floyd, Haim Baram, Cord Jefferson, Chris Hayes and Kai Wright are quite close to your own interpretation of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden by the American forces. Would you please elaborate on your own take on the death of the Al-Qaeda leader? Why didn’t the United States capture Bin Laden alive? He could have potentially released so much precious information regarding the structure of his terrorist organization. Why did they kill him while he could have been more valuable alive?

NS: Even if we are to believe the official story about the U.S. raid in Abbottabad, myriad questions remain regarding the legality of such an operation. It is clear that orders were for the U.S. forces to kill bin Laden on site, rather than attempt to capture him. While it remains a topic of debate whether or not bin Laden could be classified as a military or civilian target, each label brings with it specific legal considerations, perhaps the most troubling aspect of all this is the undeniable indifference to international law and to the concept of justice on the part of both the U.S. government and the American public.

Correspondents for The Atlantic reported, soon after the raid, that “capturing bin Laden alive would have also presented the administration with an array of nettlesome legal and political challenges” and that “the administration was also wary of the congressional scrutiny that would have surrounded every decision it made about bin Laden’s legal fate.” Another article stated, “The White House made clear to JSOC that it strongly preferred to have bin Laden killed, rather than captured, because the administration had no good idea where to put him.” Adam Serwer, in The American Prospect, noted that “attempting to bring bin Laden to American soil, even for trial, could have created a political firestorm.”

So, instead of dealing with these inconvenient trifles such as “law” and “justice,” Obama decided to just kill bin Laden, since it was certainly far easier to shoot him in the face and dump him in the ocean. In strict accordance to Islamic principles, of course, just like all Muslim sea burials off the sides of U.S. aircraft carriers.

This appears to be wholly at odds with what Obama himself has long touted as his respect for and adherence to so-called “American values.” Nevertheless, the American public rejoiced that, as Obama claimed, “Justice has been done.” But revenge, however viscerally satisfying it may be for some, is not justice. After a decade of constant invasion and occupation, of assassination and air strikes, of kidnapping and torture, of military commissions and indefinite detention, it is abundantly clear that Americans have completely forgotten what justice and accountability actually is, replacing it with drone attacks, extrajudicial killings, and an seemingly unquenchable thirst for vengeance.

As Adam Serwer, with whom I disagree on a number of aspects of the bin Laden story, accurately and articulately remarked, “there’s something deeply tragic about the fact that even in death, bin Laden still managed to make us afraid of our own system of justice.”

KZ: Osama Bin Laden’s story is to some extent similar to what happened to Saddam Hussein. Saddam was armed and equipped by the U.S. to fight Iran and was taken out while his expiration date came. Bin Laden was similarly equipped and trained by the U.S. to battle the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and now was removed as he was not useful for the U.S. purposes anymore. How can one come to terms with the fact that the U.S. grows up dangerous terrorists to serve their interests and then kills them once they lose their value?

NS: The bin Laden narrative, just as the Saddam narrative before it, is yet one more example of the United States’ selective and short-term foreign policy. The same could be said with regard to its three decade support for the Mubarak regime. One could say the United States was for Osama bin Laden before it was against him. The U.S. makes decisions based on its immediate policy, economic, and military goals, not on long-term or even beneficial national strategies. It refers to resistance groups as terrorists and vice versa as best suits its current situation. Remember, Nelson Mandela was on the U.S. Terrorist Watch List until just a few years ago.

Empires need enemies more than they need allies. The trick is figuring out who or what is the enemy du jour and then attempting to find out why. Sometimes the answers come easy, sometimes they don’t. If the tenets of international law and human rights were applied universally by the United States, not only would American hegemony and militarism dissolve, but I’d also have nothing to write about. And that would truly be wonderful.

It’s no surprise then that all three members of the Madison, Wisconsin group are themselves radicals. Their third album, When The Revolution Comes Everything Will Be Beautiful (Phratry Records) was released right on the heels of the massive labor rebellion that shook their hometown–almost as if history itself is trying to tell us something.

Now, with that uprising faded back into the recesses and everything returned to “normal,” the question of “what next” is on everyone’s mind. Questions about just about everything else—what it takes to fight, what it takes to win, and even ultimately what kind of world we want—are as urgent as ever. The members of USoT don’t claim to have all the answers to these questions (and are rightfully suspicious of anyone who does). The conversation I had with them was nonetheless illuminating; drifting between their music and beliefs, their hopes and fears, the emotional and political, an engaging glimpse into what it means to create something original in a world riven with injustice and conformity.

Alexander Billet: The quote that starts out the liner notes on your new album is one I wanted to ask you about: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Could you explain that a bit?

Russell Emerson Hall (guitar, vocals): That’s a quote from Jiddu Krishnamurthi, and the other thing in the liner notes is that it talks about how there’s no societal change without personal revolution. Because if evil people change stuff then it’s going to result in more evil! A lot of those kinds of ideas went into the record. That quote is just an encapsulation with that. Even if you can “get along” with where we are now, that’s nothing to brag about.

AB: How do you guys think that connects to your music?

Bill Borowski (bass, vocals): Well, it connects to us and we retranslate it out through the music. I mean that’s precisely how I feel about most things and how I interact with the world, the culture, the paradigm we find ourselves in. The emotion that brings out in me is probably what I bring into the music. I’m not thinking about that particular quote when I’m playing, it’s just how I feel all the time.

Jason Jensen (drums): I would say that for me, as far as it pertains to the music, I’ve learned so much from just knowing these guys; especially Russell. They’ll give me all the lyrics so I can read through them and see where they’re coming from and all that. And there are definitely parts of certain songs where that feeling is going through my head, even while we’re playing. I don’t think I consciously try to interpret it into what we play, like “here’s an angst drum-beat.” But as far as it comes across in the music it’s there.

REH: Well, I mean all the music is written as music beforehand. The vocals are normally an afterthought…

BB: Not entirely though. When we’re writing Russell’s normally screaming something. And that turns into the way the words are ultimately presented. It’s that then they have a lyrical context.

REH: Yeah, as we’re playing I’m thinking, “okay, I could probably sing here,” so I’ll just open my mouth and say something. Eventually it starts coalescing into a few phrases and words. And then I start thinking about what that could mean; what I could craft around that seed.

BB: There’s an emotive aspect to the way Russell delivers that lends itself to the chorus and the verses. It kind of feeds us.

AB: So the process is more along the lines of seeing where the music takes you? Like it’s a bit more organic?

BB: It’s very organic…

REH: Well, I guess I don’t necessarily try to match up the emotion of each song to each lyric. There’s kind of just one note emotionally—I’m fucking pissed off! But that’s the thing: I’m not “well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Right? So I’m pissed off about a lot of shit in society and I’m sick that I can’t do anything about it.

AB: There’s a stereotype out there of “political” artists: that it’s pretty much just rants over three-chords with a manifesto over it…

REH: It’s always about the music first.

BB: Yeah we’re a rock band first.

REH: To me it’s just value added, right? We’re about music but we’re trying to put this other stuff around it. For one thing it just makes the music more relevant. And two: hopefully people will hear it and think about something differently. I’m not naïve enough to think we’re going to change everyone’s mind but it’s important to have as many voices out there as possible.

JJ: One of the things we had talked about before we did this record was putting a manifesto in the liner notes for that reason. You know, so many times you listen to music and you’re asking “what are they saying?” So we put something in there that will represent the message. Hopefully people will read it and think “oh, I never realized that!” Whether it be the notes or list of genocides on the t-shirt we sell… we even experimented with a contest before the record came out: whoever can figure out what the lyrics are gets a free copy of the record. That wasn’t as successful as we had hoped! But that kind of idea—how do we get people to pay attention to what’s going on—was always there in the making of this record. Because like Russell said, we’re a rock band first, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t extremely passionate about these issues.

REH: There’s so many great bands that miss this opportunity. I know that so many artists are so passionate about these things, but there are so many vacuous bands that squander great music with stupid lyrics! Not that the lyrics are necessarily all that critical, but why waste it with something that doesn’t mean anything?

BB: You know Russell writes all the lyrics and he’s a very, very passionate individual so we don’t expect anything less…

REH: But everyone has their say. You know, when I wrote up the liner notes I made sure to give them to these guys and said “here read this. If there’s anything you’re uncomfortable with or disagree with or don’t want your name behind it then let’s talk about it.” I don’t want it to be just me screaming from my platform. I may be sort of the “prime mover,” but I’m not going to do it unless we’re all there. Same thing with the music; if anyone has a problem with a part of a song, we either change it or we move on. I’ve played in bands where I had to play stuff that I couldn’t get behind a hundred percent, and that sucks. I’m never going to ask anybody to do that.

JJ: Going back to the ideas, though, I think I see it differently than these two guys do. I am not an original member of United Sons of Toil. I am now and have been for years, but I met these guys as just a fan. I liked this music, and I was in the same boat as most of our country right now, where I have an opinion on something one way or the other. We maybe don’t have all the info, but we know we feel a certain way. For me, though, it was an eye-opener; hearing these songs it was almost like now I knew why I had these opinions. I learned these things. So for me, getting the message out there is really cool because it changed a lot of how I view things. And if it can do that for other people, then I want that to happen.

AB: The music you guys play is by no means “mainstream,” It’s challenging, it’s incredibly aggressive, it’s the kind of stuff that the music industry has no idea what to do with. Do you think that there’s a natural kind of connection between radical politics and radical sounds?

JJ: A lot of people like really generic music that’s shoved in their faces on a day-to-day basis because that’s all they know…

REH: It’s just like we said earlier. Just like people are told what their political beliefs should be because they’re sold the lie by the elite, they’re also sold a lie about what is valid music.

BB: They use every tool they’ve got; there’s all kinds of media. The seed was planted a long time ago, they’ve watered it constantly and the whole cultural paradigm has grown up in such a way that the only way we can get out of it is just to chop down the damn tree.

REH: You know the system is designed to perpetuate itself…

AB: Right, and that effects all aspects of the culture.

REH: Yeah, it’s set up so that the rich will stay rich. That plays out in music. Record companies want to sell music, so you don’t sell stuff that’s willfully obscure for one. But yeah, I think our music and our politics are equally in your face for that reason.

BB: Yeah, they’re absolutely analogous. As music listeners and music makers, we tend to not like things that you can predict. You know? And politically we like to rub against the grain. We just don’t agree that it works—I mean I just can’t find a system that does work, so maybe that struggle is always going to be there…

REH: Actually, that’s what our whole record is about—the struggle against all of that, and it fails. Is that ever going to not be the case? Maybe. But we’ve seen time and time again, the corruption wins out. And that’s the whole thing: without that personal revolution, the system crumbles, whatever the good ideas are…

JJ: You start getting compromised. I was talking to this guy on the phone, and he said “you know if we could just fire the whole Congress and replace them with blue collar workers all-around. Then maybe it could start to work.” And I was thinking, well, that was the idea when this country started…

REH: Well, no. That was the idea that was sold to us. The country was founded by rich, white, male landowners to keep themselves in power. We were told that we had equality and democracy and representation but that’s not really the case. I’m re-reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and you open it up and the first thing you see is a quote from Columbus’s log book saying “these people are going to be easy to exploit.” That’s the beginning of our country!

BB: Yeah but I think, back to what Jason said, if you do that—just replace everyone—all you’re doing is putting new cogs in an already weak and unstable infrastructure. You can’t build a house on crappy foundations. You’ve got to tear it down and build it again.

AB: That gets to what I wanted to talk about with the album in particular. All of your albums have at least a loose theme tying them together. Why did you guys decide to do an album about the corruptibility of power at this moment in time?

REH: We didn’t actually! Basically, Jason joined the band, we started writing songs, and when we got nine songs we said now we have enough to do a record. But they were done over a certain period of time, and I was thinking about the world in certain ways. And so as we were talking about how to sequence the songs on the record, Jason said “why don’t we sequence them to tell a story?” I was kind of doubtful about it, but I tried it and I thought about what the core concepts of those songs were and tried to arrange them that way. And it worked really well! And I was like “dude, we have a concept album!”

AB: Keeping with that arc, there are a lot of songs with a historical context—“Alcoholism in the Former Soviet Union,” “ILO Convention 169”—but then there’s others that pull on more current events. Like “Contrition of the Addict,” which mentions the overthrow of the Honduran president a couple years ago, or “Operation Cast Lead.” What is it that ties that content together?

JJ: The thing that pops up in my head is that, historically, there are always these kinds of things going on. You can look at 200 years ago or 50 years ago, and it’s the same story! You can piece in whichever part of the puzzle you want because they all fit! We didn’t make nine songs about one specific era, like the 1940s during World War II. We took situations from every walk of life—politics, culture, the economy—and what you see is that it’s the same situation over and over and over again.

BB: Yeah, whether you have the new boss or the old boss the exploiters are still there.

JJ: Exactly, and whether you have a boss you love or a boss you hate, the objective is the same!

BB: Not all of the protagonists in our stories are malevolent though. They can be as good as they want but they still end up corrupted.

REH: Right, like “The Shining Path,” which talks about the Maoist group in Peru. They essentially wanted to create a more “pure” communism. They had these really lofty ideals but they went about it by selling drugs, by destroying peasants’ farmers markets, and basically killing the people who should be supporting them. It failed, of course. But I guess to answer your question, it’s actually in the liner notes right there. I have that little blurb on how the story unfolds throughout the song, then as I said before, it’s back to the Jiddu Kristhnamurthi. In order for radical social change to succeed you have to have personal radical change first.

AB: What you were saying about “The Shining Path” also reminds me about that line in “The Urban Guerrilla,” “strong ideas aren’t strong enough.” In times like these I think there’s very much a question about how do you change society. Does it have to be violent or can it be peaceful? Is it through protests on the street or guerrillas up in the hills? What do you guys think is necessary for that change and what kind of planet do you want to see?

BB: Well that’s going to be different for each of us. But my personal ideal is a society composed of lots of little societies all cooperating and working within for the greater good. You know, everybody has a job and everybody has a function. You find people’s strengths and you let them realize them. Don’t force anybody into it. Maybe those little communities can cooperate with each others, but for right now we’re just too large, too centralized, too concentrated. I think that’s what causes a lot of our issues, but that’s also how the machine makes money. There has to be a complete cultural and social breakdown. Not necessarily violent, but it has to happen. Centralized governments and nation-states are the downfall of all of us.

JJ: I tend to fall between the general idea of socialism and the general idea of anarchy. I can’t quite decide because one side of me wants to see a more socially-driven economy rather than money-driven. The other side of me doesn’t want to worry about government control. The demon in my head is that I fail to see right now any form of government that can succeed at all. So until some crazy thinker comes up with a fresh idea that we haven’t heard of, I think we might just be fucked!

REH: I also have a lot of despair; I don’t see a way out politically. Like I said, I feel people are not willing to have that radical personal change. And I fear that that means we’re sort of doomed. There are a lot of things we can do to make our society by working within the system. I think we should do those–they’re obviously not enough and they should be an endgame, but I’m conflicted overall.

AB: Do you think there’s a certain process happening now—Egypt, Madison, etc—that might push people in that direction toward a radical personal change?

BB: It might push them in that direction—to do some personal reflection. I don’t know if it’s strong enough to change society the way I want to see it.

REH: This has been brought up in Madison over and over again: all these things that we enjoy—safety in the workplace and your weekends and pensions and no child labor—these are all things that organized labor put in place by saying “we’re pissed off and we’re not going to take it anymore.” So can things change? Yes, certainly they can, but is it going to be enough to change the system? With Egypt, okay now the president’s gone, but the military is in charge…

BB: Which is now starting to show it’s face…

REH: Right, and that’s exactly what we’re saying on the record. I mean in our own country we have President Obama saying “change,” and now it just seems like “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” It’s just another party, a party of the rich by which the system perpetuates itself.

JJ: You even look at the notion of “change and hope.” It was an idea that was advertised and sold to us, and we’ve seen how that’s ended up.

AB: Let’s get back to the music. In “Alcoholism in the Former Soviet Republics” there’s this hypnotic, looping, feeling. The feeling we’ve been here before; it’s also about the massive rise in social decay after the fall of the USSR. Is that the reason you ultimately ended up opening with that track?

REH: Yeah, it’s the beginning, that crossover point, that change from one system to another and it ends up being just as bad. Like all of the songs, there’s a very personal element. Like I said in the manifesto, just shouting about politics isn’t good enough. It’s got to be related back to a human story.

JJ: The thing that’s important about what Russell writes is it gives people that kind of story. It allows them to pull back and look at it and judge it.

REH: And there’s a whole additional layer of personal meaning in all of those songs for me. For example, I’m dealing with alcoholism in my own family, and the refrain of that song is a saying from Alcoholics Anonymous. In “The Shining Path” there’s a section about how, as we get older and start taking on more responsibilities, the banality of modern life, there’s a sense of guilt. I can’t be the activist I once was. And it suddenly occurred to me that raising children is the most intensely political act. Because that will have the most impact of anything in the future. So there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s not in the liner notes that is very personal for me; I’m not just going to shout about how much the world sucks.

AB: Well, I think there’s always a way in which the personal and the political are intertwined, despite what we’re told about our lives…

BB: Right, there’s always a relationship at all times!

REH: Exactly! And I think especially with so many political bands, like you said, it’s just about getting up on a soap box. I remember back in the ‘80s there were all these hardcore bands that were just like “fuck Reagan!” And that just left me flat, you know? There’s no connection to everything. Sure, we’re all pissed off. So what? It’s not that you actually have to present a solution, but try to give it some context other than just pure rage.

BB: At least for yourself…

BB: Because like we’ve said, we don’t do this for anybody but ourselves. When we’re writing we’re not writing for anybody but ourselves.

JJ: Yeah I’ve never heard us once say “what do you think people would like better?”

REH: And that goes back to your question: do the politics and the music go together in that they’re both, I don’t know, willfully obscure? Well, I don’t think we try to alienate people, but at the same time—this is another thing in the liner notes—being a career musician means you suddenly have to worry about selling records. We all have day jobs, which means we’re all relatively free to do whatever we want. We don’t have to let the slightest hint of compromise in.

AB: My last question is just about the relationship between music and social change. Even googling the reviews of When the Revolution Comes, you can see a lot of commentary about how it was released just as things were starting to explode in Madison. Do you think given everything that’s happening right now, is there a door being opened for music to play a role in social change?

BB: Well I think media in general! It’s not just music; every form of art has an impact to a certain amount of people. Folks respond to it, so I totally believe that music has role to play in social change.

REH: As dismissive as I’ve been about our music changing people’s minds, I think back to when I was younger—in college, when I got into punk rock—and I remember listening to Gang of Four and the Clash. I remember reading the lyrics and going “holy shit!” One time early on someone told me “Gang of Four are communists!” And I remember thinking “really, why would they be communists?” And then I read the lyrics to Entertainment! and just thought it was incredible. To me, that’s where that crossover between the personal and the political comes from.

JJ: I think once again I have a slightly different take. The thing with the way we write our music is that we don’t necessarily have the imagery in mind when we write it. I mean people listen to music because they like the groove, they like the beat, the like the guitar part. People who are in it just for the lyrics may not get too far with us. Gang of Four was out there and they were accessible to a lot more people. Are as many going to be influence by us? Probably not…

REH: Well no, of course now; they have a much bigger platform.

JJ: Yeah sure, but how many of our fans are in it for the politics and how many are in it just because they like to jam? You know, I think about the big rallies in front of the Capitol. There were a lot of actors and musicians who came out and supported, and for a lot of people that added something to it. Maybe some people who wouldn’t have supported it otherwise saw that and decided they would. I’m not discrediting Russell’s answer—I agree with a lot of what he said—but it’s an important question: do people get into the politics because they listen to the people playing it, or is it the other way around?

REH: It works both ways. We’re definitely trying to create something bigger than just the music. The politics, the artwork, the aesthetic, everything! That can help pull people into the music. You know, people may get into it because they like the music, but they’ll discover this other stuff.

BB: The music itself is its own entity too. People are going to biologically respond to it whether or not there’s a message. If you can write a message to go along with it, people will get it. It’s a propaganda tool like any other.

Press TV has interviewed Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of US Treasury from Panama City, who gives his insight on the revolution in Libya and why US President Barack Obama needs to overthrow Qaddafi when no other US presidents did.

Press TV: Russia has criticized NATO for going far beyond its UN mandate. In other news a joint Op Ed is going to be written by Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy who have said that “leaving Qaddafi in power would be an unconscionable betrayal to the Libyan people”.

We do know that the mandate does not call for regime change; the Obama administration has been saying they are not in there for regime change; but things seem a little different now don’t they?

Paul Craig Roberts: Yes they do. First of all, notice that the protests in Libya are different from the ones in Egypt or Yemen or Bahrain or Tunisia and the difference is that this is an armed rebellion.

There are more differences: another is that these protests originated in the eastern part of Libya where the oil is – they did not originate in the capital cities. And we have heard from the beginning, credible reports that the CIA is involved in the protests and there have been a large number of press reports that the CIA has sent back to Libya its Libyan asset to head up the Libyan rebellion.

In my opinion, what this is about is to eliminate China from the Mediterranean. China has extensive energy investments and construction investments in Libya. They are looking to Africa as a future energy source.

The US is countering this by organizing the United States African Command (USAC), which Qaddafi refused to join. So that’s the second reason for the Americans to want Qaddafi out.

And the third reason is that Libya controls part of the Mediterranean coast and it’s not in American hands.

Press TV: Who are the revolutionaries. The US say they don’t know who they’re dealing with, but considering the CIA is on the ground in contact with revolutionaries – Who are the people under whom Libya will function in any post-Qaddafi era?

PCR: Whether or not Libya functions under revolutionaries depends if the CIA wins – we don’t know that yet. As you said earlier, the UN resolution puts constraints on what the European and American forces can achieve in Libya. They can have a no fly zone, but they are not supposed to be in there fighting together with the rebels.

But of course the CIA is. So we do have these violations of the UN resolution. If NATO, which is now the cover for the world community, succeeds in overthrowing Qaddafi the next target will be Syria because Syria has already been demonized.

Why are they targeting Syria? – Because the Russians have a very large naval base in Syria. And it gives the Russian navy a presence in the Mediterranean; the US and NATO do not want that. If there is success in overthrowing Qaddafi, Syria is next.

Already, they are blaming Iran for Syria and Libya. Iran is a major target because it is an independent state that is not a puppet of the Western colonialists.

Press TV: With regards to the expansionist agenda of the West, when the UN mandate on Libya was debated in the UN Security Council, Russia did not veto it. Surely Russia must see this expansionist policy of the US, France and Britain.

PCR: Yes they must see that; and the same for China. It’s a much greater threat to China because it has 50 major investment projects in eastern Libya. So the question is why did Russia and China abstain rather than veto and block? We don’t know the answer.

Possibly the countries are thinking let the Americans get further over extended or they may not have wanted to confront them with a military or diplomatic position and have an onslaught of Western propaganda against them. We don’t know the reasons, but we know they did abstain because they did not agree with the policy and they continue to criticize it.

Press TV: A sizeable portion of Qaddafi’s assets have been frozen in the US as well as some other countries. We also know that the Libyan revolutionaries have set up a central bank and that they have started limited production of oil and they are dealing with American and other Western firms. It begs the question that we’ve never seen something like this happen in the middle of a revolution. Don’t you find that bizarre?

PCR: Yes it’s very bizarre and very suggestive. It brings back the fact of all the reports that the CIA is the originator of this so-called revolt and protest and is fomenting it and controlling it in a way that excludes China from its own Libyan oil investments.

In my opinion, what is going on is comparable to what the US and Britain did to Japan in the 1930s. When they cut Japan off from oil, from rubber, from minerals like ore; that was the origin of World War II in the pacific. And now the Americans and the British are doing the same thing to China.

The difference is that China has nuclear weapons and it also has a stronger economy than do the Americans. And so the Americans are taking a very high risk not only with themselves, but with the rest of the world. The entire world is now at stake on American over-reach; American huberus – the drive for American hegemony over the world is driving the rest of the world into a World War.

Press TV: In the context of America’s expansionist policies, how far do you think the US will stretch beyond the UN mandate? Are we going to see boots on the ground?

PCR: Most likely – unless they can find some way of defeating Qaddafi without that. Ever since we’ve had Bill Clinton, George W Bush and now Obama, what we’ve learned is law means nothing to the executive branch in the US. They don’t obey our own laws; they don’t obey international law; they violate all the civil liberties and buried the principal of habeas corpus – no crime without intent; of the ability for a defendant to be legally represented.

They don’t pay any attention to law so they’re not going to pay any attention to the UN. The UN is an American puppet organization and they will use it as a cover. So yes if they cannot run Qaddafi out they will put troops on the ground – that’s why we have the French and the British involved. We’re using the French elsewhere in Africa also; we use the British in Afghanistan – they’re puppets.

These countries are not independent. Sarkozy doesn’t report to the French people – he reports to Washington. The British PM doesn’t report to the English people he reports to Washington. These are puppet rulers of an empire; they have nothing to do with their own people and we put them in office.

Press TV: So these other countries would welcome having NATO troops on the ground?

PCR: Of course. They are in the CIAs pocket. It’s a CIA operation, not a legitimate protest of the Libyan people. It’s an armed rebellion that has no support in the capital city. It’s taking place in the east where the oil is and is directed at China.

Press TV: Where do you see the situation headed? There seems to be a rift between NATO countries with Britain and France wanting to increase the momentum of these air strikes, but the US saying no, there is no need.

PCR: The rift is not real. The rift is just part of the cover, just part of the propaganda. Qaddafi has been ruling for 40 years – he goes back to Gamal Abdel Nasser (before Anwar Sadat) who wanted to give independence to Egypt.

He (Qaddafi) was never before called a brutal dictator that has to be removed. No other president has ever said Qaddafi has to go. Not even Ronald Reagan who actually bombed Qaddafi’s compound and tried to kill him. But all of a sudden he has to go. Why?

Because he’s blocking the US African Command, he controls part of the Mediterranean and he has let China in to find its energy needs for the future. We (the US) are trying to cripple our main rival, China by denying it energy. That’s what this is really about; a reaction by the US.

If the US was concerned about humanitarianism, it wouldn’t be killing all these people in Afghanistan and Pakistan with their drones and military strikes. Almost always it’s civilians that are killed. And the US is reluctant to issue apologies about any of it. They say we thought we were killing Taliban or some other made-up enemy.

Press TV: Who will benefit from all of this other than the US? The other countries that comply with US wishes- What do they stand to gain from this?

PCR: We are only talking about NATO countries, the American puppet states. Britain, France, Italy, Germany, all belong to the American empire. We’ve had troops stationed in Germany since 1945. You’re talking about 66 years of American occupation of Germany. The Americans have military bases in Italy – how is that an independent country? France was somewhat independent until we put Sarkozy in power. So they all do what they’re told.

America wants to rule Russia, China, Iran, and Africa, all of South America. They want hegemony over the world. That’s what the word hegemony means. And they will pursue it at all costs.

Grégoire Lalieu: Can you remind us of what humanitarian imperialism consists of ?

Jean Bricmont: It is an ideology which aims to justify military interference against sovereign countries in the name of democracy and Human Rights. The motive is always the same: a population is the victim of a dictator, so we must act. Then all the usual references are trotted out: the Second World War, the war with Spain, and so on. The aim being to sell the argument that an armed intervention is necessary. This is what happened in Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan.

GL: And now comes Libya’ s turn.

JB: There is a difference here because a United Nations Security Council resolution makes it possible. But this resolution was passed against the principles of the Charter of the United Nations themselves. Indeed, I see no external threat in the Libyan conflict. Although the notion of the “responsibility to protect” populations had been evoked, many short cuts were taken. Besides, there is no proof that Gaddafi massacres his people just for the sole purpose of slaughtering them. It is a bit more complicated than that; it is an armed insurrection, and I know not of any government that would not repress an insurrection of this kind. Of course, there are collateral damage and civilian casualties. But if the United States knows a way to avoid such damage, then it should go and tell the Israelis about it, and apply it themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also no doubt that coalition bombings will cause civilian casualties.

From a strictly legal point of view, I think the U.N.S.C. resolution is questionable. It is, in fact, the result of years of lobbying for the recognition of the right to interfere, which proves here to be legitimized.

GL: And yet, many – even among the parties of the left – deemed it necessary to intervene in Libya in order to stop the massacre. Do you think it is an error of judgment?

JB: Yes, I do, and for several reasons. First of all, this campaign ushers in the reign of the arbitrary. Indeed, the Libyan conflict is not exceptional. There are many other conflicts anywhere in the world whether it may be in Gaza, in Bahrain, or in the Congo, which happened some years ago. As for the latter, it occurred within a context of foreign aggression on the part of Rwanda and Burundi. The enforcement of the international law would have saved millions of lives but it was not done. Why not ?

Besides, if we apply the underlying principles of interference behind the aggression against Libya, it means that anyone can intervene anywhere they want to. Imagine that the Russians intervene in Bahrain or the Chinese in Yemen: the world would be a general and ongoing war. Therefore one major feature of the right to interfere is the infringement of standard international law. And if we had to change international law to new laws justifying the right to interfere, it would result in a war of all against all. This is an argument to which the advocates of the right to interfere never give an answer.

And lastly, such interventions strengthen what I call the “barricade effect”: all the countries in the sights of the United States will start to feel threatened and will seek to increase their armaments. We all remember what happened with Saddam. Moreover, Gaddafi had said to the Arab League: “We have just lost a member state of the league and none of you have done anything. But it can happen to you too, because even though you are all U.S. allies, so was Saddam in the past.” Now the same thing is repeating itself with Gaddafi and the threat which hangs over many states is likely to relaunch the arms race. Russia, which is not an unarmed country, has already announced that it would reinforce its troops. But it can go even further: if Libya had the nuclear weapon, it would have never been attacked. Actually, this is why North Korea is untouchable. Therefore, the left which supports the intervention in Libya should definitely realize that humanitarian interference is inevitably going to relaunch the arms race and lead to long-term wars.

GL: And yet, wouldn’t the armed intervention against Gaddafi be a lesser evil?

JB: One has to consider the consequences. Now that the Western forces are involved, they will obviously have to go all the way, overthrow Gaddafi and bring the rebels to power. Then what is going to happen ? Libya seems to be divided. Is the West going to occupy the country and embark on an endless war similar to the ones in Iraq or in Afghanistan ?

Be that as it may, let us suppose that all goes well; the members of the coalition remove Gaddafi in a few days, the rebels take power, and the Libyan people is united. Everyone is happy and then what ? I do not think the West will go: “Well, we did it because we are nice people and fond of Human Rights. Now you can do whatever you please.” What is going to happen if the new Libyan government is too Muslim-like or does not properly limit migration flows? Do you think the West will let them do? It is obvious that after the intervention, the new Libyan government will be caught up in the interests of the West.

GL: If military intervention is not the solution, then what is?

JB: It would have been better if we had honestly attempted all peaceful solutions. It might not have worked but here, there is a blatant intention to reject these solutions. And by the way, this is an abiding feature of humanitarian wars. Concerning Kosovo, there were very detailed propositions on the part of Serbia in order to come to a peaceful solution but they were rejected. The West has even imposed conditions that made any negotiations impossible, such as the occupation of Serbia by N.A.T.O. forces. In Afghanistan, the Taliban proposed to try Bin Laden by an international court if they are provided with evidence of his involvement in the W.T.C. attacks. The U.S. refused it and bombed the country. In Iraq, Saddam had accepted the return of the United Nations inspectors as well as many extremely restrictive conditions. But it was never enough. In Libya, Gaddafi accepted a cease-fire and proposed to have international observers sent out there. The observers were not sent and it was said that Gaddafi did not respect the cease fire. The West also rejected Chavez’s offer to mediate in Libya, even though it was backed up by many Latino countries and the Organization of African Unity as well.

In that connection, I am angry when I hear left-wingers in Europe expose the horrible Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas which supports dictator Gaddafi. They got it all wrong! The leaders in power in Latin America have important responsibilities. They are not just small leftists chattering in their corner. And the major issue for these leaders is the interference of the U.S.; the less it can do whatever it pleases, wherever it pleases, the better it will be for all those countries which try to free themselves from tutelage by state power, and also for the whole world.

GL: Does the systematic rejection of peaceful solutions mean that humanitarian interference is an excuse ?

JB: Yes it does, but if it works well with the intellectuals, I am more doubtful about the reaction of the peoples of Europe. Will they support their leaders during the aggression against Gaddafi? People consider the wars for security to be the most legitimate ones; for instance, if there is a threat against our populations or our way of life, etc. But in the context of an overall climate of Islamophobia (that I disapprove, but it does exist) here and in France, you try explaining that we are fighting in Cyrenaica for rebels whom we see screaming “Allah U Akbar.” This is contradictory.

At the political level, most parties support the intervention, even the parties of the left. The most moderate ones only supported the implementation of a no-fly zone, but if Gaddafi sends his tanks to Benghazi, what are we to do ? During the Second World War, the Germans lost quite quickly control of the air space but they held out for several years yet. Insofar as the objective is to overthrow Gaddafi, the moderates should have suspected that it would go even further than the establishment of a no-fly zone.

Unable to take genuine and alternative stands, the left finds itself trapped by the logic of humanitarian interference and is compelled to support Sarkozy. If the war goes well and quickly, the position of the French President will undoubtedly be secure for the 2012 presidential elections, thanks to the left which would have contributed to it. The left, unable to assume a coherent attitude against wars, is compelled to tag along behind the interventionist policy.

GL: And what if the war does not go well ?

JB: It is regrettable, but the only French party that set against the intervention in Libya as regards French interests is the National Front. It particularly alluded to human migration flows and took occasion to distinguish itself from the U.M.P (Union for a Popular Movement) or the S.P. (Socialist Party) by claiming that it had never collaborated with Gaddafi. If the war in Libya does not go according to plan, it will benefit the National Front for the French presidential elections in 2012.

GL: If humanitarian interference is just an excuse, then what is the objective of this war ?

JB: The uprisings in the Arab world surprised the Westerners, which were not well informed enough about what was happening in North Africa and the Middle-East. I do not dispute that there are good experts on the issue, but they are seldom listened to at some level of the government, and by the way, they are complaining about it. So now, the new governments in Egypt and Tunisia might not align themselves with the interests of the West any longer, and consequently become hostile to Israel.

To take control of the area and protect Tel Aviv, the West is likely willing to get rid of governments that are already hostile to Israel and the West. The three main ones are Iran, Syria and Libya. The latter, since it is the weaker one, is attacked first.

GL: Can it work ?

JB: The West longed to rule the world but we can see since 2003 with the Iraq fiasco that it cannot. In the past, the United States took the liberty to overthrow rulers that it had brought to power, such as Ngô Dinh Diêm in South Vietnam in the 1960s. But nowadays, Washington cannot do that any longer. In Kosovo, the United States and Europe have to compromise with a Mafia-like regime. In Afghanistan, people say that Karzai is corrupt, but they have no other option. In Iraq, they also have to accept a government they are far from being fully pleased with.

The problem will certainly arise in Libya too. An Iraqi once told me: “In this part of the world, there are no liberals in the Western sense of the word, apart from a few rather isolated intellectuals.” Since the West cannot rely on rulers who share its ideas and who fully defend its interests, it tries to impose dictators through force. But it obviously creates a discrepancy with people’s desires.

GL: Besides, this approach proves to be a failure and people should not be fooled by what is occurring.

JB: The West, which thought it could be in control of the Arab world with puppets such as Ben Ali and Mubarak, would suddenly think: “We had it all wrong, now we are going to support democracy in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.” It is all the more absurd since one major demand of the Arab revolts is the right to sovereignty. In other words, no interference!

The West has to relinquish its desire for world domination; the Arab world, just like Africa and the Caribbean, does not belong to it. Actually, the regions in which the West most interfere are the less developed ones. If their sovereignty is respected, those regions will be able to develop, just like Asia did, and certainly so will Latin America. The policy of interference is a failure for everyone.

GL: Then what is the alternative ?

JB: First of all, one has to know that the policy of interference requires a huge military budget. Without the support of the United States and its outrageous military budget, France and Great Britain might not have become involved in it. And it is much less the case for Belgium. But all these means which are put at their disposal are not heaven-sent. The budget is based on loans from China that lead to U.S. deficits and all kinds of economic issues. We rarely think about it. Moreover, we are constantly told that there is no money for education, research, pensions, etc. And, all of a sudden, a huge sum comes out of the blue to wage war in Libya. And it is a limitless sum since no one knows how long the war will last! In Afghanistan, money is already spent fruitlessly. There is a need to adopt a new political approach and to me, Switzerland is a good example. Its military budget is only devoted to the protection of the Swiss territory. The Swiss have a coherent non-interventionist policy because, as a matter of policy, the Swiss army cannot leave the country. You can say that Switzerland is letting Gaddafi kill the insurgents, nevertheless, it has never committed any genocide nor any other massacre, even though we can criticize its policy on other matters (banks or immigration). And secondly, if all the countries followed the example of Switzerland for the reasons I stated earlier, the world would be much better.

Wars and embargoes have always had disastrous consequences. I think the best alternative is to cooperate with all the countries of the world regardless of their systems of government. Through trade (not the arms trade of course), ideas spread and things can evolve, without wars. We can of course discuss its forms: fair trade, ecological trade, etc. Nevertheless, trade is a much less bloody alternative as opposed to sanctions and embargoes, which are the soft version of humanitarian wars.

A wide ranging collection of essays, memoirs, and more, Banned in Vermont shines a light on topics the US justice (sic) system, wartime propaganda, feminism, capital punishment, GMOs, and so much more—all fulfilling the book’s cover promise: “unedited, uncensored, unpretentious, unabashed.”

The following is a conversation I recently had with Rosemarie Jackowski:

Mickey Z: Why did you write this book?

Rosemarie Jackowski: My main purpose was to chip away at some of the misinformation out there. Not only in Vermont, but across the US. For example, many people believe that protesting, or as I prefer to think about it, resistance to the government, is a fun filled, rowdy experience reminiscent of images of the ’60s. Protests now are different. Much more serious. Right now there are many peace advocates in prison. Recently those who protested at the US School of the Assassins at Fort Benning were convicted. Usually those who are prisoners because of acts of conscience get very little news coverage. They are in reality secret political prisoners. Bradley Manning is a political prisoner—one of the few who has attracted any media attention.

MZ: With all the ground you cover in Banned in Vermont, is there anything you left out?

RMJ: Thanks for that question. There are many little secrets hidden in the book. One of them I will leave to the reader’s imagination. It concerns testimony during the sentencing hearing. I refer to this statement on page 20: “…Seems like we were at an impasse.” Imagine being the judge who had to impose my sentence. By this time, the war had become very unpopular. I, on the other hand, was receiving a lot of public support. The press dubbed me ‘The Vermont Peace Grandma’. I had no prior record and even the prosecution admitted that my act of conscience had good intent. It was clear from testimony that my motivation was a love of children and an abhorrence to violence and war. It does appear that I had secured the moral high ground. I expressed my willingness to go to prison. It almost made me feel sorry for the judge who would have to impose a sentence. The undisclosed secret in the book that the reader will have to decide is: Was this checkmating of the system a result of my well thought out legal strategy, or was I just lucky in having the events unfold this way?

Also, left out of the book was an irrelevant bit of legal trivia. During part of this long process, I had two cases before the Vermont Supreme Court and no lawyer. I don’t think that happens very often, if ever.

MZ: What would you like readers to experience while reading your book?

RMJ: I hope that readers will experience humor, joy, and sometimes sadness—which can sometimes inspire one to action. One of the most important messages of the book is something that I sprinkled on every page that I could. That is the Madeleine Albright admission that the USA killed 500,000+ Iraqi children and she thought that the price was worth it. I remember seeing that interview with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes way back in 1996. My immediate reaction was, ‘finally’. Now the sleeping US conscience would be awakened. I was wrong. The lack of empathy for victims of US foreign policy is mindboggling. How can that be explained?

One other important message in the book concerns the Black Budget. I pose the question: Has every election since 1947 been illegal? The Black Budget was authorized in 1947. How can those elections be legal if no informed votes were cast? If you can’t follow the money, you can’t know what your secret government is doing. Too many believe that if all uniformed members of the military were brought home, the killing would end. It is clear that more have died because of actions of the State Dept., CIA, private contractors, etc. etc, etc. In actuality, the uniformed military is only the tip of the iceberg. The real danger is with the secret US forces.

MZ: Should we expect another book from you soon?

RMJ: Not on my very old computer. Unfortunately, writing does not pay. Most authors that I know, even the really great ones, are struggling. I expect to make less than zero money on this book.

MZ: In light of the current rhetoric, do you feel there’s any “hope”?

RMJ: Not until US citizens change. That will require a change in almost everything—from the way US history is taught in schools, to the way information is disseminated to the general public. Just last night, I was talking with a friend who is a high-ranking administrator in the educational system. He has a copy of my book and said that there was a good chance that it would be banned in school libraries. On the other hand, I have already been invited to speak to a college class.

At Georgetown University he studied modern European intellectual history under the Palestinian ex-patriot Professor Hisham Sharabi. Sharabi and Davidson subsequently became close friends and one can date his interest in Palestinian, as well as Jewish and Zionist, issues from this time.

Dr. Davidson writes regularly on the Middle East affairs, Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. foreign policy.  He has written several books of which America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood, published by the University Press of Florida, is a prominent example.

Dr. Davidson joined me in an exclusive interview to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East, the collective uprising of the Arab world, Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions of 2011, the humanitarian crisis in Libya, the prospect of anti-government protests in Saudi Arabia and the fate of the Israeli regime in the wake of growing international isolation.

What follows is the complete text of my interview with Dr. Lawrence Davidson.

Kourosh Ziabari: Everything started when a simple, unostentatious street vendor committed an act of self-immolation before a municipal office in the suburbs of Tunis in protest to the humiliation and persecution which was inflicted on him. How did this apparently trivial incident lead to the unprecedented wave of protests which encompassed the whole Arab world in a matter of days? Do you consider the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi the cause of this turmoil or did the Arab world revolutions have their roots in other factors which we might be unaware of?

Lawrence Davidson: The conditions which made the uprisings in the Middle East possible have been with us for a very long time. Economic deprivation, repression and corruption were constants throughout the reigns of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt. They also exist in Yemen. Different variations on these themes can be found in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and many other countries of the region as well. So revolt was, and is, always a possibility. The much harder question to answer is, why now? For instance, why did the steps taken by Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia act as a successful trigger?

We know that the default position of most people living under repressive regimes is fear and passivity. At some point an exceptional occurrence (it can be negative or positive) will bring a small and brave element of the population into the streets. If they are not suppressed quickly by the regime, their actions might encourage others to join them and then you have a snowballing effect. At that point the regime either negotiates or brings in the tanks. Negotiating often risks the complete unraveling of an authoritarian regime. That is why you most often get the tanks.

In the case of Tunisia, the military seems to have backed off shooting its own people. In Egypt I think the Obama administration played a role by telling the Egyptian military that they were not to use American weapons to shoot Egyptian protesters. That seemed to have had a real impact. Washington ought to tell the Israelis the same thing.

KZ: It’s undeniable that the United States and its European allies are dithering over how to deal with Libya’s dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, refusing to take a practical, decisive step to tackle the deplorable situation in the war-hit country. It’s estimated that the Libyan butcher has so called massacred more than 6,500 people and the UN, UNSC, the US and its allies haven’t made any decision to stop him. What’s the reason behind the West’s indecisiveness over the situation in Libya?

LD: Well, it would appear that the Western powers have overcome their indecisiveness as far as Libya is concerned. I wrote a recent blog piece which points out that the American rationale for this intervention, the protection of civilians, is just sheer hypocrisy. It is simply impossible to believe that Washington has any real concern for civilians in Libya given the U.S. history of slaughter of civilians in Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan, as well as its protection of Israel as that country ethnically cleanses Palestine. No, the issue of civilians is just an excuse for the Americans.

The U.S. government, after some hesitancy over the Islamic makeup of a number of Libya’s rebelling elements, has decided to go for regime change in that country. The on-going civil war is a good opportunity for Washington to do this. Most of the NATO allies were quickly brought into agreement and the Gulf oil sheiks, who never liked Gadhafi, soon joined the chorus. The next step was a bit more difficult. Intervening in someone else’s civil war is easy for Washington. The Americans do this all the time, particularly in South America. However, it is the sort of thing that does undermine the principle of national sovereignty, and countries such as China and Russia have always been very wary of creating precedents along this line. That is why I was surprised when these countries abstained in the Security Council vote on Libya rather than casting a veto. One wonders what they got in return from Washington.

The passage of the Security Council resolution means that Muammar Gadhafi is probably finished. Whatever one might think of his regime, I do not believe that it is going to be easy to put Libya back together again once you have helped take the country apart. But then, maybe the Western powers don’t care if this basically tribal society falls apart. A dismembered Libya is an inherently weaker Libya. All they care about is that the oil keeps flowing.

KZ: What’s your estimation of the military presence of Saudi Arabia and UAE in Bahrain? It seems that the United States has showed the green light to Saudi Arabia and UAE to invade Bahrain and suppress the anti-government protestors. What are the impacts of this invasion on the Persian Gulf security and the implications thereof for the regional countries?

LD: When one compares American policy in Libya with the policy in Bahrain it becomes pretty clear that neither the protection of civilians, nor the cause of democracy and freedom espoused by the protesters, is a motivator of U.S. policy. In Libya the issue is oil and getting rid of a leader who is obviously beyond Western control. In Bahrain the issue is, as it was in Egypt, finding a way to bring about a modicum of reform that maintains stability. Washington has a major naval base in Bahrain as well as oil interests. Optimally, Obama would have liked to see the ruling Sunni elements in that country come to some compromise with the majority Shiite citizenry. The Obama administration sees (with more clarity than most U.S. administrations) that outright suppression of the Bahraini Shiites only postpones the day of reckoning. And so they have counseled both the Bahrainis and the Saudis to move in the direction of compromise reforms. After all, the next time you get protests in Bahrain, and there will be a next time, things might be much more violent and you run the risk of getting a pro Iranian takeover in that country.

Unfortunately, neither the Bahraini government nor the Saudis feel confident enough to compromise with their Shiite populations. So they decided to settle the matter through repression. The distractions provided by the Libyan situation provided the moment to do so and the Americans made the decision to stand aside in these cases. Solving the problems that brought on protests in Bahrain, and also in the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, is therefore postponed to an unspecified later time.

KZ: It’s been a longstanding American tradition to help foster, back and encourage dictators and dismantle them consequently. We know of Saddam Hussein’s fate who was unconditionally backed and supported by the United States during the 8-year war with Iran. 20 years later, the same United States captures and kills Saddam Hussein. The same goes about Osama Bin Laden, whom we know was promoted by the United States. Ben Ali and Mubarak are also the same. At first, President Obama urged them to remain in power and implement the changes which the angry people demanded, but when he saw that the implementation of changes without a regime change would be impossible, he softened his tone and called on them to step down. You may remember that the same happened with the Shah of Iran. What’s your opinion about this?

LD: When it comes to American foreign policy you have the war hawks such as the neo-conservatives, and then you have the more flexible and diplomatic elements like Jimmy Carter and now Barak Obama. The two groups have the same ends, the maintenance of U.S. domination and the satisfying of various powerful domestic interest groups, but their tactics can be quite different. From the point of view of the latter group, the Shah of Iran self-destructed. In other words, he brought himself down by not knowing how and when to adjust to changing conditions. Thus, when Mubarak got into trouble he was told by Washington to adjust to the new conditions and meet the protesters half way. If it had been George W. Bush in office, he might have gotten quite different advice.

The willingness of Washington to support an ally and then abandon him is an indicator that (outside of traditional alliances like that with Great Britain) individual loyalty has nothing to do with anything. The Saudi royal house may have been shocked and unsettled when Washington let Mubarak go, but what is really surprising is that they had not yet learned that international relations as played by the Western powers is not at all about personal relationships and loyalties.  It’s about the satisfaction of special interests embedded in the domestic politics of the Western nations. If Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, Osma bin Laden, or anyone else behaves in ways deemed really incompatible with those interests they will be pushed aside or worse.

KZ: What’s your prediction for the outcome of anti-government protests in Saudi Arabia and Yemen which have not borne fruits so far? It seems quite unlikely that Saudi Arabia, which enjoys the all-out backing of the United States, will bow down to the demands of its people regarding the expansion of social and political freedoms. The sames goes with Yemen where the uncompromising Ali Abdullah Saleh has shown no signal of willingness to reconcile with the revolutionaries. What do you think about this?

LD: The answer to this question has been given, pretty definitively, by events in Bahrain over the last couple of days. The Obama administration, though they would like to see reform, have acquiesced in the suppression tactics of the Bahrainis and Saudis. Such tactics are not deemed long term solutions, but they do maintain stability for the immediate future. Yemen is not a very strategic place for Washington. And so the Americans will go along with whoever comes out on top as long as that party keeps Al Qaida out and does not interfere in Saudi Arabia.

KZ: Some thinkers believe that the recent developments in the Middle East will jeopardize the interests of Israel on one hand and empower the Islamic Republic of Iran on the other hand. They believe that a democratic government in Egypt which is led by a moderate Islamist such as Mohamed ElBradei will be quite intolerable and bitter for Israel while being good news to the Iranians. The same would be applicable to the other U.S.-backed tyrannical regimes of the region such as Bahrain, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Jordan. What’s you viewpoint in this regard?

LD: Washington had much more leverage in Egypt than in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. The U.S. supplies Egypt’s weapons, spare parts, and practically pays the salaries of the officer corp. It sends tons of free surplus wheat to Egypt to help moderate food prices. The Obama administration made a strategic decision that having Egyptians, protesting for democratic reform, shot down with American weapons would be disastrous and so it decided that Mubarak would compromise or he would be pushed out.

The Obama administration relationship with Israel is barely cordial. While Obama will retreat before Zionist pressure, particularly as exercised through Congress, he seems to have drawn the line when it came to Egypt and Mubarak. His arguments must have won the day with the Congress because the Zionist lobbies went largely mute on this issue even as the Israeli government was screaming and throwing temper tantrums. If nothing else, all this goes to prove that the Zionists in the U.S. are not invincible.

This being said, the Israeli influence in the U.S. is still very great and, as we have seen with the recent U.S. veto of a Security Council resolution on illegal West Bank settlements, Obama will still play along with the Zionists on most issues. However, the Israelis will just have to learn to live with the new Egypt. They will have no choice as long as Obama is president. After that, who knows? The amount of influence Iran will have in the new Egypt will almost certainly be very small. After all, the U.S. still has its leverage.

KZ: It’s widely believed that the Israeli lobby controls the majority of mainstream media in the United States and Europe and hence impedes the publication of any report, commentary, feature story, article or news in which Tel Aviv is criticized or its illegal, unjustifiable policies and actions are exposed. How has the Israeli lobby acquired such an immense power and how does it control the mass media in the United States? What is the source of Israeli lobby’s influence and power?

LD: The answer to this question has to do with the nature of American domestic politics, which is driven by special interests and lobbies. Here is how it works in terms of Israel. The Zionist lobby is one of the best organized and funded special interests in the country. It is allied to the Christian fundamentalist lobby which represents one of the country’s largest voting constituencies. The two allies go to each of the American Senators and Congressmen and offer them support. The support comes in the form of mobilizing Jewish and Christian fundamentalists voters in their areas to vote for them, and also in terms of financial contributions to their campaigns. What they want in return is a consistent pro-Israel voting record which, of course, includes voting for generous foreign aid to Israel.

Since the vast majority of Senators and Congressmen come from areas where their general constituency is either indifferent or favorable to Israel, it is easy to see how they would go along with the Zionist and Christian fundamentalist lobbies. On those rare occasions when an American legislator refuses to play along, the Zionists financially back his or her opponent both in the primaries and the general election. Eventually they are able to help defeat him. The opponent whom they backed is now beholden to the Zionists who helped get him elected. It is a rather simple strategy.

In addition both political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, receive money from the Zionist lobby and so both parties try to keep the Zionists happy. Thus, for all intents and purposes, the American Congress, both House and Senate, have become agents of a foreign power when it comes to the question of Israel/Palestine.

When it comes to the media it has to be kept in mind that these are mostly for profit companies. They are not in business to supply the “truth” or even accurate reporting. They are in business to sell newspaper and television advertising. That is where they make their money. Under the circumstances, the Zionists, or “the Jews,” do not have to own or control these businesses, and in most cases they do not. All they have do is be able to organize subscription and advertising boycotts, and this they can do. So most media outlets are simply going to stay away from any sort of consistent reporting that will result in loss of revenue.

KZ: Many political academicians have openly suggested that the life of Israel is approaching an end and it will have the destiny of the former Soviet Union. A report which is attributed to the CIA says that Israel will decline in 20 years. What’s your prediction for the future of Israel? Do you cast the same doubts regarding the survival of Israel? Is it capable of standing on its own feet should the United States lift its support for Tel Aviv?

LD: I think it is premature to start predicting the demise of Zionist Israel. What we have here is a fully industrialized, high technology economy that is now fairly well integrated into equivalent high tech and military production in the United States and Europe. In other words, to a certain extent these economies are now tied together. Therefore, Western support for Israel is not going to evaporate by magic in the foreseeable future. In Israel we also have a population that is fully indoctrinated into a racist ideology. They already feel abandoned by most of the world and so most Israelis (who do not simply pick up and leave the country) are fanatically holding on to their Zionist ideology and state.

My feeling is that the only thing that can eventually erode this Israeli fanaticism is a worldwide campaign of boycott, sanctions and divestment similar to the one that finally brought down the regime in South Africa. And, of course, that campaign is underway and growing steadily. Still, in will be a long struggle, perhaps another fifty to seventy five years. It is a shame, but I will probably not live to see it.