What Leftists Get Wrong About Guns

By Cameron Hughes

A passing glance at the headlines might suggest that the debate around gun control breaks down along the typical liberal/conservative divide. Most elements of the mainstream right have coalesced around a narrative that "big government liberals want to eliminate the second amendment" - that is to say that their arguments lay strictly in the realm of respecting the 'sacred text' of the constitution. Other, more fringe elements of the right make similar points, though the crux of their position tends to portray gun ownership as a last defense against a tyrannical government; think militias of the far-right-libertarian or Bundy ranch disposition. Following their rhetoric to its logical conclusion, the right offers a view of mass shootings as a series of aberrations, unconnected to a larger pattern.

The liberal philosophy regarding guns has solidified behind a vision of gun culture as belonging to the unsophisticated, poor, or un-evolved. The liberal elite sees no use in understanding, let alone owning, firearms. These same liberals have historically offered paltry technocratic solutions to the gun-violence problem; they favor increased background checks or the outlawing of certain gun accessories. Liberals may recognize that the violence perpetrated by mass shooters fits into a cogent pattern, but like those on the right, they are incapable of recognizing the structural root of the problem. Regardless of the rhetoric emanating from either pole in the debate, mass shootings have continued unabated, constantly spurring renewed calls for sweeping gun control. Herein lies a fundamental problem.

The calls to massively overhaul existing gun laws betray an understanding of who exactly a new regime of restrictive legislation would most effect. If we understand that jurisprudence is disproportionately meted out based on race, then clearly we should also understand that new laws - especially those which call for enhanced sentencing, like most gun control legislation does - would disproportionately be applied to people of color and the poor. Despite all of their bluster, it would not be the suburban, 'middle-class,' 'don't-tread-on-me' libertarian types who would bear the judicial brunt of new gun-control ordinances. Rather, as evidenced by cases like that of Tamir Rice and John Crawford III, the police are already eager to use the guise of 'being armed' or 'reaching for one's waistband' as a cynical cover for their obviously racist murders. Imagine then for a moment that they are extended a further legal precedent to criminalize those that they already subject to excessive arrest or violence. If we take the problem of mass incarceration seriously, then so too should we take our understanding of how the state actually functions in its application of the law. In this way, we must confront the fact that racial justice is a prerequisite for tackling gun violence, not the reverse.

We must chart a different path forward. Free from both the inaction of the right and the liberal reliance on violent state coercion. As revolutionaries, we understand that the abolition of class society, and its replacement with a wholly more democratic and equitable alternative, is our only viable option. We contend that much of the violence we experience in our everyday lives, as well as that which is brought to bear in the horrific actions of mass shooters, has itself risen out of the violence, alienation, and degradation that we are subjected to by the forces of capital and state. The building of a society which not only acts to reduce isolation and anomie, but also allows individuals access to comprehensive physical and mental health services would, in our contention, make great leaps toward curtailing episodes of mass violence.

But how do we make a break from our current situation? Though the left has a history of successful armed insurrectionary events to look back on, it's clear that the current US left is nowhere near this stage, capability, or willingness. If anything, the capacity to drum up support for an insurrectionary anti-state imaginary has more life among the militias of the right. Despite this, we recognize that firearms have played a historic role in helping to create the material preconditions for popular power. We must only look to the Black Panther Party - whose program of armed self defense spurred Ronald Reagan and the National Rifle Association to pass extraordinarily racist gun control laws in California - for confirmation that the incorporation of arms into a broader program of popular organizing can strike fear into the heart of the state, giving a burgeoning movement enough defensive breathing room to build its base.

While firearms have their place in revolutionary activity, as the Panthers well understood, it is imperative that we on the contemporary left disabuse ourselves of the notion that bullets are the ultimate praxis. Instead, we must incorporate arms as but one component in a wider strategy of building up a popular, revolutionary mass movement. Contemporary groups like Redneck Revolt, the Socialist Rifle Association, and Huey P. Newton Gun Club, among others, have made strides toward rejecting a fetishization of armed insurrection, while still recognizing the necessity of self defense that firearms help to facilitate in the context of popular organizing. An anecdote from an NPR interview with Charles E. Cobb, author and former member of SNCC, about his book, This Nonviolent Stuf'll Get you Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible , further drives this point home:

"William Worthy, who was a journalist...tried to sit down in an armchair in Martin Luther King's house and was warned by Bayard Rustin, who was with him, that he was about to sit down on a couple of handguns. [...] Martin King's household, as one person noted, was an arsenal with guns all over the place."

In his book, Cobb makes the assertion that the vast majority of civil rights leaders who championed a commitment to 'non-violent' struggle were still willing to use arms as a measure of self defense against white-supremacist mobs and assassins.

Taking a cue from our forbearers, we should recognize that guns have a place in our tactical and strategic outlook as revolutionaries, but in the same way are limited in their potential role. Members of Redneck Revolt and the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, for example, spend the vast majority of their time building programs of autonomy and survival, away from the range. Both groups have initiated food-sharing programs, first-aid courses, and firearm-safety training. When hurricane Harvey struck the south coast of Texas, the Houston chapter of Redneck Revolt sprung into action, helping to distribute supplies and clear debris from waterlogged houses.

We should reject the glorification of firearms that so often occurs on the right, while also rejecting the revulsion and ignorance that is simultaneously offered by liberals. We should emphasize that the roots of mass-shooting events are linked intrinsically to the unequal material conditions of our society - and that neither intransigence nor reform can hope to bring this type of explosive violence to an end. This task can only be achieved through a fundamental reshaping of our society.

Cameron Hughes holds a bachelor's degree in sociology, with an emphasis in social movement studies. He is a founding member of the editorial collective which publishes Salvo. He is also a member transitioning into the Black Rose Anarchist Federation.

South Carolina Prisoners Reflect on Causes of Violence in Prisons, and Solutions

By Jared Ware

The deadliest incident of violence in a United States prison in a quarter century took place at the Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina on April 15, 2018.

According to multiple reports , including SCDC Director Bryan Stirling's own, prison guards and EMTs made no attempt to break things up or lend medical aid from moment the fight commenced until hours after it was over, while imprisoned people were beaten and stabbed to death. Seven people were killed and dozens were injured, with at least twenty two requiring hospitalization.

On April 22, I interviewed three individuals from various prisons inside the South Carolina Department of Corrections. One of the prisoners identified himself as a member of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a group of imprisoned human rights advocates that has made national calls to action for a prisoner-led strike in response to the conditions they feel are truly responsible for the violence and hopelessness within prisons across the United States. The strike is expected to begin on August 21st, 2018.

Throughout our conversation, these three individuals, who are identified only as D, S, and E to protect their identities and prevent retaliation by prison officials, highlight the impacts of policies pushed by President Bill Clinton's administration and implemented by states across the country. They also point to the dehumanization of prisoners and challenge our conception of "gangs," which does not take into account the ways in which incarcerated people are forced to create their own collective means for safety, survival, and camaraderie in a situation where hope is the scarcest commodity.

They also urge the public to reconsider the nature and source of violence within prisons and the absence of human dignity and a rehabilitative environment within our nation's prisons. They present actionable solutions to mitigate some of the harm caused by prisons on our ultimate path toward shedding carceral responses to legitimate societal needs.

As I write this introduction on May 2nd, 2018, South Carolina prisoners have confirmed that all Level 2 and 3 facilities have remained on a statewide lockdown since April 15th. This means people imprisoned in facilities have been denied any freedom of movement, regular access to showers, recreation, or meals outside the confines of their cells.

We grant permission for individuals and news organizations to republish this interview in its entirety for their audiences. It is imperative that we deepen conversations around the causes of violence in prisons and the real impacts of incarceration on all people, inside and outside the walls.

Editor's note: this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jared : Firstly, for context for folks who are reading this, there have been a lot of things that have gone down in South Carolina prisons over the last year or two, if you guys could lay down some of that context for people, because I think a lot of people don't understand some of the things that prisoners throughout South Carolina have been dealing with and how those conditions might contribute to prisoners really feeling a sense of hopelessness?

D : I'm going to take you back a little step here, to 1996 at least. I'll cover it a little bit, and I'll be as brief as possible. Prior to Bill Clinton's Prison Litigation Reform Act, anti-terrorism act, these acts that went into full effect in 1996, initiated what is known as the 85% or Truth In Sentencing [1] throughout most of the states inside this nation today. It's not just necessarily something that incubated inside the South Carolina, it was actually national. There was a domino effect, okay? But in 1996, specifically, the reason why I'm pinpointing that is because at that particular point in the state of South Carolina, there was no such thing as a natural life sentence in the department of corrections. There was no such thing as a forever-type sentence, where individuals thought that they weren't going to be able to get out.

Even if you had a violent offense, or a labeled-violent offense, you still had something known as a work release date. You still would have some type of eligibility to go to work release, and that also meant the eligibility to go to work at some place on the street, or go home even on the weekends in the state of South Carolina. They had opportunity to make state pay [2] during that particular time period. Even when you [were] at what was known as the max yard. These yards [were] clearly open, everybody could roam and move around free.

But when 1996 set in, and you had this mindset that started to kicked in, that was known, as Hillary Clinton called [it], as locking down these "super predators." They called it also the War on Drugs, which I call the war on the Black and Brown community. All these things is playing into effect at that particular time period, and that created the environment inside.

We found fences starting to be wrapped into the prisons, we found prisoners that was labeled as violent offenders, was sent into these fences, and caged into buildings all day. We found that the food started deteriorating, we saw the clothes removed, and we saw the ways that [imprisoned people] could make money removed out of the system. There was no longer any type of state pay. Even though state pay was very minimal, it was still an opportunity to buy a bar of soap or a Honey Bun or something like that. We saw that visitation was being restricted.

It was just a host of things that started being incubated. And then the hopelessness set in. Because what happened then is we started having these life sentences coming through under 85 percent, where prisoners knew they were never going to see daylight again. We started having what we call "football numbers:" 80, 100, 150 years coming through 85 percent [time served, where prisoners knew they were] never going to see daylight again.

So this is where actually a lot of the problems started accumulating. And not only that, but actually education was removed by the prison system. Any type of Pell Grants, all that was gone. Education, technical colleges, everything was removed. So that's a little bit of a picture of what kind of started to shape the environment back here.

Jared : Thank you, so that changed obviously the overall conditions of how prisons across the country changed and sort of the hopelessness that set in. Can you talk to me a little bit though of some of the specific things that happened in South Carolina over the last couple of years?

D : And this is when the most sadistic mindsets start to set in. Prisoncrats… And I'm going to [let] the brother answer that one.

S: So for one, as the brother was just telling you with the "football numbers," prisoners got a lot of time to serve, but actually with nothing to do. When they took away all the privileges, they took away a lot of the programs. Stuff like that, it leads to just standing around with nothing to do, except to indulge in negative behavior, and reactionary behavior, and just all different forms of escapism--whatever they can do to pass the time.

They drug test you so they can take away your privileges. Why do they need drug testing inside the prisons? People are already in here doing time, it's irrelevant. I can see if somebody's getting ready to go home for parole or something like that and you're going to test them, but just to constantly test them, that's kind of like a waste of money. They always waste their funds on things they don't need to waste their funds on. [1]

We have no means of supporting ourselves because there's no state pay. Because we have no state pay, we have no way to eat. As the brother said, even though it was just a little bit of money, but it still was something. You still could buy some hygiene [products].

When they do lockdown, they're supposed to give you showers Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, whatever the lockdown be for. But they don't ever honor it. They want to do one cell at a time, and it'll take you a whole week before you get a shower. You have some prisons where the water system is messed up. Particularly at Lieber [Correctional Institute], their water system has been messed up forever. When you flush the toilet or pour your water, it smells like rotten eggs. They say it has sulfur in it or whatever, but it eats up the actual metal, and causes mold and stuff to be all over the prison. If they were to go do a tour through that prison right now, and they go all the way from the lock-up to the yard, the ceiling is falling in, metal hanging down, it's dripping all over the place, mold is all over the place, people who are in prison for 15-20 years are dying from cancer. But they don't have no cigarettes inside, you feel me?

We're confined to a cell a lot. They do a lot of counts and the counts always last for a long period of time. The purpose of counting is to make sure that we're here. In all reality, they should just count us and then let us back out for recreation. If you count from the time you eat dinner on a Friday night to your next meal on a Saturday, it's 17-18 hours before you get your next meal. And on the daily basis, you're talking about 12 to 13 hours from when you get your first meal to your next meal, that's almost like a half a day, that's a long time.

So you eat up all your [food purchased from the] canteen, which forces you to go the canteen and spend a lot of money on a bunch of a junk that they price gouge, that's super high, but this money is coming from their family members who are out there working hard to help support you as well.

D : One of the things that has not fully been addressed in South Carolina is the nature and culture of disrespect from the officers inside the South Carolina Department of Corrections, as well. They have completely in my eyes mastered the art of dehumanizing prisoners. Once again, we have to keep in mind they intentionally went into an overdrive of taking the prisoners clothes. Not only taking the prisoners clothes, cutting the prisoners hair the same way, had it to where you can't have your money in your pocket, just a number of things to take away your individuality. And in the process of taking away your individuality, they begin to treat you as if you were garbage. What I mean by treat you as garbage, just by dehumanizing us it makes it easier for them to abuse us, and this abuse a lot of times takes place as physical abuse.

We had in the Super Max Units out in Columbia, South Carolina maybe about a year or two ago, guards bumrush a prisoner inside his cell, stab him up. We've always had a number of incidents with regards to them cuffing prisoners, then cut prisoners up, slamming prisoners on their heads. In some cases we've had some mysterious deaths, some hangings that prisoners are clearly not comfortable with labelling them as hangings on these maximum security prisons.

We've also had incidents where prisoners, when he speaks of recreation, understand something about this recreation a lot of places and a lot of areas right now, prisoners are no longer getting rec at all. It's like every blue moon before we even see any sunlight or daylight to be able to get rec. What we are finding is that, that itself is causing a lot of attitude problems. A lot of aggressiveness.

When we talk about the food, we don't get any fruit, no real fruit anyway. At one time they actually had salad bars; they removed all of that over two decades ago. Now you get nothing. Some of the food is labeled "not for human consumption." So these are normal things that we are actually dealing with inside the prison system.

For visitation, there's no contact with your visitor, with your loved ones. One kiss in, one kiss out. Rather than a hug, sit down, embrace each other. Be in the comfort of each other's company. We're finding that is moving further and further away, and I'm very fearful that we're moving to the stage of video visits very soon, in the very near future.

Jared : Talk a little bit about the angle of this around technology. Bryan Stirling has been for at least a year now, probably more, he's been on this kick about getting cell phones out. You know there was this sort of fairly high profile escape less than a year ago, and they blamed cell phones for that. And they're also blaming this riot on cell phones. They're talking about phone jammers. So just talk a little bit about cell phones in relation to the prisons and what they mean or provide to prisoners and how realistic some of these narratives or fears that are being stated by SCDC are.

S : SCDC's main reason for not wanting the phones inside the prison system is because the phones got camera access, video access, and the phones can expose the things that they do. When they're using extreme force - the same way people are using cell phones out on the street when they're catching certain things that cops aren't supposed to be doing and stuff like that - see they can be exposed, they can't hide when we've got the phones.

The prisoners utilize the phones to communicate with their family members. The phone system that [SCDC has], the phone prices are entirely too high, nobody would use that. They get money off it, too, and everybody knows that. And prisoners use the phone as a means of staying connected to their families, fathers staying connected to their children. Some fathers back here are raising their children from prison by staying in contact with them. [2]

So SCDC just wants the phones out of the prisons because they don't want to be exposed. They don't want the videos of the fights and stabbings to be shown. There's other things prisoners are shooting videos of. They're showing videos of the brown water, they show videos of the mold inside the buildings. They show videos of the prisoners who've been dead in the bed for two hours and the guard ain't come and check on the man yet. So it's a fly on the wall for them, that's why they don't want them in here.

Jared : I've heard some reporting on how high the death numbers are from South Carolina over the past couple years, but I've also heard from some prisoners that they believe the death numbers are actually much higher than what's being reported. For example, I've had a prisoner tell me that, even though SCDC is officially stating death toll numbers in the teens over the last year, and these numbers are very high based on national averages, that the numbers are actually higher but they believe SCDC is only reporting certain kinds of deaths.

S : Yeah they are only reporting certain kinds of deaths, not including some deaths that they have caused themselves. And just to give you an example, they have a cell in the area they call the RHU (Restrictive Housing Unit) that's supposed to be the area they put people that get in trouble or whatever. And they've got a cell that's called a CI (Crisis Intervention) cell. That's where they strip you, make you get butt naked you got no clothes on, no nothing, and when they do bring you something, they'll bring you a suicide blanket only.

So you had a guy years ago, where he said he was going to kill himself, so they put him in the CI, so the guy told one of the Lieutenants later on that night he was cool. The Lieutenant gave the man a sheet and then they say the man hanged himself. That's what they said. But by policy and by rule, nobody is supposed to have [any] sheets in [any] CI cell and everybody know that, especially the Lieutenant, who's a supervisor. So that's their fault. He was a mentally ill patient. That's on them. So of course you know when they write it up, or they give the information to the public or his family, they [aren't telling those] people that.

D : Absolutely. I'd like to add to that as well. One of the reasons why the number is probably higher as well is they're dealing with medical neglect. So I'll give you an example. I saw a guy that fell out of his seat. And the guard looked over the guy, but the prisoner was the only one that responded and started to give the guy mouth to mouth resuscitation. Well, come to find out the guy who was giving him resuscitation, his face started turning blue. Five minutes later the nurse arrives, and they lean over and they tell the guy and tell the officer they'd been giving mouth-to-mouth the wrong way. I honestly sat there and saw them kill this man for that particular incident.

And we've also seen incidents where guys fall out, no medical treatment whatsoever. I consider those direct murders, as well, of the state. When staff are failing to respond or respond and say, "Oh, you're faking it, you're not having a heart attack," and you fall out and die right there. We saw that happen several times as well. So this also would account for why some of the prisoners would say that these numbers definitely would be higher, after they are witnessing some people being allowed to die, the way that they're being allowed to die.

If I can, I wanted to kind of backtrack on the question you asked earlier on cell phones.

Jared : Sure.

D : First things first, I always have to understand the basic fundamental nature of today's prison system throughout this nation is slavery. We understand that it's based on the 13th Amendment of the United States constitution, we can't get around that. There's a profit business, so it's all about profit, it's about the profit margin. That's what fuels the numbers in the prisons across this nation. It's no different in the state of South Carolina.

Technology, with prisoners having access to communication, the phone business has lost billions literally, in this state right here alone. Billions! They have put in certain rooms in here, they've put these machines in called kiosks, they are getting no play. This is where you're supposed to be able to send out literally something like text messages to your people. They thought this was going to be a booming industry, nobody is using it. This is a loss of revenue.

We have these same phone companies that are investing in the department of corrections, literally for free, giving them equipment to find cell phones. Giving them equipment to search our families at the front gate when they come in to visit us, giving them equipment to monitor the gate areas. So they're giving them this. This wasn't just a free handout, but this was because [they] need to make money, [they] need to get these phones out of the system. That has always been understood.

Even now, I'm hearing that, even with the jamming equipment that Bryan Stirling is requesting and supposed to have a hold of for Lee County right now, I think the company is called "Tech something," I'm not really sure exactly, but my understanding is that the parent company is GTL.

Jared : I heard that rumor as well.

D : So, I have to do my research on that, [but] this is definitely what I'm hearing. This is all about business, this is all about money. The minute they can wipe out, it's like using one stone to kill two birds at the same time. You kill that communication gap, that gap where they've been reporting on, because most of the time, when they come out with a lot of frivolous things, it's immediately refuted by us, by some pictures or some videos or something. Saying, "No, this is what happened." This is unusual. This is something that's very revolutionary, [a] very new generation in the prison system. They are not used to that; they had all communications with media locked down.

Keep in mind, SCDC has a policy where we are not allowed to converse with the media unless it's authorized by the South Carolina Department of Corrections. And I have a big beef with that.

Jared : Absolutely. So let's pivot a little bit because there's a lot of talk right now about violence. So there's a couple of questions I wanted to ask related to that. One is, what do you all see as the source of violence within prisons? And then the other one is about gangs and this idea - because I think that people don't really think about this very thoroughly - about why someone might join a gang in prison and why they might be even more likely to join one in prison versus when they're out on the outside?

E : I would have to say dealing with the gangs… Well, I'm going to start first with what the brother asked about what stimulates the violence. Me personally, I feel that the violence is stimulated by the overt oppressive nature of the beast and what they're doing. Like y'all already had mentioned, they're constantly taking [things] away and keeping us confined to a box. And you take three or four different tribes, who normally may get along, or see eye-to-eye on a business level or whatever the terms may be, but you put them in a box and you don't separate them or give them anything to be… So you may know that this area may be predominantly this culture, or that area may be predominantly that culture, but I'm going to take them all and mix them up, just so I can make it confusing. Because to me, it seems like they stir the violence up because that's the type of media they need to put their spin on things.

Then it goes back to the [cell phones], and we come and tell the truth on the fact and that's a problem for them, because they're going to say [the violence] is because of a cell phone, or it's because of this and that. They're not going to sit there and tell you it's because [they] keep oppressing us, and taking away from us, and not giving us any outlets to do and be about positive things. [3]

Nowadays, you got the tribes, or the "gangs" as some may say, coming up with positive ideas to do and bring together and unify, despite what the police or the officers are doing. They're steady trying to take away all our hope, but we still got brothers and organizations coming together, still trying to rectify unity on a level where we don't even have nothing to look forward to. So you can only imagine how discouraging it gets when it's like we're striving to do so much better and so much greater but we're still getting a foot on our neck. Me personally, that can ignite [drama] any time, any place, on the street, in the penitentiary, wherever.

So I have to say, it's incited by them, themselves. I feel like they feel like, if enough violence goes on, they can put their spin on it and they can basically - like my comrade said - bring lock-up to the yard. They keep us locked down for nothing. Every little thing, they blame it on [staff shortages]. They don't give us showers, they blame it on [staff shortages].

If an incident goes on, there's no officers there to protect anybody. That's another thing about the gangs. Nowadays, you don't know, these young brothers might need protection. They can't look at the officers and say these officers are going to protect me and keep me safe. It ain't no such thing as that. You gotta fend for yourself back here. So I look at that, that's another reason why people are joining these gangs like that. Not everyone, but you can only imagine, you've got kids coming back here 16, 17, have nobody. You're throwing them in here with [prisoners] in a maximum security prison with a 100 year [sentences]. You're going to have to have somebody or some type of way to get around. Or some people just lose hope and just fall by the wayside, and just do whatever they've got to do to get through, but you got some people that try. And to me, it's like sometimes the gangs [are] a better outlet for them, because then they don't have to worry about people taking advantage of them.

Because like I said, it's fend for yourself back here. It ain't like it used to be where you had enough officers and stuff. [Back then], something might pop off, it might go down, and it gets broken up and under control. Nah, now the officers are running the opposite way.

You might try to escape from being hurt, they'll lock you on the wings and cause your death. That's exactly why they're trying to take these phones, because we're the ones who are putting that out there and letting people know this is what they're doing. This man live could've been saved, but the officers didn't do their job.

S : People aren't born criminals. They are criminalized by the environments they are socialized within. United States Constitution's 13th Amendment is proof alone that the mass amount of the warehousing of prisoners is not by accident. And even prisoners convicted of violent crime or who may be involved in violent activities, they may one day return to society still. People's cases can be overturned, some of these guys got max-out dates, some may make parole. So wouldn't it be wise for them to be implementing programs that would better the prisoners, not make them worse? They should want to heal anything that they consider to be sick or whatever.

Society itself promotes and produces violence. People ain't getting like that in prison, they're already like that out there. [4] Television, movies, video games, comic books, novels, cartoons alone. They are indoctrinating this psychological behavior. They're doing that out there in society.

Like the brother said, some of these guys that are locked-up in here are juveniles. That's a learned behavior, they weren't born violent. And in regards to the survival thing, we create our own means of survival, because the state don't provide us with adequate supplies of anything. They give us one roll of tissue a week. One roll a week, that's it. It's 15-18 hours between meals in here sometimes. That's just reality.

Only prison industries workers get paid for working. Everybody else's work is free labor. But we're looking at these other prisoners going to work, knowing that they're getting a paycheck, they even file taxes. They can pay child support and provide for their families on it. All prisoners should get paid for all work, not just prison industries.

They're making millions of dollars off federal prisoners and state prisoners across the country through prison industries. That's facts.

D: Very true. Most prisoners, when they come to prison, come with the mindset that they want to get themselves together, and I think a lot of people miss that right there. Even the ones that are labeled violent--and when I hear people say "violent," we have to be careful with that term. Because a lot of times people are using this term "violent," and we're seeing politicians saying "well, we're not going to be supporting violent offenders." It's a new theme now, where we just promote policies [that benefit] non-violent offenders. And that kind of sickens me because, at the end of the day, who determines what's violent? Who determines what's a violent offender? To me, that's a bunch of people making up these laws, and they determine what's violent and what is not. And a lot of times people have non-violent offenses and these are straight up violent offenses in my eyes. You know, so I'm very careful with that term non-violent versus violent offenders.

The people that they want to categorize and label as violent offenders for the most part, these brothers and the women that come into prison, they come in with the mindset that they want to do the right thing. I think the minute they enter through those gates, and the minute they begin to observe their surroundings, they begin to recognize immediately, that any change they wanted to do, they don't need to do it, because they're going to be perceived a certain way and they're going to be handled a certain way, you know, and it's going to be a lose-lose situation for them. And people have to really understand that humans are entering through these gates and becoming prisoners, and in the process of that, the environment back here is making it worse. It is creating something in these prisoners that is a lot worse than when they came in for a lot of these guys and women.

Because, once again, they may have done some terrible things out there, but for the most part, when they start going through and they recognize the days ahead of them, they want to change, they want to do something different. Hell, I know I was about that when I came in here until I went through the reception and evaluation center, and saw it wasn't going to work out that way.

That is another reason why some people want to group up. Some people want family back here as well. I like to call them street formations [as opposed to using the term gang]. A lot of times, people need someone that can look out and care for their best interests, too. Not just in the protection role, but also somebody that gives a damn, because the system is so cold. So when you're sitting back here, and you're drinking, you're smoking, you're dabbing, you're talking about your loved ones with your homeboy there, that's a different feeling versus when you can get outside that cell and you're looking at the prison itself, and the environment itself, which is a cold place.

So everybody looks for some sense of comfort, some sense of love, which is another reason I think the prison system eliminating our contacts, our family ties, is really detrimental to prisoners re-entering society successfully, but that's another subject.

S: Let me do a quick rebuttal on what he said on the non-violent versus violent offenders, because I like what he said. Out there in society, when they're talking about what people are incarcerated for--like if somebody is convicted for murder--that's considered to be a violent offense. But that could've been a first time offense. And then he comes to prison, he's been in prison for fifteen years, and he ain't never had another violent offense on his record, he ain't never had a violent offense in prison, he's not involved in any violent activity [on the inside], so why is he still considered to be a violent person? Just because he's got a violent charge on his record, that don't mean that he's indulging in violent activities. Because sometimes, the people in prison that have non-violent charges, sometimes they're the ones involved in violent activities back here.

Jared: Lee Correctional Facility is named after the county, Lee County. And that county is named after Robert E. Lee. So you have a Confederate General and a former slave owner and you have a facility that is in his name, that really, as you all have mentioned, really carries on that same tradition into 2018. To what degree do you think this registers with prisoners? What does it mean to prisoners that make that connection?

D: And when did Lee open up, 1994?

Jared: Yeah in that era. [3] And just to give a little more context, the county was first named Lee County in the 1890's after Reconstruction had ended.

S: My only response to that is that the prisoners, who were probably from the Bishopville area who may have had that information through the educational system, or conscious prisoners who read and research things--those prisoners might be aware of that, but for the vast majority of prisoners, that don't have any significance to them because most of them are not aware of that.

D: I would have to second that. I don't think prisoners for the most part have any awareness of that. Matter of fact, to be honest with you, as much reading as I have done, as much cultural reading as I have done, I was very ignorant of that up until very recently, up until the last several weeks. I just learned this information.

As far as the effect, I can tell you for me, personally, it says something about progress and where we were at mentally. When this prison came about, I think between '92 and '94, for you to still name a prison after that during that time period... Although, don't get it wrong, we all know a prison is nothing more than a modern day plantation. So we understand that fact, so really it's quite fitting. But still, it would seem you wouldn't want to name one of your state institutions after this right here. It seems like someone would raise their hand and say, "No."

I think that also tells me, as a Black man, how conditioned a lot of Black people are around in these southern areas as well. Because I'm sure that they knew what the Lee County name stood for, what the name represented. The ones that voted in this particular institution in that area, the ones that were saying it would hold this name, they knew, and they didn't say anything.

This is the type of mindset we're dealing with in the state of South Carolina today, which is why I'm constantly reminding people we have the highest rate as it relates to racial disparities in the nation. We are in the top six or seven states as far as racial disparities as it relates to sentencing and imprisonment rates in the nation. I think we're only like 20-30 percent of the population in South Carolina [4] and over 60-something percent of the prison population. [5]

They did a recent study not too long ago that told us that Black people specifically were being automatically over-sentenced by judges. It said if you were Black, you were 50 times more likely to get jail time for a minor offense versus if you were any other race. If you were compared to white defendants, you were over 70 percent more likely to be sentenced to longer sentences, based on your race. [6] Everybody knows the color of the state of South Carolina when you walk into the prison system. [5] I think all of this is an indicator of the nature of the beast that we are dealing with.

And I have to note that, even when South Carolina was going through their Reconstruction phase, all of these same Blacks that were a part of the Reconstruction phase were eventually thrown out of power, and that's because there was a compromise between the North and the South. And we have to always remember that right there. That's when we get back to 1865, that's when we get back to the 13th Amendment, that constitutional amendment and the compromise that was reached across the table. The power dynamics in the South has never changed. And I think we're seeing the rottenness of it in today's times. That's why I think we're seeing these extreme responses, these extreme reactions in the prison systems throughout these southern states.

S: Every time prisoners do strive to organize, to come together to make things better for themselves, the administration really doesn't give you much support or they attack you. For example, one of my comrades, he recently had been released from prison over the last year or so. He was housed at Lee County at one point and he was a coordinator on the compound.

He was able to organize over 150 members every week to come together positively, sit down and have discussions, and things of that nature. Whenever there would be any type of altercations or whatever, they would try to talk over things first and most often if they couldn't, then they would handle it like men and knuckle it up. But there wasn't so much knives, and people getting killed or stabbed up. All of that was calmed down for a while. So you had the STG (Security Threat Group) supervisor from headquarters and he got with the warden at that time, and they called him to a conference and they wanted him to explain to them how is it that you could have Crips, Bloods, Muslims, etc., in the same room every week and there's never any violence going on? The [STG] told [the warden] that [the prisoners] were up to something, that's how they felt. And what did they do to [the prisoner coordinating the program]? They shipped him to another institution.

When they moved him to another institution, they started to do things on the Lee County yard from a program perspective. To make a long story short, [the coordinator] was eventually sent home. While he went home, now you had other things popping off at other yards, who didn't have these types of positive things going on. They moved these guys around, piled all these guys up on one yard, all on one side, waited for one thing to happen. Boom! You get the worst thing that happened in the last 25 years. That was strategically implemented.

D: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's very important to note that, back to Lee County very briefly, that all of this right here is not by accident. None of it is by accident. That's the sad part about it. [6]

S: Yeah, they were used as lab rats. One more thing with regards to laws and stuff like that: a lot of times in South Carolina, people get convicted unjustly. And whenever somebody discovers that--and it's something that affects a lot of prisoners--and they put it into the courthouse and they pass a law or something on it, and they know they've done a lot of wrong to a lot of people, but what they'll do is they'll slide a word in it so that [it doesn't take effect] retroactively. Because if they had to [implement it] retroactively, they'd have to let a lot of people go, because they convicted a lot of people unjustly. They've been doing that for the longest.

Jared: So I want to give you all an opportunity to talk about change. What changes would you like to see in the prison system? What changes do you think could improve the situation? And then the second part of that is, what would you like to see people on the outside do to support? But let's start with the first part.

D: So what changes would we like to see in the prison system?

Jared: Yeah. I know some of you are abolitionists, but what can be done for immediate needs in terms of reforms.

D: Yeah, I'm always thinking about it as a dismantling process. I've been trying to push that for a while. We call it a dismantling process. And that gives the opportunity for other people to get in with their reform ideas, because I don't think we can go from one angle all the way to the other angle, like from zero to a hundred, it's just not going to happen like that. It is not going to play out like that.

Nonetheless, some of the things that I feel can actually improve. Improvement. First and foremost, sentencing. Sentencing reform in the state of South Carolina. It's not just sentencing reform in the state of South Carolina, it's actually sentencing reform across the nation. They need to get rid of that Truth-In-Sentencing deal, period.

We need an end of dehumanizing conditions, and that means food improvement. We need open yards again, not just enclosed rec yards, we need these open rec yards again, where prisoners can move. We need prisoners to start being treated like humans. We need more rights to our visits. We need education programs, I'm a big one on education programs, in particular Pell Grants, there's some other names, they need to be brought back to the prison systems again.

Not only that, but what the state of South Carolina did as the prison population fell they--instead of closing down the maximum security prisons, they closed down their work releases. We need work releases re-opened back up and expanded. Then we need one last thing: we need pay. We need prisoners to be able to be paid for their labor. If you're doing general labor, you need to be able to be paid for that labor, just the way it comes in at ending prison slavery. We need to end prison slavery, which I think is a trigger toward abolitionist work. But nonetheless, we need to end prison slavery to bring back a lot of these prisoners getting paid their wages. So I think those are immediate things that can be improved on. Was there another question beyond that?

Jared: The second question was, what can people on the outside do that actually care about the situation, care about the conditions of prisoners, care about what's going on in South Carolina?

D: On the outside right now, one of the biggest things we're moving into in particular in Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, we need to move into becoming more involved in the electoral process, in particular local politics. We need to become more involved in that. We're hoping that our loved ones outside that support us, we need to organize more ground support as it relates to prisons. We need to see more protests, we need to see more meetings with these directors, we need to see more organizing at state capitols. We need to see more support of what has already been initiated on the ground in the state of South Carolina.

We need to figure out how to get our local county jails and get people who are detained there registered to vote, and get the voting machines into these county jails, and get these prisoners the ability that they can have the vote. The problem with state of South Carolina is it's a good-old-boy system, and we need to change the face of it. And the only way we're going to be able to change it is we have to get more involved in the electoral process, but not just voting for a Democrat or Republican or Independent or whatever, but voting for people that have prisoner's best interests. [7] Every group of people have interests and we have to find people that have our interests at heart.

E: I really agree with what D said, that's all I was really going to say, really, about sentencing reform, more programs, even the better nutrition, and rec, let us get some physical exercise and more education.

S: I think we also need an outside grievance system. Because the grievance system is definitely not fair or impartial back here. The same people that work for the prison are the same people who are deciding if we should get results or not from our grievances. Everything else I think the brother already covered. But I also want to say for society, to them let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. Prisoners, some of us in here, have made mistakes and some of us did the things we did, but we made mistakes. But we have paid for our mistakes. Show some humanity. That's what we want society to do is show some humanity.

D: One last note that I wanted to add, the ground is vibrating right now for a national strike August 21st throughout the nation. We have a number of states that are already vowing to participate in this national strike, particularly in support of the state of South Carolina and the recent issues that just happened. They say South Carolina is an example of what's actually occurring throughout the nation. It just so happened that these particular people died here [at Lee Correctional] so they want to get in the back of this right here and they want to highlight it by mobilizing throughout the inside.

So we can ask those folks to support it on the outside, we need to support it on the outside to really support these actions. Let the people know that wherever prisoners may decide to have a strike or a sit in that the public is mindful and they are watching for any type of retaliatory actions that may take place throughout the process of this resistance that may be taking place across this nation, on August 21st.

Jared: Great, absolutely, is there anything else anyone wants to add about Lee or any of the other points where we might have missed something?

E: I would just like to add that in the aftermath of the incident that happened over at Lee, and all over the state, we're being massively punished. No showers, power is being cut off all this time, we've been locked down for a week, almost going on two weeks, and we've only had one shower and that was like, they cut the hot water off. What type of inhumane thing is that?

Jared: Are there other conditions you want people to know about since the incident at Lee that haven't been addressed?

S: One of the things is they have the metal plates on the window where you can't see outside, you can't see the sunlight, you can't see the grass or the daylight. They got it sealed out where you can't get no oxygen through it, the ventilation is all messed up, these are things that they just recently did. They're putting flaps on the doors so you can just slide the meal through it. They are animalizing the prisoners.

Jared Ware is a freelance writer and advocate for the rights of incarcerated peoples. He is also the producer of the prison abolitionist podcast Beyond Prisons, and co-host and co-producer of the anti-capitalist podcast Millennials Are Killing Capitalism.

Notes

[1] Truth In Sentencing Laws were part of a national movement in the mid-nineties to end parole and increase the length of prison sentences, as well as ensuring that offenders for certain offenses served at least 85% of their sentences. Although it was a national movement, here are some details about South Carolina's laws: http://www.ncrp.info/StateFactSheets.aspx?state=SC

[2] According to Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, "state pay" was a system where the state paid every prisoner, for example, $5.45 an hour for up to 18 hours every two weeks. It was enough to buy real hygiene products, a few snacks, and smokes. Prison officials took it away during the national changes that were rolled out in the mid-nineties.

[3] It opened up in 1993 according to SCDC http://www.doc.sc.gov/institutions/lee.html

[4] 27.5% according to the most recent US Census https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/SC/PST045216

[5] Black people represent 62% of the prison population in South Carolina, despite representing roughly 28% of the state population.

[6] This may not be the study D is referencing, but here is a study that talks about disparities in sentencing in South Carolina and other states: http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/The-Color-of-Justice-Racial-and-Ethnic-Disparity-in-State-Prisons.pdf

China's Rise Threatens U.S. Imperialism, Not American People

By Ajit Singh

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's "reform and opening up," initiated in 1978. At that time, although living standards had significantly improved following the socialist revolution in 1949- life expectancy nearly doubling in the first 30 years -China still faced tremendous challenges. Seeking to overcome the country's severe underdevelopment, the West's monopoly over technology, and the isolation to which it had been subjected to during the Cold War by the United States, China implemented reforms in order to promote economic growth and development. Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of the policy, summed up the Communist Party's thinking in three simple clauses: "Our country must develop. If we do not develop then we will be bullied. Development is the only hard truth."

Four decades later, the success of reform is undeniable: China has lifted 800 million people out poverty-more than the rest of the world combined during the same period-and generated "the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history," according to the World Bank . China's GDP growth has averaged nearly 10 percent a year over a 40-year period, without crises, with the country becoming a world leader in science , technology and innovation . Rising from extreme poverty to international power, China now has the world's second largest economy, and is generally expected to overtake the U.S. in GDP terms within the next two decades . Measured in terms of purchasing power parity, China's economy has already surpassed the U.S.

When beginning its reform, China sought to "keep a low profile" and "bide its time, while building up strength" , as the U.S. led an international offensive, destructively imposing neoliberalism on countries throughout the global South. Today, we are in the midst of a turning point. Announcing to the world that it is entering a "new era" at last year's National Congress of the Communist Party, China is playing a more assertive and leading role in global affairs. The country's trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative-called " the largest single infrastructure program in human history "-involves over 70 countries and 1,700 development projects connecting Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Meanwhile, mired in economic stagnation and decline, the U.S. is its losing international authority. In particular, during the "America First"-era, the country's reputation has plummeted , as the Trump administration unilaterally withdraws from international institutions and agreements , displays open bigotry towards developing countries, and eschews diplomacy for insulting arrogance and genocidal threats .

U.S. hostility towards China increases

That China and the U.S. are moving in opposite directions is not a new phenomenon, but this trend has been brought into sharp focus under Trump. Growing anxious about its diminishing global dominance, the U.S. demonstrates increasing hostility towards China. In a series of recent policy statements - the National Security Strategy , National Defense Strategy , Nuclear Posture Review , and State of the Union address - the Trump administration has repeatedly identified the "threat" posed by "economic and military ascendance" of China, declaring that "[i]nter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security." It is claimed that China, along with Russia, "want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests."

In response to this "danger," the Trump administration is pursuing a substantial buildup in U.S. military forces, viewing "more lethal" and "unmatched power [as] the surest means of our defense." Trump's 2019 budget proposes a massive increase in Pentagon spending to $716 billion and he has assembled a war cabinet to make use of it, including extreme hawks and noted anti-China hardliners such as John Bolton , Mike Pompeo and Peter Navarro . These moves come after top U.S. military officer, General Joseph Dunford, called China the country's "greatest threat" and U.S. Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris, new ambassador to Australia, told Congress in February that the U.S. must prepare for war with China . Washington is increasing military pressure on Beijing: ratcheting up tensions on the Korean peninsula; taking steps to construct a "quadrilateral" alliance with right-wing governments in India, Japan and Australia, targeting China; and passing the Taiwan Travel Act which violates the "One China" policy and encourages the U.S. "to send senior officials to Taiwan to meet Taiwanese counterparts and vice versa."

On the economic front, the Trump administration seeks to launch a "trade war" with Beijing and form a broad anti-China alliance , proposing $50 billion in tariffs targeting Chinese imports (and threatening $100 billion more ), launching an investigation into technology transfers to China, and lodging formal complaints at the World Trade Organization on "the state's pervasive role in the Chinese economy." Washington is increasingly regulating and monitoring inbound Chinese investment, outbound U.S. investment in China, and joint ventures. Viewing technological dominance as a pillar of its international authority, Washington considers China's development and technological advance to be an "existential economic threat."

As this animosity increases, U.S. rhetoric towards China calls to mind the virulent anti-communism of the Cold War and racist "yellow peril" phantoms of decades past. Newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently warned that China was trying "to infiltrate the United States with spies - with people who are going to work on behalf of the Chinese government against America … We see it in our schools. We see it in our hospitals and medicals systems. We see it throughout corporate America. It's also true in other parts of the world … including Europe and the UK." Similarly, FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress in February that "the whole of Chinese society" is a threat to the U.S. That such belligerent statements can be made towards 1.4 billion people, one-fifth of humanity, without receiving any challenge from Democrats, Republicans or the corporate-owned media, is an indication of the consensus around the "China threat" theory in the U.S. establishment, and the danger this poses.

A new Cold War

Washington's hostility towards Beijing is rooted in the foundation of modern U.S. foreign policy. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and end of the Cold War, ushered in an era during which the U.S. has sought to establish unipolar global dominance. Explicitly outlined in a 1992 Defense Policy Guidance paper authored under neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, the principal objective of U.S. foreign policy in this period has been "to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival" capable of challenging U.S. aspirations for global hegemony. In the quarter-century since, the U.S. has aggressively pursued this aim, engaging in endless wars, "regime change" efforts, and military build-ups around the world, now operating over 900 military bases globally.

Despite these most destructive efforts, the U.S. has been unable to stop China's momentous rise, which has emerged as the primary obstacle to U.S. aims for unipolar dominance. Although Washington has sought regime change in Beijing ever since the socialist revolution of 1949, the U.S. has generally pursued a strategy of "containment through engagement" following the normalisation of bilateral relations in the 1970s. In part, Washington had hoped that China's economic reform and the fall of the Soviet Union would lead to political reform in Beijing and the abandonment of Communist Party leadership and socialism with Chinese characteristics, in favour of Western-oriented neoliberalism. History has confirmed that China has no such intention.

Recognizing its own declining leverage and that China will not become "more like us" , Washington is attempting to launch a new Cold War against China. The identification of China as the primary target of U.S. foreign policy originated during the Obama era with the "Asia pivot" seeking to encircle China, shifting 60 percent of U.S. naval assets to Asia by 2020. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton argued that the U.S. must reorient the focus of its foreign policy from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific to ensure "continued American leadership well into this century." The developments under Trump, mark an escalation of this bipartisan strategy.

The unipolar-multipolar struggle

The importance of U.S.-China relations cannot be overstated, with the two countries at the core of a broader unipolar-multipolar struggle over the shape of the international order. While the U.S. seeks to secure global dominance, China's rise is central to a multipolarisation trend, in which multiple centres of power are emerging to shape a negotiated, more democratic world.

China's political orientation has been fundamentally shaped by its history of subjugation to foreign powers during its "century of humiliation" and anti-imperialist struggle for national liberation. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, China has always identified itself as part of the Third World or global South and the collective struggle of formerly colonized and oppressed nations against the global inequality wrought by imperialism.

Under the banner of "South-South cooperation", China continues to champion this collective struggle today, promoting greater say for developing countries in global governance and the construction of a rules-based international order in place of the unilateral actions of major powers, in particular the U.S. More than mere rhetoric, China provides crucial investment, infrastructure construction , technology transfers , debt forgiveness , and diplomatic support to developing countries. Most importantly, unlike the U.S. and West which engage in destructive foreign interventions, China abides by the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and does not impose conditions on its relations.

China's respect for the self-determination of other countries has made it an indispensable partner for nations resisting foreign domination and pursuing independent development, including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Syria, Iran, and North Korea. It is for this reason that the late Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro declared in 2004 that "China has objectively become the most promising hope and the best example for all Third World countries … an important element of balance, progress and safeguard of world peace and stability." Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza echoed these sentiments last December, saying "Thank God humanity can count on China," as his country faces sanctions, economic sabotage, and threats of regime change from the U.S.

Contributing to the declining global authority of the U.S, China's international relations have prompted Washington to cynically accuse China of fostering dependency in Africa and being an "imperial power" towards Latin America . In fact, rather than behaving in a predatory manner, China provides sorely needed funding, on favorable terms, to African borrowers , and as we have seen above China supports Latin America's struggle against imperialism. That China is praised by fiercely independent nations of the global South and faces such charges from the U.S.-the most powerful empire in history-reveals the absurdity of such claims. Anxious about its own decline, the U.S. seeks to both drive a wedge between China and the South, and also restrict the right of developing nations to choose their own partners and path. China has demonstrated that its rise is compatible with the self-determination of other nations-whether capitalist or socialist; what it comes into contradiction with is U.S. imperialism.

It is important to recognize that U.S. hostility towards China is not simply a product of narrow competition with the Asian power, it is a resistance to the empowerment of the global South and democratization of international relations. China is the primary target of U.S. imperialism because of its strategic importance at the heart of the world multipolarisation trend, which threatens to bring an end to U.S. international supremacy and 500 years of Western global dominance.

An opportunity for ordinary Americans

For years, the U.S. political establishment has sought to leverage American workers in its struggle against China. Endless rhetoric about how China is "stealing U.S. jobs" seeks to stir up xenophobia and racism in order divert attention from the fact that it was Washington and U.S. corporations that implemented the neoliberal reforms which hollowed out America's economy. On a near daily basis, the corporate-owned media further promotes hostility towards China with hawkish, sensationalized and dishonest reporting. In recent months, Americans have been told that China, with its "model of totalitarianism for the 21st century" , "has a plan to rule the world" , that its "'long arm' of influence stretches ever further" , its "fingerprints are everywhere" as it "infiltrates" U.S. classrooms, colleges , and more. The message is clear: be afraid.

However, for ordinary Americans, multipolarity and the strengthening of international forces, like China, which challenge U.S. imperialism are not a threat. Instead, this offers the potential for progressive advances for the American people in their own struggles. The 20th century provides a historical precedent for this, where the existence of the Soviet Union and a concrete socialist alternative to capitalism along with the wave of Third World national liberation struggles, placed pressure on Western capitalist countries, including the U.S., to respond to their own people's demands for progressive social and economic policies, such as the welfare state, higher taxes on the wealthy, and anti-racist measures.

Similarly, today, as the U.S. and the world face tremendous social, economic and environmental challenges, Chinese socialism is demonstrating a concrete alternative to the dominant capitalist system: pledging to eradicate poverty by 2020 ; with wage growth soaring and real income for the bottom half of earners growing 401 percent since 1978 (compared to falling by one percent in the U.S. during that time); declaring healthcare to be a universal human right ; praised for having the "best response to the world's environmental crisis" and reducing pollution in cities by an average of 32% in just four years since declaring a "war on pollution"; becoming " a world leader in wind, solar, nuclear and electric vehicles" ; building the world's longest bullet-train network , spending more on infrastructure than the U.S. and Europe combined ; and announcing that inequality, not economic underdevelopment, is now the "principal contradiction" to be addressed in Chinese society.

China is able to prioritize social and environmental policies-while sustaining rapid, crisis-free economic growth for four decades-because, unlike the U.S., the interests of corporations and wealthy do not rise above political authority. China's wealthy regularly face severe repercussions for criminal behaviour (instead of bailouts). For example, an annual list of China's richest citizens is commonly called the "death list" or "kill pigs list" because those named are often later imprisoned or executed-according to one study 17% of the time.

While China is not a perfect society and continues to face many challenges, the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics has been able to respond to a number of pressing issues facing the world today, better than the U.S. capitalist system. This is likely why China leads the world in optimism , with 87% feeling the country is headed in the right direction, compared to only 43% feeling the same in the U.S.

The new Cold War that Washington seeks to launch against China requires massive increases in military spending, paid for by ordinary Americans with massive cuts to already inadequate social programs, housing support and health care . If the American people can reject the Cold War mentality of their ruling class and arrogant notions of "American exceptionalism", China's rise could offer them the opportunity to learn how to build a society that better meets their needs.

This essay originally appeared at MRonline.

"Colonialism is a Crime Against Humanity": An Interview with Oscar Lopez Rivera

By Ekim Kilic

Under US law, Puerto Rico is defined as an "unincorporated territory of the United States." The Caribbean Island declared bankruptcy in May 2017 due to public debt. Then, in September 2017, it suffered massive devastation caused by Hurricane Maria. Oscar López Rivera, a pro-independence popular leader of Puerto Rico, gained his freedom during the Obama presidency just before Trump's inauguration. In 1981, he was imprisoned on charges of "conspiracy against the US authority" and sentenced to Marion (Illinois) and ADX Florence (Colorado) prisons in the United States - 35 years of his life, with more than 12 of that spent in solitary confinement. Rivera, a former member of FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation), is called "the Nelson Mandela of the Americas".

Oscar López Rivera stated that the US violates international law as it commits colonialism. We talked with Mr. Rivera on the 20th anniversary of the Jericho Justice Movement, which is a platform for American political prisoners.

What are the economic and social consequences of Puerto Rico being a dependent country, under the US colonization?

Well, the economy of Puerto Rico is terrible. It has been terrible from the moment the United States invaded and occupied Puerto Rico in 1898.We have never been able to develop our own internal market. We have been totally, totally tore exploited. Every penny, every dollar that is made in Puerto Rico comes into the US banks.If I were going to go to a store right now and put my credit card, that money will not stay in Puerto Rico. That money comes directly into a US Bank. Yearly, billions of dollars come out of Puerto Rico. And at the same time, this is whole process of privatizing everything that is owned by the Puerto Rican people, everything that is public, they wanted to privatize it. We lost our telephone company the Puerto Rican telephone company in 1998.It was privatized. Today, the building where people were 24/7 today is an empty building.This is a shell of a building. All those workers who were forced to leave Puerto Rico and come the United States, the only place for they can get a job.The same thing happened with the airport. The same thing happened with the highways. The same thing happened with the hospitals. Today we can say that Puerto Rico's health system is totally a sham. It doesn't exist. Because Puerto Ricans after the hurricane realized how bad how bad the hospital situation in Puerto Rico. The threat is to life of Puerto Ricans, because the health conditions are terrible. So they're faster follow the plight of the Puerto Rican today a colony of The United States. Now, I want to make this point clear: Colonialism is a crime against humanity. Since 1898, United States has been committing that crime against Puerto Ricans.Andwe need a Puerto Rico to be an independent sovereign nation. That's why we want to Puerto Rico to be decolonized.

Why has not Puerto Rico gained its independence yet? What are the factors behind it?

Because the US has been able to repress every movement. I am one of the person who spent 35 years in prison. Because I fight for the independence of Puerto Rico. But historically since 1898, Puerto Ricans have been sent to prison for wanting Puerto Rico to be an independent and sovereign nation since 1898.So for 120 years we have been persecuted, we have been criminalized and we have been sent to prison for wanting Puerto Rico to be an independent and a sovereign nation.

Mr. Rivera, you visited municipalities in Puerto Rico at last week. What did you see? How may you characterize the last situation in Puerto Rico after the hurricane?

The situation in Puerto Rico is probably the worst conditions that we have felt, probably, in the last 70 years. Because the only time there we have a such an experience was when the United States was in the Depression and Puerto Rico suffered the depression three times of what the United States people were suffering here in this country. Because Puerto Rico subjected to real terrible conditions once that the depression happened. And today, the last 20 years, we have been facing the same economic situation, exploitation, exploitation, privatization. And since the hurricane, we have not been able to really get Puerto Rico into a situation that we can say it's livable. There are towns in Puerto Rico with %72 of the population without electricity, the people without water, the people the people who have no homes at all. So those are the conditions facing in Puerto Rico right now.

How has the struggle for independence been affected by events such as the economic crisis, in which the country was declared bankrupt, or the referendum, in which a demand for US statehood was articulated?

First of all, the Congress of the United States passed a law and approved by the Obama administration that they pose this, what is called, fiscal control board.Seven persons, not elected by the Puerto Rican people, not chosen by the Puerto Rican people, but chosen by Washington. Those seven people determine what's going to happen in Puerto Rico. For example in the last 3 or 4 years, we have had probably close to 300 schools close already. These are part of the our school system in Puerto Rico. Last year, 157 public schools were closed in Puerto Rico. The threat right now because they want to close to 300 schools more. They're talking about fire 7000 teachers. If we get that passed into law, we will lose over probably as many as 7000 teachers or more. Probably7000 to 10000 teachers are being threatened right now. Those teachers who we need in order to have an education system in Puerto Rico. That's not the issue that they are concerned. What they want to do is to get a debt, an audacious and criminal debt of 74 billion dollars that the United States government has been complicit in the making on the creation of debt. We have been asking foran audit inorder to know for us, for the Puerto Rican people to know exactly how the money was spent. We have been denied every opportunity, every time that we have gone before the courts, every time that we have asked, we have been told there's not going to be an audit of the debt. Now who are that have the money? Who are the 74 billion dollars went to? We don't know. We would like to know.

Is there any solidarity network in Caribbean between local forces for anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism?

I think in the Caribbean we have Cuba as a model. In South America, we have Venezuela as a model.In Central America, we have Nicaragua as a model.In South America, we have Bolivia as a model.Those are countries that are functioning. And those are countries that no matter how much the United States is trying to do restore their economy and take over their governments. They have been able to survive. And so, I think that we have plenty of examples where countries have been able to come together, to have their own governments, to have less and less interference of the United States. But the United States does not stop to interfere. The people in the countries whether it's Bolivia, whether it is Ecuador, whether is Venezuela, whether is Cuba, the people there are the ones forced the USto not be able to take over their country. They want to take it over. They want to go back to the oligarchies, and go back to domination in their countries in South America that are in most conditions, but the ones that are fighting for their own countries do want that they want a different kind of system, a system that represents the interests of the people, not the interests of the privileged few. Those countries are really moving. And I hope that they will continue to move, and that more and more countries will become just like a system with a system of a political and economic system that responds to the interests of the people, whether it is in Argentina, whether it is in Brazil, whether it is in Uruguay, whether it is in Chile, whether it is in Colombia. Whatever country there is in South America, in Central America, in the Caribbean, every country to have its all power, its all government and the government represents the interests of the people, not like in the case of Puerto Rico where the government of the United States represents the interests of the United States, not the interests of the Puerto Rican people.

One year ago, you gained your freedom. And you were a freedom fighter before, and you are still a freedom fighter. What are your plans or suggestions for the fight for independence of Puerto Rico?

Well, our goal right now is decolonize Puerto Rico. And we're saying is very simple, it's a very simple message. If we love Puerto Rico, if we love our culture, if we love our identity, if we love our way of life, then it behooves us to fight for Puerto Rico and decolonize Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican nation is viable. A Puerto Rican nation can be created and be a very strong nation. We have to work with all to do what we have to. We have human resources. We have the natural resources. We have also the potential for transforming Puerto Rico into the nation that has the potential of it. I believe that we are capable of doing it. We will definitely fight until our last breath to make Puerto Rico the nation that has the potential of being. We haveto fight, we have to struggle. We know that most of all Puerto Ricans love Puerto Rico. And based on the love, we are going to decolonize Puerto Rico.

The United States has been able to get away with doing what he's doing to Puerto Rico. Because the rest of the world sometimes ignores the United States, or sometimes becomes an ally of the United States. So at this particular moment, it should be in the hands of the General Assembly to take a position and stop colonizing Puerto Rico, force the United States government to respect the international law. Because international law says that colonialism is a crime against humanity. And the whole world should be behind Puerto Rico in this issue of the colonization.

This interview was originally published in Evrensel. This version was republished from Red Phoenix .

The Right Comes for the Parkland Shooting Survivors

By Sean Posey

Only hours after one of the ten deadliest mass shootings in modern American history, an outpouring of national grief was accompanied by a concerted attack on the credibility - and even the existence - of the victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The assault on a group of underage student survivors encapsulates all the worst traits of the alt-right, in a campaign of hate and disinformation that stretches from the putrid bowels of 8chan to the halls of the nation's capital.

In the days after Nikolas Cruz murdered seventeen students in Parkland, the Washington Post reviewed thousands of posts on 8chan and 4chan (popular message boards for the alt-right and right-wing conspiracy theorists), as well as Reddit. They found an orchestrated disinformation campaign, sometimes referred to as "4chan attacks," aimed at destroying the creditability of news reports about the incident.

That campaign soon spread to attacking the survivors themselves, the Post shows.[1] "They began crafting false explanations about the massacre, the Post explained, "including that actors were posing as students, in hopes of blunting what they correctly guessed would be a revived interest in gun control."[2]

Within a very short period of time, wild alt-right conspiracy theories spread throughout social media and into so-called news outlets. Gateway Pundit, a bizarre, conspiracy-oriented website that actually gained White House press credentials in 2017, tweeted a fake BuzzFeed news story in the wake of the shooting. Reporter Lucian Wintrich, who holds White House press credentials, retweeted an article entitled, "Why We Need To Take Away White People's Guns Now, More Than Ever," which itself emanated from 4chan and was picked up by the Twitter account MagaPill. The account is known for spreading untruths, from the infamous "Pizzagate" story of 2016 to accounts of various so-called "false flag" attacks.[3] Sean Hannity and the Drudge Report, among others, have linked to or referenced articles in Gateway Pundit.

YouTube has played an important role in disseminating false information about the shooting, particularly the idea that students were actually "crisis actors," paid to act out a staged event. Jonathan Albright, research director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia, looked at 256 videos on YouTube on the subject of "crisis actors." He then followed the videos suggested to him by YouTube's recommendation engine. This ultimately revealed a network of nearly 9,000 conspiracy related videos. A video that suggested that the Parkland students are crisis actors (paid by George Soros and CNN) actually became the top trending video on YouTube before it was removed. [4]

According to Albright's study, "the view count for 50 of the top mass shooting-related conspiracy videos is around 50 million. Not every single video overlaps directly with conspiracy-related subjects, but it's worth pointing out that these 8842 videos have registered almostfour billion (3,956,454,363) views." [5]

The idea of suggesting that recent mass shootings are either hoaxes or "false flag" attacks, that is attacks orchestrated by the "Deep State" or other forces, dates back at least to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Perhaps the most well known purveyor of these types of conspiracy theorists is Alex Jones, who runs a daily radio show on Infowars.com. "The Alex Jones Show" reaches millions, and Jones, a close friend of Trump ally Roger Stone, actually hosted Trump on his show in December 2015. After the election, Trump called Jones to thank him for his support.

Jones called the Sandy Hook shooting a "hoax" and has refused to apologize for his assertions.[6] "I've watched the footage, and it looks like a drill," Jones said. [7] He has taken a similar approach to the Parkland shooting. After initial reports that gunman Nikolas Cruz was linked to a white nationalist group were corrected, Jones claimed the mistake was part of a liberal conspiracy against gun owners. "We said the perfect false flag would be a white nationalist attacking a multicultural school as a way to make the leftists all look like victims and bring in gun control and a war on America's recovery, and now, right on time, what we've been warning of, their main card, the thing we said was imminent, appears with all the evidence." [8]

Since then, Jones has run a segment showing footage of Parkland survivor David Hogg speaking with an Adolph Hitler speech dubbed over his voice. Instead of showing footage of the actual crowd at the 'March For Our Lives Rally,' the video instead cuts to historic footage of Germans saluting Hitler with outstretched arms. Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez, a bisexual woman of color, is also shown spliced together with footage from Nazi rallies. Incredibly enough, Jones goes on to say that he is not actually calling the students Nazis. [9] This is the level of rhetoric going out across the nation from a show that garners an estimated two million listeners a week. One of Jones's followers has even started a website solely aimed at besmirching Hogg's character. [10]

Conspiracy theorist Dinesh D'Souza also quickly got in on the act. "Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs," he tweeted after a bill calling for a ban on military-style weapons failed in the Florida Legislature in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. Even the blog RedState, edited by Caleb Howe - who has positioned himself as an anti-Trump moderate - published an article that questioned whether David Hogg was actually on campus during the time of the attack. (Journalist Sarah Rumpf later walked her claim back.) Former Congressman Jack Kingston, who now appears regularly as a pro-Trump talking head on CNN, questioned whether students could really organize a march on Washington - instead suggesting that George Soros, Antifa and the Democratic National Committee were behind the rally.

Nor have these kinds of attacks been limited to right-wing media. Benjamin Kelly, an aide to Representative Shawn Harrison (R-Tampa), claimed that surviving Parkland students pictured in the media were not actually students "but actors that travel to various crisis [sic] when they happen." Leslie Gibson, a Republican candidate for the Maine House of Representatives, referred to Emma Gonzalez as a "skinhead lesbian" before a popular backlash led to his quitting the race.

An even more appalling attack came from Representative Steve King (R-Iowa), a darling of the alt-right. A post from King's official Facebook page attacked Gonzalez's heritage and attempted to tie her to Communist Cuba. Conflating Gonzalez's jacket patch of the Cuban flag with support for communism quickly led many to question King's basic knowledge of history, not to mention his decency. Rebecca Bodenheimer explains that the Cuban flag "has been deployed by both sides of the political spectrum and whose meaning has been perhaps more contested than at any other time in Cuba's history."[11]

It should not come as a surprise that King is involved in the assault on the Parkland students. After he quoted Dutch far right-politician Geert Wilders on Twitter in 2017, Andrew Anglin, editor of the Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, called King a "hero" who "is basically an open white nationalist at this point." [12] "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies," is the King quote Anglin was referring to. Perhaps that is why King is attacking Gonzalez, who is the daughter of an immigrant.

But the Parkland teens have not taken these attacks lying down. After Fox News Host Laura Ingraham ridiculed Hogg for speaking publically about his having failed to gain entrance into several California colleges, he called for companies that advertise on her show to withdraw their ads. After over a dozen advertisers pulled their ads, Ingraham conveniently began a week-long vacation. Hogg has since rejected her subsequent apology. However, as the Parkland students continue their activism, and as calls for gun control grow louder, there is little doubt that forces on the far right will continue to launch attacks on Hogg, Gonzalez, and anyone else who attempts to stand up to the NRA - regardless of their age. It will be up to us to have their backs.

Notes

[1] Craig Timberg and Drew Harwell, "We Studied Thousands of Anonymous Posts About the Parkland Attack - And Found a Conspiracy in the Making," Washington Post, February 27, 2017.

[2] Ibid.,

[3] See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/buzzfeed-white-people-guns/

[4] Jefferson Graham, " 'Crisis Actors' YouTube Video Removed After it Tops 'Trending' Videos," USA Today, February 21, 2018.

[5] Jonathan Albright, "Untrue-Tube: Monetizing Misery and Disinformation," Medium, February 25, 2017.

[6] NBC, "Megyn Kelly Reports on Alex Jones and Infowars," NBC News Web site, https://www.nbcnews.com/megyn-kelly/video/megyn-kelly-reports-on-alex-jones-and-infowars-970743875859 (accessed March 30, 2018).

[8] Genesis Communications Network, "The Alex Jones Show," February 15, 2018.

[9] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSdtT_TdkRE (accessed March 30, 2018).

[10] www.hoggwatch.com

[11] Rebecca Bodenheimer, "Emma Gonzalez Isn't Endorsing Communism, She's Living Her Truth," CNN, March 28, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/opinions/steve-king-has-emma-gonzalez-cuba-flag-wrong-bodenheimer/index.html (accessed April 1, 2018).

[12] Andrew Anglin, "Hero Steve King Calls for White Racial Supremacy in America," The Daily Stormer, March 12, 2017.

An Economic Theory of Law Enforcement

By Edward Lawson

Law enforcement is a necessary endeavor in society. Government makes laws, but someone must enforce those laws, through violent coercion if necessary. The American ideal is that the people elect the government and the government serves the people, so naturally the police serve the people as well. However, the actual activities of the police call this normative account into question. I argue that government--the state--serves the will of anonymous, extraordinarily wealthy oligarchs, and it passes laws that benefit them at the expense of the rest of society. In addition, I argue that the police are the primary tool of enforcing compliance with the wishes of oligarchs among society, and that they alter their behavior based on the socioeconomic conditions of the area in which they operate.

The recent deaths of individuals such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO and Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC, are only the most recent, high-profile incidents of police acting according to this purpose. Police violence, as well as mass incarceration, maintain a state of fear among the working class, as well as the ongoing division between races within the working class, in order to prevent organization for common cause. Oligarchs--the anonymous, incredibly wealthy individuals who exert disproportionate pressure on the state to do their bidding--use institutions such as the police to hold and expand their power.

Operating behind the state provides oligarchs with a veneer of legitimacy, particularly in a democracy. That legitimacy extends to the police, who have state-sanctioned authority to enforce compliance with the law and punish noncompliance with violence. However, rather than using that authority to benefit society, they use it to oppress the poor and placate the affluent--those who are comparatively wealthy but not oligarchs themselves.

On the Origin of States

Law enforcement organizations are agents of the state, and therefore the goals of the state are also the goals of law enforcement. This connection means that, in order to determine why members of law enforcement behave in certain ways, it is necessary to discuss the purpose of the state first. Fortunately, political theory devotes a great deal of attention to the origin and purpose of states. In all of the various theories on the origin of the state, the state exists as a product of individuals ceding at least some of their rights to a governing body. This body makes laws according to, generally (and idealistically), the will of the population it governs. However, what happens when some members of that population possess influence over the government in excess of others? What happens when a small minority dominate that government, and use it to benefit themselves rather than society?

In essence, this is how Winters (2011) views society, particularly in the United States. He argues that most societies are ruled by oligarchs, and he defines oligarchs as those who control large concentrations of material resources--wealth--and use those resources to defend and increase their wealth and position. Essentially, oligarchs use wealth to protect and improve their dominant position within society.

One purpose of the state is to protect property rights. In a Hobbesian state of nature, those who possess property are under constant threat of its loss to rivals who desire it. Therefore, individuals form states, in part, to legitimize claims of property rights and protect them from others who would try to take property away. The legitimized defense of property rights by the state is what Winters (2011) refers to as property defense, which is the first mechanism of oligarchs' wealth defense. The second, income defense, comes after property is secured. Income defense is the use of wealth to manipulate government into passing laws that protect the income of oligarchs as well as their property, at the expense of other citizens.

Using the mechanisms of wealth defense essentially subordinates the state to the oligarchs. The state, therefore, becomes an agent of oligarchs. The state's purpose is to preserve and promote the oligarch's power at the expense of the rest of the population and using the state as its defender provides a veneer of legitimacy. The oligarchs need the state to support their interests, otherwise they face the threat of losing their property, wealth, and power to an overwhelmingly large number of people who would certainly try to take that property and wealth if it were not protected by the state.

Special Bodies of Armed Men (With a Nod to V.I. Lenin)

How, then, does the state enforce the will of the oligarchs controlling it? If oligarchs are a small minority, how can they force the majority of the population to follow laws they create for the purpose of legitimizing their own wealth and power? What stops the rest of the population from simply destroying them? The answer lies in what Lenin (1918/1972) refers to as special bodies of armed men. In The State and Revolution, Lenin proposes his own theory on the origin of the state which seems closely aligned with that of Winters (2011). Lenin argues that the state is the product of irreconcilable class differences, specifically the conflict between those who own the means of production (the bourgeoisie) and those who produce (the working class).

The state is, therefore, a means for the oppression of one socioeconomic class by another. Oligarchs hoard wealth and use it to increase their power (and wealth) at the expense of the larger society. The rest of society prefers a societal organization that benefits the majority and leads to a more egalitarian distribution of material resources. The solution to this irreconcilable conflict is for the oligarchs to use their wealth and the associated power to construct a state that legitimizes their control of society.

The special bodies of armed men are the tool oligarchs use to enforce compliance with the state (Lenin 1918/1972). Specifically, these bodies are the military and the police. Both of these institutions have state-sanctioned authority to use violence in order to protect the state and force compliance with its laws. However, their domains are separate. The military address foreign threats to the state (and to the wealth and power of the oligarchs controlling it). The police address domestic threats and enforce compliance among citizens (Kraska 2007).

As Lenin (1918/1972) writes, ``A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power." They are, then, the chief instruments of oligarchical power. The state exists to grant legitimacy to oligarchy and promote the interests of oligarchs. Special bodies of armed men (and women, of course) --the military and the police--exist to promote the interests of oligarchs as well. As agents of the state, they have legitimacy that an armed band of hired mercenaries would not. They have uniforms, rules of engagement, codified laws and policies, etc., to convey legitimacy to the public. But they are still only tools.

Indeed, an armed band of mercenaries, while more directly controllable by oligarchs, would also be counter-productive. As Winters (2011) argues, part of the power of oligarchs is that no one knows who they are. Hiring an armed mercenary group to enforce their will is a highly visible act and also lacks the legitimacy of a state-sponsored police force. The visibility shows the general public who the oligarch is that hired the group. The lack of legitimacy means that the public have much less incentive to comply with the group's instructions. Therefore, though hiring an armed band would give an oligarch more direct control, operating indirectly through control of the state is preferable.

Protect and Serve or Patrol and Control

As this paper discusses law enforcement, I leave the topic of the military to others. I have explained the origin of the state as a means for oligarchy to protect and expand its power, as well as the existence of police as a tool for enforcing the will of oligarchs. The next logical step, then, is to address why some people receive harsher treatment from police than others. If law enforcement organizations exist to enforce the will of the state, which exists to legitimize the will of oligarchs, why is every state not a tyrannical dictatorship? There are several reasons.

One may assume that, for this theoretical framework to hold, then police should be violently oppressing everyone within a society. This is a flawed conclusion. First, citizens who are not wealthy enough to be oligarchs but are what Winters (2011) calls the "merely affluent" have a considerable stake in maintaining the society's respect for property rights and protection of incomes even if they do not exercise control over the state or have as much wealth as the oligarchs who do. These merely affluent citizens are not wealthy enough to exert control over the state, but they are wealthy enough to have lives of relative comfort which they do not want to jeopardize. A regime that oppresses all citizens risks encouraging the affluence of society to pool their resources in order to fight against the oligarchs even with the protection of the state. Those pooled resources, combined with sheer numbers as the lower class joins the effort, have a real chance of overwhelming the oligarchs despite their wealth advantage. In particular, the police and the military may join the side of the oppressed rather than stay with the oppressors, which eliminates the state's means for enforcing the oligarch's will.

The affluent are also much more visible. They are typically community leaders or, at least, respected residents. They know each other. The media recognizes them. A regime that turns oppressive against the affluent also risks exposing the oligarchs to media scrutiny, which could have the effect of rallying the affluent from all of society to a common cause of self-defense.

In addition, the limited wealth of the affluent provide an incentive to not ``rock the boat." Just as the oligarchs want to protect their wealth, so do the affluent even if their wealth is considerably less. Without the pressure of a tyrannical regime, they have little incentive to resist the state and risk losing their relatively comfortable position.

Instead, oligarchs direct the power of the state--and, by extension, the police--against the poor. The poor are more numerous, which by itself presents an increased threat. If the lower class could unite itself against the oligarchs, no amount of material resources could stop them. However, they are less able to organize than the affluent for a few reasons. First, they are much less visible despite their numerical advantage. The poor do not receive much media coverage (except, perhaps, to demonize them) and are not typically well known in a community. Second, those who join the military and police typically come from the poorer sections of society. This means that, essentially, the state can effectively divide much of the lower class against itself. Third, they spend most of their time focusing on meeting basic survival needs and do not have the time or energy to organize themselves as the affluent might. Fourth, in addition to lacking time and energy for organization, they also lack the material resources necessary for mounting a large scale and sustained organizing effort.

This last point is important for another reason: although the poor lack the means to organize, they also have the least to lose from trying. If they manage to overcome the impediments to mounting an organized opposition to the oligarchs, it is likely to be much more radical precisely because they risk so little. As opposed to the affluent, the poor have much less incentive to avoid ``rocking the boat" in order to protect what they have. They have, essentially, nothing, and have nothing to lose if they oppose the oligarchs and fail.

For these reasons, oligarchs are more likely to use state power to oppress the poor and placate the affluent. Police enforce the laws of the state, and the state passes laws to benefit the oligarchs, so the laws of the state and the behavior of the police in enforcing those laws will mirror this purpose. This leads to the dichotomy of protect and serve versus patrol and control.

Protect and serve is the normative idea of policing as experienced by the affluent. The police are public servants. They are trustworthy, kind, friendly, honest, brave, etc. The affluent tell their children that they can always go to a police officer for help. The affluent trust the police to enforce the laws of the state because the laws of the state are designed to maintain their comfortable position. The police protect law and order in society. If a member of the affluent violates the law and pays a fine or goes to prison, it is that person's fault for violating the law, but they can make bail, continue with their lives, and receive a capable defense in a fair trial. The police only enforce law. They do not have much discretion, nor do they allow their own prejudice to alter their behavior. They are Sheriff Andy Taylor in Mayberry.

On the other hand, the poor experience patrol and control. The police are militarized oppressors. They take on the mindset of an occupying army holding down an enemy population. Rather than serving the public, they serve the state and its oppressive controllers. The poor tell their children not to run to the police for help but to avoid them as much as possible. And, if they cannot avoid them, to peacefully and quietly comply with any and all directions in order to avoid jail, assault, or death. The poor fear the police rather than trust them, and they see the laws as a means to facilitate their oppression rather than maintain law and order. Indeed, ``law and order" is just a code phrase for the violent and discriminatory oppression of the poor and minorities. If a poor person violates the law, which they may be forced to do for survival, that person is put in jail where they sit for months, maybe years, because they cannot afford bail. They get an overworked, underpaid public defender in a trial they have no hope of winning before going to prison. After prison, they cannot find a job and will probably have to return to illegal means for survival, which repeats the same process over again. The police have significant discretion to decide how to deal with the public, and they choose to deal with the poor harshly and violently. To the poor, they are Judge Dredd.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have sketched out a theory of law enforcement that explains how police alter their behavior based on the socioeconomic conditions of the people with whom they interact. I began by describing several theories on the origin of states, highlighting the commonalities between them and linking them with a more modern theory of states which formed the foundation of my later discussion. I next explained how special bands of armed men--the military and the police--are tools used by the state to enforce the will of the oligarchs who control it, granting both legitimacy and anonymity to the oligarchs. Finally, I describe why and how police officers provide different treatment to different socioeconomic groups.

This paper is a theoretical work, but it has a great deal of potential empirical purchase. Indeed, research already suggests its accuracy. Some work demonstrates the discretion of police and how they teach the public about their place in society (Oberfield 2011). Other work suggests that police violence is a means of controlling the poor in society (Chevigny 1990) or of maintaining inequality (Hirschfield 2015).

References

Chevigny, Paul G. "Police Deadly Force as Social Control: Jamaica, Argentina, and Brazil." Criminal Law Forum, vol. 1, no. 3, 1990, pp. 389-425., doi:10.1007/bf01098174.

Hirschfield, Paul J. "Lethal Policing: Making Sense of American Exceptionalism." Sociological Forum, vol. 30, no. 4, 2015, pp. 1109-1117., doi:10.1111/socf.12200.

Kraska, P. B. "Militarization and Policing--Its Relevance to 21st Century Police." Policing, vol. 1, no. 4, 2007, pp. 501-513., doi:10.1093/police/pam065.

Lenin, Vladimir Illyich. "The State and Revolution." Marxists Internet Archive, 1999, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/.

Oberfield, Zachary W. "Socialization and Self-Selection: How Police oCers Develop Their Views about Using Force." Administration & Society, vol. 44, no. 6, 2011, pp. 702-730., doi:10.1177/0095399711420545.

Winters, Jeffrey A. Oligarchy. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Race Traitors Wanted: Apply Within (A Review of David Gilbert's "Looking at the U.S. White Working Class Historically")

By Colin Jenkins

The term "white working class" captured much of the media analysis which sought to explain Trump's meteoric rise and subsequent victory to the highest office in the United States. The obsession with polling and voting trends based in demographics is certainly nothing new. Mainstream political analysts exist for the purpose of figuring out why Republicans dominate the South, or why Democrats maintain strongholds on the coasts, or why so-called swing states go one way or the other in any given year. But this time around seemed especially interesting, considering that a wealthy businessman (and political outsider) received 63 million votes from a populace that is facing historic economic woes due to the constant greed and manipulation of and by wealthy businessmen.

For the past forty years, some voting trends have remained incredibly consistent. In terms of race, Blacks highly favor Democratic candidates by an overwhelming margin that rests between 74 and 88 points. In contrast, whites consistently favor Republican candidates by margins of up to 25 points. This trend stayed true for Trump, with whites preferring him by a 21-point margin and Blacks favoring Clinton by an 80-point margin.

The intersection of race and class presents a more complex picture, with more fluidity. Both capitalist parties know this. And they also know that, while they ultimately represent the elite/special interests that fund their campaigns and lobby their legislation, they need votes from the "common people." This is the game of bourgeois/liberal democracy in the US: the two parties participate in a political tug of war, we watch and are even allowed to passively participate with a vote, and many of us choose to participate with the faith that our vote actually matters. Regardless of their worth to us, votes do determine which party takes power. And, because of this, the parties deploy ample amounts of resources to capture these votes.

The parties develop strategies to attract not only individual voters, but specific demographics: women, men, "Hispanic," Black, white, "educated," Christian, etc. Each party uses complex marketing and advertising schemes to push agendas and play with psyches, in the hopes of securing large swaths of votes come election time. Patterns and trends develop, and analyses follow in an attempt to explain why certain voters vote the way they do. One conclusion from liberal analysts that has persisted for nearly a half-century is that the "white working class" votes against its own economic interests by siding with Republicans.

A common question, like this one posed in a December-2017 Politico article , asks, "Are working-class white voters shooting themselves in the foot by making common cause with a political movement [Republicans] that is fundamentally inimical to their economic self-interest?" This, of course, is based on the premise that whenever in power, the alternate choice (Democrats) has shown the propensity and capacity to improve or sustain the economic realities of working-class people: a premise that, by any historical measure, appears weak. Nonetheless, the question persists within liberal circles: why do poor and working-class whites vote for the party of Jim Crow, the Southern Strategy, personal responsibility, and ultra-capitalism.

The Radical Dilemma Posed by the White Working Class

While the capitalist parties formulate strategies for votes, revolutionaries continue to operate within the margins of society. In many ways, the same issues and questions that influence mainstream political parties also must be confronted by radicals. Among the Left (anti-capitalist/not Democrats or liberals!) in the US, the issue of the "white working class" takes on an even deeper meaning, presenting an age-old challenge of how to convince poor and working-class whites to let go of their whiteness for the sake of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, working-class unity.

To many leftists, the challenge is a constant frustration that sparks many internal debates. Some take an optimistic approach in their analysis by claiming that the Trump vote was more middle class than working class; that proto-fascist groups like the Tea Party were predominantly middle class, and not working class; that fascist groups which have surfaced in the age of Trump are more middle class than working class. This optimism also drifts into semantics, where the term "working-class whites" is deemed more suitable than "white working class," which seems totalizing and monolithic to a fault. While, admittedly, the final Trump vote represented a mix of class dynamics, including a strong turnout from middle-class and small-business-owning whites, one statistic can't be ignored: Among all white voters making less than $30,000 a year, 58% chose Trump.

Enter David Gilbert. Or rather, re-enter David Gilbert. During a time of white allies checking their privilege and seeking gold stars through self-flagellation and virtue signaling, Gilbert is a white accomplice who is nearing his fifth decade of a 75-years-to-life prison sentence. A former member of Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground, Gilbert spent the late 70s and early 80s in the Revolutionary Armed Task Force (RATF), an alliance of white revolutionaries that served under the leadership of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). On October 20, 1981, after an attempted robbery of a Brinks armored car which resulted in the deaths of two police officers, members of the BLA and RATF, including Gilbert, were arrested and subsequently found guilty on charges stemming from the incident. Gilbert has been incarcerated in the NY State prison system ever since.

In 1984, Gilbert penned a short book from his prison cell, titled, " Looking at the White Working Class Historically ." The book was an attempt to analyze the white working class in the US in order to gauge historical obstructions to, and potential for, its participation in revolutionary struggle. In 2017, on the heels of Trump's rise, which signifies in part, "racist mass mobilizations" in response to "an imperialism in crisis," and a precursor to "fascism," according to Gilbert, a second edition of "Looking…" was rolled out by Kersplebedeb Publishing. The new edition includes Gilbert's original analysis of three texts - White Supremacy in the US: Slavery and the Origins of Racism (Ted Allen); Black Reconstruction 1860-1880 (W.E.B. Du Bois); and Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat (J. Sakai) - a section on Lessons from the Sixties (1991), and new sections onThe Context of the Trump Phenomenon (2017) and After the Sixties: Reaction and Restructuring (2017).

The original preface remains, both in print and in relevance, as Gilbert opens the book by pinpointing the historical dilemma at hand:

"One of the supreme issues for our movement is summed-up in the contradictions of the term 'white working class.' On one hand there is the class designation that should imply, along with all other workers of the world, a fundamental role in the overthrow of capitalism. On the other hand, there is the identification of being part of a ('white') oppressor nation. Historically, we must admit that the identity with the oppressor nation has been primary." (1)

Leading up to the analysis of the texts by Allen, Du Bois, and Sakai, Gilbert hits "white radicals, to whom this book is primarily addressed," (8) with a hard-hitting historical critique of the white working class as a tool of capitalism, white supremacy, and imperialism - a critique that is ripe for the seemingly rising number of class reductionists occupying the current Left. "White labor has been either a legal opposition within or an active component of the US imperial system," (1) Gilbert tells us, while concluding with a warning: "Blaming the working class is a misdirection; but so too is denialism about the depth and penetration of white supremacy, which has been the basis for the white Left's failures over the past 150 years." (10)

The Trump Phenomenon

In one of two sections exclusive to the 2017 edition, The Context for the Trump Phenomenon, Gilbert is especially penetrating with a systemic analysis regarding the factors leading to our current situation. Identifying the very foundation of the US as "white supremacy," Gilbert correctly views Trump as Americanism Personified ; the inevitable result of a country that is, "at its core, imperialist, patriarchal, and based in a range of ways human beings are delimited and demeaned." (11) As both a historical norm for the country and a predictable systemic response, Gilbert points to "racial scapegoating" as Trump's engine:

"A stable imperialism prefers to rule by keeping the population passive, with large sectors at home placated by relative prosperity. But when the system is in crisis, those running the economy often resort to diverting anger by scapegoating the racial 'other.' The sectors of the population who buy into that get the 'satisfaction' of stomping on their 'inferiors,' which is a lot easier than confronting the mega-powerful ruling class." (11)

Echoing Buenaventura Durruti's assessment at the birth of the Spanish Civil War - "No government fights fascism to destroy it; when the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto its privileges" - Gilbert captures the essence of fascism as capitalism in decay. But Gilbert's most important contribution in "Looking…" comes in his exposing of the modern Democratic Party as not only enablers of the Trump phenomenon, but also as standard-bearers of this very system. In doing so, he indirectly answers the question so often posed within liberal circles. Gilbert sums up the Democrats' role:

"The Democrats, in blaming 'those damn Russkies,' are deflecting attention away from the real reason they lost: they represented the prevailing global capitalism and all the associated frustrations of the decline of US manufacturing and erosion of job security. Trump spoke to those anxieties - in a totally demagogic and dishonest way. For example, during the campaign he railed against Goldman Sachs as the prime example of how Wall Street banks screw the working man; then, as president he selected seven of his top economic appointments from the ranks of Goldman Sachs. The Democrats could not provide a compelling alternative to this racist scam artist because they too are deeply rooted in the long bipartisan history of white supremacy, capitalism, and wars of aggression." (12)

In comparing Trump's "more blatant racism and misogyny" to Obama's "kinder and more inclusive rhetoric," Gilbert concludes that Obama, the face of the Democratic Party and confidant of Hillary Clinton, "provided trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street… presided over seven wars (drone strikes have killed hundreds of civilians and are acts of war under international law)… deported a record number of immigrants… kept 6,000 people behind bars by opposing retroactive application of legislation that reduced harsh sentences for crack cocaine… and played a key role in sabotaging the 2009 Copenhagen Conference of Parties." (13)

Despite pointing out that "lesser evils" are becoming more and more difficult to identify, Gilbert concludes with a responsible assessment of the Trump phenomenon as "something new and particularly threatening… the way he has enlarged, energized, and emboldened an active and aggressive base for white supremacy" while making "immigrants, Muslims, Native-American water-protectors, Black Lives Matter activists, women who've faced sexual assault, LGBTQ folks, those who can't afford health insurance, and more feel under the gun." (13)

Lessons for White Radicals

While Gilbert's book serves as a concise and insightful baseline analysis of systemic problems, something that is surely needed on the modern Left, its ultimate goal is really to help steer white radicals in the right direction. In this effort, Gilbert passes on his wisdom as a lifelong, revolutionary, white accomplice, seemingly pleading with us to avoid pitfalls of the past.

Gilbert's lesson essentially comes in three parts: Identifying the historical developments that have shaped the white working class in the US; recognizing the uniquely harsh struggles that exist within the non-white working class; and moving forward in a way that seeks to unite the US working class without reducing everything to class. Tricky proposals, indeed; but Gilbert lays the groundwork for tackling them.

In identifying the historical role of the white working class, Du Bois's assessment of the class and racial dynamics that played out in post-Civil War America (Black Reconstruction 1860-1880) is invaluable. For this reason, Gilbert spends an ample amount of time on it. The primary question posed by Du Bois was this: If only 7% of the white Southern population owned three quarters of the slaves, and 70% of Southern whites owned no slaves at all, why did the poor whites agree to police the slaves? Or more to the point, why did poor Southern whites agree to sign on as "shock troops for the mass terror that destroyed the gains of Black Reconstruction?" (31)

Du Bois provides many insights in his classic text, some of which leave Gilbert frustrated as "not being sufficiently materialist." (31) However, in the end, the value of Du Bois' work is that it illustrates the divisions that occurred between the white working class and the newly freed Black slaves - divisions that were rooted in an embrace of whiteness as a means of intra-working-class privileges: "(1) Poor whites were determined to keep Blacks from access to the better land… (2) Poor whites were afraid that the planters would use the Black vote to trample on their class aspirations… (3) Petty bourgeois whites still wanted to have cheap Black labor to exploit… (4) White labor was determined to keep Blacks from work that competed with them…, and (5) White labor, while given low wages, were compensated with social status, such as access to public parks, schools, etc." (29)

In recognizing the uniquely harsh struggles that exist within the non-white working class, Sakai's Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat gives us perspective by "examining the relationship of the white proletariat to Native Americans, Mexicanos, and Asians, as well as the Black nation." (33) To a white radical like Gilbert, Sakai's book is especially striking… "Even for those of us who think we understand the white supremacist core of US history, reading Settlers is still quite an education." (33) By highlighting the US progression as being intimately tied to Native American genocide, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and imperialistic endeavors, Sakai shows that "integral to most advances of 'democratic' reform for white workers was an active consolidation of privileges at the expense of colonized Third World peoples." (33-34)

Sakai's overall thesis may be pessimistic, but it remains crucial for white radicals to consider. This may explain why Gilbert chose it as part of his examination. Ultimately, to Sakai, the US is quite simply "an oppressor nation that does not have a working class, in any politically meaningful sense of the term." (36) Rather, the "oppressor working class" (white working class) has merely secured gains through not only class collaboration, but also through white-supremacist and imperialist collaboration. Sakai hammers this notion home by pointing to specific tactics deployed by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) during the 1930s, which consciously "reinforced white monopolies on preferred jobs and was a loyal component of US imperial policy abroad" (36):

"The CIO's policy, then, became to promote integration under settler leadership where Afrikan labor was numerous and strong (such as the foundries, the meat packing plants, etc.) and to maintain segregation and Jim Crow in situations where Afrikan labor was numerically lesser and weak. Integration and segregation were but two aspects of the same settler hegemony." (35)

By combining historical developments, structural analyses, the works of Allen, Du Bois and Sakai, and specific lessons from the sixties, Gilbert offers somewhat of a blueprint for the anti-capitalist struggle ahead. Allen's contribution on White Supremacy in the US offers hope in the form of early plantation labor, which showed that "when Black and white labor were in the same conditions of servitude, there was a good deal of solidarity," so much so that "a system of white supremacy was consciously constructed" by the owning class:

"It was the bourgeoisie's deliberately contrived policy of differentiation between white and Black labor through the system of white skin privileges for white labor that allowed the bourgeoisie to use the poor whites as an instrument of social control over the Black workers." (21)

In slight contrast to both Du Bois and Sakai, Allen packages white supremacy as a conscious and deliberate construction used by elites to create artificial divisions within the working class. Thus suggesting that if it is in fact a conspiracy from above, it can be dismantled from below; or, as Gilbert puts it: "A system of white supremacy that was historically constructed can be historically deconstructed." (49)

A Window of Revolutionary Potential

Piggy-backing on Allen's optimism, Gilbert suggests that we have entered a window of revolutionary potential in the US, providing examples of cross-racial solidarity among the working class: "organizing efforts of home healthcare workers, campaigns for farm workers, Justice for Janitors, and the fight for a $15/hour minimum wage" (72); the solidarity that was shown in Standing Rock, where white military veterans joined the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline; the recent display of international solidarity between Black Lives Matter and the Palestinian people; (75) and the mass mobilization that has occurred to combat Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) assaults on immigrant communities since Trump took office.

This window of revolutionary potential has been opened by a historical crisis of the capitalist system, which is now starting to fail significant portions of the white working class in the US; therefore rendering past class collaborations null and void. As this window also opens the possibility of a fascist tide, some of which we have begun to see in the wake of the Trump phenomenon, Gilbert desperately calls on white radicals to seize the moment:

"We white radicals have a particular responsibility and crying need to organize as many white people as possible to break from imperialism and to see that their long-term interests, as human beings and for a livable future for their children, lie in allying with the rest of humanity." (70)

This effort, according to Gilbert, must rely less on abstract theories and more on concrete points of intersection that fall outside the narrow scope of the white working class. Focusing on protecting water, increasing wages, acquiring healthcare, improving education, fighting debt schemes, opposing constant wars, opposing police brutality, and battling environmental degradation are a few examples of possible intersections.

Ultimately, the challenge is to "find a way to get across to white working-class people the most fundamental issues: the only way to achieve a humane and sustainable society is by allying with the Global South and people of color." (70) And this must be done by actually interacting with the white working class, thus shedding "the elitist or perhaps defeatist view that dismisses the possibility of organizing significant numbers of white people, particularly working-class whites" (2), something that organizations like RedNeck Revolt and John Brown Gun Club have already begun to do.

Class consciousness is sorely needed in the US, in order to recognize the bipartisan nature of capitalist politics and mount a formidable counter-attack in a class war that up until now has been a one-sided massacre. But, as Gilbert so wisely tells us,

"Class consciousness cannot be defined solely by economic demands. At its heart, it is a movement toward the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. 'Proletarian internationalism' - solidarity with all other peoples oppressed and exploited by imperialism - is a necessary and essential feature of revolutionary class consciousness." For white radicals, "this requires up front support for, and alliance with, the oppressed nations, particularly those within the US (Black, Mexicano, Native). Thus white supremacy and class consciousness cannot peacefully co-exist with each other. One chokes off the other. An honest view of the 350-year history clearly shows that the alignment with white supremacy has predominated over revolutionary class consciousness." (38)

Defaulting to class struggle as a one-size-fits-all strategy will not suffice. A neutral approach to white supremacy and imperialism, even if under the guise of revolutionary class politics, is siding with white supremacy and imperialism. White radicals must do this housework and then proceed to the white working class, which has largely been forsaken. In closing, Gilbert leaves us with a sober assessment: "In my view, there definitely is a white working class. It is closely tied to imperialism; the labor aristocracy is the dominant sector, the class as a whole has been corrupted by white supremacy; but, the class within the oppressor nation that lives by the sale of their labor power has not disappeared." (39)

There is revolutionary potential there. As white radicals, it is our duty to find a way to tap it.

Looking at the US White Working Class Historically (2017) may be purchased at Left-Wing Books .

As of the printing of this book (October 2017), you can write David at:

David Gilbert #83A6158

Wende Correctional Facility

3040 Wende Road

Alden, NY 14004-1187

Building a Socialist Alternative: An Interview with Eljeer Hawkins

By Bryant William Sculos

(A shorter, edited-down version of this interview was first published with Truthout under the title "Inspiring a Socialist Alternative: An Interview with Eljeer Hawkins," published Feb. 24, 2018. The full version of the interview is reprinted here with permission.)

(The following is an interview conducted via email between Nov. 30, 2017 and Dec. 30, 2017, slightly edited for style)

Bryant Sculos: Can you say a bit about how you became an activist and what your early experiences were like?

Eljeer Hawkins: I was born and raised in East Harlem, New York City. It began for me at the age of 18 years old. I discovered the speeches of Malcolm X to the chagrin of my mother who was a child of the 1950s and 60s. My mom was 14 years old when Malcolm X was murdered; she wasn't very enthused to find her oldest listening to old Nation of Islam tapes with brother minister Malcolm X calling the "white man the devil." (laugh)

I never had a black history course until college. I was accepted to Howard University, but didn't have the resources to attend early classes that were in 1992. My dream was to attend Howard; I went to John Jay College for Criminal Justice, I wanted to be a defense attorney. My uncle, Wayne, my mom's brother, became instrumental in my early development as he helped me navigate US history, black history, art, and music particularly the black aesthetic. I will always be indebted to him and what he taught me.

So Brother Malcolm X was a natural starting point. My father wasn't in my life, so Malcolm X and Uncle Wayne were the men and examples I looked to growing up politically and culturally. The first bookstore I visited was Liberation bookstore in Harlem and bought my early black nationalist, cultural nationalist, and socialist books. In college, I joined the Organization of Black Students-became very active on campus-to the determent of my school work. My life changed forever when my mother died at the age of 43 from a massive heart attack. At this time I was engaged in solidarity work with a group in the Congo-formerly called Zaire under the brutal dictatorship of Mobutu. I also was on the periphery of the Workers World organization but never joined.

My mother's death destroyed me; I lost focus and left school after two years. I wanted to dedicate my life to the project of revolutionary ideas and action.

BS: Did you consider yourself a socialist from the beginning or did that develop later?

EH: I was a black revolutionary nationalist until one winter night after a protest in 1995. A sister activist asked me what society after the revolution was I aiming to build. I had ignorantly dismissed revolutionary Marxism as a white man's ideology. February of 1995 I attended a gathering of dissent Congolese organizations with various political and economic leanings. I worked with Serge Mukendi and the Workers and Peasants Movement of the Congo (POP). Brother Serge and the POP declared themselves to be Marxists; he played a foundational role in my political development and hunger to understand the world. Well we attended this meeting of the minds, and we stayed with a member of Labor Militant in Boston, Massachusetts (now Socialist Alternative). I began to look at the brother's bookshelf and was spellbound. I wasn't a member of any socialist organization at the time. So the comrade gave me the contact information of Labor Militant members in New York City. From February to about the early summer of 1995, I attended meetings and discussions. The organization was tiny at the time. After genuinely studying and reading the program, I decided to join and commit my life to the project of building socialism and workers' democracy internationally. I joined at a time following the fall of Stalinism, the triumphalism of capitalism, and decline of the workers' movement. So I participated in a dark moment for socialist ideas, and frankly, it steeled me in every way to march forward armed with a program, analysis, and history. So all the things I've learned and continue to learn have guided me, 23 years later in the international class struggle for socialism. Today, we are witnessing a resurgence of socialist thought and action. I'm humbled to be here for this moment.

BS: What is your take on the current state of the US left-as well as the left globally?

EH: We are at an embryonic stage of socialist ideas. The crisis of capitalism and decline of the institutions of capitalism like their two parties (Democratic and Republican) has led a whole generation to question what the hell is going on and what I can do to change things. Occupy Wall Street was the first shot across the bow, followed by vital social and political explosions and banners like Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, #MeToo, and Arab Spring revolutions, etc. This is also a time for debate and discussion on how the socialist left globally can make gains and what is the best strategy and tactics to take the struggle forward. We need a level of patience, because this is a new and young milieu of activists and organizers who are feeling their way through this period of reform or revolution-battles for self-determination like in Catalonia, an environmental crisis like in California, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean, and increased racial and sexual oppression. I think as this new left continues to engage in the struggle they will be forced to draw conclusions and rethink what they thought initially. We are truly living in a period of revolution and counter-revolution. We must prepare ourselves through an intense engagement in history, social struggle, and political analysis because of this uncharted territory moment.

BS: Given the unique path you've taken to become a socialist, now with decades of activist experience, I think people would be interested in hearing what your worst experience as a socialist activist has been? Best?

EH: The worst has always been debates to the point of losing sight of the centrality of the working class and their potential revolutionary agency to change the world. Now, please do not get me wrong, a debate organized and focused can provide clarity and a general roadmap on how to proceed in the struggle. The Bolshevik Party is a brilliant example of debate and discussion in the workers' movement-interconnected with political perspectives, action, and the program always centering the international working class and peasantry in the worldwide socialist revolution.

The best experience is winning a debate (laugh), just kidding. I would say witnessing how consciousness is transformed by events and interconnected developments that lead people to draw various conclusions. Consciousness can leap forward or backward based on events, how a situation is given a contextual explanation like an electoral win or defeat, and importantly who and what explains this process like an individual or organization in the struggle. I think of Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner and her political awakening. After the death of her father, she immersed herself in telling the truth and keeping his spirit alive in organizing daily for a full year to decry law enforcement violence. That is powerful to me as an activist and grassroots historian. Mamie Till, the mother of Emmitt Till, said it best when events shape one's consciousness, "Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South, I said, `That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong. I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all."

Socialism is longer a dirty word, the gains like the fifteen dollar minimum wage spearheaded by low-wage workers, electoral victories and organizing of Socialist Alternative and socialist city councilor Kshama Sawant in Seattle, Washington, and a strong showing of Ginger Jentzen in the city council race in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The growth of independent working-class politics is on the agenda. The best moments are witnessing or participating in grassroots struggles that win, raising the morale, confidence, and fighting capacity of working people, the poor, and the most oppressed to change their conditions.

BS: In early November 2017 when you came to speak at a Socialist Alternative event in Worcester, MA, you said that you were a perpetual optimist. Given the state of the world today, the increasingly frequent and devastating crises of capitalism, structural racism, rampant unrepentant sexism and misogyny, and continued ecological degradation, how you can maintain your optimism?

EH: James Baldwin stated, "I cannot be a pessimist because I am alive. To be a pessimist means you have agreed that human life is an academic matter, so I am forced to be an optimist. I am forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive."

That optimism comes from a study of history and examples of people fighting back to form a union, stopping an abusive boss, people organizing together for a common goal. Now, we need as Dr. King correctly stated, an urgency of NOW! And we need some action to go along with that urgency. Yes, we have dark days and nights ahead of us, particularly in this era of Trumpism and the economic terrorism of capitalism. That's why we must engage in struggle and critical political study to fortify our resolve. History teaches us when people become fed-up and can't take it anymore, people begin to move. What is crucial for the radical socialist left globally is to be prepared for that moment building organization, program, and leadership in these battles are essential as victory or defeat hangs in the balance.

BS: Building on that question, do you think there is possibly a strategic role for a kind of hopeful pessimism -a kind of expectation, given the forces rallied against the left (as well as the left's self-inflicted failures) that, at least in the short-term, things probably aren't going to turn out well, but that is precisely why we need to struggle and remain hopeful that they can, in the future, turn out well? The strategic idea being that if left activists (especially those who are new to socialism or activism in general) become too optimistic about the possibilities of short-term victories, they will become disillusioned and demobilized when faced with failure. Do you think there is anything to this perspective?

EH: You can't have a blind optimism or a cheerleader's mentality that is not rooted in the reality of class struggle-its ups and downs. The 90s were difficult, but I would not trade it in because I learned during a period of defeat. I was politically developed as a member of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) that has a sober approach that follows in the best traditions of genuine Bolshevism. The CWI draws out global political perspectives to explain the events and developments we are living through, even more, critically elaborating on an action program to present to workers and youth in the class struggle rooted in their lived experience under this system.

It is true the left has made mistakes, and there is an uneven history when it comes analysis, strategy, and tactics. With that said, we can't throw out the baby with the bathwater either. The building of the left or revolutionary party, even more so, Socialism, is a project that will demand the full participation and activity of the working class, youth, poor, and oppressed on a daily basis. I firmly believe we need more than smart prose, intellectual verbiage that a tiny minority in the activist world can understand, and commentary that is divorced from the concrete struggle and lives of working people. I wonder what that term "hopeful pessimism" means to someone who has been on the left for years, who carries scares and tears, or a new person discovering these ideas and their voice in the struggle. That "hopeful pessimism" seems abstract and divorces oneself to standing on the sidelines and waiting. I would prefer to engage and test out my ideas in the living breathing struggle and allow the movement to judge me if I am right or wrong.

BS: Given that, and the importance that you (and Marxists in general) place on history, what historical models, regarding movements and organizations, do you think offer the best inspiration (both regarding principles and strategy/tactics) for the contemporary left?

EH: The debate and discussion that is in the air is reform or revolution. This past November marked the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, and many are questioning the Bolshevik Revolution and party itself. I would say the Bolshevik Revolution would be instructive to study, but I would recommend all activists especially the new generation of activists to explore all the significant revolutionary movements of the past. Particularly after the Russian Revolution in 1917, like the German Revolution of 1918, Chinese Revolution (1925-27), Spain between 1931 and1937, etc. And counterpose it to the revolutions after WWII in the aftermath of the strengthening of Stalinism and Social Democracy, like China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, and anti-colonial revolutions in the so-called "third world." In my mind, this is vital because I think this generation needs a sense of historical memory and clarity of what a revolution is and how it comes to life under particular conditions and social forces. As you engage in this study, I think the Bolsheviks will stand out as a unique force that made a successful socialist revolution and fought to keep the flame alive in the face of imperial attack, third world social conditions, civil war, and isolation.

BS: You and I are both members of Socialist Alternative (SA), so obviously we have a shared vision of principles and strategy, but what is your perspective on the uptick in popularity and paper membership of the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA)? How should SA orient itself toward DSA, both locally and nationally? What are your experiences in working with DSA?

EH: This version of DSA is not your momma or daddy's DSA. DSA is a different organization from its original foundations in the 1960s under the leadership of Michael Harrington; I think this past summer's convention proved that to be true. I am interested to see how it will continue to develop with 30,000 members and several DSA members taking office on a city and statewide basis nationally. The Occupy banner, Bernie Sanders phenomenon, and the capitalist crisis have led us to this moment where socialism is being examined seriously for the first time in a generation or two. This generation will be worse off than their parents; they are living through a new gilded age of the super-rich reaping profits beyond imagination, and their lives are precarious in every way from income inequality to the climate crisis.

SA has worked with DSA members and chapters nationwide and would love to do so moving forward around the critical issues facing working people, poor, and the most oppressed around issues such as healthcare, jobs, education, housing, and ending law enforcement violence. We also want to engage in comradely discussion and debate around strategy and tactics for the left and related movements. We are aware of the meaningful conversations taking place inside DSA around the role of Democratic Party, building a sustainable fight back against corporate power, and countless other issues. SA wants to build a multi-racial mass movement of the working class with socialist forces as its backbone. I think the 40,000 strong rally and march against the forces of hate and reaction in Boston, MA (Aug. 2017) was a brilliant example of genuine united front work. And campaigning to show the potential power and organizing capacity of the working class and left that overshadowed and dwarfed the racist and neo-Nazi forces made the national and international news. This will be a period of clarification around ideas, history, and movement building strategy. SA is looking forward to engaging this new generation of activists and organizers because we are on the clock with no time to waste.

BS: Lastly, what do you see as the greatest obstacle to achieving progress towards socialism over the next, say, 5-10 years?

EH: We are up against an empire and global capitalism. There is no final blow against this system of oppression, war, hate, and environmental destruction. It has weapons of mass distraction and destruction at its disposal. We must be clear about what we are up against. As the Russian Revolution of 1917 and many other social movements against tyranny and corporate power have shown us, as the great Fannie Lou Hamer taught us, when people become sick and tired-the winds of change begin to swirl-what seemed impossible becomes possible. We have to prepare, which means we have to rebuild the fighting capacity of the working class, poor, and most oppressed, organizing in our workplaces, schools, and communities in a systematic and daily manner that encompasses defensive struggle to maintain what we have won and offensive battles to fight for what we want and need right now. One of the immediate tasks in front of us is reigniting the early stages of the resistance against Trump and the Republican Party as they advance the corporate agenda just like at this tax bill its naked class warfare. We must forge a mass movement that is not episodic but is sustaining and always pushing forward. Living that famous civil rights anthem to the fullest "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around."

Trump can be defeated, but we must have the will, strategy, analysis, approach, and program that centers the lives of working people and seeks to unite the working class in a common struggle against the ruling 0.1%. That's why I am incredibly excited and interested in the Poor People's Campaign this year and its possibilities in forging that movement. I may not see socialism in my lifetime, but I have been proud to be part of the struggle for socialism. To stand with the millions around the world as we say enough is enough! We will build a new world with our bare hands rooted in love for humanity, a socialist society is possible.

--

Eljeer Hawkins is a community, labor and anti-war activist, born and raised in Harlem, New York, and member of Socialist Alternative/CWI for 23 years. Eljeer is a former shop steward with Teamsters local 851 and former member of SEIU 1199, currently is a non-union healthcare worker in New York City. He contributes regularly to Socialist Alternative Newspaper, socialistworld.net , and The Hampton Institute on race, criminal justice, Black Lives Matter, and the historic black freedom movement. Eljeer is a member of the editorial board of Socialist Alternative newspaper. He has also lectured at countless venues including Harvard University, Hunter College, Oberlin College, and University of Toronto.

Bryant William Sculos, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow at The Amherst Program in Critical Theory, adjunct professor at Florida International University, contributing writer for The Hampton Institute, and Politics of Culture section editor for Class, Race and Corporate Power . His recent work has been published with Constellations , New Political Science , Class, Race and Corporate Power , Public Seminar , New Politics , and in the edited volumes The Political Economy of Robots (Palgrave, 2017) and Marcuse in the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, December 2017). He is also a member of Socialist Alternative/CWI.

The Endless American Horror: Lynching and Police

By Devon Bowers

This article was originally published on AHTribune.com.

Please note that this article contains graphic descriptions of lynchings. Discretion is advised.

In 1918 Brook County, Georgia, a local plantation owner was killed by Sidney Johnson, a black man who had been leased out to the plantation via the convict lease system, in a dispute over unpaid wages. Upon hearing this, the white community went on a rampage and lynched not only Johnson, but anyone they thought to even be remotely involved in Johnson's decision. One of these men was Hayes Turner. Not only was he lynched, but also castrated.

Turner's wife, Mary, who was eight months pregnant at the time, began to speak out against her husband's lynching; unfortunately, she too, became a victim. A white mob "hanged her by her feet, set her on fire, sliced her stomach open, and pulled out her baby, which was still alive." They stomped on the child's head, killing it. Then the mob "[took] the time to sew two cats in Mrs. Turner's stomach and making bets as to which one would climb out first."[1]

This can be described as nothing short of demonic. In many ways, even that fails to fully encompass the horror and pure wickedness of this event. Though, the only thing more horrid is that in a way, lynchings continue in the form of police murder.

Before delving into the connections between the aforementioned violence, it is imperative to first understand lynching. The origins of lynching truly lie in slavery where "there were numerous public punishments of slaves, none of which were preceded by trials or any other semblance of civil or judicial processes. Justice depended solely upon the slaveholder." [2] Punishment ranged from lashings to family separation to mutilation and branding. The overall idea behind these actions were that black people were not human beings, in a way, they weren't even property, they were just things, lesser than both humans and animals. This mindset continued in the post chattel slavery era, where slavery took on the form of both the convict leasing and sharecropping systems respectively. Yet, it also took place in the form of mob violence against blacks.

There have been many explorations as to the reasoning behind lynching. E.M. Beck, a professor of sociology at the University of Georgia, posited the argument that lynching was linked to the cotton markets. He argued that lynchings "[increased] during times of sparse cotton revenues, and declining with increasing cotton profits." The lack of profit from cotton led unemployed whites to want to replace black workers and that "Mob violence was a form of intimidation to facilitate this labor substitution." [3] While further studies have shown that fluctuations in cotton pricing don't explain lynching [4], it should be noted that white elites would have an interest in fueling white angst into hatred against blacks, effectively utilizing poor whites as foot soldiers in their mission to maintain the current racial and economic hierarchy.

The cause of lynching was first and foremost the culture of white supremacy that had existed for the past two centuries or so. Blacks became scapegoats for many of the problems that were going on and thus a subculture of violence that had arguably already taken root in the days of slavery, took on new form. "The existence of a subculture presupposes a complex pattern of norms, attitudes and actions" which "reflects 'a potent theme of violence current in the cluster of values that make up the life-style, the socialization process, [and] the interpersonal relationships of individuals living in similar conditions." [5] Effectively, violence becomes normalized and is used as a tool of to socialize and condition people as to how the society operates.

This normalization and conditioning can be seen in the form of the lynching. Lynchings were very much a community affair in which legal authorities seldom if ever got involved as "the judge, prosecutor, jurors and witnesses-all white-were usually in sympathy with the lynchers" and "local police and sheriffs rarely did anything to defend Negro citizens and often supported lynchings." [6] Newspapers as well were extremely biased in covering lynchings. "Southern editors often used sympathetic language in describing lynch mobs while reserving callous damnation for lynch victims. The southern press was extremely creative when it came to providing moral, if not legal, justification for the action of lynch mobs."[7]

We can see the affect that journalists had on the public's view of lynching in the case of the murder of the Hodges family in Statesboro, Georgia.

Henry and Claudia Hodges lived on a remote farm, near a black community, some of whom were the employees of the Hodges. Late on the night of July 28, 1904, two men saw the Hodges home aflame. They went to investigate and found the mutilated, charred remains of the entire family. The suspected motive was robbery as it was known that Hodges was better off than most farmers and it was even rumored that he possibly had several hundred dollars stashed away on his property.

The following morning, Bulloch County sheriff John Kendrick formed a group to hunt down the killers. After discovering strands of hair, a knife, a shoe, and tracks of mud, they were led to a small shack occupied by Paul Reed, a black laborer. While Paul denied involvement, he, along with his wife Harriet, were arrested and taken to jail. When being interrogated, Harriet broke down and revealed that her husband and another black man, Paul Cato, had planned to rob the Hodges. The shoe matched the one found on the Hodges farm and blood stains on his clothing seemed to seal the deal with regards to Paul Reed's guilt, however, no money was found. The sheriff also arrested thirteen other blacks who lived in the general vicinity.

Despite the lack of hard evidence in the form of money, newspapers assumed Reed's guilt. The Macon Telegraph wrote "The wholesale butchery . . . of the Hodges family near Statesboro by dehumanized brutes adds another to the long list of horrors perpetrated in this state since the emancipation of the African slaves in 1865" and noted that "the people of [Statesboro] ... displayed great moral courage and forbearance in permitting the perpetrators to escape summary punishment without the forms of law,"[8] a statement clearly hinting that lynching was on the table as an option. Others went even further in their demonization of the alleged perpetrators, such as the editor of Statesboro News who penned "Good farmers awoke to the fact that they are living in constant danger, and that human vampires live in their midst, only awaiting the opportunity to blot out their lives." [9] Language such as this only served to heighten white anxiety and fears that a black uprising had occurred in response to white mistreatment, something that had been the in the backs of their minds since the institution of slavery began.

The media actively went and pushed erroneous and misleading evidence, such as was with Morning News which stated that Reed had made a 'partial confession' to the murders, despite there being a lack of legal evidence to support the assertion. The Statesboro News continued to utilize inflammatory language, publishing an article which said in part "Their guilt has been established beyond a doubt - every chain has been traced and all lead to their door." [10] Additional stories argued that the rape of both Mrs. Hodges and their daughter Katy, where the real motives for the motive for the murders, again without the slightest shred of evidence.

Newspapers also noted that Reeds and Cato belonged to a distinct subset of blacks who were lazy and shiftless. This contrasts with the blacks who 'know their place' in society and often work on white farms. The only reason this was even discussed was because there were rumors floating around that the Hodges family may have been killed due to Mr. Hodges being too friendly with blacks, something that only aided to reinforce the region's racial caste system and conjure images of murderous black people who would attack whites were they to let their guard down.

An Atlanta News editorial minced few words in its character analysis: "It is true that the negroes in the turpentine campus of south Georgia are in the main a lot of irresponsible and half-savage vagabonds, apparently hopeless to the redeeming efforts of civilization, and that their presence makes a continual menace and threat to the peace and safety of the people."[11]

On August 15, the court case finally got underway. Superior Court Judge Alexander Daley was forbidden by Georgia law to request a change in court venue, despite his wanting to as to possibly give people time to 'cool off.' This was actually dangerous in some ways as such changes were often used by mobs as an excuse to lynch blacks on the grounds that they may have a chance to 'escape justice.'

When the trial began, the press continued to present rumor as fact. The Statesboro News reported that Reed had admitted to being part of a gang of blacks who were roaming the Bulloch County countryside, robbing, raping, and killing whites. Once again this increased the amount of fear in whites and put them more dead-set on lynching. It didn't help that throngs of whites were milling about outside the courthouse.

The actual trial was incredibly brief, lasting less than a day and a half, with Reed's and Cato's respective defenses lasting barely eight minutes, both men plead innocent. Still, the court sentenced them to hanging. As soon as this was done, the white mobs that had been surrounding the courthouse burst in and took both men, making no effort to hide their identities, despite the fact that soldiers (without any ammunition) had been dispatched to protect the men. Both men were beaten and eventually doused in kerosene and set ablaze and dead by 3:30 pm.

Many newspapers actively defended the lynching. The Forest Blade published an editorial which argued "While we will not say we are in favor of lynching principles, there are crimes - and this is one of them - that fully justified the act," similarly another editorial in the Sparta Ishmelite wrote "What society does not do for them [Georgia's whites], efficiently, they do for themselves." [12] The press played a major role in increasing tensions and outright encouraging lynchings, a serious act which helped to normalize the very act itself.

The normalization of lynching was rampant in Southern society. In 1893 in Paris, Texas, a black man by the name of Henry Smith was lynched for allegedly killing and raping the sheriff's daughter. Smith's lynching was in that a spectacle was made of it. It was the first "blatantly public, actively promoted lynching of a southern Black by a large crowd of southern whites with features such as 'the specially chartered excursion train, the publicly sold photographs, and the wide circulated, unabashed retelling of the event by one of the lynchers.'" [13] It should be examined in detail that there were a number of "event-like themes, such as a float, carnival, and parade" all of which indicates "that within the act of justice, the structures of entertainment were organized. […] In addition, the souvenir scrambling for burnt remains as well as promotional materials for acquisition or purchase provides a similar semblance to paraphernalia purchased at modern-day sporting events." [14]

Thus, what we see is within the context of lynching, there was also an aspect of entertainment and even revelry, as if it was something to be celebrated and loved. The squabbling over Smith's remains reinforces the unbroken idea from slavery that black people aren't human beings, but rather just things, in this case a trophy.

The situation went even further in the case of Jesse Washington, a 17 year old mentally disabled boy who was accused of murdering a white woman and subject to a kangaroo court. Children were even bought to view his horrific lynching:

Fifteen thousand men, women and children packed the square. They climbed up poles and onto the tops of cars. . . . Children were lifted up by their parents in the air. Washington was castrated, and his ears were cut off. A tree supported the iron chain that lifted him above the fire of boxes and sticks. Wailing, the boy attempted to climb the skillet hot chain. For this the men cut off his fingers. The executioners repeatedly lowered the boy into the flames and hoisted him out again. With each repetition, a mighty shout [from the crowd] was raised. [15]

It is in acts such as this, with the involvement of children and, as with Smith's lynching, the selling of Washington's remains as if they were memorabilia, that the murder of black people becomes normalized and something beyond a source of maintaining racial hierarchy, something akin to a form of entertainment. Among this murderfest, though, there were those who fought back such as Ida B. Wells.

Wells was a black woman who was mainly focused on battling racial discrimination and penning articles. This changed in 1892, "when a close childhood friend of hers, Thomas Moss, was lynched" in Memphis [16] Wells was of the mindset that lynching was an overreaction by whites against rapists, however, her views quickly changed given the fact that Moss was lynched for defending his grocery store from armed whites and being lynched for the simple act of self-defense. On top of this, Memphis law enforcement didn't even bother to lift a finger to arrest the lynchers, who were publicly known.

Wells took a bit of an academic-esque approach to the situation, thinking that if lynching were exposed as the incarnation of racial hatred it was, it would no longer be socially acceptable. For three months, she traveled around the South investigating lynchings and interviewing witnesses. She found that not only were Black men lynched for having consensual relationships with white women, but also virtually all lynchings became about rape after the lynching went public. She took her information and published a pamphlet entitled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. Eventually due to threats on her life, she fled Memphis and moved to Chicago, where she continued to write and speak out against lynching. Still, there were others who took a more hands on, self-defense approach to lynching as took place in Decatur, IL.

On June 3, 1893, in Decatur, IL, a black day labor by the name of Samuel L. Bush who had been accused of rape, was taken from the Macon County jail and lynched by a white mob after they had went on a rampage searching for him from March 31 to June 2. During this time, rather than meet with members of the black community to discuss Bush's situation, "State's Attorney Isaac R. Mills, Decatur Mayor David Moffett, Deputy Sheriff Harry Midkiff, and Decatur Marshal William Mason were meeting with Charles B. Britton and Charles M. Fletcher, the leaders of the vigilantes." They attempted to appease the leaders, with Mills stating that if Bush wasn't sentenced to death, "it would then be time to resort to extreme measures." [17]

Despite days of lynching rumors floating around, the authorities allowed for nearly one thousand people to gather across from the jail where Bush was being held and made no effort to move or in any way ensure Bush's safety. Just before 2 AM, "a mob composed of some of the county's leading citizens broke Sam Bush out of jail and lynched him." [18]

In response to the lynching, Wilson B. Woodford, the only black lawyer in town that Bush had hired, published an open letter to blacks living in Decatur, urging them to attend a mass meeting where a strategy for dealing with the lynching would be formed. At the meeting, Woodford advocated taking the legal route, pushing the state attorney, the same one who had been complicit in Bush's lynching, to take action. Some, such as Edward Jacobs, rejected it and pushed for armed blacks to go themselves and arrest Bush's murderers. The resolutions committee backed Woodford's strategy and messages were sent to both the governor and state attorney.

Woodford and Jacobs were coming from two separate worlds. Woodford, having a legal background, "was predisposed to distinguish between the law and enforcers of the law. Woodford, like other liberal race men and women, believed that racial prejudice and contempt for law and order were the twin causes of lynching" whereas Jacobs questioned this method of thinking. Jacobs acknowledged the cozy relationship between lynchers and the police and knew that "knew the authorities had mobilized the vigilantes to help them in capturing Bush but had rejected African-American support either to protect Bush or to arrest his murderers." [19]

Interestingly enough, the two strategies would merge as both Woodford and Jacobs were members of the National Afro-American League, an organization that push for black development and fight against white responses to said development. NAAL "combined the pre-eminent philosophy of self-help and racial solidarity with the protest tactics of legalism, direct action, and violent self-help."[20]

A year later, James Jackson, a black male porter, was accused of raping a white woman under questionable circumstances. The father of the woman was pushing for Jackson's lynching and stated that help was coming from Mt. Zion. This situation would turn out rather differently than Bush's.

Blacks controlled the streets surrounding the jail. They could be seen in doorways, under stair wells and behind wagons, armed and ready for action. Other African-Americans patrolled the streets scrutinizing whites who happened to be out at that late hour. And unlike at the protest meeting, at least two black women participated. [21]

They continued to patrol the streets around the courthouse, the police didn't attempt to intervene, and there were no attempts to lynch Jackson.

As the case with Bush shows, the police themselves were many times the very ones who were, at best, complicit (not that that truly matters), and at worst, active participants in lynchings. This shouldn't be surprising as not only were the police entrenched in the same racial mindset as the lynchers, but also the purpose of the police was (and is) a tool of social control, especially against black people.

The police themselves came out of slavery as "slave patrols and night watches, which later became modern police departments, were both designed to control the behaviors of minorities." [22] In fact, in 1871 Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, "which prohibited state actors from violating the Civil Rights of all citizens in part because of law enforcements' involvement with the infamous group. "[23] (emphasis added) The police themselves oftentimes were directly involved in lynchings such as with the case of Austin Callaway, a sixteen year old boy.

Callaway was shot and killed in LaGrange, Georgia on September 8, 1940, having just a day earlier been accused of assaulting a white woman. He was arrested and taken to the local jail. Later that night, six men, one of them armed, went into the jail, forced the jailer to open the door, and murdered Callaway.[24] Though the killers were never found, it is known that the police were personally involved. It was noted in 2017 by LaGrange's police chief, Louis M. Dekmar, in an apology regarding Callaway's murder. Specifically, Dekmar said "I sincerely regret and denounce the role our Police Department played in Austin's lynching, both through our action and our inaction." [25] Callaway's story is just one in many[26] where police were directly or indirectly involved in lynchings. It is this historical backdrop in which police actively murder black people that today's police murders continue.

With lynchings, the body would hang for days as both a reminder to other blacks to 'stay in their place' but also a part of the aforementioned spectacle. This spectacle continues as can be seen with "the fact that Michael Brown's body was left on the street for hours after he was killed by police officer Darren Wilson," something "that points to just how little has changed in American race relations since the days of Jim Crow." [27] Leaving Brown's body out to languish was an illustration of the lack of concern and decency the Ferguson police department had for him and is reminiscent of leaving a lynch victim's body out for all to see, to remind everyone where black people stood on the racial hierarchy: the bottom.

The media, too, plays a role in police killings as they did during lynchings. Once again, the Michael Brown case puts this in stark view. Darren Wilson, the police officer who killed Brown, described him in disproportionate and even inhuman terms.

"When I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan," Wilson, who is 6′ 4″ and 210 lbs., said of Brown, who was 6′ 4″ and 292 lbs. at the time of his death. […]He said Brown tried to get his fingers inside the trigger. "And then after he did that, he looked up at me and had the most intense aggressive face. The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that's how angry he looked." [28]

Not only are black people described in nonhuman terms, but there is a constant implication that
they deserve to be shot due to past transgressions. In the case of Akai Gurley, "The New York Daily News ran a headline, Akai Gurley had criminal record, innocent when shot by cop, which they later switched out for ' Protesters call for arrest of rookie cop who shot Akai Gurley as victim's sister says he didn't deserve to die . '"[29] There is also guilt by association. When twelve year old Tamir Rice was killed by the police, the media bought up the fact that the family's lawyer had "also defended the boy's mother in a drug trafficking case" [30] and that Rice's father had a history of domestic violence. [31] Regularly, the media brings up information that has nothing to do with the actual incident in question, but actively works to defame and sully the victim's name.

Where there once were slave owners and slave catchers, the KKK, and lynch mobs, they have all now "become largely replaced by state agencies such as the criminal justice system, and local and federal police." [32] In August 2016, the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent went on a mission to the United States. In their conclusion on their findings, they wrote: "Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching. Impunity for State violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency." [33]

This assessment is quite correct, especially within the ideas of the spectacle and normalization. While there may not be a sports theme to current police murders, there is a spectacle in and of itself in the near constant sharing of videos of black people dying at the hands of police and the footage being played again and again on the nightly news. While one shouldn't discount that videos are being shared to raise awareness and may very well get people involved in activism, at the same time by the videos being shared and viewed over and over, it can very well create a situation where it the death of black people is normalized and an immunity of sorts built up to it. As writer Feliks Garcia notes

To witness the final moments of someone's life is not supposed to be a regular experience, yet it feels like every week, we're presented with a new video of a different unarmed black man-or child-killed by police.

With the reach of social media, each of these videos is viewed ad nauseum, and you have to ask what purpose this serves. Who needs to see these videos at this point?[34]

Due to the constant viewing of black people dying at the hands of the police, coupled with the media's twisted narratives, seeing black people die becomes a normal occurrence.

The ongoing police murders of black people draw strong parallels to lynchings: from the involvement of the police to the utter dearth of justice to the larger social implications. It is both a tragedy and a nightmare, an endless horror.

Notes

[1] This American Life, Suitable For Children, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/627/transcript

[2] Robert L. Zangrando, About Lynching, http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm

[3] E. M. Beck, "The Killing Fields of the Deep South: The Market For Cotton and the Lynching of Blacks, 1882-1930," American Sociological Review 55:4 (August 1990), pg 526

[4] James W. Clarke, "Without Fear or Shame: Lynching, Capital Punishment and the Subculture of Violence in the American South," British Journal of Political Science 28:2 (April 1998), pg 272

[5] Clarke, pg 275

[6] Robert A. Gibson, The Negro Holocaust: Lynching and Race Riots in the United States, 1880-1950 , Yale-New Haven Teacher's Institute, http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html

[7] Richard M. Perloff, "The Press and Lynchings of African Americans," Journal of Black Studies 30:3 (January 2000), pg 320

[8] Reed W. Smith, "Southern Journalists and Lynching: The Statesboro Case Study," Journalism and Communication Monographs 7:2 (2005), pg 63

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid, pg 64

[11] Ibid, pg 65

[12] Ibid, pg 70

[13] Rasul A. Mowatt, "Lynching as Leisure: Broadening Notions of a Field," American Behavioral Scientist 56:10 (August 2012), pg 1371

[14] Ibid

[15] Ibid, pg 1376

[16] Amii Larkin Barnard, "The Application of Critical Race Feminism to the Anti-Lynching Movement: Black Women's Fight against Race and Gender Ideology, 1892-1920," UCLA Women's Law Journal 3:1 (January 1993), pg 15

[17] Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, "A Warlike Demonstration,' Legalism, Armed Resistance, and Black Political Mobilization in Decatur, Illinois, 1894-1898," The Journal of Negro History 83:1 (Winter 1998), pg 54

[18] Ibid

[19] Cha-Jua, pg 57

[20] Ibid

[21] Cha-Jua, pg 59

[22] Victor E. Kappeler, A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing , http://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-and-origins-american-policing

[23] Ibid

[24] Northeastern University Law School, Austin Callaway, http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/georgia/austincallaway/

[25] Alan Binder, Richard Fausset, "Nearly 8 Decades Later, an Apology for a Lynching in Georgia," New York Times, January 26, 2017 ( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/us/lagrange-georgia-lynching-apology.html )

[26] State Sanctioned, Police and State Involvement with Lynching, https://statesanctioned.com/police-and-state-involvement-with-lynching/

[27] David G. Embrick, "Two Nations, Revisited: The Lynching of Black and Brown Bodies, Police Brutality, and Racial Control in 'Post-Racial' Amerikkka," Critical Sociology 41:6 (June 2015), pg 837

[28] Josh Sanburn, "All The Ways Darren Wilson Described Being Afraid of Michael Brown," Time, November 25, 2014 ( http://time.com/3605346/darren-wilson-michael-brown-demon/ )

[29] Simple Justice, The Outrage of the Victim's Rap Sheet Must End, http://blog.simplejustice.us/2014/11/23/the-outrage-of-the-victims-rap-sheet-must-end/ (November 23, 2014)

[30] Brandon Blackwell, "Lawyer representing Tamir Rice's family defended boy's mom in drug trafficking case," Cleveland, November 24, 2014 ( http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/lawyer_representing_tamir_rice.html )

[31] Brandon Blackwell, "Tamir Rice's father has history of domestic violence," Cleveland, November 26, 2014 ( http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/tamir_rices_father_has_history.html )

[32] Embrick, pg 838

[33] United Nations General Assembly, Report on the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to the United States of America , https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G16/183/30/PDF/G1618330.pdf?OpenElement (August 18, 2016)

[34] Feliks Garcia, "Police brutality is modern lynching- and you may be a part of it," Daily Dot, April 20, 2015 ( https://www.dailydot.com/via/black-men-police-violence-lynching-internet/ )

Science in The House (of Representatives)!

By Charles Wofford

According to The Huffington Post, more scientists than ever are running for office in 2018. [1] This includes roughly 60 PhD scientists running for federal offices, some 200 people of STEM backgrounds running for various state level seats, and the political action group 314 Action ("members of the STEM community, grassroots supporters, and political activists who believe in science") is apparently pressing upwards of 500 other scientists to run for office at various levels. Why is this happening? The obvious answer is that scientists across the board are alarmed at the failure of our legislature to do anything about climate change. So, there is an effort to get a strong scientific presence in government in order to influence policy on energy and climate change. This is likely a very good thing.

However, we ought to be critical in our embrace of the scientific community's political efforts. I have written recently about the efforts of the right to gut education of its political content. [2] The emphasis on "vocational education" on the part of the Right is part of a larger effort to discourage would-be students from studying "useless" topics like history, philosophy, literature, or others that tend to lead to politicization (the Republican phrase for "politicization of students" is "learning to hate America"). If successful, this effort would create a whole generation of Americans educated in "vocational" fields and who tend to simply "do their job" without questioning the political motives behind their jobs.

Unfortunately, many scientists in the United States are politically naïve. This lends itself to similar thinking about education in "useless" topics like history, philosophy, literature, etc. Observe Stephen Hawking's solemn declaration that "philosophy is dead" from his book The Grand Design. Or Steven Pinker's obnoxious preaching about how "the truth can't be sexist" or how "political correctness" is ruining America. [3] Similar comments may be found on biologist and University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne's popular blog, Why Evolution is True. Neuroscientist and popular science advocate, Sam Harris, disdains to do meaningful research into any number of historical and political topics on which he comments (see his encounter with Noam Chomsky, where, in response to Chomsky's thorough citations refuting his claims, Harris accuses Chomsky of "running into the weeds"). Observe also the pathetic attempts of others to "debunk" gender studies because it threatens their sense of manhood. [4] Many of these people are major, popular scientists who, when discussing topics related to the humanities, sound like creationists trying to talk about science. Chomsky himself blasted this narrowness of political thought among intellectuals in the 1960s. [5] He is worth mentioning, as he is one of the only major scientists to be politically knowledgeable; usually one must look toward historians like Howard Zinn and Michael Parenti (a political scientist by trade), philosophers and revolutionaries like Angela Davis and Cornel West, or literature professors like Edward Said.

Will the presence of scientists in government help us combat climate change? The obvious answer is yes. However, there may be ways that the political ignorance of many scientists could be used against them. For example, a hypothetical bill that apparently seems to help combat climate change can easily be given at the expense of some technicality buried within its language. The result would be that the bill, ostensibly aimed toward providing climate change relief, would in fact further hamper the powers of the government to do just that. This hypothetical issue has been born out in practice: for example, the fall of apartheid in South Africa was done on the condition that the economy be almost totally privatized. Today, much of the South African economy is held by those who benefited from apartheid. [6] The result is that while apartheid is formally gone, the government was unable to do much to help the real conditions of people, and apartheid lives on today in the South African economy. [7] Similarly, a bill aimed toward, say "combating the effects of climate change," might be misleadingly named. There is no reason to think that scientists, merely by virtue of their scientific expertise, would be less vulnerable to those kinds of tricks. To think otherwise is to fall into the liberal trap that we live in an ideal, perfect political system, and the only problem is that the wrong people somehow got a hold of it. Anyone who knows about the history of the United States (not the idealized history taught in many schools, but the real history) and the explicit intentions of the founding fathers in framing the constitution knows that this is simply not true. [8] There is a class element to our political structures that must be dealt with, and if it is not, then the inclusion of a scientific content to the neoliberal governmental structure will result in even more destruction.

Furthermore, we ought to recognize the many political spaces scientists occupy in the United States. True, the religious Right despises science and has a worrisome amount of political power. However, in other senses, American society fetishizes science. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan are cultural giants (Sagan's admiration of Trotsky is rarely brought up). Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, and Noam Chomsky are loved and supported by millions. With the possible exception of Chomsky and the long-deceased Sagan, these people are more likely to be sympathetic toward, rather than critical of, an ideology that promotes "innovation" in a "free marketplace of ideas." Isn't innovation, in a sense, what science is all about? And the peer-reviewed scientific process is one of ruthless competition. Daniel Dennett, a major philosopher of mind and cognitive scientist, has emphasized the need for science to be competitive. What a convenient opinion for one who happens to be a well-respected and well-paid figure. One wonders why science cannot be cooperative, especially since more and more of it is; most major studies published these days are done by teams of experts working together: theoretical and particle physicists working with mathematicians, etc. The point here is that much of the American scientistic ideology correlates with the intentions of the Right in gutting political education. And the celebrity status of scientists can be manipulated for political ends in much the same way as the celebrity status of anyone else. There is no reason to think that scientists would be above that sort of flattering attention. Indeed, judging by the arrogance of many a popular scientist, they seem ripe for the picking.

We ought to be wary of the scientist in power. Like all political forms, a scientocracy must be held to the glaring light of criticism by an organized and agitated populace that does not trust its leaders, no matter who they are. Scientocracy is not democracy, but another form of oligarchy based on the fallacy of merit, and as Michael Parenti put it, "democracy is not about trust...it's about accountability." Scientists often speak a big game about competition, but they despise criticism directed toward them that does not jump through their particular hoops, sometimes going so far as to attempt to totally discredit those critics by means of hoax publications. It is incumbent on us not to engage only in the kind of competition and challenge that the scientific community insists is legitimate.

It would be good to have more scientists in government. It would also be good to have more writers, philosophers, artists, musicians, librarians, plumbers, cashiers, janitors, more of the unemployed, more of the disabled, more of those who are homeless, and more of the spectrum of life in general in government. The only special space for scientists is the scientific arena - not the political one.

Charles Wofford is a socialist activist in Boulder, CO

Sources

[1] Alexander C. Kaufman, "The Largest Number of Scientists in Modern U.S. History are Running for Office in 2018," Washington Post, 2/3/2018.

[2] Charles Wofford, "Presidential nonsense and Warmongering," Boulder Daily Camera, 2/1/2018.

[3] Steven Pinker, "Steven Pinker at Davos: Excessive Political Correctness Feeds Radical Ideas," Big Think, 1/31/2018.

[4] James McWilliams, "The Hoax that Backfired: How an Attempt to Discredit Gender Studies will Only Strengthen it," Pacific Standard, 5/31/2017.

[5] Noam Chomsky, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals," New York review of Books, 2/23/1967.

[6] Rachel L. Swarns, "Rarity of Black-Run Businesses Worries South Africa's Leaders," New York Times, 11/13/2002.

[7] Haydn Cornish-Jenkins, "Despite 1994 Political Victory Against Apartheid, its Economic Legacy Persists," South African History Online, 6/15/2015.

[8] James Madison, "Federalist Paper No. 10," 11/23/1787.