What is the End Game?: Moving Academics Out of the Ivory Tower

By Cherise Charleswell

As I sat on the panel for a session entitled, " Where Ebony Meets Ivory: From the Tower to the Streets (Towards a Critical Race Theory in Activism) " during the 2017 National Women's Studies Conference, I found myself asking the attendees this question. Unlike myself, an independent scholar and practitioner, they were mostly academics -- tenured faculty, adjunct, post-docs, and those trying to get their feet into the door of the Ivory Tower.

We discussed the irony of wanting to be a part of and completely beholden to the very institutions that their research and work focused on as being problematic. But, hey- folks have to eat right?

With my own professional background that involves working in biomedical and public health research, I find myself perplexed, annoyed, and frustrated with academia when it comes to the humanities, and related fields. See, those working in STEM research do so with an End Game in sight - and that is to develop a compound, drug, device, method, or intervention that will eventually go to market and be used to improve the lives or health outcomes of the public. That is the point of clinical research, that it is moved from "bench to market." The End Game for public health looks quite similar - conduct research in order to design programs, projects, and interventions that address an identified need. Now, I must admit that raking in profits is also another motivating factor, with the great irony that many of these companies that bring things to the commercial market are often making use of research developments that were funded by the public and distributed through federal grants, from agencies such as The National Institutes of Health.

Anyhow, my annoyance with the humanities (and I say this as someone who studied cultural anthropology as an undergrad) is that I truly lack the patience to theorizing in absence of action. Once again, when the germ theory was developed (first proposed by Girolamo Fracastoreo in 1546, expanded upon by Marcus von Plenciz in 1762, and later revolutionized and standardized by the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch), it helped to revolutionize public health and led to vaccinations and anti-microbial medicines that have greatly benefitted humankind. Imagine if these leading scientists decided to simply spend the next few centuries theorizing, speaking in round, and never applying their knowledge. It is a reason why I wrote the article Feminism is Not Just for Academics: Overcoming Disconnect and Division , and made a point of asserting that feminist activism cannot rely on academics.

As more humanities courses, whether ethnic studies, women/gender studies, sociology, and others come under attack and go on the "chopping block" -- as was the case at the University of Wisconsin Superior, where 25 of these programs have been suspended - it is imperative to demonstrate their relevance, and much of that relies on application of scholarship. Showing how the knowledge that has been curated is actually being put to use to impact society, change dialogues, guide policy development, design interventions, and help to ensure that funding is correctly directed.

Simply stated, there is absolutely no value in research and theories if none of this information reaches the groups that were studied or whom the theoretical framework applies to, or society as a whole. There is no value in research that points out problems, but offers no insight or recommendations on how they may be counterbalanced, and there is certainly no value in research that only serves the purpose of ensuring that another person earns the right to put large letters behind their last name.

These points should especially resonate with scholars who come from minority or marginalized racial/ethnic/religious backgrounds; those who should be able to produce knowledge that betters or addresses the conditions that members of their racial/ethnic/religious group are subjected to. Historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Carter G. Woodson, said it best with the following statement: " The large majority of the Negroes who have put on the finishing touches of our best colleges are all but worthless in the development of their people."

But being worthless is apparently what is being taught, encouraged, and reinforced to academics. In response to my question during that NWSA session, my co-panelist turned to me and said, "There is no end game." She shared with the audience words of guidance imparted on her by a senior faculty in the sociology department. He tried to throw shade by calling her an applied sociologist, and reiterated that she should focus more on publishing. He also finished with stating the following: " If my work ever reaches or is used by the public, that is fine, but that is not my focus, or concern ."

A number of scholars have pointed out why this problem of meaningless and inactive research persists: it is due to the fact that the institutions dictate that they focus on publishing and doing nothing. It is an insidious cycle -- where the research and the employment of faculty is often being funded through donations and major grants by those who actually have a stake in ensuring that the social ills described in all of this research never go away. And by focusing on theorizing, not acting - academics do not have to worry about biting the hands that literally feed them. The neoliberal academy often shares the same supporters as the politicians in Washington, D.C. and state houses across the U.S., and there lies the problem. It is why academics are unable to include a vision of an "end game."

The Hampton Institute, a working-class think tank, was actually established with this End Game in mind. Building a community for inquiry, knowledge creation, discourse and networking - are the purpose of this organization, because we realize that it is these tenets, along with accessibility, that have always made it possible to create social change. While a university education is a recent privilege for many, it was not always something that was accessible to most Americans, particularly prior to the 1944 GI Bill. Intellectualism has always been something that was respected. People read novels, newspapers, foreign books translated to English, wrote poetry and entries into journals, and even developed what is now known as town halls in order to share or debate their understanding of pressing social issues.

The Hampton Institute (HI) harkens back and takes direction from this era and other subsequent social movements - Civil Rights, women's rights, and so on. As stated on our About Us page, the organization was "founded with the purpose of giving a platform to everyday, working-class people to theorize, comment, analyze and discuss matters that exist outside the confines of their daily lives, yet greatly impact them on a daily basis. The organization was named after former Black Panther, Fred Hampton, and also cites inspiration from Italian Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci, as well as educator and philosopher, Paulo Freire. In order to remain consistent with its working-class billing, the HI seeks out, as well as aims to develop, organic intellectuals within the working class; both in the US as well as internationally." Further, we are "dedicated to not only providing commentary, theoretical analysis, and research on a wide range of social, political, and economic issues from a distinct working-class perspective; but also to focusing on the continuation of transforming these ideas into practical steps towards revolutionary social change."

It is imperative that in this era of anti-intellectualism we show the importance of inquiry and knowledge-creation. There is no greater reminder that there is a need for applying this knowledge and engaging in activism than the current state of affairs that has left many adjuncts impoverished , overworked, and under-valued . Some adjuncts are even dealing with homelessness and have turned to sex work . It is just a reminder to academics that they should be loyal to the working class and not the plutocracy.

Being Queer: Personal Reflections on Identity, Gender, and Relationships

By Marina Rose Martinez

The first time I had sex with my now husband, I told him roughly three things:

1. I am not really a girl, so don't expect me to act like one and don't treat me like one.

2. Don't ever touch my throat.

3. If we're going to fuck, I have to be in charge.

Actually, what I really said was something along the lines of "I don't want to be a man, but I really don't act like a woman, and that bothers most people eventually. It will probably bother you eventually. I'm never going to change." Genderqueer was barely even a Live Journal tag.

He told me he didn't think there were really women in the world like me, and that he'd wished for me. I told him that the qualities that attracted me to him were his gentleness, his shyness, and his artistic nature. I liked that he sewed and cooked, that he liked cute things, and that he could be silly. He liked that I was tough and loud, and that I could tell people to fuck off as easily as I could tell them how amazing they were. I didn't say this at the time, but I had wished for him, too.

I've written about this a dozen times, but in my house growing up there were two genders: abuser and victim. Men did what they wanted to your body so that you could do what you wanted with their money. Or drugs. Or property in general. It's a raw deal when you get older and realize that women can get jobs and have money of our own. It's an especially raw deal when you look back on a childhood of trading punches for shelter and realize that you were the only one getting hit while older women told you this was woman's lot.

Although I do remember the time my mom came home covered in blood. Head to toe. She was matted with it. She took a shower and then she left, pinkish white drops lazily drying on the plastic shower walls the only evidence she was even there.

But what does this have to do with me being queer? I know, right? That's what I thought. Of course I didn't identify with femaleness. Of course I'd rather act like a dude; I got the shit kicked out of me for being a little girl. Or that's what they said. But I know a ton of people who got their asses kicked for being girls. That didn't stop them at all.

I've never felt like a girl. What does a girl feel like when her mom's boyfriend is trying to choke her to death? What does a girl feel like when a random junky is running his finger up and down the back of her sun dress telling her he thinks her "peach fuzz" is sexy? What does a girl feel like when she wakes up with her grandpa licking her mouth in the middle of the night?

I've always had other priorities, survival being chief among them. Recovery following quick on the heels of survival. One of the smartest decisions I ever made was to keep going to 12 step meetings even after my mom dropped out. As a young atheist, I was told that "a God of my understanding" could be anything. I met people with AA chips as their gods. Trees, stuffed toys, philosophical concepts, sentences in books, laws of mechanics and everything in between. My own personal god is currently gravity coupled with a vague sense of not-knowing things. I think it's my longest lasting god and I really like this one.

When you tell a child, desperate and alone in the world, without perspective, without prospects; who is conditioned toward abuse, who has been used and gas-lit her entire life that God can be anything, you also tell her that she can be anything. I could be a me of my own understanding. When you live with abusers who are also mentally ill or addicted to something the only way to know the truth is to get quiet and go deep inside yourself for it. Addicts will tell you that this is your fault. They will tell you that you actually like what they do (to you, with you, without you, whatever.)

One time my mom grabbed me by the neck, shoved me against the wall and screamed "STOP HURTING ME!" Which is a great tactic, because instead of fighting back, I stopped to think about the last 30 minutes of our screaming match in order to make sure that I hadn't actually touched her at all (I hadn't). There's no such thing as the truth in a drug addict's home.

Nobody in the meeting tried to tell me what my problem was. First of all, we all knew. Second of all, that was mine to search, and work through and own. I think if I had gone to a therapist at that time, I would have been told a lot about what I looked like. A narcissistic hypomanic gender dysphoric codependent with attention deficit disorder and anorexia who practices self-harm and suffers from PTSD.

I did assume that as I got older, worked through some shit and matured in general, I would grow more comfortable or more natural in my femaleness. I didn't really want to. I didn't want to develop a sense of compassion for my abusers either, but when I did, it opened the world to me.

My resentment was so much a part of who I was that it felt like the only thing holding me up most days. Imagine my surprise when I finally saw my parents as children themselves, with abusive parents of their own. Whose resentments against their parents lead to a life so unexamined that they turned into abusers despite their best efforts not to. It was the resentment that had grown in them like an abscess, festering under the surface until it exploded in violence and selfishness and led them to become the one thing they said they would never be.

Resentment was more a part of me than my gender has ever been. Gender to me is just a vague sense of not speaking the same language as everyone else, but it's one of the few aspects of my personality I have loved and enjoyed for most of my life, even when I wasn't really sure how.

My grandmother used to say "You always have to be different." I think she was trying to admonish me, but it also felt like a tacit acknowledgement. Maybe I am different enough. Maybe if I have to be different, I won't be capable of getting the same results as everybody else.

My trans friends from high school and college didn't seem to have my experience. Gender was a truth they told and were imprisoned for. Gender was a trauma event that they survived. A girl tortured with boyhood, a boy forced into girlhood. I never felt like that. I still don't.

My wedding was a revelation in this regard. When we were still in college, I told my boyfriend (now husband), "you know we're queer, right?" He disagreed. It was a conversation that went on between us for a while. Liking to sew doesn't make a man queer. Obviously.

But doesn't it seem queer that I have no relationship to being a woman?

Why would you? The patriarchy makes womanhood a horrible fate.

Besides, we were graduating into the largest financial shitstorm in eighty years. Telling people your pronouns are zie and zier at that time was mostly a great way to never be able to pay your rent or your student loans. Singular 'they' was still reserved for sentences like 'someone left their umbrella in the lobby.' So we are not queer. We are feminists.

But the wedding was different. I've always had a love-hate relationship with weddings. Despite my best attempts to hide it, I'm a total sap. I love love. After I realized that not every marriage was an abusive farce, not every wedding a sales transaction, I felt free to enjoy the sentiment. And I do. But I never wanted to get married myself. It felt awkward to me. I could never see myself as a bride much less a wife. I still don't really get the whole wife thing. And don't act like there isn't a thing.

I am not the female half of this binary gender unit. Before we got married we were just us. Ben and Marina. One and the other.

After we announced our engagement, my inbox flooded with unsolicited advice, suggestions, and offers of help. I was dumbfounded. What about me and our long years of association would make my friends think I wanted to talk about wedding planning? Once again, it was like they were speaking a different language. All of a sudden my experience of myself and my partnership was being held into the light of gendered expectations and we were failing to deliver.

I was content in my decision to get married, it was a good time and a good plan based on our financial situation and our upcoming house purchase. It fit well in our 5-year plan to start the adoption process. I did not and still do not understand why that obligates me to get excited about flowers, a thing I have never done.

Usually when I'm not getting a gendered thing, it's just one thing. The day moves on and so do I. People who have gendered expectations of me get frustrated over time, but there's not that many of them around now that I'm an adult and can choose my own company.

Getting married was about six months of things I absolutely did not understand. People got frustrated with me not understanding, and I then misunderstood their frustration. One person finally asked me, exasperated, "why are you getting married if you don't want to?" Why does me not caring about flowers and dresses have anything to do with whether or not I want to move forward in my life plans with my partner?

But that stuff does matter to many smart women who are equally as feminist as I am. Does not going crazy for flowers or caring about wedding dresses make a person queer? No. But I think it is a symptom of what makes me queer. It's not that I have no relationship to dresses or flowers, I like them both. It's that there is some "female language" I do not speak and cannot learn.

Gender is a construct, but these arbitrary gender roles appeal to people because they communicate with a true part of the human experience as a man or a women. That doesn't happen for me. Up until recently, I didn't think it happened for anyone. I really believed that gender was completely performative; that, man or woman, you were trained for your role and how well you performed it had to do with how thorough your training was. Even as I had transgender friends and loved ones for whom that was obviously not true. I trusted their experience to be real and valid; I just considered it to be one of life's paradoxes.

Even after that, I didn't see much of a reason to be explicit in the way my experience of gender feels different from what I'm taught I should be feeling. Compared to my feelings as a trauma survivor, as a woman in poverty, as a Latinx person, a fat person, it didn't feel relevant. It was the least interesting thing about me.

This is easier now because times have changed. But it's also more necessary now because the people in power have not. President Trump initiated his plan to ban transgender people from the armed services. In Nazi controlled Europe, one of the first laws the Nazis passed was to ban Jews and the other groups they would go on to murder from civil service, like the military.

Up to this point it wasn't a hardship to let people see my clothes and my partner and make assumptions that I was at least part of their tribe in that way. It made more sense to be a straight woman who advocated for gay and trans rights and who tried to open the door for my brothers and sisters whenever possible. There was no tortured part of me, I never felt closeted. I did feel like I wasn't telling the whole truth when I identified as straight, as a woman, but I had larger points to make and getting into the weeds about gender felt unnecessary at the time.

Most people really and truly don't give a shit what your gender feelings are. They want to know if you can do the job they hire you to do, if you can pick up the phone when they need to talk to you, if you'll keep the noise down after 10pm.

They consider it to be none of their business, and they will continue to think of it as none of their business when you are discriminated against and attacked, and when you are dead they will think it was none of their business who killed you. Because they have nothing to do with that sort of thing. Certainly the thing that killed you has nothing to do with "regular people" like them.

So people don't ask. They assume you are like them, just like I assumed everyone else was like me, and they go on with their day. That's all well and good when things are peaceful, when progress is steady and predictable, and when there is such a thing as a good queer. Because a good queer can open the door for everyone else. But this is different. The president's campaign of hate is against all of us humans. Some of us just don't realize it yet.

It's time to be explicit. Not only is there language when there wasn't before, there's knowledge when there wasn't before and I have leverage I didn't have before. I am not straight, I am not a woman. I am not a man. If there is a word for me, it would be agender or genderqueer. Some people use the term non-binary, which I find to be weird since all of gender, being on a spectrum, is inherently non-binary.

Anyone who knows me will probably think this is not news. You won't be seeing any changes in my behavior. I'll continue to act the way I've always acted. I will continue to be completely unfazed by whichever pronoun you refer to me with (they're all equally meaningless as far as I'm concerned) and I will continue to be completely annoyed by the unnecessary gendering of agender things like #girlboss and guy-liner.

This was originally published at the author's blog .

The Hampton Institut

The Star-Spangled Banner: A Blessing of Victory and Peace; But What Kind of Blessing and Peace?

By Jerome Irwin

America's Star Spangled Banner national anthem was written by Sir Francis Scott Key in 1814 to celebrate America's victorious resistance against the British Royal Navy's bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, and so honor The Flag as it triumphantly flew above the fort. It means many things to many different people, but to some revisionist historians it represents the embodiment of a constant stream of warfare that has continued non-stop since the nation's tempestuous birth in 1776, and reflects ever since a penchant for a militaristic, Spartan way of life that they describe as a classic modern-day version of ancient Sparta.

Sparta, the ancient Greek city-state that around 650BC rose into prominence to become the dominant military power in its day in ancient Greece as America has done in the New World since its very inception. Sparta having defeated Athens during the Peloponnesian Wars between 431 and 404BC at a great cost of human lives as America has done throughout its own history of wars of independence fought against the British, Canadians, Indian Nations, Spain, Cuba and Mexico; followed, in turn, by its Civil War in the 19 th century that pitted brothers and sisters against one another, and then a series of wars against North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan in the 20th century and a host of still other undeclared political, cultural, economic, military, cyber wars throughout the world against other nations on into the 21st century.

Before Sparta's defeat by Thebes in 371BC, and eventual fall to Roman conquest in 146BC, Sparta's social system and constitution, dominated by military adventurism and excellence of armaments, ruled the world around them for a period of some 279 years, just as America's own inspirational social system and constitution has similarly sought to dominate the world around them for some 241 years. But like the divisive, violent historical trajectory of Sparta in its day, some historians point to how what now is likewise going on in America continues to show increasingly troubled signs of being on that same destined fatal trajectory. But if America still has some 38 years yet left to match Sparta's nearly three centuries-long record of world aggression and dominance, one can only wonder what new rising power will end up being its own conquering 'Thebes' or 'Romans' to rule in their place? If Sir Francis Scott Key's anthem reflects a blessing of victory and peace, how must its words now be changed to reflect what kind of victory and peace has since transpired over the past two centuries up to the present day for all its citizenry?

At every turn in American culture, be it in the military, political, sports or corporate realm, no matter what events may transpire, the American citizenry is taught, some would argue brainwashed, to unequivocally believe in The Flag and "For which it stands!", whatever that may mean. It's a veritable religion that one only dares criticize at their peril. Political Correctness 2.0 - at every turn in the schools, movies, politics, business, on the grid iron, diamond or court - teaches young and old alike to believe in 'My Country Right or Wrong'. Whether it's on Main Street USA, the local sports arena, a Wall Street trading floor, or some distant, foreign battlefield, whatever aggressive, machismo actions are needed to be waged to defeat whomever is deemed to be the adversary or hated 'Other' on the opposing side, is generally deemed acceptable with no holds barred and few questions asked.

As a result, the American populace, annually, willingly and gladly, gives up however untold billions of dollars of their hard-earned monies to: continually expand America's gargantuan military forces, larger than all the world's military forces combined; pay for local law enforcement anti-riot, anti-terrorist 'United Shield', SWAT, and 'Wall of Separation' border defenses against the unwanted; give away to world dictators and authoritarian governments however much monies and military hardware are needed to murder and subdue whatever rebellions, civil society movements or societal protests among their own people, as well as; passively accept the fact that our finest hero-warrior, gladiator-athletes are paid a veritable king's ransom just to entertain us for a few hours each week in whatever local 'Coliseum' arena. These monies are willingly given away even when this means that American society itself must forego the benefits of their labors and suffer the constant stripping of their own desperate basic needs that includes: a minimum livable hourly wage; universal healthcare; critical public school funds; municipal infrastructure for police-fire-rescue emergency services; tax relief for the lower and middle classes; social services for the homeless and destitute, as well as for the many institutions dedicated to the general enhancement of America's cultural, social, spiritual life. Like the translated lyrics of a Guns & Roses song goes: We're all in the jungle now and all gonna die!"

Forget for a moment what all the corporate media does day in day out to brainwash the populace to think and believe in the same way. Instead ponder what occurs at the beginning of every major American sports event and ask yourself what element in these events might provoke and embed such blind, mindless obedience to such harsh realities? Long before 9/11, many of America's professional sports teams held flag-raising, national anthem ceremonies. But since 9/11, such rituals have escalated in drama and scope to the point that begs the question: "What came first: The chicken or the egg?" Could the cause possibly be because of the degree to which the U.S. Government and its military branches have focused their attention upon national paid patriot propaganda in sports, purely for recruiting purposes, or, as a way to unduly influence the attitudes of the American populace towards war and militarism in general? Is this why they sponsor ceremonial rituals such as the repetitive singing of the Star-Spangled Banner national anthem at the beginning of every major American sports event? Why aren't such rituals likewise required at the beginning of movies, plays and other major cultural gatherings or religious events? Or has it always been intentionally and purposefully cultivated and enhanced through sports because the comparable levels of aggression and macho behavior required in both the military and sports world responds to the same primal psychological human drives? Can the dominant natural inclination within the American psyche, that always seems to lean towards reactionary, right-wing, militaristic attitudes and beliefs, be traced back through certain defining displaced impulses of patriotism since the nation's very origins; as manifested by the erection of so many controversial memorial statues to otherwise questionable military hero's of the American Confederacy, the American Indian Wars or a long line of ruthless, warmongering Generals or Presidents from Andrew Jackson's up to Donald Trump and all those who will come after them?

The United States is the only country in the world that requires its professional sports teams and the general public to adhere to such patriotic rituals around every sports event. Before 9/11, many professional American teams even stayed in their locker rooms during the playing and singing of the Star Spangled Banner national anthem, even though the historical record shows that in the much-touted 'American Game' of baseball, the patriotic ritual goes back to the days of World War One, until the National Baseball Association finally made it a requirement in 1942 during World War Two, with the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League following suite in 1946. But it wasn't until many years later that America's teams were finally expected or actually required to come out of their locker rooms to participate in these patriotic rituals. Since 9/11, the U.S. Government and its military branches have even signed "paid patriotism" contracts with the five major American sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS), not counting NASCAR sponsorships, for ceremonies to raise the flag, sing the national anthem, hold 'Support The Troops' nights or sponsor recruitment drives for 'new troops', the cost of which now is estimated to be over $100 million, the actual total amount for which the Department of Defense can't even fully account.

So, at the beginning of each sports event, the citizenry is called upon en masse to dutifully rise to the occasion and stand at attention to show their unquestioning unity every time a military guard, representing all branches of the armed services, solemnly marches in with the Star-Spangled Banner waving, to be greeted by some popular personage of the people who will sing the country's national anthem in homage to war, the nation's continued survival and future success for 'God & Country', whether on the playing field or battlefield.

The citizenry in attendance, unless they possess the requisite courage and backbone required to protest by remaining seated, at the risk of being hostilely put upon by those around him or her, such as what has since happened to the former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick who did, can either choose to stand in silence, begrudgingly mumble the words or loudly sing along with their right hand held over their heart; as a wing of the latest military combat fighter jets, in a noisy, awe-inspiring demonstration, does a dramatic low fly-over to display for all to see and marvel at the awesome, invincible power of the state. As they listen to or sing the full four verses of the anthem's lyrics, that some consider racist in nature, what are they thinking about when they repeat the words that, in its third verse, speaks of "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of fight, or the gloom of the grave"(i.e. those Indians, Black slaves, White colonists who supported British rather than American Imperialism)? When they next sing the words, "And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave/O'er the land of the free/And the home of the brave", who are the free and the brave they're singing about? Or when they herald, with their hand solemnly held over their hearts, "Then conquer we must/When our cause it is just/And this be our Motto/In God is Our Trust", who must next be conquered, what or whose just cause are they talking about, and with which particular conquering God are they placing their trust?

When whomever it is that is pledging their allegiance to The Flag, is it to the 1% who deprives the other 99% of the people from also realizing the American Dream? Are they thinking of America's long history: of slavery, systemic racism and social injustices in American society; the Indian Wars that cleared out the native populations from almost everywhere in the land where white immigrants chose to settle; the conquest, occupation and displacement of Mexican nationals in California & the Southwest; the endless War of Terror in the Middle East and the constant blowback that it continues to create?

Perhaps with the singing of the national anthem they're thinking of all the powerful mining and fossil fuel interests and their political allies in North Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Indiana who are pushing the last leg of the Dakota Access Pipeline through Indian lands and those of white farmers? Or maybe, perhaps, their pledging allegiance to those interests in Arizona and Utah who are also pushing hard to remove all protections from America's national lands and urge President Trump to lift the Obama-era ban on mining uranium around the Grand Canyon?

In that moment of pledging are they swearing an oath to support President Trump's intention to expand fossil fuel development everywhere in the world, climate change be damned, wherever under which the Star Spangled Banner may happen to fly?

Or are they joining in a covenant with President Trump and his Republican leaders in the Senate who continue to very quietly - very secretly - force upon the American people a cruel, heartless, radical stealth bill called 'Trumpcare' that: by 2026, will take health insurance away from 23 million Americans; cut $834 Billion from Medicare that will destroy it; defund Planned Parenthood that will strip women of the right to control their own bodies; increase health care premiums for seniors on fixed incomes, force low-income Americans to go without necessary care and punish those who have pre-existing conditions; while handing out some $661 billion in tax cuts for the filthy rich 1%'ers?

As the band plays on, and the gathered multitude sing of, "Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us as a nation", are they all thinking of the innocent 17 year-old Muslim girl who was recently struck by a hater with a metal baseball bat who killed her after she was leaving a Virginia mosque following her religious observances during Ramadan?

By singing the anthem and pledging their obligatory duty to abide with whatever actions America's elected politicians may choose to do in their name, are all the singers voicing their approval of the acquittal of a cop in Minnesota who poured five bullets into the body of an African American man after he had duly informed the officer, according to the procedural letter of the law, that he was carrying a legally licensed firearm?

As they repeatedly sing the Star Spangled Banner at every sports event is the citizenry en masse tacitly deferring to President Trump's new Cold-War policies that will drastically change the U.S.-Cuba relationship and sweep away former President Obama's policy of cultural exchange that sought, through tourism and trade, to bring about a greater sharing of democratic ideals? Or are they signaling their collective duty to return to the retrograde, embargo-style policies of earlier decades; that also just happens at the same time to benefit and aid President Trump's own business interests in Cuba? Or, perhaps, they're also knowingly pledging themselves to President Trump's sprawling business empire whose brand name is becoming virtually fused within the day-to-day operation of every aspect of the American Government and essence of its way of life to the extent that it will make it all but impossible to ever distinguish again between the two?

The Star Spangled Banner's final stanza declares, "Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us as a nation" But where is the victory? Where is the peace that heaven has rescued for America's lands? What Power is to be praised?

The litany of inhumanity that has been waged over the past two and a half centuries under the banner of The Flag against: every Black Man & Woman, every Brown Man & Woman, every Yellow Man & Woman, Every Red Man & Woman, every White Man & Woman, not to mention what has been waged against the sacredness of the Earth & all its denizens, is far too long and vast to be repeated here.

Suffice it to say that the lights are everywhere on in America, but no one really knows if anyone is home because the masses of faces of all those seen in the stands as they sing the Star Spangled Banner somehow seem vacant or inscrutable!

Jerome Irwin is a freelance writer and author of "The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey" ( www.turtle-island-odyssey.com ), a three volume account of his travels as a spiritual sojourner, during the 1960's, 70's & 80's, among Native Americans & First Nations in North America. It encompasses the Spiritual Renaissance & Liberation Movements among native peoples throughout North America during the civil rights era. More recently, Irwin authored a series of articles on the "NODAPL/KEYSTONE XL/CLIMATE CHANGE" protests against the United States Government. Irwin also is the publisher of The Wild Gentle Press.

The Question of Art: An Interview

By Devon Bowers

In a written portion of my series "The Question of Art," I talk to artists Johnny Bentanamo and Kelly Ann Gonzales Boyle about art and its importance to society. Part 1 is can audio portion and can be listened to here .

What kind(s) of art do you do? What/who got you into art in the first place?

Johnny: I specialize in musical recording & performance art as well as mixed media visual arts.

Essentially, I write music on an acoustic guitar as well as accompanying lyrics that I perform live as a soloist, I also compose noise records {that I refer to as "grind-pop"} which I release online. As far as the visual arts go, I mostly use found items to create impressionistic & abstract paintings.

When I was 8 years old, I was downstairs at my Grandparents house & put on the MTV where I saw the music video for Guns N' Roses "Welcome to the Jungle"...that was the moment when I knew what I wanted to do with my life & it's been a struggle ever since. Besides that important moment in my life, I've had many great friends that have doubled as teachers over the years & I own to them much thanks.

Kelly: I am a writer. I have been a writer since I first learned to read and write. Since I was a child, I loved nothing more than curling up and getting lost in a great book, and when you get lost, you often find yourself. My father always encouraged me to be an avid reader, writer, and lover of art. Each time he got me a book, he'd sign it, "Never stop leaning. Love, Papa."

I grew up in New Jersey, and my dad grew up in NYC, and he always wanted me to experience the city by bringing me to art museums. I tried my hand at drawing and painting, but while it's a medium I love and appreciate, I never quite honed my talent into it unlike writing which came much more naturally.

Why do you think that people nowadays seem to devalue art? We seem to live in this paradox where people will argue that art isn't important, yet they enjoy music, movies, theater, and the like.

Johnny: I think art is largely devalued by many because they don't see the most popular mediums as art. Things like that popular tv show, big budget films, & major label musical releases are made to make money & have little to no artistic value because they lack the intention to invoke emotion or challenge contemporary ways of thinking. The people that seek out art for the sake of art can find it, but it takes research & I think that that's a little bit too much work for the common person who is consumed w/ work, school, family, etc.

Kelly: Art is a series of contradictions. It's like life. Moving, terrifying, strange, and sometimes just downright boring. Art, like life, is misunderstood. We can hate art like we can hate our lives, but we can choose to say, "You know what? Not for me today. Not for me right now. Let me try again tomorrow." The same art I may have passed by in a museum ten, five, maybe even one year ago, can have a totally different impact on me today. Just based on new experiences or my mood for the day.

I don't think that people devalue art. I think people value and crave art more than ever before. People want to be connected and to feel something. The advent of social media is an example of this. We can sit here and lament the dehumanizing aspects of social media, or we can appreciate its ability to teach us something about each other, even if it's just parts of each other.

We all make choices each day to say to others and to ourselves whether or not we want to live our lives to the fullest. Art helps to enrich our lives through music, movies, theater, and so forth.

What does art do for you, if anything, on a emotional and psychological level?

Johnny: For me, art is therapy, plain & simple. If I didn't have a creative outlet I would be a miserable person to be around. I grew up in a physically & emotionally abusive house so I have some "demons" that I battle on a daily basis & whenever I'm feeling lost or overwhelmed I can just pick up my guitar or paint brushes to wash away those negative feelings...I've become a much calmer & centered person since I began creating more consistently about 7 years ago. Art is also a way to supplement my income since working a full-time job is not conducive to my medical disabilities, which are extensive.

Kelly: We are all part of a grand universe, and art is a means of connecting our selves to the world around us. Whether it's a fresco painting on the ceiling of a chapel or a black square on a large, white canvas, art speaks. It can speak a loud and grandiose volume for all to know its behemoth presence, or it can simply murmur and let its nearest passerby know that it's standing on the corner, too.

Art makes me feel everything. It has made me laugh and cry. It has angered me and plainly disgusted me. It keeps me begging for more and I find myself seeking out stranger and grander things. To better myself. To learn. To be a part of something greater than myself.

What is the most fun and most difficult part of being an artist?

Johnny: The most difficult part of arting for me is also the most fun part...performance. I give everything I have in me during a live performance, it's like some otherworldly entity is channeled through me. It is the most cathartic thing I have ever experienced but w/ that said, afterwards I hurt & usually need to sit or lay down for a hour or more. The most rewarding part of performing is not what it does for me though, it is what it does for others. I'm a naturally open & overtly expressive person, which most people are not, so when attendees approach me after I'm off stage & express to me how the things I did or said spoke to them or made them feel like they weren't alone, I know I did something good...even if it comes from a place of selfishness as I do not make art for anybody but myself.

Kelly: I once argued with someone I dated--and I suppose you can already guess that the brief relationship ended quite rapidly--about whether or not writing was an art. He believed writing was simply a skill that could be taught and refined. I believe it was both an art and a skill. You learn the skills of the grammar, punctuation, and the nuisances of the language. The art of writing is a different and impatient beast.

The most difficult part of being a writer is like exercising. To get up each day and committing yourself to doing it continuously. You can write or exercise in private and no one will know the wiser, but eventually you may find yourself stepping out into the world where a stranger may glance at your open notebook or laptop. You coworker will comment on your new weight loss. You are flattered.

Then you are also terrified. You want the compliments, but with compliments come expectation and criticism. The opportunity and the realization that there is more. There is always more.

The fun part is also the terrifying part. Recognizing the difficulty of putting yourself out there and keeping up that momentum. The thrill of jumping out of a plane at 30,000 feet only to hurtle downwards with a parachute. That is writing. That is art. It's all part of the process.

In your opinion, what is the purpose of art, if any?

Johnny: Art has many purposes & can mean different things to many different people. For me, as I stated earlier, art is therapeutic. I create so that I can tolerate living but for many others it is simply something to decorate your house with or wear out to a fancy restaurant.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde says "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless." Now I don't agree w/ this sentiment but that's not the point, the point is that, what art is or what it does is completely up to the observer, it's relative to the person that is beholding the creation. In summation I would say that the purpose of art is to create something that was never there so that all of existence can become a richer & more evolved place. Art is life & just like all things, the individual works eventually cease to be.

Kelly: The purpose is to exist. The definition is up to the artist. Same thing with life. Don't think too hard about it.

Examine life in its present moment, but then move on. Don't overthink it. Just do. Keep going. Don't stop. Go live your life. Stop reading this and go make some art.

Mr. Bentanamo's art can be viewed here and here .

Mrs. Gonzales Boyle is the author of the novel Video Games and is readying a forthcoming novel tentatively titled, Through An Opaque Window.

India and China: Rivals or Potential Partners in Liberation?

By Ajit Singh

India and China have agreed to end a two-month long military standoff taking place in the the Doklam border region, following the withdrawal of Indian personnel and equipment from territory claimed by China. While India and China have a longstanding history of border conflicts, current tensions take place in the context of India's growing ties with the United States, and the U.S. military "pivot" to China.

Subordinate alliance with US imperialism

Following India's neoliberal economic reforms, beginning in 1991, India-U.S. relations have steadily developed closer. In recent years, following the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modia of the far-right, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), U.S. foreign direct investment in India has shot up 500 percent, coinciding with growing military collaboration. Since 2008, cumulative defense trade has increased from US$1 billion to US$15 billion as India has become world's largest importer of major arms . The U.S. and India have also designated each other "Major Defence Partners" and signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), which allows the U.S. to use India's military bases for repair and replenishment of supplies.

Stronger economic and military ties have resulted in India increasingly aligning itself with US imperialism. Most significant is India's support for the U.S. strategy of encirclement and aggression against China, which seeks to maintain U.S. unipolar, global hegemony. This has included India's hosting of the imperialist-supported Dalai Lama, siding with the U.S. position on the South China Sea issue, supporting US aggression against North Korea, and opposing China's Belt and Road Initiative. During the recent Doklam border conflict, ties between the U.S. and India strengthened as they established a new, bilateral security dialogue which will include their respective defence secretaries and ministers. The U.S. has already established such dialogues with its strategic military allies in the Asia-Pacific region - Japan and Australia.

The main concern of the India-U.S. alliance is targeting China. However, while this partnership deepens, India's capitalist development at home produces destitution for the majority. Neoliberalism and alignment with U.S. imperialism have exclusively benefited India's ruling class, now holding approximately 58 percent of the country's total wealth, and resulted in increasing inequality and impoverishment for working and oppressed peoples. Marxist economist Prabhat Patnaik has demonstrated that per capita food consumption in India is decreasing and absolute poverty is rising. This has resulted in 35 percent of rural adults being undernourished, and 42 percent of children being underweight. It is clear that India's people require a new way forward, as the current capitalist, U.S.-friendly path does not meet their needs.

China and a different path for development

In 2004, socialist revolutionary Fidel Castro declared that "China has become objectively the most promising hope and the best example for all Third World countries." Although often portrayed as a "rival" by India's ruling class elites and corporate media, India's working and oppressed peoples do not benefit from the anti-China orientation. Rather, learning from China's experiences and developing mutually beneficial relations can support their struggle forward.

Having both been oppressed by the West for centuries, India and China have faced similar challenges of pursuing national development and addressing the needs of immense populations in the hostile environment of world capitalism and imperialism. However, they have pursued distinctly different paths: capitalism and socialism, respectively. By comparing how the two countries have responded to these challenges, insight can be gained about how the Indian people can advance their interests.

Poverty and exploitation

In India, capitalist development has left the vast majority in a severe state of deprivation. India is home to the world's largest poverty-stricken population and the figures are staggering: approximately 270 million Indians, or 21.2 percent, live on less than US$1.90 per day, and 732 million, or 58 percent, live on less than $3.10 USD per day. Private ownership of land, corporate predation, and dispossession have led to over 300, 000 farmer suicides since 1995. Further, the unemployment rate grew from 6.8 percent in 2001 to 9.6 percent in 2011 and permanent jobs are giving way to temporary and casual work . This has adversely affected workers' wages and social security, leading to India's central trade unions calling an indefinite general strike this year.

Conversely, in China living conditions are consistently improving. In the past four decades alone, China has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty , more than the rest of the world combined, as the Communist Party works to eradicate poverty by 2020. Only 1.9 percent of China's population lives below the international poverty line, compared to over one-fifth of India's population. Chinese wage growth is soaring, with hourly manufacturing wages rising 12 percent per year since 2001 . Across China's labour force as a whole hourly incomes now exceed every major Latin American state except for Chile, and are approximately 70% of levels in weaker eurozone countries. Additionally, income inequality, which is rising globally, has been steadily decreasing in China since 2010 . A 2013 Pew Research Centre survey supports these findings, r e p o r t ing t h a t 85% of China's population were satisfied with the direction of their economy, and 82% believed their children would be better off than them, both figures being the highest in the world.

Oppression and discrimination

Indian society is branded by the oppressive caste system of social hierarchy and Hindu supremacist ideology. Oppressed castes, Indigenous Adivasi peoples, and religious and national minorities face systemic discrimination and violence. The current BJP-led government, promotes violent racism and hatred , leading to increasing attacks on oppressed peoples.

In contrast, China explicitly stresses the importance of multinational unity and of combating chauvinism, particularly of the Han majority. China systemically supports the development of national minorities. For example, urban, eastern provinces send hundreds of thousands of youth volunteers and spend 3-5% of their total income supporting western provinces which are more densely populated by national minorities.

Although both countries have far to go, China is also significantly ahead of India in the struggle against patriarchy. China's adult women's literacy rate is 94.5 percent, compared with India's rate of 63 percent. China's women to men, labour force participation ratio , at 0.81, more than doubles India's, at 0.34. Similarly, Chinese women's political participation , at 24.2 percent, is more than twice India's, which is at 11.8 percent.

National development and liberation from imperialism

While India recently observed its 70th anniversary of independence from British rule, the country remains subordinated to imperialism and severely underdeveloped. India has the worst access to safe-drinking water in the world, and approximately 240 million people do not have access to electricity. One in six urban Indians lives in slums and from 2010-2014, an average of 7 structures collapsed per day killing 13,178 people.

In comparison, China has experienced unprecedented economic development and is now the second most powerful economy in the world. Since 1978, China has pursued a policy of reform and opening up of its economy, contrasting sharply with Indian neoliberalism. China's market reforms are firmly controlled by the socialist state and implemented to overcome the underdevelopment historically imposed on China by Western imperialism.

China is building a modern, moderately prosperous society, spending more on infrastructure than the US and Europe combined. One hundred percent of the population has access to electricity and China spends hundreds of billions of dollars on water clean-up projects . Further, China is committed to environmental sustainability and fighting the climate crisis, leading the world in renewable energy production and employment , powering regions on 100 percent renewable energy for one-week trial periods, and undertaking one of the most ambitious conservation projects in the world to halt environmental degradation.

Internationally, China works in cooperation with oppressed nations throughout the Global South, providing beneficial alternatives to imperialism. China offers investment, builds infrastructure, forgives debt, and abides by the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Close relations with China have benefited revolutionary states and oppressed nations around the world, including Cuba , Venezuela , Syria , and North Korea . A key example of China's global impact is the Belt and Road initiative , which has been called "the largest single infrastructure program in human history", currently involving 68 countries and 1700 development projects.

China is the primary force building a multipolar, more democratic international order, ending 500 years of Western imperial dominance. As such, China's rise supports the liberation of all peoples oppressed by imperialism.

Liberation lies to the East

It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of Chinese socialism's achievements relative to India's capitalist path in pursuing development and improving living standards. India's people would benefit substantially from ending hostilities with China, learning from Chinese socialism, and developing a mutually beneficial relationship. Accounting for over one-third of the world's population, India and China have the potential to form "the most significant bilateral relationship of the 21st century," as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stated in 2012.

Conflict with China offers nothing to India's workers, peasants, and oppressed peoples. Only by breaking with US imperialism and the domestic capitalist ruling class, will India's people begin their journey from formal independence toward liberation.

A condensed version of this article was originally published by teleSUR (August 31, 2017)

Ajit Singh is a Marxist, anti-imperialist writer and activist. He received his Juris Doctor in Law from the University of Western Ontario in 2014. Follow him on Twitter

Palestinian-Chilean Solidarity: Transnational Meetings and Meals of Resistance

By Devin G. Atallah

I, Devin Atallah, Ph.D., a Palestinian-Chilean psychologist and social conflict and disaster researcher, recently participated in the "First Session of the Mapuche Constituent Assembly" (La Primera Sesión Asamblea Constituyente Mapuche) which took place on November 30, 2016. A "Constituent Assembly", according to Wikipedia , is a "body or assembly of representatives composed for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution". This first session of the Mapuche Constituent Assembly occurred on top of the Ñielol hill, just outside of the city of Temuco, in southern Chile.

The Mapuche are the largest first nation and the most populous indigenous group in Chile. According to the Chilean census of 2012, over 1.4 million people (approximately 8.7 percent of the total population of Chile) self-identify as Mapuche (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, 2012). Currently, most Mapuche reside either in the capital of Chile, Santiago, or in the Araucanía region, which is Chile's poorest region at the national level (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, 2012). Temuco, where this first session of the Mapuche Constituent Assembly occurred, is the capital of this Araucanía region.

I was invited to travel to Temuco and visit the top of the Ñielol hill to attend this historic initial meeting by several participants in one of my ongoing investigations on Indigenous resilience processes in Mapuche communities who are exposed to historical trauma, ongoing racism, and environmental challenges and disasters. I had met these research participants within my role as a consultant and psychology researcher with RUCADUNGUN - "El Centro de Documentacion e Investigacion Indigena" (English Translation: The Center for Indigenous Investigation and Documentation).

These research participants invited me to attend the Constituent Assembly only a few days ago, and explained details of the encounter as a historic and official nonviolent indigenous decolonization process, with the goal of moving towards developing a strong proposal for self-determination with real support from diverse Mapuche social bases, in a context of increased political strife embedded in the long-lasting Mapuche-Chile conflict.

The day I traveled south to participate in this Constituent Assembly, as an invited outsider, observer, and guest, happened to be on November 29th - the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People ( resolution 32/40 B ). As a multinational, multicultural Palestinian-Chilean United Statesian, the interwoven meanings and opportunities to act with solidarity for decolonization of Mapuche communities and for justice and social healing, overlapped in profound ways, beginning with my journey south.

10:15 p.m. November 29, 2016, International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Santiago, Chile

I met two colleagues of mine at the Santiago Central Bus Station who were also interested in showing solidarity and participating in the Mapuche Constituent Assembly: (1) Lorena Albornoz, a practicing human rights lawyer and graduate student in anthropology and also researcher with RUCADUNGUN; and (2) Elizabeth Pilquil, director and co-founder of the "La Casa de Salud Ancestral Mapuche KVME FELEN" (English Translation: The House of Traditional Mapuche Health and Healing).

Lorena, Elizabeth, and I took the evening bus, which departed at 10:30 p.m. from Santiago heading to Temuco. During the bus ride we discussed our participation in an event at the "Museo de la Memoria y Derechos Humanos" (English Translation: The Museum of Memory and Human Rights) for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and how intense it was to be going from one event focused on showing support and solidarity with Palestinians, to an event showing solidarity with Mapuche. We reflected how meaningful and interconnected our bonds and commitments were to each community in the active struggle for dignity and self-determination.

Elizabeth is a member of the Mapuche community herself, in many ways living in a diaspora-type condition in urban Santiago. Sitting side by side was me, a member of the Palestinian diaspora, and with Lorena, a Chilean lawyer identifying as Mestiza and as an ally to both struggles, yet in very unique ways. Sharing family stories of displacement and migration, healing with herbal secrets, and preserving sacred family recipes, we took advantage of our time together on the bus to plan the menu for a meal and cultural event at the The House of Traditional Mapuche Health and Healing-a meal of resistance which I will share more about at the end of this personal narrative.

Thus, after discussing how we would outreach to community members and share our beautiful tickets to invite members of the Palestinian-Chilean community and the Mapuche community to come together and feast. We settled on serving mansaf, a traditional a Palestinian dish of lamb, rice, almonds, and yogurt, alongside Mapuche treats such as fried dough with roasted and smoked red hot peppers.

Eventually, we fell asleep.

7:00 a.m, morning of November 30, 2016, day of the first session of the Mapuche Constituent Assembly, Temuco, Wallmapu, Chile

We arrived into Temuco with the sun emerging from the horizon, just rising over silhouettes of volcanos, so ancient, like messages in a dream. When Lorena, Elizabeth and I got off the bus, we headed straight to the open fruit and vegetable market where there were stands serving out quick breakfast. We enjoyed coffee, fresh eggs, and yerba mate, while meeting our contact there. Our guide showed us through the city streets of Temuco, then we made our way to the base of the Ñielol hill, hoping to reach the top by 8 a.m. when a Mapuche spiritual ceremony was scheduled to begin - a collective blessing and offering for the Mapuche Constituent Assembly to move forward with newen, a Mapuche word and spiritual concept that means "strength", yet also connotes meanings mapping onto ideas of harmony between the land, people, life, and all things in the universe.

We stopped just at the entrance of the trailhead leading up to the top of the Ñielol hill, because we noticed three large military vehicles fully armored and with a clear capacity to break up protests and to even hold numerous potential prisoners. We also passed various parked cars with undercover police stake-out operatives taking pictures of us as we walked by. As we hiked to the top of the hill, tired from lack of sleep on the bus all night, we tried to avoid feelings of intimidation by the presence of the Chilean military. Instead, we hiked upwards and nourished our excitement from the rise in altitude and our encounters with ancient trees and dense bamboo forest.

We made it to the top of Ñielol, just before the Mapuche spiritual ceremony began, which occurred below four statues representing the four generations of Mapuche society: an elder or grandparent, a parent or adult, a youth, and a child. These symbols of transgenerational resilience began our day, where we were invited to participate in the collective spiritual activity (without taking photographs).

10 a.m., Morning of the November 30, 2016, day of the first session of the Mapuche Constituent Assembly, Temuco, Wallmapu, Chile

After the ceremony, we drank more yerba mate, shared snacks and collectively set up a common space for the Mapuche Constituent Assembly to occur, organizing rows of chairs and putting up a large black cloth to shield the participants from the sun. Banners and flags waved in the wind. Finally, the event began, as the leader of the Consejo de Todas las Tierras (English Translation: Mapuche Council of All Lands), Aucán Huilcamán, welcomed all the participants, highlighting that in the spirit of the Coyan - the Mapuche traditional government gathering as a system of sovereignty, participants came voluntarily and of their own individual will yet collective convictions.

Aucán addressed the hundreds of Mapuche leaders who were present, young and old, women and men, altogether dedicated to moving forward in achieving the right to self-determination.Aucán addressed allies from other indigenous groups who were present, such as the Aymara from Northern Chile, and also, international observers from Argentina, and national allies fromChile.

In his address, Aucán highlighted the importance of recognizing the Mapuche right to self-determination, which is already formally guaranteed at the international level in the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted on September 13, 2007. Aucán also underscored the importance of recognizing the genocide and theft of Mapuche lives, lands, and livelihoods by the Chilean military in the conquest of the Araucanía at the end of the 19th century. Also, Aucán, and may other Mapuche leaders who stood and spoke, emphasized the importance of international recognition of Mapuche treaties (Coyan) with the Chilean government that dates back hundreds of years and supported in demands that lands are returned and Mapuche laws and traditions can be honored and practiced with dignity.

As one of the leaders said, this day is about being equal in dignity, but different in law ("Igual en dignidad, pero distincto en derecho …"). When elaborating, he explained: Mapuche society requires different tribal laws that protect unique ways of life and relationships with the land, in terms of health, education, conflict resolution, leadership, and even how we organize our leadership and sovereignty, as evidenced in the processes of collective dialogues today itself during this Constituent Assembly.

Elders stood up, took to the center of the circle, and expressed their vision for a free Mapuche identity and lands with respect and dignity. Throughout the dialogues, from the elders to the youth, and from the break-out conversations passing yerbe mate from hand to hand on the sidelines… drinking muday (a ceremonial Mapuche alcoholic drink) from fermented quinoa, I reflected with others on connections between Palestinian geographies of colonization, historical trauma, and collective resilience, and intersections with experiences of the Mapuche. In this very gathering protecting basic human rights, memory, and dignity, I reflected on the defenders of water and dignity of the Standing Rock Sioux , thousands of miles away in North America yet perhaps so near in moments of heart.

Throughout the day, hour upon hour, leaders, families, community members of different generations and genders gathered together and told their stories and shared commitments and their visions for a free and autonomous Mapuche society. An important social political structure in Mapuche communities has been historically, and continues to be today, organized around the Lof, which in Mapudungun (the main language of the Mapuche) means 'community' or 'extended family' and corresponds to a territorial unit inhabited by a group with kinship relations and lead by a Lonko, or the chief of the Lof.

It is important to highlight that from the 1600s to the 1900s, a long list of Coyan occurred, which were the government meetings of the Mapuche. Many of these Coyan were nation-to-nation agreements, negotiated between the Spanish crown and various Mapuche Lonkos, then later between the Chileans and the Mapuche. These Coyan recognized the independent sovereignty of the Mapuche and even set agreements for trade and are still have validity even today (Contreras, 2002).

Many of the Lofs that spoke in the circle during this Mapuche Constituent Assembly underscored the importance of past Coyan and the need to recognize them as applicable today. Representatives from Mapuche communities across Chile were together, sharing space and words, stories and sentiments, highlighting the need for the Chilean state to formally acknowledge the history of genocide and ethnic cleansing that rendered current Mapuche being as displaced at home, as a mere "ethnic group", or even worse, as foreigners in their own lands-marginalized in several domains including education, health care, and across Chilean state institutions. These histories of colonialism and ongoing racism creates disasters of everyday life for many Mapuche Lofs (Atallah, 2016).

After diverse members of Mapuche Lofs spoke, Chilean nationals and international observers were invited to share their perspectives.

I was moved and impressed with how many of the Chilean nationals expressed their allyship to the Mapuche with acknowledgment of their relative power and privilege and their hope to contribute to the manifestation of Mapuche self-determination, even if it meant giving up some of their own privileges. For example, some observers spoke out from positions as lawyers in elite Chilean universities, as willing to work toward legal pathways and legislative policies such as indigenous land reform, reconstituting Mapuche autonomy over historically colonized territories, and exploring further how past treaties could serve as guides in these type of processes.

Many observers also spoke of how they identified as both Chileans and as Mapuche, with mixed Indigenous and European family heritage as Mestizos, and that they often felt "in-between" worlds, yet wanted to ensure the dignity and rights of their indigenous brothers and sisters. Other observers spoke of the importance of increased solidarity with Palestinian-Chileans, who often keep themselves out of the dialogue, avoiding the topic, yet they could play an important allyship role noting that they are connected to Palestine as a land and as a people threatened by historical and ongoing settler colonization.

At this point in the day, now late into the afternoon, the two participants in my research project, the Mapuche community members who had reached out and invited Elizabeth Pilquil and me to the event, requested that I take to the circle and speak. So, I approached the microphone, building off what the previous observer had shared, and stated that, as a member of the Palestinian-Chilean community, and as a mental health professional and healer, I believed that we, as members of the Palestinian diaspora, could and should do more to support historically-colonized groups locally in Chile, and worldwide, perhaps most importantly - the Mapuche, especially seeing that so many Palestinians moved to southern territories and contributed, in the beginning of the 20th century, to the colonization of Mapuche lands. I shared that I was passionate about issues of the connections between health, wellness, and human rights, and decolonization in particular, as rooted in expressions of social healing.

I voiced my inspiration and deep honor at being invited and to bear witness to this First Session of the Mapuche Constituent Assembly, which was perhaps, one of the most powerful and meaningful collective manifestations of decolonization that I had witnessed. I pledged to share my experience and hope to further support Mapuche journeys for human rights, social health, with dignity equal to all peoples of the world, yet with laws tailored to their society, history, imaginations of a future free of unjust colonial rule - dreams as ancient as the rising sun, but fresh with nascent newen, spirit and strength.

A few weeks after returning to Santiago, central Chile, Elizabeth Pilquil and I finished organizing our "Meals of Resistance" event, which we finally celebrated this past weekend on Saturday, December 17, 2017 at the Casa de Salud Ancestral Mapuche KVME FELEN (the House of Mapuche Traditional Health and Healing) in Quinta Normal neighborhood of Santiago. In total, about 60-70 people arrived, and included members of the Mapuche indigenous group, Chilean allies, and members of the Palestinian-Chilean community, who all came together to share freedom foods and stories of resistance and resilience - showing support and solidarity. As I mentioned at the beginning of the narrative, the main dish was mansaf, which is a traditional Palestinian meal consisting of lamb with yogurt, rice, bread, nuts, etc…which I cooked for this event. The mansaf requires that the Lamb is cooked in laban jameed, Arabic for "dried yogurt". For this event, I used laban jameed made by the hands of the mother of a dear friend of mine in Palestine, which I had brought into Chile in my luggage when returning from a recent trip.

Alongside the mansaf, members of the House of Mapuche Traditional Health and Healing cooked Mapuche foods including sopaipias with merken (fried dough with smoked hot peppers) and many other dishes including mijokiñ, charkan, catutos, yiwiñ kofke, and a variety of salads.

Once the food was ready, the event began with a Mapuche spiritual ceremony, blessing the gathering and community members.

In front, Lawentuchefe ("Herbal Medicine Woman" in Mapuche) Giovanna Tafilu, and members of the House of Mapuche Traditional Health and Healing gathering to prepare for the spiritual ceremony to begin. Photos during ceremony were not taken out of respect for the sacred space

As soon as the sun went down we began the feasting together-Palestinian and Mapuche dishes, followed by slideshows which were projected onto a white sheet hung outside in front of the center's beautiful mural. Discussions about connections between the Palestinian and Mapuche struggles for self-determination unfolded.

Elders in the Mapuche community expressed deeply appreciating the opportunity to eat foods brought with love and care from Palestine, and asked many questions to the Palestinian-Chileans[.] [The group's] discussions focused on how Palestinian youth and families, in particular, living in the Israeli-occupied territories, face and respond with resilience, steadfastness and hope for returning to their lands and to dignity. [Palestinians resist] the devastating oppression and state-sponsored violence sanctioned by the government of Israel, and pathways toward raising children within such toxic manifestations of racism and settler colonialism.

[The] Palestinian-Chileans present often spoke from places of relative privilege. [W]ithin Chilean contexts, Palestinians in Chile often directly contribute to colonial projects impacting [the] Mapuche journeys for dignity, language and land rights, spiritual freedoms, and of course, self-determination. [This was] profoundly expressed just weeks before in the First Session of the Mapuche Constituent Assembly, where only one person from the Palestinian-Chilean community was represented, out of nearly one million Palestinian-Chileans in total nationwide.

Moved by these discussions, at the end of the meal, two members of the Palestinian-Chilean community spoke spontaneously expressing that they felt that this was a really meaningful action for them-breaking bread and showing support to the Mapuche who, like Palestinians, are members of a colonized group. They shared that they had lived in Chile all their lives, and yet had never expressed their solidarity to Mapuche in this way before-through meals of resistance-where though their struggles may be continents apart-they felt united in quests for justice and healing from colonial trauma and ongoing racist social structures. However, as Palestinian-Chileans, they felt their social positionally was turned upside down-transformed into members of a colonial group in their relation to the Mapuche. Therefore, as both the colonized and the colonizer, do Palestinian-Chileans have a unique opportunity and responsibility to be allies to the Mapuche? What are the ways this allyship can unfold?

The importance of responding to these questions are highlighted in December 2016 when this meal transpired while sharing foods and solidarity, a 17-year-old Mapuche youth, Brandon Hernández Huentecol, was shot in the back by Chilean military police while he intervened to try to protect his 13-year-old brother at a police patrol stop in southern Chile. Similar to Palestinian youth in protest of the Israeli military occupation, many Mapuche youths have been injured and detained over the years, even killed by Chilean military police.

What is the role of Palestinian-Chileans to speak out and mobilize against the racist militarization of Mapuche communities and targeting of youth such as Brandon this weekend?

What about contesting Chile's use of anti-terrorism laws to criminalize Mapuche activism? Many Palestinian-Chileans may in fact have ties to communities in struggle oceans away in occupied Palestine, perhaps cousins in Bethlehem throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and military police during the current building of the Israeli Wall through Beit Jala's Cremisan Valley? One thing that is for sure, whether such solidarity unfolds at future hilltop Constituent Assemblies for Mapuche Self-Determination, or during powerful and delicious cross-community meals of resistance in traditional Mapuche health centers, my hope is that these connections are only just beginning.

This article was originally published at Mondoweiss . Photos of the trip are viewable at the original link.

Works Cited

Atallah, D.G. (2016). Toward a decolonial turn in resilience thinking in multifaceted disasters: Example of the Mapuche from southern Chile on the frontlines and faultlines. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 19, pp. 92-100. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2016.08.027

Contreras, C.P. (Ed.) (2002). Actas del primer congreso internacional de historia mapuche. Siegen, Germany: Universitat Siegen Press.

Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (2012). Resultados Censo 2012. Retrieved from:

http://www.censo.cl/

Young, Gifted, and Black: Art's Power for the People

By Corinna Lotz

Outside the door opening up to the Soul of a Nation exhibition at Tate Modern screens offer vintage news footage of Black leaders Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Angela Davis.

These men and women - two of whom were assassinated - shaped the political landscape of the 1960s and 1970s. The echo of their voices lends resonance to Nina Simone's call for artists to reflect their times.

In the wake of white supremacist brutality in Ferguson and Charlottesville, revisiting the Black power movement in America has gained a new urgency.

Soul of a Nation shows how artists were swept up in the struggle against the oppression of the institutionally racist US state. Through determined resistance, self-organisation, self-education and study of revolutionary theory, the movement and its artists asserted the possibility of a non-racist and revolutionary culture.

Support for Black power arose out of frustration with the pacifist orientation of the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King. Leaders like Malcolm X called for justice "by any means necessary".

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party in October 1966 to defend victims of police violence. The party championed Black self-determination. At the same time, its 10-point programme was distinctly anti-capitalist and socialist. It appealed to all oppressed and working class people to unite against the ruling classes and the state.

But the US state struck back. Under its chief, J Edgar Hoover, the FBI's counter intelligence programme (COINTELPRO) targeted Black Panther leaders. Police backed by FBI agents murdered Black Panther leaders around the country. Amongst the first to be killed in this way was the BPP's 21-year-old deputy chair, the talented and popular organiser, Fred Hampton. After being drugged by an FBI agent, Hampton was shot whilst asleep in his bed. It was an act of extreme brutality commemorated by artist Dana C Chandler in his reconstruction Fred Hampton's Door.

David Hammons' multi-media Injustice Case (1970) leaps out of the wall: shadowy body marks move around like ghostly x-rays on a white background, framed by the Stars and Stripes. Hammons used imprints of his own body on paper in this cry of anger against the treatment of Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale. Seale was bound and gagged by the trial judge when he was accused of conspiracy after anti-war demonstrations during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Emory Douglas became the Panthers' Minister of Culture designing a remarkable series of propaganda posters and back covers for The Black Panther newspaper. Large-scale outdoor murals gave artists a chance to reach out to large numbers of people. The famous Wall of Respect, which 14 artists painted on a derelict building in Chicago's South Side in 1967, commemorated Black heroes and heroines including Muhammad Ali, Aretha Franklin and Martin Luther King. It was part of a nation-wide mural movement.

Black and Asian photographers made a special contribution. They celebrated the streets and inhabitants of Harlem as well as engaging in more abstract and lyrical subjects - musicians and singers in performance, still lives and nudes. Just waiting to be re-discovered is a 1955 photo book, The Sweet Flypaper of Life. It is a miniature gem of a story by Langston Hughes accompanied by Roy DeCarava's photographs.

Controversies arose about whether Black art had to be figurative or openly propagandist or whether the artist could work in an abstract idiom. Some like Jack Whitten used abstraction to pay homage to Malcolm X and African American history. British-Guyanese painter, Frank Bowling, took part in these debates. His magisterial Middle Passage features in the second to last space. A superb display of his work is currently at Munich's Haus der Kunst .

The last space at Tate Modern takes on a new spirit of joy in the inventiveness of Lorraine Grady who involved hundreds of people on a parade celebrating Harlem's African American Day Parade.

This is a knock-out show. Go and see it.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power will be on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas at the beginning of 2018 and at the Brooklyn Museum in New York from September 18, 2018.

This article was originally published at the Real Democracy Movement

Stand Against Torture: Political Scientists Refuse to Legitimate Torture

By Paul A. Passavant and Jodi Dean

Since 2004, we have known that that the United States Government has been responsible for torture. We have known that the legal memoranda written by Berkeley law professor John Yoo during his tenure in the US Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel provided the legal arguments that enabled torture to become a matter of United States policy in the "global war on terror." (GWOT). Many have been shocked, outraged, or ashamed that the United States has banished itself from the most fundamental norm of the post-World War II international order and, some would argue, American constitutionalism and the rule of law itself. [1] Human rights organizations have struggled to discover how this system of torture has functioned, to remove victims from exposure to torture, and to hold key officials and private contractors (such as psychologists) responsible for their conduct. Despite support for these efforts, the success of organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has only been limited. Both the Bush and Obama administrations frustrated and blocked their work. Others have moved on, out of cynicism, exhaustion, or preoccupation with other horrors. Nevertheless, the necessity of confronting and rejecting the US's institutionalized torture regime remains. We cannot and must not be a country that tortures.

Upon hearing that John Yoo was scheduled to appear at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), held August 31 - September 3, 2017, a number of Political Scientists organized a response. The theme of the annual meeting was "The Quest for Legitimacy: Actors, Audiences and Aspirations." The goal of the organizers was to ensure that the APSA did not legitimate torture by providing institutional cover for Yoo. Our response included protests at the two panels on which Yoo was speaking, both organized by the Claremont Institute, an affiliated group that participates in the annual meeting. When Yoo got up to speak, we stood and turned our backs on him. We held signs, "Stand Up Against Torture." We remained silently standing until the end of the panels. Our response to Yoo's participation in our annual meeting also included getting measures passed at the APSA business meeting that would instruct and enable the ethics committee to bring the association's concern with abuses caused or experienced by political scientists together with its stated commitment to human rights.

In an article posted on the blog of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, Samantha Hill and Roger Berkowitz express "unease" about the APSA Yoo protests. Hill and Berkowitz seem to know that torture occurred. They recognize that Yoo's memos legally enabled the construction of a torture regime. They excerpt at length Corey Robin's summary of the public record. Yoo was not offering the idle speculations of an academic, Robin reminds us, he was issuing legal memoranda whose interpretations of law were binding on the executive branch unless overturned by the Attorney General himself. Yoo was bureaucratically central to the GWOT. According to Jane Mayer's sources, "it's incredible, but John Yoo and David Addington [legal counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney] were running the war on terror almost on their own." [2] Nevertheless, Hill and Berkowitz oppose those Political Scientists who stood in silent protest when Yoo rose to speak.

Hill and Berkowitz echo some of Yoo's supporters, arguing that he should be allowed to speak at APSA because he has not been convicted of the crime of torture. This objection goes to the heart of the problem of uncheckable executive power that Yoo enabled and the key point of the protest. No one can face criminal charges unless the executive branch prosecutes those who violate the law. Obviously, the Bush administration was committed to evading, rather than enforcing, US law criminalizing torture. Moreover, as Glenn Greenwald has reported , the Obama administration actively avoided prosecuting, or otherwise holding accountable, those responsible for the practice of torture. That the state failed to act, however, does not absolve its citizens for inaction. Citizens, too, can and must take action to prevent the normalization of torture. Hill and Berkowitz are disingenuous when they argue APSA should provide Yoo with a platform until he is convicted of war crimes. They can appear to oppose torture, without having to take a stand against torture, as they wait for Yoo's prosecution.

Hill and Berkowitz miss the point of the protest. Surely Hill and Berkowitz are familiar enough with the basics of law to know the difference between a profession's code of ethical conduct and the state's criminal law. The APSA protest was targeted less at Yoo than it was at APSA. Political scientists were insisting the ethical guidelines of our profession do not permit enabling torture. The American Psychological Association (APA) has amended its code of ethics to make this clear (if it wasn't before). The APSA protest announced that it is time for APSA to catch up to the APA. Hill and Berkowitz are playing a shell game by seeking to fool their readers insofar as they criticize the APSA protest because Yoo has not yet been found criminally liable.

Hill and Berkowitz may miss the point of protest period. They say that democracy requires the work of persuasion. Yet they appear not to grasp that protests are tools of persuasion. At APSA, the protests were accompanied by discussions at Council and business meetings about changing APSA policies. Throughout the meeting, not to mention on social media before and after the meeting, there were numerous discussions regarding the appropriateness of having an architect of the US torture regime speak at APSA. The protests were central to the debate over the professional ethics of political scientists.

Hill and Berkowitz are at their worst when they offer a comparison between Yoo and Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi bureaucrat who enabled horror at a mass scale. Any torture regime requires a bureaucracy. Eichmann and Yoo are the kind of bureaucrats who transform the worst of what is humanly imaginable into a mundane institutional practice. For Hill and Berkowitz, Eichmann is unlike Yoo and was rightly punished because he "set in motion the mass murder of innocents because of their religion." In contrast, Yoo "legally rationalized the torture of a small number of terrorists who may or may not have had information that might lead to the saving of thousands of American lives." Eichmann is evil because people were killed on account of their religion - because of their identity or imagined race. Yoo, they suggest, was rationalizing the torture of terrorists to discover information to save American lives. Hill and Berkowitz use religion, ethnicity, or an imagined race, to say nothing of nationalism, to rationalize torture.

Anyone familiar with Abu Ghraib - the key event in the discovery of the Bush torture regime - knows that 70-90 percent of those detained in that space dedicated to torture were ordinary civilians and not terrorists. [3] During the GWOT, 780 people were detained at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Only three of those ever convicted by military commission are currently detained there, and there are plans to prosecute only fourteen of all those held at that detention camp. Here we see the double standard deployed by Hill and Berkowitz. We must listen to Yoo and treat him as part of the community - knowing his legal work enabled torture - because he has not been convicted for participating in a torture regime. Yet such generosity does not extend to the overwhelming majority of those Muslims and Arabs who have been victims of the torture regime. They are all (potential) terrorists and their torture is, apparently, permissible.

The Hill and Berkowitz comparison of Yoo to Eichmann is striking for its repetition of the torturers' lie: the terrorist might have information. While Hill and Berkowitz spare us the "ticking time bomb" in this scenario, the torturer can never be certain whether the victim does have "information" before inflicting torture. Afterwards, one does well to doubt that the anguished confessions provided anything reliable. [4]

Hill and Berkowitz mischaracterize Yoo's legal work as "opinion," although it was meant to be "binding" on other executive branch bureaucrats in the torture regime. They treat Yoo as rationalizing torture whereas Eichmann set it in motion. This is a lie. As Mayer makes clear, US torture policy came from the lawyers in the Justice Department. Hill and Berkowitz say, "Yoo is the kind of person we need to argue with head on." A debate over torture's merits violates the fundamental ethical and legal injunction against torture. It concedes that torture might sometimes be permissible. Hill and Berkowitz are thus open to the possibility that torture was acceptable in the GWOT. The political scientists protesting Yoo refuse this possibility.

Hill and Berkowitz inoculate Yoo from accountability. They even draft Hannah Arendt into the service of their sorry endeavor, situating Yoo in an Arendtian "space of appearance" where words and actions are recognized. This misappropriation ignores Arendt's own verdict on Eichmann: he should be banished from the world. The APSA protests did not call for Yoo's banishment or execution. They called on APSA to refuse to legitimate the author of US torture policy by providing him with institutional cover. They called on political scientists to stand against torture.

Originally published at Public Seminar .

Paul A. Passavant is Associate Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY.

Jodi Dean is the Harter Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY.

Notes

[1] Jeremy Waldron, "Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House," Columbia Law Review 105 (October, 2005).

[2] Corey Robin, "When Political Scientists Legitimate Torturers," August 25, 2017 (Online: coreyrobin.com, accessed September 5, 2017), citing Jane Mayer, The Dark Side (New York: Doubleday, 2008).

[3] Mark Danner, "Torture and Truth," in Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (New York: New York Review Books, 2004), 3.

[4] Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), chap. 21.

Internationalism Gone Local: The Ginger Jentzen Campaign Shows How Socialism Grows from the Bottom-Up

By Bryant William Sculos

When Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant successfully ran and was elected to the Seattle City Council in 2013 (assuming office in 2014), she proved for the first time in a very long time that socialist politics, embodied and presented aggressively, openly, and strategically, can be viable in the United States. Since entering office, Sawant, as the only socialist on the council, has spear-headed a number of successful policy campaigns, including raising the city's minimum wage over several years to $15 an hour and reforming housing and rental policies in Seattle. Sawant has since been reelected and risen in national prominence. Her successes, supported by local, national, and international activists and organizers-combined with the massively popular Democratic Party primary campaign of Bernie Sanders in 2016-have led to a resurgent popularity of socialist ideals throughout the country, with those on left increasingly believing in the importance of building a political party to the left of the corporate Democratic Party.

The enthusiasm quickly spread to Minneapolis where another Socialist Alternative candidate for City Council is driving towards a possible upset election victory against a well-entrenched Democratic Party establishment. Ginger Jentzen's path to becoming one of the top candidates for the Ward 3 seat on the Minneapolis City Council is a bit different than Sawant's. Jentzen, before even considering running for office, led a massively successful uphill battle to convince the corporate-centrist Democrats on the City Council to support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour (something that the current mayor, who ran on a progressive platform, wrongly claimed they did not have the power to do, in a failed effort to quell the 15NOW! movement in Minneapolis, which Ginger was the director of).

The Democrats on the council colluded with Republican judges to keep a $15 minimum wage referendum off the ballot in Nov. 2016. Despite the machinations of the Democrats and Republican parties in Minneapolis, the continued pressure from the 15NOW! campaign pushed most Democrats on the City Council to pivot earlier this year in support of the $15 an hour minimum wage demand, but still only with some concessions to the powerful local business interests .

Ginger Jentzen's campaign is built on this foundation laid by the grassroots activists primarily from Minneapolis, as well as around the country, to win this raise for the working people of her city. Jentzen is striving to bring her experience, passion, and political savvy with her into an elected spot on the City Council.

Ginger is fighting, and gaining a lot of political ground, for her platform centered on: housing affordability, community oversight of the police, increasing taxes on the wealthy, support for the LGBTQA+ and immigrant communities, and expanding support for public transit and education. The Democrats want nothing to do with these extremely popular positions-or rather, they are only interested in them so far as they can appropriate them for electoral victories only to abandon them without a second thought as they continue to cash checks from their corporate backers.

Jentzen has refused all corporate and anti- $15 minimum wage interest donations to her campaign. She is fighting against the establishment Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (the Minnesota iteration of the Democratic Party) candidates who continue to benefit from outside money from corporations and DNC affiliated PACs, groups that care nothing for the working people of Minneapolis. Jentzen has recently become the most successful fundraiser in the history of the Minneapolis City Council-almost all of that money coming from very small individual donations (which is now over $140,000 - a new record for a Minneapolis City Council race).

Ginger Jentzen's campaign has been endorsed by the Minnesota Nurses' Association, CWA Minnesota State Council, United Transportation Union Minnesota Legislative Board, Our Revolution-Twin Cities, Socialist Alternative, the International Socialist Organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, and last but not least, the long-time civil rights activist, world-renowned scholar and public intellectual, Dr. Cornel West.

While Jentzen's victory would still represent a tremendous upset, it is far from unlikely. She has the support of the working people and students in her ward. She has the potential to benefit from the ranked-choice voting procedure in Minneapolis (though her Democratic opponents are laughingly attempting to convince voters that this should benefit them). By allowing voters to choose their real first choice and not be brow-beaten into the continually failed strategy of lesser-evilism, Jentzen has more than a fighting chance.

This is how democracy and socialism, inextricably linked, are supposed to work. Democracy and socialism must be internationalist in its outlook and goals, but building support for the cause of all humanity (especially those long-oppressed and exploited peoples) is a process of persuasion and movement/organization-building that must occur at the local level in order to be successful. Kshama Sawant and Ginger Jentzen (regardless of the eventual electoral results) show why this is so. Local successes, in addition to improving the lives of people, breed confidence. They serve as models for others who may share political and economic solidarity with the socialist project but wrongly fear that those politics cannot be successful electorally in the United States-or that whatever successes achieved would remain local.

Kshama Sawant is a household name in progressive circles in the US, and even beyond. She has continued to live up to her promise to fight for the working people of Seattle while also contributing to the building of a national and international movement. Ginger Jentzen's campaign offer the same promises for success for the working people of Minneapolis, as well as the broader aims of continuing to strengthen the organized Left in the US and around the world. For Kshama and Ginger, a small part of this includes only taking a salary equivalent to that of a skilled worker in their constituencies and donating the rest to build social movements.

Forget Hillary Clinton. These are the real women leading the movements that could eventually break the highest class ceiling of all: the glass ceiling of exploitative, white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, imperial capitalism.

For more information about how you can help or support Ginger's campaign before election day (November 7), check out her campaign website.

Maternal and Child Health in the Face of Natural Disasters

By Cherise Charleswell

Ironically, just three months after the unqualified, unethical, and unstable narcissist who occupies the White House, decided to pull out of the Climate Accords/Paris Climate Agreement , the United States has been struck by a number of natural disasters from the uncontrollable fires raging in Oregon and California, and other parts of the west coast, to hurricanes Harvey and Irma in the states of Texas and Florida, respectively. Irma first wreaked her damage on the Caribbean islands, leaving a trail of devastation, where in some places, such as the tiny island of B arbuda, where there was a reported 90% destruction of all structures. Both hurricanes have been recorded among the worse or most virulent in recorded history, in the past 150 years. There has also been hurricanes, flooding, and horrific mudslides in the countries of Nepal, Bangledash, and India, as well as Sierra Leone; where poverty and the lack of sustainable infrastructure has resulted in the deaths of thousands.

What is clear, and what has been long understood by scientists and those in public health, is that "climate change and environmental degradation is real". We have been sounding the horn for many decades now, and there has been many attempts to silence and discredit us. However, despite being climate change deniers, such as Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Florida Governor Rick Scott , have both called for federal aid, and declared a state of emergency. All while refusing to to truly address the root causes of this devastation. These climate change deniers and the internet trolls that they help to create through propaganda, misinformation, lies, and false promises of re-opening mines - which have likely already been stripped of all of its natural resources., continue to convince enough members of the public that climate change is a hoax. 45 (One seriously cannot refer to that man as President) even went as far as to claim that it was a hoax started by the Chinese to undermine US business interests.

Americans are now learning that they should be doing more than sending "thoughts and prayers" when a natural disaster occurs, and should instead do something to prevent or reduce the harmfulness of the next one, by voting into office legislators that would enact the necessary policies that address climate change and environmental degradation. Recognizing that climate change has become the most pressing public health issue impacting the lives of people globally, the American Public Health Association (APHA), as well as a number of its affiliates, such as the Southern California Public Health Association (SCPHA) have choose to make climate change the theme of their 2017 conferences. In fact, in January APHA has declared that 2017 is the Year of Climate Change and Health, APHA actually has an ongoing climate change initiative that has included monthly themes, webinars, and resources for advocacy. While SCPHA just established its Resolutions, with the first titled Resolution on Oil & Gas Development, Climate and Health . Again, the experts agree that "climate change is real".

Another issue that is not being openly discussed in these responses to natural disasters is the fact that, like most aspects of life, intersectionality is at play, and having an identity that encompasses any combination of the following factors, increases the degree of impact that a natural disaster has on one's health and wellbeing: being located in the global south, being a person of color, having a disability, being an immigrant or refugee, being a woman, being a mother, and being low income.

Further, the fact of the matter is that while Western nations, especially the US, utilize most of the natural resources and carry out activities that have increased pollution, environmental degradation, and have hasten climate change, nations in the Global South are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change, and suffer the greatest degree of destruction and burden. And again, what complicates matters is that these nations are among those without the wealth and resources to protect and provide services to its citizens, fortified their structures, and readily rebuild following the devastation; putting citizens at risk for disease and injury.

Whether abroad or within the US, due to those aforementioned intersections, those who are the most impacted by natural disasters are women and children ; particularly mothers. During the wake of Hurricane Harvey there were images of many mothers trying guide their children to safely. One could not helped to notice that many were single mothers, or simply had no men in sight who were able to assist. On a CNN interview there was an African American mother who lashed out at interviewers for their insensitivity in wanting to know all of the details about the trauma that she and her children went through trying to navigate the storm, and there was the tragic story of a three year old child being found alive, grasping to the body of her deceased mother . It is easy to talk about evacuation when there is available income to readily do that, as well infrastructure that can accommodate a mass exodus of people from major metropolitan areas; however it becomes far more difficult when

All of this points to a subset of maternal & child health that public health truly needs to consider more intently, and that is wellbeing during and after a natural disaster. This consideration needs to ask the questions:

• Are communities being effectively assisted in preparing for a natural disaster?

• Are special considerations being given to helping to evacuate and shelter single mothers and their children, knowing that they do not have any other support in the home?

• Are resources to withstand natural disasters being made available to those who may not be able to afford the, or have access to reliable transportation to gather them? The central argument is that more resources need to be invested in disaster preparation and not just focus all monies and other resources to disaster response.

• Are shelters being stocked with supplies that will be most needed by mothers of infants, toddlers, and small children: diapers, bottles, etc.?

• Are precautions being carried out to accept pregnant women into shelters, and assist if they go into labor?

Of course, we would want to ask where are the fathers, and the answer may be that they work a distance from their homes, particularly in the global south, have fell victim to the natural disaster, which was the case with the 2004 tsunami that pulled millions of people into the Indian Ocean, or that they were literally off saving themselves; leaving women to fulfill the traditional role of nurturer and protector of their children. One that they are showing that they are ready and willing to give their own lives to fulfill.