Organize the South

I did attend the social forum, but have not written an extensive review of the experience. I instead post this from the Monthly Review. I don't agree with all points the writer lays out. While it's true that having academic left writers in an anthology can deepen a subject, I don't believe not having academics on a panel is an example of anti-intellectualism. I think it's a bit of fresh air. However, the writer does make some very good points in a spirit of friendly critique. The essay is worth reading.


Achievements and Limits of the First United States Social Forum
by Steve Sherman
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sherman040707.html

The first US Social Forum wrapped up on Sunday, July 1 in Atlanta, Georgia. That it happened at all seems almost miraculous. It is hard to remember any previous comparable gathering of diverse currents of US social movements. This is not a particularly dynamic moment in their history -- the anti-war movement is bland and harmless, labor is largely flat on its back, student movements are weak and isolated, and the immigrant movement -- the most assertive in years in terms of taking to the streets -- has been weakened by the pervasive climate of fear. For that matter, in the eyes of many, the World Social Forum process has peaked (or at least is currently in a bit of a trough in terms of energy and creativity).

Yet the US social forum was a dramatic success in several important ways. Most significant was its diversity. Reportedly, about 9,000 people were registered as participants in the forum. Of that group, roughly half appeared to be people of color (it was difficult to accurately assess this, since I was not at the opening march -- for that matter, neither were many of the participants -- and there was no other moment when one could be confident that a large portion of the participants in the forum were present). Latinos and African Americans were highly visible, as were Asian Americans and indigenous people, in terms of both plenary speakers (who functioned as the self representation of the forum to itself) and participants. As the organizers had sought, large numbers of participants appeared to be the members or organizers of people-of-color, community-based organizations. The white people who made up the other half of the participants also appeared to be predominantly from activist groups. A considerable portion of the participants were youthful (under 25) flaunting a somewhat "anarchist" style of piercings, butch haircuts, tank tops, army caps. Particularly among the youth, it seemed obvious that the center of gravity of the left in the US is queer, much in the way that the center of gravity of the socialist left in Europe and the US once was Jewish. Broadly speaking, the white people present resembled the crowds of direct action protesters at the WTO meeting in Seattle back in 1999, while, as anthropologist Jeff Jurvis commented to me, the demographics of the social forum described above decisively resolved the famous question: "Where Was the Color in Seattle?" At the same time, the major labor unions that marched in Seattle did not show up in large numbers in Atlanta (most labor activists present appeared to be with the smaller, more grassroots efforts such as workers' centers and campaigns to organize day laborers).

What do people do at a social forum? Go to workshops and plenaries. Listen to the many bands. Visit the various tables and tents staffed by members of organizations. And talk to each other. One of the pleasures of an event like this is just striking up conversation with strangers, during which you can often learn more than at official workshops. Virtually all the workshops appeared to be "self organized" by interested groups. The plenaries focused on several themes (Katrina, war and militarism, indigenous peoples, immigration, sexuality and gender, workers) and, to as great an extent as possible, featured speakers from those groups most adversely affected by current dynamics. None of the current "celebrities" of the left (Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, et al.) were featured as plenary speakers. That the program did not list the speakers at each workshop, only the title and the sponsoring group, further tended to de-emphasize existing hierarchies on the left (some groups distributed fliers offering more details on the panels they sponsored, but good luck finding these before the panels took place). On the final day of the forum, there was a "people's assembly" that, in theory, would make decisions about how to move forward. In reality, little was decided (apparently one can now submit resolutions until September 1st -- it's not clear what will be done with them). About half of the people's assembly was a mini-plenary focused on "new paradigms of social change," while the other half was devoted to people briefly stating the reasoning behind resolutions they were proposing.

As sociologist Marina Karides commented, protest aimed at the forum is practically a tradition in the World Social Forum, but it was relatively subdued in Atlanta, perhaps because the principal organizing groups were close to the grassroots, rather than well-funded NGOs or political parties that have been central to the WSF. The most notable controversy occurred around Thursday evening's plenary session, when Yifat Susskind of MADRE described the situation in Israel/Palestine, and ended by attacking Hamas, stating that their rise had complicated images of "good Palestinians vs. evil Israelis." She went on to say that we should find those among the Palestinians who share our values. Her comments were met with both applause and catcalls. This isn't really the space to analyze this position, but we can speculate about what Palestinians and their firmest supporters in the Middle East and elsewhere were thinking at this point: here is a social forum that is "right on" about every possible struggle -- African Americans, Latinos, indigenous, LGBTT, etc. and yet, as always seems to happen on the American left, when the issue of Palestine comes up, suddenly things get complicated. The next night, following the indigenous people's plenary, the National Planning Committee stated they had made a mistake by inviting someone to speak on this issue who was not Palestinian (Susskind is Israeli, although this was not clear on Thursday night) and then a Palestinian woman spoke, offering an impassioned denunciation of Susskind as a supporter of imperialism and Islamophobia, before concluding that the Palestinians appropriately felt welcome on indigenous people's night. I suspect the apology and insertion of this speaker "preemptively" warded off a protest. At the people's assembly, one speaker referred to exclusionary practices of the "media justice" tent, but it was difficult to determine the specifics of this charge. And Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and Global Exchange was "pied" for alleged shortcomings of Global Exchange, an incident that was denounced by the National Planning Committee as being at odds with the values of the forum. Finally, at the people's assembly, a speaker (an Ecuadoran indigenous activist) had the microphone taken away when he spoke past his allotted time. After everyone had spoken, he was given the mike to finish what he had to say. This was followed by a Lakotan activist stating that what he had seen was insulting and racist. He delivered a lengthy denunciation of the crowd at the forum (many of whom had booed and yelled "let him speak" when the microphone incident first occurred) as being fake friends of indigenous struggles, which ended the event on a little sour note.

Limits of the United States Social Forum

Before I mention some of my reservations about the social forum in Atlanta, it is important to state that I think the forum overall was highly successful. It brought together diverse groups of activists in a way no other strategy at present can. Familiar critiques of the social forum model as ineffectual and dominated by non-profits strike me as irrelevant to this case. These sorts of events produce alchemical effects that cannot be determined in the short term, so it would be silly to fret much about the lack of clear next steps (this goal always struck me as unrealistic, in any case). Far from being dominated by the wealthier arm of progressive non-profits, such groups were typically pushed off to the sidelines. I criticize the social forum in the spirit of trying to improve something which is already very good.

In a nutshell, I think the weakness of the forum was its anti-intellectualism. Although this was often dressed up with vaguely radical notions like "popular education" and "having the people most affected by global problems speak," it in fact dovetails with the anti-intellectualism pervasive in American life. It was visible in a number of forms -- the tendency on plenaries to conflate capitalism and racism, class and race ; the priority given to "popular education" (indistinguishable from the sorts of games and group activities widely promoted by the educational establishment in the US as an alternative to the demanding and sometimes unpleasurable activities of reading and listening) over analysis and debate in workshops; and, perhaps most significantly, the exclusion of any academic voices from the plenaries.

As noted above, the speakers at the plenaries were typically promoted as the people most directly affected by the problems they spoke about (although this policy was at first abandoned around the Palestinian issue and no Americans of Middle Eastern descent were invited to speak about the repression and surveillance enveloping the Muslim American community and its most outspoken supporters). Not only did this mean that academic voices were ignored; it also meant that the speakers possessed an aura that made criticism difficult (in any case, the plenary sessions did not typically include a period for questions from the audience). Additionally, since each speaker was talking about the problems specific to their community, criticisms of each other was difficult. Notwithstanding, a speaker from the Strategy Center in Los Angeles on the final day made several highly salient points (gently put, to be sure) -- the discussion at the plenaries, she noted, struck some as lacking depth. She added that the relationship of the forum to the global left, and to the historical legacy of the US left, was never broached, although both are highly relevant. For example, it was Venezuela and Cuba that sent the first medical aid to New Orleans after Katrina. And the bus workers she organizes often remark that we need a new group comparable to the Black Panthers.

The form of selecting the plenary speakers seemed to be heavily influenced by American notions of multiculturalism, in which everyone authentically speaks from the place of their cultural identity. This fits uneasily with the anti-corporate politics of social forums, since the latter requires alliances. Notably, the only alliance mentioned much during the plenaries was the "black-brown" alliance, apparently to be rooted in a joint experience of racist marginalization. Any discussion of how marginalized groups might ally with the middle class on some issues in response to the escalating wealth and power of the top 1% of American society was foreclosed with this approach. The concept of authenticity at work here can also obscure ways in which speakers enact power, a point made in numerous "intersectionality" and "post-colonial" critiques of multiculturalism.

Perhaps we are expecting too much of the plenaries, an opportunity for forum participants to come together to celebrate the struggles underway. Fine. But then the National Planning Committee should make some effort to open space up at the forum for debate about substantive issues -- to mention one that is becoming particularly prominent: is the dependence of most social justice groups on foundation funding jeopardizing their ability to wage uncompromised struggles? (The aforementioned pie-attackers of Medea Benjamin invoked "the non-profit industrial complex" in their press release.) It is not enough to say that there was at least one workshop on this topic, and others that touched on many other relevant debates (is socialism a useful concept? The left?). With over 900 workshops to choose from, they simply get lost in the shuffle. An alternative would be to have the National Planning Committee organize a handful of highlighted panels, thereby focusing the attention of Forum participants on these major issues. Such panels might also provide an opportunity to fruitfully mix up issues and perspectives on social change (i.e., combine labor and queer activists in the same panel) to combat the tendency of practically everyone at the social forum to both organize and attend panels within our respective "comfort zones," which at least partially contains the experience of diversity.

And these debates would greatly benefit from the participation of left academics. I know why the organizers are so suspicious of academics. They can be arrogant, obscurantist, competitive, oblivious to alternative ways of talking about realities (it is probably relevant here for me to mention that I have dropped out of academia and have no short-term plans to return). Academics frequently use the experience of activists as fodder to advance their careers. This does not, however, mean that they are irrelevant. In fact, academia is the major institutional site in the US where one can still talk using left concepts (imperialism, marxism, exploitation, etc.) relatively freely, although in significant ways this is under attack (and the social forum should be open about solidarity to maintain academic freedom). As a result, academia is a crucial site for the politicization of young people. Academics can often bring to the discussion historical and theoretical perspectives otherwise lacking. This does not mean turning discussions at the social forum into academic debates; rather it means complementing experiential perspectives of activists with those developed by academics (we should also note that many left academics consider themselves "academic activists," often with links to the World Social Forum).

A useful model for how academics can contribute to discussions and debates at the social forum can be found in a book on a topic alluded to above, The Revolution will not be Funded: Beyond the Non-profit Industrial Complex. The book sprang out of an a conference held at UC-Santa Barbara (among other things, academics often have institutional resources that can be redirected for such purposes). It is edited by a group that participated in the social forum (INCITE! Women of Color against Violence) and includes contributions from several others (including Project South and Sista II Sista). Several academics also make contributions, offering longer-term and theoretical perspectives. In this way they deepen, rather than obscure, the argument being made. It is precisely the sort of intellectual/activist engagement that should be central to the social forum. I suspect that such engagements would not only amplify the political effectiveness of the social forum; they might also help to revitalize the academic left, which, when isolated from social movements, tends to pursue theoretical curlicues for their own sake.

The remarkable accomplishment of the United States Social Forum was to bring together the largely white activists whose touchstone was the direct action at the WTO protests in Seattle with community and labor activists who mostly come from communities of color. This was all the more remarkable given the de facto racial segregation endemic on the US left for the last thirty years. I think it's fair to say that, by the end of the forum, the confidence of both groups that they belong together and can work with each other had increased. This new left can only get stronger if it fruitfully engages with the academic left and foregrounds the theoretical and historical questions we must deal with to move forward.

Steven Sherman is a sociologist who lives in Carrboro, North Carolina. He maintains the website lefteyeonbooks.org. He can be reached at threehegemons@hotmail.com.

Bring the Ruckus will be facilitating 2 sessions and participating in a third. We will also have a table. You can get your BTR fill at the social forum. Check out the US Social Forum at www.ussf2007.org. Check Bring the Ruckus at www.bringtheruckus.org. Here are the details on the BTR sessions.

The Liberatory Family: Are Women of Color Building the Revolution by Saving Their Families?
Thurs, 6/28. 10:30-12:30. Atlanta Civic Center, Mezzanine Right
Much of the politics of organizing is based on fitting people into an issue rather than developing a politic that describes what is happening to people. A person is a prisoner, queer, worker, etc. so all of politics is framed within this title. This workshop will examine politics from the point of view of the family. Regardless of the issue being worked on, it's most likely the common denominator is family. Specifically, at the heart of organizing is usually women of color working to keep the family together. We call this the struggle for the liberatory family. The session is about exploring a politics that puts this struggle at the center. Through a participatory dialog we will discuss:

1) the commonality of liberatory family struggles
2) historical connection and break between feminist struggle and struggles against white supremacy
3) how do we look to and learn from liberatory family struggles.

Results from this discussion will be combined with three national dialogs on feminism and the liberatory family.


Building Revolutionary Strategy and Organization in the 21st Century: A Multi-Generational Dialogue
Fri, 6/29. 1:00-5:00 pm in the Westin Hotel, Atlanta Ballroom A
This workshop is hosted by five organizations: Bring the Ruckus, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, The Labor Community Strategy Center, League of Revolutionaries for a New America, and Solidarity.
The workshop will explore the issue of building a revolutionary Left in this country capable of defeating capitalism. In addition to representatives from the above organizations, individual members from several different social movement groups have agreed to join us in conversation. The workshop will be interactive and will combine large and small groups. Some of the questions we will address:
* What are some of the key debates facing the US Left today?
* What forms of organization do you believe are needed today?
* What struggles does your organization participate in and why? How does your work reflect your political line?

Revolutionary for the Long Haul
Sat, 6/30. 1:00-3:00. Central Library, 2nd Fl
Does a social movement exist? What would one look like? Where would we move to anyway? Will there be a revolution in our time? How do we prepare for strategic and long-haul radical work? What’s the difference between an intellectual and an academic? Through exercises based in people’s lived experience we will collectively develop answers to these questions.

The most recent AJC article is just crazy. The mother of the girl Wilson is convicted of molesting came out and said Wilson’s conviction is unfair. Following this was a furious back and forth between the mother, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Douglas County District Attorney’s office. Frankly, I believe it’s a shameful display of the DA’s use of power. Criminal justice policy in the US is too often controlled by the DA’s, and they aren’t worthy of having that kind of power. Check out the AJC article: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/06/13/0614metwilson.html

Also related to the Wilson case, state attorney general Thurbert Baker is a punk. Within one hour of Wilson’s release being ordered, Baker said the state would appeal. Why? Because Baker is a gutless throwaway politician too scared of the good ol’ boy system to apply common sense. At least, that’s my theory. You can read Baker’s own words from his response to the AJC opinion. Baker says he’s just following orders, but he really tried to work it out with the defense attorneys. They refused everything. Why should they have taken the offer? Wilson was convicted of a felony that is now considered a misdemeanor. The judge said it should be considered a misdemeanor, but Baker and the Douglas DA want Wilson to stick to a felony. How is this a deal?

Time to dump Baker. Remember that at the polls.

And for you Douglas County residents, perhaps voting “No” for district attorney wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

For more info about the Wilson case check out these sites:

Wilson Appeal
ESPN feature
Recent ABC news article
Atlanta Magazine article
New York Times article
Wikipedia entry

June 8, 2007

Dear Cindy,

This is a response to your May 28, 2007 letter, “Good Riddance Attention Whore,” although I think it’s weird of me to write you about it. I’m not in the “peace movement” and have no intention of joining. There are a few reasons, but the main one is that I don’t think it exists. Yes, there are many people doing a lot of work around getting the US out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but I don’t think that means there’s a peace movement. I’m not a sociologist or national spokesperson or anything, but I am a college dropout with more than 17 years’ organizing experience. With that and the first amendment, I guess I’m as qualified as anyone else to comment.

Your letter reminded me of many letters I’ve read in almost two decades of activist and organizing work. It was a burnout letter. There’s no judgment on my part when I say that. Burnout happens, especially to people thrust into the spotlight. Your letter sounded tired, disillusioned, and especially hurt. Wanting to focus on healing is a natural response, one that most people don't recognize. I burned out myself in the mid-1990’s because I was also tired, disillusioned, and especially hurt. It also came after involvement in the “peace movement.” I had volunteered and than worked for a peace & justice coalition in Florida for about three years, half that time on salary (if you can call $14,000 a salary). Officially, the group was a coalition of individuals and organizations dedicated to non-violence and anti-militarism. Actually, it was one man’s ego with funding. I was in my early 20’s and just excited to be part of something that seemed so big. By the end, emotionally beaten down, I was ready to lock myself in my room for the rest of my life. It’s amazing how violent pacifists can be when put in a group stripped of accountability.

There’s an old joke: what’s the difference between the Left and cannibalism? Cannibals only eat their enemies. It’s a lot easier to identify cannibalism than the Left though. Your letter also reminded me of that. Are supporters of the Democratic Party really on the Left? Here I’m talking about websites like Democratic Underground and Daily Kos. Liberals? Unapologetically so. Lefties? To be a leftist is to have a critique of capitalism and these sites don’t. Democratic Underground and Daily Kos are Democrats. They are independent players of varying levels of influence, but they’ve all set up shop on the dems turf. They’re going to be really pissed at observations that the Democratic Party is no ideologically different from the Republicans. Of course, there’s no excuse for smear words and personal attacks. Yet it’s naïve to expect different. True political comrades don’t attack each other, they push forward ideas, but the number of people who want to push forward and not shit on something they disagree with is small right now. Burnout is one result of this poisonous atmosphere. Intellectually we may know how political enemies behave (and believe that the Democratic Party is a political enemy), but it’s still a rough emotional ride. One day folks you consider your friends are lavishing you with praise. The next they descend on you as with knives. No matter what one may understand intellectually, that just feels icky. It’s one thing to know cannibals eat people; it’s another to feel the bite.

It’s not just the attacks that feel icky either. Putting someone up on a pedestal is also a form of abuse. One of the comments to your letter on the Daily Kos says, “You walk with Thoreau, Gandhi, King.” I don’t know you personally at all, but I’m willing to go on a limb and say you don’t really walk with Thoreau, Gandhi, or King. Thoreau, Gandhi, and King were not saints. All of these men did something principled, just like you. All of these men have been sainted and distorted, just like you. The lesson here is that it’s hard to live up to the bullshit, whether it’s pro or con.

I don’t think having a decent power analysis is enough to prevent burnout. It probably helps in preventing disillusionment, but it doesn’t work by itself. One needs to be grounded, to be centered, to know oneself. There’s this paragraph in your letter that doesn’t sound grounded to me. You wrote:

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

That’s a serious paragraph and an arrogant one. The US empire has been expanding for about 300 years. It has killed millions of people and devastated scores of countries. How long did you work to stop it? Five years? You haven’t won and therefore the sacrifices are in vain? Your son fought to maintain an empire, although I don’t think he believed he was. Was his death the catalyst that helped you realize that truth? If so, can you really say that was for nothing? You now have a better idea of what is going on. That’s a pretty amazing thing. Anyone and everyone that helped you get there gave you a gift. You’re tired and need to rest, fine. But don’t say the gift is meaningless. It hasn’t gone away, and it never will.

Eventually I did come back after my burnout. It took about two years, but I wouldn’t use that as a benchmark. I’m a depressive so it takes me a bit longer to bounce back. I didn’t come back to the “peace movement” though. As I said before, I don’t think there’s a “peace movement.” There are folks doing a lot of work to stop war (or maybe just a specific war), but that doesn’t make it a movement like when I think about labor in the 1930’s or the freedom struggles in the 1960’s. Movements are pretty rare and amazing things. The word should refer to something rare and amazing, not just activity one wants to give importance too. When I came to this conclusion, I decided to come back to the work.

Specifically, I decided to work at building a base. I set out to find the people who are looking for people like me. People who know that something isn’t right and really want to talk to someone about it. Someone who won’t think they are sick, bad, crazy, or stupid. Not everyone I talk to, not even most, fits this description, but there are many people out there. There are more than enough people to insure a lifetime of interesting conversations.

It’s going to take a lifetime to get that movement people keep talking about. I’m convinced it’s going to happen, but I’ve spent too much time relying on buses to believe in timetables. If you think of a movement like a wave, energy traveling in a specific direction, I think it makes sense. You can sit on the beach and try to time the waves, but I guarantee you’re going to be blindsided a bunch of times. Waves do have a pattern, except when they don’t.

Myles Horton said a movement is rooted in organizations building momentum. I believe that. I think a movement is more than a bunch of people doing things. Individuals building community, building power, and changing their lives form a movement. Growing the base is about building those organizations and showing people they have the power to change their lives; that they already know how to move. Build enough momentum and suddenly people not affiliated with any organization start believing they can move. When the time comes the people will want to go somewhere, and they will look to organizations in their neighborhood they can trust. In most places around the country, people will probably have to build things from scratch. I think it would be a mistake to see that process as a failure of organizers. To paraphrase a colleague, organizers don’t create movements anymore than surfers create waves. We try to time our work right, we paddle a lot, and we get blindsided a bunch of times. We keep this up in the hope we can catch the right wave at the right time. Fortunately, we only have to be right once.

What we do as organizers matters, but it pays to keep it real. This next statement is made with that in mind. You saying the US public has a paradigm “carved in immovable, unbendable, and rigidly mendacious marble,” that the country can no longer be what you want it to be, and that it’s up to others now is blaming the people. Cesar Chavez said don’t blame the people, if something in the campaign didn’t pan out right the responsibility lies with the organizers. Blaming the people for not being involved in the campaign is a classic cop out; one coming from a deep place of privilege. Privilege refers to those options that should belong to everyone but are reserved for a few. It’s a weapon. I’ve used it, and I’ve known many people who’ve used it. I’ve been tired and beaten, and all I wanted was to rest somewhere quiet. Yet I’ve felt guilty about asking for rest, so I’ve justified it by blaming the folks I wanted to organize. They didn’t get involved, something is wrong with them. Fuck ‘em, I’m going to the beach. I understand. I don’t excuse, but I understand.

From my read of history, real change is created by those who either struggle or die. Folks who can’t walk away, because wherever they go they face the same battle. Where could a Black person in 1950 go and not face some kind of Jim Crow? Saying the US public won’t change so you’re done with it all, that’s saying you can go somewhere where you won’t face the same battle. As a white, middle class (in the sociological sense) woman living in the US, someone with a lot of privilege, you probably can find that place. That doesn’t mean you should feel bad for resigning as the “face of the movement” or feel like you can’t come back into the struggle. I think it means it was politically unsound for you to be the “face of the movement” to begin with. It’s that pedestal thing again.

I don’t think your choosing to be a mother to your surviving children as well as maintain and repair your relationships is walking away. That’s being a whole person. What are we struggling for if not the right to be whole?

I hope you enjoy your rest. I’m sure it’s a lot more enjoyable to be in arguments with your family than with anyone on Fox “news.”

Right now it looks like the media is hitting the mental illness aspect of the Virginia Tech shooting. What's fascinating to me is the gender aspect and how media and others are twisting into rhetorical pretzels to avoid mentioning that there might be something wrong with men. Of course, there's an instinct to see the racial dynamic. The day of the shooting my fiance' and I were getting our marriage license at the same office where others were applying for gun licenses. We heard about the shottings and literally said at the same time, "I really hope it's a white guy."

I'm sure every person of color in the US had exactly the same reaction. I mean exactly. I'm sure millions of people heard about the shootings, lots of people dead, and were positive that the shooter was a man but unsure about his race. Think of every school shooting in the last 40 years. Think of every shooting in a workplace. When was the last time you heard of a woman walking into a school and shooting? When I think of these shootings, almost all are white men. It isn't exclusively white, but it is exclusively male. I also remember that somewhere along the line the man shoots a woman, usually at the beginning. I've never heard of a guy walking into a sports bar and killing the men inside.

What's my point? I don't really know exactly. I'm thinking this reinforces the need for gender analysis in order to make true sense of what's going on. I believe patriarchy affects men as well as women, but that affect sure as hell ain't equal. I'm also questioning the role of violence as a whole. Fanon talked about the oppressed using violence as inevitable, but that doesn't figure right to me in this situation. Why aren't women of color be blowing holes in people? What am I missing?

Today, March 26, is the 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Already I've heard on NPR that the memorial is important because of how badly the veterans were treated. The myth is that the veterans were treated bad by people opposed to the war. The reality is that they were treated badly by the US government. Below is an article from The Voice News (www.thevoicenews.com) about the myth of soldiers being spat on. I think it's probably better to call it an urban legend. Wikipedia has a good article on the book this is based on (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image). It provides a bit more background filler, especially about the Rambo connection.

The Myth of the Spat-Upon Veteran
By Gabrielle Bernard, Winsted

Chad Barlow, in his impassioned support of war [Some War Is Necessary, February 14], repeats the myth that peace activists "SPAT ON our soldiers returning from Vietnam." It’s a great story, but like many right-wing myths (e.g., the story of feminists burning bras), it is simply not true.

Jerry Lembcke, an associate professor of sociology at Holy Cross College, did an exhaustive search in the process of writing his 1998 book, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam. He found not a single case of a returning Vietnam veteran spat upon by antiwar activists. The relation between Vietnam veterans and the peace movement was generally good, since the antiwar people saw the mostly working class vets as just as much victims of the war machine as the Vietnamese peasants. We should remember that in that war, as many as 550,000 GIs went AWOL or deserted. A Harris Poll in 1971 showed that only 1% of the veterans encountered hostile reactions when they came home, and they did not think the antiwar movement was hostile to them.

There are practically no reports of spitting during the war itself (1965-75). The first reported instance occurs during an International Day of Protest featuring "Veterans for Peace in Vietnam." Here it is the war supporters who are spitting on the pro-peace veterans. In 1965, World War II veterans who were taking part in an antiwar demonstration were reviled as "cowards" and "traitors."

Lembcke was not able to find a single photograph, news story, or FBI report of veterans being spat upon (remember, the FBI did obsessive surveillance of the peace movements). He tried to track down individuals who said they had been spat upon or witnessed it, but they "dissolved on scrutiny" and others "betrayed lack of authenticity"—which, I assume, means they lied. So what is going on here?

Vietnam veterans did not come home in bulk at the end of the war as WWII vets did; they dribbled back after their usually one-year tour of duty. As the war progressed, thousands of WWII and Vietnam vets turned against the war. The Nixon administration launched a campaign to differentiate between "good" (pro-war) vets and "bad" (antiwar) vets. Spiro Agnew, who would soon be hounded out of office as a felon, led the charge. Overnight, conservatives changed the debate from "our objectives in Southeast Asia" (anti-communism, democracy) to "supporting our men who are fighting the war." (Everyone will remember a similar shift during the Gulf War.)

The single image of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran became the perfect myth of the Nixon-Agnew strategy to discredit the antiwar movement. What solidified the image of the reviled, spat-upon, and eventually crazed Vietnam veteran was the movies. It started in Jane Fonda's Coming Home, where a returning vet is verbally accosted as he returns home: "We don't want your rotten war!" Trouble is, peace activists quietly picketed soldiers going to Vietnam, not returning. But it was the 1977 movie Tracks in which we got the good pro-war veteran and the bad antiwar activist, Mark, who repeatedly spits on his opponents. Hollywood's role in creating the myth of the spat-upon veteran had begun.

And the end result was Rambo, the crazed Vietnam veteran: "But somebody wouldn't let us win. I come back and see all these maggots at the airport. Protesting me, spitting, calling me a baby-killer. Who are they to protest me? Huh?"

It's called the manufacture of consent. It is going on now and it's very scary.

From the New York Times, it gives a sense of conservative attitudes to taxes. Here's the short version: taxes are a vehicle used to take the money from those with lesser income and give to corporations. Note: All links from this point on are from the New York Times.


Powerful Governor Stands His Ground, Again, on Food Tax
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/us/07groceries.html?ex=1330923600&en=755b2d8000d33630&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: March 7, 2007

JACKSON, Miss., March 1 — The shoppers at the no-frills Brookshire’s supermarket — plate lunches $4.49, food stamps gladly accepted — have no doubt: swapping the nation’s highest state grocery tax for one of its lowest cigarette taxes is an excellent idea, and fie on the governor who opposes it.

“Oh, yeah, no doubt about it, they need to put it off the food,” said Reggie Funchess, a worker at the BASF plant. “It’s something that will help the people. Politicians, they must have a treasure chest somewhere.”

Up at the stately domed Mississippi Capitol, Gov. Haley Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist, has other ideas. Studies, polls, protests at the Capitol, legislative sentiment and America’s highest cardiovascular disease rate notwithstanding, the governor of the poorest state is not budging, for the second year in a row: no cut in the 7 percent grocery tax and no increase in the 18-cents-a-pack third-lowest-in-the-nation, cigarette tax.

Mr. Barbour, the former Republican National Committee chairman and big-time Washington lobbyist whose clients included the five major tobacco companies, is a busy man these days, and a powerful governor.

Basking at home in the reflection of his national image as the post-Hurricane Katrina success story among governors, having last week scored a giant automobile plant for his state and considered a shoo-in for re-election this year, Mr. Barbour faces few opponents, legislators say. He pushed through the Legislature hundreds of millions in subsidies for the plant, for Toyota S.U.V.s, three days after announcing it.

Mr. Barbour, the lawmakers say, is getting used to getting his way and is likely to do so on the doomed groceries-for-cigarettes tax swap.

“Can we talk about it some other time?” the governor asked as he bustled down a marble corridor to an appointment and as an aide cut in that “the governor wasn’t going to be able to talk about this today.”

And so it is that a bill to increase the cigarette tax to $1 a pack and cut the grocery tax in half overwhelmingly passed in the Mississippi House last month, remains bottled up in the State Senate Finance Committee, which is friendly to Mr. Barbour. Other poor states — Arkansas, South Carolina and Utah — have moved to cut their sales taxes on groceries. Not Mississippi.

“There’s no doubt he would veto this bill,” said the committee chairman, State Senator Tommy Robertson, a Republican. And he could do so without fearing an override, Mr. Robertson said.

That, to some, is a true measure of Mr. Barbour’s power. He need not worry about political fallout from rejecting what is, in most reckonings, a popular initiative.

“It’s an indication of how much influence he has, because he can take something we know is good — the best bill passed in the Legislature in the last 30 years — and he can say it’s bad,” said State Representative Percy W. Watson, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and a Democrat. “Politics has entered the process, and there is some effort to protect the tobacco companies.”

Another Democrat, State Senator Hob Bryan, added, “It would have been the law already were it not for the governor’s absolute determination not to raise the tax on tobacco.”

The governor’s aides and allies say Mr. Barbour is simply sticking to his no-new-taxes promise. “The governor ran four years ago on, ‘I’m not going to raise anybody’s taxes,’ and he hasn’t,” Mr. Robertson said.

But others, including health officials, say the dichotomy is false. The governor’s no-tax pledge, they insist, is at odds with the public good, since most studies show that increasing the cost of cigarettes sharply diminishes the number of smokers.

“We have the worst health indices in almost every category of any state in the country,” said Dr. J. Edward Hill, the immediate past president of the American Medical Association and a physician in Tupelo. “Reducing the percentage of citizens who smoke and increasing funding from cigarettes would have tremendous advantages.”

Dr. Hill said the issue had become entangled in political ideology. “It’s political so-called principle — ‘I’m never going to raise taxes on anything’ — which is actually also relatively stupid,” Dr. Hill said.

Mississippi is the fourth-highest state in deaths attributed to smoking. And it is one of three states that give no grocery-tax break to lower-income families, according to a study by the John C. Stennis Institute of Government at the Mississippi State University.

In the Brookshire’s parking lot, in working-class southern Jackson, shoppers toting their few bags had no trouble coming up with uses for the extra hundreds of dollars from a tax cut. Most of the buying around here is done on the first of the month — payday, explained a store official, and expenditures are made frugally.

“My children’s needs, household stuff,” said Shameka Bouie, a mother of four whose truck driver cigarette-smoking husband is “always complaining” that his habit is more expensive outside Mississippi.

Howard McBound, a police officer with the Veterans Affairs Department, said: “Groceries are what we live on. My light bill is going up. My gas bill is going up. You can raise the price of cigarettes, people will still smoke.”

Even some conservative Republicans disagree with Mr. Barbour. “The cigarette tax and the grocery tax are both public health issues,” said one, State Senator Alan Nunnelee. And the tax on groceries, Mr. Nunnelee said, “is just the most cruel tax any government can impose.”