Yasser Arafat died last week, and I couldn’t be happier. I had been watching him slip deeper and deeper into a coma for nearly a week. And then he died. My initial feeling was sadness. This may come as a shock to many, but it shouldn’t. Yasser’s death was pitifully anti-climactic. The Palestinian leader didn’t die in battle, defending his people, or meet his end in a glorious uprising against Israel, known as the Zionist entity to many Palestinians and nearly all fanatical Muslims. No, although when his Ramallah compound was surrounded by Israeli tanks in 2002, Arafat cried out “Please God, give me a martyr’s death,” in the end he sank slowly into a peaceful sleep like an old man slipping into a warm bath.
And that’s fitting isn’t it? Arafat was the Davy Crockett of international terrorism and suicide bombing. Yet he made the journey into the next world riding a comfortable hospital bed in Paris while sitting on billions of dollars meant for the people of Palestine. Meanwhile, the people of Palestine ride trains in Haifa strapped with explosives with the hope that some insane despot will compensate their family with a token amount for the sacrifice. If Arafat and his ilk had been swallowed up into Egypt at the end of World War II, Yasser’s end would seem more like a pharaoh’s. It looks as if he’s trying to bring all his earthly treasures with him to the afterlife.
I was also sad because now there’s nothing to look forward to. Oops. There’s still the deaths of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Ayman al-Zawarhi, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il and Saddam Hussein, so I guess it’s not all bad. But waiting for those too will be like waiting for the next Star Wars movie to come out … long and tiring and, in the end, very forgettable.
And that is what the death of Arafat will be in the long run, forgettable. The man was everything to his people, but worth nothing to humanity. He held the hopes and the dreams of his people in his hands and he stuffed them into his back pocket along with all their cash.
Arafat will probably go down in history as the one person who could’ve changed the world for the better, but couldn’t. The man was an illusionist and a survivor, but was politically impotent. He was a thief and a coward and turned down Israel’s offer of peace and land, brokered by President Clinton, because he was too weak to placate terrorist factions like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
But it’s hard to grasp what scum Arafat was when reading his obituaries and listening to the leaders of the world. What is it about death that makes horrible people seem decent? French President Jacques Chirac called Arafat “a man of courage and conviction who has incarnated, for 40 years, the fight of Palestinians for the recognition of their national rights.”
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: “It is with great sorrow and profound sadness that we learned the news about the untimely demise of President Yasser Arafat, a leader of the Palestinian people and a hero to us all. He was the ultimate embodiment of decades of the just struggle of a nation for its undeniable rights to self-determination. A figure much loved and respected not only by Palestinians but also many in the world over, including Indonesia.”
Someone should explain to these two that calling on thousands of people to blow themselves up and to hijack planes is not the “ultimate embodiment” of heroism and that at 75, death isn’t all that “untimely.” The average age of death for a male is 73. However, these two clearly believe Arafat to be some sort of superhero. Arafat
could’ve died at 105, after seven heart-attacks, a stroke, and kidney failure, and they would still register shock. It seems like the only international figure to comment on Arafat’s death with any coherence is Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said, “This is the man who also pioneered international terrorism, the art of hijacking planes, ships, kidnapping, and seizing of hostages, and you name it, which gave birth, of course, to other terrorist groups who emulated him, including al Qaeda.”
The international community aren’t the only ones hopping on the Yasser love parade. The New York Times ran an obituary for Arafat, which began:
“Yasser Arafat, who died this morning in Paris, was the wily and enigmatic father of Palestinian nationalism who for almost 40 years symbolized his people’s longing for a distinct political identity and independent state. He was 75.
No other individual so embodied the Palestinians’ plight: their dispersal, their statelessness, their hunger for a return to a homeland lost to Israel. Mr. Arafat was once seen as a romantic hero and praised as a statesman, but his luster and reputation faded over time. A brilliant navigator of political currents in opposition, once in power he proved more tactician than strategist, and a leader who rejected crucial opportunities to achieve his declared goal.”
The piece mentioned his ties to terrorism, but seemed to excuse it as a function of Arafat’s resolve and unrelenting commitment to the interests of a future peace and return to Jerusalem for the Palestinian people. The headline should have run: “Arafat: The Loveable Terrorist,” or “Huggable Despot Loved Despite Murders,” or even “Ah, It Was Only a Few Planes and Some Cafés.”
Saddam Hussein must be relieved at the prospect of death. Even though he’s gassed the Iranians and the Kurds, murdered thousands of his own people and sired two brutal raping-torturers, at least he, and probably Osama bin Laden, can count on The New York Times to soften their images when they pass.
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MAILBAG: The Florida vote
Now that Jimmy Carter has called attention to evidence of voter discrimination in Florida, the issue is starting to get some attention from the press. However, U.S. media outlets continue to ignore a key aspect of the story: the truth about what happened in 2000. As Greg Palast reported, Jeb Bush’s Florida election officials issued a list of 94,000 voters to be purged from the electoral roll for being felons. African Americans made up a majority of those on the list, and Democrats made up 80 percent, but only five percent were felons. Jeb’s purge list was the crucial document that papered over his brother’s electoral defeat. In 2001, the NAACP launched a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the disenfranchised voters. The state of Florida settled the suit by agreeing to restore to the electoral roll all those who had been wrongly removed. But the 2000 purge still hangs over this election, as does a new felon list issued by the state. Equally ominous are the recent news reports of police harassment of black activists who were attempting to register voters.
Palast, who not only broke the Florida election story but worked with the NAACP in its lawsuit, says that only around 2,000 of the 94,000 people on the old felon list have had their voting rights restored. Despite the lack of progress on that front, Florida officials found time to create a purge list for 2004, this one bearing 47,000 names. In July, following press reports of errors on the new list, the NAACP’s president, Kweisi Mfume, announced that “Florida is not following the process negotiated by the NAACP,” and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to stop the new purge. In response, Glenda Hood, Florida’s secretary of state, issued a press release stating that “there is an unintentional and unforeseen discrepancy related to the Hispanic classification” on the felon list and that her department was “removing this portion of the Central Voter Database for the 2004 elections cycle.” “This portion” appears to refer to the entire felon list, but Hood’s office did not respond to a request for clarification on that point or on the other issues discussed in this article. The secretary’s press release concludes by saying that election supervisors would “work with Clerks of the Court to ensure that ineligible felons are removed from the rolls.”
Concerns about the situation in Florida have prompted the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to commence a major initiative in the state: the “Truth and Justice Campaign.” The campaign’s director, Rev. Willie Bolden, explains that SCLC’s aims are two-fold: to obtain affidavits from those who tried to vote in 2000 but were wrongly turned away, and to get out the vote in 2000, highlighting any obstacles that emerge. During the last week in September, officers from SCLC’s national and state offices toured localities across Florida. However, the catastrophic weather there has affected the campaign as much as other aspects of life, and caused SCLC to cancel visits to hurricane-stricken areas.
SCLC officers are trying to get more information about published reports that plainclothes police have been harassing people involved in voter registration drives in African American neighborhoods. Leaders of SCLC’s Florida chapter sent a letter about the matter to Secretary Hood’s office, but received no reply. Bolden is not surprised by the apparent lack of interest on the part of state authorities. “We don’t need to spend a lot of time trying to get help from Jeb Bush. We need to organize people and inform America about what’s going on in Florida.”
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, SCLC’s interim president, reports that he also wrote Secretary Hood to state his concerns about the potential for further voter discrimination. He did receive a response, but said that it merely explained the basics of state voting laws. How does the Florida situation compare to cases in other states where SCLC has been investigating possible voter discrimination? “Florida tries to get people off the rolls. I’ve never seen it that strong in any other state.”
For his part, Rev. Bolden says that he hopes the affidavits from victims of voter discrimination will preserve the true story of the 2000 election for history. But the question troubling him and other civil rights activists is whether history is repeating itself.
—Chris Pepus
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Making struggle sexy
An excerpt on the inequalities and injustices of the American penal system from Poli-Tainment, a resource guide for activists.
The American correctional system of the past 30 years has been characterized by a population increasing exponentially in response to shifts in policy towards mandatory minimum and determinate sentencing. Persons convicted of a crime today are far more likely to be sentenced to incarceration — and will spend a longer period in prison — than their counterparts in past decades. During 2002, the nation’s state and federal prison and local jail population exceeded two million for the first time in history. These trends have contributed to prison overcrowding and state governments being overwhelmed by the burden of funding a rapidly expanding penal system. The results of these decisions are prisons filled with large numbers of non-violent and drug offenders (over 50 percent in both state and federal prisons) at an annual cost of incarceration of $20,000 or more, along with increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of achieving public safety.
It is the logical, inevitable consequence of “tough-on-crime” laws and punitive sentencing polices that elected leaders and public officials embrace to avoid addressing the pressing social problems caused by institutionalized racism and political and economic exclusion. By incarcerating high proportions of low income African American, Latino and American Indian residents and maintaining surveillance over them for even longer periods of time, the criminal justice apparatus perpetuates a social segregation policy that intentionally isolates historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities and communities, ensuring a capital divestment policy that builds neither social capital nor economic infrastructure.
According to the U. S. Department of State’s 2000 report to the U.N. Commission on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), “discrimination in the criminal justice system” is a “principal causative factor” hindering progress toward ending racial discrimination in [U.S.] society.
Facts & statistics on criminal justice & black people
Arrests
FBI data compiled from more than 8,500 police agencies show that blacks were the subject of 29 percent of arrests in 1999 (The Herald Sun, 2001), although they make up about 12 percent of the population.
In 1996, black Americans made up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but 30 percent of all convicted federal offenders (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997).
The possibility of incarceration for black Americans is six times (16.2 percent) higher than for the rest of the population (2.5 percent) (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1997).
Incarceration
In South Carolina, 68 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 64 were African American. Blacks made up 27 percent of the state’s total population in the same age group (The Herald Sun, 2001).
In 2000, roughly one in 10 black men was in prison (Boston Globe, 1999).
In West Virginia, blacks made up 44 percent of the female inmates ages 18 to 64. Blacks were 3 percent of the total female population in the same age range (The Herald Sun, 2001).
The black prison population has increased eightfold from three decades ago, when there were 133,226 blacks in prison (Boston Globe, 1999).
Black children are nine times more likely than white children to have a parent in prison (Children’s Defense Fund, 2001).
A survey of traffic stops in Volusia County, Florida, showed nearly 70 percent of those stopped were blacks or Hispanics (Boston Globe, 1999).
Because many states bar felons from voting, at least one in seven black men will have lost the right to vote (Boston Globe, 1999).
Thirty to 40 percent of the next generation of black men will permanently lose the right to vote if current trends continue (The Sentencing Project, 1998).
In nine states, one in four black men can never vote again because they were convicted of a felony (The Sentencing Project, 1998).
Juvenile injustice
Ever since juvenile courts were first established in the early 1900s, the laws in most states have permitted judges to approve the transfer of children from the more protective and treatment-oriented juvenile court to criminal court jurisdiction. But first, there had to be a hearing in which the child’s maturity, comprehension, skills, and appropriateness for treatment in the juvenile system are balanced against the nature of the offense and factors such as the length of time before the child becomes a legal adult. In rough numbers, approximately 10,000 children were transferred annually to adult criminal court in this manner.
But in the late 1980s, as violent crimes among juveniles surged, lawmakers following a “tough on crime” ideology enacted laws that authorized transfer to criminal court of juveniles at a much younger age and for less serious crimes than before. These “automatic” or “direct file” transfers were determined by the charge placed against the child by police or at the discretion of a prosecutor, without prior judicial review. Under these laws, upwards of 200,000 children have been prosecuted each year as adults in criminal court.
The Sentencing Project has sought to restrict the practice of “automatically” transferring children to adult court without judicial review. There are many reasons. Children are responsible in different ways than adults for their actions. They are less able to exercise their rights and less able to comprehend court proceedings. They are frequently denied access to education and subjected to abuse when placed in adult jails and prisons. Many court systems fail to provide adequate defense services to children in adult court. Racial disparity characterizes the decisions to prosecute children as adults. Adult sentences, imposed upon children, are unduly harsh — destroying the formative years of a young person’s life, and in the instance of lengthy sentences, the prospect of life outside a prison forever.
Statistics on black youth and the criminal justice system
Black students are punished more severely for the same behaviors as white students. Nationally, black students are fewer than one out of five public school students, but one out of every three students suspended is black (Advancement Project and the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, June 2000).
Compared with white youths, black youths are more likely to be held in a detention facility, formally charged in juvenile court, and transferred to adult criminal court, where they receive harsher and longer sentences (Youth Law Center, Justice Policy Institute, Building Blocks for Youth, April 2000).
Compared with youths in juvenile facilities, youths in adult prisons are eight times more likely to commit suicide, five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by prison staff, and 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon (Children’s Defense Fund, 2001).
The latest juvenile-crime report by the Department of Justice shows a 68 percent drop in the juvenile murder rate from 1993 to 1999, reaching its lowest in recorded history (Building Blocks for Youth, Youth Law Center, 2001).
Juvenile arrests for violence fell 36 percent from its 1994 peak to 1999, the lowest they have been in a decade (Building Blocks for Youth, Youth Law Center, 2001).
Despite the continuing decline of youth crime, nearly every state has changed its laws to make it easier to prosecute youth as adults (Building Blocks for Youth, Youth Law Center, 2001).
A study in California found that compared with white youths, minorities were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 6.2 times more likely to be tried in adult court and seven times more likely to be sentenced to prison once they get there. (Justice Policy Institute, 2000).
For youths charged with violent offenses, the average length of incarceration is 193 days for whites, 254 for African Americans, and 305 for Latino youth.
Among those not previously admitted to a secure facility, African Americans are six times more likely than whites to be incarcerated and nine times more likely to be jailed if charged with a violent offense.
For drug offenses, African Americans are 48 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to juvenile prison (Building Blocks for Youth, 2001).
In Cook County, Illinois, 99 percent of youths tried as adults are African American or Latino (Building Blocks for Youth, Youth Law Center, 2001).
Education versus incarceration
In the past decade, many states have cut their budgets for higher education funds to compensate for rapid growth in prison populations and prison construction, fueled in part by increasing numbers of drug offenders in state and federal prisons. In both New York and California, prison expenditures now exceed university financing and more black men are admitted as prisoners than graduate from the state universities. From 1977 to 1995, U.S. prison spending increased by 823 percent while spending on higher education went up by only 374 percent.
Prison industrial complex
What is the prison industrial complex?
The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a complicated system situated at the intersection of governmental and private interests that uses prisons as a solution to social, political, and economic problems. The PIC depends upon the oppressive systems of racism, classism, and sexism. It includes human rights violations, the death penalty, industry and labor issues, policing, courts, media, community powerlessness, the imprisonment of political prisoners, and the elimination of dissent.
Black women are the fastest growing segment of the prison population and Native American prisoners are the largest group per capita. Approximately five million people — including those on probation and parole — are directly under the surveillance of the criminal justice system. The prison industrial complex profits from racist practices in arrest, conviction, and sentencing patterns. Black and brown bodies are the human raw material in a vast experiment to conceal the major social problems of our time.
The racially disproportionate demographics of the victims of the war on drugs will not surprise anyone familiar with the symbiotic relationship between poverty and institutionalized racism. Economic inequality and political disenfranchisement have been inextricably intertwined since the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The racist enforcement of the drug laws is just the latest example of institutionalized racism. As political economist John Flateau graphically puts it: “Metaphorically, the criminal justice pipeline is like a slave ship, transporting human cargo along interstate triangular trade routes from Black and Brown communities; through the middle passage of police precincts, holding pens, detention centers and courtrooms; to downstate jails or upstate prisons; back to communities as unrehabilitated escapees; and back to prison or jail in a vicious recidivist cycle.”
From plantation to prisons:
Where does the money go?
According to the U.N. International Drug Control Program, the international illicit drug business generates as much as $400 billion in trade annually. Profits of this magnitude invariably lead to corruption and complicity at the highest levels. Yet the so-called war on this illegal trade targets economically disadvantaged ethnic minorities and indigenous people in the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Putting aside the question of legality, there is no evidence of a “trickle-down effect.”
These substantial profits are not enriching the low-level players who constitute the vast majority of drug offenders. To the contrary, the black market drug economy undermines non-drug-related businesses and limits the employability of its participants. Discussing the “legal apartheid” that keeps the developing world poor, Peruvian economist Fernando De Soto observes that “[t]he poor live outside the law . . . because living within the law is impossible: corrupt legal systems and warped rules force those at the bottom of the world economy to spend years leaping absurd hurdles to do things by the book.” “In a criminalized economy, the risk of imprisonment is almost ‘a form of business license tax.’”
Who is profiting?
In the United States, prison architects and contractors, corrections personnel, policy makers and academics, and the thousands of corporate vendors who peddle their wares at the annual trade-show of the American Corrections Association — hawking everything from toothbrushes and socks to barbed-wire fences and shackles are making money from the PIC.
The sale of tax-exempt bonds to underwrite prison construction is now estimated at $2.3 billion annually. The Wackenhut Corrections Corporation — which manages 37 prisons in the United States, 18 in the United Kingdom and Australia and has one under contract in South Africa — tried to convert a former slave plantation in North Carolina into a maximum security prison to warehouse mostly black prisoners from the nation’s capital. Promising investors to keep the prison cells filled, these corporations dispatch “bed-brokers” in search of prisoners — evoking images of 19th century bounty-hunters capturing runaway slaves and forcibly returning them to the cotton fields. Corporations that appear to be far removed from the business of punishment are intimately involved in the expansion of the prison industrial complex.
Prison construction bonds are one of the many sources of profitable investment for leading financiers such as Merrill Lynch. MCI charges prisoners and their families outrageous prices for the precious telephone calls which are often the only contact inmates have with the free world. Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have learned that prison labor power can be as profitable as third-world labor power exploited by U.S.-based global corporations. Both relegate formerly unionized workers to joblessness, many of whom wind up in prison. Some of the companies that use prison labor are IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boeing. But it is not only the high-tech industries that reap the profits of prison labor. Nordstrom department stores sell jeans that are marketed as “Prison Blues,” as well as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons.
Racism & poverty: The free market and prison economies
Today there are over two million people incarcerated in the United States. Studies demonstrate that two-thirds of state prisoners had less than a high school education and one-third were unemployed at the time of arrest. Over the past decade states have financed prison construction at the expense of investment in higher education. At the same time, access to education in prison has been severely curtailed. Officially, 8.3 percent of working-age blacks in the United States are unemployed but taking into account the “incarceration effect,” the rate is significantly higher. Research confirms the obvious &dashm; the positive relationship between joblessness or low wages and recidivism.
The stigma of prison has been codified in laws and licensing regulations that bar people with criminal records from countless jobs and opportunities, effectively excluding them from the legitimate workforce and forcing them into illegal ventures. As economists Western and Petit point out, “[T]he penal system can be viewed as a type of labor market institution that systematically influences men’s employment … [and has a] pervasive influence … on the life chances of disadvantaged minorities.”
Like slavery, the focused machinery of the war on drugs fractures families, as it destroys individual lives and destabilizes whole communities. It targets American Indians living on or near reservations and urban minority neighborhoods, depressing incomes and repelling investment. “The lost potential earnings, savings, consumer demand, and human and social capital … cost black communities untold millions of dollars in potential economic development, worsening an inner-city political economy already crippled by decades of capital flight and de-industrialization.”
Abolition & prisons as environmental racism
What is abolition?
Abolition is a political vision that seeks to eliminate the need for prisons, policing, and surveillance by creating sustainable alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
Abolition means acknowledging the devastating effects prison, policing, and surveillance have on poor communities, communities of color, and other targeted communities, and saying, “No, we won’t live like this. We deserve more.”
Abolitionists recognize that the kinds of wrongdoing we call “crime” do not exist in the same way everywhere and are not “human nature”, but rather determined by the societies we live in. Similarly, abolitionists do not assume that people will never hurt each other or that people won’t cross the boundaries set up by their communities. The society must create alternatives for dealing with the injuries people inflict upon each other in ways that sustain communities and families. Keeping a community whole is impossible by routinely removing people from it.
In the last 20 years the United States has built more prisons than any country during any period in history. The cost of the U.S. criminal justice system now runs to $120 billion per year. But the financial costs are only part of the story. There are other costs not so easily seen; costs passed on to those least able to pay them &dashm; the poor rural towns in which most prisons are built and the poor urban communities from which most prisoners are sent. Therefore, because the costs of the current prison expansion are being passed to the poor, and especially to people of color, prisons are examples of economic injustice and environmental racism.
Women, incarceration & re-entry
Since 1980, the number of women in prison has increased at nearly double the rate for men. Nationally, the 93,000 women in state and federal prison represent a figure more than seven times the number in 1980. The “war on drugs” has been the primary factor in this dramatic growth, with a third of women prisoners incarcerated for a drug offense. These trends raise questions regarding the consequences of incarceration on women offenders. Women prisoners often have significant histories of physical and sexual abuse, high rates of H.I.V. infection, and substance abuse. Traditionally, alternatives to incarceration for women have been limited, as has correctional programming designed to meet their specific needs. In addition, large-scale women’s imprisonment has created an increasing number of children &dashm; estimated at 125,000 &dashm; who suffer from their mother’s incarceration and the loss of family ties.
Women comprise over 6.7 percent of the incarcerated population. One can expect about 9 percent of those women to be released within 60 months of their sentence. Upon release, society expects them to find employment. Of the women who face this challenge, most of them are women of color who will face a greater challenge finding employment upon re-entry than white women. Whether they are expected to work as a condition of a public assistance program or simply as a means of survival, to successfully re-enter, women have to create a foundation for themselves and a job provides the bedrock of this foundation. Unfortunately, the criminal record that follows them out of incarceration serves as a terrific impediment to fulfilling both society’s and their own expectation that they find employment upon release.
Alternative to mass incarcerationRestorative justice
What is restorative justice?
Restorative justice is a systematic response to wrongdoing that emphasizes healing the wounds of victims, offenders and communities caused or revealed by the criminal behavior.
Restorative justice is a new framework for the criminal justice system that is rapidly gaining acceptance and support by criminal justice professionals and community groups. Restorative justice involves looking beyond retribution to find deeper solutions that heal broken relationships.
Indigenous/Native practices, such as Maori justice, and the use of sentencing circles (or peacemaking circles) by North American Indians have been heavy influences.
South Africa created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to address injustices under apartheid.
A report from the Department of Justice of Canada analyzed a collection of studies to determine the effectiveness of restorative justice. Encouragingly, it found “restorative justice programs are a more effective method of improving victim/offender satisfaction, increasing offender compliance with restitution, and decreasing the recidivism of offenders when compared to more traditional criminal justice responses (i.e. incarceration, probation, court-ordered restitution)” (Latimer, Dowden, & Muise, 2001, p.17).
Practices and programs reflecting restorative purposes will respond to crime by:
a.identifying and taking steps to repair harm,
b.involving all stakeholders, and
c.transforming the traditional relationship between communities and their governments in responding to crime.
Some of the programs and outcomes typically identified with restorative justice include:
Victim offender mediation
Conferencing
Circles
Victim assistance
Ex-offender assistance
Restitution
Community service
Three principles form the foundation for restorative justice:
1. Justice requires that we work to restore those who have been injured.
2. Those most directly involved and affected by crime should have the opportunity to participate fully in the response if they wish.
3. Government’s role is to preserve a just public order, and the community’s is to build and maintain a just peace.
Restorative programs are characterized by four key values:
1. Encounter: Create opportunities for victims, offenders and community members who want to do so to meet to discuss the crime and its aftermath.
2. Amends: Expect offenders to take steps to repair the harm they have caused.
3. Reintegration: Seek to restore victims and offenders as whole, contributing members of society.
4. Inclusion: Provide opportunities for parties with a stake in a specific crime to participate in its resolution.
STORY INDEX
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Poli-Tainment
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RESOURCES >
American Civil Liberties Union
URL: http://www.aclu.orgCenter on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
URL: http://www.cjcj.orgCritical Resistance
URL: http://www.criticalresistance.orgFamilies Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM)
URL: http://www.famm.orgJustice Policy Institute
URL: http://www.justicepolicy.orgNational Black United Fund, Inc.
URL: http://www.nbuf.orgNational Lawyers Guild
URL: http://www.nlg.orgThe National Urban League, Inc.
URL: http://www.nul.orgPrison Activist Resource Center (PARC)
URL: http://www.prisonactivist.orgHomies Unidos
URL: http://www.homiesunidos.orgActive Element Foundation
URL: http://www.activeelement.orgPrison Moratorium Project — NY
URL: http://www.nomoreprisons.orgYouth Empowerment Center
URL: http://www.youthec.orgThe No War on Youth Online Resources page
URL: http://www.colorlines.com/waronyouth
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Inside the beltway, outside politics
With memories of the closest election in history still fresh on our minds, millions of typically apathetic voters hope to make a difference in this year’s election. The only problem is finding a candidate who will change our lives for the better.
I’m feeling very attractive lately. Two rich guys want me, and I have something they need — an undecided vote.
Most people have a position when it comes to politics. They formulate their political opinions starting with their parents’ party views and then shape their own beliefs as they grow and develop their own identity. But I don’t have a position, and I honestly don’t know why.
My father was a World War II and Korean War veteran. My mother was a Cold War information-gatherer-turn-stay-at-home-mom. Given those two facts, you’d assume the obvious:
Republicans.
But I’m not sure if that’s the case. Politics were never discussed in our house. We lived in Virginia, inside the Beltway. Naval Reserve pay and defense contracting put food on our table, but my parents never discussed the defense budget, rising health care costs, Social Security, or anything remotely political as you would expect growing up in Washington, D.C.
My father loved Archie Bunker, hated hippies, and thought women should stay out of the military service academies. The only time I suspected he might be a Republican was when we saw Richard Nixon get on the Sequoia after we enjoyed a trip to the wharf to get crabs. Dad smiled when the president waved to us.
Mom grew up on a farm in North Carolina and left at 18 to go to Washington to become a civil servant. Her last post with the U.S. Air Attaché in Bonn, Germany in the late 1950s required her to be friendly with the locals and bring information back to her superiors. In the 1970s, she watched the Equal Rights Amendment movement, and she believed in the right to choose. The only political opinion she ever expressed was “I’d vote for Jesse Jackson.” But now she listens to Rush Limbaugh.
I was a sophomore in college when I attained the right to vote. I worked at the Pentagon, writing press releases during college breaks, and volunteered as a reading instructor for the mentally challenged. Throughout the years, I continued to volunteer in my community instead of voting — that way, I could actually see the difference my actions made.
I finally registered to vote when I was 26. I was engaged and almost out of graduate school, and I felt like it was time to care about national politics. My brother was 24 years old, serving on a submarine in Charleston, South Carolina. We decided our votes didn’t matter in the general scheme of how the country was run. We did the unthinkable: We voted for Perot in 1992.
Not much has changed for me in the subsequent 12 years. I’ve been laid off twice and was just days from getting laid off three other times. I’ve cashed out two 401(k)s and one IRA while under- or unemployed. I’ve moved to four states to get a job. Dad’s dead after years of mediocre care from military doctors. Mom’s on a government pensioner’s fixed income living in the same house. My brother is now a civilian dodging downsizings within his company, and he joined the Naval Reserve primarily to ensure he’d have health care and a small pension. We’re all doing OK, but not great.
One thing has changed recently. I registered to vote again. My political apathy turned to action when I checked the “other” political party box on the voter registration form and added “undecided.” I find comfort in the fact that millions of Americans are as undecided as me and fearful of another Florida voting debacle.
The 2004 candidates appear to have distinct opinions about major topics. Kerry supports a woman’s right to choose. Bush opposes abortion and passed legislation banning U.S. funding to any international health care agency providing reproductive services. Kerry is against school vouchers. Bush is ready to hand them out so parents can send their kids to schools that perform well. Kerry believes in gay civil unions. Bush wants to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.
I see truth and fiction in each of their arguments. For example, Bush supported No Child Left Behind, but didn’t fully fund it while in office. The threat of vouchers may force a school, with the right resources, to develop programs to help children. Neither candidate can fully define what terrorism is and how to stop it. This only heightens my indecision. I must select the best man for the job. But given the choices before me, my decision may come down to choosing the most promising of the non-promising.
I believe if I grew up less apolitical, I still wouldn’t know what to do in this election. I’m coming back from a 12-year voting hiatus. Is there a presidential hopeful who will reassure me that I made the right decision to vote in the wake of this current indecision?
Only time will tell.
STORY INDEX
COMMENTARY>
“Election 2004 not likely to be as close as 2000” by Richard Benedetto
URL: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/benedetto/2004-10-08-benedetto_x.htm“Scaring voters to the polls” by Helen Thomas
URL: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1008-32.htm“Why don’t Americans care?” by Mark Morford
URL: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1006-31.htm
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Clout concerns
Word on the street is that 20-somethings, a segment of the population that is traditionally apathetic when it comes to voting, could decide the 2004 election. But in the battleground state of Ohio, the GOP seems to have left much-needed College Republicans behind.
The OSU College Republicans registration tent.
In a 200 seat classroom at The Ohio State University, before an American flag tacked to the chalkboard, the College Republicans overflow into the aisles. Their meeting opens with a recital of the Pledge of Allegiance, during which one member yells “under GOD!” emphasizing the controversial phrase on which the Supreme Court avoided passing judgment this past June.
A screen drops down from the ceiling and the room goes dark. A trailer begins for the new anti-Michael Moore documentary “FahrenHYPE 9/11.” There are cheers and laughs. The Republicans plan on filling a 600 seat room for a screening of the film five days before the election.
Most of the meeting, though, is dedicated to plans to counter and ridicule the Democrats’ efforts. For vice-presidential candidate John Edward’s visit, the College Republicans plan on attending the rally with a pair of giant flip-flops in tow. And in response to a question posed by an audience member about the legality of driving people to the polls on Election Day, one officer replies, “I’m sure [driving people to the polls] is [legal]. I’ve heard of Democrats paying homeless people with liquor to vote. I’m pretty sure that’s not legal.”
No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio and its 20 electoral votes. While the two candidates’ numerous visits since March of this year, (15 for Bush, 25 for Kerry) show they are paying attention to the battleground state that has lost many manufacturing jobs over the past several years, neither seems to be courting the most passionate and politically impressionable demographic in the electorate: students.
Perhaps this neglect is reasonable. The large numbers and ideological fervor that students bring to the table are weakened by poor voter turnout. 25 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 25 turned out in 2000, compared with 66 percent of voters between the ages of 65 and 74. Yet Democratic-aligned groups like Vote Mob, ACT Now, Hip Hop Teen Vote, MoveOn.org, and Howard Dean’s grassroots group Democracy for America have poured unprecedented time and money into organizing the nation’s students for the 2004 vote, while, on the other side, College Republicans seem to be bearing the largest part of the burden. Visits to The Ohio State University in Columbus, and Miami University, 35 miles north of Cincinnati, reveal campus conservatives feeling underappreciated in the state that, according to conventional wisdom, Bush must win to get re-elected.
Students crowd the Republican Voter registration tent.
Outnumbered by Hollywood
Smack in the middle of Columbus, the large Ohio State University, with an undergraduate population of some 37,000, is anything but picturesque. Located near a litany of tattoo parlors and coffee houses, fast-food restaurants and second-hand music shops, there are large areas of grass where students lounge in the sun studying, reading, and talking politics. Copies of OSU’s student paper The Lantern blow in the wind. The front page reads: “Political Parties, Voter registration groups reach out to voting students.”
Nearby, on the corner of Neil and 17th Avenue, the OSU College Republicans are working a voter registration tent to help take back Franklin County, which narrowly went to Gore in 2000. A quick and unscientific poll of 20 random people on the quad suggests that John Kerry appeals to 55 percent of the voters, Bush only 35 percent, and 10 percent remain undecided. While anyone can register, many of those who sign up to vote at this tent take a Bush/Cheney “04 placard with them and tuck it under an arm or roll it up into a tube on their way to class. Several shift workers comment on the lack of animosity.
Zack Blau, tall, fair-haired, and wearing glasses, explains that his efforts to register voters have been met with some hostility, but not as much as he expected. “One or two people walk by saying ‘fuck Bush, or go Kerry.’ Not too bad. Every once in a while, you get a guy who wants to start an argument, but that’s about it.” The College Democrats’ table, usually set up nearby, has been absent in the last few days.
Eric Little, however, does not share Blau’s optimism. He wears a red-striped Polo shirt and jeans and has a Bush/Cheney sticker secured to his left breast-pocket. He is thin and obviously tired. Having worked for the campaign for almost a year, the labor has taken its toll. He is grateful for the opportunity but expresses confusion over what seems like a lack of involvement from the rest of the campaign. The Franklin County Republicans charged OSU Republicans with the responsibility of registering 2000 new voters before the October 4 deadline, and following up with them in the final days before the election.
“We are given a huge task and not much money to do it,” he says. “If it were more important to get people turning out to vote than just registering them, then you think they would give us a bigger chunk of the budget.”
For Little, the task of competing with the numerous democratic groups is tough. “The Dems have Vote Mob and Hip Hop Summit. We aren’t given much money and we don’t have any celebrities. We are outnumbered and outspent by people and groups that are not students and who aren’t affiliated with the university.”
The huge task is made even bigger, Little says, by the harassment he receives from anti-Bush groups. Chairman of Buckeyes for Bush and a member of the College Republicans, Eric often takes the lion’s share of the labor, working the voter registration tables when others are unable or unwilling. “There’s no greater frustration than working [a voter registration table], doing something we think is a public service and somebody runs by and swears at you.”
His frustration is compounded by a rumor he’s heard from several people that Vote Mob is discarding the registrations of declared Republicans. “These kinds of rumors breed apathy toward the election,“ says Little. “People end up thinking that politics is this corrupt animal and that we’re going to end up throwing away their forms as a result.”
Little’s feeling that the Democrats are outgunning the Republicans on campus by using “Hollywood” influence is supported by the visible presence of celebrities at student-led events. The OSU College Democrats recently held a rally attended by Kerry“s stepson Andre Heinz, actress Claire Danes, and Boston Public star Rashida Jones. That same week John Edwards visited Columbus to attend a debate-watching event, which was also promoted by the OSU College Democrats.
More recently, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., spoke to a crowd of roughly 300 in OSU’s Campbell Hall. He received applause when he said that the Bush administration’s assault on the Clean Air Act has caused 10 times as many deaths every year as the September 11 attacks attacks, and got laughs when he described the scientists that the administration depends on as “biostitutes.”
And on October 28, just five days before the election, Bruce Springsteen accompanied Kerry on one last swing through the swing state. The Lantern reported that 40,000 people attended the campus concert.
One of many posters for anti-Bush concerts and rallies.
When Buchanan isn’t enough
Over at Miami University, 35 miles north of Cincinnati in Butler County, which went to Bush in 2000, the political atmosphere is more subdued. Some 15,000 undergrads at what is considered a “public Ivy“ don’t see the large public rallies and visible recruiting effort on the part of Democrats and Republicans at places like OSU. Rather, Miami students seem almost closeted about politics. Anyone wanting to join a political discussion or club must actively hunt for one.
Despite the generally reserved and conservative bent of the school, College Republicans don’t feel that their views are always respected.
For example, several students have complained that Dr. Laura Neack, a professor in the political science department, has a pro-Kerry approach that stifles criticism. “Dr. Neack has said in class that if Bush is re-elected, she is almost certain there will be a draft,” says student Matt Nolan.
According to Nolan, there was no mention of the fact that the bill to reinstate the draft, House Resolution 163, was written in 2003 by Democratic Congressman Charles Wrangle of New York, and that the bill was defeated in the house by a vote of 402-2. Nolan also says that when anyone who supports the President attempts to divulge such information in class, they are told to sit down and be quiet.
When contacted, Dr. Neack refused to comment.
Miami College Republicans Steve Szaranos and Nathan Colvin, (president of the group), say they are frustrated by the way material is presented by liberal professors. “It’s like [professors think] “I’m your elder and I’m going to bestow this knowledge on you. You conservatives don’t know what you’re talking about,”” says Szaranos.
But what really irritates them is the way, in their estimation, they were shut out of the selection of guests for a debate on October 4. Pat Buchanan, who has publicly opposed the Iraq War, was chosen to debate Andrew Cuomo, a decision that Colvin feels was unfair. “With the Iraq war as the hot button of this campaign, to have a ‘conservative’ that is against the war is an injustice to the students,” Colvin says.
Colvin was able to lobby successfully to have the Bush twins visit campus on October 20. But then Howard Dean spoke on campus the following day. To even the score, Colvin and the College Republicans booked Ann Coulter, conservative provocateur for October 28. Although Coulter is a heavyweight in the conservative circles, she’s no match for the Boss in drawing crowds.
STORY INDEX
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MAILBAG: Adoption … healthy white infant/healthy infant
Sadly, nothing has changed in the mindset of Potential Adoptive Parents … Healthy White Infant, Domestically to now Healthy Infant, Internationally … To quote Cindy, “We wanted a healthy infant who would be in our family forever.” Ah, yes, the Forever Family — seems that is the newest rhetoric being offered. There is already a Forever Family, the original family of the infant, the baby’s parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, all the generations before whose genes are Forever woven into the fabric of this tiny infant, this human baby. Newborns are not clean slates, erased of all their ancestral origins, just because someone has enough money to buy a baby. These tiny infants that PAPs are procuring come with much history and a family they are already connected to. I have read adoptors’ writings about why they adopt internationally, most glaringly written; they won’t have to contend with the birthmother at such a nice safe distance. Domestically, they cannot pretend as well with the Concept of the Forever Family. That Bothersome Birthmom just might show up, shattering the Fantasy of the Forever Family. Whether domestic or international adoption, when this child comes of age, he/she can determine for themselves about searching for their Family of Origin, fully shattering the Forever Family Fantasy that adoptors want to keep in place. One cannot pretend to give birth to a baby, “as if born to;” the natural fact is these babies are born of their mothers and are related to the families of. For those who adopt, adopt for the right reasons, children needing families, not needy people needing children to fulfill their own longings, their fantasies. That is a grave injustice to the babies/children you are professing to love unconditionally. I would question the “unconditionality” of anyone adopting, who in the same breath is talking about what the mother of the baby will do in the future. You do know your adoptive child will one day ask about his/her family of origin. How will you speak of them — in the context of your fears or through the unconditional love that any parent is obligated to give their child?
—Chris
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MAILBAG: Re: Psst…wanna buy a baby?
You raise good issues and unquestionably there are problems in a system that leaves so many African American children unadopted. On the other hand, I think you are missing some information about how the system works, and as a result, your comments are oversimplified. Consider the following:
(1) White, middle-class adoptive parents who do try to adopt children of color, or simply try to adopt in general and are open to African American or mixed-race children, routinely experience very long waits and bureaucratic delays. Ask around and you will find lots of stories of this. People who can afford to adopt internationally often do so because they don’t want the wait. This is not to say there is no racism, only that there are other major factors that also drive the trend you describe.
(2) The U.S. domestic adoption system in most, if not all, states is a fiercely two-tier system. Most of the white infants placed for adoption are placed privately to couples who pay a lot of money to complete the adoption. Many of the African American and Latino children available for adoption come through the state social service system, and by the time they are placed, have been through multiple foster care placements, entered the system due to abuse or neglect, have medical issues, and/or are “legal risk” adoptions. When white parents (or, I imagine, any parents) go to the state agencies looking for waiting children, these are most often the children presented as needing families. When they go the international or private domestic route, the children awaiting families are a very different group, with far fewer difficult issues to deal with. Many families are not willing to take on the range of issues they face when adopting children from state care, yet I think most of the AA children awaiting families are in state care. Virtually all of the people I know who have tried to go through state child welfare systems to adopt have had this experience, as have I.
A system that works this way is undeniably racist, but not because adoptive parents make the choices they do. It was racist long before the white middle class adoptive parents got there.
(3) There is a long history in the U.S. of social workers being very reluctant to place African American children with white families, and for a time, I believe there was a strong effort to explicitly work against such placements in most cases, led by the National Association of Black Social Workers. I think there is still a strong feeling in this direction among many in both the African American and adoption communities. At the same time, there have always been more white families willing to adopt than African American families (when compared to the numbers of waiting children), which makes such a policy unworkable. The practice of making placements based strictly on racial matching is now illegal, but from what I’ve heard, it is still common, just not explicit. If so, that also works against white adoptive parents who are willing to parent African American or other children of color.
What is the point of all this? That the issue you raise is real, but the reasons for choosing international adoption are complex, and there are other key factors that either have little to do with race, or that are racial issues but that have their origins in racism in the social service system, in society at large, or in the complexities of how to raise children in a way that is culturally appropriate, rather than in the attitudes of adoptive parents.
Your final phrase, “the hidden racism of international adoptions,” to me is glib and unjustified. There is plenty of racism in society and the adoption system, but international adoptions are neither a source of it nor even in most individual cases a reflection of it. The system as a whole functions to leave African American children without families while white children find them, and that is racist. It does not do so only because white parents with racist attitudes are looking overseas for children needing homes — it’s also, I’d say more importantly, because parents are looking overseas in part because the racist system that exists makes it so difficult for them to successfully adopt domestically.
Yes there are parents who want kids who look like them and this perpetuates the racism. But it’s very, very far from the whole story.
Re: “These trends may be changing as a younger, more racially fluid generation becomes parents” — huh??? This is an interesting theory, but I find it hard to believe. I’m an older parent, and I have never seen any evidence to suggest that between my generation (people now in their late 40s and 50s) and those now in, say, their early 30s, there is some great divide of racial flexibility and consciousness. Certainly, earlier battles against racism have led to a different set of life experiences for those younger than me, so maybe I’m missing something. But is there any evidence to back up this assertion that the younger generation is more “racially fluid?” That they are moreso in a way that would affect their choices about parenting? I think of changes in the level of racism in the world as being mostly about institutions and how they behave, not about generational changes in consciousness. But I’d be interested to learn about something that suggests that’s wrong.
Another note — an international adoption can cost $40,000, but the cost does not “hover around” that level. It’s typically closer to half to three-quarters of that.
Also, FYI, the use of the word “export” to describe international adoption is widely viewed as offensive. Children are not products. Even in places where profiteering service providers are accused of treating the children as if they were commodities, that does not make them so.
—Tom
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MAILBAG: International adoption = racism? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????
MY LETTER TO YOU:
Ms. Louison — I just finished reading your article online and I felt compelled to write to you. I got the link to your article from a listerve to which I belong. The listserve is made up of people associated with Guatemala adoptions, so I warn you that you may start getting reactions from people on the list. I personally wanted to write to you to let you know that I was disappointed with the negative slant of your article. I would like to know how you gathered your information and how are you personally affected by adoption — specifically international adoption? It seemed that there were many figures and comments that were simply not true. Please allow me to address those: First of all, children are NOT exports. Insinuating that they are is what is truly troubling. I quote you as saying, “Americans do not go overseas because of a lack of children…” Please let me correct you. My husband and I DID choose to go to Guatemala because we were unable to adopt a HEALTHY infant in the U.S. without feeling that we had to “win over” a birthmother in hopes she would pick us. Not to mention the fear that the child could be taken from us if the birthmother (1) has a change of heart within a specific amount of time; (2) decides to marry the boy/man who got her pregnant; (3) the courts decide that she has cleaned up her act and “deserves” her child back. We wanted a healthy infant that we could parent, not co-parent with a birthmother. We felt that was the healthiest situation for a child and would not be as confusing. Third — we did not spend $40,000 for our adoption like you stated. I think it would be difficult for you to find many people who actually did spend that much. I think that $20,000-25,000 would be more like it. People spend that much (and WAY more!) on a car — isn’t it worth the money to give a child a family? You also said, “here were approximately 542,000 children in the foster care system in the United States as of September 30, 2001.” Do you know if all of these children were available for adoption or just stuck in our failing foster care system? Our country MUST reform the foster care system to allow adoptive parents to adopt these children without ongoing problems and fears. Sadly, it is easier to adopt a child internationally than in the U.S. because of the finality of the adoption itself. I don’t want a child ripped out of my home and my heart because of a loophole in a U.S. law. Adoption should be forever and some states’ adoption laws don’t seem to view it that way. You said: “Middle class parents send them an undeniable message by chosing to predominantly adopt from abroad: you are less desirable than a child whose skin color is closer to our own.” That was not part of our criteria when we decided to pursue adoption. We wanted a healthy infant who would be in our family forever. Sadly, we just couldn’t find a baby to match those criteria in the U.S. Birthmothers in the U.S have different opportunities than birthmothers in other countries. We are a rich country compared to other countries, such as Guatemala. Birthmothers here have birth control readily available, Medicaid, welfare to help them get back on their feet, and programs to assist unwed mothers. These things are not available in many other countries, so their option is adoption. Many times, the children born in other countries are born without birth defects caused from drug use because drugs just aren’t available to them. We felt that we had the best chance for a healthy baby if we looked at adopting from outside the U.S. Birthmothers in other countries just want what all mothers want — a safe, healthy home for their child. Does an American child deserve a home more than a Guatemalan-born child? Perhaps instead of taking the time to bash those of us who have adopted internationally, you could better use your time to investigate the problems with adopting within the U.S. Thank you for your time.
— Cindy, adoptive parent to one son born in Guatemala
YOUR RESPONSE:
Dear Ms. ____:
I appreciate your response to the ITF PULSE posting. I am not an expert on adoption, but felt it was important to highlight some of the interesting and disappointing implications of The Christian Science Monitor article. While I understand this is a personal issue for you, I in no way meant to disparage international adoption, but instead merely sought to contrast it with adoption of African American children by citizens of other countries. I hope you will keep reading In The Fray, and I encourage you to respond to the post if you would like a more public forum for your comments.
— Laura Louison
MY RESPONSE:
I am disappointed that your article made it seem like you WERE an expert — quoting figures and statements as if they were truth and that International adoption was fueled by racist Caucasians. How can you twist those statisitics into “racism?”
We had love to give and our child was desparately in need of a home. How could we say no, just to sit in line for an American child? Sorry — that seems a little prejudiced to me — that an American child should be adopted before a child from another country.
PLEASE investigate your statements thoroughly before you publish them. I wonder how many readers may now have a negative view and think that, because I adopted from Guatemala, I must be racist. That just seems absurd…
—Cindy
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MAILBAG: Enchantress in the wind
As I tap the keys on my computer keyboard, the ferocious winds outside my beachfront condo are howling and rattling the storm shutters. It seems to be saying “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll try to blow your condo down.” Or, perhaps it is saying, “Feel my power and respect it.” You know, I like the second voice far more than the first one.
You might well ask, “What are you doing staying in a beach evacuation area, on a barrier island, in the middle of a hurricane named Frances?” Some subjective folks could possibly answer … “Where there is no sense, there is no feeling.” However, the simple answer is, it is for me, a once-in-a-lifetime experience and one that I would not have wanted to miss.
Proceeding at just five miles per hour, Frances probably will be known as the slowest-moving, most widespread hurricane in the history of Florida hurricanes. With wind gusts up to 105 miles per hour, the enchantress who is guiding the storm is in no hurry to move on. It is moving over a 300-mile coastal front. South, Central and Northern Florida are all experiencing the effects of the power of Hurricane Frances.
All local TV stations give 24-hour coverage, hyping up the fear and anxiety, continually pounding viewers with all the terrible things that could occur. I think people already know what damage can be done in a hurricane without being brainwashed continually on every station. To be fair, the meteorologists do a super job in tracking the storm and locating its land fall, but all the rest of the hype is magnifying unnecessary stress.
How much better it would be if they showed tension-easing meditation classes, stress-reducing programs and played pacifying, soothing music to help people relax and enjoy whatever nature brings. We’re going to experience a hurricane regardless. Accordingly, as long as we have battened down the hatches, if we can have a choice to enjoy the storm or fear it, I think most folks would choose enjoyment.
Everyone will have many diverse experiences in their lives, and the way they are envisaged will be recorded in their memory banks as a good or bad experience. With the correct mindset, the optimum positivity can always be established from the most detrimental, negative events.
In my eighth floor condo, which has an east and west vista, I look out towards the ocean. It is only 100 feet away from the edge of our development, (maybe not even that far). I watch huge waves bouncing into the air and crashing down with an almighty roar. The ocean waves are putting on a show of strength that I have never seen before. I am in awe of the magnificent beauty of its rollicking and heaving movements. Tossing and turning super wave energies, magnetically electrified with super potency and strength. It seems there is some greater power that is holding back the tide and stopping it from engulfing the whole development. I can understand why the ancient Greeks believed in so many gods with unique powers. I am thankful to the mythical water god for putting on such a splendid show. However, I must say, I am extraordinarily grateful to the wind enchantress that is holding back the waves.
As I look to the West, I can see a deserted road. On the A1A, I observe an empty, boarded-up shopping mall. Wind and rain lashes over a car park, as palm trees cavort an excruciating dance for survival. I see many empty houses and condos all boarded up. It has a very eerie sense to it, with the atmosphere of a ghost town. Even the birds have flown to safety, having the sense to take shelter in some nook or cranny.
I live in a holiday town that is accustomed to lots of traffic and people laughing as they cross the road with beach chairs in their hands. They go to lay in the sunshine and enjoy bathing in the calm Atlantic ocean. But not today, for this day belongs to Hurricane Frances. I suppose this could conceivably be my last day on earth, if that normally smooth ocean decides it wants to take over my space with a tidal storm surge wave. I should be feeling anxiety, panic, and trepidation. Instead, I cannot get beyond my joyful feelings of being privileged in having a grandstand seat to the most spectacular show of nature’s power I am ever going to witness first hand. As bedtime beckons, I know my dreams will be sailing in space, on the wings of the enchantress.
Sunday morning arrives and because of the size of Frances, we can still expect a full day of storms once the slow moving eye heads more inland towards the Florida Panhandle. I find my telephone line has gone down. But I am thankful I still have electricity, for over two million homes are without it.
Thankfully, the life-threatening tidal storm surge has been put off for another day, another time. I am thankful to the universal powers that control the tides. One other thing about Frances; she was a very quite storm, for there was not one clap of thunder nor one streak of lightning as far as I am aware. She went about her nature’s business in a very dignified, leisurely manner.
Perhaps I have been hypnotized by the lady enchantress’ magnetic awesome power? And perhaps I do have a few slates loose in my exploratory mind? But, I would not have missed this experience for all the money in the world. I think most folks in Florida now realize it is nature that controls mother earth, not humans. I take my hat off and gently bow my head in respect to the powerful lady Frances, who sure knows how to kick up one phenomenal storm.
I do not recommend anyone follow my example and stay near the beach during a hurricane. I did take a gamble and it was not an intelligent thing to do … This was one off experience. I guess that is why some folks climb mountains. You can be assured, I have great respect for the power of nature and will seek a safer haven from any future hurricanes. But, that said, I did enjoy every moment of being embraced by one of mother nature’s most powerful productions.
Maybe next hurricane season I will take a vacation to Europe and see what a storm I can kick up there.
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Who owns the forest?
A land crisis in a remote region of Nicaragua has brought violence and ethnic strife — and victims on both sides.
Children of Wasa King
In a ramshackle school house deep in the jungle, angry members of the Mayangna community, Nicaragua’s oldest indigenous tribe, plot their next move in the fight to reclaim their land. Lumber prospectors and Mestizo farmers, with or without land deeds, have been cutting into large sections of the once lush forest, and the Mayangnas, long considered the caretakers of Nicaragua’s rain forest, have had enough. “I’m tired of talking,” says Luis Beltran Alfaro, a land trustee in Mayangna’s second capital, Wasa King. “We’ve talked and talked and nothing gets done. We have to take matters into our own hands.”
Thirty-two native inhabitants of Wasa King, all men, stand shoulder-to-shoulder around the perimeter of a largely open classroom, stepping forward one at a time to vent their frustration. “We want to kick them out peacefully,” Emilio Fendley says of the 150 Mestizo families settled nearby. “But we can’t; they won’t go.”
Mestizo farmers have been coming to the region for over 50 years now, but it is the brutality of the latest migration, the ones who have come in the last five years, that has triggered the rage of the Mayangnas. Despite a 2003 law that grants ownership of undeeded land to indigenous groups, trees continue to fall to the new Mestizos’ tactics of slash-and-burn agriculture. The Mayangnas fear that the forest, their traditional hunting ground, will be lost.
“They come and see some forest, and think, ‘nobody is here, we can farm here,’” says Fendley. “But we are here. This is our forest.” He bangs the large wooden stick he holds in his hand on the wood-plank floor. “The only way left to us,” he concludes, “is to spill blood.”
A group of Mayangnas meet in the school house, including Luis Beltran Alfaro,(far left in khakis), Emilio Fendley (in red pants), and Ismal Milado (seated in middle).
Forgotten Peoples
Wasa King is located in the heart of the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN). Hennington Tathum Perryman, a high-ranking government official in the RAAN, says that the central government’s interest in the region goes as only as far as the gold, lumber, and fish that the RAAN is rich in.
Perryman says that central government’s indifference to the problems in Wasa King stems from a deep cultural and physical divide between the RAAN and the Pacific side of Nicaragua, home to the country’s capital, Managua.
The RAAN is home not only to a large population of Mayangnas and Miskitus but also to a dwindling number of Black Creoles. None of these three groups is found in any great number on the Pacific side, and they feel that the central government has done nothing to protect their cultures from the continual encroachment of the Spanish-speaking majority represented by the central government.
“No president of Nicaragua will ever care about the Atlantic,” says Perryman in his thick Creole accent. “80 percent of the population of Nicaragua lives in the Pacific, so that’s where they get all of their votes.”
In many ways, Wasa King is to RAAN what RAAN is to Nicaragua: a remote community that feels its unique culture is being threatened while an indifferent government looks on. The nearest town, Rosita, has only one truck that can make the arduous trek over the gutted dirt road leading into Wasa King. The muddy, jostling drive is so hostile to outsiders that the people of Wasa King seldom encounter foreign visitors. When someone does manage to make the trek, throngs of half-naked children surround the truck and guide the visitor past scattered thatch huts, over the narrow suspension bridge, and into the center of town. There, a weathered clapboard church that was once painted white stands prominently, flanked by a long, single-story wooden structure that serves as school, community center, and housing complex.
In January 2003, the government passed a law apparently intended to benefit indigenous people in places like Wasa King. The wording of Law 445, which was supposed to stop the onslaught of destructive migration into the forests, mandates a surprising degree of protection for indigenous land claims, granting the Mayangnas and the Miskitus, the region’s other indigenous group, a right to all forest land that had not already been legally deeded. However, the law is poorly enforced, which means that Mayangnas in Wasa King still have no real means of protecting the forest from the Mestizos.
Children play outside the Wasa King classroom.
A Lumber Mogul and an Easy Target
The Mestizo farmers are not the only ones with a stake in RAAN land. Kamel Ben, a lumber prospector, has laid claim to land near Wasa King. The mere mention of Ben’s name brings a torrent of abuse from Mayangnas. Ismal Milado, a 73-year-old who has come to the classroom to hear how the younger members of his community plan to fight for their land, calls Ben “Osama bin Laden’s brother.” Many in the room nod in agreement.
Ben and the Mayangnas of Wasa King are in the midst of a long legal battle that will determine who is the rightful owner of the 3000 hectares Ben currently harvests. The court has been hearing the case for two years, and it may be at least another year before a verdict is reached.
Pulling up to a coffee shop in Rosita on a new Enduro motorbike, Ben seems more congenial than evil. His sharp Middle Eastern features and graying moustache give him the appearance of a younger Omar Sharif. Puffing on Marlboro Reds, Ben speaks openly about all of his dealings in the region. He dismisses the bin Laden accusation with a laugh. “You see,” he says, “this is the kind of mentality that we are dealing with.”
Ben’s good nature is surprising given the danger he faces in everyday life. Having Middle Eastern features in a region where foreigners are about as common as politicians from Managua makes him an easy target.
“I’ve had two death threats,” says Ben, his signature smile retreating from his face. “I was eating my dinner when the owner of the restaurant rushed up to me going, ‘There’s a whole mob of them coming up the street. They’re going to kill you.’” His smile begins to resurface as he recalls, “It was not the time to negotiate, so I escaped through the back door.”
Ben says that the Mayangnas’ hatred for him has more to do with their interest in the lumber on his land than with protecting the forest. “There is no economic activity here, so they want money from the wood.” He points out that four Mayangnas have already been arrested for illegally cutting down trees. Government officials in Puerto Cabezas confirm that a “wood mafia” is operating with little restraint in the region, poaching mahogany and other less valuable trees. The mafia is said to pay indigenous people good money to cut trees for them. Ben claims that such activities undercut the image of the Mayangnas as stewards of the rain forests. “It is false,” Ben says of the Mayangnas’ good reputation for environmentalism. “Absolutely false.”
The author (right) with Kamel Ben.
Dwindling Patience and Looming Disaster
The slow speed of the litigation has many in the region worried. As patience with the court proceedings wears thin, the prospect of the Mayangnas following through on their threats increases. No one in the area is taking those threats lightly. In Layasiksa, a Miskitu community 90 kilometers southwest of Wasa King, Misikitus’ anger over a Mestizo settlement on their land exploded on February 7 of this year, when some 100 Miskitus marched on to the settlement. Mestizo homes were burned to the ground, and a gun fight erupted. When it was over, two Mestizo farmers and one Miskitu had been shot dead.
Hurtado Garcia Baker, the governor of RAAN and leader of the largely Miskitu YATAMA party, warns that what happened in Layasiksa could happen again in Wasa King. According to Baker, “The Mayangnas’ defense of their land will be even more fierce that in Layasiksa. There are eighty men there waiting to use their machetes.”
The atmosphere of Garcia Baker’s office lacks the stuffy formality typical of North American politics. Government officials and ordinary citizens mingle in the hallway outside his open door and spill into the office itself. Garcia Baker prefers to talk while standing or sitting on the large sofa in one corner of the room while his desk sits idly against a back wall.
When asked about the President of Nicaragua, Enrique Bolanos, Baker’s face contorts as though tasting a bitter lemon. “[Bolanos] has not given one dollar to implement Law 445,” Baker complains. “It is part of the central government’s strategy. They didn’t like the law, so they won’t give the money needed to enforce it.”
Baker believes the solution to the Wasa King situation hinges on the enforcement of the law. But the Bolanos government, he contends, has little incentive to enforce a law that would make it harder for them to herd land-seeking Mestizos into the RAAN. The scarcity of land in the country has created a huge population of landless Mestizo’s roaming the Pacific countryside in desperation, and the government simply does not know what to do with them. The Nicaraguan government would ordinarily never have given the indigenous people of RAAN such powers, says Baker. But the law was passed under political pressure stemming from a corruption scandal involving former president Arnoldo Aleman. “Once Bolanos got into power, he couldn’t believe that such a law had passed, but it did, and he couldn’t do anything about it.”
Garcia Baker seems neither to know nor care where the Mestizos end up. “They’re not from here,” he says. “So they are not our problem.” Rather, Baker has made it his mission to demarcate all of his region’s land in order to grant legal claims to the indigenous people. Once that happens, the protections of Law 445 will begin to take effect. “We’re going map our own land,” Garcia Baker says, “even if Bolanos won’t send us a cent.”
Diplaced Mestizo farmers compete for land and raise the ire of RAAN locals.
The Displaced as Displacers
The massive influx of Mestizos into the RAAN has made them the largest single group in the region — and the least popular. But even though the locals see them as aggressive invaders, the migrants claim to be no less victims of displacement than the indigenous peoples resisting them.
Despite their numbers, Mestizo farmers have little representation in the government. Newly arrived Mestizos are largely uneducated, very poor, and in contrast to the Miskitus, politically unorganized. Many end up razing the forest for cattle fields because the crops of beans and corn that they grew on the Pacific side are not suited to the rainforest’s wet climate.
In Susun, a Mestizo settlement 20 kilometers outside Wasa King, Mayor Noel Palacio Garcia Delgado gathers together a group of Mestizos who have recently arrived in the RAAN. They are thin, their clothes are worn, and their rotting teeth lack the silver caps that more prosperous farmers display. Two women, one with a newborn, and eight men sit before Delgado. They are slow to answer questions, finding it hard to comprehend the level of hatred that the Mayangna in Wasa King feel for them.
“We don’t know where else to go,” says Pedro Antonio Espinoza, a 48-year-old father of nine. “Our lands [on the Pacific side] have all dried up, and we need to feed ourselves. If the don’t want us here, then just tell us where we should go.”
Espinoza bows his head and looks to the floor. When the threat of Mayangna violence is brought up, he speaks while still looking down: “We are worried,” Espinoza says, slowly looking up. “They are the ones that have the guns.”
Miro Brcic provided translation help. The writer would like to thank Tom and Lois McGrail for their contributions, which made this article possible.
STORY INDEX
PLACES >
The Autonomous Regions of Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast
URL: http://www.yorku.ca/cerlac/URACCAN/Coast.html
INDIGENOUS RIGHTS ISSUES >
The Nicaragua Network
URL: http://www.nicanet.org/archive.phpMayanna People’s Statement on Proposed Sustainable Development Project in Nicaragua
URL: http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nl/9704/0086.html
”Land Grab In Nicaragua,” commentary by Bill Weinberg, Toward Freedom, 1998
URL: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/41/229.html
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A 20/20 vision
2004 Best of Guest Columns (tie)
All I can do to cope with the fear of another Bush victory is entertain the political fantasies dancing in my head.
An endless capacity for fact-free fantasy allows President Bush to look at the daily disaster that he has created in Iraq and somehow remain optimistic. So, maybe a little fantasy will help me get through the state of angst that has seized me and won’t let go until, at the earliest, the evening of November 2.
Why do I need fantasy? Why am I taking this election so personally? Why is it that the anxiety level ratchets up with every turn in the polls, every debate, and every piece of news? It’s simple: There’s so much at stake.
If Bush wins this election, despite the disastrous mess he has made of the economy and the world, it will mark the death of accountability in America. It will demonstrate for all future candidates that, no matter how badly a president screws up, the incumbent’s remorseless application of fear, fear, and more fear will carry the day.
If we elect a president who talks endlessly of freedom, but works tirelessly to stifle the freedom to oppose his policies, we can expect more and more repression after the next terrorist attack in America. The starkest warning of this danger came from General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq and later said in a magazine interview that another major terrorist attack could “cause our own population to question our own Constitution and begin to militarize our country to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event.”
If we choose this sadly inadequate man simply because we are afraid not to, it will prove conclusively that the American electorate simply does not read or pay attention. If we show that we’d prefer a president who seems like a good drinking buddy, over one who witnessed firsthand the evil of war and then spoke out against it, we will give the world a searing insight into our vacant souls. If we choose a leader who refuses to read, over one who can actually think critically, there’s not much hope for our republic.
In the face of these hideous realities, a few fantasies seem like a suitable option for maintaining my sanity.
* * *
It is election night. John Kerry has defeated Bush so convincingly that even the usual Republican dirty tricks at the polling place fail to change the result. This time, no legion of slimy Republican lawyers can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s over. The frat-boy presidency is toast. Near tears, Bush thinks briefly about a military coup that overturns the election and restores him to power. But the election results near major American military posts have made it clear that there will be no armies marching to reinstall the AWOL president. In the limousine from the White House to the inauguration next January, he will have to sit, short and sullen and petulant, next to the tall and commanding new president.
Sitting with him in the residence at the White House, his silver-haired mother, Barbara, is not weepy. She is furious. Her useless son, who caused her endless embarrassment in his boozing days, has humiliated her once again. In the bitter recesses of her heart, where compassion chokes and grudges grow, she knows the horrible truth: For only the second time in the history of the republic, the first time since John Quincy Adams suffered a bitter defeat in the election of 1828, a woman enters the annals as both the wife and the mother of a rejected, one-term president. In fact, Abigail Adams had it easier: She saw her husband’s defeat, but a merciful death spared her the humiliation of watching her son lose, too. Unable to stifle her rage, Barbara Bush administers to her wayward child a ferocious tongue-lashing that makes the Leader of the Free World cringe.
* * *
It is 2006. Bush has lived through months of painful seclusion. He watched helplessly as President John F. Kerry led America to capture Osama bin Laden and put him on trial. He cringed sulked as Kerry skillfully ended America’s ill-conceived presence in Iraq — an achievement that cruelly eluded Bush. Now, the former president has decided to take the same route as John Quincy Adams by running for a seat in the House of Representatives. His friends in Crawford will surely not abandon him. In a defiantly folksy speech in May, admitting no errors during his presidency and still expressing confidence that weapons of mass destruction will soon be found in Iraq, Bush says he’s running for Congress.
On election night five months later, as Democrats regain control of both houses of Congress, in a landmark election that will permanently make the Republicans an impotent minority party, Bush loses his second straight election. It isn’t even close. His mother screams at him again.
* * *
It is a cold January day in 2021. America is focusing on the temporary stands outside the Capitol, for the inauguration of the third consecutive Democratic president. After eight solid years of serving under President John Edwards as the first African American vice president, and helping to broker the Amman accords that have finally brought peace to the Middle East, Barack Obama places his left hand on a worn Bible, raises his right hand, and faces Lani Guinier, the first African American Chief Justice of the United States. As Guinier leads him through the oath prescribed in the Constitution, Obama speaks the words loudly and crisply. “Congratulations, Mr. President,” Guinier says. “Thank you, Madame Chief Justice,” he says. Rather than give her the usual formal handshake, the new president draws the chief justice into a bear-like hug, then turns to the podium to deliver his inaugural address.
Obama brings to the presidency breathtaking intellectual and rhetorical gifts, plus a biography of cinematic sweep. In 1961, the year John F. Kennedy became president, Obama was born in Hawaii, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother from Kansas. Obama’s white grandparents had loved him deeply, but he learned, painfully, that his grandmother could still be afraid of a black panhandler. His Kenyan grandfather had been a Muslim and a tribal healer. Obama had struggled to live authentically as a young black man, had grown to maturity in Indonesia, New York, Cambridge and Chicago, had become the first African-American to become president of the Harvard Law Review, and had written about it all in a lyrical literary memoir. In 2004, he easily won a seat in the United States Senate, cruised to a second term in 2010, and joined the Edwards ticket in 2012. Finally, running on his own, Obama scored a landslide victory, carrying even parts of the South where a black president was once merely a nightmare. Left defeated, the aging Florida senator, Jeb Bush, in his last-hurrah run, had failed to salvage the dignity of the Bush family.
In the campaign of 2020, Obama had called for 20/20 vision. He often spoke of his grandfather the medicine man, and called for a national healing of the scars of racial hatred — the nation’s original sin. Choosing not to ignore the solidly Republican South, Obama had campaigned in backwoods bastions of racism where black men had been lynched for little more than lack of deference to their white neighbors. His near-miraculous ease with white southern crowds had won them over.
Now, in an inaugural speech that will be quoted in rhetoric classes for generations to come, President Obama is taking office in a time filled with bright promise, prosperity and peace. At this moment, to those listening to Obama, the long-ago disaster of Bush’s one-term presidency seems little more than an unpleasant dream.“
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Faces in a rice paddy
Neither the landscape nor the people in North Vietnam appeared to have suffered through ten years of war.
Click here to enter the visual essay.
Neither the landscape nor the people in North Vietnam appeared to have suffered through ten years of war. The following images were taken during a month-long journey following the path of the Red River from Hanoi to Kan Cau, a Chinese border village.
The photographs illustrate a return to an extreme fundamental way of life. From the coal workers on the river bank to the land owners near Ninh Binh to the women selling produce in the Hanoi market to the colorful Hmong tribe in the far north, the Vietnamese have kept their heritage and pride using only what the land has to offer.
Artist Statement
As an artist, I aim to capture emotions portrayed in the human face. Born and raised in Israel, I have witnessed extensive suffering and tragic events since childhood. During my mandatory military service, I vowed to make peace my main objective in life.
I chose Vietnam for the diversity it provides. Fifty-four ethnic groups have maintained traditions, identities and peace after two decades of war. The Vietnamese have created a harmonious culture that has woven its ethnicity into a beautiful, multicolored, multi-cultural quilt.
Traditional customs relating to the essential needs of any individual and community are the strength and security within their quilt and their country. My goal is to produce work that inspires peace as the Vietnamese were an inspiration to me. Although, we are of many different cultures, races, religions and nationalities, there are elements that tie us together.
STORY INDEX
CONTRIBUTOR >
The writer and photographer
Uzi Ashkenazi, InTheFray.com Contributor
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