Brian Moore is trying to do what few people are willing to these days—stand up for what he believes in. Moore, last year's Socialist Party U.S.A. presidential candidate and chair of the Nature Coast Coalition for Peace and Justice (NCCPJ), believes that we need to bring our troops in Iraq home immediately, and that we need a health care plan that covers everyone, regardless of class or employment. He also believes in the right to public assembly, but local authorities in Florida's 5th district aren't making it easy for Moore to exercise this right.
Back in April, Moore and other members of the NCCPJ attempted to hold a protest against the war in Iraq and for universal health care in front of Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite's new office, but were barred from protesting in front of her office because she claims that her new office is on private property. Instead, demonstrators were forced to hold their demonstration 50 feet away, in a ditch, next to the busy Spring Hill Drive. Moore tried to negotiate the closing of one lane of the road arguing that the conditions of the location were not safe to hold a demonstration, but his negotiations were unsuccessful.
On June 24, Moore and several fellow activists attempted to once again hold a demonstration promoting health care reform in front of Brown-Waite's office. They were again denied access to the property by a representative from Regent Properties, the company in charge of managing the site, the Sheriff's Office was called in and demonstrators once again found their demonstration relegated to the busy Spring Hill Drive.
In response to this denial of assembly rights Moore, in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union, is currently in the process of building a case against Congresswoman Brown-Waite. In Moore's words, "We need to keep the pressure on all of Congress and the President." But how is that possible when the general trend is to marginalize real activism? As Moore puts it, "If you say you believe in freedom of speech, of assembly, of dissent, then why are you stopping such actions? Why are you saying you are a public servant, but then use private property as an excuse to hide behind?"
Moore is committed to the principles of democracy and vows to continue to fight against this blatant attack on political activism and free speech: "We might be able to pressure Congress to formally establish the policy that all elected representatives of the U.S. Congress should occupy public facilities, or, if private, they must … assure constituent access publicly." Moore and the NCCPJ will continue to oppose the Congresswoman's denial of access both through the legal system and in the street, even if, for now, that means holding demonstrations in a ditch along a busy Florida road.
(Edited version of an article I wrote for the July/August issue of the Socialist.)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
obama, the new steward of american capitalism
I've read two interesting articles recently which I think clearly illustrate the fact that the primary role of the capitalist state is to look out for the interests of the capitalist class first and foremost:
Obama's Ghana trip underlines oil reserve
'Recovery' You Can't Believe In
I should note, however, that this isn't a criticism of President Obama per se — I think he's an ambitious, decent, relatively honest and intelligent human being — but of the structure of the economic and political system in which he unfortunately finds himself.
For example, I’m fairly certain that the present system and its ruling class (i.e., the monied interests) have a much greater influence over his actions than his actions have over the system or its beneficiaries. In fact, I’d bet that under a different set of historical and material circumstances, he’d truly be able to set himself apart from the status quo (e.g., I've a sneaky suspicion that newly discovered oil deposits are the main reason for Obama's recent visit to Ghana and not its "commitment to democracy").
Nevertheless, as it currently stands, the state in which he now serves as chief executive is dominated more by lobbyists and giant multinational corporations than average citizens, and as far as I can see, there’s not much that a single individual can do to challenge their disproportionate influence over both domestic and foreign policy.
(Note: As an addendum to "'Recovery' You Can't Believe In," according to OpenSecrets.org, Goldman Sachs was the 2nd largest contributor to Barack Obama's campaign ($997,095), while Citigroup ($699,790) and JPMorgan Chase ($695,132) were 6th and 7th respectively.)
Obama's Ghana trip underlines oil reserve
'Recovery' You Can't Believe In
I should note, however, that this isn't a criticism of President Obama per se — I think he's an ambitious, decent, relatively honest and intelligent human being — but of the structure of the economic and political system in which he unfortunately finds himself.
For example, I’m fairly certain that the present system and its ruling class (i.e., the monied interests) have a much greater influence over his actions than his actions have over the system or its beneficiaries. In fact, I’d bet that under a different set of historical and material circumstances, he’d truly be able to set himself apart from the status quo (e.g., I've a sneaky suspicion that newly discovered oil deposits are the main reason for Obama's recent visit to Ghana and not its "commitment to democracy").
Nevertheless, as it currently stands, the state in which he now serves as chief executive is dominated more by lobbyists and giant multinational corporations than average citizens, and as far as I can see, there’s not much that a single individual can do to challenge their disproportionate influence over both domestic and foreign policy.
(Note: As an addendum to "'Recovery' You Can't Believe In," according to OpenSecrets.org, Goldman Sachs was the 2nd largest contributor to Barack Obama's campaign ($997,095), while Citigroup ($699,790) and JPMorgan Chase ($695,132) were 6th and 7th respectively.)
Thursday, July 9, 2009
pope backs unions
From the AFL-CIO NOW BLOG:
So let me get this straight: even the Pope — poster child for anti-Enlightenment thinking and Dark Age morality — seems to understand the need for workers to have the freedom to form unions?
For Christ's sake, Congress, get with the program!
In a new encyclical released yesterday by Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of the Catholic Church discusses the challenges of a global economy. He notes that workers’ ability to form a union and bargain is at risk and makes it clear it’s a matter of moral imperative to preserve that freedom.
Here’s what the pope has to say on the need for workers to have the freedom to form unions:Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome. The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level.
The Vatican and a wide variety of Catholic leaders have continued to express support throughout the year for workers’ freedom to form unions, and many Catholic scholars and organizations like the Catholic Labor Network and Catholics for Working Families have come out in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Here’s what AFL-CIO President John Sweeney had to say:The new encyclical offers a much-needed reminder that to create an economy that works for everyone it is critical to protect workers’ fundamental right to join together as a union and bargain for a better future. As the Pope makes clear, it is not only working people, but also entire communities–nations even–that stand to benefit when workers exercise this right. In the document, the Pope reaffirms the Church’s longstanding position that labor unions play a vital role in efforts to build a more just economy—one in which even the most marginalized workers are guaranteed basic dignity and respect.
So let me get this straight: even the Pope — poster child for anti-Enlightenment thinking and Dark Age morality — seems to understand the need for workers to have the freedom to form unions?
For Christ's sake, Congress, get with the program!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
all of my people
Reflecting on the events of this past weekend, I've realized many things about myself and the world around me. One of them is that things aren't as solid as we often perceive them to be. This is, of course, common sense, but I don't think that it's something we intuitively realize in our day to day lives. For example, most people understand that we're biological organisms that change and grow our entire lives — that we're not static entities independent of, and removed from, the material conditions that surround us — and yet we tend to cling with an iron grip to many of the most ephemeral and artificially constructed concepts. And the most insidious of these is identity.
I'm more confident than ever that identity is a phenomenon that's influenced by a myriad of internal and external conditions and experiences, and that even some of the most seemingly concrete aspects of our identity are little more than shackles that we as a society unconsciously place on ourselves. That's not to say that certain things aren't beyond our control, but I'd argue that what's in our control is a lot more than we might imagine, that much of our identity is fluid and malleable.
One of the things that I've been learning about over the past few months is Marx's materialist conception of history and the idea that "the nature of individuals depends on the material conditions determining their production." While Marx's theory was set within a specific context — that of the complex relationship between the production and reproduction of material requirements of life and the historical development of human society — it has much wider implications. For example, I'm of the opinion that things such as identity are conditioned, at least in part, by the historical and material conditions that we find ourselves in, and that changes in those conditions can fundamentally alter our identity and the ways in which we express ourselves, and vice versa. Not in a rigidly deterministic way, however, but in a complex and symbiotic way.
This idea isn't necessarily new. The Buddha, for example, developed similar ideas about identity in his teachings on karma, dependent co-arising, etc. In short, he viewed our sense of self as a continuous process—something which is always in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment in response to various internal and external stimuli. Furthermore, he observed that there are times when our sense of self causes us a great deal of suffering, times when we cling very strongly to that momentary identity and the objects of our sensory experience on which that identity is based in ways that cause a great deal of mental stress. But his focus was primarily on how to relieve the suffering of the individual by mastering this process of "I-making and my-making" while Marx's focus, the bodhisattva that he was, was primarily on how to relieve the suffering of society by changing the material conditions that support it.
What really got me thinking about all of this, though, were the potential contradictions I saw inherent in "identity politics." The Socialism 2009 conference had a fair amount of talks centered around LGBT rights and racism, and I completely support equal rights for, and treatment of, everyone, regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. But during some of the talks I started to feel a bit uncomfortable.
The main reason for this, I believe, was that many of the speakers and audience members were separating people into classes based on their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc., and I started to feel alienated by my own gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. being that straight white males have historically been the most exploitative and oppressive class the world has ever known. I began to feel as if I couldn't relate to others because I was on the outside looking in — even though politically we shared the same views — simply because of being born a straight white male. I even felt attacked at times when people attacked these aspects of my identity in an indirect way. I mean, I know that they weren't talking about me personally, yet being a part of the very class that has systematically exploited and oppressed blacks, women, gays and lesbians, and whole plethora of others classes caused me to feel alienated nonetheless.
It wasn't that "I" was being attacked, but by clinging to my identity of a "straight white male" as a fixed thing, I found myself becoming alienated from the very people I was supposed to feel solidarity with. It wasn't an omnipresent feeling, either, but it was strong enough for me to be aware of its psychological impact. And these feelings lead me to question who "I" was.
Pragmatically speaking, I see the need to differentiate between these things for the sake of communication, and as long as the words themselves don't become fixed entities corresponding to permanent realities, there's no problem. But when these labels become representations of things which we then habitually cling to without acknowledging their limitations, I think they can become a serious problem. Hence my wariness of identity politics.
The way I see it, identity politics that separate individuals and groups into various classes run the risk of becoming antagonistic due to the contradictory nature of the various classes themselves, especially if these distinctions of class become solidified and clung to as concretely, independently existing things. In other words, identity politics can actually reinforce the barriers in society that alienate one class from another by artificially segregating them into separate classes to begin with.
Case in point. When I was young, I came home from school crying and I asked my Mom why I wasn't black. Although I don't remember any of this myself, she told me that when she asked what was wrong I told her that I was upset because the kids at school said they wouldn't play with me because I wasn't black. Up until that point, I grew up in a hotel in Detroit with a very diverse mixture of tenets. Being the only kid in the entire hotel, I got a lot of attention from everyone and I was never really exposed to the racial conflicts that existed in the outside world.
For me, in my little world inside that hotel, we were all the same—black, white, men, women, American, Filipino, etc. Almost everyone treated me as a part of their community and I saw them as part of mine. But I imagine that the kids at my school — kids who were exposed to different and less sheltered circumstances — were already acquainted with the harsh realities of racism. So even though I didn't know anything about "race" at the time, and all I wanted to do was play with the other kids and have fun, the idea of race as a class had the unfortunate effect of setting me apart from my own community.
For the majority of my life, I never truly understood that identity wasn't a fixed thing—that my "white" identity wasn't something I was born with, but something which arose out of the historical and material conditions I was born into. And now that I've begun to questions these things, I'm beginning to see that my sense of identity and subsequent feelings of alienation are being perpetuated, at least in part, by the very set of identity politics which seeks to destroy these kinds of social barriers.
I can't change the colour of my skin (well, not easily anyway), but I can just as easily identify myself as a "human being" as I can a "straight white man." Of course, doing so isn't going to make me classless, but it'll at least help me to avoid falling into an essentialist trap in which I'm not able to explore my own sense of identity in a fluid and dynamic way—a way that won’t alienate me and prevent me from connecting to all of my people.
I'm more confident than ever that identity is a phenomenon that's influenced by a myriad of internal and external conditions and experiences, and that even some of the most seemingly concrete aspects of our identity are little more than shackles that we as a society unconsciously place on ourselves. That's not to say that certain things aren't beyond our control, but I'd argue that what's in our control is a lot more than we might imagine, that much of our identity is fluid and malleable.
One of the things that I've been learning about over the past few months is Marx's materialist conception of history and the idea that "the nature of individuals depends on the material conditions determining their production." While Marx's theory was set within a specific context — that of the complex relationship between the production and reproduction of material requirements of life and the historical development of human society — it has much wider implications. For example, I'm of the opinion that things such as identity are conditioned, at least in part, by the historical and material conditions that we find ourselves in, and that changes in those conditions can fundamentally alter our identity and the ways in which we express ourselves, and vice versa. Not in a rigidly deterministic way, however, but in a complex and symbiotic way.
This idea isn't necessarily new. The Buddha, for example, developed similar ideas about identity in his teachings on karma, dependent co-arising, etc. In short, he viewed our sense of self as a continuous process—something which is always in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment in response to various internal and external stimuli. Furthermore, he observed that there are times when our sense of self causes us a great deal of suffering, times when we cling very strongly to that momentary identity and the objects of our sensory experience on which that identity is based in ways that cause a great deal of mental stress. But his focus was primarily on how to relieve the suffering of the individual by mastering this process of "I-making and my-making" while Marx's focus, the bodhisattva that he was, was primarily on how to relieve the suffering of society by changing the material conditions that support it.
What really got me thinking about all of this, though, were the potential contradictions I saw inherent in "identity politics." The Socialism 2009 conference had a fair amount of talks centered around LGBT rights and racism, and I completely support equal rights for, and treatment of, everyone, regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. But during some of the talks I started to feel a bit uncomfortable.
The main reason for this, I believe, was that many of the speakers and audience members were separating people into classes based on their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc., and I started to feel alienated by my own gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. being that straight white males have historically been the most exploitative and oppressive class the world has ever known. I began to feel as if I couldn't relate to others because I was on the outside looking in — even though politically we shared the same views — simply because of being born a straight white male. I even felt attacked at times when people attacked these aspects of my identity in an indirect way. I mean, I know that they weren't talking about me personally, yet being a part of the very class that has systematically exploited and oppressed blacks, women, gays and lesbians, and whole plethora of others classes caused me to feel alienated nonetheless.
It wasn't that "I" was being attacked, but by clinging to my identity of a "straight white male" as a fixed thing, I found myself becoming alienated from the very people I was supposed to feel solidarity with. It wasn't an omnipresent feeling, either, but it was strong enough for me to be aware of its psychological impact. And these feelings lead me to question who "I" was.
Pragmatically speaking, I see the need to differentiate between these things for the sake of communication, and as long as the words themselves don't become fixed entities corresponding to permanent realities, there's no problem. But when these labels become representations of things which we then habitually cling to without acknowledging their limitations, I think they can become a serious problem. Hence my wariness of identity politics.
The way I see it, identity politics that separate individuals and groups into various classes run the risk of becoming antagonistic due to the contradictory nature of the various classes themselves, especially if these distinctions of class become solidified and clung to as concretely, independently existing things. In other words, identity politics can actually reinforce the barriers in society that alienate one class from another by artificially segregating them into separate classes to begin with.
Case in point. When I was young, I came home from school crying and I asked my Mom why I wasn't black. Although I don't remember any of this myself, she told me that when she asked what was wrong I told her that I was upset because the kids at school said they wouldn't play with me because I wasn't black. Up until that point, I grew up in a hotel in Detroit with a very diverse mixture of tenets. Being the only kid in the entire hotel, I got a lot of attention from everyone and I was never really exposed to the racial conflicts that existed in the outside world.
For me, in my little world inside that hotel, we were all the same—black, white, men, women, American, Filipino, etc. Almost everyone treated me as a part of their community and I saw them as part of mine. But I imagine that the kids at my school — kids who were exposed to different and less sheltered circumstances — were already acquainted with the harsh realities of racism. So even though I didn't know anything about "race" at the time, and all I wanted to do was play with the other kids and have fun, the idea of race as a class had the unfortunate effect of setting me apart from my own community.
For the majority of my life, I never truly understood that identity wasn't a fixed thing—that my "white" identity wasn't something I was born with, but something which arose out of the historical and material conditions I was born into. And now that I've begun to questions these things, I'm beginning to see that my sense of identity and subsequent feelings of alienation are being perpetuated, at least in part, by the very set of identity politics which seeks to destroy these kinds of social barriers.
I can't change the colour of my skin (well, not easily anyway), but I can just as easily identify myself as a "human being" as I can a "straight white man." Of course, doing so isn't going to make me classless, but it'll at least help me to avoid falling into an essentialist trap in which I'm not able to explore my own sense of identity in a fluid and dynamic way—a way that won’t alienate me and prevent me from connecting to all of my people.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
re: supreme court rejects inmates' rights to dna
I submitted an edited version of my last post, "supreme court rejects inmates' rights to dna," to the Oregonian editorial board, and it's been selected along with one other submission as the Wednesday offering for a new feature on their online opinion page:
Here's the edited version:
Jason, Richard:
I've chosen your letters on the recent Supreme Court DNA ruling as the Wednesday offering for a new feature on our online opinion page at http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion
Point-Counterpoint offers two opposing viewpoints on the same subject.
Your letters are scheduled to post at 9 a.m. 6/24. Readers may comment on your thoughts and you are welcome to respond to them and to each other.
Thanks very much for contributing to our community's conversation.
All best,
Helen Shum
Public Access Editor
The Oregonian
503-221-8039
Here's the edited version:
No innocent person should be incarcerated, but the recent Supreme Court ruling seriously undermines an inmate's ability to challenge their incarceration and prove their innocence via new, more advanced DNA testing methods.
The 5-4 ruling denies that inmates have a constitutional right to DNA testing after their conviction and places the states in charge of setting their own policies concerning whether inmates can have access to post-conviction DNA testing.
Amendment 6 of the U.S. Constitution states that "the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him" and "obtaining witnesses in his favor." And this applies to physical evidence as well.
The right to, as Reuters puts it, "obtain access to a state's biological evidence to conduct DNA testing when pursuing claims of innocence" should easily fall under this amendment.
I agree with the dissenting justices that "the right to post-conviction DNA testing should not depend on the widely varying laws enacted by the states."
Friday, June 19, 2009
supreme court rejects inmates' rights to dna
While my opinion is that no innocent person should be incarcerated, and that we should make every effort to ensure their freedom if wrongly convicted, the recent Supreme Court ruling seriously undermines an inmate's ability to challenge their incarceration and prove their innocence via new, more advanced DNA testing methods.
The 5-4 ruling denies that inmates have a constitutional right to DNA testing after their conviction and places the states in charge of setting their own policies concerning whether inmates can have access to post-conviction DNA testing or not. What this means is that if someone's innocent and wrongfully imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit, and a new DNA test might clear them of any wrong doing, they have no constitutionally protected right to that biological evidence.
So states such as Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts and Oklahoma that have no laws allowing post-conviction access to biological evidence can arbitrarily decide whether or not someone can have access to such evidence or new, more advanced testing methods. And the states that do have laws often place strict limits on who is eligible, so there's no guarantee that inmates in those states will be able to exonerate themselves either.
As for the constitutionality of this issue, Amendment 6 states that "the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him" and "obtaining witnesses in his favor." And this applies to physical evidence as well. So as far as I'm concerned, the right to, as Reuters puts it, "obtain access to a state's biological evidence to conduct DNA testing when pursuing claims of innocence" should easily fall under this amendment.
In other words, I think it is a Constitutional issue and I agree with the dissenting justices that "the right to post-conviction DNA testing should not depend on the widely varying laws enacted by the states." This has got to be one of the most disturbing rulings from the U. S. Supreme Court in recent memory. It's absolutely unbelievable.
The 5-4 ruling denies that inmates have a constitutional right to DNA testing after their conviction and places the states in charge of setting their own policies concerning whether inmates can have access to post-conviction DNA testing or not. What this means is that if someone's innocent and wrongfully imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit, and a new DNA test might clear them of any wrong doing, they have no constitutionally protected right to that biological evidence.
So states such as Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts and Oklahoma that have no laws allowing post-conviction access to biological evidence can arbitrarily decide whether or not someone can have access to such evidence or new, more advanced testing methods. And the states that do have laws often place strict limits on who is eligible, so there's no guarantee that inmates in those states will be able to exonerate themselves either.
As for the constitutionality of this issue, Amendment 6 states that "the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him" and "obtaining witnesses in his favor." And this applies to physical evidence as well. So as far as I'm concerned, the right to, as Reuters puts it, "obtain access to a state's biological evidence to conduct DNA testing when pursuing claims of innocence" should easily fall under this amendment.
In other words, I think it is a Constitutional issue and I agree with the dissenting justices that "the right to post-conviction DNA testing should not depend on the widely varying laws enacted by the states." This has got to be one of the most disturbing rulings from the U. S. Supreme Court in recent memory. It's absolutely unbelievable.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
the more things change, the more they stay the same
In One-Way Street, Walter Benjamin wrote:
Sometimes I can't help but feel the same way.
The notion of the class war can be misleading. It does not refer to a trial of strength to decide the question "Who shall win, who be defeated?" or to a struggle whose outcome is good for the victor and bad for the vanquished. To think in this way is to romanticize and obscure the facts. For whether the bourgeoisie wins or loses the fight, it remains doomed by the inner contradictions that in the course of development will come through itself or through the proletariat. The continuance or the end of three thousand years of cultural development will be decided by the answer. History knows nothing of the evil infinity contained in the image of the two wrestlers locked in eternal combat. The true politician reckons only in dates. And if the abolition of the bourgeoisie is not completed by an almost calculable moment in economic and technical development (a moment signaled by inflation and poison-gas warfare), all is lost. Before the spark reaches the dynamite, the lighted fuse must be cut. The interventions, dangers, and tempi of politicians are technical—not chivalrous.
Sometimes I can't help but feel the same way.
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