Saturday, October 01, 2011
My Life and My Direction
Ever since I was very young, my ambitious brain had two goals which were absolute amongst everything else. I would trailblaze Barbra Streisand's path, only in my own way, and be a famed and published writer by the time I was nineteen. I also was going to get my doctorate by the time I was thirty, because I wanted to be Angela Davis(as much as I could be). However, my reasonings for all of these things were quite something else. Oh the joys of a young Black boy wanting to emulate Barbra! Major differences...but still I bask in the light of Barbra. In terms of my doctorate, I will get it one day. As I have thought on it, at first my reasoning for wanting a doctorate was two fold: One, I like to learn, and on that point I will still attain a doctorate (sooner rather than later), but secondly, I was trying to compete with my ancestors, who were all educators, filigreed and degreed--wanting to best them one by doing something like I will not only get my doctorate but I can be Angela Davis too! Well, I have since figured that my ancestors have one up on me...they have the benefit of being dead and no longer here....I can take my time.... All of that said, I will be published very soon, and will start that merciless process of phd applications....but will do it in my own way and in my own time.....because I will not be rushed....
Monday, September 26, 2011
Open Letter to Angela Davis from James Baldwin: From One Powerful Icont to Another
A Y. Davis
by James Baldwin
Dear Sister:
One might have hoped that, by this hour, the very sight of chains on Black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains; now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses. And so, Newsweek, civilized defender of the indefensible, attempts to drown you in a sea of crocodile tears ("it remained to be seen what sort of personal liberation she had achieved") and puts you on its cover, chained.
You look exceedingly alone—as alone, say, as the Jewish housewife in the boxcar headed for Dachau, or as any one of our ancestors, chained together in the name of Jesus, headed for a Christian land.
Well. Since we live in an age which silence is not only criminal but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can, here in Europe, on radio and television—in fact, have just returned from a land, Germany, which was made notorious by a silent majority not so very long ago. I was asked to speak on the case of Miss Angela Davis, and did so. Very probably an exerciser in futility, but one must let no opportunity slide.
I am something like twenty years older than you, of that generation, therefore, of which George Jackson ventures that "there are no healthy brothers—none at all." I am in no way equipped to dispute this speculation (not, anyway, without descending into what, at the moment, would be irrelevant subtleties) for I know too well what he means. My own state of health is certainly precarious enough. In considering you, and Huey, and George and (especially) Jonathan Jackson, I began to apprehend what you may have had in mind when you spoke of the uses to which we could put the experience of the slave. What has happened, it seems to me, and to put it far too simply, is that a whole new generation of people have assessed and absorbed their history, and, in that tremendous action, have freed themselves of it and will never be victims again. This may seem an odd, indefensibly pertinent and insensitive thing to say to a sister in prison, battling for her life—for all our lives. Yet, I dare to say it, for I think you will perhaps not misunderstand me, and I do not say it, after all, from the position of spectator.
I am trying to suggest that you—for example—do not appear to be your father's daughter in the same way that I am my father's son. At bottom, my father's expectations and mine were the same, the expectations of his generation and mine were the same; and neither the immense difference in our ages nor the move from the South to the North could alter these expectations or make our lives more viable. For, in fact, to use the brutal parlance of that hour, the interior language of despair, he was just a n-----—a n----- laborer preacher, and so was I. I jumped the track but that's of no more importance here, in itself, than the fact that some poor Spaniards become rich bull fighters, or that some poor Black boys become rich—boxers, for example. That's rarely, if ever, afforded the people more than a great emotional catharsis, though I don't mean to be condescending about that, either. But when Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali and refused to put on that uniform (and sacrificed all that money!) a very different impact was made on the people and a very different kind of instruction had begun.
The American triumph—in which the American tragedy has always been implicit—was to make Black people despise themselves. When I was little I despised myself; I did not know any better. And this meant, albeit unconsciously, or against my will, or in great pain, that I also despised my father. And my mother. And my brothers. And my sisters. Black people were killing each other every Saturday night out on Lenox Avenue, when I was growing up; and no one explained to them, or to me, that it was intended that they should; that they were penned where they were, like animals, in order that they should consider themselves no better than animals. Everything supported this sense of reality, nothing denied it: and so one was ready, when it came time to go to work, to be treated as a slave. So one was ready, when human terrors came, to bow before a white God and beg Jesus for salvation—this same white God who was unable to raise a finger to do so little as to help you pay your rent, unable to be awakened in time to help you save your child!
There is always, of course, more to any picture than can speedily be perceived and in all of this—groaning and moaning, watching, calculating, clowning, surviving, and outwitting, some tremendous strength was nevertheless being forged, which is part of our legacy today. But that particular aspect of our journey now begins to be behind us. The secret is out: we are men!
But the blunt, open articulation of this secret has frightened the nation to death. i wish I could say, "to life," but that is much to demand of a disparate collection of displaced people still cowering in their wagon trains and singing "Onward Christian Soldiers." The nation, if America is a nation, is not in the least prepared for this day. It is a day which the Americans never expected to see, however piously they may declare their belief in progress and democracy. Those words, now, on American lips, have become a kind of universal obscenity: for this most unhappy people, strong believers in arithmetic, never expected to be confronted with the algebra of their history.
One way of gauging a nation's health, or of discerning what it really considers to be its interests—or to what extent it can be considered as a nation as distinguished from a coalition of special interests—is to examine those people it elects to represent or protect it. One glance at the American leaders (or figureheads) conveys that America is on the edge of absolute chaos, and also suggests the future to which American interests, if not the bulk of the American people, appear willing to consign the Blacks. (Indeed, one look at our past conveys that.) It is clear that for the bulk of our (nominal) countrymen, we are all expendable. And Messrs. Nixon, Agnew, Mitchell, and Hoover, to say nothing, of course, of the Kings' Row basket case, the winning Ronnie Reagan, will not hesitate for an instant to carry out what they insist is the will of the people.
But what, in America, is the will of the people? And who, for the above-named, are the people? The people, whoever they may be, know as much about the forces which have placed the above-named gentlemen in power as they do about the forces responsible for the slaughter in Vietnam. The will of the people, in America, has always been at the mercy of an ignorance not merely phenomenal, but sacred, and sacredly cultivated: the better to be used by a carnivorous economy which democratically slaughters and victimizes whites and Blacks alike. But most white Americans do not dare admit this (though they suspect it) and this fact contains mortal danger for the Blacks and tragedy for the nation.
Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness—for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps—they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of—and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins —that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.
Only a handful of the millions of people in this vast place are aware that the fate intended for you, Sister Angela, and for George Jackson, and for the numberless prisoners in our concentration camps—for that is what they are—is a fate which is about to engulf them, too, White lives, for the forces which rule in this country, are no more sacred than Black ones, as many and many a student is discovering, as the white American corpses in Vietnam prove. If the American people are unable to contend with their elected leaders for the redemption of their own honor and the loves of their own children, we the Blacks, the most rejected of the Western children, can expect very little help at their hands; which, after all, is nothing new. What the Americans do not realize is that a war between brothers, in the same cities, on the same soil is not a racial war but a civil war. But the American delusion is not only that their brothers all are white but that the whites are all their brothers.
So be it. We cannot awaken this sleeper, and God knows we have tried. We must do what we can do, and fortify and save each other—we are not drowning in an apathetic self-contempt, we do feel ourselves sufficiently worthwhile to contend even with the inexorable forces in order to change our fate and the fate of our children and the condition of the world! We know that a man is not a thing and is not to be placed at the mercy of things. We know that air and water belong to all mankind and not merely to industrialists. We know that a baby does not come into the world merely to be the instrument of someone else's profit. We know that a democracy does not mean the coercion of all into a deadly—and, finally, wicked— mediocrity but the liberty for all to aspire to the best that is in him, or that has ever been.
We know that we, the Blacks, and not only we, the blacks, have been, and are, the victims of a system whose only fuel is greed, whose only god is profit. We know that the fruits of this system have been ignorance, despair, and death, and we know that the system is doomed because the world can no longer afford it—if, indeed, it ever could have. And we know that, for the perpetuation of this system, we have all been mercilessly brutalized, and have been told nothing but lies, lies about ourselves and our kinsmen and our past, and about love, life, and death, so that both soul and body have been bound in hell.
The enormous revolution in black consciousness which has occurred in your generation, my dear sister, means the beginning or the end of America. Some of us, white and Black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecendented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name.
If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.
Therefore: peace.
Brother James
November 19, 1970
by James Baldwin
Dear Sister:
One might have hoped that, by this hour, the very sight of chains on Black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains; now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses. And so, Newsweek, civilized defender of the indefensible, attempts to drown you in a sea of crocodile tears ("it remained to be seen what sort of personal liberation she had achieved") and puts you on its cover, chained.
You look exceedingly alone—as alone, say, as the Jewish housewife in the boxcar headed for Dachau, or as any one of our ancestors, chained together in the name of Jesus, headed for a Christian land.
Well. Since we live in an age which silence is not only criminal but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can, here in Europe, on radio and television—in fact, have just returned from a land, Germany, which was made notorious by a silent majority not so very long ago. I was asked to speak on the case of Miss Angela Davis, and did so. Very probably an exerciser in futility, but one must let no opportunity slide.
I am something like twenty years older than you, of that generation, therefore, of which George Jackson ventures that "there are no healthy brothers—none at all." I am in no way equipped to dispute this speculation (not, anyway, without descending into what, at the moment, would be irrelevant subtleties) for I know too well what he means. My own state of health is certainly precarious enough. In considering you, and Huey, and George and (especially) Jonathan Jackson, I began to apprehend what you may have had in mind when you spoke of the uses to which we could put the experience of the slave. What has happened, it seems to me, and to put it far too simply, is that a whole new generation of people have assessed and absorbed their history, and, in that tremendous action, have freed themselves of it and will never be victims again. This may seem an odd, indefensibly pertinent and insensitive thing to say to a sister in prison, battling for her life—for all our lives. Yet, I dare to say it, for I think you will perhaps not misunderstand me, and I do not say it, after all, from the position of spectator.
I am trying to suggest that you—for example—do not appear to be your father's daughter in the same way that I am my father's son. At bottom, my father's expectations and mine were the same, the expectations of his generation and mine were the same; and neither the immense difference in our ages nor the move from the South to the North could alter these expectations or make our lives more viable. For, in fact, to use the brutal parlance of that hour, the interior language of despair, he was just a n-----—a n----- laborer preacher, and so was I. I jumped the track but that's of no more importance here, in itself, than the fact that some poor Spaniards become rich bull fighters, or that some poor Black boys become rich—boxers, for example. That's rarely, if ever, afforded the people more than a great emotional catharsis, though I don't mean to be condescending about that, either. But when Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali and refused to put on that uniform (and sacrificed all that money!) a very different impact was made on the people and a very different kind of instruction had begun.
The American triumph—in which the American tragedy has always been implicit—was to make Black people despise themselves. When I was little I despised myself; I did not know any better. And this meant, albeit unconsciously, or against my will, or in great pain, that I also despised my father. And my mother. And my brothers. And my sisters. Black people were killing each other every Saturday night out on Lenox Avenue, when I was growing up; and no one explained to them, or to me, that it was intended that they should; that they were penned where they were, like animals, in order that they should consider themselves no better than animals. Everything supported this sense of reality, nothing denied it: and so one was ready, when it came time to go to work, to be treated as a slave. So one was ready, when human terrors came, to bow before a white God and beg Jesus for salvation—this same white God who was unable to raise a finger to do so little as to help you pay your rent, unable to be awakened in time to help you save your child!
There is always, of course, more to any picture than can speedily be perceived and in all of this—groaning and moaning, watching, calculating, clowning, surviving, and outwitting, some tremendous strength was nevertheless being forged, which is part of our legacy today. But that particular aspect of our journey now begins to be behind us. The secret is out: we are men!
But the blunt, open articulation of this secret has frightened the nation to death. i wish I could say, "to life," but that is much to demand of a disparate collection of displaced people still cowering in their wagon trains and singing "Onward Christian Soldiers." The nation, if America is a nation, is not in the least prepared for this day. It is a day which the Americans never expected to see, however piously they may declare their belief in progress and democracy. Those words, now, on American lips, have become a kind of universal obscenity: for this most unhappy people, strong believers in arithmetic, never expected to be confronted with the algebra of their history.
One way of gauging a nation's health, or of discerning what it really considers to be its interests—or to what extent it can be considered as a nation as distinguished from a coalition of special interests—is to examine those people it elects to represent or protect it. One glance at the American leaders (or figureheads) conveys that America is on the edge of absolute chaos, and also suggests the future to which American interests, if not the bulk of the American people, appear willing to consign the Blacks. (Indeed, one look at our past conveys that.) It is clear that for the bulk of our (nominal) countrymen, we are all expendable. And Messrs. Nixon, Agnew, Mitchell, and Hoover, to say nothing, of course, of the Kings' Row basket case, the winning Ronnie Reagan, will not hesitate for an instant to carry out what they insist is the will of the people.
But what, in America, is the will of the people? And who, for the above-named, are the people? The people, whoever they may be, know as much about the forces which have placed the above-named gentlemen in power as they do about the forces responsible for the slaughter in Vietnam. The will of the people, in America, has always been at the mercy of an ignorance not merely phenomenal, but sacred, and sacredly cultivated: the better to be used by a carnivorous economy which democratically slaughters and victimizes whites and Blacks alike. But most white Americans do not dare admit this (though they suspect it) and this fact contains mortal danger for the Blacks and tragedy for the nation.
Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness—for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps—they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of—and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins —that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.
Only a handful of the millions of people in this vast place are aware that the fate intended for you, Sister Angela, and for George Jackson, and for the numberless prisoners in our concentration camps—for that is what they are—is a fate which is about to engulf them, too, White lives, for the forces which rule in this country, are no more sacred than Black ones, as many and many a student is discovering, as the white American corpses in Vietnam prove. If the American people are unable to contend with their elected leaders for the redemption of their own honor and the loves of their own children, we the Blacks, the most rejected of the Western children, can expect very little help at their hands; which, after all, is nothing new. What the Americans do not realize is that a war between brothers, in the same cities, on the same soil is not a racial war but a civil war. But the American delusion is not only that their brothers all are white but that the whites are all their brothers.
So be it. We cannot awaken this sleeper, and God knows we have tried. We must do what we can do, and fortify and save each other—we are not drowning in an apathetic self-contempt, we do feel ourselves sufficiently worthwhile to contend even with the inexorable forces in order to change our fate and the fate of our children and the condition of the world! We know that a man is not a thing and is not to be placed at the mercy of things. We know that air and water belong to all mankind and not merely to industrialists. We know that a baby does not come into the world merely to be the instrument of someone else's profit. We know that a democracy does not mean the coercion of all into a deadly—and, finally, wicked— mediocrity but the liberty for all to aspire to the best that is in him, or that has ever been.
We know that we, the Blacks, and not only we, the blacks, have been, and are, the victims of a system whose only fuel is greed, whose only god is profit. We know that the fruits of this system have been ignorance, despair, and death, and we know that the system is doomed because the world can no longer afford it—if, indeed, it ever could have. And we know that, for the perpetuation of this system, we have all been mercilessly brutalized, and have been told nothing but lies, lies about ourselves and our kinsmen and our past, and about love, life, and death, so that both soul and body have been bound in hell.
The enormous revolution in black consciousness which has occurred in your generation, my dear sister, means the beginning or the end of America. Some of us, white and Black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecendented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name.
If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.
Therefore: peace.
Brother James
November 19, 1970
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Thoughts Running Through My Head...
"It is our duty to undermine systems of oppression"-to quote myself.....does this make me an anarchist?..I have never considered myself such...it is as natural for me as Corrie Ten Boom hiding Jews in the walls of her house....and her legacy has been a deep influence on me...Papa Ten Boom didn't think twice...because he knew what was right...and died on a hospital gurney outside of his bed...
Monday, September 19, 2011
Interview with Daniel Joseph Baker
Daniel Joseph Baker is clearly the most talented person to have graced the stage of this season's America's Got Talent. It came as a jilting shock to all of us who embraced this magnificent spectacle of talent and actually decided to tune in every week just to see him when he was eliminated. No matter. Daniel is a raw talent, possessing an animal magnetism that puts him in the tradition of Labelle, Grace Slick, and Lady Gaga. I recently got in touch with him via Facebook and asked him if I could interview him for my blog. Graciously, he agreed. This is what transpired.
1. How long have you been a singer and performer?
Since I was 6 years old at Church baptisms.
2. What made you try out for AGT?
I was very unhappy with the status of my life. I feel like it was worth continuing. I had a dream of performing on television, so that unhappiness drove me to audition for AGT on a whim.
3. What is your greatest aspiration?
To have a career in the entertainment industry.
4. Who are the major influences on your music?
Nicole Scherzinger, Lady Gaga, & Christina Aguilera. These are the only 3 people I look towards for ideas & inspirations for my next performances!
5. What is your background and where are you from?
I was raised in a mormon household & was born in Washington state.
6. Did you like the environment you grew up in? Did it nurture your creativity?
I loved my childhood. My parents never got mad at me for singing & banging on the piano during all hours of the night. They wanted me to continue perfecting my talents.
7. Have you been embraced by any gay celebrities? Which ones?
Raja from drag race tweeted me. That was my favorite!
8. How has fame been treating you?
I don't consider myself famous at all.
9. How would you describe your personal style? Where did the leg-on-the-piano thing come from?
My personal style: FIERCE. Foot on the piano: (any monster knows this) GAGA
10. How was your experience on AGT?
Best experience of my life so far. No negatives to list at all. It gave me so much confidence.
11. Where did you normally perform before AGT?
I performed in church and school growing up. But in recent years, only in my house.
12. Were you shocked when you were eliminated?
I was shocked at first. But I've always kept in mind that anything is possible. I want to thank my fans for supporting me through it.. Everything happens for a reason.
13. Of any artists past or present, who would you want to emulate in terms of your career?
I love Liberace & Elton John. I also love Cher & Nicole Scherzinger. I WANNA BE A PUSSYCAT DOLL!
14. Do you have anything in the works?
.I've been booking gigs & am moving to Hollywood! Danfans should look out for me!!
Thanks, Daniel!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
ALEC Exposed
John Nichols
The Nation
July 12, 2011
This article appeared in the August 1-8, 2011 edition
of The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/article/161978/alec-exposed
"Never has the time been so right," Louisiana State
Representative Noble Ellington told conservative
legislators gathered in Washington to plan the radical
remaking of policies in the states. It was one month
after the 2010 midterm elections. Republicans had
grabbed 680 legislative seats and secured a power
trifecta-control of both legislative chambers and the
governorship-in twenty-one states. Ellington was
speaking for hundreds of attendees at a "States and
Nation Policy Summit," featuring GOP stars like Texas
Governor Rick Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Convened by the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-"the
nation's largest, non-partisan, individual public-
private membership association of state legislators," as
the spin-savvy group describes itself-the meeting did
not intend to draw up an agenda for the upcoming
legislative session. That had already been done by
ALEC's elite task forces of lawmakers and corporate
representatives. The new legislators were there to grab
their weapons: carefully crafted model bills seeking to
impose a one-size-fits-all agenda on the states.
Founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and other conservative
activists frustrated by recent electoral setbacks, ALEC
is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy
shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has
evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton
Friedman's call for conservatives to "develop
alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive
and available," ALEC's model legislation reflects long-
term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations
on corporations and making it harder to hold the
economically and politically powerful to account.
Corporate donors retain veto power over the language,
which is developed by the secretive task forces. The
task forces cover issues from education to health
policy. ALEC's priorities for the 2011 session included
bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate
major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states
across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new
laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio's John Kasich and
Wisconsin's Scott Walker, both ALEC alums.
The details of ALEC's model bills have been available
only to the group's 2,000 legislative and 300 corporate
members. But thanks to a leak to Aliya Rahman, an Ohio-
based activist who helped organize protests at ALEC's
Spring Task Force meeting in Cincinnati, The Nation has
obtained more than 800 documents representing decades of
model legislation. Teaming up with the Center for Media
and Democracy, The Nation asked policy experts to
analyze this never-before-seen archive.
The articles that follow are the first products of that
examination. They provide an inside view of the
priorities of ALEC's corporate board and billionaire
benefactors (including Tea Party funders Charles and
David Koch). "Dozens of corporations are investing
millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly
legislation that is being made into law in statehouses
coast to coast, with no regard for the public interest,"
says Bob Edgar of Common Cause. "This is proof positive
of the depth and scope of the corporate reach into our
democratic processes." The full archive of ALEC
documents is available at a new website,
alecexposed.org, thanks to the Center for Media and
Democracy, which has provided powerful tools for
progressives to turn this knowledge into power. The data
tell us that the time has come to refocus on the battle
to loosen the grip of corporate America and renew
democracy in the states.
"Business Domination Inc.," by Joel Rogers and Laura
Dresser
http://www.thenation.com/article/161977/business-domination-inc
"Sabotaging Healthcare," by Wendell Potter
http://www.thenation.com/article/161975/sabotaging-healthcare
"The Koch Connection," by Lisa Graves
http://www.thenation.com/article/161973/koch-connection
"Starving Public Schools," by Julie Underwood
http://www.thenation.com/article/161971/starving-public-schools
"Rigging Elections," by John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/article/161969/rigging-elections
(2)
A Discreet Nonprofit Brings Together Politicians
and Corporations to Write `Model Bills'
by Lois Beckett
ProPublica
July 15, 2011
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/a-discreet-nonprofit-brings-together-politicians-and-corporations-to-write-
Calling the EPA's attempts to regulate greenhouse gasses
a 'trainwreck,' ALEC crafted a model resolution for
states that was later the basis of legislation in at
least 13 states, according to a press release on its
website. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
This week, both the Los Angeles Times and The Nation put
the spotlight on a little-known but influential
conservative nonprofit that creates "model" state
legislation that often make its way into law. The
organization has helped craft some of the most
controversial-and industry-friendly-legislation of
recent years.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, crafted
a model resolution for states calling the EPA's attempts
to regulate greenhouse gasses a "trainwreck" and asking
Congress to slow or stop the regulations, the Times
reported. A press release on ALEC's site says that at
least 13 other states have passed resolutions based on
their model language.
Latest Episode: Child abuse and death cases can be
particularly difficult to solve. Everyone wants to make
sure justice is served, but when emotions run high and
evidence can be misleading, innocent people sometimes
end up behind bars for the most heinous of crimes.
ALEC was also involved in the writing of Arizona's new
immigration law, which gave police officers broad powers
to detain anyone suspected of being in the country
illegally.
Brought into being by a legendary conservative who also
founded the well-known Heritage Foundation, ALEC has
been around since the early 1970s. It calls itself a
"policy making program that unites members of the public
and private sectors in a dynamic partnership" based on
"Jeffersonian principles." Critics say it has devolved
into a pay-for-play operation, where state legislators
and their families get to go on industry-funded junkets
and major corporations get to ghostwrite model laws and
pass them on to receptive politicians.
In a multipart report this week, the Nation profiled
ALEC's influence on state legislation related to
privatization and anti-union efforts, fighting Obama's
health care reform, privatizing public education and
enacting voter ID laws, which critics say are designed
to disenfranchise voters who are more likely to vote
Democratic. The Nation also provides a deeper look at
the financial and ideological links between the Koch
brothers and ALEC.
ALEC representatives tell reporters that its mission is
fundamentally "educational." ALEC spokeswoman Raegan
Weber told the LA Times, "Legislators should hear from
those the government intends to regulate."
"ALEC allows a place for everyone at the table to come
and debate and discuss," another ALEC official, Michael
Bowman, told NPR last year. "You have legislators who
will ask questions much more freely at our meetings
because they are not under the eyes of the press, the
eyes of the voters. They're just trying to learn a
policy and understand it." Neither Weber nor Bowman
immediately responded to our requests for further
comment.
Corporations pay hefty fees for the opportunity to
discuss policy with legislators at ALEC's conferences,
and they also host banquets, open-bar parties and
baseball games. Legislators, on the other hand, pay a
nominal membership fee, and can be eligible for
"scholarships" that pay for their conference attendance.
When the legislators bring the model bills back to their
state capitals, the role played by ALEC-or by the
corporations-seems to be rarely, if ever, disclosed.
Crucially, ALEC says it is not a lobbying organization,
and thus because of its nonprofit status, it does not
have to disclose its donors or the amount of their
donations. (The Times says Common Cause is trying to
challenge ALEC's nonprofit status.)
Perhaps the most striking example of this process is the
involvement of officials from the Corrections
Corporation of America, the nation's largest private
prison company, in the creation of Arizona's immigration
law.
As NPR reported last year, officials from Corrections
Corporation were in the room when Arizona State Sen.
Russell Pearce discussed his ideas about immigration at
a 2009 ALEC conference.
Reports from Corrections Corporation reviewed by NPR
indicated that their executives saw immigrant detention
as their next big market, and that the company expected
to bring in a "significant portion" of their revenue
from Immigrations and Custom Enforcement.
What role the corporate officials played in the ALEC
discussion is not known, but the "model legislation"
that emerged from that session soon became the bill
itself-"almost word for word," according to NPR. The
influence the private prison industry may have had on
the law was not widely reported or discussed during the
heated nationwide debate over the bill. (An "In These
Times" reporter, whose early findings on the ALEC-
Arizona connection were consistent with NPR's later
reporting, recently provided a more detailed look at the
ALEC scholarships provided to Arizona legislators.)
Portions of the Arizona law are being challenged in
federal court and have never been implemented. But, as
NPR reported last year, similar bills were later
introduced in eight other states.
ALEC has been in the media spotlight this week because
the Center for Media and Democracy obtained and released
an archive of more than 800 of ALEC's model bills and
resolutions. Their wiki site, ALEC Exposed, encourages
readers to browse ALEC's model bills by topic and share
their findings about the documents using the hashtag
#ALECexposed.
ProPublica intern Nicholas Kusnetz contributed to this
report.
___________________________________________
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and to change it.
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John Nichols
The Nation
July 12, 2011
This article appeared in the August 1-8, 2011 edition
of The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/article/161978/alec-exposed
"Never has the time been so right," Louisiana State
Representative Noble Ellington told conservative
legislators gathered in Washington to plan the radical
remaking of policies in the states. It was one month
after the 2010 midterm elections. Republicans had
grabbed 680 legislative seats and secured a power
trifecta-control of both legislative chambers and the
governorship-in twenty-one states. Ellington was
speaking for hundreds of attendees at a "States and
Nation Policy Summit," featuring GOP stars like Texas
Governor Rick Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Convened by the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-"the
nation's largest, non-partisan, individual public-
private membership association of state legislators," as
the spin-savvy group describes itself-the meeting did
not intend to draw up an agenda for the upcoming
legislative session. That had already been done by
ALEC's elite task forces of lawmakers and corporate
representatives. The new legislators were there to grab
their weapons: carefully crafted model bills seeking to
impose a one-size-fits-all agenda on the states.
Founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich and other conservative
activists frustrated by recent electoral setbacks, ALEC
is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy
shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has
evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton
Friedman's call for conservatives to "develop
alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive
and available," ALEC's model legislation reflects long-
term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations
on corporations and making it harder to hold the
economically and politically powerful to account.
Corporate donors retain veto power over the language,
which is developed by the secretive task forces. The
task forces cover issues from education to health
policy. ALEC's priorities for the 2011 session included
bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate
major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states
across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new
laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio's John Kasich and
Wisconsin's Scott Walker, both ALEC alums.
The details of ALEC's model bills have been available
only to the group's 2,000 legislative and 300 corporate
members. But thanks to a leak to Aliya Rahman, an Ohio-
based activist who helped organize protests at ALEC's
Spring Task Force meeting in Cincinnati, The Nation has
obtained more than 800 documents representing decades of
model legislation. Teaming up with the Center for Media
and Democracy, The Nation asked policy experts to
analyze this never-before-seen archive.
The articles that follow are the first products of that
examination. They provide an inside view of the
priorities of ALEC's corporate board and billionaire
benefactors (including Tea Party funders Charles and
David Koch). "Dozens of corporations are investing
millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly
legislation that is being made into law in statehouses
coast to coast, with no regard for the public interest,"
says Bob Edgar of Common Cause. "This is proof positive
of the depth and scope of the corporate reach into our
democratic processes." The full archive of ALEC
documents is available at a new website,
alecexposed.org, thanks to the Center for Media and
Democracy, which has provided powerful tools for
progressives to turn this knowledge into power. The data
tell us that the time has come to refocus on the battle
to loosen the grip of corporate America and renew
democracy in the states.
"Business Domination Inc.," by Joel Rogers and Laura
Dresser
http://www.thenation.com/article/161977/business-domination-inc
"Sabotaging Healthcare," by Wendell Potter
http://www.thenation.com/article/161975/sabotaging-healthcare
"The Koch Connection," by Lisa Graves
http://www.thenation.com/article/161973/koch-connection
"Starving Public Schools," by Julie Underwood
http://www.thenation.com/article/161971/starving-public-schools
"Rigging Elections," by John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/article/161969/rigging-elections
(2)
A Discreet Nonprofit Brings Together Politicians
and Corporations to Write `Model Bills'
by Lois Beckett
ProPublica
July 15, 2011
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/a-discreet-nonprofit-brings-together-politicians-and-corporations-to-write-
Calling the EPA's attempts to regulate greenhouse gasses
a 'trainwreck,' ALEC crafted a model resolution for
states that was later the basis of legislation in at
least 13 states, according to a press release on its
website. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
This week, both the Los Angeles Times and The Nation put
the spotlight on a little-known but influential
conservative nonprofit that creates "model" state
legislation that often make its way into law. The
organization has helped craft some of the most
controversial-and industry-friendly-legislation of
recent years.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, crafted
a model resolution for states calling the EPA's attempts
to regulate greenhouse gasses a "trainwreck" and asking
Congress to slow or stop the regulations, the Times
reported. A press release on ALEC's site says that at
least 13 other states have passed resolutions based on
their model language.
Latest Episode: Child abuse and death cases can be
particularly difficult to solve. Everyone wants to make
sure justice is served, but when emotions run high and
evidence can be misleading, innocent people sometimes
end up behind bars for the most heinous of crimes.
ALEC was also involved in the writing of Arizona's new
immigration law, which gave police officers broad powers
to detain anyone suspected of being in the country
illegally.
Brought into being by a legendary conservative who also
founded the well-known Heritage Foundation, ALEC has
been around since the early 1970s. It calls itself a
"policy making program that unites members of the public
and private sectors in a dynamic partnership" based on
"Jeffersonian principles." Critics say it has devolved
into a pay-for-play operation, where state legislators
and their families get to go on industry-funded junkets
and major corporations get to ghostwrite model laws and
pass them on to receptive politicians.
In a multipart report this week, the Nation profiled
ALEC's influence on state legislation related to
privatization and anti-union efforts, fighting Obama's
health care reform, privatizing public education and
enacting voter ID laws, which critics say are designed
to disenfranchise voters who are more likely to vote
Democratic. The Nation also provides a deeper look at
the financial and ideological links between the Koch
brothers and ALEC.
ALEC representatives tell reporters that its mission is
fundamentally "educational." ALEC spokeswoman Raegan
Weber told the LA Times, "Legislators should hear from
those the government intends to regulate."
"ALEC allows a place for everyone at the table to come
and debate and discuss," another ALEC official, Michael
Bowman, told NPR last year. "You have legislators who
will ask questions much more freely at our meetings
because they are not under the eyes of the press, the
eyes of the voters. They're just trying to learn a
policy and understand it." Neither Weber nor Bowman
immediately responded to our requests for further
comment.
Corporations pay hefty fees for the opportunity to
discuss policy with legislators at ALEC's conferences,
and they also host banquets, open-bar parties and
baseball games. Legislators, on the other hand, pay a
nominal membership fee, and can be eligible for
"scholarships" that pay for their conference attendance.
When the legislators bring the model bills back to their
state capitals, the role played by ALEC-or by the
corporations-seems to be rarely, if ever, disclosed.
Crucially, ALEC says it is not a lobbying organization,
and thus because of its nonprofit status, it does not
have to disclose its donors or the amount of their
donations. (The Times says Common Cause is trying to
challenge ALEC's nonprofit status.)
Perhaps the most striking example of this process is the
involvement of officials from the Corrections
Corporation of America, the nation's largest private
prison company, in the creation of Arizona's immigration
law.
As NPR reported last year, officials from Corrections
Corporation were in the room when Arizona State Sen.
Russell Pearce discussed his ideas about immigration at
a 2009 ALEC conference.
Reports from Corrections Corporation reviewed by NPR
indicated that their executives saw immigrant detention
as their next big market, and that the company expected
to bring in a "significant portion" of their revenue
from Immigrations and Custom Enforcement.
What role the corporate officials played in the ALEC
discussion is not known, but the "model legislation"
that emerged from that session soon became the bill
itself-"almost word for word," according to NPR. The
influence the private prison industry may have had on
the law was not widely reported or discussed during the
heated nationwide debate over the bill. (An "In These
Times" reporter, whose early findings on the ALEC-
Arizona connection were consistent with NPR's later
reporting, recently provided a more detailed look at the
ALEC scholarships provided to Arizona legislators.)
Portions of the Arizona law are being challenged in
federal court and have never been implemented. But, as
NPR reported last year, similar bills were later
introduced in eight other states.
ALEC has been in the media spotlight this week because
the Center for Media and Democracy obtained and released
an archive of more than 800 of ALEC's model bills and
resolutions. Their wiki site, ALEC Exposed, encourages
readers to browse ALEC's model bills by topic and share
their findings about the documents using the hashtag
#ALECexposed.
ProPublica intern Nicholas Kusnetz contributed to this
report.
___________________________________________
Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.
Submit via email: portside@portside.org
Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3
Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq
Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe
Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive
Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate
Friday, June 10, 2011
My Review of Manning Marable's Malcolm X
The biography of Malcolm X written by Manning Marable has been the subject of great controversy on the public airwaves and in newspapers, magazines, and blogs across the globe. Even before the book was published, a loud harangue against it was heard from every direction as Black public figures denounced it as slanderous and heretical for subjects it broached that they would rather not see in the light of day, namely Malcolm's homosexual activities during his youth. Malcom's daughters took to the airwaves to condemn the book for destroying the rosy picture of their parent's marriage that was consecrated in Spike Lee's Hollywood biopic, Malcolm X. Many saw Marable's biography as a betrayal, an attack on Malcolm and his legacy. The kindest of Marable's critics diagnosed him as misguided. Very few within the Black community came to Marable's defense. Having just put the book down, I must declare that almost all of Marable's detractors truly have no basis for their assessments of the book. I would further assess that those who have most adamantly denounced this book, particularly those within the Black community and in Black activist circles, all harbor beneath their criticisms a guttural pathos deeply rooted in patriarchal coda. This book triggered in them deeply held fears concerning the public face of the reconstructed Black man who, defiled by slavery, must be defined in every manner possible as masculine and as a man, leaving no room for such things as homosexuality. In this light, any construction of Malcolm X as having same gender sexual experiences is an act of betrayal. This line of thinking was championed by Amiri Baraka who lambasted the book for 'mentioning things that are irrelevant and unfounded.' I wonder what these keepers of the flame make of the Eddie Long scandal?
Those disturbed by Marable's references to Malcolm's homosexual experiences, which constitute little more than two pages out of a five hundred page book, have sought to weed out Marable's "agenda" in airing such things. After reading the book, I find Marable to bear no agenda in his assessment of the man we know as Malcolm X except to present a truthful and complex portrait of a complex historical figure who played a major role in shaping the Afro-American community and the world at large during the 20th Century. This book is a tribute to Malcolm X and his legacy. The only agenda I can see coming forth from this book is a slight socialist bent with Marable not failing to reference such figures as Jack O'Dell and the iconic publication Freedomways. Baraka did not fail to address this either as he declared that Marable had been "duped" by communists, socialists, and other radical leftists in his writing of the book.
What this book does most successfully is answer a question I posed to Angela Davis through correspondence via email several years ago and that is what ever happened to Malcolm X's plans to take the United States before the World Court in The Hague and have the country charged with crimes against humanity for its treatment of Blacks and other minorities. Marable, perhaps for the first time in a major scholarly work, documents the fate of Malcolm's two organizations, the Islamic Moslem Mosque Inc (MMI) and the secular, political Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) and their rapid decline after his assassination in 1965. Marable develops Malcolm's image as a major political force in revolutionary, Third World, and global politics as he reconstructs Malcolm's travels throughout Africa and the Middle East and his courting of African and Middle Eastern leaders such as Nasser in Egypt, Sekou Toure in Guinea, and Julius Nyerere in Tanzania in an attempt to get the newly liberated African nations to support his plan to condemn the United States before the World Court. In the end, the OAU passed a weak resolution praising the passage of civil rights legislation in the US, but criticising the slow movement of racial progress in the country. Marable paints a vivid picture of Malcolm X as a venerated dignitary and political leader hosted by the governemtns of African and Middle Eastern nations including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Egypt during his lifetime. He also underscores the idea that since his death, Malcolm has also been embraced by billions of muslims, Third World and African descended peoples across the globe; the government of the Ayattolah Khomeini was the first government in the world to issue a postage stamp bearing Malcolm's image. The United States government has since issued a commemorative Malcolm X stamp as well. Malcolm, in his role as a political emissary acting on his own accord, set the stage for the Black Panther Party and other Black revolutionaries in the United States that followed him who established their own political connections with governments in Africa and the Middle East, China, Cuba, and other parts of the Third World. Marable highlights the connections between Malcolm's legacy and such figures as Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, and Huey Newton.
Malcolm X's legacy as a leader in the struggle for civil and human rights in the United States is also clearly defined in the book. Marable draws Malcolm's image from under the shadow of Martin Luther King, that of the budding integrationist as defined in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and definitively articulates Malcolm's basic positions that held constant throughout his lifetime. That fundamental belief can be summarized as a belief that all people have a right to self-determination and can righteously act upon that right even to the point of violent struggle. The playwright Lorraine Hansberry, a friend of Malcolm's, articulated this position well in response to a question posed to her by a white student with regards to her position on civil rights. Hansberry told the student "we must argue, beg, petition, and shoot through the windows until we get what we justly deserve." This legacy of self-actualization is Malcolm X's present to the world. Manning Marable's biiography of this venerated, iconic figure is highly commendable and should be embraced by everyone.
Those disturbed by Marable's references to Malcolm's homosexual experiences, which constitute little more than two pages out of a five hundred page book, have sought to weed out Marable's "agenda" in airing such things. After reading the book, I find Marable to bear no agenda in his assessment of the man we know as Malcolm X except to present a truthful and complex portrait of a complex historical figure who played a major role in shaping the Afro-American community and the world at large during the 20th Century. This book is a tribute to Malcolm X and his legacy. The only agenda I can see coming forth from this book is a slight socialist bent with Marable not failing to reference such figures as Jack O'Dell and the iconic publication Freedomways. Baraka did not fail to address this either as he declared that Marable had been "duped" by communists, socialists, and other radical leftists in his writing of the book.
What this book does most successfully is answer a question I posed to Angela Davis through correspondence via email several years ago and that is what ever happened to Malcolm X's plans to take the United States before the World Court in The Hague and have the country charged with crimes against humanity for its treatment of Blacks and other minorities. Marable, perhaps for the first time in a major scholarly work, documents the fate of Malcolm's two organizations, the Islamic Moslem Mosque Inc (MMI) and the secular, political Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) and their rapid decline after his assassination in 1965. Marable develops Malcolm's image as a major political force in revolutionary, Third World, and global politics as he reconstructs Malcolm's travels throughout Africa and the Middle East and his courting of African and Middle Eastern leaders such as Nasser in Egypt, Sekou Toure in Guinea, and Julius Nyerere in Tanzania in an attempt to get the newly liberated African nations to support his plan to condemn the United States before the World Court. In the end, the OAU passed a weak resolution praising the passage of civil rights legislation in the US, but criticising the slow movement of racial progress in the country. Marable paints a vivid picture of Malcolm X as a venerated dignitary and political leader hosted by the governemtns of African and Middle Eastern nations including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Egypt during his lifetime. He also underscores the idea that since his death, Malcolm has also been embraced by billions of muslims, Third World and African descended peoples across the globe; the government of the Ayattolah Khomeini was the first government in the world to issue a postage stamp bearing Malcolm's image. The United States government has since issued a commemorative Malcolm X stamp as well. Malcolm, in his role as a political emissary acting on his own accord, set the stage for the Black Panther Party and other Black revolutionaries in the United States that followed him who established their own political connections with governments in Africa and the Middle East, China, Cuba, and other parts of the Third World. Marable highlights the connections between Malcolm's legacy and such figures as Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, and Huey Newton.
Malcolm X's legacy as a leader in the struggle for civil and human rights in the United States is also clearly defined in the book. Marable draws Malcolm's image from under the shadow of Martin Luther King, that of the budding integrationist as defined in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and definitively articulates Malcolm's basic positions that held constant throughout his lifetime. That fundamental belief can be summarized as a belief that all people have a right to self-determination and can righteously act upon that right even to the point of violent struggle. The playwright Lorraine Hansberry, a friend of Malcolm's, articulated this position well in response to a question posed to her by a white student with regards to her position on civil rights. Hansberry told the student "we must argue, beg, petition, and shoot through the windows until we get what we justly deserve." This legacy of self-actualization is Malcolm X's present to the world. Manning Marable's biiography of this venerated, iconic figure is highly commendable and should be embraced by everyone.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Written by Ira Grupper
CCDS is greatly saddened by the news that Al Fishman of Detroit, Michigan, a life-long stalwart for peace and justice, died suddenly last week. Al served in many roles over decades of struggle. Among them, Al was state chair of the New Democratic Coalition of Michigan that supported the anti-war candidacy of Eugene McCarthy and opposed the U.S. war on Vietnam from 1966-71. He was a member of the National Board of Peace Action, a leader of Michigan Peace Action and a member of CCDS’ Peace and Solidarity Committee.
Al was a member of the Communist Party until he and hundreds of others left and formed the Committees of Correspondence in 1992. He was also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Al was also my co-worker at Wayne County Community College in Detroit in the early 1970s and a friend of nearly 40 years. He was also my dear comrade and mentor. It is fitting that he had a meeting arranged with Sen. Carl Levin’s office this week. He often arranged group meetings with elected officials pressing for nuclear disarmament, an end to U.S. wars of aggression and was relied upon in matters of the peace movement by a number of elected officials. Al and his wife of 60 years who survives him, Marge Fishman, were instrumental in the campaign to elect Detroit’s first African American Mayor, Coleman Young, in 1974.
Al will always be remembered for his clarity on two important issues of strategy for the peace movement: in order to make any significant advance for peace and justice, the two most important forces for change must be joined in the struggle - labor and the African American people’s movement for equality. And secondly, the widest possible front must be formed targeting the far right-wing, particularly in the electoral arena.
Al lived his life until his very last days with this mission at the fore. He had been at a Peace Action meeting the day before he suffered a massive heart attack, complaining about a pain in his knee. His fellow Peace Action members urged him to go to the doctor the next day, where he died.
It is hard for me to believe that Al is not with us anymore. I so treasured my visits back home in Detroit to spend the afternoon with he and Margaret around the kitchen table, going through a couple pots of coffee, discussing the movement in Detroit and the world – always with optimism and resolve. I will miss him so.
There will be a memorial for Al at the church renowned for its place in the peace and justice movement - Central Methodist Church in downtown Detroit, Friday, May 25th at 12:00 noon.
Al Fishman, Presente!
Al was a member of the Communist Party until he and hundreds of others left and formed the Committees of Correspondence in 1992. He was also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Al was also my co-worker at Wayne County Community College in Detroit in the early 1970s and a friend of nearly 40 years. He was also my dear comrade and mentor. It is fitting that he had a meeting arranged with Sen. Carl Levin’s office this week. He often arranged group meetings with elected officials pressing for nuclear disarmament, an end to U.S. wars of aggression and was relied upon in matters of the peace movement by a number of elected officials. Al and his wife of 60 years who survives him, Marge Fishman, were instrumental in the campaign to elect Detroit’s first African American Mayor, Coleman Young, in 1974.
Al will always be remembered for his clarity on two important issues of strategy for the peace movement: in order to make any significant advance for peace and justice, the two most important forces for change must be joined in the struggle - labor and the African American people’s movement for equality. And secondly, the widest possible front must be formed targeting the far right-wing, particularly in the electoral arena.
Al lived his life until his very last days with this mission at the fore. He had been at a Peace Action meeting the day before he suffered a massive heart attack, complaining about a pain in his knee. His fellow Peace Action members urged him to go to the doctor the next day, where he died.
It is hard for me to believe that Al is not with us anymore. I so treasured my visits back home in Detroit to spend the afternoon with he and Margaret around the kitchen table, going through a couple pots of coffee, discussing the movement in Detroit and the world – always with optimism and resolve. I will miss him so.
There will be a memorial for Al at the church renowned for its place in the peace and justice movement - Central Methodist Church in downtown Detroit, Friday, May 25th at 12:00 noon.
Al Fishman, Presente!
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
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