Selma Samols, PRESENTE!
Article in the National Lawyers Guild by David Gespass. Read here.
https://www.nlg.org/selma-samols-presente/
Article in the National Lawyers Guild by David Gespass. Read here.
https://www.nlg.org/selma-samols-presente/
DAVID ON TV!
David Gespass appeared on "The Attorneys" on Sunday, November 27 on WVTM, Channel 13
discussing prisoners' rights.
David Gespass appeared on "The Attorneys" on Sunday, November 27 on WVTM, Channel 13
discussing prisoners' rights.
"Motion to Resist" Podcasts
The National Lawyers Guild has announced a new, bi-monthly podcast, "Motion to Resist," featuring progressive legal analysis by lawyers, legal workers & students on the frontlines of our modern social justice movements. An interview with David is on this podcast link below, the second in the series, about the Panama Papers case. We urge our friends to check them all out.
http://motiontoresist.podbean.com/e/episode-2-the-untouchables/
The National Lawyers Guild has announced a new, bi-monthly podcast, "Motion to Resist," featuring progressive legal analysis by lawyers, legal workers & students on the frontlines of our modern social justice movements. An interview with David is on this podcast link below, the second in the series, about the Panama Papers case. We urge our friends to check them all out.
http://motiontoresist.podbean.com/e/episode-2-the-untouchables/
Lambda Legal: making the case for equality. Letter to Alabama Probate Judges Association
Please click the button below.
News Analysis
8/24/2014
Locals have no love for occupying armies, whether in Bagdad or Ferguson
by David Gespass
(This article first appeared on the website of the Military Law Task Force of The National Lawyers Guild
http://nlgmltf.org/military-law/2014/locals-have-no-love-for-occupying-armies-whether-in-bagdad-or-ferguson/)
After the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by a white cop, in the middle of a street in broad daylight — and the unexpected global outrage it provoked – the subsequent disproportional response by local law enforcement has made militarization of the police a hot topic that even the most tepid news organizations are recognizing.
Following decades of hyped “wars” on drugs and terror, the federal government got the ingenious idea of equipping local police departments with surplus weapons from the armed forces — presumably because they weren’t using them fast enough around the world and they were offered even more and better weapons by “defense” contractors. Surely, they reasoned, local constabularies could assist in protecting the citizenry from the twin scourges of drugs and terror with which we are at “war.” While this transfer of military equipment has been going on for many years now, the over-the-top police response to protests in Ferguson has shone a light on it and prompted questions about the wisdom of providing police departments with tanks, drones and other implements of (mass) destruction used for fighting actual wars.
Of course, there are a few examples of this mentality that pre-dates “the war on terror.” Even as far back as 1985, the Philadelphia police bombed the home of a local organization, MOVE, which may have presaged some of the problems that could arise with excessive weaponry. MOVE was not especially popular among the populace, but all united in outrage at the bombing.
But it’s only now that most news analysts and policymakers are noticing the rather predictable repercussions of arming local cops like a commando squad in a war zone: Departments with some very powerful new toys will find excuses to use them, because after all, once you are given a hammer, everything is a nail. But one reality about police use of heavy military equipment has gone largely undiscussed. It’s been cloaked by propagandistic news reports and almost universal glib praise for the skill and professionalism of America’s armed forces, but it’s something the MLTF and other groups have always known.
But let’s back up for some history, and expose a few of the many myths and tales about wars and warriors that have been perpetrated with increasing frequency since 9/11, because these are all part of the distorted world view that Americans are so prone to.
After the Vietnam War, the United States was hesitant to use military force. Antiwar demonstrations toppled the Johnson administration and GI resistance was at an all-time high. Subsequent presidents needed to tread very carefully, only engaging in military actions that engendered minimal danger to US troops. Thus, Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada and Bill Clinton used only air power in Serbia. At the same time, the draft was eliminated and the armed forces “professionalized.” Put another way, the armed forces were staffed with those who had few options for upward mobility. Children of privilege and wealth were pretty much exempted as the ranks were filled overwhelmingly by poor and working people who, while being told they were defending freedom and democracy were, in truth, defending US imperial interests.
One of the major myths involves the idea that the troops coming back from Vietnam encountered antagonism and scorn from the American public. Isolated instances of soldiers being cursed or spat upon are recounted as if they were pervasive. The proliferation of support from the antiwar movement to GI’s is ignored. This strategy accomplishes a number of goals. First, it discredits the antiwar movement even though it, almost alone, gave real support to returning troops. Second, it shields the government from attack for its abject failure to serve the needs of Vietnam vets, a failure that continues with today’s vets as well. The more the antiwar movement can be blamed for the suffering of Vietnam vets, the less culpable the real criminal, the US government, appears.
Finally, and this is where the recent militarization of the police comes in, this twisted history reinforces the myth that American service members are heroes defending and expanding freedom and democracy around the globe. This is not to denigrate the motives or idealism, however misguided, of individual members of the armed forces, but to contrast the image we are presented here at home with the reality that exists in the countries the US occupies. News reports are rife with stories of how American troops have built rapport with, and strengthened, local communities, while travesties like Abu Ghraib and murderous assaults are portrayed as the work of deranged individuals not representative of our men and women in uniform.
But across the country, in poor communities generally and poor communities of color in particular, police are now seen as an occupying force. Ferguson is a town whose population is two-thirds African-American and its police force is almost entirely white (its mayor notes it has a Hispanic and a couple of Asians, along with as many as four or five African-Americans). (On August 14 the Washington Post reported that this non-representation in local government departments and bodies is pervasive across the country.). In media reports, whites in Ferguson are quoted blaming the unrest and demonstrations on outsiders and praising the police and defending their action, but the African-American community sees things very differently. That community is the target of the militarized police in Ferguson. African-Americans there assumed Michael Brown’s death was unjustified because, in their experience, occupying forces do not respect fundamental rights.
Thus, poor communities of color across the country can empathize with people around the world who are the victims of US occupation. Dick Cheney notwithstanding, people in those countries do not see us as liberators, but as hostile invaders. In this country, police departments armed with military weapons are not parts of the communities they allegedly serve. Indeed, it was not very long ago that the concept of “community policing” attempted to change the adversarial dynamic between the police and poor communities. The infusion of military weaponry effectively ended any such possibility. The police, too, are invaders, serving not the community in which they operate but the well-heeled and privileged.
We can learn an important lesson from the sudden unpopularity of militarized police across the US, if we will but look: US forces around the world are not all that welcome, regardless of what we are told, just as police are not all that welcome when they enter communities in tanks and armored personnel carriers, regardless of what they claim.
US v. Apel: A Piece of Salami
3 April 2014 at 7:19 PM ETedited by Michael Muha
JURIST Guest Columnist David Gespass of Gespass and Johnson argues that the US Supreme Court should elevate substance over form and preserve freedom of speech...
© WikiMedia (user)
Government officials have learned, over many years, that the best way to restrict civil liberties is piecemeal. If one wants to take some salami without it being noticed, one takes a thin slice. Over time, with enough thin slices, the salami is gone. So, too, with our rights.
Take the following scenario. A single individual, who has been annoying authorities with peaceful protests chooses to demonstrate on a public road. He poses no threat and does not interfere with anyone engaged in any business. However, because of past acts involving alleged trespass, he is told that he cannot even protest on the public right-of-way. Relying on the First Amendment, he does and is prosecuted. Would that not seem, on its face, to violate one of our most fundamental rights, the right to free speech via public petitioning for redress of grievances? Is it credible that, in the US, courts would permit such a restriction? Of course, they would.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, our country was introduced to a new concept, "Free Speech Zones." Those were the places—usually out of sight and hearing of officials to whom protests were being directed—that the federal government designated for protesters to exercise their rights. During the Vietnam War, not to mention the Civil Rights Movement, no one would have dreamed of holding a march or demonstration that did not directly confront its target. Back then, everywhere from Canada to Mexico and the Atlantic to the Pacific, as well as Puerto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii, was a free speech zone. There were limited exceptions to that rule. Inside libraries, public schools and university classrooms when classes were in session and the steps of the US Supreme Court, as examples, were places where protests were not permitted. Places where one can protest are now becoming the exception and often require difficult, time-consuming and expensive litigation for their preservation.
Time was, we could picket outside grocery stores that sold grapes and lettuce picked by non-union labor. Now, they are located in shopping centers, which are deemed private property, the owners of which are free to exclude picketers. Indeed, as far back as 1946, in Marsh v. Alabama, the Supreme Court held that a town, Chickasaw, Alabama, owned by a private company but otherwise just like any other town, could not limit the exercise of people's constitutional rights within its borders. Now, even public lands are becoming, as it were, free speech free zones.
While the events of 9/11 accelerated the process, the changes did not happen all of a sudden. That day just allowed the government to slice off an unusually large piece of salami. But restrictions continue to mount up, and punishments for violating them become more severe, while too many of us are willing, as Ben Franklin feared, to sacrifice essential liberty for the illusion of security.
Which brings us back to where we began, with the case of one John Dennis Apel. He regularly protested at Vandenberg Air Force base in California, often getting in trouble with the base commander and, if the military is to be believed, trespassing onto secure base property. However, Vandenberg has two state roads running through it. They are maintained by the state of California for the use of the general public without restriction. There is an intersection which contains a middle school, a bus station and a visitor's center, as well as an area designated by the base commander for peaceful protest. Apel often, it would appear, left the designated area and was prosecuted for trespass. For his troubles, he eventually was completely barred from the base, including the road open to pretty much everyone else in the US.
He thereafter protested several times within the "free speech zone" the base commander had established, was arrested, prosecuted and, eventually, the case made its way to the US Supreme Court, perhaps not for the last time. A unanimous court found (PDF) that the base commander had jurisdiction over the entire base, including those roads made open to the public. It found Apel's argument that 18 U.S.C. § 1382, the statute making it a crime to enter a military installation after having been ordered not to, applied even to those parts of bases over which some other authority, such as the State of California, exercises jurisdiction. This was, it must be admitted, a pretty thin slice of salami. It is not unreasonable, at first blush, to conclude that every part of a military installation is under the jurisdiction of the base commander.
If one delves a bit deeper, however, even this restriction is troubling. The court chose to "decline Apel's invitation to require civilian judges to examine US military sites around the world, parcel by parcel," categorizing the claim as a some overwhelming task that our poor jurists are unable to undertake without giving up all hope of leisure or hearing other cases. In fact, all they were invited to do was to find that a public right-of-way is open to the public and that the members of the public who use it enjoy their constitutional rights while doing so. If there is one burden the US Supreme Court should gladly undertake, it is protecting and preserving rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
One ray of hope shone through in Justice Ruth Ginsburg's concurring opinion, which held that First Amendment considerations might still render the exclusion of Apel unconstitutional. Justice Samuel Alito cast a bit of a shadow over that ray by stating that it was not an issue before the court and, thus, there was no reason to comment on it. The ultimate outcome remains in doubt, but the underlying concern does not. Apel was ordered to stay off a public road and a "free speech" area, traversed daily by uncounted numbers of people unconnected with the US military because that road goes through a "military installation." It is by no means certain that his prosecution for engaging in protected speech in a designated area will be found unconstitutional. The trend, certainly, is not encouraging. The willingness of the court to ignore or, at least, defer to another day, the important, substantive issue of free speech and cling to the technical issue of whether a base commander has jurisdiction over a public thoroughfare running through the base is more than troubling. It reveals a US Supreme Court that prefers form over substance and is more and more willing to restrict constitutional rights not just on private lands, but now on public ones too. The specter we face is that the entire country, except for small, isolated little plots, will be, like the steps of the US Supreme Court, barren of dissent and protest in favor of presumed security and the zombie-like silence of sheep.
David Gespass is the immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild. In 1973 and 1974, he worked for the NLG Military Law Office in Yokosuka and Okinawa, Japan. After returning to the US, he was one of the founding members of the Military Law Task Force and continues to serve as a member of its steering committee.
Suggested citation: David Gespass, US v. Apel: A Piece of Salami, JURIST - Professional Commentary, Apr. 3, 2014, http://jurist.org/hotline/2014/04/david-gespass-free-speech-zone.php.
3 April 2014 at 7:19 PM ETedited by Michael Muha
JURIST Guest Columnist David Gespass of Gespass and Johnson argues that the US Supreme Court should elevate substance over form and preserve freedom of speech...
© WikiMedia (user)
Government officials have learned, over many years, that the best way to restrict civil liberties is piecemeal. If one wants to take some salami without it being noticed, one takes a thin slice. Over time, with enough thin slices, the salami is gone. So, too, with our rights.
Take the following scenario. A single individual, who has been annoying authorities with peaceful protests chooses to demonstrate on a public road. He poses no threat and does not interfere with anyone engaged in any business. However, because of past acts involving alleged trespass, he is told that he cannot even protest on the public right-of-way. Relying on the First Amendment, he does and is prosecuted. Would that not seem, on its face, to violate one of our most fundamental rights, the right to free speech via public petitioning for redress of grievances? Is it credible that, in the US, courts would permit such a restriction? Of course, they would.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, our country was introduced to a new concept, "Free Speech Zones." Those were the places—usually out of sight and hearing of officials to whom protests were being directed—that the federal government designated for protesters to exercise their rights. During the Vietnam War, not to mention the Civil Rights Movement, no one would have dreamed of holding a march or demonstration that did not directly confront its target. Back then, everywhere from Canada to Mexico and the Atlantic to the Pacific, as well as Puerto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii, was a free speech zone. There were limited exceptions to that rule. Inside libraries, public schools and university classrooms when classes were in session and the steps of the US Supreme Court, as examples, were places where protests were not permitted. Places where one can protest are now becoming the exception and often require difficult, time-consuming and expensive litigation for their preservation.
Time was, we could picket outside grocery stores that sold grapes and lettuce picked by non-union labor. Now, they are located in shopping centers, which are deemed private property, the owners of which are free to exclude picketers. Indeed, as far back as 1946, in Marsh v. Alabama, the Supreme Court held that a town, Chickasaw, Alabama, owned by a private company but otherwise just like any other town, could not limit the exercise of people's constitutional rights within its borders. Now, even public lands are becoming, as it were, free speech free zones.
While the events of 9/11 accelerated the process, the changes did not happen all of a sudden. That day just allowed the government to slice off an unusually large piece of salami. But restrictions continue to mount up, and punishments for violating them become more severe, while too many of us are willing, as Ben Franklin feared, to sacrifice essential liberty for the illusion of security.
Which brings us back to where we began, with the case of one John Dennis Apel. He regularly protested at Vandenberg Air Force base in California, often getting in trouble with the base commander and, if the military is to be believed, trespassing onto secure base property. However, Vandenberg has two state roads running through it. They are maintained by the state of California for the use of the general public without restriction. There is an intersection which contains a middle school, a bus station and a visitor's center, as well as an area designated by the base commander for peaceful protest. Apel often, it would appear, left the designated area and was prosecuted for trespass. For his troubles, he eventually was completely barred from the base, including the road open to pretty much everyone else in the US.
He thereafter protested several times within the "free speech zone" the base commander had established, was arrested, prosecuted and, eventually, the case made its way to the US Supreme Court, perhaps not for the last time. A unanimous court found (PDF) that the base commander had jurisdiction over the entire base, including those roads made open to the public. It found Apel's argument that 18 U.S.C. § 1382, the statute making it a crime to enter a military installation after having been ordered not to, applied even to those parts of bases over which some other authority, such as the State of California, exercises jurisdiction. This was, it must be admitted, a pretty thin slice of salami. It is not unreasonable, at first blush, to conclude that every part of a military installation is under the jurisdiction of the base commander.
If one delves a bit deeper, however, even this restriction is troubling. The court chose to "decline Apel's invitation to require civilian judges to examine US military sites around the world, parcel by parcel," categorizing the claim as a some overwhelming task that our poor jurists are unable to undertake without giving up all hope of leisure or hearing other cases. In fact, all they were invited to do was to find that a public right-of-way is open to the public and that the members of the public who use it enjoy their constitutional rights while doing so. If there is one burden the US Supreme Court should gladly undertake, it is protecting and preserving rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
One ray of hope shone through in Justice Ruth Ginsburg's concurring opinion, which held that First Amendment considerations might still render the exclusion of Apel unconstitutional. Justice Samuel Alito cast a bit of a shadow over that ray by stating that it was not an issue before the court and, thus, there was no reason to comment on it. The ultimate outcome remains in doubt, but the underlying concern does not. Apel was ordered to stay off a public road and a "free speech" area, traversed daily by uncounted numbers of people unconnected with the US military because that road goes through a "military installation." It is by no means certain that his prosecution for engaging in protected speech in a designated area will be found unconstitutional. The trend, certainly, is not encouraging. The willingness of the court to ignore or, at least, defer to another day, the important, substantive issue of free speech and cling to the technical issue of whether a base commander has jurisdiction over a public thoroughfare running through the base is more than troubling. It reveals a US Supreme Court that prefers form over substance and is more and more willing to restrict constitutional rights not just on private lands, but now on public ones too. The specter we face is that the entire country, except for small, isolated little plots, will be, like the steps of the US Supreme Court, barren of dissent and protest in favor of presumed security and the zombie-like silence of sheep.
David Gespass is the immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild. In 1973 and 1974, he worked for the NLG Military Law Office in Yokosuka and Okinawa, Japan. After returning to the US, he was one of the founding members of the Military Law Task Force and continues to serve as a member of its steering committee.
Suggested citation: David Gespass, US v. Apel: A Piece of Salami, JURIST - Professional Commentary, Apr. 3, 2014, http://jurist.org/hotline/2014/04/david-gespass-free-speech-zone.php.
Hugo Chávez: Gone for a Year, But Still Looming Large
March 4, 2014
by David Gespass, NLG Past President
A year after the death of Hugo Chávez is a propitious time to examine his legacy. Such an examination is even more important in light of the current wave of demonstrations in Venezuela, which have given new life to the transparent attempts of the opposition and the United States to depose the Bolivarian government. These demonstrations appear to be organized by an especially violent and reactionary sector of the opposition, seeking overthrow rather than democratic change. The more covert history of US attempts at “regime change” is detailed by Eva Golinger in her book, The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela which, while focusing on Venezuela, reveals the true global aims of the US Agency for International Development. The current US strategy is discussed by Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research at CounterPunch.
The National Lawyers Guild has had a long camaraderie with the Venezuelan people and representatives of the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela. Our first delegation visited in 2006 and, since then, at least four others have accompanied various elections. One of the great privileges I enjoyed as NLG president was being afforded the opportunity to visit twice to accompany the opposition primary and the presidential elections in 2012. Notably – contrary to what one might hear in this country – the opposition did have primary elections, which were run quite smoothly by the National Electoral Council (CNE). Over the years, the Guild has been honored with the presence of representatives of the Bolivarian government, including Supreme Court judge Fernando Ramón Vegas Torrealba and the head of its CNE, Tibisay Lucena. Thus, while my personal experience in Venezuela is limited to its electoral process, my understanding of the Bolivarian government is, through the Guild and other sources, much broader. Both are worth considering, particularly in the face of the unrelenting criticisms of the Venezuelan government coming from official United States sources and the bourgeois media here. It is worth exploring why so much energy and resources are devoted to attacking a tiny South American country which, despite its oil wealth, would not at first blush appear critical to the US empire’s strategic interests.
ELECTIONS
I have participated, as an observer or supervisor, in elections in Bosnia, Croatia, Armenia and Macedonia, as well as Venezuela. My wife, who also accompanied the opposition primary election, has vastly more election experience than I. And those we worked with in the Venezuelan elections included election officials from throughout Latin America and the world. The virtually unanimous opinion of all is that Venezuela has the most sophisticated and accurate vote-tallying system in the world. Voters are able to verify their vote before they are finally logged in to the computers and paper receipts of each ballot are retained. Half the polling stations do a hand count of the receipts to verify they correspond to the computer-tabulated count. The entire process is run by the CNE, a separate branch of government responsible only to ensure that balloting is free and fair (by contrast, elections in the fifty states are run by the various secretaries of state, who ascend to their positions through partisan elections and often inject that partisanship in the conduct of future elections). While Ms. Lucena, a graduate of the New School in New York City, is a member of Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela, those who work for the CNE are well-trained professionals dedicated to insuring the election process is free, fair and transparent.
Over the years, the process has improved as electoral accompaniers have observed and reported on problems and made suggestions. The CNE has seriously considered suggestions – ranging from ways to insure the privacy of each vote to providing chairs and other assistance for disabled voters waiting in line – to make sure that the process affords every Venezuelan the opportunity to exercise the franchise. In Venezuela (and pretty much everywhere else), one must present an identification card to be allowed to vote. The difference, however, between the way in which voter identification has been used there and the discriminatory way it is being used in the United States, is that the CNE goes to extraordinary lengths to insure that every eligible citizen has ID. Rather than requiring voters to travel to courthouses or other locations, the CNE goes to the voters. Voter registration in Venezuela is almost universal and turnout routinely exceeds 80% of eligible voters.
When Chávez was alive, the US continually criticized him for monopolizing the national media and preventing access to it by his opponents, as if any sitting chief executive in this country, whether a president or governor, does not use the office to enhance his reelection prospects and the future prospects of his party. I was only in Venezuela immediately before and during the actual voting, so I do not have personal knowledge of the entire process and whether opposition parties were restricted in their ability to campaign effectively. However, the CNE brought opposition representatives as well as reporters and academics to speak to us about the process. They did so freely and expressed both their concerns and their confidence in the voting process itself. It is also worth noting that if the government controls the public media in Venezuela, the opposition dominates the private media, which continues to operate despite the fact that it was instrumental in organizing and promoting the abortive coup in 2002. That is to say, the private media that is still operating today in Venezuela committed treason more than a decade ago. Yet it continues to account for the vast majority of media outlets and viewership served.
One of the more revealing exchanges I recall was prior to the election, when we visited a polling station and spoke with the Chavista and opposition representatives there (party observers are present at every polling station in the country and are not shy about expressing their opinions). The Chavista expressed confidence in the outcome but, when asked what would happen if Chávez lost, simply shrugged and said, “Then we’ll be the opposition.” Both men had complete confidence in the fairness of the election process itself and real pride in it. The final point they made while shaking hands was that, despite their political differences, the most important thing was that they were “both Venezuelans.” It should be emphasized that the accompaniers had complete freedom to speak with whomever they wished and ask whatever they wanted.
THE CHÁVEZ LEGACY
One of the reasons the fairness of the electoral process in Venezuela is of such significance is that a critical component of the socialist experiment in Venezuela is its commitment to democracy (Hugo Chávez’s early coup attempt was unsuccessful, but the validity of his repeated election victories is undeniable). Certainly, he used his position, as well as his charisma, to advocate strongly for changes he wanted to see, but he never imposed them on an unwilling population. Indeed, that is the course that has, from time to time, been followed by the opposition with the backing of the US government with money, expertise and political pressure. Parenthetically, earlier today I learned of the death of Chokwe Lumumba who, like Chávez, was committed to both revolutionary change and democratic processes. He, like Chávez, believed that poor people, alienated from the usual political battles between representatives of one or another billionaire faction. Both proved that validity of that belief in practice.
The adoption of the Bolivarian constitution was carried out with massive popular participation and then adopted by popular vote. When a referendum defeated a proposal to eliminate term limits for various elective offices in 2007, Chávez did not impose a change from above as, for example, Michael Bloomberg did in New York City. He went back to work to convince the people to adopt it and, in 2009 succeeded with a second referendum.
Every step of the Bolivarian revolution has included the entire population. The changes may not be as sweeping as they might have been if the party in power simply ruled by decree as has happened with prior socialist experiments, but the changes have the benefit of genuine support following free and open debate, thereby enhancing the likelihood of permanence. The change can be seen, in fact, by the nature of the Venezuelan opposition. In this country, the political center has moved so far to the right that so-called “liberal” politicians, including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, are well to the right, on pretty much all matters economic, of such past Republican stalwarts as Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, if not Ronald Reagan himself. By contrast, the opposition candidate on the last two elections, Henrique Capriles Radonski, has campaigned on a populist platform of preserving many of the Bolivarian reforms, with the claim that he will make corrections that will address the undeniable and longstanding problems of crime and poverty that Venezuela has not yet solved. In the United States, he would be a liberal, but not in Venezuela. Despite his “liberalism,” the US prefers him to Chávez.
All of which brings me back to the question of why Venezuela is so important to the United States. Why, for example, did it question the results of President Maduro’s election while recognizing without question the legitimacy of a flawed election in Honduras (see the Truthout article by Guild colleagues Lauren Karasik, Susan Scott and Azadeh Shashahani here.)? Why did it, and all the bourgeois US media, to their great embarrassment and everlasting shame, recognize the “government” established after the 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt that crumbled within two days? Why is tiny Venezuela such a threat to what every US politician claims to be the greatest nation in the history of the universe?
Hugo Chávez did not just change the direction of Venezuela; he was a driving force behind the changes Latin America has seen in recent years towards independence from US domination. Other Latin American countries have not traveled the same political path as has Venezuela, but they have veered far from the path of the “Monroe Doctrine,” towards independence and democracy. President Zelaya of Honduras began the process and was overthrown in a coup, which the United States criticized with little vigor for a few days before recognizing the new, illegitimate government. But elsewhere, those changes have been more permanent. In Brazil, the Workers’ Party of Lula da Silva and now, Dilma Rousseff, has held power for more than a decade. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first president of indigenous ancestry, is charting a new direction there. In opposition to US aims and policy, the Mercosur countries of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuelacondemned the current attempts at destabilization by the opposition in Venezuela.
Just as Cuba has been the target of a vicious and unlawful US blockade for decades, because of the ideological threat it poses to the United States – despite its insignificance as an economic threat – so too is Venezuela now in the crosshairs of US foreign policy. Because of its oil wealth, it is a bit less vulnerable than Cuba but, at the same time, a greater danger to US domination. And it now has allies throughout the Americas. It is notable that, in the United Nations system, the US and Canada are part of Europe rather than the Americas. Nevertheless, the US sees this hemisphere as subject to its dominance (okay, it sees the whole world that way, but ever since James Monroe the Americas are particularly seen as being within its sphere of influence). Whatever happens to the Bolivarian revolutionary experiment, however far it goes, to whatever extent it succeeds, Hugo Chávez will always be remembered for his role in bringing together Latin America in opposition to US imperial domination. The Bolivarian experiment is ongoing and it is yet to be the degree of its success. So, too, the history of Chavez’s contributions to the advancement of human rights has yet to be determined, much less written. It is nevertheless certain that those contributions are substantial. It is their degree, not the fact they have been made, that remains to be seen.
Postscript: The NLG International Committee’s Task Force on the Americas has numerous reports from delegations to various Latin American countries.
March 4, 2014
by David Gespass, NLG Past President
A year after the death of Hugo Chávez is a propitious time to examine his legacy. Such an examination is even more important in light of the current wave of demonstrations in Venezuela, which have given new life to the transparent attempts of the opposition and the United States to depose the Bolivarian government. These demonstrations appear to be organized by an especially violent and reactionary sector of the opposition, seeking overthrow rather than democratic change. The more covert history of US attempts at “regime change” is detailed by Eva Golinger in her book, The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela which, while focusing on Venezuela, reveals the true global aims of the US Agency for International Development. The current US strategy is discussed by Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research at CounterPunch.
The National Lawyers Guild has had a long camaraderie with the Venezuelan people and representatives of the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela. Our first delegation visited in 2006 and, since then, at least four others have accompanied various elections. One of the great privileges I enjoyed as NLG president was being afforded the opportunity to visit twice to accompany the opposition primary and the presidential elections in 2012. Notably – contrary to what one might hear in this country – the opposition did have primary elections, which were run quite smoothly by the National Electoral Council (CNE). Over the years, the Guild has been honored with the presence of representatives of the Bolivarian government, including Supreme Court judge Fernando Ramón Vegas Torrealba and the head of its CNE, Tibisay Lucena. Thus, while my personal experience in Venezuela is limited to its electoral process, my understanding of the Bolivarian government is, through the Guild and other sources, much broader. Both are worth considering, particularly in the face of the unrelenting criticisms of the Venezuelan government coming from official United States sources and the bourgeois media here. It is worth exploring why so much energy and resources are devoted to attacking a tiny South American country which, despite its oil wealth, would not at first blush appear critical to the US empire’s strategic interests.
ELECTIONS
I have participated, as an observer or supervisor, in elections in Bosnia, Croatia, Armenia and Macedonia, as well as Venezuela. My wife, who also accompanied the opposition primary election, has vastly more election experience than I. And those we worked with in the Venezuelan elections included election officials from throughout Latin America and the world. The virtually unanimous opinion of all is that Venezuela has the most sophisticated and accurate vote-tallying system in the world. Voters are able to verify their vote before they are finally logged in to the computers and paper receipts of each ballot are retained. Half the polling stations do a hand count of the receipts to verify they correspond to the computer-tabulated count. The entire process is run by the CNE, a separate branch of government responsible only to ensure that balloting is free and fair (by contrast, elections in the fifty states are run by the various secretaries of state, who ascend to their positions through partisan elections and often inject that partisanship in the conduct of future elections). While Ms. Lucena, a graduate of the New School in New York City, is a member of Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela, those who work for the CNE are well-trained professionals dedicated to insuring the election process is free, fair and transparent.
Over the years, the process has improved as electoral accompaniers have observed and reported on problems and made suggestions. The CNE has seriously considered suggestions – ranging from ways to insure the privacy of each vote to providing chairs and other assistance for disabled voters waiting in line – to make sure that the process affords every Venezuelan the opportunity to exercise the franchise. In Venezuela (and pretty much everywhere else), one must present an identification card to be allowed to vote. The difference, however, between the way in which voter identification has been used there and the discriminatory way it is being used in the United States, is that the CNE goes to extraordinary lengths to insure that every eligible citizen has ID. Rather than requiring voters to travel to courthouses or other locations, the CNE goes to the voters. Voter registration in Venezuela is almost universal and turnout routinely exceeds 80% of eligible voters.
When Chávez was alive, the US continually criticized him for monopolizing the national media and preventing access to it by his opponents, as if any sitting chief executive in this country, whether a president or governor, does not use the office to enhance his reelection prospects and the future prospects of his party. I was only in Venezuela immediately before and during the actual voting, so I do not have personal knowledge of the entire process and whether opposition parties were restricted in their ability to campaign effectively. However, the CNE brought opposition representatives as well as reporters and academics to speak to us about the process. They did so freely and expressed both their concerns and their confidence in the voting process itself. It is also worth noting that if the government controls the public media in Venezuela, the opposition dominates the private media, which continues to operate despite the fact that it was instrumental in organizing and promoting the abortive coup in 2002. That is to say, the private media that is still operating today in Venezuela committed treason more than a decade ago. Yet it continues to account for the vast majority of media outlets and viewership served.
One of the more revealing exchanges I recall was prior to the election, when we visited a polling station and spoke with the Chavista and opposition representatives there (party observers are present at every polling station in the country and are not shy about expressing their opinions). The Chavista expressed confidence in the outcome but, when asked what would happen if Chávez lost, simply shrugged and said, “Then we’ll be the opposition.” Both men had complete confidence in the fairness of the election process itself and real pride in it. The final point they made while shaking hands was that, despite their political differences, the most important thing was that they were “both Venezuelans.” It should be emphasized that the accompaniers had complete freedom to speak with whomever they wished and ask whatever they wanted.
THE CHÁVEZ LEGACY
One of the reasons the fairness of the electoral process in Venezuela is of such significance is that a critical component of the socialist experiment in Venezuela is its commitment to democracy (Hugo Chávez’s early coup attempt was unsuccessful, but the validity of his repeated election victories is undeniable). Certainly, he used his position, as well as his charisma, to advocate strongly for changes he wanted to see, but he never imposed them on an unwilling population. Indeed, that is the course that has, from time to time, been followed by the opposition with the backing of the US government with money, expertise and political pressure. Parenthetically, earlier today I learned of the death of Chokwe Lumumba who, like Chávez, was committed to both revolutionary change and democratic processes. He, like Chávez, believed that poor people, alienated from the usual political battles between representatives of one or another billionaire faction. Both proved that validity of that belief in practice.
The adoption of the Bolivarian constitution was carried out with massive popular participation and then adopted by popular vote. When a referendum defeated a proposal to eliminate term limits for various elective offices in 2007, Chávez did not impose a change from above as, for example, Michael Bloomberg did in New York City. He went back to work to convince the people to adopt it and, in 2009 succeeded with a second referendum.
Every step of the Bolivarian revolution has included the entire population. The changes may not be as sweeping as they might have been if the party in power simply ruled by decree as has happened with prior socialist experiments, but the changes have the benefit of genuine support following free and open debate, thereby enhancing the likelihood of permanence. The change can be seen, in fact, by the nature of the Venezuelan opposition. In this country, the political center has moved so far to the right that so-called “liberal” politicians, including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, are well to the right, on pretty much all matters economic, of such past Republican stalwarts as Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, if not Ronald Reagan himself. By contrast, the opposition candidate on the last two elections, Henrique Capriles Radonski, has campaigned on a populist platform of preserving many of the Bolivarian reforms, with the claim that he will make corrections that will address the undeniable and longstanding problems of crime and poverty that Venezuela has not yet solved. In the United States, he would be a liberal, but not in Venezuela. Despite his “liberalism,” the US prefers him to Chávez.
All of which brings me back to the question of why Venezuela is so important to the United States. Why, for example, did it question the results of President Maduro’s election while recognizing without question the legitimacy of a flawed election in Honduras (see the Truthout article by Guild colleagues Lauren Karasik, Susan Scott and Azadeh Shashahani here.)? Why did it, and all the bourgeois US media, to their great embarrassment and everlasting shame, recognize the “government” established after the 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt that crumbled within two days? Why is tiny Venezuela such a threat to what every US politician claims to be the greatest nation in the history of the universe?
Hugo Chávez did not just change the direction of Venezuela; he was a driving force behind the changes Latin America has seen in recent years towards independence from US domination. Other Latin American countries have not traveled the same political path as has Venezuela, but they have veered far from the path of the “Monroe Doctrine,” towards independence and democracy. President Zelaya of Honduras began the process and was overthrown in a coup, which the United States criticized with little vigor for a few days before recognizing the new, illegitimate government. But elsewhere, those changes have been more permanent. In Brazil, the Workers’ Party of Lula da Silva and now, Dilma Rousseff, has held power for more than a decade. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first president of indigenous ancestry, is charting a new direction there. In opposition to US aims and policy, the Mercosur countries of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuelacondemned the current attempts at destabilization by the opposition in Venezuela.
Just as Cuba has been the target of a vicious and unlawful US blockade for decades, because of the ideological threat it poses to the United States – despite its insignificance as an economic threat – so too is Venezuela now in the crosshairs of US foreign policy. Because of its oil wealth, it is a bit less vulnerable than Cuba but, at the same time, a greater danger to US domination. And it now has allies throughout the Americas. It is notable that, in the United Nations system, the US and Canada are part of Europe rather than the Americas. Nevertheless, the US sees this hemisphere as subject to its dominance (okay, it sees the whole world that way, but ever since James Monroe the Americas are particularly seen as being within its sphere of influence). Whatever happens to the Bolivarian revolutionary experiment, however far it goes, to whatever extent it succeeds, Hugo Chávez will always be remembered for his role in bringing together Latin America in opposition to US imperial domination. The Bolivarian experiment is ongoing and it is yet to be the degree of its success. So, too, the history of Chavez’s contributions to the advancement of human rights has yet to be determined, much less written. It is nevertheless certain that those contributions are substantial. It is their degree, not the fact they have been made, that remains to be seen.
Postscript: The NLG International Committee’s Task Force on the Americas has numerous reports from delegations to various Latin American countries.
Losing Chokwe Lumumba
February 26, 2014
by David Gespass, NLG Past President
We are deeply saddened by the sudden and untimely death of Chokwe Lumumba, who lived a genuinely revolutionary life providing guidance to, and taking direction from, the poor, oppressed and disenfranchised. Chokwe proved that one does not have to abandon principles to be successful in politics, that it is possible to rally people alienated from the two major political parties and rouse them to action. Speaking to the needs and aspirations of poor African-Americans instead of taking money from the city’s power brokers, Chokwe was elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.
He held office for only a few months, and we now inherit the obligation to fulfill the deep promise embodied by his election: the responsibility to advance the interests of what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the masses and not the classes,” to strive toward a government that expands human rights and democracy – prevailing even in a country where elections are suffocating with money.
Chokwe persuaded Jackson voters to pass a sales tax by referendum relying on the wisdom of his constituents and the democratic process. The people did so, no doubt, because they knew the money raised would rightfully benefit the city’s residents rather than line the pockets of its bankers. We will take a moment today to mourn, but the best way to honor Chokwe’s memory is for us all to heed Joe Hill’s admonition to organize. No individual can replace him. But collectively, we can advance all he stood for. Indeed, if he stood for anything, it was that we make progress not on the backs of individuals, but through the kind of organized, collective effort represented by his iconic election.
February 26, 2014
by David Gespass, NLG Past President
We are deeply saddened by the sudden and untimely death of Chokwe Lumumba, who lived a genuinely revolutionary life providing guidance to, and taking direction from, the poor, oppressed and disenfranchised. Chokwe proved that one does not have to abandon principles to be successful in politics, that it is possible to rally people alienated from the two major political parties and rouse them to action. Speaking to the needs and aspirations of poor African-Americans instead of taking money from the city’s power brokers, Chokwe was elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.
He held office for only a few months, and we now inherit the obligation to fulfill the deep promise embodied by his election: the responsibility to advance the interests of what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the masses and not the classes,” to strive toward a government that expands human rights and democracy – prevailing even in a country where elections are suffocating with money.
Chokwe persuaded Jackson voters to pass a sales tax by referendum relying on the wisdom of his constituents and the democratic process. The people did so, no doubt, because they knew the money raised would rightfully benefit the city’s residents rather than line the pockets of its bankers. We will take a moment today to mourn, but the best way to honor Chokwe’s memory is for us all to heed Joe Hill’s admonition to organize. No individual can replace him. But collectively, we can advance all he stood for. Indeed, if he stood for anything, it was that we make progress not on the backs of individuals, but through the kind of organized, collective effort represented by his iconic election.
Job Creationism: The Myth of the Entrepreneur as God
By David Gespass
(This article first appeared on Truthout, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21643-job-creationism-the-myth-of-the-entrepreneur-as-god)
The State of the Union Address from President Obama, and the reactions to it, were sadly predictable. Take, for example, the issue of the economy and "getting America back to work," a refrain we have been hearing for a decade during which corporate profits and CEO salaries have exploded, not enough jobs exist for all those seeking work and millions who are employed are still destitute. Parenthetically, the chauvinist conceit of referring to the United States as "America," thereby consigning Canada and every country in Central and South America to nonexistence, is a matter for a separate article.
What did the president have to say about jobs? "An entrepreneur flipped on the lights in her tech startup, and did her part to add to the more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years. An autoworker fine-tuned some of the best, most fuel-efficient cars in the world, and did his part to help America wean itself off foreign oil... Let's do more to help the entrepreneurs and small business owners who create most new jobs in America." He, of course, emphasized the apparent moral imperative that anyone who works full time should make enough to be part of the "middle class," whatever that is (also the subject of another article).
Responses from the Republican Party similarly provided nothing new. Before the speech, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that he would host local leaders and "job creators" hurt by the president's decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline extension as his guests in the House gallery. Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole said, "The president called for a 'Year of Action,' and certainly the country would like to see reforms that benefit the American people. That's why the House of Representatives has passed dozens of bills that would benefit job creators, bring new jobs and improve the workforce." Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst proclaimed, "Rather than further increase the tax and regulatory burden on job creators as (the president) proposed, he should take a page out of the playbook for the Texas Miracle and cut taxes, slash spending and reduce the regulations that kill jobs." Tennessee Congresswoman Diane Black chimed in by declaring that "instead of approving commonsense energy projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, this administration has saddled job creators with red tape and over-regulation." Indiana Congresswoman Susan Brooks summed up the GOP's view by asserting that Obama's proposals "will impose unfair burdens on job creators and the hardworking Americans they employ."
Both "sides" of this discussion embrace business owners and entrepreneurs as "job creators," a term created by the Republican propaganda machine to justify lowering taxes on the super-rich. They embrace - and do all they can to sell us on - the notion that these people have magical powers. They "flip on the lights" and, miraculously, jobs bubble to the surface from the black hole of unemployment. They do Zeus many better. All that could spring fully formed from his forehead was Athena, but jobs spring from these gods one after the other, fully formed and begging to be filled. All these selfless creatures seek in return is to be let alone so they may wave their wands of creationism freely.
The joint emphasis on owners of capitalist enterprises as the source of jobs reflects both political parties' dependence on contributions from rich donors and turns the relationship of employees and employers on its head. Or, more precisely, it reflects a way of looking at the world that seeks to preserve current economic relationships as natural and inevitable, which is akin to looking through a telescope from the wrong end.
During Europe's feudal period, kings and their sycophants, who controlled the media of the day, proclaimed that they ruled by "divine right." Their "subjects" were conditioned to believe they were necessarily subjects because the kings were born as kings. It took centuries, but eventually those erstwhile subjects realized that kings remained kings only because they viewed themselves as subjects. When they recognized that monarchy was not the natural or inevitable order of things, the reigns of the kings - and, indeed, the entire feudal system - were doomed.
Similarly, we should question the idea that business owners, especially transnational corporations, are "job creators." They do not create jobs, they hire employees in pursuit of profit. If they do not anticipate making money from the labor of their employees, they will refrain from "creating" any jobs. If they can make greater profit by laying off employees, they will not hesitate to do so. Just as his subjects were conditioned to view the feudal system from the point of view that benefitted the king, so too are employees today conditioned to look at our economic system from the point of view of the bosses. But if we look at the same system from the point of view of employees, their bosses are not job creators, they - the employees - are wealth producers. They make profits for their employers. They are not employed because of the beneficence of business owners and entrepreneurs, but because those business owners and entrepreneurs expect to profit from their sweat and skill - and when they stop making profits, they will be out of work.
Sam Walton did not make Walmart what it is today. That is not to say that he never worked hard, though his family has no need to any more. Rather, it was the hard work of the millions of employees being paid starvation wages, many of whom are now dependent on government benefits to survive, that enriched the Waltons. The debate in Congress is, of course, over how much those benefits should be cut, while no consideration is given to reducing benefits enjoyed by transnational corporations or their owners.
Nor do Donald Thompson, McDonald's CEO, or Daniel Schwartz and Bernard Hees of Burger King produce the profits that pay them their astronomical salaries. Those salaries - and the dividends paid to shareholders - are the product of the work of thefast-food workers who, if they are fortunate, can barely pay for the basic necessities of life.
Looked at from the point of view of the workers, the idea of increasing the minimum wage is not a question of whether or not it is a good policy, or whether "imposing" such a requirement on business owners unduly burdens them. Nor is it, as the Democrats would have it, simply the right thing to do for fellow human beings, although it is surely that. What neither party is willing to say it that it is a matter of justice and right because, but for those workers, the presumed "job creators" would themselves be starving. They are imposed upon by being forced to enrich their bosses while barely managing to subsist. Few are saying it today, but the old Wobbly hymn said it clearly:
It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid,
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made.
The nature of work and the kinds of jobs to be found in the United States may have changed, but that fundamental truth remains. Owners are not job creators, their employees are wealth producers.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
DAVID GESPASS
David Gespass is a lawyer in practice in Birmingham, Alabama, and immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild.
(This article first appeared on Truthout, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21643-job-creationism-the-myth-of-the-entrepreneur-as-god)
The State of the Union Address from President Obama, and the reactions to it, were sadly predictable. Take, for example, the issue of the economy and "getting America back to work," a refrain we have been hearing for a decade during which corporate profits and CEO salaries have exploded, not enough jobs exist for all those seeking work and millions who are employed are still destitute. Parenthetically, the chauvinist conceit of referring to the United States as "America," thereby consigning Canada and every country in Central and South America to nonexistence, is a matter for a separate article.
What did the president have to say about jobs? "An entrepreneur flipped on the lights in her tech startup, and did her part to add to the more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years. An autoworker fine-tuned some of the best, most fuel-efficient cars in the world, and did his part to help America wean itself off foreign oil... Let's do more to help the entrepreneurs and small business owners who create most new jobs in America." He, of course, emphasized the apparent moral imperative that anyone who works full time should make enough to be part of the "middle class," whatever that is (also the subject of another article).
Responses from the Republican Party similarly provided nothing new. Before the speech, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that he would host local leaders and "job creators" hurt by the president's decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline extension as his guests in the House gallery. Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole said, "The president called for a 'Year of Action,' and certainly the country would like to see reforms that benefit the American people. That's why the House of Representatives has passed dozens of bills that would benefit job creators, bring new jobs and improve the workforce." Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst proclaimed, "Rather than further increase the tax and regulatory burden on job creators as (the president) proposed, he should take a page out of the playbook for the Texas Miracle and cut taxes, slash spending and reduce the regulations that kill jobs." Tennessee Congresswoman Diane Black chimed in by declaring that "instead of approving commonsense energy projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, this administration has saddled job creators with red tape and over-regulation." Indiana Congresswoman Susan Brooks summed up the GOP's view by asserting that Obama's proposals "will impose unfair burdens on job creators and the hardworking Americans they employ."
Both "sides" of this discussion embrace business owners and entrepreneurs as "job creators," a term created by the Republican propaganda machine to justify lowering taxes on the super-rich. They embrace - and do all they can to sell us on - the notion that these people have magical powers. They "flip on the lights" and, miraculously, jobs bubble to the surface from the black hole of unemployment. They do Zeus many better. All that could spring fully formed from his forehead was Athena, but jobs spring from these gods one after the other, fully formed and begging to be filled. All these selfless creatures seek in return is to be let alone so they may wave their wands of creationism freely.
The joint emphasis on owners of capitalist enterprises as the source of jobs reflects both political parties' dependence on contributions from rich donors and turns the relationship of employees and employers on its head. Or, more precisely, it reflects a way of looking at the world that seeks to preserve current economic relationships as natural and inevitable, which is akin to looking through a telescope from the wrong end.
During Europe's feudal period, kings and their sycophants, who controlled the media of the day, proclaimed that they ruled by "divine right." Their "subjects" were conditioned to believe they were necessarily subjects because the kings were born as kings. It took centuries, but eventually those erstwhile subjects realized that kings remained kings only because they viewed themselves as subjects. When they recognized that monarchy was not the natural or inevitable order of things, the reigns of the kings - and, indeed, the entire feudal system - were doomed.
Similarly, we should question the idea that business owners, especially transnational corporations, are "job creators." They do not create jobs, they hire employees in pursuit of profit. If they do not anticipate making money from the labor of their employees, they will refrain from "creating" any jobs. If they can make greater profit by laying off employees, they will not hesitate to do so. Just as his subjects were conditioned to view the feudal system from the point of view that benefitted the king, so too are employees today conditioned to look at our economic system from the point of view of the bosses. But if we look at the same system from the point of view of employees, their bosses are not job creators, they - the employees - are wealth producers. They make profits for their employers. They are not employed because of the beneficence of business owners and entrepreneurs, but because those business owners and entrepreneurs expect to profit from their sweat and skill - and when they stop making profits, they will be out of work.
Sam Walton did not make Walmart what it is today. That is not to say that he never worked hard, though his family has no need to any more. Rather, it was the hard work of the millions of employees being paid starvation wages, many of whom are now dependent on government benefits to survive, that enriched the Waltons. The debate in Congress is, of course, over how much those benefits should be cut, while no consideration is given to reducing benefits enjoyed by transnational corporations or their owners.
Nor do Donald Thompson, McDonald's CEO, or Daniel Schwartz and Bernard Hees of Burger King produce the profits that pay them their astronomical salaries. Those salaries - and the dividends paid to shareholders - are the product of the work of thefast-food workers who, if they are fortunate, can barely pay for the basic necessities of life.
Looked at from the point of view of the workers, the idea of increasing the minimum wage is not a question of whether or not it is a good policy, or whether "imposing" such a requirement on business owners unduly burdens them. Nor is it, as the Democrats would have it, simply the right thing to do for fellow human beings, although it is surely that. What neither party is willing to say it that it is a matter of justice and right because, but for those workers, the presumed "job creators" would themselves be starving. They are imposed upon by being forced to enrich their bosses while barely managing to subsist. Few are saying it today, but the old Wobbly hymn said it clearly:
It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid,
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made.
The nature of work and the kinds of jobs to be found in the United States may have changed, but that fundamental truth remains. Owners are not job creators, their employees are wealth producers.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
DAVID GESPASS
David Gespass is a lawyer in practice in Birmingham, Alabama, and immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild.
The Bradley Manning Case
by David Gespass
(This article appeared on the National Lawyers Guild blog)
by David Gespass
(This article appeared on the National Lawyers Guild blog)
Today, although he was acquitted of aiding the enemy, Bradley Manning was found guilty of five counts of violating the Espionage Act. It has long been said that military justice is to justice what military music is to music, but Manning’s prosecution has failed to clear that low bar. Since his arrest in 2010 and the long road to his court martial, the government has perverted the values it claims to represent and made a mockery of its military justice system. The case has been a travesty since it began. Manning was tortured, held for years before trial, and overcharged. While the process of “justice” for Bradley Manning will proceed through the sentencing phase and appeals process—along with continued advocacy for a full pardon and release—it’s a good time to reflect on the most egregious of the government’s sins thus far.
On July 21, the New York Times reported that accused sexual predators in military service are claiming unlawful command influence because President Obama declared that anyone who committed a sexual assault should be punished and "dishonorably discharged" from military service. He did not name names. He accused no individual of a being guilty of any crime yet, the Times says, his statement will complicate prosecutions and render convictions more difficult.
When it came to Bradley Manning, however, Obama declared him guilty before he was even charged, at a time he was in "detention," solitary confinement with no clothes, little contact with other human beings, no intellectual stimuli and presumably presumed innocent.
So the first question to be asked in the wake of Manning's conviction is why he should not be accorded the same rights as rapists. Why did the Times not question potential command influence when the commander in chief declared Bradley Manning—not some nameless future defendant—guilty? Was it possible for any subordinate to ignore that presidential proclamation when rendering a verdict? Some credit must be accorded the judge who acquitted him of at least some charges, but that only demonstrates just how extreme the charges were.
That is not all that is questionable about the case. Recently, Eric Holder had to promise Russia that if Edward Snowden is returned to the United States, he will not face execution or torture. Snowden's fear is well-founded, not just because of Abu Ghraib, but because of Bradley Manning, who suffered months of torture, defended by Obama. There was a time in the not too distant past when the treatment Manning suffered through would have led to dismissal of the charges against him and condemnation of the prosecution by the courts and media. Now, it appears, the United States no longer has any shame and is more than willing to sacrifice what it proclaims to be our fundamental principles at the altar of security.
Obama came to office promising the most transparent administration ever. He claims that we need an open and frank discussion of what the government should be able to do to protect ourselves from threats, but did so only after its secret operations were exposed. And he aggressively prosecutes those whose actions give rise to the questions he claims should be answered through a national debate.
Hypocrisy and criminality are rife in the United States government and, in its eyes, the worst criminals are those who expose such evils. Among the many documents Manning released, for example, was the notorious “collateral murder” video, showing U.S. pilots killing a Reuters journalist, his driver and several others. Some have argued that, although unfortunate, the killing was justified in the heat of battle but the U.S. denied any knowledge of how the reporter, Namir Noor-Eldeen, died until the video was released. Reuters had simply asked how such events could be avoided in the future and was stonewalled. It is only thanks to Manning that the world knows exactly what happened.
There are two ways in which any government can seek to control security leaks. The first is by honesty and transparency, by allowing the public to know enough to make democratic decisions about how far is too far. That is the path that the United States, and this president, claims to follow. The second is by threatening draconian consequences to anyone who exposes questionable policies and practices to the light of day. That is the path the United States, and this administration, has chosen with the prosecution of Bradley Manning and others. No amount of sophistry can hide that truth, try as the administration might. The result, for Bradley Manning, is many years in prison. The result for democracy is a slow death.
David Gespass speaks on Supreme Court decisions
at Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights
I’d start with an illustrative joke, but there is nothing funny about the direction of human rights in this country and, with one notable but limited exception, this Supreme Court. I apologize if my discussion of human rights law and this case is too elementary for some and, perhaps, not detailed enough for others, but I’m trying to strike a balance.
The U.S. has been slow to ratify human rights conventions, has failed to ratify many and has limited the effect of those it has ratified with reservations, understandings and declarations, insisting they do not provide any more rights than does the Constitution, thus limiting human rights in the U.S. to what is embodied in a document more than two centuries old as interpreted by the Supreme Court. That being said, let me reference one Supreme Court case before I turn to the Shelby County decision. In Wesberry v. Sanders, the court said “Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.”
Before Shelby County was decided, I expected my analysis of its human rights impact would be: very, very bad. I am tempted to leave it at that but should elucidate and need to offer a bit of hope.
Three major human rights instruments, which the U.S. has signed directly apply to the Shelby County decision. The Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights (UDHR) enshrined the right to cast a meaningful vote as a human right. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) makes that right a matter of both international and U.S. law.
The Convention Against All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) says: “Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination.” Of course, such measures should only last so long as they are needed. The Voting Rights Act first came into effect in 1965 and was re-authorized and extended four times, most recently in 2006 when the House passed it by a vote of 390-33, the Senate 98-0 and it was signed by George W. Bush. Congress considered some 15,000 pages of evidence before determining re-authorization was necessary and appropriate.
In general, the act prohibits the use of any test or device that has the effect or intent of denying the right to vote in any election because of race or language. Specifically, however, it re-authorized section 4(b), which listed particular jurisdictions, mostly in the south, with a history of discrimination and voter suppression, using a formula established with the original act and only slightly altered subsequently. Section 5 required those covered jurisdictions to pre-clear any changes in their election laws, by getting the approval either of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia or the Justice Department, the latter being simple, efficient and inexpensive. Section 4 also allowed any covered jurisdiction to bail-out of the pre-clearance requirement by not violating the act for ten years. No request for bailout has ever been denied. The court declared section 4(b) unconstitutional.
The primary reason for the pre-clearance requirement was that, previously, whenever any means of voter suppression was found unconstitutional, the offending jurisdiction would substitute a slightly different version, necessitating a new round of litigation. The act placed the burden on the covered jurisdictions to demonstrate, before implementing changes, that they would not be discriminatory. It is universally recognized as the most successful piece of civil rights legislation in our country’s history.
Thus, requiring particular jurisdictions to preclear changes was precisely the kind of “special measure” contemplated by the CERD. It was implemented to protect the right to vote of those who had suffered centuries of disenfranchisement. And the bailout provision insured that the special measures would apply only so long as necessary. I was asked to present today because the amicus brief I wrote on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild specifically made this argument in defending the act.
Incidentally, Shelby County has grown rapidly in the last few decades, primarily because of white flight from Birmingham, and was not eligible for bailout.
Article VI of the Constitution makes any treaty ratified by the U.S., along with the Constitution and federal statutes, the supreme law of the land. That means that compliance with the CERD is not simply a matter of international law, but is also a constitutional obligation under U.S. domestic law. Roberts, by the way, in his opinion, disingenuously neglected to mention treaties when citing Article VI. Regardless, I would contend that the provisions of the UDHR, the ICCPR and the CERD are now so universally accepted that they are part of customary international law and, as such, are binding on the U.S. in their entirety, regardless of any reservations, understandings or declarations which seek to limit their sweep.
Before this term, each time the act was reauthorized, the Supreme Court rejected challenges to its constitutionality. This time, the court asserted that changes that have taken place in the country since the act was first passed render it obsolete, the opinions of 496 government officials –members of the House and Senate who voted for it, President Bush who signed it and seven judges who reviewed it – notwithstanding. Only 39 felt otherwise but five of those were the Supreme Court majority.
Neither the majority nor the dissent discussed the act in terms of human rights obligations, which is disturbing if not surprising. The immediate impact is terrible, particularly at a time when voter suppression in the U.S. is spreading, not just in covered jurisdictions. Roberts opinion claimed that history did not end in 1965. What he chooses not to acknowledge is that it did not begin there either. One must go back at least to 1501 when the first enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas to judge the act’s present day relevance in redressing past discrimination. In that context, the years since 1965 are not so long a time and the dominance of the big mules in Alabama politics, despite the increase in African-American voter registration and turnout, is proof that history has not yet been overcome.
It is like requiring some riders in the Tour de France to use unicycles for the first 18 stages, allowing them to use racing bicycles for the last three stages, and claiming all their past problems have been remedied.
The dominant view on the Supreme Court – with individual variations among the justices – was articulated by Scalia when he called the Constitution an enduring, not a living, document. That leaves constitutional law uninfluenced by evolving concepts of justice, not to mention human rights, and renders constitutional rights, at best, static. Roberts masked that concept somewhat in Shelby County but it was in full bloom in the dissents in Windsor, which Nancy will be discussing.
I believe the judiciary’s most important duty is to safeguard and expand the rights and liberties of the disadvantaged from entrenched power and, when necessary, the majority. More often than not, the Supreme Court has failed to do so, from Dred Scott to Plessy to Korematsu. Whether Shelby County will be viewed by history with the same repulsion as those cases, I don’t know, but it is certainly in their tradition.
The majority opinion is based on the Platonic doctrine that we can eliminate racism by permitting no consideration of race in any decision –which is to say, ignoring history. Roberts infamously asserted that in the Parents United decision, saying “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” That is the new mantra of the old racists, because the effect is to perpetuate existing inequities and old Jim Crow relationships by making limited concessions and giving discrimination a less ugly veneer. W.E.B. DuBois said "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line” and more than a decade into the 21st, that problem has not been solved and advances that have been made are under attack from this Court. But we can’t dwell on the immediate impact of the decision on human rights. For one thing, it’s too depressing. More important, it is self-defeating.
As a matter of strategy, those of us who think the human rights framework and the indivisibility and universality of the human rights conventions must become part of our law, need to advocate for it by making the argument whenever we can, even if it is going to lose or be ignored. I am old enough to recall when Federalist positions were ignored or dismissed by pretty much every legal scholar and judge, so I am convinced we can change things, but only by being bold enough – in briefs we file, in scholarly journals and in the popular media – to assert them, repeatedly and emphatically. That was the intent of our amicus. We had no illusion (although I had some fantasies) that it would carry the day, but one thing is certain. If we don’t make the arguments, they will never be adopted.
Perhaps the most distressing thing about Shelby County is its subject matter, the right to vote and race discrimination, what Justice Ginsburg called“the most constitutionally invidious form of discrimination, and the most fundamental right in our democratic system.” If we cannot protect racial minorities in regard to so fundamental a human right, consider how much more difficult it will be to assert economic rights, like the rights to adequate food, shelter, health care and education. We are constitutionally and morally required to build a society which insures all human rights are honored not in their breach but in their fulfillment. We should take this term, and Shelby County, not simply as a defeat, but as a call to redouble efforts to change the discourse to the end, as the Lawyers Guild constitution says, that human rights be regarded as more sacred than property interests.
I’d start with an illustrative joke, but there is nothing funny about the direction of human rights in this country and, with one notable but limited exception, this Supreme Court. I apologize if my discussion of human rights law and this case is too elementary for some and, perhaps, not detailed enough for others, but I’m trying to strike a balance.
The U.S. has been slow to ratify human rights conventions, has failed to ratify many and has limited the effect of those it has ratified with reservations, understandings and declarations, insisting they do not provide any more rights than does the Constitution, thus limiting human rights in the U.S. to what is embodied in a document more than two centuries old as interpreted by the Supreme Court. That being said, let me reference one Supreme Court case before I turn to the Shelby County decision. In Wesberry v. Sanders, the court said “Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.”
Before Shelby County was decided, I expected my analysis of its human rights impact would be: very, very bad. I am tempted to leave it at that but should elucidate and need to offer a bit of hope.
Three major human rights instruments, which the U.S. has signed directly apply to the Shelby County decision. The Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights (UDHR) enshrined the right to cast a meaningful vote as a human right. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) makes that right a matter of both international and U.S. law.
The Convention Against All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) says: “Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination.” Of course, such measures should only last so long as they are needed. The Voting Rights Act first came into effect in 1965 and was re-authorized and extended four times, most recently in 2006 when the House passed it by a vote of 390-33, the Senate 98-0 and it was signed by George W. Bush. Congress considered some 15,000 pages of evidence before determining re-authorization was necessary and appropriate.
In general, the act prohibits the use of any test or device that has the effect or intent of denying the right to vote in any election because of race or language. Specifically, however, it re-authorized section 4(b), which listed particular jurisdictions, mostly in the south, with a history of discrimination and voter suppression, using a formula established with the original act and only slightly altered subsequently. Section 5 required those covered jurisdictions to pre-clear any changes in their election laws, by getting the approval either of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia or the Justice Department, the latter being simple, efficient and inexpensive. Section 4 also allowed any covered jurisdiction to bail-out of the pre-clearance requirement by not violating the act for ten years. No request for bailout has ever been denied. The court declared section 4(b) unconstitutional.
The primary reason for the pre-clearance requirement was that, previously, whenever any means of voter suppression was found unconstitutional, the offending jurisdiction would substitute a slightly different version, necessitating a new round of litigation. The act placed the burden on the covered jurisdictions to demonstrate, before implementing changes, that they would not be discriminatory. It is universally recognized as the most successful piece of civil rights legislation in our country’s history.
Thus, requiring particular jurisdictions to preclear changes was precisely the kind of “special measure” contemplated by the CERD. It was implemented to protect the right to vote of those who had suffered centuries of disenfranchisement. And the bailout provision insured that the special measures would apply only so long as necessary. I was asked to present today because the amicus brief I wrote on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild specifically made this argument in defending the act.
Incidentally, Shelby County has grown rapidly in the last few decades, primarily because of white flight from Birmingham, and was not eligible for bailout.
Article VI of the Constitution makes any treaty ratified by the U.S., along with the Constitution and federal statutes, the supreme law of the land. That means that compliance with the CERD is not simply a matter of international law, but is also a constitutional obligation under U.S. domestic law. Roberts, by the way, in his opinion, disingenuously neglected to mention treaties when citing Article VI. Regardless, I would contend that the provisions of the UDHR, the ICCPR and the CERD are now so universally accepted that they are part of customary international law and, as such, are binding on the U.S. in their entirety, regardless of any reservations, understandings or declarations which seek to limit their sweep.
Before this term, each time the act was reauthorized, the Supreme Court rejected challenges to its constitutionality. This time, the court asserted that changes that have taken place in the country since the act was first passed render it obsolete, the opinions of 496 government officials –members of the House and Senate who voted for it, President Bush who signed it and seven judges who reviewed it – notwithstanding. Only 39 felt otherwise but five of those were the Supreme Court majority.
Neither the majority nor the dissent discussed the act in terms of human rights obligations, which is disturbing if not surprising. The immediate impact is terrible, particularly at a time when voter suppression in the U.S. is spreading, not just in covered jurisdictions. Roberts opinion claimed that history did not end in 1965. What he chooses not to acknowledge is that it did not begin there either. One must go back at least to 1501 when the first enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas to judge the act’s present day relevance in redressing past discrimination. In that context, the years since 1965 are not so long a time and the dominance of the big mules in Alabama politics, despite the increase in African-American voter registration and turnout, is proof that history has not yet been overcome.
It is like requiring some riders in the Tour de France to use unicycles for the first 18 stages, allowing them to use racing bicycles for the last three stages, and claiming all their past problems have been remedied.
The dominant view on the Supreme Court – with individual variations among the justices – was articulated by Scalia when he called the Constitution an enduring, not a living, document. That leaves constitutional law uninfluenced by evolving concepts of justice, not to mention human rights, and renders constitutional rights, at best, static. Roberts masked that concept somewhat in Shelby County but it was in full bloom in the dissents in Windsor, which Nancy will be discussing.
I believe the judiciary’s most important duty is to safeguard and expand the rights and liberties of the disadvantaged from entrenched power and, when necessary, the majority. More often than not, the Supreme Court has failed to do so, from Dred Scott to Plessy to Korematsu. Whether Shelby County will be viewed by history with the same repulsion as those cases, I don’t know, but it is certainly in their tradition.
The majority opinion is based on the Platonic doctrine that we can eliminate racism by permitting no consideration of race in any decision –which is to say, ignoring history. Roberts infamously asserted that in the Parents United decision, saying “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” That is the new mantra of the old racists, because the effect is to perpetuate existing inequities and old Jim Crow relationships by making limited concessions and giving discrimination a less ugly veneer. W.E.B. DuBois said "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line” and more than a decade into the 21st, that problem has not been solved and advances that have been made are under attack from this Court. But we can’t dwell on the immediate impact of the decision on human rights. For one thing, it’s too depressing. More important, it is self-defeating.
As a matter of strategy, those of us who think the human rights framework and the indivisibility and universality of the human rights conventions must become part of our law, need to advocate for it by making the argument whenever we can, even if it is going to lose or be ignored. I am old enough to recall when Federalist positions were ignored or dismissed by pretty much every legal scholar and judge, so I am convinced we can change things, but only by being bold enough – in briefs we file, in scholarly journals and in the popular media – to assert them, repeatedly and emphatically. That was the intent of our amicus. We had no illusion (although I had some fantasies) that it would carry the day, but one thing is certain. If we don’t make the arguments, they will never be adopted.
Perhaps the most distressing thing about Shelby County is its subject matter, the right to vote and race discrimination, what Justice Ginsburg called“the most constitutionally invidious form of discrimination, and the most fundamental right in our democratic system.” If we cannot protect racial minorities in regard to so fundamental a human right, consider how much more difficult it will be to assert economic rights, like the rights to adequate food, shelter, health care and education. We are constitutionally and morally required to build a society which insures all human rights are honored not in their breach but in their fulfillment. We should take this term, and Shelby County, not simply as a defeat, but as a call to redouble efforts to change the discourse to the end, as the Lawyers Guild constitution says, that human rights be regarded as more sacred than property interests.
Sequestration’s indiscriminate cuts are no solution
to the bloated military budget
to the bloated military budget
An Op-Ed for MLTF by David Gespass
Editor’s note: Some on the Left, most prominently former Democratic Party chair Howard Dean, have said that the automatic cuts of the sequester are the only way the military budget will ever be reduced, and that he therefore supports them. In this editorial written for the MLTF website, former NLG president David Gespass agrees with the sentiment, but argues that the cuts of the sequester will not big enough, or directed enough, to make the kind of difference we hope for.
The “sequester,” as has been well documented, was the Obama administration’s ingenious mechanism, which both parties and houses of Congress bought into, for insuring a rational budget deal. The idea was to require, in the absence of such a deal, uniform spending cuts for all but a specified few federal programs. Thus, the military budget, for example, will require the same percentage cuts in spending on the building of more tanks, for which we have no use, and the provision of food for the troops. The consequence, as we shall see, is that little is done to rein in out-of-control military appropriations while visiting significant hardship on GIs, veterans and civilian personnel.
The US military budget is clearly out of control. In 2012, the country spent $711 billion on the military. The next fourteen biggest military spenders, including a number of presumed U.S. allies and two countries, Germany and Japan, that are not supposed to have armies – China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, South Korea, Australia, Canada and Turkey – spent a total of $713 billion. Only Saudi Arabia, at 8.7%, spent as high a percentage of its gross domestic product as the U.S. at 4.7%.
The U.S. armed forces enjoy an already-overwhelming capacity to wreak death and destruction around the world. They are augmented by allegedly non-military agencies like the CIA. It is clear that we could go a year or two without building new weapons and instrumentalities without losing our power in the world. But, all that aside, it is beyond cavil that any number of military spending programs are utterly unnecessary. We do not, for example, need more nuclear weapons. We have more than enough to obliterate the rest of world a couple of times over, yet there are plans to spend $700 billion on nukes over the next decade. Presumably, with the sequester, that figure will “plummet” to $658 billion.
While the Department of Veterans Affairs is exempt from sequestration, Tricare, veterans’ health insurance, is not. That means more and more vets will turn to the VA for health care and that system is already too overburdened to provide adequate care, despite the heroic efforts of its medical personnel.
Because military pay is not affected, there will be a significant reduction in pay for civilian personnel. There is talk of reducing the work week by 20%. One can only guess how that reduction will affect actual service members who rely on the support of civilians for such things as food and supplies.
The hits will be indiscriminate, reducing programs meant to assist people and those meant to kill them. We already have more than enough of the latter and only a rational approach to reducing military spending is going to change that. The sequester won’t.
David Gespass is the former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a founding member of its Military Law Task Force. An attorney in private practice in Birmingham, Alabama, he is also an adjunct professor at University of Alabama School of Law.
Court asked to force Birmingham to surrender records
in potential police misconduct case (video)
from al.com
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A Birmingham law firm sued the city of Birmingham today, saying the city is taking too long to respond to open-records requests that the firm filed while considering litigation over allegations of police misconduct, court records show.
The suit, filed by the firm Gespass & Johnson, seeks an order from Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert Vance for the city to turn over the records that the lawyers started seeking in September.
"Defendant has shown itself to be unwilling to provide any of the requested documents or to provide any explanation or justification for its unwillingness to do so," David Gespass, one of the firm partners, wrote in the lawsuit.
The firm is seeking records regarding the arrests of five people, including Gespass, and documents regarding police policies on arrest, detention and interviewing suspects.
In December 2010, David Alan Gespass was charged by Birmingham police with breaking and entering a vehicle, but a District Court judge dismissed the charge in March, court records show.
The other four people listed in the firm's open-records requests have contacted the firm about potential civil-rights litigation, the suit said. The firm wants the requested documents to evaluate if it would represent them on contingency, which means the lawyers will not get paid unless they win the case.
Thomas Bentley, the city attorney for Birmingham, was not immediately available for comment.
Watch video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9BSmGgECOBs
If We Listened to the Pundits, We Would Still Be British Subjects
Wednesday 7 December 2011
by David Gespass
Truthout | Op-Ed
Certain cities across the country have sought to remove participants in the Occupy movement from public areas where they have been protesting, while pundits have criticized the movement for not having any affirmative program. The National Lawyers Guild has been defending the First Amendment rights of the Occupiers since they first arrived in Zuccotti Park.Bill O'Reilly has gone so far as to accuse us of funding them, something we cannot do with a budget a fraction of his annual income. However, Guild lawyers have spent countless hours without pay litigating on behalf of the Occupiers and negotiating with city officials to preserve their right to protest. Our legal observers have been on the streets and in the parks, ensuring that any unlawful police actions, such as the many violations of a consent degree negotiated with the City of Oakland only a year ago, would be documented in the event of future litigation. Our identification with the Occupy movement impels me to comment.
It is remarkable that so many have called for an end to the encampments, if not voluntarily then by force, on the grounds that they are somehow "illegal" or a threat to the health of the people in them. Less than a year ago, the Arab Spring began in Tunisia and spread to many other countries in the Middle East, most notably Egypt, where it continues even after Mubarak left office. Governments attempted to suppress the demonstrations, all of which were considered "illegal," with tear gas, police force and worse. Regardless of the form of suppression, the United States government stood on the side of the demonstrators, calling on the governments to recognize their rights to protest and to democratic rule. When she visited Tahrir Square, Hillary Clinton said, "To see where this revolution happened and all that it has meant to the world is extraordinary for me. It's just a great reminder of the power of the human spirit and desire for human rights and democracy. It's just thrilling to see where this happened."
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Why, then, are similar protests in this country, inspired in many ways by the events in Tahrir Square, not similarly defended by the government? Why do municipalities look to justify arresting protesters and forcing them from their encampments with "less lethal" weaponry because the governments - not the protesters - have grown weary of them? The justifications given are mere sophistry. The right to protest is not dependent on the degree of oppressiveness of the government. It is a fundamental human right that cannot be limited without damage to the entire body politic.
Which brings me to my second point. The Occupy movement's fundamental protest is that money has so contaminated American democracy that the voices, needs and opinions of the "99 percent" cannot compete. The influence of money has expanded exponentially over the last generation, culminating with the Supreme Court ruling that corporations are "persons" with an unencumbered right to free speech, and the creation of "Super PACs, which take unlimited amounts of anonymous donations to advocate for their chosen candidates and causes. Not surprisingly, those candidates and causes tend to support lower taxes for the richest and gutting government programs designed to assist the poorest.
The fundamental protest against this injustice, say the critics, backseat drivers and Monday-morning quarterbacks, is not sufficient. The Occupiers need a program, when all they have done is list the things they do not like: wealth inequality, criminal corporate greed, democracy for sale and the consequent betrayal of the American Dream. Even in the guise of fact reporting, this criticism lurks. The AP, in an article printed in The Birmingham News, asserted that, "[t]he Occupy movement has intentionally never clarified its policy objectives, relying instead on a broad message opposing corporate excess and income inequality."
Perhaps the pundits should re-read - or read for the first time - the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson and the other signers had a single program, independence from England. The Declaration did not suggest any more. Rather, it documented the "long train of abuses and usurpations" perpetrated by George III, which impelled the American colonies to separate themselves from England. Then the pundits should read the declaration from Occupy Wall Street.
That declaration, they will find, parallels one of our two founding documents, one that is venerated, not just in this country, but around the world. Yet, that is not enough for the talking heads who purport to speak on behalf of the American people and seek to set our country's course and dictate its discourse. The Occupiers, on the other hand, have actually changed the discourse with their commitment, their presence and their bodies. When Zuccotti Park was first occupied and surrounded by New York City police, all we saw in the media was the need to cut the deficit. Since then, more and more, the talk is about the impoverishment of American workers and the need for jobs. That is no small accomplishment. The National Lawyers Guild and I will cast our lot with the people struggling and suffering in the streets, not those who amass wealth by telling them what they should think and what they need.
The following video is a speech made by David Gespass
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18906059
The following is the keynote speech given by David Gespass
at the DREAMERS rally held in Birmingham, Alabama on August 6, 2011
This is in opposition to Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law, HB-56, and in support of the DREAM Act. Student “DREAMERS” dressed in caps and gowns, so the speech was in the form of the commencement address David would give to undocumented immigrants if the DREAM Act were passed and they could take advantage of it.
It is an honor to speak to you, class of 2011. You have my congratulations and respect for overcoming so much to be here today and prepared to graduate. You and your families have sacrificed more and worked harder than others in this country for you to achieve and succeed. When people speak of the American dream, they are speaking of people like you, who work hard and give up transient pleasures to make the future better for themselves and their families.
You follow in the footsteps of so many immigrants who came to this country seeking better lives for themselves and making life better for us all. Inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty are the words of Emma Lazarus’s sonnet, "The New Colossus." Unlike the Colossus of Rhodes, she tells us, our Colossus welcomes the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It is here, she says, that the homeless, tempest-tost will find a home where they can prosper, thrive and achieve. She tells us that Lady Liberty lifts her lamp beside the Golden Door that gives entry to the United States.
It is a cliche to say that we are a country of immigrants and that immigrants have made us what we are, yet it is true. A catalogue of all who have preceded you and contributed to our national fabric would be almost endless. Some came seeking a better life, others came in chains. Some became famous, many more are nameless and unknown, yet all made their contributions. Some tilled the land, some labored in the mines and mills, others were artists, doctors, inventors, scientists and teachers. Whatever they did and wherever they came from helped make our country – yours and mine – vibrant.
The history of the United States is not, of course, a long steady climb to that shining city on the hill. It was also built on the genocide of our native peoples, the enslavement of Africans and the exploitation of the poor. We have a dual legacy centuries long: one of conquest and exploitation, the other of liberation and growth. I trust that you, my friends, are the inheritors of the latter and that you will strengthen and extend that legacy.
But along with my admiration and great hopes, you have my sympathy for entering the job market during the worst economic crisis this country has faced in more than three quarters of a century. On the same day recently, I read two articles in the newspaper. The first said 2nd quarter corporate profits were up and had exceeded expectations. The second announced that unemployment in our state had risen 1%.
Now I have been talking about what you have achieved and what you can achieve as part of a special group of young people, beneficiaries of the so-called DREAM Act. So is it a digression to talk about corporate profits and unemployment? What does that have to do with immigration? And that is what I want to talk about now. It is not nearly so upbeat as what I started with, but I am not discouraged and you should not be either. Rather, consider this a challenge, for us to do better and to make our country do better; indeed, to make our country a place that deserves people like you.
Let me suggest, class of 2011, that rather than starting the discussion of immigration with the tired old refrain that the system is broken and must be fixed, we start by debunking the myth that we first have to secure our borders.
Make no mistake — the law makes our borders porous. Thanks to NAFTA, the WTO and other free trade agreements, transnational corporations are free to cross borders with impunity and without any regulation by US laws. They go where the labor is cheapest and their profits greatest. They find tax shelters around the world and pay little or nothing in the US. They sell weapons and material for the US to wage its imperialist wars overseas but pay no taxes to finance those wars. And our country is left with mounting debt, ever greater disparities between the rich and the rest of us and a shredded safety net inadequate to catch the poor, unemployed, underemployed and disabled as they fall into penury.
And who is blamed for this? You, my friends, you who overcame the disadvantage of not being documented yet have made it through US schools and colleges. Your parents, who have had taxes withheld but cannot file tax returns to get the refunds they are due or collect Social Security when they can no longer work, who have worked long hours at low pay, who have endured hostility and scorn so you could thrive. Our legacy of liberation and growth is threatened by that of conquest and exploitation and the demonization of immigrants is where the exploiters and conquerors have made their greatest headway in deluding the people. Transnational corporations reap record profits and their officers collect million dollar plus bonuses while they cut wages, cut jobs and bust unions. And for cover, they attack immigrants for causing the lower wages and lost jobs for which they are responsible.
With all of this, the alleged liberals in Congress have offered the DREAM Act. And what exactly does it provide? That for those of you who came to this country too young to have a choice, who grew up attending its schools, hanging out in its malls, watching its TV, listening to its music and having a command of English that exceeds your command of your parents’ native tongues; in short, for those of you who are every bit a part of this country as am I, you are offered a “path to citizenship.” That is to say, you are offered several years of indentured servitude, whether through college without federal financial aid or joining the military and being part of one of the several rich men’s wars and poor people’s fights the US is engaged in, with the hope at the end of first getting a green card and then paying to become citizens of the country of which you are an integral part already.
I join with you in calling for passage of the DREAM Act and applaud you for stepping forward to demand it, but let me be clear. The DREAM Act is not some wonderful benefit and great advance. It is less than the least this country owes you. It is sad, indeed, that your supposed supporters say that is the best they can offer and sadder still that we have not even won that tiny a victory.
Martin Luther King famously said that, “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” We know where Scott Beason and Joe Arpaio stand. We should really ask, as La Raza did, where do people like Barack Obama stand, who say they support you yet deport undocumented immigrants in record numbers.
On behalf of the National Lawyers Guild, I wrote a letter published in the Birmingham News a few weeks back in which I condemned Alabama’s new immigration law for violating fundamental human rights. Several responded on the newspaper’s blog with the argument that those here in violation of US law are, by definition, illegal immigrants and criminals and that the discussion should end with that. To them, I suppose, Dred Scott was just a piece of property because the law, as enunciated by the Supreme Court, held that African descendants had “no rights which the white man is bound to respect.” To them, Rosa Parks was just another lawbreaker deserving of whatever sentence she got (they will tell you now that she was a hero but, be assured, in 1955 they would have called her a criminal). They will tell you that Nelson Mandela, perhaps the greatest political leader of the 20th century, was nothing more than a terrorist. Incidentally, that is what the US government, which had him on the terrorist watch list as late as 1988, labeled him officially for two decades.
You, my friends, are heirs to our country’s contradictory past. You are heirs to its noble tradition of bending the arc of history ever more sharply towards justice and human rights. You are heirs to that tradition where the tree of liberty has grown and flourished, irrigated by the blood of too many martyrs. At the same time, you are heirs to a vicious legacy of intolerance, scapegoating and, let us be frank, racism, which has allowed the few to grow rich beyond measure and now is plunging millions in this country into poverty while killing and exploiting others around the world. The face of racism in this country today is the jingoist anti-immigrant fervor that surrounds us. When people speak of
“illegal immigrants,” the image they are conjuring is of Latinos and Muslims. If you need proof, you need only look to what happened in our courthouse last Monday, when deputies stopped and questioned all those who looked Hispanic, including witnesses subpoenaed to testify and at least one courthouse employee. However much he wants to deny it, Scott Beason’s law institutionalizes profiling and legalizes racism.
Too many poor people, who should be your natural allies in opposition to the power and dominance of transnational corporations and those who do their bidding in the halls of Congress and in state legislatures throughout the country Republican and Democrat, are deluded into thinking you are the enemy. In the words of Malcolm X, they have been hoodwinked. They’ve been took. It is our task not just to fight for the dignity and rights of those who have come to this country without documents looking for better lives. It is our task, difficult but essential, to persuade those who now condemn you that so long as the poor are divided, the billionaires will increase their wealth and power, denude the earth and destroy the environment at the expense of the rest of us who will face only mounting debt, fewer and lower-paying jobs, homelessness and hunger.
While I think I am being realistic, I am by no means pessimistic. I have confidence in you and I have confidence in the vast majority of citizens of this country. The road ahead may be long and winding, with potholes and detours along the way, but that shining city on the hill really does await us.
So, class of 2011, go forth with your heads held high and be prepared to fight for what you are due. I cannot promise when or how success will be achieved, but I can guarantee that, if you do not struggle, nothing will change. And know that you are not alone and that our ranks will swell. I leave you with the words of Frederick Douglass, a former slave who lived to see a much better day:
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
Do not submit quietly to any injustice or any wrong. Do not yield to tyranny. Agitate, agitate, agitate!
Si se puede!
As-Salam Alaikum
Hasta la victoria siempre
What Change? US Refuses to Participate in World Conferencce Against Discrimination
Saturday, April 11, 2009
http://archive.truthout.org/041109A
by: David Gespass, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Across the United States today, human and civil rights activists protest the US boycott of the Durban Review Conference Against Racism. (Photo: Amadi Ajamu and Roger Wareham / Independent Media Center)
For those of us who were in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the decision of the United States to leave before the conclusion was disheartening, but not surprising. The Clinton administration had given little support to the conference and the Bush administration appeared downright hostile to its goals. There were two issues in particular the US did not want on the agenda. One was that of reparations for the slave trade and the other was the plight of the Palestinian people. While the US withdrawal was predicated on the latter, it remains an open question how much of a role each played in its decision.
Nearly eight years have gone by, a new US administration has promised change and greater engagement with the international community. One would think, therefore, that administration would seize the opportunity to participate in the Durban Review Conference next month in Geneva as the perfect opportunity to distinguish itself from the past. Sad to say, that is not the case. This time, the US is not going to leave in the middle of the conference. It will be absent from the start, having decided that "current text of the draft outcome document is not salvageable." The administration criticizes the original Durban Declaration and Program of Action and claims that the draft for the upcoming conference compounds its flaws. It specifically expresses concern that no one country (meaning Israel) should be singled out for criticism and that the document should go no further on reparations than did the Durban declaration. The Durban declaration called for Palestinian self-determination, for a lasting and just peace in the region and recognized the slave trade as criminal, calling for appropriate measures to reverse its consequences.
Since the US has done little to address the issues of concern on either front since Durban, one would expect the Bush administration to oppose any document calling for more. But this is a new administration that has promised change and more internationalism. In the wake of the world's excitement over the first African-American president in our history, it had an opportunity to truly distinguish itself from the past. It chose, instead, to embrace it.
Most recently, the things the US criticized were deleted from the draft document. Incredibly, the US is still refusing to participate in the review, though it now has no justification at all for its stance. And it has never addressed the fact that both the original Durban Declaration and the document being negotiated for the Review Conference require consensus for adoption. That is, unless every participating country agrees, not just to every word but to every punctuation mark, the document cannot be adopted. Therefore, the best way to ensure a document acceptable to the US is for it to participate in the review process. Indeed, its failure to do so guarantees it will find the resulting document unacceptable.
The US began its announcement that it would not participate in the Durban Review Conference by saying: "This Administration is committed to diplomacy and to active and effective engagement with international institutions, which can play a vital role in addressing the challenges we face. The United States looks forward to engaging with our partners around the world to build a more peaceful and secure world." Apparently, the administration really intends to engage only its "partners" and those with whom it disagrees are not part of the equation, a position that insures the world will not become more peaceful and secure, but more divided and contentious.
The rich kid on the block used to take his ball and go home if he didn't get picked to play, but the US goes further than that. Since everyone not only plays, but has veto power in the UN, the US is staying home because it is not being allowed to dictate the final score before the game is played. The promise of change and the promise to engage rings hollow when the condition to engage is for the world to accede to your demands before the conference even begins. It rings hollower still when you decide that acceding to your demands is not enough.
Requiem For The Lives Lost In Iraq
By David Gespass
November 28, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/gespass281107.htm
Speech given by David Gespass at Birmingham Alabama. He was invited to address the opening of an exhibit, " Eyes Wide Open". The exhibit commemorated the lives lost in Iraq war. It had pairs of boots for every Alabamian GI killed in Iraq and a representative cluster of shoes for the Iraqi dead.
I have been given the daunting task of eulogizing the victims of the occupation of Iraq and discussing how to put a stop to it in the space of 25 minutes, give or take. It is daunting because, on the one hand, it is impossible to honor every individual victim, even the dead from Alabama, about whom I will not talk very much, in so short a time. On the other hand, it is rather too long to talk about them collectively. Similarly, there is a simple, short answer to the problem of ending the suffering, but hardly the time for a detailed discussion of how to do so. So, with the caveat that this will be incomplete and that you will have to fill in a lot of blanks, I'll give it my best shot.
A couple of weeks ago, the Birmingham News published an article about a local police officer who just returned safely from his third tour of duty in Iraq. And we have heard countless pieces on NPR and elsewhere about American men and women who have
died there. Those stories have far more impact than raw statistics because they put a human face on the loss and the numbers are too staggering to wrap our minds around. But each of those stories tells of the dashed hopes, dreams and plans of a young man or woman whose life was snuffed out. We get to meet their families, hear the anguish in their voices about the loss; hear how their children will never know their parent. We learn of their interests, the people they loved and who loved them.
Some were going to go back to school after their service was over. Others were going to make the military their career. They planned to start families or raise them. Some planned to marry their high school sweethearts. Others were married already.
Some loved sports. Most are described as fun-loving, always joking and with radiant smiles. Every individual story has an emotional impact far greater than any statistics. And there are, as of yesterday, 3,839 such stories.
But I don't want to focus on those stories. Rather, I want to talk about the ones we don't hear, that the media in this country never reports. For every American GI killed during the occupation of Iraq, there have been 285 dead Iraqis. As of yesterday, the Iraqi death toll was estimated to be 1,096,367 and every one of those individuals had a story that didn't air on NPR. Every one had a family.
Every one had friends who loved them. Every one had hopes, dreams and plans, though probably far more modest than those of Americans, after ten years of sanctions and years more of occupation.
Yet there are no stories about them. The Birmingham News has not told of Loay's brother, a doctor, a healer, a man with a family, a man who sought to help all those he met.
It is difficult to measure the human cost of the occupation of Iraq and more difficult still to comprehend it. My suggestion is this. The next time you hear one of those stories, listen to it and think about how it makes you feel! Does it tug at your heart? Does it make you feel, even slightly, as if you have suffered a personal loss? That, of course, is why those stories are told, so you have a personal connection to the victim, so you at least empathize with the pain of those he or she left behind.
But don't stop by thinking about how it made you feel. Consider how you would feel if you heard a similar story, every hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the next three months. How would you feel if on the hour, while you were asleep, you were
awakened to hear a story; if when the clock struck the hour while you were at work, you had to listen to another; if before every meal, you heard another; if before you could watch a television show, you had to listen to another; if you heard two stories during the course of a concert you attended, or a movie you went to?
After three months, you would have heard the stories of the Iraqis so far killed as a result of the occupation. But you wouldn't be able to stop listening then, because over those three months, more will die, not just young men and women in uniform, but children whose lives are just beginning.
And after hearing those stories for three months, every hour of every day, you still would not have heard the stories of the half million who were killed before the invasion, half of whom were children, when all that was imposed on Iraq were so-called "sanctions" that kept food and medicine from the most vulnerable of the country's population. Those stories would keep you awake for another month and a half.
And after hearing of all the deaths, you still would not have heard the stories of the maimed, the disabled, those who have lost limbs, lost their eyesight, suffered burns over their bodies, whose bodies were ravaged and who will never know another day without pain, who will never be able to earn a living, enjoy the pleasures of love, have children or do the myriad other things that make life worth living. Those stories would probably take another year to tell, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And at the end of that year, who knows how many more such stories there will be so long as the occupation continues?
But the number of dead and wounded is not the only cost of the occupation. We are diminished in so many other ways. We have all heard stories of GI's returning with post-traumatic stress disorder, unable to adjust to normal life, unable to return to work or to get along with their families. We are still feeling the effects of those who returned from Vietnam who have spent their lives on the edges, often homeless, never adjusted. We face the same thing with the Gl's who served in Iraq.
I will return to the reasons for this in a bit, but again, I want to focus on the Iraqi victims. If GI's, who return to a country where there is care available, albeit not what it should be or what they deserve – where they no longer face daily trauma, where they can live in relative safety – suffer psychiatric disabilities, how much greater then is the suffering of the Iraqis who, on a daily basis experience what was experienced by the students at Virginia Tech University when 33 people were "massacred." That event generated headlines for weeks, brought media from across the country to Blacksburg and teams of mental health workers to help the students deal with the experience. In Iraq, something like that warrants a single paragraph on the inside of the front section of the paper. And the mental health workers, if there are any, are subject to the same trauma. Nowhere does the admonition, "physician, heal thyself," have more immediate impact and less chance of success. So, to your 24/7 exercise in empathy with the Iraqi people, add a daily story of a rampage similar to what happened at Virginia Tech, complete with interviews, witness accounts, discussions with mental health professionals about the impact and with authorities about what they will do to prevent a recurrence. But add also, the helplessness of those authorities because they have no control over their environment – unlike the administration at Virginia Tech, which could institute changes in policy, including things like warning systems, classes to teach students how to protect themselves and greater security. But what can local – or even national – authorities in Iraq do? The situation is well beyond their control and has been for more than 25 years, since the first Gulf War and the sanctions that followed. And, since the invasion in 2003, what control they may have had over their own environment is now completely gone.
Let me turn now to the United States. By focusing on the impact the occupation has had on Iraqis, I did not want to minimize or trivialize the suffering and sacrifices members of the US military experienced. I only wanted to put it into perspective, a perspective never reported on by American media.
And that experience is oddly limited. It is not experienced by the president, vice president and high level cabinet officers and members of Congress who are responsible for the invasion and, with only a couple of exceptions, have no family or friends at risk in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is not experienced by the pundits who have been cheerleaders for U.S. aggression. Indeed, it is not experienced by most people in this country who do not have a close friend or relative in Iraq.
But we have all been diminished in other ways. We have been numbed to the horrors perpetrated in our name. Too much of the criticism of the war has to do with the claim it was "bungled" by the Bush administration, that its planning wasn't adequate.
So even now, after thousands of American dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, tens of thousands of American casualties and uncounted Iraqi casualties, the talk is of mistake, not horror, mishandling, not dishonor and of ending the war without withdrawing troops.
Now, I have been asked not to make this talk political and those of you who know me know that is difficult for me generally. It is doubly difficult because it is so hard to know, in Iraq, where politics ends and law and humanity begin. But I am a lawyer and I will focus here on the law, not on politics. Again, it is hard to discuss the details of the legal questions I am raising in a few minutes, but I promise there are statutes and treaties — and the United States Constitution — that underlie everything I say.
I remember once hearing a friend of mine who assists lawyers in selecting juries talk about preparing for capital cases with mock juries and how she watched ordinary people, during deliberations, become killers, talking about whether or not to take a human life in cold and clinical terms. The problem with capital punishment, from that perspective, is not that it is ineffective as a deterrent, not that there should be some religious or moral scruple against it, not that it costs too much. Rather, the problem is what it does to the rest of us in the name of revenge.
Similarly, for Americans, in many ways the most destructive thing about the occupation of Iraq is not the horrors visited on the Iraqi people or upon our soldiers and sailors. It is what it does to us as a people. We now hear people talking about torture in the most clinical terms. How is it defined? Is waterboarding torture? What is the difference between torture and vigorous interrogation?
Torture is illegal. We have signed a convention explicitly making it so, as well as the Geneva conventions banning it. But it is not just torture that is illegal, but any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Whether waterboarding is torture or "merely" cruel, inhuman or degrading is never part of the discussion. And, despite the fact that similar techniques have been viewed as torture since the Spanish Inquisition, our about-to-be-confirmed attorney general cannot say whether it is or is not torture.
Today, we have serious intellectual discussions and fora debating whether torture can ever be employed and serious intellectuals like Alan Dershowitz suggesting it can. Not many years ago, such discussions would have been unthinkable, but this is the consequence of a crusade. Human experience, from chattel slavery to Nazi Germany to Iraq, has always taught that the degree to which we can dehumanize the enemy is the degree to which we can justify whateve we do, however inhuman. And human experience also teaches us that, sooner or later, one way or another, there is blowback when we behave thusly.
We are also diminished when we willingly sacrifice our liberties for some supposed protections. It is, indeed, a betrayal of those who fought and died for our freedoms, to give them up on the say-so of elected officials. Can and should the legacy of our dead and wounded in Iraq be that we abandon, rather than expand, the Bill of Rights? For the U.S. and its citizens, the lasting consequences of the invasion of Iraq threatens to be an imperial presidency, not limited to the current administration, in which national security and the unitary executive trumps the rule of law and individual rights.
What, then, must the U.S. do to end this destruction? The invasion and occupation of Iraq was illegal. That is not a political statement; it is a statement of fact. It was not approved by the Security Council and the U.S. was not under attack from Iraq or under imminent threat of attack. Those are the only times, under the UN Charter, that military force is permitted. And, by virtue of Article VI of the Constitution, a violation of the UN Charter is a violation of a treaty which is the Supreme Law of the Land. That is, the invasion was not just illegal under international standards, but violated US law as well.
And what are the obligations of criminals engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise or conspiracy? Other than suffering punishment for what they have done in the past, they have two principal obligations. The first is to remove themselves from the enterprise. The second is to make restitution to their victims.
That, then, is how to end the nightmare of Iraq. First, the United States must withdraw its troops and dismantle its bases. Second, it must provide reparations for the devastation it has caused. That doesn't mean just giving money, though it needs to do that. It means making sure that the money is used to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure so that the country has electricity, so that hospitals can operate, so that children can go to school. It will not be easy to figure out how that will be done, but it must be done. Those two steps, withdrawal of US troops and an investment in making reparations will not guarantee an end to all the violence in Iraq, but they are the two essential preconditions to ending the violence, death and destruction. Until those things happen, we will continue to mourn, continue to grieve, too many for American losses only but for most of the world, the grief at the Iraqi losses will continue to predominate and the US will continue to be diminished.
Carlos Alberto Torres - Free, After a Fashion, at Last
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
http://archive.truthout.org/carlos-alberto-torres-free-after-a-fashion-last61745
by: David Gespass, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
History is generally written by the victors. Thus, the American Revolution is recorded as a just struggle for liberation by colonies
formerly subject to the whim of the despotic King George III. The "Tories" who supported the king and opposed independence, even though they made up as large a percentage of the population as the revolutionaries who called for independence, are reviled in our text books for choosing the wrong side.
Puerto Rico is today and has been since the Spanish-American War in 1898 a colony of the United States. It took half a century, until 1948, before its people were allowed to elect their governor. In 1952, the US Congress declared it no longer a protectorate, but a commonwealth." But while the euphemisms changed, Puerto Rico's colonial status did not. One might think that a country like the United States, incubated and born in the armed struggle against colonial authority, would show some empathy to those who chose the path of revolution against an occupier. One would be wrong.
I met Carlos Alberto Torres in 1985 after a National Lawyers Guild colleague from Chicago stayed at our home in Birmingham when she visited him in federal prison in Alabama. By then, he had served five years of his 78-year sentence for "seditious conspiracy," the official charge for engaging, as a member of the Puerto Rican independence group, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN), the Armed Forces for National Liberation, in revolutionary struggle for the liberation of the colony from the United States. Not entirely arenthetically, Judge Learned Hand referred to the charge of conspiracy as "that darling of the modern federal prosecutor's nursery," since it requires so little in the way of proof. Indeed, whatever Carlos was convicted and sentenced for, it was not for causing physical harm to a single person.
After that visit and over the next several years until he was moved to a more remote federal prison, I was fortunate to see him periodically though, in retrospect, not often enough. Carlos never imposed on me and always assured me that knowing I was available if he needed help was enough for him. But he was far from friends and family and I was his one personal contact with the free world. His father was able to visit him once that I recall while he was in Alabama.
During the years he was in Alabama, his interest was rarely over his own fate. More often, he would want to talk to me about the needs of fellow inmates or matters of concern to the population as a whole. Still, I had the opportunity to discuss with him how he should reconcile his desire to get out of prison with his political principles. He had, at his trial, refused to recognize the jurisdiction of a colonial court to try him, insisting he be treated as a national of a free and independent country seized as a prisoner of war.
The man I remember was soft-spoken, reflective, serious and caring. He was certainly committed to the cause of his homeland's independence and the betterment of the Puerto Rican people. One can debate his tactical choices and whether independence is the best course for Puerto Rico, though it seems odd that being a colony would ever be a preferable option to the colonized. What no one who has sat down and talked to Carlos can doubt is his fundamental decency and his sincerity. That is something President Clinton had not done before he offered clemency in 1999 to 12 other Puerto Rican political prisoners, but refused to include Carlos.
Despite his more than 30 years in custody, Carlos contributed much. He invested in his fellow prisoners, teaching them literacy in both English and Spanish, earned a college degree and mastered the skills of painting and pottery making, exhibiting his work throughout the US, Puerto Rico and Mexico. But he could have contributed so much more had he been freed sooner. Finally, he is about to be released on parole. Celebrations took place July 26 in Chicago and are planned for July 27 in Puerto Rico, to honor him on his release. It is indeed cause for celebration, but thoughts of what might and should have been in a world and a country that looked at the real individual and not the image portrayed by prosecutors and the media, lend a sobriety and somberness to the joy of the occasion.
Not quite a year ago, I became the president of the National Lawyers Guild. As such, I have the good fortune to boast of the remarkable work done by our members, which is to say to brag about what other people do. So, I take pride in the report that our International Committee presented to the UN Decolonization Hearings on June 21 of this year, even though I did not contribute a comma to it. The report exposed the ways in which the United States maintains colonial control over Puerto Rico and discussed the resistance to that control and the human rights violations that accompany it.
It then went on to discuss the (to coin a phrase) cruel and unusual sentences imposed on Puerto Rican independentistas. It mentioned two in particular who had spent decades in custody, Carlos and Oscar López Rivera, as well as Avelino González Claudio. The Guild, along with many other organizations, had previously passed resolutions calling for their release and, following the presentation, so, too, did the Decolonization Committee. Thus, our happiness over Carlos' release is further tempered by the continuing incarceration of the other two prisoners. The campaign for their release continues. We will do our part, but we recognize that it will be - as it always has been - a larger movement than just the National Lawyers Guild that wins justice for the oppressed.
