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Issue Number 39 - April 24, 2003
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An emotion-laden batch of mail arrived in response to "The 2 million-person Gulag," our April 10 treatment of news that the U.S. prison and jail population had reached "another numerical benchmark in its unique saga of racial oppression." African Americans comprise about half of U.S. inmates. We wrote:
The United States has long been a world leader in imprisonment, having virtually invented the modern penal system, and Blacks have always been disproportionately represented behind bars. White America's answer to the Black assertiveness that sprang from the movement of the Sixties and early Seventies was to create a Gulag, a system of social death that expands, relentlessly. In a little over a generation, Black America has been purposely deformed in uncountable ways.
Not until after deadline did we get a letter from Eco Man, a conscientious person who had taken extra time to check the statistics. "There is an error on that page," wrote Eco Man. "This quote has way-low stats."
Race dictates the demography of the American prison landscape. Maine has the lowest incarceration rate, at 137 inmates per 100,000 residents. Louisiana is the most enthusiastic incarcerator, at 799 per 100,000. Race makes all the difference.
The stats are contained in the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin (posted, below), the basis for the press release on the 2,019,234 "benchmark." The problem is built into many statistical stories, as we explained to Eco Man. The Justice Department report does not include juvenile detention, U.S. territorial lockups, Indian jails, and other forms of incarceration. However, the Justice Department announcement was the "news" hook. (We described the stats as "understated.") If one dwells on the statistical anomalies, at some point the story becomes a statistical analysis piece, rather than a commentary on the nature of the U.S. criminal justice system.
Unemployment statistics present similar difficulties. We all keep track of joblessness through the U.S. Labor Department's monthly statistics. However, it has long been recognized that Black unemployment, especially, is much higher than the official stats indicate, since huge proportions of African Americans have given up looking for work or labor in the underground economy. Nevertheless, we must lead with the official stats in order to remain in the general conversation, while noting that the figures do not reflect the true picture.
For a pdf version of the mid-year 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin report: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim02.pdf. See page 11, tables 13 and 14 for raw numbers and rates per 100,000 by race.
For easy access, Eco man recommends a state-by-state incarceration map by the International Center for Prison Studies, King's College School of Law, University of London: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/worldbrief/usa.html
Finally, here's the site Eco Man calls "my main stats page": http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/ratesusa.htm#years. This site adjusts for juvenile detention, U.S. territories, Indian jails, and other forms of incarceration.
We were wondering when someone would address the stats issue. We're glad Eco Man showed up.
co-publisher Glen Ford delivered a commentary on The Black American Gulag on NPR's Tavis Smiley show Wednesday, April 23. The broadcast is archived at http://www.npr.org/programs/tavis/.
Conspiracy Theories and Depraved Indifference
Chaotic events in Baghdad marred the Pirates' unilateral declaration of victory, creating a temporary perceptual dissonance that seemed to flash a glimpse into the delusional world where the Bush men live. It is a scary place. Rumsfeld's eyes saw the same bedlam that everyone else on the planet witnessed. But his mind constructed a totally different Iraq. "They're free. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
On American turf, this constitutes a whip lashing revelation. In "Depraved Indifference to the Species," we explored Rumsfeld Thought to its logical conclusion: Black Americans have engaged in looting and rioting at the wrong time (colored people's) and for the wrong reasons, " we realized.
Black Americans may now intelligently plan their next riot. It must coincide with a happy occasion. If by some miracle George Bush is defeated in November 2004, we will wreck the joint and, this time, not a single building or institution of value will be left intact. Churches will empty immediately into the streets in righteous plunder, so uncontainable will be our joy! The sick and infirm will trash their own wheel chairs and intravenous tubes in rapturous celebration of Bush's demise. Two million inmates will burn the prisons down around themselves, forgetting to first unlock the place - Oh Happy Day! After the subways of New York have been stripped of wiring, the Black masses will gather in Harlem, where crowds will dance deliriously as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture goes up in flames, its new Malcolm X museum section reduced to ashes. Sweet victory!
The Pirates "will understand the 'context' of our actions, and agree that even a brief respite from nearly 400 years of oppression demands a suitable orgy of celebratory destruction."
History may record the second week in April as the beginning of the unraveling of the U.S. hegemonic lunge. (It is a universal privilege to arbitrarily dissect time in order to make a point.) We felt it a good time to discuss the already evident, worldwide recoil that will smother the Pirate offensive-against-all. We called the piece, "Conspiracy Theories."
The United States is about to be redlined by the international community, and there is nothing that Americans, pro- or anti-war, can do about it.... The effect will be as devastating as redlining the ghetto, a place that is depressed because nothing good happens there....
U.S. shrinkage and the domestic repercussions will destroy not only Pirate dreams, but some of our own:
The possibility of real economic recovery in the United States becomes nil. It is difficult to imagine that a wounded, mostly delusional America will not resort to massive scapegoating of minorities, especially the Permanent Enemy, Black America. Someone will have to pay for the political choices of the pro-war supermajority.
Our data show that a very large proportion of visitors read both "Conspiracy Theories" and "Depraved Indifference" - with the result that we sometimes cannot tell which piece our correspondents are referring to. Fine with us - it's all good, as persons of a younger age say.
We get the distinct impression that Dianne Lobes, Ed.D., of Eugene, Oregon, read both pieces.
Whew. Masterful. I wish I had written your most recent, trenchant, beautifully skewering Issues article, but that discomfort is minor, compared to the relief of finally reading Rumsfeld get his just due. Thank you for your unwavering perception (nondelusional, I might add) and reporting on the dismantling of any semblance of a humanitarian society. You are just the best, and I read w-i-d-e-l-y. I send you out to everyone, and insist that they read and partake of the wisdom of your analysis. I hear back from many that they do, and I'm thankful.
"We've got a pretty weak economy," said John T. Dillon, the chairman of the Business Roundtable. "We all feel great about the war," he added, in an interview with the New York Times.
Baghdad Burning
So utterly self-consumed are the Pirates and their racist constituency, they saw love for "America" in the fires that ravaged so much of Baghdad. (If extra-terrestrials ever send Earth a message from light-years away, the Bush men will take it as a letter from a secret admirer.)
Irv Taylor ruminates on the rulers' long road to depravity.
As always, but not taking for granted, your work is not only superb, but as far above the basic sludge as the sun is different from the moon (and no offense meant to the moon!). In recent conversations with various friends, two things have come to be quite plain to me. First, as far as I can tell from scripture, the only wars God sanctioned had to do with terminating the contracts of the worshippers of other gods. The first commandment was simple and basic: Thou shall have no other gods before me. Since it is the worship or obedience to other gods that leads to the other transgressions, it is obvious why this is the first commandment.
There are no wars sanctioned by God for any other purpose. It seems needless to point out the obvious private interpretation of the Bushites. The second thing is analogous to the first Caucasian American genocide when they made express laws prohibiting the sale or trade of firearms to the Native Americans. A typical scene in the old westerns involved some decrepit white man on the make who had a few high tech rifles to sell to the Lakota or Apache, and then the news of this getting out, enraging the "settlers" (land thieves), resulting in their clamoring for "liberation" (protection) from the "savages". Then you have Custer or some other self-righteous commander riding up to save the day. Of course, there were only ever a handful of these guns, most often without ammunition. But the point is always: "How dare these (pick one: savages, barbarians, Indians) have the effrontery to stand up to us and fight for their, OOPS, our land?"
Now, in Iraq, you have the Caucasian American claiming the Iraqis have a few high tech bombs but finding none, they turn to blame the next native Arab nation (Syria) of abetting a crime (ostensibly receiving Iraqi weapons sold to them by... you guessed it, some decrepit white - French, Russian - man on the make) to rationalize why Custer's old unit, the 7th Cavalry (have you noticed how prominently they've been featured during this latest aggression?) has been sent to liberate the wild East for the exploitation and occupation of the range. It certainly helps to do a Rome on the Iraqis (recall how the Romans under Augustus burned the library of Alexandria and then blamed that on the disaffected Egyptian?) and allow for the destruction of their history. But, this is an old ploy of the ravenous thief. Everywhere he has gone on the planet, he has destroyed the history and linkage to the past of the native people, to later appear and attempt to define that people's history as his own. And, so, you have the abomination of desolation in the appearance of Rumsfeld proclaiming: Rioting, looting... is fine. It's part of democracy.
Well, one thing is known to any who know the true Word: the enemy has 3 characteristics - to kill, to steal, to destroy. Where you see this, that is the enemy. Wake up you blind "Christians"! A man claiming to be in the name of God is not the same as a man being of God. Your Bush is a deceiver and a thief and a liar. He loves to kill!
It would be nice if there were an effective opposition to the prevaricators that have a stranglehold on what used to be America. But the democrats are too spineless to ever stand against their own. After all, this is the range, and "the only good Arab is a dead Arab", to paraphrase the old racist war cry.
Special looters dispensation
On reflection, it should come as no surprise that the Bush men's morality condones "looting in a good cause," since that is what they see as their own, global mission.
Ben Tripp found our article useful.
Your editorial of today (April 17) is superb. We can only understand the moment in which we exist - a time of such madness that it beggars analysis - through analogy to other times. But from my buckra perspective, analogy has failed, because I see the looting of Baghdad and I can only liken it to events in distant history. You have cleared this problem up by comparing events in Iraq to events in the black experience in America. To view this "aministration's" staggering hypocrisy in its full form and detail, one must compare Baghdad to South Central.
One must compare the slaughter of brown civilians there to the slaughter of black civilians here. The degree of relativism is what is thrown into starkest contrast: Rumsfeld and his ilk grinning like madmen and spouting the idea that all them dune coons should have the unimpeded right to bust the joint up after a couple generations of oppression, just as long as they destroy their own country, not ours, while a whisper of discontent from America's own despised black population is met with the full force of law and arms and ringing declamations.
The "fundamental weakness in the Pirate's offensive against world order [is] their inability to see the world as it is." The Bush men challenge a world they cannot understand, and compound each mistake with another. They fail to comprehend events, such as the "celebratory" burning of Baghdad - more an invention than a simple distortion of reality. Such men cannot possibly win a protracted struggle with the planet-at-large.
Nicholas Levis gets the picture.
Every issue is amazing. Great cover story this week, all too true. The pirates act out of desperation, not strength, I tell that to everyone who thinks this is the start of some 200-year empire. Bulldada. It's the end of their power, like the song from Lori Anderson, "O Superman", ..., "when justice is done, there's always force. And when force is done, there's always mom..." Right now, all they have left is force, and they've never been less bothered with covering up what monsters they really are. Their faces say it all. All we the people have to do is keep fighting and survive it. They are going down on their own.
Just want to say, Apr. 3 '68 was as amazing as any of King's speeches, but the one you should be constantly reminding people of - I'm sure you realize this - is from Apr. 4, '67, "Beyond Vietnam," as prophetic and clear-sighted and complete and still entirely contemporary a document about this country as anyone has ever written. He saw it all, one year to the day before the assassination. Perhaps the date was no coincidence.
We published Dr. King's full Riverside Church speech during the week of his birthday, and agree that it is among the most relevant to our present situation. Regarding the Pirates "going down on their own," this is inevitable, given global conditions and their own fatal deformities. However, Hitler's fate was sealed after 1943, yet that did not save most of the remainder of European Jewry. The American internal scenario is problematical, to put it vaguely.
Obeying an internal illogic supported by imagined facts, the Pirates dance to a tune that must be inferred, rather than heard, by others. Their racism, however, is easy to read. Diana Tolton writes:
I am astounded at the apparent insidious disease of superiority that runs through the Bush Administration. When I read this article I could only assume that Bush is attempting to insure that the rapidly growing groups of minorities in this country don't usurp the white families in positions of power. What better way to insure that the opportunities that exist in this country are held out of reach of black Americans?
Carol Carlisle is an American who has stepped outside the bubble to see her country more clearly.
This is an excellent article. I am a white female. I have lived several years overseas and enjoyed living in many different cultures.
I never could understand why Americans always thought that the United States was Number 1. Number 1 in what? Highest standard of living? Equal division of wealth?
I think that it was appropriate to call the Bush men the Pirate Class. You are right - it is their extreme racial and cultural bigotry that will be their undoing.
I am 60 years old. I hope I live long enough to see, at least, the beginnings of a truly multi-racial, multi-cultural democracy with an equitable distribution of resources and wealth. Once we have achieved this, then we will look forward to interacting with and sharing with the global community.
The facts of world living standards are readily accessible to every American. Yet the national reality of comparative early death, overwork, and material insecurity is resisted - as if the mere knowledge of U.S. inferiority is an overt, unpatriotic act.
The truth may not set you free right away, but Californian A. Locke is going to tell it, anyway.
Wow. Thank you for a brilliant article. In these days of "real TV," white-bread news stories, I am forwarding this article to my students, my children and all my friends. Brilliant. Someone is thinking.
In the U.S., the truth can lose you clients, who prefer to deal with flag-waving liars rather than honest people bearing facts. Let William F Smith tell it.
This article was absolutely fabulous! Bravo, thank you for filling in the spaces to my idea of what is happening. I had an idea, but few answers. You have provided the only answers that make sense and add up to the current situation. Please keep the info flowing. And you are right about the racism. I am a white businessman who has to deal with it on a daily basis with my peers. It makes me sick, but I know if I am to deal with these people and survive, I keep my mouth shut. I support you in every way.
Daniel Pryzbyla, from Milwaukee, is a longtime
Well, what else is there to say? A remarkable political analysis and overview relating to present Middle East, world and U.S. piracy. "Pirates." That's a real classic! Keep up the great work.
We call the Bush men "Pirates" because they share with the old buccaneers a predatory relationship to the domestic and world economies, waylaying ships of state (in the Straits of Florida, November 2000) in order to convert them into engines of plunder.
Amel Ahmed, a "loyal reader from Jamaica Queens," likes it when we talk like that.
I absolutely love your publication. Honestly if it wasn't for you, corporate media would have driven me mad. I cannot believe nor fathom the American populace's level of ignorance. The American people are suffocating themselves with their arrogance and what's amusing is that which they are proud of is all an illusion. In chat rooms, where the true intentions of mainstream white Americans are free to mingle about, it all revolves around the same theme - 'We kicked sand nigger ass, and we will do it again.' Isn't it scary to think that the people running this nation have the same intentions as mainstream white America?
I was originally disappointed that Iraqis didn't put up much of a fight, but then after reading your editorial entitled 'a murderous culture,' I realized how foolish I was to have expected Iraq to stand any chance against a nation that is King of WMD, aka United States of Aggression. But it made me proud to see that over 20,000 Iraqis protested after the ousting of Saddam Hussein. It shows that they are not gullible fools blinded by a false sense of liberty but a people who are very much aware of the true intentions of America among which are to liberate the "Iraqi" oil and secure Israeli invincibility from any resistance left in the Mid East. As reward the Iraqi people will have a choice of Mickey D's or KFC's to choose from...what better freedom than that?
Steve Heckart is an optimistic sort of fellow
You make powerful, insightful arguments. However, perhaps if the opposition to the neocons can get organized, it will be possible to nudge the nation onto other, more democratic and socially acceptable paths. After all, Bush and company have destroyed the economy and that was poppy's undoing.
We hope that no one gets the impression that
Regarding repression - it will descend with vicious intensity whatever we do, initiated by the Pirates as a reaction to their own failures. Better to be organized, than not.
Celebrity readership
We were pleased to learn that the rock group The Savage Rose are readers of
Thank you, Black Commentator, for your brilliant analysis titled Conspiracy Theories. These are the thoughts we have been trying to give words for some time now, and here it is. Wonderful. The clearest analysis of what is really going on right now. This is what the US needs to know, and the world too. We will definitely spread this article as far as we can - in the US and in Europe and elsewhere through our international network of friends and fans, and progressive organizations.
As Angelenos originating from Denmark, we could add this:
Besides the US 'pirates', the popular, anti-racist movement for peace, justice, & social progress is facing yet another enemy, which would become clearly visible as the US economy loses terrain: European imperialism. The powers controlling Germany, France, et cetera have objectives not too different from the 'pirates'. For decades they have had aspirations for Europe to regain her strong, imperialist military power, and readied an all-European, racist police state. Let's not forget European colonialism and the savage brutality of, for example, France in Algeria.
The real, progressive superpower, the only power able to stop this whole global mess, is testing the temperature of the waters. That is the peoples of the world, as expressed by the global anti-war, anti-racist, anti-globalization movement, and every power not totally controlled by US or European superpowers, e. g. the non-aligned nations. How this popular power is going to develop will be the decisive factor in the shaping of the future of this planet. Unless, of course, the tragic stupidity of imperialists turns us all into charcoal before we even see the future.
The Savage Rose website is http://www.savagerose.com. We recommend their "anti-war soul-R&B-oldschool-hiphop-rocker" cut, World Aflame (Not In our Name). It's good to get the party started and the factions in action.
Her Majesty's Pirates
Apparently, the British War Party has no problem being associated in the public mind with pirates. Jorge Mariscal, director of the Chicano/a Arts and Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego, sent us a link to a story in The Independent (UK), noting the arrival of one of Her Majesty's ships back from the Persian Gulf:
Last week, the submarine HMS Turbulent returned to Plymouth, flying the Jolly Roger, the pirates' emblem. How appropriate. This nuclear-powered machine fired some 30 American Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraq. Each missile cost £700,000: a total of £21m. That alone would provide desperate Basra with food, water and medicines."
Prof. Mariscal authored the January 16
A gentleman who prefers to be known simply as "III" sent us the following:
Like many Black Americans and other minorities, I feel like I should let my voice be heard. I must state however that many, many people in this country are unfortunately drunk with nationalism. As you know, all "isms" are negative. Unfortunately, most of the American public seems either unaware or dismissive of it. Well, I have written a piece about George Bush and his cabinet. I would appreciate it if you would post it.
The Merchant of DeathAcross the land he spreads his power like a shower of
razors coming down. His troopers of death merely
following orders, slay upon command. The stench of
rotting corpses, the cries of wounded souls, these
things are like whispers in the wind of yesterday and
days to come.At one time they called him Fuhrer, a demon in the
form of a man, a butcher of eloquent regard to those
under his command. The wondrous inventions, the
marvelous minds, all these things created those
monstrous times. Those who lived used to say, 'We
should not forget this day.' Yet, much time has
passed and now we see, the merchant of death coming
from the sea.From the only superpower left on Earth arises a
presence of selected tongue and stolen wealth. He
wraps his armor with Christian values and carefully
chosen words. Upon his throne he is drunk with power.
Those who sit by his side are the angels of death.They whisper into his ears of kingdoms yet to be. The
massive murders they commit are a side issue you see.
In his family tree there was a man who helped the
Fuhrer get the upper hand.So, blood rites and offerings to Lucifer are made.
From country to country the blood will flow. The
broken bodies, the twisted limbs, the mutilated souls,
reluctantly leave the physical world. The did not ask
to be sacrifices.Onward the troops will go, slaughtering in their
wake. They follow the sweetened tongue of the
incarnation of death.Necessary correction
Shortly after publication of last week's issue featuring "Conspiracy Theories," a reader named Robin did us a great service.
I have just discovered your publication and find it very thought provoking. Definitely a site I will visit again and again.
Already I have passed the current front page editorial on to others, one of whom has asked a question I can't answer. In the article, the author writes:
"China's economy has surpassed Japan's and remains a command system, able to move as a body to favor or disfavor the United States if her political will is tested."
They say that China's economy has not surpassed Japan's.
We responded, in part: "Whew! We are so glad you exist." We are not sure how China rose from number six economy in the world to number two in our text, and can only guess that a conflation of thoughts conspired to create an erroneous sentence that escaped detection during less than vigilant proofing by the person who wrote it. The sentence should have read:
China has surpassed Japan as the country with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficit and remains a command system, able to move as a body to favor or disfavor the United States if her political will is tested.
The author's embarrassment was commensurate with the enormity of the distortion. Readers who printed or sent out the Thursday version should avoid the taint through corrective action. The text was corrected, Friday, April 18.
Comparative "Skeeza" analysis
Anthony Kennerson, of Lafayette, Louisiana, writes, "I don't know exactly how you format responses to your stories, but I will try to give some random thoughts on some stories that have graced your excellent website as of late." He then proceeds to cover the map, but so entertainingly that we felt compelled to share (nearly) the whole letter:
First off, on the "Skeeza" smack of Condi Rice: Personally, I happen to think that that remark was a gratuitous insult and highly offensive...to all true "skeezas", that is. Actually, speaking as a thinking sex-positive radical and a regular Black progressive citizen, I have far more respect for true prostitutes and self-respectful whores - who actually tire their trade under the most insurmountable odds and under the greatest of surveillance by the "authorities" (the very same authorities that are kicking regular Black folks' shins too, BTW) for the promise of a few minutes of genuine sexual pleasure - than I have for that criminal, self-hating, sell-her-people-down-the-river-for-her-very-own-tanker shell of a woman. It is so amazing that our educational system and our history could produce the likes of her (and Uncle Clarence Thomas, and Colin "Where's My Forged Essay?" Powell, and their pseudo-Democratic cousins like Donna Brazile), who always seem to turn up whenever real Black folk emerge to speak the truth. But, then again, I guess that's why God (and Goddess) developed irony and satire.
Next, on the Democratic Party and their little issue with Al Sharpton and the Left as a whole: I tend to be an Independent myself who has basically abandoned the Dems as hopelessly conservative and committed to a kinder, gentler fascism; nevertheless, I'm actually rooting for the Reverend with the whack perm (no offense intended, Rev. Sharpton), if only for the hairs-on-end scare that he gives to the national Dem leadership. As you so plainly and eloquently put it, the Democrats will either reclaim some degree of progressive heritage and acquire some backbone for social and economic justice - and real soon, guys, before Dubya and the gang pass Patriot II and suspend what's left of the Constitution - or they will fade and wither like the lapdogs they are. But since Rev. Al stands no chance of getting past the DLC corporate whores and actually getting the election, I recommend that he and some like-minded independent progressive folk consider the option of forming another progressive party which will stand on its own for real principles. I do know that most Blacks are still totally committed to the party of jackasses, but considering that they have continuously gotten their booties kicked for so long, there might be an opening for a true second party. (Sorry, Greens and Libertarians, but Black folk have been and always will be the true anchor of the Left in America; and to ignore them and the fundamental issue of white racism is to assure your doom. Besides, nothing else has seemed to work.) Keep up the great work, and keep on speaking truth with power.
C. Martin Maaloumi's note is much more concise than Mr. Kennerson, but just as welcome.
I just have to say I love what you do at
Georgia Washington sends greetings on
Thank you for the enlightening information published in
Congratulations on beginning your 2nd year of publishing. Long may this information be heard and read - knowledge is power. With information like this at my fingertips, I am beside myself, and always anxious to share it with others.
Mr. Kim Whitmyre shares with us his abundant enthusiasm.
Let me give you a "Right on" above all Right Ons!! Can I get a witness!? Keep on keeping on!
Bruce K. Gagnon is Coordinator of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He writes from Gainesville, Florida.
Just wanted to write and say thanks for your weekly gifts of truth telling. I read each issue with a mixture of emotions, sadness and delight. Mostly though I am proud at how you tell your readers the truth about the world the Pirates are now creating at home and abroad.
We've put several of your pieces and cartoons on our web site and will keep doing so. Many thanks for the real journalism.Mr. Gagnon's network does exemplary work. Their address is http://www.space4peace.org.
Finally, look towards Connecticut and you will see the light shining. That's Joyce.
Keep Writing.
Sons of Afrika
Take Back the Media
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