Hillary Clinton – Unspoken Politics

De-Arrest Every Single One, Free Them All

It’s not clear what the legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency will be. A lot is contingent on whether he leaves in 2021 or 2025 (or maybe stays beyond that, who really knows). It could be his links with the fossil fuel industry during the key period to avoid climate catastrophe. It could be his disgusting personality and history of sexual harassment and violence. I don’t think it’ll be his potential links to Russia, but I may be wrong.

Right now, July 15, 2019, it’s clearly the concentration camps.

2019-03-27t224958z_640528156_rc16ca56cd20_rtrmadp_3_usa-immigration-border_1.jpg_1718483346 — A concentration camp for migrants and asylees, El Paso, Texas. Credit: Reuters

The debate of what to call these horrid human misery camps is tired. They are concentration camps, much like Japanese internment camps were, and the early Nazi-era camps that existed as eventual pipelines shuttling people to death camps. The term is over a century old, and historians nearly-universally see the term as being used fairly like people like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

So with that being established, what are we obligated to do about them? The liberal response, which is focused on symbolic protest and use of electoral politics is, to me, fundamentally flawed. Mass symbolic protests like the Women’s March have had no long-term effect on Trump administration policy. Electoral victories in Congress did not yield a solution, as Nancy Pelosi gave a blank check to the administration to create more camps (or, more likely, keep the camps as-is and increase enforcement and apprehension, creating further crowding and misery). The Democratic Party is hopelessly divided on what to do about the border, with many having bought into the idea that there is a non-manufactured ‘border crisis’ with record unlawful crossings. The truth is more about clogged immigration courts, performative cruelty by the administration as a deterrent to crossing the border, and wasting taxpayer money sending soldiers to the border to do nothing in the heat.

Not to say that there are not urgent crises in countries that produce a large number of migrants. The Obama administration’s support for a coup in Honduras that entrenched military rule, corruption, and gang power, which he nor Hillary Clinton were ever held meaningfully accountable for, has had a domino effect on the region. Mass migration, including unaccompanied minors, rose sharply during the latter half of Obama’s administration. The crisis is a mixture of interventionist, illegal foreign policy and purposefully cruel domestic priorities. The end result is a humanitarian nightmare.

So what do we do? While Donald Trump certainly flirts with fascist ideas, there is certainly more space to plan resistance than existed in 1930s and 1940s Germany and Italy. ICE is used to targeting individuals and small groups with the element of surprise- they rely on heavily-armed police to deal with actions like the Portland ICE occupation. There are certainly mainstream actions that can be taken to deal with these injustices. Winning district attorney and mayoral races with progressive candidates that firmly (actually) refuse to cooperate with federal immigration is important. ICE depends strongly on the consent and active assistance of state and local law enforcement- if such support is removed, the house of cards is revealed. Further occupations of ICE buildings, the homes of senior officials, and contractors that do business with the agency could be effective- assuming activists have a clear strategy for victory and do not fall into lifestyle activism like occupation camps have often been criticized for becoming going back to Occupy Wall Street and before.

phonelights960 — A Lights for Liberty vigil. July 12, 2019. Credit: AP

But will history be satisfied with that? Are future generations going to be okay with “I voted” and “I went to a vigil”? Would we be satisfied with that in any prior period with concentration camps? Are we willing to live with hypocrisy?

With that said, let’s talk about de-arresting.

De-arresting has two distinct meanings. One is when one is released from arrest without certain information being filed. The other, which I’ll be referring to, is a form of direct action where a person or persons who have been detained or arrested are freed by protestors using various methods, including force. Given the high amount of illegal arrests at events like the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, it can be said that de-arresting can be justified, assuming we do not start from a position that the only legitimate power is state power, and that law enforcement officers (and prison guards, ICE officials, federal agents, Border Patrol, etc.) are always justified in the actions they take. This is uncomfortable territory for the political center and mainstream, even if they strongly disagree with mass arrests, deportations, child separations, and concentration camps. This is the electoral-direct action divide. Plenty of people have one foot in each camp, but many refuse to cross it. The reasons are complicated- they include personal sympathy with law enforcement (“my brother is a police officer!”), class interest, internalized bigotry, and simple lack of initiative.

Let’s also say that de-arresting is not strictly about the use of force. In Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, which has been used in the color revolutions across Europe and the Caucuses, the Arab Spring, and in the Hong Kong democracy movement, among many others, we see ostensibly nonviolent means that still support actions like de-arresting, given certain circumstances. I’ll bold some I think are particularly relevant:

16. Picketing

66. Total personal noncooperation
67. “Flight” of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance

139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws

143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation

146. Judicial noncooperation

170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation

175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in

196. Civil disobedience of “neutral” laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

183. Nonviolent land seizure

Now, in the streets, when a migrant is being detained by ICE, or held in a concentration camp, or separated from their children, the lines between “nonviolence” and “force” blur a lot. What if a police officer charges you with a baton? Do you resist or not? If an officer is dragging someone towards a car, is it violent or nonviolent to distract or intimidate them into letting them go, or pursuing you instead? It’s why principled pacifism has problematic aspects. I still believe nonviolence has clear advantages- there are clear problems with the actions of anarchist Willem Van Spronsen and his “propaganda of the deed”. These things are best done in massive groups, in which soldiers or police are outnumbered heavily. The more people there are, the less likely authority figures will risk using force, lest they lose control of the situation entirely. There is a long history of mass occupations and civil disobedience, including the mutiny of soldiers- such as the 1986 Peoples’ Power Revolution in the Philippines, and the retreat of riot police from the federal building in the 2000 Bulldozer Revolution in Serbia, leading to the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević. These were mass movements, broad coalitions ranging from the mainstream to hardened activists, to the authorities themselves. Their united actions and planning exposed rifts within the ruling class, which were then isolated and dismantled piece by piece, like the storming of the Bastille 230 years ago yesterday.

The situation is fairly straightforward. Thousands of people are in concentration camps where they don’t belong. Their conditions are horrific. Children are separated from parents, sometimes to be adopted by American families without parental consent. We have to get them out. They have been arrested and detained, but their ‘crimes’ are unjust for any level of imprisonment. They are held and dehumanized as an act of pure cruelty, just like the Boers in South Africa, the Roma, Communists, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals across Europe by Germany, and the Japanese in the United States and Canada.

They need to be de-arrested. The camps must be dismantled. Their leaders need to be tried and convicted of their crimes. How does one do that? You can gather a dedicated coalition and use raw numbers to do the job. You can try to fight the soldiers, police, and agents- though that is the terrain they are most comfortable with, and regular people are least comfortable. You can wait until 2020 and hope Donald Trump loses a partially-rigged election and relinquishes authority. And hope a Democratic president doesn’t maintain such terrible detention facilities.

There are multiple paths, with one goal. Which way will it be?

T+5: A Time Long Thought Past

(these posts will be dated based on days since the 2016 Election. Tuesday, Nov 8 is T-0.)

It is a huge mistake to think that the election marked the birth of a new era in American politics. In the past two years there have been arson attacks on black churches (including one at the beginning of November in Mississippi). Police violence against protesters in particular, and people of color in general have never died down. But the election is still an important line of demarcation.

This series, the Trump Era (TE), is devoted to how the climate is changing. In particular, how the election has provided a de facto justification for white supremacy. The Obama administration had many incidents of vigilante and police violence against unarmed civilians. But the administration did establish that such things were not okay, and there should be consequences to violating the human rights of others.

Since Tuesday, friends of mine have been arrested. One was beaten up by police. Two men have been arrested and charged with attempted murder after a shooting on the Morrison Bridge in Portland. Swastika graffiti is ever-present: schools, religious buildings, dorms, sidewalks. Given that the Trump campaign has often encouraged harassment and the use of force against dissent, these situations can always escalate. And communities should be prepared for that.

Of course, there are still people alive who remember a time when national leaders were proudly fascist. The hope for a progressive era- in which society continues to improve from the nadir near World War II, may now be increasingly naive. Things can always go backwards. The core of Trump supporters once had superior status and power to people of color. They lost this, and to regain this they necessarily have to take the country back in time. When someone says they “want their country back” they mean so in a possessive sense. This means marginalization and regression.

David Neiwert published a book in 2009, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. Its thesis is that conservative media and politicians were moving supporters in a dangerous direction. Opponents were not only wrong, but an existential threat to the American way of life. Vigilante attacks are a symptom that eliminationism is becoming an increasingly mainstream ideology. Donald Trump will be the first modern eliminationist President.

“Wait and see” or “giving him a chance” is a white privileged luxury. For people of color, the costs of being unprepared are total. Liberals who castigated Trump for a year and a half are hypocritical if they stop now. In this situation, unity means submission, since the Trumpists have preached us vs. them.

Trump will not become president until January 20, 2017. But his era has already begun in full. His supporters will not wait for legal sanction. They will attack because they can. And communities must consider to what degree to they respond.

Trump collapses, vote Stein.

Donald Trump’s poll numbers were terrible before today’s fiasco, and they’ll only get worse! That means voters in Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia- you don’t have to be another insurance vote, there’s space to vote Stein.

The next Donald Trump

We are now forty days from the 2016 election, and the result is still very much in doubt. The collision of two unpopular, ill-liked candidates has created something approaching competition. On the Wednesday after, talking heads will find their own way of saying “the losing party would have won if they had ran anyone else as their candidate.”

So perhaps we are heading into a Donald Trump presidency. The effects of this, domestically and internationally, are in the air. But one should expect regression and an increase in everyday hostility towards non-whites as a start.

This post is not about the 2016 election. It’s about the next Donald Trump-like candidate to gain a mass following in the United States. And the one after that, going forward into the indefinite future.

A common error in conventional thinking is to mix up structural and particular events. That is, is Trump emerging from a large, stable movement in society, or is he a man with a particular skill set that is not easily replicated? Sociologists like myself think the former explanation is better, while conventional Republicans would like to think the latter is true.

The debate about Trump harkens back to debates about the rise of populists and fascists in the modern world. That is, were Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin, or the Khmer Rogue a special type of evil that is so tied to their being? The unsettling reality, which explains why so many believe that, is that monstrous figures emerge from society. Any political leader or force that has existed can return in a similar form. That means that we, collectively, have the potential to both build and destroy.

Deindustrialization, outsourcing, stagnant wages, underemployment, falling unionization rates, rising healthcare and education costs. All of these, beginning around 1970 and continuing until now, are serious structural forces. They impact a wide swath of society, but for conservative populists, working class whites can be utilized to gain power. Much of the country is at least partly segregated, making racial appeals effective. A massive recession hit the bulk of society head on, and the recovery has only benefitted the rich elite. These days are the crucible of radical politics, which has reached a more complete form on the right, though the Sanders campaign and Jill Stein indicate movement towards the left as well.

Remember that Hitler attempted to seize power first in November 1923 with the Beer Haul Putsch. The Enabling Act, which gave the Nazis unchecked power, came a full decade later. But in that time, the Weimar Republic struggled with hyperinflation, economic stagnation, and political paralysis. The persistence of this particular structure is what made far-right politics possible. As long as crisis reigned, there was always another chance.

And that’s what we should expect going forward from the 2016 election. Structural issues will persist, and a Clinton presidency is not going to solve core economic problems (remember when her husband destroyed welfare and funded prisons instead?) or help communities of color to any meaningful degree. Deadlock in the Senate, demagogues in legislatures across the country. There can always be another Trump. When they come, we should not be surprised.

The practical constraints of “voting power”

A few weeks ago, I was at a union conference for shop stewards in Oakland, CA. As you might imagine, the union was 100% committed to the election season. The union had long since endorsed Hillary Clinton and the Democratic slate nationally and statewide. The “hype lady” (is there a formal term for this in fundraising?) led a chant that I found very troubling, given what else I know about this union. It goes something like this:

“Who’s got the POWER?”
“We’ve got the POWER!”
“What kind of POWER?”
“Worker POWER!”

“Who’s got the POWER?”
“We’ve got the POWER!”
“What kind of POWER? Voting POWER!”
“Voting POWER!”

Things trundle off into the weeds at the end. It feels strange to ask a room to lead in a chant about voting, given that a significant portion of the stewards (and a huge number of regular members) are not citizens and cannot vote. Some are undocumented or otherwise not on a path to citizenship. On UC San Diego campus, meetings of the union are conducted entirely in Spanish, because the custodial staff are overwhelmingly Latina immigrants.

It taps into a larger issue I’ve had with political communication this cycle in general. It presupposes citizenship. It makes voting an essential part of political participation. It’s a manifestation of privilege- non-citizens cannot vote, much like people of color cannot expect the protection of law enforcement. People like me were handed the vote at birth post-dated eighteen years.

This might seem a bit petty, but modern American unions overwhelmingly focus on electoral politics and lobbying. Non-citizens can still work campaigns, but there is an inherent two-tier system that develops. The speaker was right though- unions have worker power. What that is, and what it is used for, depends on the vision and direction of the particular union. Social justice campaigns that center participants in being a member of a community, rather than citizen or non-citizen, allow workers to use their power in a context of equality. The broader the political vision, the more inclusive it will ultimately be, and the better served its membership.

Clinton-Sanders and the Great Unfriending

In my decade on social media, there has been no reaction like this. As the Democratic primaries finished, and especially since the first day of the DNC last week, the battle over voting Clinton versus an alternative has never been addressed by more of my friends, for a longer sustained period of time with such emotion. I have no doubt that there has been a Great Unfriending, much like there is after a mass shooting or a young black person killed by police. The zeitgeist gets encapsulated in one particular event or process, and usually friendly individuals tear themselves into pieces.

Great Unfriendings are not always bad. They can help flush bigoted and ignorant people to the forefront, and it allows us to match our perceptions of friends, co-workers, and allies to their behavior. Social media, being so casual, also helps us understand privilege, and who we are when we don’t wear such a complex mask.

The DNC was a pivot point. The options and opinions have shifted. For all of Sen. Sanders and his talk of “political revolution”, the question until recently was about picking one of two people to be the Democratic Party nominee. The rhetoric had always been that Sanders supporters were part of a social movement rather than a straightforward election campaign. But that had never been tested. I personally thought that many Sanders movement activists spent far too much time on the primaries, if a grassroots revolution on all levels of government is the idea. And I wondered if people would stay together as this movement, or would they either get discouraged or shift to campaigning for Clinton.

Now the question is much bigger than the individual people will vote for in November. It’s about how much each of us is willing to follow political custom, or stand in opposition. It’s not the primary coming up on Tuesday. Now it’s about what our democracy should be. How a vote for Clinton, or Jill Stein, or Gary Johnson, or Donald Trump changes the status quo. It’s a much harder conversation to have, and many people have never had it before. Previously it was “Issue X: is Clinton or Sanders better?” Now there are no straightforward comparisons. Stein and Clinton have very different foreign policy agendas, but only one belongs to a party struggling to get on the ballot. It’s irrelevant whether Clinton gets 271 electoral votes or 350, but what Stein and Johnson receive determines whether voters in dozens of states will have alternatives to vote for. Ballot access through the Presidential vote is crucial, because third parties spend so much of their limited money and people tied up in litigation. Access, plus the millions of federal funds available to those that poll at least 5%, changes the entire dynamic of party politics going forward.

There have been deep questions about privilege and identity. Is supporting Hillary an act of privilege. Or is rejecting Clinton ridiculous, and a luxury for those who have little to lose from President Donald Trump? I’ve seen friends of color take both stances, and I’ve seen friends, both white and not, denounce them. Ultimately, I’m not certain. I have my own personal plan, but I really don’t wish to invalidate the opinions of people who, it is true, have much more to lose in November than I do.

This new stage is more radical and open-ended. And we learn more about those around us. This should be a positive. I’m not asking for civility for civility’s sake. But this moment should be appreciated as one of the most open periods of political discourse in recent history. Presidential elections make even apathetic people care about politics for a little while, and the Democratic primary battle, along with the rise of Trump. It’s a golden moment for organizers and social change. And it would be a shame if this moment were underutilized because we talk when we should listen.

Stein, vaccines, and the new, better Green Party

Jill Stein has gotten some negative media attention due to an answer in a Reddit AMA regarding vaccines.

Part of her statement:

“I think there’s no question that vaccines have been absolutely critical in ridding us of the scourge of many diseases — smallpox, polio, etc. So vaccines are an invaluable medication,” Stein said. “Like any medication, they also should be — what shall we say? — approved by a regulatory board that people can trust. And I think right now, that is the problem. That people do not trust a Food and Drug Administration, or even the CDC for that matter, where corporate influence and the pharmaceutical industry has a lot of influence.”

followed up later with this, mentioning controversies with the use of hormone replacement for menopause, and treatments for Alzheimer’s that backfired:

it’s really important that the American public have confidence in our regulatory boards so that all of our medical treatments and medications actually are approved by people who do not have a vested interest in their promotion.

and clarification on Twitter:

13641271_1109908185721424_9156687574221658012_o

Snopes also lists the claim that Stein is anti-vaccination as unproven.

My mother, a psychiatrist, was concerned about Stein’s take on vaccines, so I did some research to make sure I had all the needed context.

The Washington Post story, which is the norm among large, nonpartisan media outlets, takes a skeptical look at Stein’s claims, assuming that the formal independence of the FDA more or less as true.

The closest Stein gets to anti-vaxx arguments is here:

“There were concerns among physicians about what the vaccination schedule meant, the toxic substances like mercury which used to be rampant in vaccines. There were real questions that needed to be addressed. I think some of them at least have been addressed. I don’t know if all of them have been addressed.”

Pretty different from what her remarks were being portrayed as. At its core, Stein doesn’t believe that vaccines have any of the purported negative effects that are common currency among anti-vaxxers. Nor does she see any existing issues as overriding the massive public health necessity of vaccination. In fact, she specifically says vaccination rates need to go up in light of Jenny McCarthy and others. As she said on Twitter, the issue is that government agencies have a credibility problem. Even if their statements are 100% true, the intensive lobbying by pharmaceutical companies, and a revolving door between the FDA and private industry, invites skepticism. And indeed that is part of why parents may choose to ignore warnings about things like vaccinations. Even if “the FDA is a tool of Big Pharma” is unrelated to “vaccines are essential for public health,” it can muddy the waters.

The pharmaceutical lobby is incredibly powerful. A 2005 piece by the Center for Public Integrity pointed out over $100 million annually in lobbying. To quote, emphasis mine:

The industry’s multi-faceted influence campaign has also led to a more industry-friendly regulatory policy at the Food and Drug Administration, the agency that approves its products for sale and most directly oversees drug makers.

Most of the industry’s political spending paid for federal lobbying. Medicine makers hired about 3,000 lobbyists, more than a third of them former federal officials, to advance their interests before the House, the Senate, the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other executive branch offices.

A 2015 story in TIME about the now-current head of the FDA, Robert Califf M.D pointed out that he was making six figures in consulting fees annually from pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies were instrumental in the passage of Medicare Part D, which is a cash cow because it has no price controls unlike most government health programs. Pharma is also the only part of the health system that was not impacted by the Affordable Care Act, trading perks in exchange for not blocking the bill.

I’ve been a registered Green from mid-2009 until today, minus the time myself and many others registered independent to vote in the Democratic primary this year. In years past, Green ideology was a complete mess. It was sort of socialist, sort of capitalist, and alternatively enthusiastic about and skeptical of science. Going to a party conference, I was frustrated by the lack of coherence and a tendency towards conspiracy theories and quack medicine.

Screen Shot 2016-07-30 at 1.03.20 AM.png

This election cycle is different, because the primaries have manufactured a large disenchanted bloc of voters who see Stein as an answer. This has had the effect of making Green ideology more consistent, and pushing out its more kooky aspects. An amendment to the 2016 platform was passed by the National Committee to make the Green Party explicitly anti-capitalist and move towards eco-socialism. This would resolve the ambiguous take on economics in Green politics and give the party something to stand on. The party this year also voted to remove support for practices like homeopathy. I do believe that Jill Stein has been part of the solution rather than the problem- her status as a doctor makes outsiders more likely to listen, and since her run in 2012 there has been pressure to move beyond a niche party.

Your vote in November is yours alone. Don’t let people bully you into a decision. If you are in a swing state, it’s a tough decision and in some sense I’m glad I don’t have to make it. If you live in a safe state, a vote for the Greens would be huge. A large result would secure millions in public funding, improve ballot access. Minor parties spend more money on litigation to get on the ballot than anything else. And even if Clinton wins, a 5%+ for Stein shows that the Sanders movement against politics as usual has survived.

Enough is enough. Vote Stein.

Ten million reasons to vote for Jill Stein, M.D.

The Democratic National Convention has catalyzed a new, much stronger debate about voting Democrat or opting to support the Green presidential nominee, Jill Stein. Dan Savage produced perhaps the “To Be or Not to Be” of misguided anti-Stein arguments a few days ago. The response by Green national co-chair Andrea Mérida Cuéllar was a comprehensive defense of the Green Party ideology and strategy, also highlighting how Savage is against bullying unless the victim is a third-party politician:

We Greens are also well acquainted with Savage’s rhetoric of entitlement regarding Democratic candidacies—for example his violent remarks aimed at Green Pennsylvania congressional candidate Carl Romanelli in 2006, who was challenging Rick Santorum and Bob Casey. At that time, Savage said about Romanelli, “The idiot Green? . . . Carl Romanelli should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there’s nothing left but the rope.”

Perhaps not the greatest imagery given the murder of James Byrd Jr.

Bernie campaign people are evaluating what to do next, with many not wanting to play the spoiler.

But here’s a secret that isn’t mentioned in many of your friends’s Facebook monologues about unity and the lesser evil: most American voters can’t play the spoiler. The US doesn’t use a national popular vote like many other countries. Only four states in 2012 were within five percentage points. In my home state of California, being the 3,000,000th insurance vote for Clinton isn’t terribly useful.

People like Savage, who profess interest in real opposition to the two major parties, know nothing of how the presidential race can create opportunities for change. Ballot access is essential for providing real choice. And Stein doesn’t need to win to move the cause forward. I don’t mean this in the abstract “changing the conversation” sense. Getting 5% of the national vote gives a party access to funding for the next presidential cycle. This means over $10 million in cold, hard cash in 2020:

5% of the vote nationally is another important threshold. If the Stein campaign reached it, the Green Party would qualify for general election public funding in 2020 that will be worth over $10 million. The public funding for minor parties that qualify (5% to 25% in the previous election) is based on the ratio of the percentage received by the minor party to the average percentage received by the major parties.

Since the Greens contest offices at all levels, a few thousand dollars scattered around here and there could mean Green city council members, mayors, and even state representatives. For Sanders supporters looking to continue his “political revolution”, a vote for Stein is a meaningful step in the right direction.

Clinton emails and the coup in Honduras

So I’ve been poking around the Hillary Clinton emails released by Wikileaks. Though the most recent dump pertains to wars in the Middle East, I’ve used to occasion to dive into earlier content about Honduras specifically.

Honduran troops clash with Zelaya supporters (by Roberto Breve; CC BY-SA 2.0 license)

While popular media focuses on Benghazi, it is clear that the worst event that is definitely connected to Clinton is the 2009 military coup in Honduras against democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya. Clinton has openly admitted her role in backing the military, under false pretenses concerning Zelaya setting himself up as a dictator. The story linked:

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assemblyand other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with several Latin American countries, which has continued. It eroded the warm welcome and benefit of the doubt that even the leftist governments in region offered to the newly installed Obama administration a few months earlier.

Clinton’s false testimony is even more revealing. She reports that Zelaya was arrested amid “fears that he was preparing to circumvent the constitution and extend his term in office.” This is simply not true. As Clinton must know, when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and flown out of the country in his pajamas on June 28, 2009, he was trying to put a consultative, nonbinding poll on the ballot to ask voters whether they wanted to have a real referendum on reforming the constitution during the scheduled election in November. It is important to note that Zelaya was not eligible to run in that election. Even if he had gotten everything he wanted, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this did not stop the extreme right in Honduras and the United States from using false charges of tampering with the constitution to justify the coup.

Not surprisingly, allowing the military to seize power has led to a Honduras that is substantially more violent, unsafe for women and LGBT+, and perpetuated the centuries-long cycle of civilian-turned-military rule in Latin America. If generals can seize power and face no lasting sanction from the United States, then every democratic government is perpetually on the edge. As we have seen all over the world, democratization is shallow when all policy is subject to a de facto veto by the military. There is a very real limit to how much progress can be made in the Americas if the State Department continues to sanction militarization.

Central American refugees flee violence.

I thought this passage from Hugo Llorens, the US ambassador, was very telling of how America really thought of Zelaya.

We found him unyielding in his position. He says that he is unwilling to return to the talks with the M [ed: interim president Roberto Micheletti] regime since he doesn’t believe they are acting in good faith.

He insisted that M was not interested in stepping down and would do everything in his power to ensure that he (Z) would never be restored. He stressed that if he was not restored the elections would not be legitimate and those involved in the coup would not be able to free themselves from the stigma of their actions. Z seemed totally out of touch and seemed completely focused on himself and that the future of Honduras and the future of democracy in the entire region hinged on his restoration to power prior to the elections. He predicted that if he was not restored that Honduras faced a bleak future led by a weak and discredited government and with a high probability of violence and civil conflict. I attempted to make him see the obligation he and M had in creating conditions for a workable step-by-step process that would allow for the regime to step down, ensure the holding of free and fair elections, and the smooth transfer of power, hopefully from the legitimate head of state to the newly elected president.

I will report the details on the high side, but at this moment I see no probability that Z will seek to go back to the table under the TSJA framework. He may be gaming it in order to put maximum pressure on M prior to the elections.

While on the surface the State Department backed the restoration, they saw no issue with a transition period that did not reverse the coup. As we can see in 2016, Zelaya was totally, totally right about how the coup affected Honduran democracy and a move towards violence and civil strife. Instead of seeing the fundamental legitimacy crisis caused when the peaceful transfer of power between administrations is interrupted, Clinton’s team saw vanity and pride.

This attitude has cost many lives. The unaccompanied minors surge across the southern border included many from a dysfunction post-coup Honduras. Central American stability can never be lasting if there is an exodus from some countries rife with murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault.

I don’t support Hillary Clinton. There are many reasons why, but it goes beyond her image, words, and political party. Her actions have hurt many. Honduras is a situation of her creation; it’s not something we paint by association with her husband’s presidency. Instead of Benghazi hysteria, citizens should remember something that is not only real, but that she publicly admits to.

Sanders and his supporters: transform or perish

The Sanders campaign understands transformative politics. His supporters have not, at least yet.

Sanders rally in Los Angeles 8/10/15. Credit to Maximilian Cotterill — Sanders rally in Los Angeles 8/10/15.
Credit to Maximilian Cotterill

Transformative political movements need to be able to adapt and respond to social crises. They need to see criticism as valid and important. We now live in the post-Seattle Sanders campaign. What has happened in the last three-plus days with the Bernie Sanders campaign shows the candidate and his staff are willing to evolve and transform. His base of largely white progressives have not taken interruption and criticism well at all, and has fallen back on arguments that I frankly find insulting.

The campaign has hired Symone Sanders, a black woman with a background in justice system activism, as a national press secretary. Also brand-new is a racial justice campaign platform that I think is pretty comprehensive. It divides violence against people of color into four distinct categories (a structure that as a sociologist I appreciate for its clarity), and deals with police reform, mandatory minimums, voter disenfranchisement, the War on Drugs, all tied into the established (but previously whitewashed) economic policies.

Additionally in tonight’s massive rally in Los Angeles he allowed Black Lives Matter activists to open up the program. Most (perhaps all) other candidates would likely have just beefed up security.

I think besides him lagging far behind Hillary Clinton in campaign staff diversity, Sen. Sanders and the core, experienced people who are running his campaign get it. The activists who interrupted the Seattle event and those like them know that. They target Sanders because he was the most likely candidate of either party to respond to their concerns. They were right, and a bunch of activists have said that the Democratic candidates have been in touch about incorporating racial justice into what they do.

One would hope that this process will be a learning experience. An example of how parts of the social justice movement can combine to become stronger. The wider base of Sanders supporters has made me discouraged though. Without the people who will ultimately decide his fate in the primaries accepting Black Lives Matter as an integral part of the process, this will just be a wise decision from the top with no larger social currency.

My friend Chad posted this picture up. He’s a Socialist Alternative member who moved from San Diego to Seattle recently to work with a local SEIU chapter. He took this during the period of silence in remembrance of Mike Brown, after the planned event was interrupted.

Adding “There was a mix of fists in solidarity and middle fingers raised in defiance.” So the the two fingers here were not isolated but widespread.

My friend Max, who has deep connections in the Democratic Party machine, added in the aftermath “many consultants and strategists I know are saying that isn’t Bernie’s poll numbers or lack of $$$ that might doom him, it could very well be his strongest supporters.”

The level of discourse in the last few days has varied wildly, but I’d like to isolate some things being said that are both insulting and short-sighted.

There was a lot of talk of the Seattle interruption being part of a conspiracy. Who was behind it varied- I saw people claiming Hillary Clinton’s campaign was behind it. Others said the GOP. One person specifically said it looked like something Karl Rove would do. This talk, almost all from white people, is denying black autonomy. It is saying that these two black women are paid agents of white people. There are few ways to be more demeaning and offensive.
There was a lot of talk about the tactics being used are counterproductive. I wrote this just after the Seattle event.
There was talk that Bernie is the “best ally” of black people and it’s self-defeating to target him. It ignores that being the best of a poor lot on racial justice is not an excuse for leaving him along.
There was talk of why Black Lives Matter activists don’t interrupt Clinton events, or GOP candidates. There is plenty of pressure on Clinton, but she also hasn’t been drawing the massive crowds that give exposure like Sanders does. Targeting the GOP is useless because they don’t care and never will. Activists are intelligent people and can make estimates of how much can be gained with a finite amount of time and resources.
There was gratuitous mention of Sanders’ background in civil rights- SNCC and Martin Luther King Jr. That is all well and good, but that was forty-seven years ago. Mike Brown was killed a year and two days ago. This is a new civil rights struggle that requires a re-commitment to justice and equality.
There was a discussion of how inconvenient the interruption was, and how people came to see a program that involved Sanders speaking. These white progressives are either ignorant of history or fine with being hypocritical. Protest is inconvenient, that’s what separates it from regular day-to-day activity. What happened at Stonewall was a violent riot against the New York police. Civil rights activists shut down a lot of Birmingham for over a month in 1963. Black resource centers and academic curriculum came from events like the Cornell takeover, where radicals fought off a fraternity attempting to violently drive them out of a occupied hall, compelling the occupiers to bring in firearms to defend themselves. I helped shut down the Port of Oakland in late 2011. That cost a lot of people millions of dollars. Do I think that makes my action unjust? Not even a little bit.
Finally, there was just plain mean, borderline racist shit. It’s weird to see white progressives attack conservatives for calling black activists “thugs”, but then use similar language whenever black women do the same kinds of actions.

Sanders will not win the primaries by just getting the non-white vote. But he will lose them because people of color don’t show up in numbers to back him. Clinton has many advantages, including the overwhelming approval of her husband among Black Americans.

Since Peyton Stever wants modern data that says the same thing, I’ll link to this story that shows Hillary with a new +68 rating. The Clinton brand has always tested well, during and after the Clintons’ stay in the White House. Sanders has to build name awareness with a supporter base that’s a ready source of ammunition when the primaries actually close in. How will social media screenshots of racist talk from people with Sanders logo profile pictures play in black-heavy media outlets? Anyone remember how racist Hillary supporters were a massive headache in 2008?

Just because Sanders promotes policies that would economically help people of color doesn’t mean they will automatically vote for him. He needs to be responsive and show that he genuinely cares. His campaign is on aggregate doing a good job as of late. The large amount of volunteers scattered around the country, on the other hand, need to open their minds.

As Robespierre once said during the French Revolution- “Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?” A revolution is a very particular process. This is a very far step from status quo Democratic Party politics. Going to events, reading media accounts, talking with supporters, it is not surprising that many are unable to see this as an opportunity to run something distinct from the Hillary campaign, or the Obama campaign in 2008. Sanders wants a grassroots movement to change the country. What I see is a grassroots movement to get Sanders elected, with very little outside of that narrow goal.

Thus when there was a negative reaction to how the Seattle event went down, I was not surprised. A political revolution involves liberation struggle. The business-as-usual tack was to insult these women, tell them they were self-defeating, and place their actions in the confines of two-party partisanship. I saw a lot of that. I just passed my six year anniversary of deregistering as a Democrat. This fiasco is a big part of why I did so, even before I became a radical in the proper sense of the term.