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Major George Tillery

MAJOR TILLERY FILES NEW LEGAL PETITION SEX FOR LIES AND MANUFACTURED TESTIMONY

April 25, 2018-- The arrest of two young men in Starbucks for the crime of "sitting while black," and the four years prison sentence to rapper Meek Mill for a minor parole violation are racist outrages in Philadelphia, PA that made national news in the past weeks. Yesterday Meek Mills was released on bail after a high profile defense campaign and a Pa Supreme Court decision citing evidence his conviction was based solely on a cop's false testimony. These events underscore the racism, frame-up, corruption and brutality at the core of the criminal injustice system. Pennsylvania "lifer" Major Tillery's fight for freedom puts a spotlight on the conviction of innocent men with no evidence except the lying testimony of jailhouse snitches who have been coerced and given favors by cops and prosecutors. Sex for Lies and Manufactured Testimony For thirty-five years Major Tillery has fought against his 1983 arrest, then conviction and sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an unsolved 1976 pool hall murder and assault. Major Tillery's defense has always been his innocence. The police and prosecution knew Tillery did not commit these crimes. Jailhouse informant Emanuel Claitt gave lying testimony that Tillery was one of the shooters. Homicide detectives and prosecutors threatened Claitt with a false unrelated murder charge, and induced him to lie with promises of little or no jail time on over twenty pending felonies, and being released from jail despite a parole violation. In addition, homicide detectives arranged for Claitt, while in custody, to have private sexual liaisons with his girlfriends in police interview rooms. In May and June 2016, Emanuel Claitt gave sworn statements that his testimony was a total lie, and that the homicide cops and the prosecutors told him what to say and coached him before trial. Not only was he coerced to lie that Major Tillery was a shooter, but to lie and claim there were no plea deals made in exchange for his testimony. He provided the information about the specific homicide detectives and prosecutors involved in manufacturing his testimony and details about being allowed "sex for lies". In August 2016, Claitt reaffirmed his sworn statements in a videotape, posted on YouTube and on JusticeforMajorTillery.org. Without the coerced and false testimony of Claitt there was no evidence against Major Tillery. There were no ballistics or any other physical evidence linking him to the shootings. The surviving victim's statement naming others as the shooters was not allowed into evidence. The trial took place in May 1985 during the last days of the siege and firebombing of the MOVE family Osage Avenue home in Philadelphia that killed 13 Black people, including 5 children. The prosecution claimed that Major Tillery was part of an organized crime group, and falsely described it as run by the Nation of Islam. This prejudiced and inflamed the majority white jury against Tillery, to make up for the absence of any evidence that Tillery was involved in the shootings. This was a frame-up conviction from top to bottom. Claitt was the sole or primary witness in five other murder cases in the early 1980s. Coercing and inducing jailhouse informants to falsely testify is a standard routine in criminal prosecutions. It goes hand in hand with prosecutors suppressing favorable evidence from the defense. Major Tillery has filed a petition based on his actual innocence to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Larry Krasner's Conviction Review Unit. A full review and investigation should lead to reversal of Major Tillery's conviction. He also asks that the DA's office to release the full police and prosecution files on his case under the new  "open files" policy. In the meantime, Major Tillery continues his own investigation. He needs your support. Major Tillery has Fought his Conviction and Advocated for Other Prisoners for over 30 Years The Pennsylvania courts have rejected three rounds of appeals challenging Major Tillery's conviction based on his innocence, the prosecution's intentional presentation of false evidence against him and his trial attorney's conflict of interest. On June 15, 2016 Major Tillery filed a new post-conviction petition based on the same evidence now in the petition to the District Attorney's Conviction Review Unit. Despite the written and video-taped statements from Emanuel Claitt that that his testimony against Major Tillery was a lie and the result of police and prosecutorial misconduct, Judge Leon Tucker dismissed Major Tillery's petition as "untimely" without even holding a hearing. Major Tillery appealed that dismissal and the appeal is pending in the Superior Court. During the decades of imprisonment Tillery has advocated for other prisoners challenging solitary confinement, lack of medical and mental health care and the inhumane conditions of imprisonment. In 1990, he won the lawsuit, Tillery v. Owens, that forced the PA Department of Corrections (DOC) to end double celling (4 men to a small cell) at SCI Pittsburgh, which later resulted in the closing and then "renovation" of that prison. Three years ago Major Tillery stood up for political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal and demanded prison Superintendent John Kerestes get Mumia to a hospital because "Mumia is dying."  For defending Mumia and advocating for medical treatment for himself and others, prison officials retaliated. Tillery was shipped out of SCI Mahanoy, where Mumia was also held, to maximum security SCI Frackville and then set-up for a prison violation and a disciplinary penalty of months in solitary confinement. See, Messing with Major by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Major Tillery's federal lawsuit against the DOC for that retaliation is being litigated. Major Tillery continues as an advocate for all prisoners. He is fighting to get the DOC to establish a program for elderly prisoners. Major Tillery Needs Your Help: Well-known criminal defense attorney Stephen Patrizio represents Major pro bonoin challenging his conviction. More investigation is underway. We can't count on the district attorney's office to make the findings of misconduct against the police detectives and prosecutors who framed Major without continuing to dig up the evidence. Major Tillery is now 67 years old. He's done hard time, imprisoned for almost 35 years, some 20 years in solitary confinement in max prisons for a crime he did not commit. He recently won hepatitis C treatment, denied to him for a decade by the DOC. He has severe liver problems as well as arthritis and rheumatism, back problems, and a continuing itchy skin rash. Within the past couple of weeks he was diagnosed with an extremely high heartbeat and is getting treatment. Major Tillery does not want to die in prison. He and his family, daughters, sons and grandchildren are fighting to get him home. The newly filed petition for Conviction Review to the Philadelphia District Attorney's office lays out the evidence Major Tillery has uncovered, evidence suppressed by the prosecution through all these years he has been imprisoned and brought legal challenges into court. It is time for the District Attorney's to act on the fact that Major Tillery is innocent and was framed by police detectives and prosecutors who manufactured the evidence to convict him. Major Tillery's conviction should be vacated and he should be freed. Major Tillery and family HOW YOU CAN HELP Financial Support—Tillery's investigation is ongoing. He badly needs funds to fight for his freedom. Go to JPay.com; code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC Tell Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: The Conviction Review Unit should investigate Major Tillery's case. He is innocent. The only evidence at trial was from lying jail house informants who now admit it was false. Call: 215-686-8000 or Email: justice@phila.gov Write to: Major Tillery AM 9786 SCI Frackville 1111 Altamont Blvd. Frackville, PA 17931 For More Information, Go To:  Call/Write: Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009,  Rachel Wolkenstein (917) 689-4009,

Obtain Updates: www.justice4majortillery.info

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Free Leonard Peltier!

On my 43rd year in prison I yearn to hug my grandchildren.

By Leonard Peltier

Art by Leonard Peltier

Write to:

Leonard Peltier 89637-132 

USP Coleman I 

P.O. Box 1033 

Coleman, FL 33521

Donations can be made on Leonard's behalf to the ILPD national office, 116 W. Osborne Ave, Tampa, FL 33603

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1) [GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE...BW]

As Economy Roars, Army Falls Thousands Short of Recruiting Goals

BY DAVE PHILLPPS, SEPTEMBER 21, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/army-recruiting-shortage.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

An Army recruiting station in Frankfort, Ky. The Army failed to meet its recruitment goal this year.

COLORADO SPRINGS — The Army fell thousands of troops short of its recruiting goals this year, the first time it has done so since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago.

The shortfall is due in part to a hot job market that has lured away many recruits at a time that President Trump and Congress seek to expand the military, and have raised the number the Army needs to meet.

The Army hoped to bring in about 76,500 new soldiers this year. But with the fiscal year ending this month, it is still 6,500 troops short, even after spending an extra $200 million on bonuses and lowering standards to let in more troops with conduct or health issues.

On top of having to compete with a robust economy, with an unemployment rate below 4 percent, the Army must pick from what it says is a shrinking pool of eligible recruits. More than two-thirds of young adults do not qualify for military service because of poor physical fitness or other issues such as drug use, according to the Army.

"You have fewer people who can serve, they have more opportunities in the job market, that makes it very hard on the Army," said Beth Asch, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation who studies military recruiting.

The shortfall will not leave the Army paralyzed, representing only about 1 percent of the force. But it is a sign of growing cultural and economic changes that, if not addressed, could hollow out the Army from within.

The Army has invested in more recruiters and advertising, Dr. Asch said, and sweetened the deal for perspective soldiers with bonuses and other benefits. It has also had to soften admissions. This year it gave hundreds more waivers for past drug use than it did a few years ago.

In a statement, the Army said the shortfall was evidence that it was not settling for lower-quality recruits, but was instead trying to "raise the quality of our recruits despite the tough recruiting environment."

"As we look to 2019 and beyond, we have laid the foundation to improve recruiting for the Army while maintaining an emphasis on quality over quantity," Lt. Col. Emanuel L. Ortiz said. "Our leaders remain confident we will achieve the Army Vision of growing the regular Army above 500,000 soldiers."

For years, the military had been heading the other way. Mandatory budget cuts caused the Army to shed more than 100,000 troops from 2010 to 2016. The Army was not only recruiting fewer soldiers, but was forcing troops out. It was on course to shrink to 450,000 soldiers in 2017 when Mr. Trump did an about-face. Fulfilling a campaign promise to stop the drawdown, he signed a bill that expanded the Army to 476,000. This year it was supposed to grow to 483,500, but actual numbers remained flat.

The Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps met their recruiting goals for 2018, but the Army, which is by far the biggest branch of the military, had to recruit more than twice as many troops as other branches. Initially, the Army planned to recruit 80,000 soldiers in 2018, but lowered its goal to 76,500 in April because it was able to retain more soldiers already in the force. That still left a much larger-than-normal task for Army recruiters amid a roaring economy.

At an urgent care center in the suburbs of Denver on Friday, Josh Griffin, a high school senior, had just finished taking a drug test for a new job at a discount tire company down the road. He said that recruiters had talked to him in high school, and that the military sounded appealing at first: money for college, a steady job and a way to give back to his country.

But now he sees better options, he said, adding, "I don't have any doubt in my mind about finding a job."

The military's promise of college tuition and other benefits has less of a draw, said Sgt. First Class Michael T. Peppers, the commander of a strip mall recruiting station next to a Subway and a Tasty Tacos in Urbandale, Iowa.

"We're competing with other businesses offering the same things," he said, noting that even McDonald's has a program to help employees pay tuition.

The military also says it has to pick from young adults who are increasingly unqualified to serve because of mental health issues, criminal convictions or obesity.

"That's our biggest obstacle," Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow, who until recently was the head of Army recruiting, said in November. He said natural disasters that led to the closing of several recruiting stations, including in the reliably rich recruiting ground of Puerto Rico, also contributed to shortfalls.

The Army faced a similar predicament in 1999, during the dot-com boom. That year, according to a Government Accountability Office report, the Army fell short by about 6,000 recruits. It responded by doubling its recruiting budget, adding enlistment bonuses up to $20,000, and allowing enlistees it would have turned away in the past, such as those who had no high school diploma, but still scored well on Army aptitude tests.

Similar measures are in effect today, Dr. Asch, the RAND economist, said. Troops who cannot pass a body-mass test may still get in on a strength test. Troops without a diploma are more likely to get a second chance if they do well on an Army aptitude test. And those with criminal convictions or other misconduct in their past can get waivers if they can show they have overcome past troubles.

Dr. Asch said the Army was still well within Defense Department benchmarks, and nowhere near the dismal levels reached in the years after the Vietnam War, when recruiting collapsed. In 1979, six of 10 Army divisions stationed in the United States were considered "not combat ready." In 1980, only half of recruits had graduated from high school (it is now 90 percent), and drug use, crime and unauthorized absences were so rampant that 40 percent of new recruits were expelled.

The Army's shortfall this year comes as it has sidelined more than 1,100 high-quality recruits, many with graduate degrees and top-tier physical fitness scores, because they are legal immigrants but lack green cards. These recruits were part of a special program called Military Accessions Vital to National Interests, or Mavni, but have been in limbo for years because they have not passed strict security vetting imposed after they enlisted. The Army is now trying to discharge them.

Jackson Barnett contributed reporting from Westminster, Colo., and Ann Klein from Urbandale, Iowa.

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2) City Officials Fear Mass Bailout at Rikers Could Endanger Crime Victims
By Jeffery C. Mays, September 21, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/nyregion/mass-bailout-rikers.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

City officials and prosecutors have raised objections to a plan to bail out 500 women and teenagers from Rikers Island, suggesting that it could endanger crime victims and witnesses.

City officials are scrambling to prepare for a human rights organization's mass effort to bail out 500 women and teenagers from the Rikers Island jail complex, despite strong resistance from the police and prosecutors.

Across the city, prosecutors are identifying cases that might be affected by the bailout, and calling hundreds of crime victims and witnesses in those cases to let them know that defendants who they thought were in custody might soon be released on bail.

Prosecutors in the Bronx said they were working to safeguard as many people who might be vulnerable through measures like orders of protection.

"We are doing all we can to protect our victims and witnesses in the event the defendants accused of violence against them are released from jail," Darcel D. Clark, the Bronx district attorney, said in a statement.

The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights group is raising up to $5 million for the bailout, and will enlist 200 volunteers to help identify and free female prisoners at the Rose M. Singer Center, and 16- and 17-year-olds at the Robert N. Davoren Complex, starting Oct. 1.

Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, says the plan, which organizers believe could be one of the largest so-called mass bailouts in the country, will move forward despite the city's concerns.

The bailout is designed to support an end to cash bail, which activists say discriminates against minorities and the poor, and to push the city to close the dangerous Rikers jail complex more quickly than the current 10-year timeline. Approximately 87 percent of the jail population is black and Latino.

"What they're really saying is they are concerned about poor people accused of crimes because there are no rich people currently accused of crimes caged on Rikers Island," Ms. Kennedy said in an interview. "Just look how the system treats people like Harvey Weinstein. Eighty women said they were attacked by one guy, and he got bail and he never spent a second on Rikers."

The plan may expand to include prisoners who turned 18 while on Rikers, according to the group. The organization will also connect those who are bailed out with appropriate social services.

The purpose of bail, according to New York State law, is to ensure a defendant's return to court. Judges can, under limited circumstances, remand defendants without bail. Judges are supposed to consider a defendant's ability to pay bail in their decision but that seldom happens, according to criminal defense lawyers.

Roughly 80 percent of the Rikers population is awaiting trial; more than 75 percent of them are eventually released without being sentenced to prison.

"I don't think anyone should be locked up solely because they can't afford to buy their freedom but that's what happens to blacks and Latinos living in certain communities while the privileged, often charged with far worse crimes, are walking free," said Scott Hechinger, senior staff attorney and the director of policy at Brooklyn Defender Services, which represents more than 30,000 people arrested each year in Brooklyn.

Mr. Hechinger cited a client represented by Brooklyn Defender Services who has been held since June on $750 bail for allegedly stealing multiple pairs of shoes. Because the woman was accused of entering the vestibule of an apartment building to steal the shoes, the crime she is charged with is technically considered a violent felony.

A 2017 study from the Vera Institute of Justice tracked 99 cases in which unsecured bail or partially secured bond was granted, and 54 percent of cases included defendants charged with a felony. The study found that 88 percent of defendants returned to court; only 8 percent were arrested pretrial on another felony charge.

"There is this misconception that people who are on Rikers need to be there because if they are let out, the streets will run with blood," Mr. Hechinger said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and some district attorneys say they favor bail reform, but believe the mass bailout should only be for people charged with low-level offenses. Kennedy officials said they will consider all bail-eligible women and teenagers regardless of the crime they are charged with.

Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney of Manhattan, said "there are certain individuals detained on Manhattan cases who, if released without a court-reviewed, predetermined supervised release and safety plan, are flight risks and may pose a public safety risk to the community."

Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill said he was concerned about witness intimidation and retaliation.

Some City Council members called the positions of Mr. de Blasio and the city's law enforcement officials hypocritical. Rory I. Lancman, a Queens councilman, said because there are protocols in place that allow judges to keep those who are a danger to others in custody, the bailout "is brilliantly exposing the fallacy of our bail system."

Ritchie Torres, a Bronx councilman, said the debate reminds him of the fear of a crime wave that took place when activists began calling for an end to the police practice of stop and frisk.

"Allowing people who have neither been tried or convicted to languish in jail violates the spirit of the Constitution," Mr. Torres said. "Pretrial incarceration has become the penalty for poverty, for mental illness and for blackness."

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3) A multiple-choice test by the New York Times, answer correctly and you are DSA material
By Louis Proyect, September 22, 2018
https://louisproyect.org/2018/09/22/a-multiple-choice-test-by-the-new-york-times-answer-correctly-and-you-are-dsa-material/

As part of its continuing PR effort on behalf of the DSA, the New York Times has a multiple choice/interactive feature titled “What is Democratic Socialism”. With this article reaching nearly 2.2 million readers, you can just see the membership figures for the DSA topping 100,000 before long. That’s the same number the CP reached in the 30s and was, like with the DSA, partly a result of its cachet among liberal elites.

Let’s take the multiple choice test together:

(1) Let’s start with the big question. In an ideal world, who would control the means of production?

a. Private Owners

b. The Government

c. Workers

For some reason, each of the questions includes one that is a giveaway. As if anybody who favors “private owners” is trying to make up their mind whether they are socialists or not.

It’s sort of a trick question since socialism, whether you identify it with Cuba or Sweden, does involve government control. If you chose b, however, you are not a democratic socialist since only “Leninist” governments are control freaks. If you chose c, you are in good company since that means workers will be in charge and who can oppose that? The DSA does allow that key industries like steel and energy would be “administered” by the government but everything else would be those apple-cheeked cooperatives that Richard Wolff is so gung-ho on. This begs the question whether steel and energy would be state-owned or not. After all, administration could also mean riding herd in the way that Cuba deals with foreign-owned hotels. As for cooperatives, what prevents them from becoming like Mondragon? A company making pressure cookers, as Mondragon does through its Fabor subsidiary, has to compete with other pressure cooker manufacturers in a market economy. Since there are always winners and losers, it always helps a firm be a winner if it pays attention to the bottom line. In a Fortune Magazine article titled “Defiant Spanish workers stage lock-in, resist layoffs”, we can see that cooperatives obey the same economic dictates as conventional firms do:

Almost 28,000 companies have declared bankruptcy during Spain’s five-year economic crisis, hitting a peak of 2,854 during the first three months of 2013. But Fagor Electrodomésticos is not just any business. Launched in 1956 by a Catholic priest named José María Arizmendiarrieta and five students from a technical college he started in the wake of the Spanish Civil War, Fagor is the foundational unit of Mondragón, the world’s biggest conglomerate of worker-owned cooperatives.

With 80,000 employees and operations in 18 countries outside Spain, Mondragón became a symbol of what a worker-owned cooperative model could achieve. In the late 1980s, Pedro Nueno, a professor of entrepreneurship at the IESE Business School, consulted with Fagor on ways to innovate for the “kitchen of the future.” He says he was struck by the leaders’ long-term vision and by how committed they were considering their low salaries (top executives at Mondragón make less than 10 times the lowest paid worker’s salary).

 “A person with the same responsibilities would be getting five times that in another company,” he says.

Similarly, when Richard Wolff, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, visited Fagor two years ago, he was impressed by the seriousness with which management handled buying assembly line equipment, which came from outside the Mondragón family of industrial companies. “They gave me a lecture on policy: You buy within Mondragón if quality or price was competitive. If not, you go outside,” he says.

But such commitment and seriousness has done little to help Fagor recently. Revenues fell from €1.75 billion in 2007 (about $2.58 billion at the time) to €1.28 billion in 2011, and the company has lost money for the last five years, racking up debts of €859 million. During that time, Mondragón lent it some €300 million.

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(2) In a capitalist system, do you believe government regulations are helpful or harmful?

a. Helpful

b. Harmful

A giveaway.

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(3) Do you believe that everyone is entitled to a certain minimum standard of living?

a. Yes

b. No

Another giveaway.

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(4) Do you believe labor unions are a positive force?

a. Yes

b. No

Another giveaway. As you can see, questions 2 through 4 are set up to make people like Cynthia Nixon decide to declare that she is a socialist. In fact, probably 90 percent of the audience watching Rachel Maddow would choose the “correct” answers. The truth is that anybody who voted for Obama would be a “democratic socialist” on the basis of how they reply to those questions. Maybe the whole thing is calculated to make “democratic socialism” such an acceptable choice in order for the Democratic Party to regain the hegemonic status it possessed from FDR to LBJ. American capitalism has a rocky road in front of it and it requires adroit statesmanship to avoid a collision. Clearly, the new generation of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and even Andrew Gillum, who eschews the label of socialist, are waiting in the wings to displace Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

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(5) Which of these best matches your views on health care?

a. The government should have minimal or no involvement in providing or funding health care.

b. The government should subsidize the cost of private insurance for people who can’t afford it, through a system more or less like the Affordable Care Act.

c. We should have a single-payer system, like “Medicare for all.”

d. The whole health care industry should be socialized. Health care would be funded through a single-payer government system, and doctors would be public employees, like in Britain.

If you chose c, you are partly a democratic socialist but if you want to be included in the inner circle that will save humanity from Armageddon, the right choice would have been d since that’s the most socialistic. Unfortunately, the health care system in Britain is being undermined by a thousand cuts, just like the shitty Obamacare is in the USA. Unless the political power of the bourgeoisie is ended, health care is subject to its whims. That political power rests on its economic power, of course, something that will resist relinquishing in the same way that the southern bourgeoisie resisted Lincoln’s abolitionist agenda: violence. This leads me to the final question that really needs to be sorted out since it is basically a trick question.

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(6) Ideally, how should major social or political changes be achieved?

a. Through the traditional democratic process: elections, legislation and popular lobbying.

b. Through grass-roots organizing.

c. By any means necessary, including violence and/or revolution.

If you chose a, you’d be partially democratic socialist even though there’s not much to differentiate you from an ordinary Democratic Party ward-heeler. If you chose grass-roots organizing, what are you waiting for? Go to the DSA website, enter your name, address, etc. and click “submit”. That’s all there is to it. After all, being in favor of grass-roots organizing doesn’t actually obligate you to do anything. That would be so Leninist, after all.

Choosing c condemns you as a “communist”:

You disagree with democratic socialists. This is a common point of misunderstanding for people who conflate democratic socialism with communism. Democratic socialists don’t support a revolution to overthrow capitalism; they believe change should happen, well, democratically. “Any possible transition to socialism would necessitate mass mobilization and the democratic legitimacy garnered by having demonstrated majority support,” Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Schulman wrote.

Democratic socialists support and participate in the electoral process, but they believe that ideally, workers should achieve changes for themselves — for instance, through unions and tenant organizations — rather than relying on people in traditional positions of authority.

“We would prefer, for example, for us to win universal rent control in New York through organizing millions of New Yorkers,” Ms. Svart said. “We believe that it’s through the process of pushing for these changes that people empower themselves.”

The Schwartz and Schulman referred to above are Joseph Schwartz and Jason Schulman who co-wrote “Toward Freedom: Democratic Socialist Theory and Practice” on December 21, 2012. They see themselves as more advanced than Karl Marx since, unlike them, “Marx did not make clear his commitment to political democracy”. Poor Karl Marx did not understand the need for “political pluralism” that obviously means having free elections that include parties arguing for the overthrow of socialism. Leaving aside whether Chile or Nicaragua were socialist, Salvador Allende and Daniel Ortega tried that. Look how far it got them. Nasty old Cuba did not permit that. Yeah, it meant that you were living under authoritarian rule but given Cuba’s proximity to the USA, it is doubtful that anything else would have allowed the socialized medicine DSA supports to be possible.

This business about “violence” is the stock-in-trade of sleazy liberal journalists going back for a century. I used to hear it all the time when Malcolm X was alive. This is how he used to handle it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=kXo0lgcOHhg

Malcolm X was sympathetic to the Socialist Workers Party and for good reasons. He and the party understood this question of violence to the marrow of their bones. When James P. Cannon and other party leaders were on trial for violating the Smith Act in 1941, he spoke about the SWP’s position on violence. I recommend reading his entire “Socialism on Trial” but will conclude with the section dealing with question of violence:

Q: Now, what is the opinion of Marxists with reference to the change in the social order, as far as its being accompanied or not accompanied by violence?

A: It is the opinion of all Marxists that it will be accompanied by violence.

Q: Why?

A: That is based, like all Marxist doctrine, on a study of history, the historical experiences of mankind in the numerous changes of society from one form to another, the revolutions which accompanied it, and the resistance which the outlived classes invariably put up against the new order. Their attempt to defend themselves against the new order, or to suppress by violence the movement for the new order, has resulted in every important social transformation up to now being accompanied by violence.

Q: Who, in the opinion of Marxists, initiated that violence?

A: Always the ruling class; always the outlived class that doesn’t want to leave the stage when the time has come. They want to hang on to their privileges, to reinforce them by violent measures, against the rising majority and they run up against the mass violence of the new class, which history has ordained shall come to power.

Q: What is the opinion of Marxists, as far as winning a majority of the people to socialist ideas?

A: Yes, that certainly is the aim of the party. That is the aim of the Marxist movement, has been from its inception.

Marx said the social revolution of the proletariat—I think I can quote his exact words from memory—“is a movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority”[2] He said this in distinguishing it from previous revolutions which had been made in the interest of minorities, as was the case in France in 1789.

Q: What would you say is the opinion of Marxists as far as the desirability of a peaceful transition is concerned?

A: The position of the Marxists is that the most economical and preferable, the most desirable method of social transformation, by all means, is to have it done peacefully.

Q: And in the opinion of the Marxists, is that absolutely excluded?

A: Well, I wouldn’t say absolutely excluded. We say that the lessons of history don’t show any important examples in favor of the idea so that you can count upon it.

Q: Can you give us examples in American history of a minority refusing to submit to a majority?

A: I can give you a very important one. The conception of the Marxists is that even if the transfer of political power from the capitalists to the proletariat is accomplished peacefully—then the minority, the exploiting capitalist class, will revolt against the new regime, no matter how legally it is established.

I can give you an example in American history. The American Civil War resulted from the fact that the Southern slaveholders couldn’t reconcile themselves to the legal parliamentary victory of Northern capitalism, the election of President Lincoln.

Q: Can you give us an example outside of America where a reactionary minority revolted against a majority in office?

A: Yes, in Spain—the coalition of workers’ and liberal parties in Spain got an absolute majority in the elections and established the People’s Front government. This government was no sooner installed than it was confronted with an armed rebellion, led by the reactionary capitalists of Spain.

Q: Then the theory of Marxists and the theory of the Socialist Workers Party, as far as violence is concerned, is a prediction based upon a study of history, is that right?

A: Well, that is part of it. It is a prediction that the outlived class, which is put in a minority by the revolutionary growth in the country, will try by violent means to hold on to its privileges against the will of the majority. That is what we predict.

Of course, we don’t limit ourselves simply to that prediction. We go further, and advise the workers to bear this in mind and prepare themselves not to permit the reactionary outlived minority to frustrate the will of the majority.

Q: What role does the rise and existence of fascism play with reference to the possibility of violence?

A: That is really the nub of the whole question, because the reactionary violence of the capitalist class, expressed through fascism, is invoked against the workers. Long before the revolutionary movement of the workers gains the majority, fascist gangs are organised and subsidised by millions in funds from the biggest industrialists and financiers, as the example of Germany showed—and these fascist gangs undertake to break up the labor movement by force. They raid the halls, assassinate the leaders, break up the meetings, burn the printing plants, and destroy the possibility of functioning long before the labor movement has taken the road of revolution.

I say that is the nub of the whole question of violence. If the workers don’t recognise that, and do not begin to defend themselves against the fascists, they will never be given the possibility of voting on the question of revolution. They will face the fate of the German and Italian proletariat and they will be in the chains of fascist slavery before they have a chance of any kind of a fair vote on whether they want socialism or not.

It is a life and death question for the workers that they organise themselves to prevent fascism, the fascist gangs, from breaking up the workers’ organisations, and not to wait until it is too late. That is in the program of our party.

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4) 'Evil': Worst Fears Realized as ICE Arrests Dozens of Family or Guardians Attempting to Retrieve Children From Detention
"If they can't separate families, then lock them up, gut asylum standards, and, now, arrest family members who come forward to sponsor loved ones."
By Julia Conley, September 20, 2018
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/20/evil-worst-fears-realized-ice-arrests-dozens-family-or-guardians-attempting-retrieve?cd-

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer frisks an immigrant at a processing center after arresting him in New York City. (Photo: John Moore/Getty Images)

Confirming the fears of many immigrant families who have declined to step forward and claim children who are being held in detention facilities, a new report shows that more than 40 people have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after doing just that.

CNN reported Thursday that between July and early September, at least 41 people have been detained after attempting to retrieve their young family members from government-run detention facilities, which are now at 92 percent capacity with more than 13,000 children in custody.

Just 12 of the arrests were of people with criminal records, while 70 percent of those detained were accused only of being undocumented immigrants.

The report comes just after the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) revealed a proposal to reallocate agency funds so that more children can be held in detention centers—as fewer children are being released due to their families' fears of arrest.

This past summer, after being forced to end its practice of separating undocumented children from their parents following international outcry, the Trump administration revealed a new tactic for cracking down on immigrant communities: requiring family members to submit to background checks and finger-printing before detained children could be released into their care.

The new system is a transparent method to find and detain as many undocumented immigrants as possible, critics say—and one that forces HHS to operate as a federal law enforcement agency.

HHS "has a hard enough job to do when they can be focused on being a family-serving organization charged with reuniting children with their family, and when that mission is compromised by making them collect information for the purposes of immigration enforcement, that runs contrary to their primary mission and it's contrary to the best interests of children," Maria Cancian, a former HHS deputy assistant secretary, told CNN.

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5)  Russia's Secret Plan to Help Julian Assange Escape From UK
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Dan Collyns and Luke Harding, Guardian UK, September 22, 2018
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/52425-russias-secret-plan-to-help-julian-assange-escape-from-uk

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Tentative plot to whisk fugitive from London embassy on Christmas Eve was considered too risky 

ussian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned.

A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador’s London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country.

One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky.

The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017, one source claimed, and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give Assange formal diplomatic status.

The involvement of Russian officials in hatching what was described as a “basic” plan raises new questions about Assange’s ties to the Kremlin. The WikiLeaks editor is a key figure in the ongoing US criminal investigation into Russia’s attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Robert Mueller, the special counsel conducting the investigation, filed criminal charges in July against a dozen Russian GRU military intelligence officers who allegedly hacked Democratic party servers during the presidential campaign. The indictment claims the hackers sent emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton to WikiLeaks. The circumstances of the handover are still under investigation.

According to Mueller, WikiLeaks published “over 50,000 documents” stolen by Russian spies. The first tranche arrived on 14 July 2016 as an encrypted attachment.

Assange has denied receiving the stolen emails from Russia.

Details of the Assange escape plan are sketchy. Two sources familiar with the inner workings of the Ecuadorian embassy said that Fidel Narváez, a close confidant of Assange who until recently served as Ecuador’s London consul, served as a point of contact with Moscow.

In an interview with the Guardian, Narváez denied having been involved in discussions with Russia about extracting Assange from the embassy.

Narváez said he visited Russia’s embassy in Kensington twice this year as part of a group of “20-30 more diplomats from different countries”. These were “open-public meetings”, he said, that took place during the “UK-Russian crisis” – a reference to the aftermath of the novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March.

Sources said the escape plot involved giving Assange diplomatic documents so that Ecuador would be able to claim he enjoyed diplomatic immunity. As part of the operation, Assange was to be collected from the embassy in a diplomatic vehicle.

Four separate sources said the Kremlin was willing to offer support for the plan – including the possibility of allowing Assange to travel to Russia and live there. One of them said that an unidentified Russian businessman served as an intermediary in these discussions.

The possibility that Assange could travel to Ecuador by boat was also considered.

Narváez previously played a role in trying to secure Edward Snowden’s safe passage following his leak of secret NSA material in 2013. Narváez gave the former NSA contractor a so-called safe-conduct pass when he left Hong Kong for Moscow, where Snowden eventually found asylum. At the time, the then president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, said Narváez had issued the pass without the government’s knowledge. The Spanish-language broadcaster Univision reported that Narváez travelled to Moscow the same day that he issued the safe passage document to Snowden; other sources have corroborated this report.

Assange’s Christmas Eve escape was aborted with just days to go, one source claimed. Rommy Vallejo, the head of Ecuador’s intelligence agency, allegedly travelled to the UK on or around 15 December 2017 to oversee the operation and left London when it was called off.

In February Vallejo quit his job and is believed to be in Nicaragua. He is under investigation for the alleged kidnapping in 2012 of a political rival to Correa.

Ecuador’s new president, Lenín Moreno, has said he wants Assange to quit the embassy. In March the government in Quito cut off his internet access and restricted his visitors.

Melinda Taylor, a lawyer specialising in human rights and international criminal law who represents Assange, has denounced his confinement in the embassy.

“I think it is shocking that Assange has been detained arbitrarily for approximately eight years for publishing evidence of war crimes and human rights violations. The UK could end this situation today, by providing assurances that Assange will not be extradited to the United States.”

Sources offered conflicting accounts of who cancelled the Assange operation, but all agreed it was deemed to be too risky. The stumbling block was the UK’s refusal to grant Assange diplomatic protection.

Under UK law, diplomats are immune from criminal prosecution if their diplomatic credentials have been accepted by the British government, and if the Foreign Office has been alerted to the diplomat’s status.

This is not the first time Assange has apparently considered seeking refuge in Russia. The Associated Press reported this week that the WikiLeaks founder tried to obtain a Russian visa. He signed a letter in November 2010 granting power of attorney to “my friend” Israel Shamir – a controversial supporter who passed leaked US state department cables from Assange to journalists in Moscow. Shamir would deliver Assange’s passport to the Russian consulate, and collect it afterwards, Assange wrote.

At the time Assange was facing allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women in Sweden. In 2012 he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy after he lost a battle against extradition in the supreme court. Assange denies the women’s claims. Swedish authorities eventually dropped both cases after the statute of limitations expired. Assange faces arrest for breaching his bail conditions.

During the US presidential campaign, Donald Trump praised WikiLeaks for releasing the emails that damaged Clinton. Confidential visitor logs obtained by the Guardian reveal that Assange received several Russian nationals during the summer of 2016, including senior figures from RT, the Kremlin’s international propaganda channel.

In March 2017 WikiLeaks published confidential CIA documents. Assange believes a grand jury indicted him over this and other leaks, with the charges filed under seal. Were he to leave the embassy the US would seek his extradition, his lawyers say.

The Ecuadorian government declined to comment. The Russian embassy in London tweeted on Fridaythat the Guardian story was “another example of disinformation and fake news from the British media”.

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6)  Trump Administration Aims to Sharply Restrict New Green Cards for Those on Public Aid
By Michael D. Shear and Emily Baumgaertner, September 22, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/us/politics/immigrants-green-card-public-aid.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=sectionfront

A naturalization ceremony last month in Miami. Immigration caseworkers will now consider immigrants’ use of public benefits to determine if green card candidates are likely to become dependent on government assistance.

WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials announced Saturday that immigrants who legally use public benefits like food assistance and Section 8 housing vouchers could be denied green cards under new rules aimed at keeping out people the administration deems a drain on the country.

The move could force millions of poor immigrants who rely on public assistance for food and shelter to make a difficult choice between accepting financial help and seeking a green card to live and work legally in the United States.

Older immigrants, many of whom get low-cost prescription drugs through the Medicare Part D program, could also be forced to stop participating in the popular benefits program or risk being deemed a “public charge” who is ineligible for legal resident status.

The move is not intended to affect most immigrants who have already been granted green cards, but advocates have said they fear that those with legal resident status will stop using public benefits to protect their status. The regulation, which the administration said would affect about 382,000 people a year, is the latest in a series of aggressive crackdowns by President Trump and his hard-line aides on legal and illegal immigration.

Federal law has always required those seeking green cards to prove they will not be a burden and has taken into consideration the acceptance of cash benefits. But the government has never before considered the use of other public benefits, like assistance for food.

Now, the new regulation — announced on the Department of Homeland Security website — will require that immigration caseworkers consider the use of public benefits to be “heavily weighed negative factors” for those who are applying to remain legally in the country on a permanent basis. Those who are deemed likely to become dependent on government assistance will probably be denied.

The rule would affect people seeking to immigrate to the United States permanently and others who are in the country on temporary visas — including students and workers — who seek to stay permanently.

Immigrants could be asked in limited cases to post cash bonds of at least $10,000 to avoid being denied green cards under the new regulation, which does not need congressional approval but must still go through a public review process before it becomes final. Officials said they expected the regulation to become final after being posted to the Federal Register in the coming weeks and undergoing the 60-day review period.

In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security said the new rule would “ensure that those seeking to enter and remain in the United States either temporarily or permanently can support themselves financially and will not be reliant on public benefits.”

The 447-page rule, titled “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds,” will not apply to families making less than 15 percent of the official poverty designation, officials said.

Pro-immigrant activists predict that poor immigrants will immediately begin withdrawing from public assistance programs — even at the risk of losing needed assistance for food, shelter and medicine — out of a fear that they will be denied green cards and will be deported.

“This is an attack on immigrant families and an attempt to make our immigration system a pay-to-play system where only the wealthy need apply,” said Jackie Vimo, a policy analyst with the National Immigration Law Center, a Washington-based group that defends low-income immigrants. “This is a radical transformation of our immigration, and does a runaround on Congress.”

There are political implications to the move, which comes less than two months before the midterm elections, which will determine who controls the House and the Senate for the next two years of Mr. Trump’s tenure.

Focusing on the use of public benefits is often an effective way to galvanize conservative supporters. Drawing attention to the use of those benefits by immigrants could be especially persuasive in turning out Mr. Trump’s supporters across the country.

Stephen Miller, the president’s top immigration adviser, has long believed that being tough on immigrants is a winning tactic for Republican candidates who too often — in Mr. Miller’s view — have compromised with Democrats on the issue. He has pushed hard for the new rule during the past several months.

But the breadth of the effect on immigrants could also energize liberal voters to support Democratic candidates. In New York, for example, city officials estimated that under an earlier draft of the regulation, which was leaked to the news media, nearly one million people could be hurt.

They said the children of immigrants who are in the United States legally could be the most vulnerable. Indeed, immigrant parents who work low-wage jobs and rely on assistance may need to remove their children from the programs to keep their families together in the United States. Unauthorized immigrants are ineligible for nearly all public benefits.

Trump administration officials say the rule is intended to promote fiscal responsibility.

“Self-sufficiency has been a basic principle of United States immigration law since this country’s earliest immigration statutes,” the proposal says. It remains United States policy that “the availability of public benefits not constitute an incentive for immigration to the United States.”

The government has traditionally considered someone who relies on government cash assistance for more than half of his or her income a public charge. Now, however, officials will take into account whether an individual or a family has received any of an assortment of noncash public benefits, such as aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps; the Section 8 program, which provides housing assistance; or the Medicare prescription drug program for older adults.

“This is long overdue,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, whose research supports decreased immigration. “This country has defined public charge in a fictional way in order to facilitate high levels of low-skilled immigration. But this is simply a 21st-century definition of what public charge is.”

Officials said that the new rule did not apply to refugees or asylum seekers who enter the country, or to legal immigrants who serve in the military. Cash or other assistance given to the immigrant victims of natural disasters would not be counted against them.

Critics of the new rule argue that it deviates from longstanding precedent and from Congress’s original intent for the public-charge statute. They also say it violates states’ rights to provide benefits to children and immigrants experiencing short-term crises.

Nearly 20 million children in immigrant families could be affected by the policy changes, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation that examined a draft of the new rule that was even broader than the one announced on Saturday. Almost nine in 10 of those children are United States citizens.

“The proposal is clearly intended to deny basic supports like food, health care and housing to lawfully present immigrants and their families — including millions of children and U.S. citizens — who pay taxes, work, go to school and contribute to our country’s economy,” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington wrote in April in a letter to Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the agency that reviews proposed rules before they are published. The mayor of Seattle wrote a similar letterexpressing concerns.

In addition to the use of public benefits, the proposed rule also deems certain health conditions — like mental health disorders, heart disease and cancer — to be among the heavily weighed factors. The proposal states that “an alien is at high risk of becoming a public charge if he or she has a medical condition and is unable to show evidence of unsubsidized health insurance.”

It is a Catch-22, said Shawn Fremstad, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Poor immigrants with health conditions must prove that they are insured, but they cannot use the available benefits to enroll.

“It’s a bit like the creation of a castelike system,” Mr. Fremstad said. “Unless you’ve had an ‘American dream’ going for you in your home country, you’re going to have a hard time earning it here. It’s really screening those people.”

Mr. Krikorian does not contest that view.

“This isn’t a moral issue,” he said. “A Honduran with a sixth-grade education level isn’t morally flawed, but he works three jobs and still can’t feed his family. Immigrants with low levels of skill are a mismatch for a modern society like ours.”

The complex web of technicalities surrounding the new rule are difficult to understand, said Charles Wheeler, a legal expert at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, so the number of immigrants who withdraw from programs could exceed even the number who are subject to the rule.

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7)  Trump Is Giving Palestinians a Choice. We’ll Choose Dignity.
The crisis between the United States and the Palestinians is taking a toll on my family. But as a diplomat, I can see the upside.
By Husam Zomlot, September 25, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/opinion/trump-palestinians-ambassador-aid.html

The Trump administration announced this month that it would close the P.L.O.’s office in Washington.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — My family and I moved to Washington in April 2017, just a few months after President Trump took office. I’d been sent as the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s general delegation to the United States — effectively the Palestinian ambassador in Washington.

At the time, the new administration said it wanted to forge a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East. This seemed like a long shot given Mr. Trump’s positions and his close association with some of Israel’s most extreme American supporters. Still, we Palestinians wanted to give this effort a chance.

One of my first tasks was preparing for a visit in May by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. My team and I began to meet with officials at the White House, the State Department and Congress. We also held encouraging meetings with universities, churches, think tanks and the news media, in which I saw how American opinions are changing on the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence.

At the same time, my family began to get used to our new home. My son, Saeed, then 6, and my 5-year-old daughter, Alma, began school. My wife, Suzan, who trained as a biomedical scientist, took time off as our children adjusted to their new life and I started my demanding job. In no time, we all made many wonderful American friends. It was a hopeful new beginning.

A few months later, things changed radically. Although our relationships with the American people — including the American Jewish communities — were growing, political ties with the Trump administration deteriorated. In December, President Trump announced the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his intention to move the American Embassy in Israel there. By that point, it had become clear that the White House was fully embracing the right-wing Israeli agenda.

The situation has gotten even worse since. In May, the United States officially moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, at which point I was recalled by Mr. Abbas to the occupied West Bank, where I remain. More recently, the Trump administration has taken even more pointless and vindictive steps toward the Palestinian people. In August, the White House decided to defund the United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees. The effort to punish the Palestinians continues. The administration appears intent on cutting off all aid, even to hospitals.

I haven’t been spared this vindictiveness. This month, the administration ordered the closing of the Palestinian mission in Washington, my office. And it has announced that it plans to revoke my family’s visas by Oct. 10.

We are in the middle of a political and diplomatic crisis. I resent, of course, the toll this is taking on my family. But as a diplomat, I can see the upside. This situation presents three strategic opportunities.

First, it frees the Palestinians from the shackles of a failed 27-year-old, American-led peace process, unleashing more of our energy to work with the international community. At our invitation, dozens of countries will attend a meeting in New York this week to discuss restarting international peace efforts.

Second, it provides an opportunity to correct the American-Palestinian bilateral relationship. In 1987, Congress designated the P.L.O. as a terrorist organization. This law, among others, contributed to the United States’ failure as a mediator. Despite the American-sponsored Madrid peace conference in 1991, the signing of the Oslo accords at the White House in 1993, the numerous bilateral agreements and generous American aid program, this label was never removed. We know this process drags on — Nelson Mandela was officially classified as a terrorist by the United States until 2008 — but it’s time to do so. Our diplomatic mission in Washington must be reopened only once this law is repealed.

Third, this crisis will help redirect Palestinian attention away from just high-level American officials and toward an equally, if not more, important investment: long-term engagement directly with the American people. American public opinion, especially among young people, is shifting toward supporting peace and Palestinian rights.

My family left the United States a few days ago. While as a father I am dismayed that my children had to change schools three times in one year, as an ambassador I feel a sense of national fulfillment. The Trump administration has given us a choice: Either we lose our rights or we lose our relationship with this administration. We took the choice that any dignified people would have taken.

Peace is never about extortion, coercion or blackmail. It is about vision, leadership, trust and investment. The Trump administration lacks all of those. In seeking liberation from the Israeli occupation, which steals our land and denies us our most basic human rights, we are demanding no more than what Americans would demand for themselves: freedom, liberty and equality.

I’m not sure when I will be back in the United States. I’ll miss all of the great people I met there. But even in my short time there, it was clear that there is much hope for peace and justice. I am confident the United States will one day restore commitment to the legitimate rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people. I hope that day will come soon.

Husam Zomlot (@hzomlot) is the strategic affairs adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas.

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8)  Decent Men Don’t Do These Things

Sexual assault is excused as normal and forgivable. It’s not. Ask the women who’ve experienced it.

By Theresa Brown, September 24, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/kavanaugh-sexual-assault-blasey-testimony.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

I have a story. So many women do. Mine took place when I was 6 or 7 years old, I think. I wasn’t raped. People seem to always want to parse the details, so I’ll be clear about that. Two older boys, sons of friends of my parents, coerced me into letting them touch my genitals with theirs. They said they would give me money if I let them. When I balked, they called me chicken.

What’s disturbing is that it happened, and then I forgot it happened until I was 23 years old and remembered. I was living in New York at the time, lying on my bed, and the memory came into my mind, unbidden. I wish it had stayed away, because now I remember it all the time and don’t want to.

Some people will dismiss my story with one word: “Kids.” Others will say that I wasn’t violently assaulted, so no harm was done. And still others will question the reliability of a memory that left me for about 17 years and then came back and settled in, leaving a permanent scar on my peace of mind.

There are so many other stories, though. A girl I knew — I need to keep it vague — was raped by her boyfriend. She was 16, I think, and I was 15. She told me afterward that she told him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop. She said, “Theresa, it felt like he was raping me.” And here’s my failing. I didn’t know what to say. I thought strangers in dark alleys raped women, not men whom women actually knew.

Then there was my friend in college, who called out a guy in our dorm who was drunk and being loud. He responded by calling her a bitch and spraying her in the face with a fire extinguisher. She called the campus police and I watched as over the following few days the entire dorm turned against her. People said he was a good guy; he just got ugly when he drank.

And when I later argued that my friend’s assailant should be removed as a peer counselor since he had an obvious tendency toward violence, the student director of the program said nothing while studiously cleaning his fingernails.

Then there was the winter night when, as I rode my bike home from the hospital after a 12-hour nursing shift, a man standing by the curb exposed himself to me. It was dark out and cold, making the experience surreal. I wondered if it really happened, but I knew it did.

This is the world that women live in. A world where some men think it is O.K. to humiliate women, threaten women, assault women. A world where apologists for these men blame the women themselves for any sexual harms that befall them, and where the behavior of such men is even excused as normal. Except it isn’t normal.

How in the world would two boys, around 10 years old, get the idea to ensnare an even younger girl into a forced mock-up of prostitution? Who, when a woman says to stop during sex, instead hears “go?” What kind of person uses a fire extinguisher to silence another human being? Why would a man, on a cold winter’s night, display his penis to a tired nurse just wanting to get home?

The world will parse our different experiences into categories: Was it harassment or assault? Was the perpetrator in his teens? Was it a long time ago? Did she report it right away? None of this changes the impact of what happened to us — or what it says about the men involved.

And now I come to Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court hopeful. Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist, has accused him of attempting to rape her when they were teenagers. He has also been accused by a Yale classmate, Deborah Ramirez, of forcing his penis into her face when they were in college and both very drunk. He has denied both allegations. Some of Kavanaugh’s defenders deflect these accusations by insisting that he is a decent man.

But that is my point — decent men do not behave this way. 

In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Mark Antony’s funeral oration for Caesar turns the public against Brutus, leader of the cabal that murdered Caesar, by repeating “Brutus is an honorable man.” Antony juxtaposes that phrase with muted praise of Caesar, until the meaning of the phrase slowly changes from descriptive to ironic, revealing in the end that Brutus, and the murder of Caesar, were both dishonorable.

If, despite Ms. Blasey’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed, I hope someone in the Senate will use the word “decency” similarly, in a way that makes plain what he or she believes a man can do to a woman without damaging his reputation: “Brett Kavanaugh may have held down a 15-year-old girl and made her fear she was going to die, but Brett Kavanaugh is a decent man. Brett Kavanaugh may have humiliated a woman by forcing his penis into her face, but Brett Kavanaugh is a decent man.”

Because “the evil that men do lives after them,” and I have twin daughters. I don’t want them to have any stories. I don’t want them to have any stories like these at all.

Theresa Brown, a hospice nurse, is the author of “The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives.”

My NYT Comment:

I couldn't have been more than eleven-years-old. My chest was still flat, and I was wearing a typical cotton summer dress with short, puffy sleeves and a tie-back belt. I had just finished the sixth grade and had to go to summer school for Spanish. Not many kids had to go, so there wasn't the usual parade of students walking together to and from school. Summer school got out at noon. And one day, walking home alone with my books in my arms, there was a car driving very slowly along side of me. I was nervous, but I glanced over at the car and there was a grown man, alone, driving with one hand and wagging his penis at me with the other. I ran as fast as I could home. He didn't follow me. When I think back on it, I think he got his thrill when I looked in his car. My reaction of fear and horror was what he was after. And yes, I'm 73-years-old now and I remember it clearly.

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9) Ten Years After Not One High-Level Banker Sent to Jail for Tanking Global Economy, This Man Gets 20 Years in Prison for Stealing Cigarettes
By Jon Queally, September 24, 2018
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/24/ten-years-after-not-one-high-level-banker-sent-jail-tanking-global-economy-man-gets?cd-

Robert Spellman was sentence last week to 20 years in prison for stealing ten cartons of cigarettes from a local convenience store. (Photo: Escambia County Jail)

Ten years after the behavior of over-leveraged and fraudulent banks created a global financial disaster that resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in losses; a multi-trillion bailout using public money; and millions of people losing their homes to foreclosure, but saw not one high-level financial executive go to jail, a man in Florida has been sentenced to a 20-year prison term for stealing $600 worth of cigarettes from a local convenience store.

According to the Associated Press, "Robert Spellman, 48, received the lengthy sentence after a jury in Pensacola convicted him of burglary and grand theft last month." As the Pensacola News Journal reports:

He went into the Circle K in the 200 block of West Cervantes Street and took 10 cartons of cigarettes from a locked manager's office in the stock room.

He was found nearby, matched a description of the suspect, was wearing the same clothing and had the cigarettes, according to the State Attorney's Office.

Spellman had 14 felony and 31 misdemeanor convictions prior to this charge, so his 20-year sentence qualifies him as a habitual felony offender.

While the average carton contains 200 cigarettes, that means Spellman will now serve approximately 3.65 days in prison for each of the 2,000 cigarettes he allegedly stole.

Asked in 2016 about why no high-level bankers went to jail after the 2008 crash, former Attorney General Eric Holder lamented that reality by claiming the DOJ just coudn't make the cases stick, though said he wished it had been possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=24&v=b3dW7UY9a7k

Writing about the tenth anniversary of the 2008 crash last month in Rolling Stone, journalist Matt Taibbi noted that while "everyone in the upper echelon of the finance community got Paid In Full in the bailout, even the exact people who screwed up the worst," those whose suffered most of the "miserable story turned out to be poor, nonwhite, and elderly."

Though it's likely that most poor, nonwhite, and elderly Americans didn't need to be told that.

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