October 5-18, 2012

spare change news

www.sparechangenews.net

20th Anniversary

chris hedges: an american journey 6

barney frank the liberal lion 9

aung san suu kyi 11 5 voter disenfranchisment

10

romneycare vs.obamacare
3

ex-felons & voting rights 4 ma voter bill of rights

poetry: martn espada + essays: fathers

13 5 homeless vote 10 arab autumn 16

2 interdependence

spare change
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(op-ed)
interdependence&the elections

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twitter: @sparechangenews Editor-in-Chief Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou Editor-in-Chief emeritus Marc D. Goldfinger Senior and Online Editor Noelle Swan Senior Editor Adam Sennott Editor J. Marechal Editor -in-Chierf s Assistant Clay Bugh Graphic Designer Brendan Bernard Puzzle Editor Samuel Weems Cartoonist Michael Ripple Editorial Assistants Ashlee Avery Alison Clark Zoe Fowler Chalkey Horenstein Leanne OBrian Editorial Interns Hannah Bartol Lynsey N. Bourquin Taylor Everett Eric Gerdner Jessica Guay Samuel Needham Alex Parks Mar Romero Contributing Writers Benjamin Barber Beatrice Bell Alison Clark Shaundra Cunningham, MDiv S. Emmaunel Epps K. Heller, MDiv Holliday E.L. Kornegay, Phd Jacques Fleury Marc D. Goldfinger Darnell Moore, MDiv Sarah Page Gayle Saks James Shearer Robert Sondak Patty Tomsky Howard Winant, Phd Photographers Michael Connors Glen Eric Friedman Marcus Smith Christopher Swan Peter Yang

he Conventions are over. Whew. But how striking is it that in this, the worlds most powerful nation, two months away from a critical presidential election whose results will profoundly impact over 7 billion people world-wide, issues of foreign policy and globalization have been nearly invisible. In an unprecedented age of cosmopolitanism and interdependence, our election rhetoric is parochial, inward and self-absorbed. Even President Clinton whose Foundation pursues a Global Initiative stuck to the domestic agenda in bringing the Charlotte Convention to its feet. There has been far more talk at both conventions about American Exceptionalism than about the need for common action to secure an imperiled common world. More U.S.A.! U.S.A.! than us we the people of planet earth. We hear anxiety about the war in Afghanistan, a gnawing worry about Irans weapons program; and the usual rhetoric about Jerusalem, played exclusively as a domestic Jewish vote issue (not in the Platform!? Obama must love Hamas!) Otherwise, all the talk has been about jobs (in America), mortgages (in America), reproductive rights (in America), gun violence (in America), taxes (in America), health care (in America) and big government and the pernicious role of money (in America). Dont get me wrong: I can think of no topics more crucial to Americans than jobs, mortgages, reproductive rights, gun violence, taxes and health care. And there is no framing issue more vital than the size of government and the impact of money. My problem is with the in America part. I care deeply about the American commons. But today our commons is global, and our future, if we are to have one, will be shared with the whole planet. If our American citizenship is to count, we must also become citizens without

borders, patriots of the planet. Other than Governor Romneys throwaway line ridiculing the rise of the oceans, there has been almost no discussion of environmental sustainability, though America faces no challenge more perilous than global warming. The Parties compete for the drill-baby-drill crown proferred by the petroleum industry, and agree that energy independence is both possible and desirable. Yet in this age of interdependence, there is no such thing as energy independence. There is one global oil market and prices fluctuate with global supply and demand no single country can control. National markets simply do not exist anymore -- not in steel, not in oil, not even in labor. Our immigration problems are a function of a global labor market beyond our reach, of global workers chasing global jobs across borders that no longer contain the global economy. We live in a 21st century age of brutal interdependence where every challenge we face from warming and immigration to pandemics like the West Nile virus and the drug trade, from terrorism to global financial markets, reflect the reality of global interdependence. To deal with such problems, we will either have to democratize globalization or globalize democracy. Neither Representative Ryan nor Mayor Cruz, each promising that the 21st century will a second American century, will be vindicated by history. It will be neither American nor Chinese but a common century. It will belong to all of us, or to none. This kind of interdependence is not dreaming, its realism. But its hard for politicians to talk realistically about interdependence when citizens punish them for it, calling them European or socialist or Un-American (as in wheres your birth certificate?) In his first year in office, President Obama gave speeches in Istanbul and Cairo in which he urged global cooperation and actually used the term

interdependence. Since then hes learned to avoid cosmopolitanism in his politics. It may be prudent policy but is political poison. Nor can we blame citizens for being so punitive when our media -- Fox and MSNBC alike -- pay so little attention to the world. Grab your remote and channel surf from the American cable shows to the BBC or even Al Jezeera and you will be amazed to discover that important news of crucial importance to American interests emanates daily from parts of the world many Americans cant find on a map. Try to find news from East Timor -where Clintons wife found herself as Secretary of State during her husbands rousing speech. (East Timor is part of which country!? she is there why?!) Or news from Libya -- did you know Saif Qadafi is still held in Zintan with no trial in sight while local militia dominated by extremists increasingly turn Libya against America? Or news from the India/Pakistan frontier --where the risk of a regional nuclear war is much greater than an Iranian attack on Israel. Conventions wont talk global issues until politicians are willing to do so; politicians wont think or talk like cosmopolitans until citizens applaud their global realism; and citizens wont be ready to cross the traditional national frontiers that have defined their parochialism until an informationgrounded media help them grasp the meaning of interdependence. Like reporting international news in depth and why its important for Americans. September 12 is Interdependence Day -- a day on which the focus is on bridges not walls, cooperation not frontiers, commonality not exceptionalism. But only when Election Day also becomes Interdependence Day, are American citizens without borders likely to be able to respond effectively to our multiplying problems without borders. -Benjamin R. Barber

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gordon gekko for president

t one time Mitt Romney was my neighbor. Well, I use the term neighbor loosely but he did live in Belmont, just not in my section of town. Where I live, there are predominantly two or three family houses and, from what I understand, former Governor Romney lived in a mansion. I remember when Romney was running for Governor and talked about riding around with his future wife in a Rambler. What he failed to say was that his father owned the company that manufactured Ramblers. There are times Romney leaves certain facts out of his statements. It puzzles me how a man so obviously in the spotlight can say to one audience, I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there. Then, according to Rolling Stone, at another audience hell say, I was not planning on signing up for the military. It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam. So Mitt doesnt want to place himself in the face of death in a foreign country, yet he speaks hawkishly when he criticizes Obama for not wanting to leap into war with Iran. It may be true that Iran verbally attacks us, but if we choose to go to war with any country that speaks to our faults, we would do well to remember what happened to other empires when they stretched out so far that they fell apart. Mitt Romney speaks of being frugal with our money, yet when he was in charge of the 2002 Winter Olympics, he spent $1.5 million in taxpayer money, more than the other seven Olympic Games held in the United States combined.

( opinion )
According to Rolling Stone, in 2010 a company called Carlyle teamed up with Bain to drain $500 million out of a company known as Dunkin Donuts in what might be called a hostile takeover. Dunkin Donuts had to borrow $1.25 billion to stay afloat and pay dividends to their new owners. I like Dunkin Donuts. I dont like the fact that theyre going to have to sell people like me 2,011,834 small cups of coffee to pay off the $500 million dividend sucked out of them by the firm that Romney built. If Mitt Romney becomes our president, what will he do with our money? When Mitt was running to win the primary a few months past, he stated that he was going to decline Medicare for himself and his family. I wish we all had that option. I also wonder why our Congress opts out of Social Security and Medicare and has their own retirement plan separate from ours. Obviously, the money that we pay them has come from our taxes. The difference between Mitt Romney and his father was that his father made money building things, like cars, that we all can use. Mitt Romney builds transactions and makes his money buying and selling companies. Mitt puts down 5 percent of the value of a company with a solid cash flow; it becomes his and then he borrows the rest of the money from an investment bank to confirm his controlling interest. Now the company has a giant debt to pay off. The management company (Mitt operating under the name of Bain) starts to fire people to manage the debt. The interest on the loan sucks the profit from the company and they have to slash employee benefits, and the company has to pay Bain management fees. By vacuuming the cash value from the rapidly dying firm, Bain wins and gets out with a profit while the company and possibly the small town the company kept alive is shuttered. I wonder what Mitt Romneys plans are for the United States. Just recently, that famous statement Romney made about not caring about the 47 percent of the United States that is poor keeps echoing in my mind. If Mitt Romney wins, how much damage can he do in four years, possibly eight years? I think of the Supreme Court Justices who are appointed for life. Two appointments are coming up. It may be Mitt who appoints those two Justices, affecting the direction of the United States for the next 50 years. Justice Ginsburg was born in 1933, which makes her 79 years old. Justice Kennedy was born in 1936, the same year Justice Scalia was bornmaking them both 76 years old. I wonder; if Romney replaced Justice Ginsburg, in which direction would the Supreme Court lean? If Mitt Romney wins, how much damage, I repeat, can he do in four years? Look back, if you will, at the last four years of George W. Bush. Our debt is outstanding! Maybe we need Bain & Co. to straighten it out, eh? -Marc Goldfinger

civic death

( opinion )
about and the romanticism of the War on Drugs, and the mass publication in media outlets, from comics to the papers to the screen. As an incentive via the federal drug forfeiture laws, police were allowed to keep 80 percent of whatever they might confiscate. Fast forward to the present day, more than three decades of a system put in place to produce felons out of non-violent crimes. Yes, the Rockefeller drug laws have been reformed (from a minimum 15 to life for possessing four ounces or more of a controlled substance) and there has been progress, but there is still the War on Drugs. There are two states (Maine and Vermont) that have unrestricted voting laws for felons. The rest of the 48 states are divided between having to wait out the length of your parole before you can vote, or waiting until after your sentencing and doing your time incarcerated. This Civil Death has silenced those who are now fathers and grandfathers, and is trickling down to a new generation. In Florida alone, 200,000 potential voters have been disenfranchised this year because of voter reform to target former felons. It is possible that 11 million Hispanic voters will be denied their right to vote, nationally, despite being naturalized citizens. The new voting laws will require new voter IDs of them, as well as expensive paperwork and proof of citizenship; such documentation also requires time and application that could discourage many of whom that may vote not to. It is important not to be discouraged; it is actually imperative. If we are to progress as the great nation we plan to be, everyone has to be heard and changes need to be made. -Holliday

o w covert, and sinister, a nation can become; class warfare- the idea itself, leaves a bad taste in ones mouth. Here we are, and lets think, but not only about how we got here; but also about how we came to be, and what it means. What it means to be a felon, and what it means to be denied suffrage, and what it means to be alone and without opinion. Isolation, rooted in fear, manifests in all walks of life; it is truly something you would not wish on your worst enemy. President Reagan, despite a decline in drug crimes, declared the first War on Drugs in 1982-playing on the pieces first set in place by the Rockefeller Drug Laws in 73. However, it would seem that the War on Drugs was confined only to inner city communities and the ghettos, very rarely encompassing the suburbs or the middle class for that matter. Also, it was more focused on the pursuit of small-time dealers and possessors of drugs, particularly in the case of marijuana. Ultimately, the War on Drugs was a boost to Reagans campaign; he had made a declaration of war, and as far as the public was concerned, he was winning. Reagan found confirmation in the propaganda

about our contributors: Benjamin R. Barber is a scholar at the Graduate Center of City University of New York and the author of Jihad vs. McWorld and the forthcoming

book If Mayors Ruled the World. Based in Saint Louis, MO, CBabi Bayoc is producing 365 paintings of fathers this year. Common Dreams is a non-profit newscenter created in 1997 as a new media model. Joshua Eaton is a freelance journalist writing about Buddhism, religion and politics, poverty, and the American South, as well as a Tibetan translator. Called the Pablo Neruda of North American authors, Martn Espada is a English professor at the UMASS-Amherst. SCNs Editor-in-Chief emeritus, Marc D. Goldfinger is the author of Poison Pen and The Resurrection of Syliva Plath. Chris Hedges is a Pulizter Prize winning journalist and the author of War is the. A native of Ft. Smith, AR, Holliday is a former student at the Berklee School of Music. J. Marechal is a writer and artist based in Cambridge, MA. Samuel Needham is a first year MDiv student at Boston University School of Theology. Joe Saccos book Palestine, garnered the 1996 American Book Award. James Shearer is a founder and former board chairperson the Homeless Empowerment Project. Vendor/Writer Robert Sondak is the director of the Nutrition Education Outreach Project. Anthony Thames has been a vendor/writer with SCN for several years. Patty Tomsky is a freelance writer based in Greater Boston.

October 5-18, 2012

www.sparechangenews.net

20th Anniversary

Your voting rights are protected. These rights are guaranteed to qualified registered voters.
You have the right to vote if you are a qualified registered voter. You have the right to cast your ballot in a manner that ensures privacy. You have the right to vote without any person trying to influence your vote and to vote in a booth that prevents others from watching you mark your ballot. You have the right to remain in the voting booth for five (5) minutes if there are other voters waiting and for ten (10) minutes if there are no other voters waiting. You have the right to receive up to two (2) replacement ballots if you make a mistake and spoil your ballot. You have the right to request assistance when voting from anyone of your choice. If you do not bring someone with you, you have the right to have two (2) poll workers assist you. You have the right to vote if you are disabled. The polling place must be accessible, and there must be an accessible voting booth. You have the right to vote if you cannot read or write or cannot read or write English. You have the right to vote but must show identification if: you are a first-time voter who registered to vote by mail and did not submit identification with the voter registration form; or your name is on the inactive voter list; or your vote is being challenged; or if requested by a poll worker. Acceptable forms of identification are: Massachusetts drivers license, other printed documentation containing your name and address such as a recent utility bill, rent receipt on landlords letterhead, lease, or a copy of a voter registration acknowledgment or receipt. You have the right to vote by absentee ballot if: you will be absent from your city or town on Election Day; or if you have a physical disability that prevents your voting at the polling place; or if you cannot vote at the polls due to religious belief. You have the right to cast a provisional ballot if you believe you are a qualified registered voter but a poll worker tells you that you are ineligible to vote. You have the right to follow up any challenge to your right to vote through the complaint process. You have the right to vote if you are not currently incarcerated for a felony conviction and have registered as a voter after your release. You have the right to take this Voters Bill of Rights or any other papers, including a sample ballot, voter guide or campaign material into the voting booth with you. Please remember to remove all papers when you leave the booth. You have the right to vote at your polling place any time between 7am and 8pm for state and federal electionshours may vary for local elections. If you are in line at your polling place when the polls close at 8 pm, you have the right to vote. You have the right to bring your children into the voting booth with you. If you feel that your right to vote has been violated in any way, call the Secretary of the Commonwealths Elections Division at 1-800-462-VOTE (8683). This call is free within Massachusetts.

ma voter bill of rights

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6th IS ELECTION DAY

LAST DAY TO REGISTER TO VOTE FOR NOVEMBER 6TH ELECTION

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 17th IS

You can also request a form be mailed to you by calling 617-727-2828 or 1-800-462-VOTE or e-mailing your request to elections@sec.state.ma.us.

voter registration information

OCTOBER 17TH IS THE LAST DAY TO REGISTER FOR THE NOVEMBER 6TH ELECTION
source: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleifv/howreg.htm

20th Anniversary

( national )

October 5-18, 2012

homeless vote: Losing ones home does not mean one loses the right to vote.

ucked away in a corner of the mail-in voter registration form for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a small diagram of a city intersection, with streets labeled north, south, east and west. This chart, for those who cannot describe their place of residence as a number and street or as a rural route and box number, is the closest that people experiencing homelessness can get to an address.

The fact that homeless persons are unable to use standard language to describe their lives that they must draw, rather than write, their place of residence is a testament to the larger disconnect between those who call the streets home and those who merely sojourn there. There is no system for indicating a residence for people experiencing homelessness, not even the postal code. Public discussion of voting, roused from dormancy once every four years in the fall, speaks directly to this problem. Moreover, there are many who do not consider the question of homeless disenfranchisement a problem in

the moral sense. Some weeks ago, so-called voter suppression laws in Pennsylvania and elsewhere occupied space in the news cycles. These laws, which would require government-issued identification from voters at the time of voting, have been touted as reasonable requirements to rein in voter fraud. But opponents have pointed out that the laws specifically target and disenfranchise those whose daily lives are so far alienated from the status quo that they are unable to obtain a government ID or would have no reason to do so. Those who must draw their place of residence RIGHT TO VOTE continued on page 12

egressive voting laws pushed by Republican controlled legislatures in 23 states across the country could keep more than 10 million Latino citizens from registering and voting this year, according to a new study to be released Monday. Voter ID laws have become increasingly popular in what many suspect is a ploy to suppress the minority vote. The new report by the Advancement Project, a multi-racial civil rights organization, is the first state-by-state analysis of how voter suppression efforts will thwart the ability of Latino citizens to have their voices heard at the polls. The analysis will also look at such voter suppression could impact election results both within specific states and nationally.

no voto latino: New laws could disenfranchise 10 million Latino voters.

Overall, the Latino vote in the U.S. makes up approximately 10 percent of the electorate. In many states, according to the report, the number of eligible Latino citizens that could be affected by new state laws exceeds the margin of victory in the 2008 presidential election.

And Reuters reports: Laws in effect in one state and pending in two others require proof of citizenship for voter registration. That imposes onerous and sometimes expensive documentation requirements on voters, especially targeting naturalized American citizens, many of whom are Latino, the liberal group said. Nine states have passed restrictive photo identification laws that impose costs in time and money for millions of Latinos who are citizens but do not yet have the required

identification. Republican-led state legislatures have passed most of the new laws since the party won sweeping victories in state and local elections in 2010. They say the laws are meant to prevent voter fraud; critics say they are designed to reduce turnout among groups that typically back Democrats. Decades of study have found virtually no use of false identification in U.S. elections or voting by noncitizens. Activists say the bigger problem in the United States, where most elections see turnout of well under 60 percent, is that eligible Americans do not bother to vote.

-Common Dreams staff Published on September 24, 2012 by Common Dreams

voter suppression: Millions of minorities and youth may be turned away on election day.

he disenfranchisement of democratic leaning constituencies (including low-income, working, welfare, African American, Latino and student populations) has become a major focal point, breeding political negativity. This is along with corruption in the voting process as our national election between Republican Mitt Romney and the President Democrat Barack Obama looms approximately six weeks on the horizon. Adhering to the implementation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which was passed in 1993 under another Democrat, President Bill Clinton, has forced several states to challenge this law. States including Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Florida and Texas, are either petitioning federal or state courts to alter how their state implements NVRA. The controversy over Pennsylvanias voter ID law was

sent (but not resolved) from the State Supreme court back to the lower court and asked for a judge to halt the laws implementation, should he find that voters cannot get their documents easily. By a 4-2 decision, the State Supreme sent the case back to a Commonwealth Court judge, who initially said the controversial law could be implemented. Judge Robert Simpson was asked by the higher court to issue an opinion before Oct. 2, roughly one month before election day. Just two months ago, during a hearing in the Pennsylvania State Court, political science experts testified that 1 million registered voters (about 12.7 percent of the states registered voters) did not have valid identification to vote under the new law. Both the local American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP have complained that the new law would effectively disenfranchise a large number of voters who are African-

American, Latino, elderly or in school. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the lower court to once again look at its decision in the controversial voter ID law. Voting Rights advocates have said that this law would have disenfranchised as many as 750,000 individuals. State officials say it will take 90 days to implement the law and provide training to staff over the policies. Pennsylvanias Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson told lawyers on Tuesday September 25 that the states controversial ID law may be blocked. I think its a possibility there could be an injunction here, said Simpson, after hearing testimony on whether some voters would be disenfranchised. The Commonwealth Court is to file its supplemental VOTER continued on page 12

October 5 -18, 2012

( exclusive )

20th Anniversary

an american journey across expendable communities and people In a

journey across expendable communities and people, the collateral damage created by an elite oligarchical and political class Chris Hedges, along with illustrator Joe Sacco, trenchantly and compellingly write of an America in which democracy has become a faade, not a functional tool of change. | Excepted with permission from their Hedges and Saccos new book, Days of Destruction Days of Revolt (Nation Books, 2012) |

Chapter Two: Days of Siege

n a room across the street from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where meals are provided for the homeless on Saturdays, a group of African American women bow their heads over a table and hold hands. They are led by Lallois Davis, 67, known as Lolly, a heavyset woman who radiates an indomitable spirit. The poor have to help the poor, Davis says, because the ones who make the money are helping the people with money. Davis raised four children, and then when a neighbor died and left behind her two small grandsons, Davis took them in and raised them as well. She wears a large cross around her neck. Most in the neighborhood call her Aunt Lallois. My heart is heavy, says a 69-year-old woman named Brenda Hayes, her head bowed and her eyes shut. There is so much heaviness. It is wounding me. How can I not worry? Yes, Jesus, yes, Jesus, the other women respond. I know you didnt carry us this far to drop us now, Hayes says. I know there is no burden so heavy that we cant carry it with your help. I thank you, Lord, for friends who have carried me through the roughest times. Yes, Jesus, nothing is impossible with you, Jesus, the women say in unison. Bodies, Hayes says to me after the prayer. Bodies out back. Bodies upstairs. People stabbed. I dont go out at night. The last one was twenty feet away from me on my floor. There was one kid, he lived in the back of the projects, eighteen years old. They buried him two months ago. Gunshot. There were four kids I knew murdered, one in the parking lot who was killed last year. He was twelve or thirteen. He was sleeping, some say he was living, in a car. There are parents who are addicts who send their children out to sell drugs, Hayes says. I know a mother

who is a prostitute. Her oldest daughter sells weed to go to school, and then the mother stole the weed and sold it to buy crack. Black Christianity, while it uses the same iconography and language as white Christianity, is very different. It clings ferociously to the cross. The cross is a paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the worlds value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last, writes the theologian James Cone in The Cross and the Lynching Tree. And this belief is absurd to the intellect, yet, as Cone points out, profoundly real in the souls of black folk. The crucified Christ, Cone writes, for those who are also crucified, manifests Gods loving and liberating presence in the contradictions of black lifethat transcendent presence in the lives of black Christians that empowered them to believe that ultimately, in Gods eschatological future, they would not be defeated by the troubles of the world, no matter how great and painful their suffering. Cone elucidates this paradox, what he calls this absurd claim of faith, by pointing out that to cling to this absurdity was possible only when one was shorn of power, when one was unable to be proud and mighty, when one understood that he or she was not called by God to rule over others. The cross was Gods critique of powerwhite power with powerless love, snatching victory out of defeat. Lolly Davis lives in one of the brick row houses on Emerald Street, some of which have been refurbished through Father Doyles Heart of Camden project. Other brick and wooden row houses on her street, a block from Sacred Heart, bear the scars of decay

and long abandonment. There is a pungent smell of garbage. Davis, whose blood pressure had recently shot up and whose kidneys shut down, is home from the hospital. Her twenty-one-year-old adopted grandson, nicknamed Boom Boom, or Boomer, answers the door and says his grandmother will be right down. The white blinds are closed on the front window. The living room, with its two beige couches, matching armchair, and a large flat-screen television, is dim. There is a stone fireplace with a mantle crowned with family photos. Rain lashes the window. Boomer finished a special education program last year. He is a heavy young man and wears an orange T-shirt and blue shorts. He is making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the kitchen. Lolly gingerly makes her way down the stairs. She settles into an armchair and begins her story.

20th Anniversary

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October 5-18, 2012

October 5 -18, 2012

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20th Anniversary

the liberal lion

(cover story)
comparison that would not be the case if the gathering were a beer festival. The cops would have been a lot busier. He expanded: Drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco have a much greater negative impact--physically, socially and economically--than using marijuana. And yet neither of those substances is illegal. I am not calling for prohibition of either of those substances. However, I am making the point that in a free society, citizens should problems associated with drug taking will in the great majority of cases only come to light once they are out of control. If the UN [United Nations] is right and drugs account for 70 percent of organized criminal activity, then the legalization of drugs would administer the deadliest blow possible against transnational organized criminal networks. Cultural bias is expensive. The custom is further tainted by the means with which

Having represented the Massuchesuetts 4th Congressional District for over 25 years, Barney Frank leaves a legacy of pithy remarks and progressive legislation.
I am working to reduce crime. In a spare, direct, and intelligent speech, Congressman Barney Frank emphasized, to the rapt Freedom Rally crowd on Boston Common on September 15th, how politicians are continually pressed for ways to lower crime... and that his efforts to stop prosecution of marijuana usage would do exactly that. The Congressman is on the mark. With the Federal mandatory guidelines begun in 1973, and expanded in the 1980s, even minor possession cases face serious penalties--a paradigm that has resulted in dangerous (to both inmates and guards) prison overcrowding, gross imbalance in sentence severity for violent crimes versus victimless offenses, and an egregiously bloated incarceration budget. Impoverished states, struggling to balance budgets while still providing basic services such as food, housing, and medical care, are footing ever increasing bills to corporations such as Corrections Corp of America (CCA) and GEO Group, the leaders in the partnership corrections industry. This pattern becomes more untenable when racial and class disparities are factored in. [inset quote from book re case/s] (and)As author and attorney John W. Whitehead notes in an April Huffington Post article: Between 1900 1975 the nations incarceration rate remained at about 110 prison inmates for every 100,000 people. In 1973 the first drug laws with mandatory sentencing guidelines were enacted and incarcerations rates climbed immediately, doubling in the 80s and 90s. As of 2010 the rate was 731 per 100,000; among black and Hispanic adult men 4,347 and 1,755 inmates per 100,000. Private prisons have grown from a billion dollar industry in 1984 to over 30 billion in 2010; its forecasts for expansion influenced by 3rd grade reading and math test scores and the passing of 3 strikes laws. This provokes the question: Do we want to be a nation where a third graders test scores are a predictor of probable future imprisonment for non-violent life style choices? At the rally, Congressman Frank made the point that there were a lot of people presentso many that people were bumping into each otherbut that, notably, there were no incidents of violence. He further made the

have the right to use a substance that harms nobody. The prohibition of marijuana is based on cultural biases. History supports the congressmans stance, in that prohibition of alcohol not only failed to end its use, but also instead promoted criminal enterprise. The same is true of marijuana. In McMafia, author Misha Glenny details the ways that the war on marijuana strengthens the black market in hard drugs, weapons, and human trafficking, posing real threats to our nations security: If a country supports prohibition, it is also guaranteeing that on the supply side all profits will accrue to the underground networks; and on the demand side it is guaranteeing that any social or public health

we pursue those convictions. Police departments receive federal funding based on arrest numbers, and assetforfeiture laws are another incentive that commercializes the justice process. This reward structure produces questionable approaches. A system heavily reliant on casual substance users has developed, with problems of wrongful convictions based on fabricated testimony, and worse. A September, 3, 2012 Sarah Stillman New Yorker article, The Throwaways, reports on the law enforcement practice of using young marijuana users--facing imprisonment for possession charges--as confidential informants in potentially life-threatening FRANK continued on page 14

October 5 -18, 2012

( cover story )

20th Anniversary 9

Spare Change News talked with Congressman Frank at the

Freedom Rally to talk about the legalization of medical marijuana.
SCN: How did you feel about President Obamas rescinding of the policy enacted and sent out by his Attorney General soon after his election, in the letter the state Attorney Generals soon after his election regarding the non pursuit of Federal prosecution FRANK: I was disappointed. I told the President personally I thought it was a big mistake. I am planning to see the Attorney General on this. SCN: What chances does the federal law have of passing? FRANK: Theres a lot of support. Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked me to represent her on this, and to get the U.S. Justice Department to stop harassing people. And [Republican Congressman] Ron Paul is on board now. We hope to have enough support for the law to be enacted within five years. SCN: If marijuana were legalized, what would this mean for people currently incarcerated for cannabis offenses? FRANK: If the law is done right, it could absolutely mean their release. There is legal doctrine that states that if you are in prison for a crime, and the law changes, that you are to be released. SCN: How much do you think the state could realize in revenue if marijuana was legalized? FRANK: Hard to say, but its a double tap in savings. First, we would stop spending money on arresting and locking people up. Then, we would be receiving revenue from the commerce generated. The net savings possible could be in the tens of millions. SCN: MASSCANN is promoting a legislative arc of Decrim 2008. Medi 2012. Legal 2016. Do you think that timeline is probable? FRANK: If everyone here [at the Freedom Rally] registers and votes, yes.

PHOTO/WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

romneycare vs. obamacare: SCN breaks down the difference between the Obama and Romney universal healthcare legislation.
hen Mitt Romney spearheaded the healthcare law here in 2006, supporters shouted that Romneycare ushered us into the mythical realm usually reserved for unicorns: Healthcare reform that worked. Then the Feds joined the fray. Obamacare was upheld in a legendary 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court this summer, so the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA) jumped one of the last hurdles (besides re-election, of course!) toward enactment in 2014. What follows, kids, is the stuff of myth and legend. I dont have a roof, how the heck can I afford health insurance? If you have no income, or make less than $15,000 a year, your state is expected to apply for federal Medicaid subsidies to pay for 90-100 percent of what it costs to cover its uninsured adults. The local health centers that many turn to now are expected to become even more crucial to the communities they serve. And if states opt in, there may be an opportunity for these centers to expand Medicaid offerings such as mental health services and services that benefit people with

10 October 5 -18, 2012

( national & international )

a qualifying disability. It is clear that whatever the outcome, community-based homeless assistance programs will need to pay even more attention to state policymakers to ensure that their neighborhoods get the expanded services they need. What about the children? Homeless kids on Medicaid and those already using state-run, safety net health services will be affected on a state-by-state basis, as each state under AHA applies for expanded Medicaid for the uninsured. Romneycare expanded Medicaid for children up to the age of 18 whose families make between 133 percent and 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Obamacare expands Medicaid to adults, as well, but cuts off eligibility at 133 percent of the federal poverty level. The federal law lets families of four earning less than $29,000 annually join Medicaid. I plan on having a job soon, and definitely by 2014, when Obamacare is expected to go into effect. Will my employer have to pony up? Under Obamacare, small businesses qualify for tax

credits by paying half of their employees insurance bill. The definition of small business here is fewer than 25 full time employees who each earn less than an average of 50K per year. Obamacare doesnt fine small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Companies with more than 50 employees only pony up for fines if their employees qualify for tax credits via the new law. Romneycare fines businesses with more than 11 workers who do not pay a fair and reasonable contribution to employee health insurance. According to www.endhomelessness.org, a lot is still up in the air. If states do get Medicaid expansion, which services will be covered? Will it all really happen by 2014? What if a state misses the 2014 deadline or decides not to take up the expansion? This story has a few endings, all of which hinge on who is elected this November. Heres hoping we all live happily ever after in the era of the AHA. -Patty Tomsky

inside the arab autumn The tragic death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and
three other Americans in Libya and the worldwide anti-American protest over an anti-Islamic film may give cause to doubt the promise of the Arab Spring. Journalist Mona Eltahawy is still a believer.

ona Eltahawy held up her arms to block the blows from gendarmerie batons. The police had crossed from the cool evening exterior of the crowd into the steaming, dusty, tear-gas-choked innards of a movement. The rule had been that when the police enter the heart of the square, the weight of a dying regime lands with every strike of their batons. November 24, 2011 was no exception to the rule. Her forearm and hand shattered, Eltahawy was dragged from the churned ground and thrown into police custody. The next twelve hours were a cacophony of interrogations from the Interior Ministry and the military police, of consistent sexual assault, and of further beatings. Blindfolded and exhausted from resisting attempts at rape, her broken arms went untreated until her release. Eltahawy had made her stand on that autumn night in the square called Tahrirwhich translates, appropriately, as Liberationwith thousands of fellow Egyptians as they had for 303 straight days. The people of Egypt rose against a Hosni Mubarak administration that had wielded violence, censorship, and electioneering as tools of oppression. The peoples action in Cairo, coextensive with revolutions in Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere across the Arab world, ousted Mubarak and yielded transparent elections for the first time in Egypts history. And, as Eltahawy says, The revolution continues.

Todays revolution in the Arab world is, like all revolutions, a motion of indictment against global

oppression. Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, President of The Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York, puts it this way: The reality of the 1percent and the 99 percent is global, not national. The Arab people act for justice against that which is unjust, responding to oppression at home and abroad. An aspect of this is the very real struggle in the Muslim world, between the forces of oppression (under various cloaks), and those of justice, writes Imam Talib. Oppression in the Muslim world occurs sometimes under a cloak of True Islam, others under a cloak of democracy, others still under secular progress. One has to look beyond the labels to perceive the reality. MONA continued on next page One of the labels with which the Western world

has been comfortable is Islamic extremism. Long confusing the activities of fringe groups with the core identity of Muslim people, Western onlookers have often trivialized the dynamics of revolution in the Arab world. And this misunderstanding of Other necessarily entails a misunderstanding of Self. Imam Talib speaks of Evil Uncle Sam, the correlate to an idealistic U.S. nom de guerre whom Middle Easterners readily perceive. [He] is Uncle Sams evil twin who imposes hegemony upon poorer and weaker nations in the world while his twin espouses freedom and other high ideals. American eyes have long reduced the Arab world to a radical-religious quagmire, while remaining blind to the consequences of their own vision of freedom. The problem of this dual misconstrual is, for Syrian-American activist and Boston-area native Nadia Alawa, the backdrop for her communitys response to fringe groups who attacked Western embassies earlier this month. Our participation in rallies for freedom in Syria, she writes, are attemptson the part of our group of mostly Muslims, many Arabs, Americans, but also Christians and specifically Arab/Syrian Christians standing unitedto make our voices be heard over that [sic] of acts of extremism. Alawas action is a demonstration of the humanity of those who live in the Middle East and North Africa. Extremism in the Arab world, as in the Western world, as in the world in which we all live, is never absent from public life. But, as Alawa notes, after the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens on September 11, Libyans

October 5 -18, 2012 MONA continued from page 10 immediately took to the streets to rally and let the world know that the extremist acts were not supported by the majority there. Alawa organized a vigil for Stevens in Harvard Square on September 13. Among the moving gestures of peace was a sign that read: Violence committed in the name of our Prophet is more offensive than any film. The revolution continues in the demonstrations of peace and mourning in the face of violent extremism.

www.sparechangenews.net Stevens was not a member of the revolution. His interests were U.S. interests. But his short tenure in Benghazi was faithfully dedicated to a Libyan people in the throes of change. Change for the people of Libya, Egypt, Syria, and many other places means that the courageous will be beaten and killed. Violent responses to movements of positive change are not responses to crude American videos (in reference to The Innocence of Muslims

20th Anniversary 11 trailer, Alawa writes: The movie itself is not worth discussing) but to the fear of change. This is a fear that those worth discussingactivists like Eltahawy, officials like Stevensdo not share. The blood in Cairo and Benghazi bears witness to their courage. -Samuel Needham

the lady

United States for the first time since her release from house arrest under the repressive Burmese junta.
Ive always thought of myself as a politician, Aung San Suu Kyi explained to a packed audience at the Harvard Kennedy Schools John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on September 27. Suu Kyi is the daughter of General Aung San, who founded the modern Burmese army and is considered the father of Burmas independence from Britain. She studied political science and economics in Delhi, Oxford, and London. After returning to Burma in 1988 to care for her sick mother she helped found the National League for Democracy (NLD) and lead the struggle for democracy against a series of military juntas. Suu Kyi spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest. The NLD won 80 percent of the parliament seats in Burmas 1990 general elections, but the junta refused to honor the results. Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Her husbanda scholar of Tibetan studies at Oxforddied in 1999 in England while she remained in Burma for fear of being unable to return if she left the country. Suu Kyi finally received the peace prize in person and delivered her Nobel address earlier this year, when she traveled outside Burma for the first time since her final release from house arrest in 2010. She was elected to the lower house of Burmas parliament in the 2012 by-elections, along with 42 other NLD candidates. Now Americans are finally getting to meet the Burmese Suu Kyi in person after decades of admiring her as a distant hero for human rights and democracy. On September 19 she met with President Obama at the White House and received the Congressional Gold Medal, which she was unanimously awarded in 2008. She traveled to New York City on September 21 to meet with Ban Ki-Moon at the UN, where she worked from 1969 to 1971. While in New York, Suu Kyi also received the Atlantic Councils Global Citizen Award alongside Henry Kissingerthe symbol of nonviolent resistance in Burma and the man who played a key role in the bombing of Cambodia standing side by side. I saw Suu Kyi speak to two crowds of college students at Amnesty Internationals Rights Generation event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on September 20 and at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge. Its difficult to overstate how inspiring Suu Kyi is, especially in person. To begin with, shes the very image of poise, projecting a cool aplomb that displays her Indian and British education. More striking are her obvious strength of will, her character, and her lack of animosity toward the regime that held her captive for 15 years.

Human rights activist turned parlimentarian Aung San Suu Kyi visits the

I never thought that I was making any sort of sacrifice or undergoing any kind of suffering, she said at the Newseum. I always thought of myself as following a path that I had chosen for myself. She also revealed her fondness for the Burmese army, which her father founded. Suu Kyi said the generals who ruled Burma always treated her as a member of the family, albeit a rather troublesome one. Forgiveness, she said, is not an issue. I dont feel I have anything to forgive them for. As Danny Fisher wrote for Buddhadharma, the audience at Suu Kyis Amnesty International event palpably liked her. That was just as true at Harvard, where it was apparent that even those asking her

difficult questions were addressing someone they deeply admire. Still there were difficult questions, and not all of them were resolved. Alicia Mara, Farah Kahn, Alex Heywood, and Chelsey Watrob from the University at Buffalo drove all night see Suu Kyi in DC, whom they called a rock star and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But their enthusiasm was qualified. You can tell shes gone from being an oppressed individual . . . to a politician, said Kahn, and maybe shes acting that way. The NLDs transition from dissidents to politicians has been increasingly clear. Newly-elected NLD parliamentarians, including Suu Kyi herself, originally refused to take an oath of office that requires them to respect a constitution they want changed dramatically. However, they relented after a week-long boycott because, as the Los Angeles Times reported, they decided they could do more by joining as lawmakers than maintaining their boycott on principle. Suu Kyis speech at Harvard focused heavily on personal responsibility and the need to educate individuals as free and responsible citizens. While she expressed concern over the state of Burmas judiciarywhich is widely corrupt and largely under political controlshe sidestepped a question about building Burmese civil society. And she appeared to back off some of her earlier criticisms of the Burmese government in which she now serves. At Harvard, for example, Suu Kyi told the story of seeing girls in tears on election day because their names had not been on the voter lists. There were many weaknesses of that kind, she explained. I do not think all of these problems were deliberately created by the Elections Commission, although some thought otherwise. But it was just that they had not been able to get their act together. Compare this to what Suu Kyi said before the election, when the NLD was attempting to address widespread irregularities with voter listsand even the outright

12 October 5 -18, 2012 THE LADY continued from page 11 purchase of votes by military-backed parties in some constituencies. Fraud and rule violations are continuing, and we can even say they are increasing, she told Radio Free Asia at the time. Most troubling, however, was Suu Kyis response to repeated questions about ongoing human rights abuses against Burmas minority Rohingya population, who are Muslim. She chided a student in DC for using the word persecution to describe Burmas treatment of the Rohingyas, saying that condemnation does not always bring reconciliation. While hinting that the 1982 law that stripped the Rohingya of citizenship might VOTER continued from page 5 opinion on or before Oct. 2, over deployment of ID cards as attached by the General Assembly. Meanwhile, on Monday, September 24, because of the controversy of South Carolinas voter ID law, there has been a filing concerning the disenfranchisement there as well. The issue of tens of thousands of black residents disenfranchisement was brought up by the U.S. Justice Department and the League of Women Voters that it will be harder for black residents to vote. According to USA Today, state officials told the courts that South Carolinas voter ID law doesnt discriminate against blacks and allows minorities to cast ballots even if they dont have proper identification. Monday Sept. 24s closing arguments followed a trial that will determine if the ID law that necessitates a valid government-issued ID to vote will pass. Justice officials described the law as discriminatory after the South Carolina enacted it in May 2011. The state eventually filed suit in response. Harold Christopher Bartolomucci, a Washington lawyer representing South Carolina, said the measure passed the state Legislature only after minority lawmakers who at one point staged a walkout to protest the proposal agreed to support it. According to USA Today, Justice Department attorney Matthew Colangelo said The state points out that only 1.9 percent of South Carolina voters lack valid ID. About 8.8 percent of registered black voters in South Carolina lack valid ID, twice as many as whites. Down in the southern part of the United States, Florida civil right groups are fighting over voting registrations. The state passed a law in 2011 that cut back on the number of early days to vote in the federal elections. The state also made penalized voters who fail to update addresses after moving within the state. They have also made it harder to conduct third-party voter registration drives. According to a study written by Daniel A. Smith, a political science professor from University of Florida, almost half of the nearly 1.1 million black population that voted in the 2008 general election in Florida voted during the early voting period. A federal judge in Tallahassee on the week of Monday, September 17, threw out the registration-drive changes after the local Language of Women Voters was sued. The other parts of the law have yet to be ruled out. These are currently being challenged by state civil right groups and also Congresswoman Corrine Brown. Theres been a full-fledged assault on the voting rights of minorities in Florida, Smith said to USA Today. But Republican Governor Rick Scott told USA Today that these laws are meant to rule out fraud and do not target any specific demographic group. In late August, a federal court struck down the Texas

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20th Anniversary

need to brought in line with international standards, she stopped short of condemning the anti-Rohingya sentiment that is widespread among Burmas Buddhist majority. At Harvard Suu Kyi spun the question to discuss how both Muslims and Buddhists in the affected areas had been oppressed by the military junta, and she reiterated her refusal to take sides. I think there are too many people who try to make political capital out of this situation by speaking out for one side or the other, she explained, And I do not intend to do that. Western human rights organizations were quick to condemn abuses against he Rohingya. Burmese security

forces failed to protect the Arakan and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass roundups against the Rohingya, explained Brad Warner, the Human Rights Watchs Asia director. He went on to call Burmas treatment of Rohingyas state-sponsored persecution and discrimination. Western activists have venerated Aung San Suu Kyi as an icon of human rights and nonviolence for fifteen years, but the flesh-and-blood politician may prove more complicated. -Joshua Eaton

ID-law which would have required voters to show government issued identifications to cast ballots in the November federal election. The federal court said the ruling placed strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor by charging those voters who lack proper documentation fees to obtain election ID cards. There were three-judges present in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia as all three judges called the Texas voter ID law the most stringent of its kind in the country. Governor Rick Perry along with State Attorney General Greg Abbott made a vow that would appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The same three judges then found that the Texas Legislation had discriminated against minority voters and that it was intentional. They did this by drawing up electoral district maps, the same section was cited in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Senate Bill-14 requires voters to show one of five forms of ID: a drivers license, a U.S. passport, a U.S. military ID card, a citizenship certificate, or a license to carry a handgun. If an individual does not have any of the five types of ID, they have an option to obtain an election ID certificate. This is a government-issued card similar to a drivers license. Although this card is free, prospective voters would need to travel to a state Department of Public Safety and prove their identity by showing a birth certificate. This would cost them roughly $22. The federal judges believe that these costs (traveling and fees) for the poor and minorities are unfair. The federal judges released a 56-page ruling on Texas voter-ID law, stating: While a 200-250 mile trip to and from a D.P.S. office would be a heavy burden for any prospective voter, such a journey would be especially daunting for the working poor, referencing the many counties in Texas that do not have a Department of Public Safety office of their own. Governor Perry among other Texas Republicans argued that to have voter ID laws was a perfectly constitutional way of preventing voter fraud. They also truly believed that factors such as poverty would not be taken into consideration (legally) when it came time to determine if a law complies with the Voting Rights Act. United States Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr., told the N.A.A.C.P. in July that the Texas laws requirements amounted to a poll tax, praised the ruling. The courts decision today and the decision earlier this week on the Texas redistricting plans not only reaffirm but help protect the vital role the Voting Rights Act plays in our society to ensure that every American has the right to vote and to have that vote counted, Holder stated to The New York Times. Voter ID laws enacted in Republican-controlled states in recent years have created a national controversy. Supporters, mostly conservatives, say that such restrictions are needed to prevent fraud. But critics, mostly liberals,

say voter impersonation fraud is rare and contend that the restrictions suppress turnout by legitimate voters who are less likely to have a photo ID card and who tend to support Democrats, like students, the indigent and minorities. The case could add to pressure on the question of whether voter registration applications included in drivers licenses and change of address forms submitted to State motor vehicle offices must be given to election authorities. The Supreme Court is deciding whether to review an appeals court decision upholding the Voting Rights Act in the face of a constitutional challenge by Shelby County, Alabama. Texas is one of the states that is also challenging the constitution of the law in the case of voter IDs, along with Florida and Alaska. Science professor Daniel A. Smith said: Theres been a full-fledged assault on the voting rights of minorities in Florida. Scott and his surrogates have consistently said that the election law changes are meant to root out fraud and dont target any specific demographic group. In late August, a federal court struck down the Texas ID law which would have required voters to show government-issued identifications to cast ballots in the November federal election. The federal court said that the law put strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor by charging those voters who lack proper documentation fees to obtain election ID cards. The three-judge panel in United States District Court for the District of Columbia called Texas voteridentification law the most stringent of its kind in the country. Gov. Rick Perry and the states attorney general, Greg Abbott, vowed to appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court. The same three-judge panel court found that the Texas Legislature had intentionally discriminated against minority voters in drawing up electoral district maps, citing the same section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The new voting law, commonly referred to as Senate Bill14, requires voters who show up at the polls to identify themselves with one of five forms of ID, including a drivers license or a United States passport. Those lacking one of the five types of identification must obtain an election identification certificate, a government-issued card similar to a drivers license. Prospective voters would need to travel to a state Department of Public Safety office to get an election ID card, and, although it is free, they would have to verify their identity to obtain one, in some cases paying $22 for a certified copy of their birth certificate. -Robert Sondak

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FRANK continued from page 8 circumstances... with no training or legal counsel, and inadequate regard for their safety. The article states: Every day, offenders are sent out to perform high-risk police operations with few legal protections. Some are juveniles, as young as fourteen or fifteen. Rachels Law, composed by the parents of twenty-three year old graduate student Rachel Hoffman, who was murdered in the course of one such procedure, was enacted in Florida in 2009--but cannot be expected to stop the practice when departments relevancy is correlated to quantity over quality arrests. Why not fund police departments at a stable rate? A rate equal to what they are paid under the current method. This rate should explicitly engender no reduction in monies for equipment or salary. It is an insult to the intelligence of police officers to have marijuana users a primary pursuit. Society needs to utilize their strength to protect our country from real threats. RIPTa training ex. Recent case of tainted lab samples. RIGHT TO VOTE continued from page 5 would be potentially excluded from the voting process if these laws passed. To quote Bobbie Ibarra for the Huffington Post (9/22/2012), Individuals experiencing homelessness face several barriers when trying to vote. One of the major hurdles is establishing residency. In order to do this, you must provide a mailing address Individuals experiencing homelessness do not have a steady residence and keeping documents such as a birth certificate is challenging if not an unsurmountable task. According to an article on homeless Americans voting rights (Sasha Stumacher, journalism.nyu.edu.htm), Michael Stoops of the National Coalition for the Homeless has stated that poor people and homeless peopletend to vote more Democrat than Republican. This fact is not insignificant to the conversation on voter suppression laws. However, Neil Donovan, the executive director of the NCH, has said, Only one-tenth of unhoused persons actually exercise the right to vote, and over the years, the number has been fairly consistent. But the issue of homelessness and voting is deeper than whether the center-right can demographically manipulate an electoral victory over the center-left. The issue is whether citizens and legal residents of the United States can exercise the one right that yields access to all other rights. September 30th was the second-to-last day of National Homeless and Low-Income Voter Registration Week, an operation of the National Coalition for the Homeless. Their activities in Boston and Cambridge and every other city are crucially important to this country not only for those without homes, not only for the Democratic Party, but for all Americans. When one voter is disenfranchised, all voters rights are trampled. As the NCHs 2012 Voter Registration Manual rightly puts it, lending poetry to a sense of helplessness that many of us can relate to: There isnt a way that I can encourage Americas homeless to vote. There isnt a way that I can encourage Americas homeless. There isnt a way that I can encourage America. There isnt a way that I can encourage. There isnt a way that I can. There isnt a way. There is. -Samuel Needham with Alison Clark and Jessica Guay On this issue, the public is ahead of the politicians. Americans have a history of standing up for freedom; this is your chance to actively engage in that history. -J. Marechal

-source: The Boston Occupier, July 2012

20th Anniversary

(poetry)
For the Jim Crow Mexican Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Where My Cousin Estaban was Forbidden to Wait Tables Because He Wears Dreadlocks
I have noticed that the hostess in peasant dress the wait staff and the boss share the complexion of a flour tortilla. I have spooked the servers at my table by trilling the word burrito. I am aware of your T-shirt solidarity with the refugees of the Americas, since they steam in your kitchen. I know my cousin Estaban the sculptor rolled tortillas in your kitchen with the fingertips of ancestral Puerto Rican cigarmakers. I understand he wanted to be a waiter, but you proclaimed his black dreadlocks unclean, so he hissed in Spanish and his apron collapsed on the floor. May La Migra handcuff the waitstaff as suspected illegal aliens from Canada; may a hundred mice dive from the oven like diminutive leaping dolphins during your Board of Health inspection; may the kitchen workers strike, sitting with folded hands as enchiladas blacken and twisters of smoke panic the customers; may a Zapatista squadron commandeer the refrigerator, liberating a pillar of tortillas at gunpoint; may you hallucinate dreadlocks braided in thick vines around your ankles; and may the Aztec gods pinned like butterflies to the menu wait for you in the parking lot at midnight, demanding that you spell their names. -Martin Espada

arts&culture
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 Sheep Haiku Achill Island, Ireland
A lone sheep cries out: There are more of us than them! The flock keeps grazing. -Martin Espada

October 5-18, 2012

13

For the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Center. Alabanza. Praise the cook with a shaven head and a tattoo on his shoulder that said Oye, a blue-eyed Puerto Rican with people from Fajardo, the harbor of pirates centuries ago. Praise the lighthouse in Fajardo, candle glimmering white to worship the dark saint of the sea. Alabanza. Praise the cooks yellow Pirates cap worn in the name of Robeto Clemente, his plane that flamed into the ocean loaded with cans for Nicaragua, for all the mouths chewing the ash of earthquakes. Alabanza. Praise the kitchen radio, dial clicked even before the dial on the oven, so that music and Spanish rose before bread. Praise the bread. Alabanza. Praise Manhatten from a hundred and seven flights up, like Atlantis glimpsed through the windows of an ancient aquarium. Praise the great windows where immigrants from the kitchen could squint and almost see their world, hear the chant of nations: Ecuador, Mexico, Repblica Dominicana, Haiti, Yemen, Ghana, Bangladesh. Alabanza. Praise the kitchen in the morning, where the gas burned blue on every stove and exhaust fans fired their dimunitive propellers, hands cracked eggs with quick thumbs or sliced open cartons to build an altar of cans. Alabanza. Praise the busboys music, the chime-chime of his dishes and silverware in the tub. Alabanza. Praise the dish-dog, the dishwasher who worked that morning because another dishwasher could not stop coughing, or because he needed overtime to pile the sacks of rice and beans for a family floating away on some Caribbean island plagued by frogs. Alabanza. Praise the waitress who heard the radio in the kitchen and sang to herself about a man gone. Alabanza. After the thunder wilder than thunder, after the shudder deep in the glass of the great windows, after the radio stopped singing like a tree full of terrified frogs, after night burst the dam of day and flooded the kitchen, for a time the stoves glowed in darkness like the lighthouse in Fajardo, like a cooks soul. Soul I say, even if the dead cannot tell us about the bristles of Gods beard because God has no face, soul I say, to name the smoke-beings flung in constellations across the night sky of this city and cities to come. Alabanza I say, even if God has no face. Alabanza. When the war began, from Manhatten and Kabul two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other, mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue: Teach me to dance. We have no music here. And the other said with a Spanish tongue: I will teach you. Music is all we have. -Martin Espada

alledthe Latino poet of his generation and the Pablo Neruda of North American authors, Martn Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has published seventeen books in all as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. The Republic of Poetry, a collection of poems published by Norton in 2006, received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; These poems have been selected from his book Alabanza, New & Selected Poems 19822002 published by Norton Press (2004).

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October 4-18, 2012

( arts & culture )

fathering: a short story

hen I was asked to write something about my father, I first thought to myself, That will be a short story. See, there isnt much I can tell you about my old man because I never really knew him. I dont remember him as a child, and I only saw him once or twice when I was around five or six, when I lived in Kentucky with my grandparents. There was no great love story to tell; I knew about as much about him as my grandparents and other relatives told me and that wasnt much or really all that great. I knew he was born in North Carolina. He moved to Massachusetts at a very young age, until his parents divorced and he moved to Kentucky with his father, where he met my mother and the rest, you can say, is history. According to whichever relative you listen to, he was a player, a Rolling Stone type, or a saint who never did anything wrong. I know he had nine children by three different women he was there for some of his kids, but not all of them. My mom never had a word to say about him good or bad, and all I know is that he was never there for me or my little brother. But I dont use that as an excuse for how I turned out, and I dont carry a grudge against him. Its difficult to carry a grudge against someone you never really knew. He passed away a long time ago at a young age, end

(essays)

20th Anniversary

of story. What I can tell you is based upon what I knew of my father and what I saw of my two stepfathers influenced what type of father I wanted to be. I couldnt promise if I would always be there for the mother, or as it turned out mothers of my children, but I would always be there for my kids no matter what. And for the most part, I kept that promise. My oldest son will tell you how his dad was there for his 6th grade graduation half in the wrapper. For many of the big events in his young life I was either high, drunk, or on the run, but he will still proudly tell you I was there. My younger kids were a little more lucky, as I was somewhat more together. I was there even when I didnt want to be, as my youngest child passed away in my arms there is no greater pain than burying your child. Those promises I made to myself carry on to this very day. Today my life is full of both grand and godchildren. I make an attempt to be there for each and everyone of them as well as my own. My oldest son and I try to make it a point to meet

every weekend for coffee by ourselves and just talk. Hes turned into a great person, and is a great dad. I like to think I had a part in that. Maybe my father wasnt the father that everyone expected him to be, but Im the father I wanted to be. -James Shearer

meeting my father for the first time, again

gentleman and I recently had a brief conversation about an article I had written for Mothers Day. He congratulated me on the article and suggested I write one on behalf of Fathers. Upon hearing the mere suggestion of paying homage to fathers, I immediately experienced a barrage of emotions. I felt anger, sorrow, hurt and pain in realizing that my father, a man whom I had not seen in over 37 years, had never played any kind of role in my life. As I tried to appear excited about the prospect of writing about fathers, this man could obviously see that my feigned excitement was disingenuous. He went on, rattling about the great fathers in the world and how there seemed to be a lack of recognition for them. I listened intently, silently wishing that he would just move along. Resentments are born when someone doesnt meet up to your expectations. For as long as I can remember, I longed for my father to reach out to me in some form or another. For years I longed for a father to teach me how to become a man. My life seems to have been a series of missteps. Ive fallen several times but God has seen fit to allow me to get back up. I feel that I truly would have benefitted immensely with a father in my life. My father left home when I was a little boy. My mom recently gave me the details of their demise and ultimate separation. I highly respect my mom for being honest and forthright with me concerning the facts of her and my fathers breakup. But Ive longed to hear my fathers version of events and why for decades he has neglected to reach out to us, his children. I and my mom just recently returned from a trip to Georgia where we visited my baby sister and her family. On the trip back home, we stopped in South Carolina to visit my moms sister. My aunt told me that she had regularly been in touch with my father. I expressed to her my sincere disinterest in my father or how he might

be fairing in life, (for I had long come to accept that he was not even remotely interested in me). My aunt insisted that no matter what, he was still my father. My mom, my aunt and I drove out to look at some property my mom had long ago purchased. Because my mom and I were unfamiliar with the territory, my aunt navigated as I drove to and from the property. On our way back, my aunt directed Infinite Possibilites by Cbabi Bayoc me through various winding roads until we ended up on a secluded because of me. I was surprised to find that I had another dirt road with a single beat-up shack at the end. There, a brother who had died long ago and that my father will be lone man sat on the porch. My aunt announced, Theres 82 years old on September 27th. I promised him that I your father. Upon hearing those three words, I was met would at least talk to my brothers and sister and find out with shock and then immediately thereafter, sorrow. All if they were willing to come down and visit him. Finally, my feelings of anger, betrayal and resentments toward I shook his hand and I walked away with the hope that my father were washed away and replaced with a deep he was proud of the man I had become, despite him not sense of compassion for this obviously broken man. being there for me. I exited the vehicle and I walked up to my father. I My primary goal for sharing this personal experience extended my hand as I informed him that I was Anthony is to inform other fathers that they really do matter in Thames, his son. This was an obvious shock to my father, the lives of their children. That boys, who will ultimately but I reassured him that I meant no harm, that I merely become men, look to the one man who helped to create wanted to talk. I told him about myself, about all the them for love, affection and ultimately guidance. If dad mistakes I had made in life and how I turned them is absent, we will eventually look to other men to teach around. I told him about my brothers and sister and how us how to become men. Oftentimes, these men, or role extremely talented and successful they had become. I models, are not always right for us. told him how, though I never had children of my own, I commend those fathers who play a supportive role all of my brothers and sisters have wonderful, beautiful in the lives of their children. I also give thanks to the and promising children. That we have a family that many men who are positive role models for our children. continues to expand and how we wear the Thames name I dont know if my father and me will ever have a more with honor and pride. meaningful relationship, but I am content in knowing My father explained to me why he had left us all that I did try to reach out to him and that ultimately, so long ago. I partially accepted his explanation but it was a major loss for him to not have played a more was ultimately relieved to find that it wasnt, after all, active role in the lives of his children.