Urban Policing, Mass Imprisonment, & Second-Class Citizenship in the USA

03 Wed Jun 2015

Posted by ztnh in Democracy Deferred, Police State, Prison Abolition

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Amy E. Lerman, civic engagement, free speech, Goldman School of Public Policy, Prison Litigation Reform Act, Scholars Strategy Network, state theory, UC Berkeley, University of California-Berkeley, Vesla M. Weaver

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—In the context of the current national upheavals against police terrorism, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley are featuring interesting and relevant research, particularly one study published in 2014. In an article, entitled “How Urban Policing and Mass Imprisonment Create a Second-Class Citizenship in America“, Amy E. Lerman (Assistant Professor of Public Policy) and Vesla M. Weaver (Yale University) summarise the key findings presented in their book, entitled Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control (University of Chicago Press, 2014). The article was originally published as “How Harsh Policing and Mass Imprisonment Create Second-Class American Citizens” by the Scholars Strategy Network. (See below.)

—Messina

***

GOLDMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

“How Urban Policing and Mass Imprisonment Create a Second-Class Citizenship in America“, Amy E. Lerman (Assistant Professor of Public Policy) and Vesla M. Weaver (Yale University)

In many urban areas across the United States, police departments, criminal courts, probation and parole offices are the agencies of government most familiar to residents. A recent study of New York City, for example, showed that three-quarters of 18 to 19 year-old black men are stopped by the police each year. On any given day, eleven percent of young black men are in jail or prison, and one third are living under some form of correctional supervision. The prevalence of prison terms, police encounters, and other contacts with criminal justice have grown at a breakneck pace. The incarceration rate in America more than quadrupled over the last four decades. Imprisonment went up when crime grew – but also went up when crime declined.

Importantly, though, policies that changed how we police and how much we confine resulted not just in larger proportions of the population being exposed to criminal justice. It has also led to a shift in the types of people who experience some form of contact with criminal justice. In fact, most of those who encounter police and courts have never been found guilty of any crime. In New York City alone, police stops increased more than 600 percent over the past decade. Just one in ten of these stops resulted in the individual being arrested or charged with a crime. In a nationally representative sample of young Americans, fully 20 percent report having been stopped and questioned at least once by police but never arrested, and about half that number have been arrested but never convicted of a crime.

So what? Setting aside debates about the causes of these remarkable trends, we still know surprisingly little about their many effects on American life. Democratic citizenship is one of the most crucial areas to investigate. Do encounters with criminal justice institutions affect Americans’ attitudes toward government and democratic values – and alter their likelihood of voting or engaging in other important forms of citizen participation? For blacks and Latinos who are disproportionately affected, do contacts with police, courts and other agents of surveillance and punishment shape perceptions of racial equality and the social standing of minorities in America? In our new book, we tackle these important questions. Our findings document worrisome trends and suggest new ways of thinking about the issues and what is at stake.

Encounters with Authoritarian Institutions Heighten Citizen Distrust

Numerous studies attest to the growth of criminal justice over time. But these institutions have not only become more pervasive; they have become less democratic, embodying practices at odds with the core commitments of citizen voice and equality and institutional accountability and responsiveness. Over recent decades, prosecutors and police have gained new immunities, and it has become harder for citizens to express grievances and pursue legitimate claims of misconduct.

At the same time, U.S. prisons have adopted tighter limits on free speech and limited the ability of prisoners to form unions and other groups. Prison unions and newspapers once flourished, but are now discouraged or prohibited; and the Prison Litigation Reform Act has placed new limits on inmates’ access to the courts. Overall, criminal justice has become more authoritarian during the same era that millions more U.S. citizens, especially minorities, are exposed to the system.

Our research reveals that institutions of criminal justice teach citizens lessons about democratic life, their government, and themselves as members of the body politic. Specifically, we find that adversarial, involuntary contacts with criminal justice institutions alter what people believe about government and their own standing as citizens. From encounters with police, prosecutors, courts, and prisons, people learn it is best to remain quiet, make no demands, and be generally wary and distrustful of anyone in authority. This civic learning stands directly at odds with the ideals of democracy itself.

Impacts on Citizen Trust, Participation, and Racial Outlooks

From detailed analyses of large, nationally representative surveys, supplemented with over one hundred in-person interviews, we find sizeable effects of experiences with police, prisons, and other criminal justice institutions on a range of citizen attitudes and behavior.

Compared to those who have never had contact with criminal justice, those who have been arrested but never convicted are 16 percent less likely to “feel like a full and equal citizen” in America. These individuals are 20 percent less likely to believe that “everyone in the US has an equal chance to succeed.”
People who have been stopped and questioned by police or arrested for a crime—but have never been convicted in a court of law—are roughly 10 percent more likely to express distrust of government.
When asked how much government leaders “care about people like me,” fully three-quarters of people who had experienced punitive contact with the criminal justice system said “very little,” compared with just 36 percent of otherwise similar people with no criminal justice contact.
Citizens with prison experience are much less likely to be registered to vote or to report having voted in the past presidential election. Even encounters that do not result in a criminal conviction are associated with a reduced likelihood of turning out in an election.And the effects are sizeable: encounters with criminal justice agents and institutions discourage citizen participation just as much as traditional predictors of lower participation, such as poverty.
Compared to other socioeconomically similar blacks, African Americans who have had experiences with police, courts, or prisons perceive more racism and feel less equal.

Correlations are not the same as causation, of course. To fully explore the causal processes at work, we went beyond the numbers to talk directly with people about their experiences. From these interviews, we learned that people who had experienced police stops or other forms of punitive encounters in the criminal justice system were not only less likely to vote, but had also actively withdrawn from political engagement of other kinds, in part because they learned to fear any interactions with the state. As a middle-aged black man in Charlottesville put it, discussing why he would never contact a public official for assistance, “I feel like they’re not interested in what I have to say. I feel like if I contact a senator or governor, they’ll probably want to put me in jail and leave me as a troublemaker. I’m serious. That’s how I actually feel: ‘I better stay below the radar….’”

The Reforms America Needs

In a nation that aspires to political inclusion and responsive government, our results should elicit concern. The modern criminal justice system not only does social and economic harm to the many individuals who encounter it, as well as their children, partners, and communities. It also transforms citizens’ relationship to the polity. Intentionally or not, get-tough-on-crime activities have deepened the divide between those Americans whose voice is heard and those whose views are silenced. That these ill effects fall especially hard on blacks and other traditionally disenfranchised minorities should give us particular pause.

What should we do? Bringing the scope of criminal justice activity back into line with the scale of actual crime rates gains new urgency given our findings. For instance, finding alternatives to imprisonment, especially for non-violent violations, is an important step. In addition, though, real reform must take seriously the culture of our democratic institutions, giving citizens voice in the issues that concern them and being responsive to citizens’ complaints and concerns—even those institutions tasked with surveillance, adjudication, and punishment. Our country needs to instill democratic values into police, courts and prisons, assuring basic democratic rights even in these necessarily regimented settings. These steps can be taken without undermining public safety – and all of them are important to help revitalize the democracy in which all Americans have a strong stake.

Amy E. Lerman is Assistant Professor of Public Policy and co-author with Vesla M. Weaver of Yale University of Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control from the University of Chicago Press (June 2014). This article was first published by the Scholars Strategy Network. [See below.]

“How Harsh Policing And Mass Imprisonment Create Second-Class American Citizens“, Amy E. Lerman (University of California-Berkeley) and Vesla M. Weaver (Yale University).

In many urban areas across the United States, police departments, criminal courts, and probation and parole offices are the agencies of government most familiar to residents. Young black men in many cities are regularly stopped and questioned by police. On any given day, more than one in ten are behind bars. Experiences of imprisonment, police encounters, probationary supervision and other dealings with the criminal justice system have proliferated at breakneck pace. Over the past four decades, incarceration rates more than quadrupled – going up even after crime declined.

Changes in U.S. criminal justice have had a broad impact – because most people who encounter police and courts have never been found guilty of any crime. In New York City alone, police stops increased more than sixfold in the past decade, even though just one in ten stops led to an arrest or criminal charges. In a nationally representative sample of young Americans, fully one fifth reported having been stopped and questioned at least once by police but never arrested.

What difference do so many encounters with criminal justice make? Do encounters with criminal justice agents affect Americans’ attitudes toward government and democratic values – and alter their likelihood of voting or engaging in other forms of citizen participation? For blacks and Latinos who are disproportionately affected, do these encounters affect perceptions of racial equality? Our new book crosses a new research frontier to tackle these important issues.

Encounters with Authoritarian Institutions Heighten Citizen Distrust

Numerous studies show that U.S. criminal justice institutions have expanded, but they have also become more authoritarian. Prosecutors and police have gained new immunities, and new laws make it harder for citizens to formally express grievances and pursue claims of misconduct. At the same time, U.S. prisons have adopted tighter limits on inmate speech and rights to associate. Prison unions and newspapers once flourished, but are now discouraged or prohibited.

These shifts have a larger importance because, as our research shows, involuntary dealings with criminal justice institutions teach people lessons about government and their place in U.S. democracy. From encounters with police, prosecutors, courts, and prisons, people learn it is best to remain quiet, make no demands, and be generally wary and distrustful of anyone in authority – lessons that are very much at odds with democratic ideals.

Adverse Impacts on Citizen Trust, Participation, and Racial Outlooks

From detailed analyses of large, nationally representative surveys, supplemented with over one hundred in-person interviews, we discovered sizeable effects on citizens’ attitudes and behavior traceable to people’s experiences with police, prisons, and other criminal justice institutions.

• Compared to people who have never had contact with the criminal justice system, those who have been arrested but never convicted are 16 percent less likely to “feel like a full and equal citizen” of the United States. These individuals are also 20 percent less likely to believe that “everyone in the U.S. has an equal chance to succeed.”
• People who have been stopped and questioned by police, or arrested for a crime but never convicted, are about ten percent more likely than otherwise comparable others to express distrust of government.
• When asked how much government leaders “care about people like me,” fully three-quarters of people who had experienced punitive contact with the criminal justice system said “very little,” compared with just 36 percent of similar people with no such contact.
• Citizens who have been imprisoned are much less likely to be registered to vote or report having voted in the past presidential election, and reduced likelihood of voting also happens for people with criminal justice encounters not resulting in convictions. Such contacts with criminal justice have a sizeable adverse impact – comparable to the well-known dampening effect poverty has on citizen participation.
• Even compared to other blacks, African Americans who have had encounters with police, courts, prisons are more likely to perceive they are subject to racism and unequal treatment.

To understand these effects, we turned to our interviews. From the many individuals with whom we spoke, we learned that those who had experienced police stops or other forms of punitive encounters were not only less likely to vote but had generally withdrawn from active citizenship.
“I better stay below the radar,” said a middle-aged black man in Charlottesville, explaining why he would never ask a public official for assistance. “I feel like they’re not interested in what I have to say. I feel like if I contact a senator or governor, they’ll probably want to put me in jail
and leave me as a troublemaker. I’m serious! That’s how I actually feel.”

The Criminal Justice Reforms America Needs

In a nation that aspires to political inclusion and responsive government, our findings should elicit deep concern. Intentionally or not, get-tough-on-crime activities have deepened the divide between those Americans whose voice is heard and a growing group of second-class citizens whose voices are silenced. That these ill effects fall especially hard on African Americans and other traditionally disenfranchised minorities should give us particular pause.

What should Americans do? Devising alternatives to imprisonment, especially for non-violent violations, is an important first step. In addition, real reforms must be made in the inner workings of institutions tasked with surveillance, adjudication, and punishment. Even in these necessarily regimented settings, basic democratic rights and values need to be maintained. These types of reforms in U.S. criminal justice can be accomplished without undermining public safety – and such reforms are much needed to restore the vitality of democracy and the equal citizen rights in which all Americans have a strong stake.

Learn more in Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M. Weaver, Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control (University of Chicago Press, 2014).

***

Historical Archives: “MR Transcript: Davey D, Carl Dix & Resistance”

13 Wed May 2015

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Imperialism, Democracy Deferred, Free Speech, Historical Archives, Police State, Racism (phenotype)

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Amadou Diallo, American Indian Movement, Attica Prison Rebellion, Black Panthers, Carl Dix, Chicago Panthers, Chicano Movement, Dr. Cornel West, Dr. Joy DeGruy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Felipe Messina (Media Roots), Fred Hampton, Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Indigeneous People's Day, KPFA, Malcolm X, Mark Clark, Michelle Alexander, Nora Barrows Friedman, Occupy Movement, Occupy Wall Street, Pacifica Radio, RCP, Revolutionary Communist Party, SNiCC, Stop and Frisk, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, UC Berkeley, Women's Movement

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—The article below was originally published at MediaRoots.org by Lumpenproletariat.org founder, Felipe Messina.

We will continue to archive past articles published at MediaRoots.org (and elsewhere) by Messina.

Lumpenproletariat

***

MEDIA ROOTS—(29 FEB 2012) Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party, is back in the S.F. Bay Area and will deliver an address to UC Berkeley this evening entitled “Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide.” The last time Mr. Dix visited northern California, Media Roots featured his KPFA radio broadcast and UC Berkeley event with Dr. Cornel West. Today, we present a new interview with Carl Dix.

Messina

***

THE MORNING MIX WITH DAVEY D—(28 FEB 2012) “Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another edition of The Morning Mix. It is at the top of the hour. Davey D hangin’ out wit’ you and we’ve got a good, good, show for you. We have a special guest in the building, Mr. Carl Dix of the Communist Party. He is here to talk about mass incarceration, silence, and genocide, also about his big speech coming up tomorrow [29 Feb 2012] at UC Berkeley. So, you don’t want to miss that, all that and more, coming up after the morning headlines.”

Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party:

“Now, some people will say, well, look, I knew Obama wasn’t gon’ be able to do much anyway and maybe he didn’t even want to, but that’s not the point Brother Dix. Think of the inspiration that Black youth will get from seeing a Black man in the White House, from seeing a Black First Family. Think about what that will mean and how that will spur them to greater heights of achievement.

“So, let’s talk about that. See? And youth are getting charged up around it. But what direction do they go when they get charged up? I’ve had youth tell me, ‘I wouldn’t fight for George Bush. But, now, that Obama guy, he’s smart. If he says I gotta go fight, maybe I should do it.’ That’s where some of that inspiration has taken them.

“But even as they take that inspiration out and try to achieve more in this society, and try to move on up and do better than they had done before, what will they run into? They will run into the reality of the continuing White Supremacy that’s built into the very fabric of this country. They will run into the male supremacy that’s out there. They will run into capitalist, imperialist America.

“So, what will happen to those dreams? Will they be crushed to the Earth? Will they dry up like a raisin in the sun? Because I will tell you, sisters and brothers, the doors that are open for our youth are not the doors to higher education. They’re not the doors to meaningful jobs, contributing to the development of society because it is still the case that the educational systems in the inner-city schools where most Black and Latino youth are are underfunded. They are not geared toward success. And most of the youth in there are being tracked towards failure by the time they reach the third and fourth grade.

“It is still the case that jobs are being sucked out of ghettos and barrios. And drugs have been poured in there. That’s still what the youth are up against.

“The doors that are being opened to our youth are the doors to the courthouse, where they get treated unequally by the criminal justice system in this country, and the doors to the jailhouse, where Black people are being warehoused at horrific numbers. 900,000 of the almost two and a half million people who are in prison are Black. That’s a door that’s open for Black youth.

“And then there is the door to the recruiting station to join the military to go halfway around the world and kill people for this system, become a mindless killer for it. Those are the doors that are being opened. This is what’s being offered to our youth.”

Davey D (c. 10:52): “So, there you have it. That’s our guest, Carl Dix. He’s in the building with us, long-time revolutionary. He is also one of the co-founders of the October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. He is also a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party here in the U.S. And, more recently, we know Carl for being an outspoken force against the New York City Police Department for their infamous Stop and Frisk situation. In fact, him and Cornel West were up here at UC Berkeley not too long ago speaking truth to power around that situation.

“And, man, we could go down. You have a long list of things. You don’t shy away from any of the controversies, from Katrina on down to the police to definitely railing against the system, as you were doing there and the response to Barack Obama’s NAACP address where you very skilfully pointed out some of the challenges that we would still have no matter who’s in the White House. You haven’t changed your mind on that, eh?”

Carl Dix (c. 12:02): “No, I haven’t changed my mind. See, the thing is, I’ve been at this for awhile because this system has been at what it does to people here in this country and around the world. And, from one end, my grandmamma told me, you, stubborn, boy. But as long as you on the right thing, then you should be stubborn about it. And then, from another end, I have not lost my hope in the possibility of bringing a totally different and far better world into being through revolution.”

Davey D (c. 12:34): “Do you think that can happen? In this lifetime? Or is it something that you resigned yourself to seeing in a distant future somewhere when you might not be here, me and you.”

Carl Dix (c. 12:46): “Okay. Well, just on that thing of might not be here, you know, I could step out on the street and get hit by a bus, so I’m not going at it like I definitely have to be here for it. But it is necessary, including in relation to the topic I’m gon’ be speakin’ at tomorrow in Berkeley, Mass Incarceration, to really end that and all of its consequences. You gotta make a revolution and get this system off the face of the Earth. And that’s what I’m working for; and the potential for that is there. It’s real. You can’t make revolution with people and conditions the way they are now, but conditions are changing. And people can change, as they try to deal with those conditions. And that’s something I’m working on, contributing to. Can’t say exactly when that might happen, but I will not let somebody say it can’t happen because you could even see in just a few months of Occupy, people have begun to question things that had been accepted as, well, that’s just the way it is, capitalism is being talked about.

“Even revolution has come up, although people mean a lot of different things by revolution. And that’s two discussions, capitalism and revolution, that I enjoy engaging in.

Davey D (c. 14:02): “They’re not necessarily the same thing?”

Carl Dix: “No, they’re not necessarily the same conversation, but I enjoy engaging in both.”

Davey D: “You know I was very specific and deliberate by playing that speech that you gave; I think it was 2009, if I’m correct.”

Carl Dix: “Yes.

Davey D: “And I wanted to play it, and people might be, why did you play that one? You know? Since 2009, there’s been increased conversation in many circles around the incarceration rate of Black and Brown youth, in particular, as you pointed out, Black youth. Michelle Alexander, of course with her groundbreaking book, talking about the new Jim Crow, another word for slavery; we’re now seeing that come up. Dr. Joy DeGruy talks a lot about what is happening with this increased prison situation. And on top of all that we know have lots of conversations of domestic spying, people being labelled ‘terrorists,’ all these types of things. And for many of us, including myself, we didn’t think we would see that sort of direction take place under this President [Obama].

“First of all, are you surprised that we moved in this direction at the rate that we have? Or is this something unique in the air that has made this accelerate or, at least, made the conversation be something that is more pointed now?”

Carl Dix (c. 15:29): “Well, I think there are a few things. One is that this has been a direction over four decades ‘cos, [if] you go back to the Attica Prison rebellion, there were less than 300,000 people in prison back in 1971. Today, it’s more than 2.4 million, a more than eightfold increase, which is rooted in the very operation of this capitalist setup and conscious policies that the rulers adopted to deal with ‘how do we head off another 1960s-type situation?’ I mean, they consciously laid that out. Richard Nixon is quoted, the President back then in the late ‘60s/early 70s, he’s quoted by members of his cabinet, as having said at a cabinet meeting, ‘The problem is the Blacks. And we have to devise a solution that does not acknowledge that’s what we’re dealing with.’

“And they came up with wars on drugs, wars on crime.”

Davey D (c. 16:30): “Well, Nixon started off with a war on youth.”

Carl Dix: “Yeah.”

Davey D: “If I remember correctly.”

Carl Dix: “See, all of this was supposedly not about ‘race,’ but was carried out in oppressed communities, Black communities, then, increasingly, in Latino communities. And this is what led us to the more than eightfold increase. But part of what brought this together in this period, ironically, Obama’s election in the way that people got off into it, thinking they had fundamentally changed the direction of American society. And I said, at the time, that hope that was being generated, there’s a real question of where will it go? Will it be crushed to the Earth? Will it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or will it explode? And that I’m out here working, so that people will come to understand that their hopes in Obama were misplaced, but they don’t [have to] become demoralised or passive because of that.

“And I’m not saying that it’s due to my work. It’s just how things came together that as people became disappointed and let down in Obama, things have moved somewhere else. And it’s not just Black people because I’ve had a lot of young White people tell me back in 2009, we made our revolution, we got our first Black president. Now, they are seeing that the thrust has continued because we are dealing with a capitalist, imperialist, system. And what it was doing was putting in place the person that it felt was best able to lead things, in relation to its interests, which are diametrically opposed to the interests of the overwhelming majority of people not only in this country, but also in the world.

“And people are beginning to see that and taking stands around it. That’s why we you’re seeing Occupy. That’s why you’re seeing Michelle Alexander’s book and people taking it up and reading it, doing study groups around it.”

Davey D (c. 18:28): “If you’re just tuning in, we have Mr. Carl Dix in the building with us. He will be speaking tomorrow night at UC Berkeley. I’m gonna get the exact address. It’s gonna be at the Maude Fife room in Wheeler Hall and that will be starting tomorrow [29 Feb 2012] at 6:30pm. And the topic: Mass Incarceration: Its Source, the Need to Resist Where Things Are Headed, and the Revolution We Need.

“Two questions: You had mentioned a game plan initiated by President Nixon and carried on, as you said, for the past three or four decades to really oppress and repress numerous communities that are marginalized. Was this because there was a fear in terms of the direction this country might go or did they discover early on that this is a money-making operation? And if I’m looking at the prison-industrial-complex and, especially, I’m sure you know, when you go down south and people are literally paying for their incarceration. There’s all these side-industries that start to make lots of money: prison unions, private prisons, cheap labour, all these things. Now, we have an economic incentive to fill these prisons up with bodies. And why not go to communities that are voiceless in the mainstream sphere? How are you seeing this? Was it a political fear or was it a money-making venture?”

Carl Dix (c. 20:01): “Okay, that’s a very good question. And while the money-making part is a part of it and it’s become increasingly more of it, what it is has been at the start, and continues to be, a fear factor, as you were putting it and, frankly, a counterinsurgency, including a counterinsurgency before there was the insurgency has begun because they looked at the 1960s. They remembered how their system was rocked back on its heels. Henry Kissinger talks about how they felt under siege in the White House. They also looked at how did that develop? And the way that it developed was off of the inspiration of Black people standing up against what was being done to them in the South first and then throughout the country. And that’s also where the revolutionary edge of it came from because you had groups like SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, that began to question the system, not saying Black people need to get into the system, but begin to question the character and the nature of the system itself. And that’s where the revolutionary thrust of that period came from. And they are saying we’re not gonna let that go down again. That’s what Nixon’s quote was all about: We’re gonna go after this section of society and not give it a chance to play that role again.

Davey D (c. 21:23): “Oftentimes, when we look back at the ‘60s and that turbulent period, the focus does go to the Black freedom struggle, the Civil Rights era, but we would be wrong to dismiss the activities that were taking place in other communities, the Chicano Movement, American Indian Movement, Puerto Rican—”

Carl Dix: “The Women’s Movement.”

Davey D: “Women’s Movement. There was a lot of questioning of the system. Of course, White students with the Free Speech and Antiwar. I bring this up to ask a couple of questions: One, the concern of having these various groups now start to recognise that they have a common oppressor and that they start to act in coalition with one another, was that a main concern? And I’m asking that now looking at the type of tactics that have been swift and very decisive around movements like the Occupy where you see this potential to all of a sudden get on the same page and start really going full force. So, I guess what I’m asking is does this power structure fear us coming together across racial lines, ethnic lines, class lines, or is there something else at work?”

Carl Dix (c. 22:48): “No, if definitely does fear that and is moving to try to make sure that doesn’t happen. But, again, we have to look to history and all of those movements did take off in this country. There was also a worldwide thing going on. You know, 1968 there were landscape things in France. There was a war going on in Vietnam that was a liberation struggle on the part of the Vietnamese people. There was a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, so it was a worldwide phenomenon and it was broadly taken up here.

“But there is a way that the struggle of Black people was kind of on the cutting edge of that. And a lot of the White youth who got involved in the Free Speech Movement, in the Antiwar Movement, and, increasingly, became more militant, radical, and, even, revolutionary. A key thing for them was the relationship to the struggles of Black people. So, that’s why I talked about the inspirational aspect of that, not that Black people were doing it by themselves. But that it helped to spark off broader developments. It helped to get a sharper edge to that. And [the establishment] saw that and they don’t want to see it again. So, they’re moving to cut that off and part of that is keeping people separate as well as crushing anything that comes up with the appearance of a threat to the [state] set-up. And Occupy became that in the Fall [of 2011] when it spread like wildfire across the country, started posing big questions about the role of the banks, the big corporations, getting towards this question of capitalism.

“They held that coordinated phone conversation from the mayors of different cities across the country with the federal government. And what came out of that were things like what you saw here in Oakland where they launched a military assault on Occupy, nearly killed a young man in that.”

Davey D (c. 24:48): “Right. You mention about things going on around the world in 1968 and we see that happening in the form of the Arab Spring. Just this morning we were hearing of unrest. Well, we knew there was unrest in the Ivory Coast. Now, we’re seeing a lot of questions come down in Senegal and other places. Is this separate? Or is this part of a larger reaction to the same forces? If I’m framing the question well.”

Carl Dix (c. 25:18): “I think you’re framing the question well. And it is a reaction to a larger force, that force being capitalism and imperialism and the way that it is weighing down on people around the world. Because when the young man in Tunisia killed himself that sparked things there and then Egypt came up in relation to that, in both cases you were talking about governments that were backed up by international imperialist forces. And in Egypt you were talking about a government backed up and propped up by the U.S. And then people there standing up began to spread, not only in the Muslim/Arab parts of the world, but people around the world, including right here were looking at that. And, so, that played a very important initiating role, to tie this back to my points around mass incarceration, which I’m gonna get into. And the title of my talk is ‘Mass Incarceration plus Silence Equals Genocide.’

“You have a lot of people around the world who are seeing that this system is not offering them anything in terms of future. And in some cases, it’s people who used to think they had a future and are beginning to see they don’t and in other cases it’s people who’ve never had a future or haven’t had one, or appeared to have one, in decades. That’s the thing with Black people and Latinos and the way in which this system offers them nothing for the future like I was talking about in that speech that you played. You know, jailhouse, courthouse, into the military to be killed or to kill someone else. That’s what they offer large sections of our youth today. And people don’t like that, in some cases, never liked it, but didn’t see an opening to do anything about it. But things are coming together right now with the Arab Spring, with it being taken up in other parts of the world, that people are beginning to see an opening.”

Davey D (c. 27:23): “Is that a few people or do you think the masses have become very comfortable? I mean I know we may travel in circles where we’re gonna see people who are gonna constantly question, they may challenge, etcetera, etcetera. But at the same time, you know, in the middle of the biggest demonstrations you still have people rushing home to watch Real Housewives of Atlanta and lose themselves into those things. You have folks that won’t show up for an Oscar Grant or a Sean Bell rally, but will be up at four in the morning, literally, setting off a riot, to get the new, you know, Air Jordans that wasn’t even advertised.

“And, so, we have a lot of these things going on and then you have people that will tell you, You know, Carl, I’m just tryin’ to put food on my table, feed my kids; I’m not trying to get involved with all this.

“So, the day to day life of just making sure that they can sustain themselves, even if it’s very marginal, is a front and centre thought and dictates action. So, how detached from that routine and oftentimes a very limited type of space are we, versus moving in a direction where we can actually kick up dust?”

Carl Dix (c. 28:39): “Okay. Well, look, I’ve been in New York over the past period. See, I’m not just talking with you about the people who come out to rallies and what they think.”

Davey D: “Right.”

Carl Dix: “We’ve been out in Harlem, talking about Stop and Frisk. And before we did the first action what we would hear, often from the same person, is I hate Stop and Frisk. They did this to me. They did this to my son. They did this to—even sometimes—they did this to my sister, or my daughter. You know, because they’re doing this to women as well.

“But then the next point is: But you can’t do anything about it. And that’s why we decided we have to do something about it. And we launched this campaign to stop Stop and Frisk, which is a policy under which the police can just step to you, stop you, make you turn out your pockets, or search you themselves. And then often bust you for nothing.”

Davey D (c. 29:00): “Right. I don’t think people really clearly understand here [in the S.F. Bay Area] ‘cos we don’t see it as much. But in New York that is a huge problem that you could be walkin’ with a tuxedo on with your wife and kids and they pull you over and say, empty out your pockets, to make sure you don’t have a gun.”

Carl Dix (c. 29:46): “Yeah. And how big is it? They stopped and frisked almost 700,00 people; it was 684-thousand-plus last year alone in New York City: 85% of them Black or Latino, more than 90% of them they let you go after they’ve harassed you and humiliated you, but then even some of that 10% that they don’t let go, some of them were doing nothing wrong because when we did the action in Queens, they held us overnight. So, we were in there with a bunch of other people and people were telling us, Oh, they stopped me under Stop and Frisk. I didn’t have my driver’s licence. I didn’t have an ID, so they ran me in the prison. So, it’s like, did I wake up in Johannesburg, South Africa, 30 years ago when there were past laws? Because what’s the crime in not having an ID?”

Davey D (c. 30:39): “Right. And that’s why I ask the question because it is so massive. We just had, you know, we did a show about a brother who was killed over Stop and Frisk. He had a little bit of weed. The cops came by. He decided to walk, you know, into his building—I’m sure you remember this.”

Carl Dix (c. 31:01): “Yeah. I’ve seen the video of it.”

Davey D: “He just walked into his building—he wasn’t under arrest or anything—they ran up into his apartment, kicked down the door, and shot him in front of his grandma. There was no gun, no nothing. But there was a couple of joints that he was trying to get rid of, but this becomes the justification that is often used. Well, they should’ve just listened to the authorities. Or, they shouldn’t run. Or, you shouldn’t, if you don’t have anything to hide, then there won’t be any problem. But it’s those types of encounters that we see over and over again where people are like, the police are here, they’re gonna find something. I don’t want to deal with this. And oftentimes it’s a fatal situation.

“When you have these types of scenarios, Amadou Diallo, another victim of Stop and Frisk, all he had was a wallet, shot 41 times. How did we go from the Panthers and Dr. King and Malcolm X to allowing ourselves—or did we allow ourselves?—to be in such a situation right now where it’s not even talked about in the mainstream, even amongst our pundits? You know?

“I mean, you do it. Cornel does it. But if I tune on and I see our own folks sitting up there, they’re not really making this a front and centre issue. You know? They’ll talk about LeBron James and what team he’s gonna choose before they’re talking about the absurdity of 700,000 people being stopped in one year.”

Carl Dix (c. 32:24): “Okay, two things. The first thing is we’re acting to change that. And tomorrow night, when I talk, I’m gonna talk about a proposal for a national day of resistance to mass incarceration. That’s the first thing, but to get back to your question: How did we go from the days of the Panthers to this kind of situation?

“And a couple things came together. One is that they came at the Panthers with their fangs bared. I mean they murdered Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, leaders of the Chicago Panthers, as they slept in their beds. And they knew they were gonna be asleep because they had had—”

Davey D (c. 33:03): “An informant.”

Carl Dix: “—an informant drugged them, to make sure they’d be asleep. And then they busted in and shot the place up, including consciously murdering these brothers. They had a diagram of who would be sleeping where. And they went straight to Fred Hampton’s bedroom and shot him, as he lay there asleep. So, that happened.

“And the question of how to make a revolution and what kind of organisation and leadership you had for that, well, it was a gap there because the Panthers had been the leading force on that.

“They came at the people, the communities that had been supportive of the Panthers with police acting like occupying armies in a conquered country, unleashed all kinds of—they even passed laws directed at trapping up our youth in prison, the 100-to-1 crack-to-powder cocaine disparity [policies], consciously aimed at Black and Latino communities. They did all of that.

“And that’s what got us there. And there wasn’t the leadership for what to do about it. And then people got put in a situation where this just becomes the routine. Right now, for large sections of Black and Latino youth in the inner-cities, going in and out of prison is a rite of passage. It isn’t like for many youth, Am I gonna go that route or am I not gonna go that route? It’s just; This is what happens to everybody in my neighbourhood. You know? And you see that in the cultures and the styles and all like that.

“But what needs to happen is we need to bring to people—and that’s something that we, in the Revolutionary Communist Party are working on—things don’t have to be this way.”

Davey D (c. 33:48): “Right.”

Carl Dix: “It’s this way because of this system and how it operates, what it operates based on. But we can make revolution. And then you get into a whole lot of questions about revolution because most people have heard, Well, that was tried and it failed. And we say, Okay, revolution was tried and where, it succeeded, it accomplished many positive and powerful changes.

Davey D (c. 35:03): “Right. I want you to hold that thought for a second.”

Carl Dix: “Okay.”

Davey D: “I want to take a break. It’s 8:34 AM, if you’re just tuning in. We have—I was gonna say doctor—Carl Dix. Well, I’m ‘a call you doctor, anyway, ‘cos you have solutions.

“Carl Dix will be speaking at UC Berkeley tomorrow Wednesday [29 Feb 2012] at Maude Fife Room, Wheeler Hall. And his topic is, [as] we were talking about, Mass Incarceration plus Silence Equals Genocide.

“I wanna take a break and come back. And I wanna ask you to define revolution because many people have very different opinions as to what that means. And then, I think, many people are asking, do we have to overhaul the system? Because you’ve been like, get rid of the system. But can it be reformed? I mean if we get the right people in there and, you know, put all the right tools into place, can the system be reformed and saved and made to do what it’s supposed to ideally do?

“So, let’s take those questions. Maybe we’ll take a couple of phone calls. If you wanna holler at Carl Dix, you can call us at 510.848-4425. Once again, 510.848-4425. And let’s check this out and we’ll be right back.”

[Musical intermission: Curtis Mayfield and Carl Dix mashup]

Audio of Carl Dix speech (c. 36:21): “See, and let’s get real particular about what happens to our youth. Let’s talk about Sean Bell. See? And I want to tell you; and I’ll tell Obama, I know William Bell, Sean Bell’s father. I know Valerie Bell. These were not parents who were not involved in Sean’s life. The problem wasn’t that they didn’t turn on the TV and make sure that he did his homework. The problem wasn’t that Sean had his pants down too low, or that he was into gangs and drugs. The problem was some trigger-happy cops happened on him the day of his wedding and blew him away in a hail of 50 bullets. That’s what happened to that Black youth.

“This is what our youth are up against. See? And we gotta talk about the fact that it wasn’t just Sean Bell. And I could give you all kinds of statistics, but I’m not gonna do that. I’m just gonna remind you of something because we were out organising youth to protest when they let those cops go. The slogan that the youth really got into and really took up was one that said, We Are All Sean Bell. The Whole Damn System Is Guilty.

“Youth were wearing stickers. Youth carried signs. Youth made t-shirts that said that. See, now, what’s the significance of that? Why were the youth saying We Are All Sean Bell? Because they all felt that, just like Sean, they could be blown away by trigger-happy cops, too. And the cops could get away with it. They knew in a certain intuitive sense that they were living their lives under a death sentence, a death sentence that may or may not be carried out, but was real just the same.

“See, now, this should break your heart to hear about this and to know about that. It should make you angry. But then you’ve got to move from being angry. You’ve got to go forward. And going forward is a question, like I read in that quote, of sweeping this system off the face of the Earth because that, just that, would be enough to do it. But that ain’t the only thing; there’s the wars for empire. There’s the torture. There’s the indefinite detention. There is a way in which women are treated, as breeders of children, not as full human beings, subjected to rape and domestic violence. There’s the way the environment is being spoiled. You know, the very planet we are living on is being ripped apart in the chase after profit by this imperialist system. There’s the disease and the starvation and the misery that this system inflicts on people. There’s all kinds of reasons to want to get rid of this system.

“See, and in that context, it is especially criminal to get sucked back into this system because there’s a Black person presiding over the crimes that it’s carrying out. ‘Cos look, here is the deal: Obama’s problem is that this system is deep in trouble. And his mission is to save that system. Our problem is this system. We don’t need to see it saved. In fact, we need to see it ended through revolution.”

Davey D (c. 39:52): “So, I guess you might have answered my question. And that is the voice of Carl Dix. I’m playing a little excerpt of a speech he did a couple of years ago. He’s in the building with us. And we are talking to him about changing the system. Or can it be reformed, Carl? If I put you and people like you into office, this would be a better place, right?”

Carl Dix (c. 40:13): “No. Actually, it wouldn’t. And, frankly, if you put me into office, there would probably be a contract put out on me by the real—”

Davey D: “But I said, people like you.”

Carl Dix: “—by the real gangsters—”

Davey D: “Okay.”

Carl Dix: “—in this world, the people that run this system. Because you pose, like, can we get the right people in there? Can we get some new mechanism, some new policies, so it would work like it’s supposed to?

“Well, the question behind that is what is it supposed to do? And from the very beginning—‘cos people talk about, well, we gotta get back to what the Founding Fathers were about.”

Davey D (c. 40:47): “Right.”

Carl Dix: “The Founding Fathers were about slavery. They were about stealing the land from the Native inhabitants. And—”

Davey D: “Right. But they stole a lot of the ideals. You know? In terms of the separation of powers and this whole thing of democracy where one man, one vote was the ideal. Now, they didn’t practice it, I would argue. But can we get to that idea?”

Carl Dix (c. 41:12): “Okay. But see? Look. Again, people need to check out Thomas Jefferson.”

Davey D: “Okay.”

Carl Dix: “Because he was probably one of the foremost proponents of American Democracy. And Thomas Jefferson talked about the common man; he meant the common White man, but we’ll leave that part of his limitations aside for the moment. But, see, on top of saying, we gotta get the common man involved, he said the common man needs people like us to lead him. And you saw that in practice when some farmers up in Massachusetts, all White, were being abused by this system, being ripped off, and rose up around that. And the Founding Fathers, this was like a couple years after the founding of the American Republic, the founding fathers brutally crushed that rebellion. You know?

“So, from the beginning, this set-up was about how to maintain and protect the interests of the handful of people who had wealth and power and monopolised that power. And, at that point, they were split between developing capitalists and outright slave-owners.

“But the system has been geared from the beginning to protect those interests and to keep those interests in play. And, frankly, the best way to do that is to give the majority of people the feeling that they have a stake in this.”

Davey D (c. 42:38): “Okay.”

Carl Dix: “You know? And that’s what this thing has worked on. And that’s why I say we need a revolution, because this stuff is built into the fabric of this system. I mean, we talk about mass incarceration. One side of it is the way this system has sucked the legitimate means of employment out of the inner-cities, takin’ it half-way around the world because they could make a lot more money by exploiting people. They are paying them much less than they’d have to pay somebody here and working them in more dangerous conditions.

“But, then, that leaves them with the people in the inner-city. And then that’s where the criminalisation of our youth come from because those 2.4 million people are in jail because they have been criminalized.”

Davey D (c. 43:18): “What do we replace the system with?”

Carl Dix: “We have to replace it. And, let me bring in the point about what is revolution.”

Davey D: “Okay.”

Carl Dix: “Revolution comes down to—‘cos if you pose a challenge to this system, they’re gon’ try to violently suppress you; we’ve seen that, not only in the past, but I’m talkin’ about a few months ago with the Occupy, they even violently suppressed that. So, you have to meet and defeat the attempts at violent suppression of this system. And I mean actually defeat them and dismantle the repressive apparatus, dismantle the way in which the economy is dominated by a handful of capitalists, and replace it with different institutions that work on a different basis, that aren’t aimed at how do we keep these large corporations and the people who own them in effect ‘cos it will no longer be a thing of individuals owning factories, large farms, mines, all that, everything to create wealth. We’re talking about a socialist system here.”

Davey D (c. 44:21): “Right.”

Carl Dix: “But a socialist system that is in transition to a point where exploitation and oppression is ended, once and for all. And that’s what communism comes down to.”

Davey D: “Right. Now, let me ask you this—and we’re gonna take your calls in just a second; we have a number of people on hold at 510.848-4425. Our guest: Carl Dix.

“This sounds good. You know?”

Carl Dix: “M-hm.”

Davey D: “I hear what you’re sayin’. But my mindset is like, you know, I’m gonna be a predator no matter what you do. You can put me in the most serene, utopian-type place, but I’m still gonna be lookin’ like I want everything you have and then some. I’m addicted to power or trying to attain it. How do we change the mindset of people that are like that? That are just gonna act a fool, even in the best of scenarios, because we’ve been conditioned that way?”

Carl Dix (c. 45:13): “Okay. That’s what I meant by, you can’t make revolution with people and conditions as they are now. But that can change because, look, let’s look back in the 1960s and what people did back then. What did Black people do in the South? They put their lives on the line. They went to lunch counters and knew they were gonna get their behind kicked for doing it.”

Davey D: “Right.”

Carl Dix: “For integration. The Freedom Riders got on the bus, knowing that they—they made their wills out before they did it—so, they weren’t looking at it like, I’m doin’ this to get mine.”

Davey D: “Right.”

Carl Dix: “They thought they were doing this to make revolution, to change society, to end injustice. But it was through the process of looking at the problems, deciding what to do about it, doing some stuff. That’s how their mindsets changed.”

Davey D (c. 46:03): “Okay.”

Carl Dix: “And, in the 1960s, I mean this whole thing of brother and sister. You’re walking down the street, you see another Black person, that’s your brother or your sister. That actually became the way people looked at each other to a large degree—”

Davey D: “Well, it planted seeds of consciousness.”

Carl Dix: “—because of the struggle, even if you weren’t right in the middle of that struggle, you were influenced by that. See?

“So, that’s what we’re looking at. It’s not human nature. If you are in a predatory situation, you gon’ have to pick up predatory instincts and aspects in order to survive in it.”

Davey D (c. 46:36): “Right.”

Carl Dix: “But we have to unleash a collective struggle to get rid of that. And, through the course of that collective struggle, people are going to change their mindsets, change their instincts, develop new aspects. And that’s how we’re gonna deal with that.

“And, then, after we make revolution, because that’s what we’re aiming to do, get rid of this system through revolution, then we have to have a set-up where—‘cos people will have been born and grown up in the old society, so we’re gonna have to deal with that. And, see, we’ve learned a lot from how they dealt with it in China and the revolution there. Bob Avakian has led in looking at that, both, its strengths, but also its shortcomings.

“And one thing is they unleashed people. You know? They’d have a situation where a man felt like his wife was his property; he beat her up, he’d do this, he’d do that. They’d have a delegation of his neighbours, especially, women neighbours. But also men neighbours will sit the brother down and say, we got to talk about this because it was like that in the old society, but this is a new society. We can’t have this. And then, if the brother persisted, they would come back and with a heavier form of communication, including sometimes they would whip the brother down and say, okay, now, we did that to you because you refuse to stop doing that to your wife, who is actually your partner, not your property.”

Davey D: “So, in other words, bad habits are gonna have to be broken.”

Carl Dix (c. 47:55): “Yes. Bad habits have to be broken, mainly through persuasion. But, you know, like sometimes—what do the Jamaicans say? I’ve got to bring heavier manners to it.”

Davey D (c. 48:04): “Okay. Let’s take some calls. We have, it looks like we have, Mary out of Sacramento. I hope you’re still there. Thanks for holding.”

Mary in Sacramento: “Yeah. Hi.”

Davey D: “How you doing?

Mary in Sacramento: “Yes, hello. And thank you for taking my call. My name is Mary Trudel. I’m an author of A Voice of Reason and also a founder of a non-profit called A Voice of Reason. And the reason I’m calling, first of all, is my, I’m from Elmira, New York, which is in the Iroquois Nation and, actually, it’s, Elmira is one of the oldest prisons in America.

“Where I grew up there’s two major maximum-facility prisons and five ghettos. And I grew up watching this socially-engineered economic restraint where I noticed that all the people of colour in my city were basically the target of these prison systems. Namely, the prisons would allow these kingpins to come out and the D.A. would give drugs to the kingpin who would set him up in, say, a corner apartment. And then the next thing you know everybody’s over there. And he’s gettin’ everybody in the neighbourhood hooked. Then next thing you know there’s these sting ops and then—boom!—the whole netful of people gone to prison.

“And, since the 1850s, the Irish have been, kind of, captains of industry as far as authority over there and have been mainly the police. I’m not saying it’s that way today. It’s a little bit better.

“But I really believe this is a socially-economic setting—”

Davey D (c. 49:33): “Okay.”

Mary in Sacramento: “—to, basically, keep coloured people down. And I witnessed it all my life.”

Davey D: “Well, we appreciate that, Mary. And I think a lot of people would agree with you. I’m gonna hold your comment for a second [Carl]. I want to get another call ‘cos we have a lot of people on. Let’s go to, I believe it is Barbara from Berkeley. Barbara what’s happening?”

Barbara in Berkeley (c. 49:59): “Hey, Davey D and brilliant guest. I want to go back to the Occupy Oakland situation. And, you know, Jean Quan has plausible deniability based on her being in the air going to Washington, D.C. to secure funds for Oakland, federal funds. And, yet, two weeks prior to that those federal funds provided an Israeli commando force to come and train the Oakland police on so-called crowd control.

“And this is what I’m trying to get at, they pick out, the police pick out, one person that they will kill or harm to the point that it brings such fear to other people that were considering coming out into the streets. And it’s just really a terrible, terrible thing. You know?

“Oakland is living in a police state right now.”

“And I don’t feel very good that the federal police are gonna come in and take over the police force in Oakland because it’s not gonna be the answer to this. Ands, so, I just wanted to get my two cents in on the fact that we’re all being so controlled by fear that we can’t go out and peacefully demonstrate without loss of life.”

Davey D (c. 51:37): “Okay. Well, I appreciate that. And I think there are a number of people that are concerned if it becomes a federal takeover, maybe federal tactics and rules may suddenly be used.

“Let’s go to Antonio out of Castro Valley, how you doing, Antonio?”

Antonio in Castro Valley (c. 51:53): “Good morning. Yes. Mr. Dix, I’m a Marxist. And you say you are a Communist, but what you preach here has nothing to do with Marxism. We, the Marxists, are not for the minorities. We are for the majority, the working-class.

“And what matters to us is class, not ‘race.’ ‘Race’ doesn’t matter to us. To us, what matters is class!

“And about the working-class, Marx says that the working-class has to transition from being a class, in itself, to a class for itself, not for anybody else, for itself. So, lumpen elements are not our allies! Lumpen elements are the most threat to—”

Davey D: “Okay. Antonio, you have different points of view. But this is not a shouting match and this is not something to just, you know, get off on, so thank you.

“I’m gonna give you a chance to respond to a few of the comments [Carl]—”

Carl Dix: “Okay.

Davey D: “—and we may have time for a couple other calls.”

Carl Dix (c. 52:54): “Alright. Let me start with the last one. I’m not talkin’ about the lumpen. Who are the people in the inner-cities who have had the jobs ripped from them? Because people talk about, well, these kids are into drugs, they’re into this, they’re into that.

“Well, I did some work in the projects in Watts after the 1992 L.A. Rebellion. And one thing that I ran into—because I got to know a lot of people, including some of the people higher up in the drug thing—and somebody who was fairly high up complained to me one day that when they opened up a new supermarket, he lost all of his runners and distributors of his product because they all ran down there to try to get the few jobs that had opened up.”

“These people are not something separate from the working-class. They’re that section of the working-class that can’t find employment.”

Davey D (c. 53:49): “Right.”

Carl Dix: “That’s what they are. And they still look at themselves that way. And that is an indication of that, that if they get a regular job, they would drop all of this stuff. You know? So, that’s still where they’re coming from. They’re just lower and deeper in the working-class, not by their choice, but by the workings of capitalism.

“So, you know, class does matter. But it’s not that class matters and not ‘race’ because race is also a reality. And, see, that’s actually where Marx was coming from. He was coming from reality. So, you have to look at how reality is developed. That’s on that.

“On the first two people—because, largely, I’m with them on that, you know? They’re getting different parts of this. Because if people think the federal government coming in and taking over is going to deal with the problems in the relations between the police in Oakland and the communities, they haven’t been paying close enough attention because that assault on the Occupy Movement was part of a coordinated national assault that the federal government pulled together and pulled off. So, that’s what you’re talking about, if you say that.

“And the sister is right on this question of the prisons, the fact that this is an engineered thing, that jobs were taken out. And drugs were pumped in. Go back to the Oliver North/Contras in Nicaragua situation where they would run weapons down to the Contras and then load up with drugs and bring the drugs back to the United States. And when you looked into the funding for that project, it was these two brothers that were heavy into the cocaine thing in Central America, that were funding the whole project, both, the weapons side and the drugs on the back end.

“That’s what was going on. That’s what’s been happening. And that’s what’s got our youth trapped up in the criminal justice system. And, see, from the perspective of making revolution, you have to say that that’s a section of society that would most need revolution and, many of whom, would welcome it. And that’s why they want to trap them up in the criminal justice system.”

Davey D (c. 54:24): “Right.”

Carl Dix: “And that’s why we should want to not see that happen and build resistance to that.”

Davey D (c. 56:08): “Let me see if we could just get one more [caller] in here. It looks like we have Philip from Oakland.”

Harry in Oakland: “Hello.”

Davey D: “You’ve got maybe thirty seconds.”

Harry in Oakland (c. 56:22): “Yes, I’m Harry. I would like to ask your guest, what does he actually mean about his comment about Jamaicans? Does he mean violence or torture? What exactly does he mean? Can he spell it out please?”

Davey D: “He’s talkin’ about when—”

Carl Dix: “Okay.”

Davey D: “—do the Jamaicans come with heavier force.”

Carl Dix (c. 56:40): “I’m from New York. And I go to some shows, including reggae and dancehall-type shows and what they always put on the flyer is expect heavy manners. I have never seen exactly what that means because the shows have all been copasetic. So, I get the sense that what they’re basically saying to you is—”

Davey D (c. 57:05): “Violence—”

Carl Dix: “—don’t start none, won’t be none, is where it’s coming from.”

Davey D: “You know, we have run out of time. And we have so many people that wanted to talk to you. First, we’ll remind them that tomorrow night [29 Feb 2012] you’ll be at Wheeler Hall at the Maude Fife Room. That will be Carl Dix speaking on mass incarceration, silence, and genocide. They will be talking about its source, the need to resist where things are headed, and the revolution that we need.

“So, Carl, I appreciate that. Is there a way that people can get a hold of you?”

Carl Dix (c. 57:42): “You can hit me via email: carldix@hotmail. You could also go to the website for Revolution Newspaper, where a lot of my writings are, that’s www.revcom.us.

And [if] you want to talk to me, come on out tomorrow night. You know? ‘Cos we gon’ have an extended question and answer discussion period. We gon’ mingle afterwards. If you think I’m goin’ too far by calling it a genocide, come on out ‘cos I’m gonna break down why I call it a genocide and what that means.”

Davey D (c. 58:20): “Carl Dix, thank you. We’re gonna make way for Democracy Now! We’re out, folks.”

Transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

***

[Video featured in original 2012 article has since been taken down by the source.]

Updated 3 Mar 2012: “Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide,” Carl Dix, UC Berkeley, 29 Feb 2012

***

Further Reflections on the Work of Carl Dix:

Carl Dix is, perhaps, one of the more important thinkers of our time, speaking to the common sense nuts-and-bolts mechanics of the state repression grinding the lives of countless millions of working-class people in the U.S., shunning the false hopes of the Democrat Party. One may be reminded of the oratorical courage of a Malcolm X or Martin Luther King. Carl Dix is one of the few advocates who speaks out plainly about the viciousness of the state against the working-class and its attempts toward liberation and socioeconomic justice. It seems we have arrived at a point in U.S. history where the obvious truths about our nation have become sacrilegious truths, truths we dare not speak, truths which may provoke the rabid state to brand us with any number of labels designed to dehumanise and derail people of conscience with watch lists and arbitrary and indefinite detention. Activists and journalists must conform to the establishment or get canned. The persistent ones, the independent ones, are being secretly surveilled, obstructed, detained, harrassed, and killed—anyone with the slightest shred of curiosity in anything other than banal entertainment and distraction becomes an enemy of the state.

Carl Dix speaks about the state’s counterinsurgency before there was even an insurgency. This point cannot be understated. Dix describes the state’s motivation to avoid a repeat of the 1960s liberation and countercultural movements. He characterises elected officials, such as Nixon, bemoaning how the problem, from the view of the state, “is the Blacks.” Indeed, if any group within the U.S. during the 20^th century had the potential to galvanise the U.S. people against the succession of repressive governments they’ve endured in their lifetimes, it was Afroamericans, Blacks. Indeed, self-educating oneself about Black nationalists, Pan-Africans, Civil Rights organisers, and so forth, gave this author an education as a youth on the very real brutality and savagery of the state, behind the Disney veneer.

The mighty U.S. ship of state, may not be a monolithic entity, but it is predicated upon certain basic institutions and assumptions. Some of those key assumptions are elitism, class division, a two-tiered justice system, racism, male chauvinism, and electoral complacency. One key assumption is that people will shed their concern for others and play ball, U.S. style, which is to say, ignore injustice and go for self-enrichment. Another key assumption is that U.S. voters, stubbornly clinging to egalitarian tendencies, will continue to fall for the false left/right paradigm, that they will continue to place their blind trust in the Democrat Party for Congress and the Executive. Perhaps, Obama’s continuation and worsening of Bush policies will disabuse many progressives of such a notion. To this end, Carl Dix is one of the few people who will speak plainly and truthfully.

—Messina

***

“So, there you have it, just a little bit of the sights and sounds that went down yesterday, Indigenous People’s Day at Oscar Grant Plaza on 14^th & Broadway, Occupy Oakland.

“As I said, folks, and I think, one of the people there that we interview laid it out:

“Life as we know it here in the United States is done. It’s a wrap. You now have a situation where those who are in the 1% are gonna be trying to take everything and anything and go all out to try and oppress the rest of us. And now is the time that we better pick a side. And we better figure out how we’re going to struggle to overturn that situation. And, more importantly, what are we gonna do to make sure we recognise and uplift the humanity in each of us?

“So, that’s definitely something to think about.” —Davey D, The Morning Mix with Davey D, 11 Oct 2011

***

Indeed. As many of our friends and neighbours are going to support or ignore Obama’s campaign for reelection, enabling the continuation of U.S. imperialism and domestic repression, some are working to put the brakes on this madness. Our nation is being gutted and we seldom hear truly indignant voices of righteous rage. But it seems the public no longer has the stomach for fiery or towering critique, nor for questioning the monopolised two-party system, as may have been heard during 20^th century struggles. We seem to be coerced into having such polite manners these days. The good news is it’s in our hands to choose.

—Messina

***

The Morning Mix with Davey D – February 28, 2012 at 8:00am

Written by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

Photo [used in original article] by Flickr user Mark Z

***

Dr. George Lakoff On Why Liberals Lose and Conservatives Win

19 Thu Feb 2004

Posted by ztnh in Civic Engagement (Activism), Cognitive Linguistics, Linguistics

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Tags

Christian Coalition of America, Contract with America (1994), Dr. Adam Smith FRSA (1723–1790), Dr. George P. Lakoff (b. 1941), Dr. James Clayton "Jim" Dobson Jr. (b. 1936), KPFA, Kris Welch (SaveKPFA), Living Room, Pacifica Radio Network, Rockridge Institute (1997-2008), The Ruth Group (2003-2012), transcript, UC Berkeley

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—GONZO: We, listeners of free speech radio stations have heard many consciousness-raising and mind-blowing ideas, thinkers, and theorists. [*] But, perhaps, one of the most mind-blowing thinkers/theorists we’ve heard is Dr. George Lakoff, a Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of California-Berkeley, because he has opened our eyes to a deeper understanding of profound cognitive differences between the neural circuitry of people on the right versus the left of the political spectrum. It’s no wonder that people on the right talk past people on the left, and vice versa. We use different conceptual frames in our thinking, depending upon the diverse internal political narratives, which we hold. We walk around with a certain view of the world, which largely depends on our political upbringing, as it were. Knowing the particular types of conceptual frames, which are unique to political thinking on the right versus the left can go a long way to building working class understanding and consciousness.

As a progressive (to be extremely reductive), I always thought that making one’s point from a radical perspective, in a logical way, was sufficient to persuade people with differing perspectives or ideas, or to get people to move from a right-wing to a left-wing perspective. But no matter how logical the argument one presents, we observe that many people, especially people far to the right, are perpetually dismissive or unresponsive to any arguments from the left. Eventually, one realises that, at least at an interpersonal level, one needs to mind one’s tone and manners (or etiquette), if one wants to communicate effectively with someone from an opposing political camp. But, even then, persuasion is elusive.

Yet, the working classes (including Republicans and Democrats) have far more in common than differences of social-political identity. We all want to take care of our families and our communities. Understanding our neural circuitry, how our minds are wired to think, as liberals or conservatives or left-wingers or right-wingers, helps us avoid being mired with concerns of secondary order, such as identity politics, which distract us from concerns of primary order, such as the real material interests of the working classes. Too often, concerns of secondary order keep us divided as an American people, keep us voting against our material interests, and keep us supporting political parties, such as the Democratic and Republican parties, which do not represent our diverse working class interests.

Thankfully, UC Berkeley Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Dr. George Lakoff provides us with much deeper insights into the human political brain through his development of cognitive linguistics. Equipped with the tools of linguistics and neural circuitry, we stand to understand one another much better, despite our political differences, which can blur our common human interests. Understanding the political mind, from a cognitive linguistics perspective, helps us understand our own political minds and assumptions and motivations. And this helps us find common ground by better understanding our differences, making it that much easier to avoid discord by agreeing to disagree, as needed. Dr. Lakoff is the author of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. He delivered this lecture before The Ruth Group on the 21st of January, 2004. Listen (and/or download) here. [1]

Messina

***

LIVING ROOM—[19 FEB 2004] [Bensky’s theme piano music]

KRIS WELCH: “Good afternoon. Welcome to Living Room. I’m your host Kris Welch.

“With Republicans controlling the [U.S.] Senate, the [U.S.] House, and the White House, and enjoying a large margin of victory, right here, in California [with our governor] Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. [2] Well, we’ve got somebody, who thinks he knows why and how to turn it around. UC Berkeley Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, George Lakoff. And we’ll be right back with him, and his comments, right after [the KPFA] News Headlines with Max Pringle. [piano theme music] (c. 0:42)

[KPFA News Headlines (read by Max Pringle) omitted by scribe (can be found here).] (c. 5:49)

KRIS WELCH: “And welcome back to Living Room. I’m Kris Welch.

“Progressives are firmly on the defensive in the United States of America. Uh. Why Schwarzenegger won the recall. Why the Democrats just don’t get it. Why conservatives continue to define the issues. All of these questions have answers in our programme on Living Room, today, from UC Berkeley Linguistic and Cognitive Science Professor George Lakoff. He’s also co-founder of the Rockridge Institute, one of the very few progressive think tanks in existence in the United States. And wait’l you hear what he has to say. It’ll give you, uh, hope and, also, a lot of insight.

“Professor Lakoff spoke earlier this—about a month and a half ago, I think—in Berkeley. I’ll get you the exact date for you. Oh, it was January the 21st. Um, and, uh, here in Berkeley. And we were lucky to have it taped. Jane Heaven was there. And we’re delighted to bring it to you. This is his address before The Ruth Group. And we’ll tell you more about The Ruth Group as well. Meanwhile, here is UC Berkeley Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science George Lakoff.” (c. 7:19)

[The Living Room broadcast cuts, here, to audio of Dr. George Lakoff’s lecture.]

DR. GEORGE LAKOFF: [audience applause] “Uh, thank you, Ruth. Um, the last time I talked to the Ruth Group it was about a fifth this size. This is extraordinary. I am so proud of you—[chuckles]—and of all of you for coming out tonight. I wanna thank you for being here. It’s extraordinary. And the last time I talked to The Ruth Group, the Rockridge Institute was just getting started. We now exist. [chuckles] We have our first two Ph.D. linguist hires, some other staff. We have an actual small office. We don’t, you know, yet have real staff. But we’re getting there. And it’s remarkable how much can be done in a small amount of time.

“Um, [sighs/exhales] Ruth mentioned being on call. I got a call from NPR today, this afternoon. They said: Oh, you’ll never guess who suggested we call you. She said: Karl Rove.”

AUDIENCE: [gasps, laughter, and sounds of surprise]

DR. GEORGE LAKOFF: “And I felt sort of like a large drip of slime had descended on me. [audience laughter] I’m not sure if I have showered it all off yet. So, I guess that’s a measure of some kind of, quote-unquote success. I—but look. Let’s, let’s start with content. I wanna get into it right away. (c. 8:58)

When you negate a frame, you evoke the frame.

“Um, the—when I teach the study of framing over at Berkeley, uh, in Cognitive Science 101, the first thing I do is I give my students an exercise. And the exercise is: Don’t think of an elephant, whatever you do. Do not think of an elephant. Okay? I’ve never found a student, who was able to do this. Maybe someone here can—but, you know, impossible—right?—because every word, like elephant, evokes a frame, which is—it could be an image; it’s knowledge, etcetera. And it’s defined, relative to that frame.

“When you negate a frame, you evoke the frame. Right? What does that tell you about arguing against the other side? [3] Don’t use their language. Their language picks out a frame. Let me give you an example. On the day, that Bush came into the White House, you got the words tax relief coming out of the White House. And you heard it last night on the State of the Union [2004] Address at least a couple of times. (c. 10:09)

“Think of the framing for relief. For relief, there must be an affliction, an afflicted party. A reliever, who removes the affliction is, therefore, a hero. And, if someone tries to stop them, they’re a villain because they’re keeping this, you know, relief from happening.

“You add tax to tax relief, you get taxation as an affliction—and that the guy, who takes it away, is a hero; and anybody who’s against it is a bad guy. Right?

“Well, this starts coming out of the White House. And it goes into press releases, going to every radio station, every TV station, every newspaper. And, soon, The New York Times is using [the right-wing language of] tax relief. And it’s, not only, on Fox; it’s on CNN; it’s on NBC. It’s on every station because it’s the president’s tax relief plan.

“And, soon, Democrats are using tax relief. Right? It’s remarkable.

Framing is about getting language that fits. It’s not just language. It fits certain ideas. And the language carries those ideas. It evokes the ideas.

“I was asked by the Democratic senators to come to their caucus, just before they, you know—the tax plan was to come up. They had their version of the tax plan; and it was their version of tax relief. And I just—you know. You have to explain to them that you do not do this. You know? They [i.e., conservative leaders] have set this up in such a way that, in certain cases, they’ve chosen the words, that draw you in, to draw you into their worldview, to fit it together. (c. 11:38)

“So, that’s what framing is about. Framing is about getting language that fits. It’s not just language. It fits certain ideas. And the language carries those ideas. It evokes the ideas.

“Last night, in the State of the Union Address, you heard a remarkable thing for the State of the Union Address. In there, there was an incredible metaphor.

We don’t need a permission slip—

“Remember that one?

—to defend America.

“Right? What is going on with the permission slip? We’ll come back to that in a little while because it takes a little while, because if it’s not—we could’ve said, just: ask permission. But a permission slip is different. Right? So, think about when you last needed a permission slip and what that was about. Okay?

“Now, um, the way that I got into studying this was as follows. I asked myself a question. The question occurred during, uh, when I was looking at the Contract with America back in 1994. And the question was this:

What do the conservatives’ stand on issues have to do with each other?

“That is:

What does your position on abortion have to do with your position on taxation? What does that have to do with your position on the environment? Or foreign policy? How do these positions fit together? What makes sense of them?

“I couldn’t figure it out for them. I said: These are strange people. Then I said: Well, I have exactly the opposite positions on every issue. And I couldn’t figure it out for me. That was extremely embarrassing for somebody who does cognitive science and linguistics. [chuckles]

“But, eventually, the answer came. And it came from a very unexpected place. It came from the study of family values. I asked myself:

Why were conservatives talking so much about family values, in particular the ones they had? What was this about? Why would they, in a presidential campaign, congressional campaigns, etc., constantly talk about family values?

“And it occurred to me that—one of my students had written a paper some years back, that showed that—we all have a metaphorical understanding of the nation as a family. We have Founding Fathers, Daughters of the American Revolution. We send our sons to war. And it’s a natural thing because we usually understand large social groups, like nations, in terms of small ones, like families or communities and so on. (c. 14:27)

“So, the question is:

If there are two different understandings of the nation, do they come from two different understandings of family?

“And, so, I worked backwards. I took the various positions on the conservative and progressive side. And I said: Let’s put them through the metaphor in the opposite direction and see what comes out. And out popped two models of the family: a strict father family and a nurturant parent family. And you know which is which.

“Now, uh, when I first did this—and I’ll tell you about the details in a minute—I, um, gave a talk at a linguistics convention on this. I was asked to be a main speaker. And I came; I gave a keynote address. And I decided I would talk about this part of what I was doing. And in the audience were two members of the Christian Coalition, who are linguists and good friends of mine, excellent linguists, very, very good people, and very nice people, people I’ve liked a lot. And they took me aside at the party afterward. They said:

Well, this model of the family, this strict father thing. It’s close. You don’t have it quite right. A little—you know. We’ll fill you in on the details. But, you know, you should’ve referred to Dobson.

“I said: Who?

“He said: James Dobson.

“I said: Who?

“He said: You’re kidding? He’s on 3,000 radio stations.

“And I said: Well, I guess I—you know. He’s not on NPR, uh KPFA. [audience laughter] I haven’t heard of him.

“He said: Well, you know, you live in Berkeley.

“You know? But: Where would I—does he write stuff?

“He said: Oh, yeah. He’s sold millions of books. His classic is Dare to Discipline.

“I said: Gee, I didn’t see it in Cody’s [Books]. [audience laughter]

“So, he said: No, it would never be there. But you’d find it in your local Christian bookstore.

“So, I said: Look, I live in Berkeley.

“And he said: Even in Berkeley [audience laughter] there’s a local Christian bookstore. Just walk a block past Cody’s and you’ll see the Jews for Jesus bookstore.

“So, I put on my trench coat, my dark glasses [audience laughter], brought along a plain brown bag [audience laughter], honestly, walked down there. And there was a shelf full of Dobson books and the New Dare to Discipline as well as lots of other things.

“And, there, it’s all laid out. You have Dobson, [who] not only has a $200 million-dollar-a-year operation, but he has his own zip code, so many people are writing for his books and pamphlets and so on. Right? That is: They are teaching people how to use the strict father model. So, let’s see. What is the strict father model? (c. 17:37)

“It goes like this. You assume that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, that there’s evil out there in the world and that there’s competition. [4] There always will be competition. And there always will be winners and losers. And, in addition, kids are born bad. They wanna just do their own emotional things, get what they want. And they have to be made good. There’s a right and a wrong. And what you need is a strict father, who can support the family in the difficult world, protect the family in the dangerous world, and teach his kids right from wrong because he’s a moral authority and knows right from wrong. And there’s only one way to do that. And that is punishment—painful punishment. Right? You gotta hit ’em for a while.

“Now, Dobson it turns out is very good on this subject compared to other folks in this thing. He says there’s no reason to hit a child below the age of 18 months. [audience surprise, laughter] Right?

“Now, the rationale behind this is quite interesting because it’s been thought through. By physical discipline, when kids do something wrong, they’re gonna learn not to do it. And they’re gonna get internal discipline. So, the do things, that are right and not things, that are wrong.

“Now, this is the basis of morality, that without such punishment the world will go to hell. You know? There will be no morality. But, not only that, it’s also the basis of functioning in a difficult world because if you have someone, who is disciplined enough to do what’s right and not what’s wrong, that discipline can turn to becoming self-reliant. That is, if you’re disciplined and you pursue your self-interest in this land of opportunity, you can become self-reliant. (c. 19:34)

“Now, Dobson is very clear about the connection between this and certain views of capitalism. If you look at, uh, exactly the analysis of what is meant by the morality of self-interest there, it’s a [distorted] version of Adam Smith‘s view of capitalism. Adam Smith [allegedly] said:

If everybody pursues their own profit, then the profit of all will be maximised by the invisible hand, that is, by nature, just naturally.

Go about. Pursue your own profit. And that’s good. You’re helping everybody.

“Now, the version of this is a general metaphor that wellbeing is wealth. For example, if I do you a favour, you say: I owe you one. I’m in your debt. Right? Doing something good for someone is, metaphorically, like giving them money. You owe them something. And you say: How can I ever repay you? So, there’s a version of this, that says: If everyone pursues their own self-interest than by the invisible hand, by nature, the self-interest of all will be maximised. That is: It’s moral to pursue your self-interest. And there’s a name for people, who don’t do it. The name is do-gooder.

“A do-gooder is somebody, who is trying to help someone other than himself and is getting in the way of people, who are pursuing their own self-interest and screwing up the system. You guys know any of these do-gooders?” (c. 21:13)

AUDIENCE: [laughter]

DR. GEORGE LAKOFF: “I mean I occasionally meet them. Now, what’s important about this is that this is part of a family model. The idea is to raise a kid to be self-reliant, pursuing his self-interest in this way. And it’s a definition of what it means to become a good person. A ‘good‘ person, a ‘moral‘ person, is someone, who is disciplined enough to do what’s right, learn what’s right, not do what’s wrong, to pursue their self-interest and become self-reliant, so that, morality and prosperity come together. [5] And the good child grows up to be like dad. And the bad child is the one, that doesn’t learn the discipline, doesn’t function morally, doesn’t do what’s right, and, therefore, isn’t disciplined enough to become prosperous. Right? They can’t take care of themselves. They become dependent.

“So, what happens, from this point of view, is that it’s immoral to give people things they haven’t earned because, then, they’ll become dependent. Right? (c. 22:28)

“Think about what this says about social programmes in politics. It says: Social programmes are immoral for this reason. Promoting social programmes is immoral. And what does this say about budgets? [6] Well, if you’ve got a whole lot of progresssives in Congress, who think that there should be social programmes, how do you stop these immoral people? It’s quite simple.

“What you have to do is reward the good people with a tax cut. And make it big enough, so there’s not enough money left for the social programmes. Right? The deficit is moral and good. [6]

“Now, this is quite remarkable that this happens. But it is seen, not as a bad thing, but as a good thing. And, in the State of the Union last night, the president said they’re going to—they think that they can cut the deficit in half by cutting out ‘wasteful spending‘. Now, are conservatives against all government [spending]? No. They’re not against the army. They’re not against the military. They’re not against homeland defense. They’re not against the current justice department, etcetera. There’s lots of parts of government they like very much. They’re not against subsidies for industry, government subsidies. That’s great. No problem there. They’re against nurturance—care. They’re against social programmes, that take care of people. That’s what’s wrong. That’s what they’re trying to eliminate on moral grounds. (c. 24:18)

“That’s why it’s not just a bunch of crazies and nuts and mean and greedy people there. What’s even scarier is they believe it. They believe it’s moral. And they have supporters around the country. People who have strict father morality are gonna believe that this is the right way to govern.

“Now, think for a minute what this says about foreign policy. Suppose you’re a moral authority. Now, as a moral authority, how do you deal with your children? Do you ask them what they should do, or what you should do? No, you don’t. You know? The father says. The child does. No back talk. Right? Communication is one way [i.e., unidirectional or unilateral], just like in the White House. That is, you don’t ask about these things. You tell them. If you’re a moral authority, you know what’s right. You have the power. You use it, as you should.

“You map this on to foreign policy; and it says:

You can’t give up sovereignty. The U.S., being the moral authority, being the best country in the world, which knows about democracy, which knows about everything, that’s good, which knows about prosperity and how to do it has the authority. They shouldn’t be asking anybody else.

“Right? Now, this comes together with a set of metaphors, that have run foreign policy for a long time. There’s a common metaphor, that you learn when you go and sit in on classes of international relations in graduate school. It’s called the rational actor metaphor. [7] It’s the basis of most international relations theory. [8] And it assumes that every nation is a person. So, you have rogue states. You have friendly nations and so on. And, um, there’s a national interest. What does it mean to act in your self-interest? Well, it’s good for you to be healthy and strong. So, it’s good for a nation to be strong—that is, militarily strong—and healthy—that is, economically healthy. (c. 26:50)

“So, what the national interest is, when you hear people talk about the national interest, it means how to be militarily strong and economically healthy. That is, to have a large GNP, to have not necessarily the individuals in the country all be healthy, but the companies should be and the country as a whole should have a lot of money. Okay? That’s the idea.

“Now, the question is how do you maximize your self-interest. That’s what foreign policy is. It’s maximizing self-interest. The rational actor says every actor, every person who’s rational—it’s irrational to act against your self-interest, so it’s rational to maximise it.

“And, in the metaphor for international relations, there’s another metaphor, which says you not only have friendly nations and rogue states and enemy nations and so on, you also have adult nations and child nations. Now, the child nations are called developing nations or underdeveloped states. Right? Those are the backward ones. They’re underdeveloped. They’re the retards. (c. 28:01)

“And what do you do, if you’re a strict father? You tell the children how to develop—you know?—what rules they should follow; and you punish them when they do wrong, which is through the IMF policies. Now, um, when you think about this, who’s in the U.N.? Well, most of the U.N. is underdeveloped countries—the children. Right?

“Now, let’s go back. Should the United States have consulted the U.N. and gotten its permission to invade Iraq? You don’t ask for a permission slip. You’re back in high school or grammar school, where you need a slip to go to the bathroom. [chuckles] Right? You don’t ask for a permission slip—you know—if you’re the teacher, if you’re the principal, if you’re the person in power, the moral authority. The other guys should ask you for permission. You don’t ask them for permission. That’s what the permission slip [terminology, which Bush used in the State of the Union address] was about.

“And every conservative in the audience got it. They got it right away. Now, it’s powerful what they did was—notice—evoke the adult-child metaphor for other nations. And they said: We’re the adult. You know? They used the strict father metaphor there. And it was just understood. It doesn’t have to be explained. It’s just evoked. Right? This is what’s done regularly on the other side [i.e., on the conservative side of the political spectrum]. (c. 29:39)

“Now, let me talk a bit about how, uh, progressives understand their morality and what their moral system is. It, too, comes out of a family model—what I call a nurturant family. And it goes like this: In the nurturing family, both parents are equally responsible. And the assumption is children are born good and have to be made better. And the world can be made a better place. And your job is to work on it, like you guys coming here, tonight. And the, um, further assumption is it’s your job as a parent to nurture your children. And to raise them to be nurturers of others. That’s your job. What does nurturance mean? It means two things: empathy and responsibility.

“If you have a child, you have to know what every cry means. You have to know when they’re hungry, when they need their diaper changed, when they’re having nightmares, you know, etcetera. And you have a responsibility. You have to take care of this child. And you can’t take care of someone else, if you’re not taking care of yourself. So, you have to take care of yourself enough to be able to take care of this child. And it’s not easy. Anyone who’s ever taken care of a child knows that this is hard. You gotta be strong. You gotta work hard at it. You gotta be very confident at it. You gotta know things.

“In addition to that, from empathy and responsibility, all sorts of other values immediately follow. So, let’s think about it. If you empathise with your child, you want your child to be fulfilled in life, to be a happy person. And, if you’re an unhappy, unfulfilled person yourself, you’re not gonna want other people to be happier than you are. [sparse audience laughter] The Dalai Lama teaches us that. Therefore, it is your moral responsibility to be a happy fulfilled person—your moral responsibility as well, and to teach your child to be a happy, fulfilled person and to want others to be happy and fulfilled. Okay? That’s part of what nurturant family life is about. (c. 32:02)

“Secondly, you have to protect your child. And that’s serious. And this comes into politics in many ways. What do you protect your child from? Well, you know, crime and drugs. And, also, you have environmental protection, worker protection, consumer protection. You know; you protect your child from cars without seat belts, from smoking, from poisonous additives in food, whatever. And these are the things, that progressives want the government to protect their citizens from—okay?—as well as terrorist attacks, which liberals haven’t been that good on, in protection. It’s part of the moral system. But it hasn’t been worked out enough. And that gives—9/11, progressives didn’t have a whole lot to say. Right? And that was sad ‘cos you do have to think about these things. It’s protection. It’s important. It’s part of our system. (c. 33:07)

“Then, there are other values, that come out. If you want your child to be fulfilled in life, the child has to be free enough in life to do that. So, freedom is a value.

“Now, you don’t have very much freedom, if there’s no opportunity—or prosperity. So, opportunity and prosperity become values. If you really care about your child, you’ll want your child to be treated fairly by you and by others. So, fairness becomes a value.

“If you are connecting with your child, and you empathise with that child, you have to have communication. What kind of communication? Open, two-way communication, honest communication—that becomes a value.

“[If] you take the connection between parent and child, it requires trust and cooperation. They are values. You know you live in a community. And that community will affect how your child grows up, so that community-building and working in the community become values.

“These are the progressive values. You all have them. You know you have. You recognise them. You can see it. I mean look around the room. You know? These are not like—nobody’s saying: What?! [chuckles]

“Every progressive political programme is based on one or more of these values. That’s what it means to be a progressive.

“Now, there are lots of types of progressives. One of the things we did was look at the types. And, as a cognitive scientist, I didn’t look at it like a sociologist would or a political scientist would. If I were a sociologist, I would’ve come up probably with several hundred progressive types. [audience laughter] There are lots. But, from the point of view of a cognitive scientist, who looks at modes of thought, there are five.

“And they are, one: socioeconomic progressives, those who think that everything is a matter of money and class, and that all solutions are ultimately a matter of social class solutions. Okay? Type one. (c. 35:36)

“Two: identity politics progressives—those, that say: It’s time for our oppressed group to get its share now (whatever the oppressed group is).

“Three: the greens, who think in terms of sustainability of the Earth, the sacredness of the Earth, the protection of native peoples.

“Four: civil liberties progressives: you know, you wanna maintain your freedoms against threats to freedom, like you join the ACLU, you think about all those things, that you need to do to preserve liberty and freedom.

“Five: the anti-authoritarians, those people, who say: There’s all sorts of illegitimate forms of authority out there. We’ve gotta fight ’em, now, whether it’s the big corporations or whoever it is.

“Now, you’re all right. Every one of these is an instance of nurturant parent morality, of nurturant morality. They’re special cases. The problem with it is that many of the people, who have one of these modes of thought, don’t recognise that it’s a special case of something more general and don’t see the unity in all the types of progressives. [9] They often think that this is the only way to be a true progressive. And that’s sad. That’s what keeps people from coming together. And we gotta get over it. And the other side [i.e., the conservative side] did. (c. 37:09)

“Back in the ’50s, conservatives used to just hate each other. Right? The financial conservatives hated the social conservatives. The libertarians didn’t get along with the social conservatives or the religious conservatives. There was lots and lots of mutual hatred. And a group of conservative leaders around Bill Buckley and others got together and started asking what conservatives have in common and whether they could agree to disagree to promote, you know, some general conservative cause. They started magazines, think tanks. And, 40 to 50 years later, they won. They figured it out. And it took billions of dollars in those think tanks.

“The first thing they did—the first victory—was getting Barry Goldwater nominated in ’64. He lost. When he lost, they went back to the drawing board. And they put more money into think tanks.

Dr. Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (1907–1998)

“During the Vietnam War, they noticed that most of the bright, young people in the country were not becoming conservatives. Conservative was a dirty word. And, so, in 1970, Lewis Powell—before he became a Supreme Court Justice appointed by Nixon, at the time he was the Chief Counsel to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—wrote a memo, the Powell Memo, which you can get online. [10] And it’s a very interesting document. What it said was:

We have to keep our best and brightest people from becoming anti-business. What we need to do is set up institutes within the universities and outside the universities. We have to do research. We have to write books. We have to endow professorships to teach these people the right way.

“And, then, they did it.” (c. 39:16)

[For the remainder of the hour, Living Room host Kris Welch cut in to the audio of Dr. George Lakoff’s lecture to appeal for listener support for free speech radio. Dr. Lakoff’s lecture, of which an excerpt was broadcast here, may be found through the Pacifica Radio Archives, as the lecture in its entirety was offered as a thank-you gift for donating to KPFA/Pacifica Radio.]

[snip] (c. 59:59)

Learn more at LIVING ROOM.

***

[*] I have been listening to free speech radio since I was a wee lad in sixth or seventh grade. Definitely, by eighth grade, free speech radio’s La Onda Bajita (a Friday night lowrider show featuring Chicano culture and oldies) was my favourite radio show. Over the years, public affairs/news & information broadcasting has become, for me, as important as (if not more so than) the (entertaining, but less informative) cultural programming.

[1] Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving: Living Room, this one-hour broadcast hosted by Kris Welch, Thursday, 19 FEB 2004, 12:00 PDT.

[2] Kris Welch contextualised Republican control of the U.S. Congress and the White House as indication “that the Democratic Party is in crisis”. Of course, all too often Democrats in Congress and the White House acquiesce with Republican Party policies. It’s important to keep in mind that both the Democratic and Republican parties are funded by the same corporate interests and, consequently, perpetuate generally the same pro-capitalist, pro-corporate, anti-working class, anti-environment policies.

So, when the pendulum of power swings in favour of Republican control, it’s more accurate to see the Democratic Party as fulfilling its role as a false opposition party, or a false people’s party. We do observe historical trends in the USA of a swing between the dominant, corporate, political parties. After eight years of Clinton’s Democratic Presidency, the national reaction is toward the Republican Party. Two terms of a Republican administration will likely lead to a Democratic administration. And the pendulum will continue to swing back and forth between two political parties, which collude to keep out alternative political parties, which might stand to truly represent working people.

[3] Dr. George Lakoff, here, reminds us of the futility of arguing against an opposing viewpoint, in terms of accomplishing persuasion as an objective. This concept was previously emphasised by Dale Carnegie in one of the more famous and enduring self-help books, which has become a classic among professional sales people, for whom communication and persuasion is a central concern. Dale Carnegie’s book is called How To Win Friends and Influence People (1936). Essentially, in terms of interpersonal communication, Carnegie argues that when one seeks to influence or gain the favor of another, one must orientate one’s mental focus upon the interests of that person, whom we seek to befriend and influence. In other words, gain the friendship, then influence the new friend. This can usually be done by making oneself as useful and agreeable as possible towards breaking down barriers of resistance.

Dale Carnegie believed that when one argues against an opposing viewpoint, one will likely trigger a defensive mechanism, which can further entrench a division. This is similar to Dr. George Lakoff’s reminder of the futility of arguing against an opposing viewpoint because to negate a frame is to evoke that frame. This further entrenches the opposed positions. But Dr. Lakoff’s argument is different in certain respects, to which we shall return. Nevertheless, Dr. Lakoff’s and Dale Carnegie’s arguments about the futility or ineffectiveness of arguing against an opposing side is also similar to Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s lectures about nonviolent communication and avoiding the common habit of frequently responding with an analysis rather than just listening. Of course, there is a time for debate and oppositional contests, but in terms of strengthening interpersonal or business relations, Dale Carnegie’s, and Dr. Rosenberg’s, and Dr. Lakoff’s recommendations help immensely.

Dale Carnegie’s book, How To Win, is interesting reading, which offers useful insights, even if it’s not an academic or scholarly text. The book doesn’t bother to include a single citation. We don’t doubt his sources or ruling class connections. But the book would be that much more effective had it cited its sources. (Of course, Veblen famously lauded such writing, which eschews citations and quotations.) Nevertheless, Dale Carnegie seemed to intuit back in the early 20th century what Dr. Lakoff is confirming in the early 21st century in a more rigorous manner with his contributions to cognitive linguistics. Of course, Dale Carnegie was only trying to help business people be more agreeable for business purposes. Dale Carnegie was merely trying to help and preserve capitalist interests. Dr. Lakoff, on the other hand, is geared more toward helping human beings understand their own political minds better for civic purposes. Words and phrases evoke a conceptual frame, which is often bound up with one’s social (or socioeconomic) identity, as for example liberal or conservative, which can prevent otherwise persuasive and logical arguments from being accepted by an individual with an opposing social identity. The same set of information can evoke two different conceptual frames in two people with different social identities. So, Dr. Lakoff is not merely suggesting to avoid “arguing against the other side”, but to be careful when doing so. If one must argue against the other side, it is imperative that one not use the language, catchphrases, buzzwords, or terminology of one’s opponent. To do so would be to evoke, and therefore strengthen, their conceptual frames, which are oftentimes bound up with their social identities, such as conservative or liberal.

[4] In the strict father model, one of the central underlying assumptions is that the world is a fundamentally hostile environment, a Hobbesian nightmare. This is a key lesson in the history of economic theory (aka history of economic thought). In neoclassical economic theory, unlike heterodox economic theory, the underlying assumption of human nature is one of overarching self-interest. Neoclassical economics offers an impossibly caricatured and one-dimensional view of humanity. This assumption serves, whether mendaciously or otherwise, to rationalise and justify laissez faire capitalism, or free market fundamentalism, which holds that since all human economic actors (or agents) are rational and act based upon their own self-interest, allowing the economy to operate with as little government intervention as possible will lead to the greatest good for all, as if guided by an invisible hand.

This view of capitalism is based on a distortion of Dr. Adam Smith’s famous Wealth of Nations, in which his notion of the invisible hand of the market has been purported to be capable of guiding the economy towards the best outcome for all. In truth, when one actually reads Wealth of Nations, one finds that Dr. Adam Smith never posited that argument. Indeed, Smith uses the term invisible hand exactly twice in the massive tome. Moreover, Smith’s earlier work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, establishes the importance of morality and what Smith calls “fellow-feeling”. And, importantly, Smith emphasised the importance of government intervention in economic activity to prevent the worst ills of capitalism, such as monopoly, price-gouging and consumer abuse, labour abuses, and education/development deprivations.

[5] Dr. Lakoff described how morality in the strict father figure model of the family, which is held predominantly by people on the right, is bound up with an identity, which internalises a rigid form of discipline. And, of course, for many on the right, the source of authority for moral values come from the church. Notably, here, Dr. Lakoff is describing how members of the Christian Coalition view the strict family model and questions of morality. In this view, material wealth is said to flow from moral virtue and that poverty flows from moral turpitude. Here we see the co-optation of selected Christian values in the service of corporate and financial capitalism.

Similarly, in his recent book, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, Dr. Kevin M. Kruse describes how capitalist elites, reeling from New Deal wealth redistribution policies, worked to co-opt religious language and conceptual frames in order to reinforce capitalist modes of production.

[6] Conservatives as well as liberals misunderstand how our modern monetary system works. And they often think about it as if we’re still operating under the gold standard, which was ended back in 1971. Consequently, people think of modern money as a finite thing, rather than as the unit of measure, which it is. An understanding of modern money theory (MMT) sheds some light on various questions of economics, such as federal budgets and deficits. For example, see Dr. Stephanie Kelton (University of Missouri-Kansas City):

“The ‘Angry Birds’ Approach to Deficits in the Modern Economy” presented by then-Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Dr. Stephanie Kelton at the Student Union Theatre (UMKC) on November 19, 2014.

[7] The rational actor metaphor, of which Dr. George Lakoff refers, is also known as the rational actor model:

The rational actor model is based on rational choice theory. This model adopts the state as the primary unit of analysis, and inter-state relations (or international relations) as the context for analysis. The state is seen as a monolithic unitary actor, capable of making rational decisions based on preference ranking and value maximization.

The rational actor model is a subset of foreign policy analysis, or international relations, based on rational choice theory. This is an extension of the underlying assumptions promulgated through neoclassical economic theories, which take an essentially static view of the human individual as homo economicus, the rational profit-maximiser, who constantly engages in cost-benefit analyses in daily life. Of course, this is an unrealistic view of humanity, which contrasts with the more realistic underlying assumptions considered in heterodox economic theories. The neoclassical view ignores human psychological diversity and complexity as well as socioeconomic and political obstacles to rational decision-making. Also omitted are acts of altruism and volunteerism. Heterodox economic theories present various critiques of this neoclassical model of individual human behaviour. For example, economist Professor Satya Gabriel has offered the following critique:

Neoclassical economic theory is grounded in a particular conception of human psychology, agency or decision-making. It is assumed that all human beings make economic decisions so as to maximize pleasure or utility. Some heterodox theories reject this basic assumption of neoclassical theory, arguing for alternative understandings of how economic decisions are made and/or how human psychology works. It is possible to accept the notion that humans are pleasure seeking machines, yet reject the idea that economic decisions are governed by such pleasure seeking. Human beings may, for example, be unable to make choices consistent with pleasure maximization due to social constraints and/or coercion. Humans may also be unable to correctly assess the choice points that are most likely to lead to maximum pleasure, even if they are unconstrained (except in budgetary terms) in making such choices. And it is also possible that the notion of pleasure seeking is itself a meaningless assumption because it is either impossible to test or too general to refute. Economic theories that reject the basic assumption of economic decisions as the outcome of pleasure maximization are heterodox.

[8] Conventional international relations theory, like most economics curricula, is taught in the Western world from a neoclassical perspective. And it takes the neoclassical precept of comparative advantage as its driving logic. According to the comparative advantage model, economic agents have a comparative advantage over others in producing a particular good if they can produce that good at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior to trade. Theoretically, each nation will increase its overall consumption by exporting the good for which it has a comparative advantage while importing the other good, provided that there exist differences in labor productivity between both countries.

Unfortunately, the comparative advantage model, much like the rational actor model in international relations, doesn’t take into account the exploitation of labour, downward pressure on wages, and arrested economic development in nations, which do not have advanced manufacturing and technological capacities. Notably, nations without advanced technological production must often rely predominantly on the export of raw materials, production inputs, and resources, which put them at a trade disadvantage relative to other nations, which can export finished goods with higher price tags. This problem of uneven economic development, or productive and technological capacity, between nations is one of the criticisms of comparative advantage; it is a root cause, for example, of the Latin American debt crisis.

[9] Dr. George Lakoff raised the point about identity politics, or single-issue protest activist groups, being a special case of a more general nurturant morality model. The inability of each identity grouping to see the underlying commonality to all such single-issue groups leads to the atomisation and weakening of broader social justice cohesion. In this way, liberals, progressives, and left-wing radicals are divided and disempowered.

Notably, this failure of analysis regarding a special case of a model versus a more general case is reminiscent of the ongoing debate within the discipline of economics between neoclassical and heterodox economic theories. Neoclassical economic theories have argued for a wrongheaded pursuit of free market ideologies through the perpetuation of notions of economic equilibrium. Neoclassical economic theories posit a state whereby economic forces, such as supply and demand, are balanced and in the absence of external influences the (equilibrium) values of economic variables will not change. For example, in the standard textbook model of perfect competition, equilibrium occurs at the point at which quantity demanded and quantity supplied are equal. The objective of the neoclassical economic argument for laissez faire capitalism is to allow capital, to allow capitalists, to operate without any inhibitions or limitations on their profit motive, be they labour protections, consumer protections, or environmental protections. This has been pursued through the discredited economic equilibrium model. Heterodox economists, particularly John Maynard Keynes, pointed out that the neoclassical economic equilibrium model was merely a special case of a more general model in his famous and influential book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). Chapter 1: The General Theory (only half a page long) consists simply of the following radical claim:

I have called this book the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, placing the emphasis on the prefix general. The object of such a title is to contrast the character of my arguments and conclusions with those of the classical theory of the subject, upon which I was brought up and which dominates the economic thought, both practical and theoretical, of the governing and academic classes of this generation, as it has for a hundred years past. I shall argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case, the situation which it assumes being a limiting point of the possible positions of equilibrium. Moreover, the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of the economic society in which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience. (p. 3)

Yet, the problem of misperceiving special cases of social phenomena as though they were general cases leads to incomplete solutions to problems within the social sciences, such as within political economy and political science. This is as true for economic decision-making as it is for political decision-making and civic engagement orientated towards social justice principles.

[10] Dr. George Lakoff cited the infamous Lewis Powell memo, which is a key flashpoint in the turning point at which liberal policies dating back to government responses to the Great Depression were rolled back toward regressive, conservative policies. After the Great Depression, Keynesian economic policies and liberal political policies prevailed. But ruling class elites, as Dr. Lakoff has noted, went back to the drawing board, investing millions and billions into think tanks to manufacture consent.

An excellent documentary, which contextualises the Lewis Powell memo is Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? (2011) directed by free speech radio KPFA community member Donald Goldmacher and co-director Frances Causey.

Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?Thom Hartmann (2011) directed by Donald Goldmacher and Frances Causey, narrated by

***

[10 MAR 2017]

[Last modified at 22:50 PST on 20 MAR 2017]

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Tag Archives: UC Berkeley

Urban Policing, Mass Imprisonment, & Second-Class Citizenship in the USA

Encounters with Authoritarian Institutions Heighten Citizen Distrust

Impacts on Citizen Trust, Participation, and Racial Outlooks

The Reforms America Needs

Historical Archives: “MR Transcript: Davey D, Carl Dix & Resistance”

Dr. George Lakoff On Why Liberals Lose and Conservatives Win

Encounters with Authoritarian Institutions Heighten Citizen Distrust

Impacts on Citizen Trust, Participation, and Racial Outlooks

The Reforms America Needs

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