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The activists at USAS are continuing their work to improve the conditions of garment trade workers producing special order apparel for universities across Canada and the United States. I missed the announcement for their tenth anniversary bash in Washington, DC but here for new readers is their press release on the work done in the last decade. This is followed by a description of the designated suppliers program (DSP) and a call-out for help in the campaign at the University of Houston.

Ten years ago, students started organizing to confront sweatshop abuses in factories around the world where the clothes on their campuses were made. At the time, major clothing brands insisted that they had no responsibility for the working conditions at the factories and that the very locations of the factories were trade secrets. With the support of unions, NGOs, and other allies, United Students Against Sweatshops was formed and the fight against campus-sponsored abusive working conditions was ON.

Fast-forward to 2007: USAS has helped win worker victories around the world. The Worker Rights Consortium was founded as a USAS initiative, and now has more than 175 member schools. Garment worker unions have won campaigns with USAS support. Major brands can no longer hide their relationships to factories and have disclosed their locations after USAS pressure. In 2005, USAS launched the Designated Suppliers Program to stop the brands from abandoning unionized factories.


But it doesn't stop there...since 2001, USAS has built student-worker solidarity with campus workers through struggles for living wages, the right to organize, and decent working conditions. USAS has held campus contractors responsible and has leveraged student power to support farm workers in North Carolina, Coca-Cola bottling and canning workers in Colombia, and the list goes on.

Despite supposed commitments by universities and brands, university apparel is still made in sweatshops. This will continue to be the case until brands are forced to make fundamental changes in the way they do business. Until brands truly commit to sourcing from factories in which the rights of workers are respected, a commitment that includes paying a slightly higher price for their goods, university clothes will continue to be made in sweatshops. It is for this reason that students have demanded, and on 40 campuses won, the adoption of the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP). The DSP will require the brands producing university apparel to source from factories in which workers have the freedom to form a union and earn enough to support a family. In addition, it will require these brands to pay enough for their goods to make this possible. If you would like to find out more about the DSP, as well as how to get more involved, then please go to www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org or send an email to organize@usasnet.org

For the past year and half, the University of Houston has ignored students demanding that the university adopt the Designated Suppliers Program. Today, students, faculty, and community members from throughout the US and Canada will be calling, emailing, and faxing President Khator to demand that the University of Houston make a real commitment to the rights of workers. Show your support for students and workers by participating today!

Renu Khator's phone: (713) 743-8820

Sample Script:
Hello, my name is _______ and I am a _____ from _____. It is very disappointing to hear that an institution like UH, which claims to be a leader in the university community, has shown so little concern for its students and for the workers producing its apparel. It is extremely unfortunate that you are ignoring this issue despite students having proven the viability of the DSP and assured UH that it would face no legal or financial risk from it. I would urge you to address this situation by meeting with the students immediately and adopting the DSP. Thanks for your time.

Go to their website here in order to send a prepared email to the university president Renu Khator.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Dear Blog Readers,

I am trying to jumpstart a freelance writing career, so I’m working on a piece or two for the Sex Worker’s Outreach Project. One of them is about the last International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. It took place last December 17th, and I’d greatly appreciate it, if people pointed me in the direction of information about the events that took place that day.

Sincerely,

“Venus Cassandra”

Independent Citizen of “Cassandrastan”

(This story via Hear Me Roar 2008-02-20 and a private correspondent.)

Here is something that I wrote a couple years ago about the State and its efforts to protect the hell out of us all whether we want it to or not:

The State is, as Catharine MacKinnon says, male in the political sense. But not only because the law views women’s civil status through the lens of male supremacy (although it certainly does). It is also because the male-dominated State relates to all of its subjects like a battering husband relates to the household of which he has proclaimed himself the head: by laying a claim to protect those who did not ask for it, and using whatever violence and intimidation may be necessary to terrorize them into submitting to his protection. The State, as the abusive head of the whole nation, assaults the innocent, and turns a blind eye to assaults of the innocent, when it suits political interest — renamed national interest by the self-proclaimed representatives of the nation. It does so not because of the venality or incompetance of a particular ruler, but rather because that is what State power means, and that is what the job of a ruler is: to maintain a monopoly of coercion over its territorial area, as a good German might tell you, and to beat, chain, burn, or kill anyone within or without who might endanger that, whether by defying State rule, or by simply ignoring it and asking to be left alone.

—GT 2006-05-11: Quidditative essence

I didn’t mean the analogy between government protection and domestic violence quite this literally, but, well, here we are.

This is how government cops protect you: by beating the shit out of a suspect woman after she’s already been handcuffed, turning off the camera so that they won’t be caught on tape doing it, and then claiming that the reason she ended up lying a pool of her own blood in the middle of the room, with two black eyes, a broken nose, and missing teeth, was that she tried to leave the room and fell and hurt herself in the process. He didn’t do it, and besides, even if he did, she was belligerent (which, since there’s no evidence of her trying to use physical force against the cop at any point, is cop-speak for mouthing off).

Please note that the explicit reason for this violent creep handcuffing her, slamming her up against the wall, and then beating the hell out of her was that there are rules you have to follow (where there are is cop-speak for I make, and you have to means or else), which rules absolutely require that you keep her in a tiny room no matter what, by any means necessary, and don’t set aside your paperwork for even a moment so that she can call her somebody to let them know where she is, no matter how easy it would be for you to do so and no matter how quickly that would de-escalate an extremely stressful situation.

Please also note that, because Wiley Willis is a cop and his victim, Angela Garbarino, is not, so far the only consequences that this violent sociopath — who had already been named in at least two unrelated brutality complaints in the past two years — is that he was given a paid vacation for three months, and then finally lost his job after an administrative hearing. But in the view of other Shreveport cops, Willis deserves this proverbial walk around the block because After reviewing the evidence, we decided it was something that needed to be handled internally and that it was not enough to pursue criminal charges. Nowadays, thanks to the concerted struggle of our feminist foremothers to reform the police and courts’ handling of violence against women, if any man who didn’t sport a badge and a uniform had been alone in a closed room with a woman who ended up getting hurt so bad she needed to be hospitalized, with a video clearly showing him shoving her around, handcuffing her, slamming her against the wall, and then deliberately turning the tape off up until she ended up bruised and bleeding, that man would be in jail right now on charge of assault and battery. Even without such comprehensive evidence almost any court would long ago have issued a restraining order against the violent pig. I’ll bet that there are a lot of people in Shreveport who wish they could get one of those against Wiley Willis and the paramilitary force that employed him.

Meanwhile, the mainstream news media, while Very Disturbed, are still willing to call this videotaped brutality a classic case of he-said / she-said, and the Fraternal Order of Pigs and Willis’s lawyer are trying to get him put back on the force.

In the YouTube comments thread, you can find the usual sado-fascist bully brigade of police enablers, one of whom summarizes the situation as follows:

She was very cooperative when the officer was polite to her and did not yell or demand anything…Yah right! Saying the word Miss and Mam didnt do any good. She decided to get drunk and stupid, not follow directions, would jerk away,and thought she was in charge. When she got arrested she needed to shut her cock-holster! The officer cant make her take the test. All he had to do was state she refused to take the test and be done with it. She got the best of him because now she will get paid.

Another adds:

she’s a woman. act like a lady or get treated like a man. she got much better treatment than a man would even after she kept disobeying

His conclusion (and I am quoting): the b(((* was asking for it.

Back in Ohio, here’s how newspaper epistolator William McClelland, of Lake Township, responded to Bonnie Yagiela’s letter on the police’s beating and gang-rape of Hope Steffey, in which Yagiela stated that I was disgusted and appalled but not surprised. The behavior they displayed is typical of humans placed in a position of power and authority over others.

I wasn’t there, nor have I ever been to Abu Ghraib; therefore, I am not qualified to offer expert analysis as to the events that occurred at either. However, I do know that making generalizations about humans placed in a position of power and authority over others is grossly unfair to the many who serve our nation.

… Maybe the handling of Ms. Steffey was not properly conducted; maybe it was. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I do know that Sheriff Swanson has requested outside assistance from the Ohio attorney general’s office in investigating the incident, and I am willing to await its findings before I make judgment.

Should the investigation prove that the deputies involved did abuse their authority, I will then consider them responsible individually. I will not hold every human being in a position of authority, or every deputy in the sheriff’s office, accountable for the actions of a few.

McClelland’s position on the particular case — which he fraudulently passes off as a critical suspension of judgment, when in fact it is nothing more than overt denialism toward obvious abuse captured on film — is objectionable enough by itself. But what’s even more foolish, and extremely dangerous in the long run, is the notion that a tightly-organized class of people, who exercise such a tremendous advantage over the rest of us in both physical force and legal power, ought to be given every benefit of the doubt when they’re accused of hurting people that they willingly chose to put under their legally-backed and heavily-armed power, and that the basic institutional structures which back up their power cannot be called into question without unfair generalization or stereotyping. When every fucking week brings another story of a Few More Bad Apples causing Yet Another Isolated Incident, and the police department almost invariably doing everything in its power to conceal, excuse, or minimize the violence, even in defiance of the evidence of the senses and no matter how obviously harmless or helpless the victim may be, it defies reason to keep on claiming that there is no systemic problem here. What you have is one of two things: either a professionalized system of control which tacitly permits and encourages cops to exercise this kind of rampant, repeated, intense, and unrepentant abuse against powerless people, or else a system which has clearly demonstrated that it can do nothing effectual to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

Further reading:

• GT 2008-02-18: Cops are here to protect you.
• GT 2008-02-05: Rapists in uniform
• GT 2007-11-09: You got served and protected.

I’ve blogged previously about Doug Den Uyl’s plug for the Anarchism/Minarchism anthology, which reads:

This volume is a much needed revival of a debate critical to Libertarians, but also of significance to political theorists generally. The issue itself goes to the heart of what it means to do political philosophy, and the contributions found here skillfully keep those basic concerns in sight. In addition, I found the writing lucid and fair minded–something often missing in scholarly debate anthologies. I have no doubt that this volume will become a standard reference source for those interested in this particular debate and among the sources one consults when considering the foundations of the state generally.

I see that a second plug has since been added to Ashgate’s page for the book; this one is from Elaine Sternberg, and reads:

The forceful philosophical and historical challenges to the state presented in this volume should be read not just by libertarians, but by everyone who believes that government is either necessary or legitimate.

Incidentally, anyone who is planning both a) to buy the book and b) to attend the Austrian Scholars Conference might want to postpone (a) until (b), because ASC attendees will be able to get 20% off the cover price if they pick up a flier from me at the conference. (Still pretty steep, alas.)

There are so many quotable quotes in my friend Wendy McElroy’s latest blog post this morning (“Act Responsibly: Don’t Vote!!”) that I’m tempted to reprint the whole thing here. But I won’t. Go read it for yourself. In the meantime, chew on these choice bits:

“This November, most people won’t ‘do it’ in the voting booth despite attempts to shame them. They will spend the time on activities that enrich their lives: buying groceries, playing with children, catching up on work.”

“Sometimes political disgust converts non-voting from an act of indifference to one of protest through which people express a word that all politicians fear: ‘no.’ Not just ‘no’ to them but to the entire process.”

“Voting is not an act of political freedom. It is an act of political conformity. Those who refuse to vote are not expressing silence. They are screaming in the politician’s ear: ‘You do not represent me. This is not a process in which my voice matters. I do not believe you.’”

Over at the Attack the System group, Peter Bjørn Perlsø has posed a great question:

If the state is as harmful to human society and reprehensible as anarchists usually say it is, why does it exist at all in the extent that it does today and have done throughout history?

This question isn’t just perceptive; it’s essential to answer when formulating the anarchist alternative. Dain Fitzgerald offered an explanation which I think is sound:

1. A kind of institutional, non-ideological scenario takes place in which the “natural monopoly” of defense consolidates itself.
2. Perhaps ideological, or even pre-ideological, people want to “escape from freedom” and desire the security of the state.

Here’s my take:

I couldn’t agree more, Peter - thanks for bringing this up. Anarchists do well to have an explicit answer to this question in order to better understand their own strategies and principles. As much as we may despise it, the state is a human phenomenon - if you don’t start there, your anarchism is likely to resemble the plot line of the Lord of the Rings.

I think Dain has it right, essentially. However, I don’t think the two reasons he gives are really different reasons. People associate for defensive purposes, but there comes a point where people decide they do not want defense and mere “holding the line” to be a day-to-day concern. Violence in defense of one’s self interests is correctly seen as a horrible necessity, but eventually individuals want to distance themselves from this necessity. The perfect freedom of the unencumbered human is seen as fearful and dangerous and requires moderation; ideally, by principles of law and sound, elite judgment; in practice, by a class of people who decided to assume the terrible burden of engaging in violence.

The state arises from the belief that an essential part of being human can be more effectively realized by delegation than by self acceptance. The reasons behind the delegation may be supernatural or practical; it does not really matter. In the end, we all become less human so that we may have an illusion of peace and justice - indeed, so we can pretend to minimize “risk”, as if simply ignoring danger, violence, and other parts of being human makes them go away or makes the human being any more morally acceptable.

So, as propagandists, I believe anarchists should make arguments that violence is part of the human experience. We deprive ourselves of the chance for peace and justice because we refuse to give ourselves the absolute freedom to pursue it. We refuse because, I believe, we’re afraid of our own power. To pacify ourselves artificially is to strip a certain part of our humanity away.

I don’t mean to over-psychologize this, but I see the state almost as our shadow selves. In the ideal that most people hold (in order to cope with this monopoly on violence), the state comprises the terrible but essential tasks of being human - waging violence, instilling discipline, making final and arbitrary judgmenets, assuming responsibility for moral acts, etc.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter, either via the Attack the System Yahoo! Group or in the comments below.

Meanwhile, among the state Leftists….

At Common Dreams, Progressives discover that party politics has mechanisms to favor insiders, and to make it difficult for candidates to get a nomination without the approval of the party aparat. Most react with horror, and decide to change this stifling state of affairs—by committing themselves even more fervently to partisan politicking. This time in the name of strengthening our democracy, which requires wresting control of the Party out of the hands of the very people who write the rules of engagement. See, if you can win, then you can change things so that the party establishment can’t keep you from winning anymore.

Elsewhere, Stanley Fish discovers that the government-appointed directors of politically-run Universities sometimes put partisanship and political cronyism above academics in appointing senior administrators. The way he reckons it, a good result, if there is one, will not justify a bad practice, and putting someone with no academic experience in charge of an academic institution is just that. Nor is it necessary, even in the straitened circumstances (hardly unique to Colorado) the university faces. There is another way, and Michael Carrigan, one of the three (Democratic) regents to vote against Benson, pointed to it when he told me, I can’t believe that there are no candidates out there with both business acumen and academic credentials. He is right. Those candidates were out there and they still are. Perhaps the next university tempted to go this route will take the trouble to look for them.

Playing the government game and taking the government’s patronage means playing by the government’s rules. The longer you keep walloping at it, the more stuck in it you get. Primary goals — like solidarity and social justice, or intellectual discovery and creation — have already been replaced by secondary goals — like winning elections or tugging on legislative purse-strings. Soon the secondary goals are swallowed up by tertiary goals — spending four-year election cycle after four-year election cycle bashing yourself against the hardened barricades of the Party establishment, or wrangling with political factions over the best process to find and bring in a boss combining the right balance of academic chops with the political connections needed to keep the university mainlining politically appropriated funds. This is no way to make a revolution. It’s not even a way to make small change.

In anarchy, there is another way. When the things that matter most in our lives are the things that we make for ourselves, each of us singly, or with many of us choosing to work together in voluntary associations, there will be no need to waste years of our lives and millions of dollars fighting wars of attrition with back-room king-makers—because we will not need to get any of the things that they are trying to hoard. There will be no need to fight battles between academic senates and Boards of Trustees over the right balance of academic competence and political savvy in a university President —because when universities’ funding rises from the people who participate in, or care about, the academic community, rather than being handed down by the State, the university has no need for political bodies like Boards of Trustees or smooth-operator self-styled Chief Executive Officers. We will not need to get any of the favors that they might be able to grant. When we go after the State’s patronage, politics makes prisoners of us all. But freedom means that when the powers that be try to rope you along for something stupid, or try to snuff out something brilliant, we can turn around, walk away, and do things for ourselves—whether they like it or not.

Further reading:

• GT 2006-04-16: Direct Action and GT 2006-07-06: Direct Action comix #2
• GT 2007-10-25: Radical healthcare reform and GT 2007-11-16: Urban homesteading
• GT 2005-06-25: Shut up and put up and GT 2006-06-16: And around we go…
• GT 2004-05-01: Free the Unions (and all political prisoners)!
• Randolph Bourne (1918): The State, Part II, on the structure and role of the party system

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

I’ve been reading Craig Nelson’s new Thomas Paine bio. So far it’s pretty good on the whole – a bit superficial philosophically and a bit too eager to entertain, but filled with lots of fascinating info I hadn’t known before.

Unfortunately, I’ve come across a major howler. And I fear that where there’s one there’s probably more.

Here’s the howler, from p. 264:

John Locke, surrounded by England’s religious tumult, would come to believe that “truly the Christian religion is the worst of all religions, and ought neither to be embraced by any particular person, nor tolerated by any commonwealth.”

Did John Locke, the great defender of religious toleration and author of The Reasonableness of Christianity, really say that Christianity was unreasonable and shouldn’t be tolerated? If true, this would be a surprising, startling fact that ought to prompt any writer even minimally familiar with the thought of the era to look more closely. But Nelson is evidently neither surprised nor startled.

So what did Locke actually write? Here’s the passage in its original context; judge for yourself whether it says what Nelson thinks it does:

I answer: Is this the fault of the Christian religion? If it be so, truly the Christian religion is the worst of all religions and ought neither to be embraced by any particular person, nor tolerated by any commonwealth. For if this be the genius, this the nature of the Christian religion, to be turbulent and destructive to the civil peace, that Church itself which the magistrate indulges will not always be innocent. But far be it from us to say any such thing of that religion which carries the greatest opposition to covetousness, ambition, discord, contention, and all manner of inordinate desires, and is the most modest and peaceable religion that ever was. We must, therefore, seek another cause of those evils that are charged upon religion.

So did Nelson read the lines he quotes in their original context? If so, how could he have misunderstood them so badly? Or did he read them already excerpted by somebody else? If so, why wasn’t he curious to check the context of such an unlikely quotation? (An endnote informs us that he read them in Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. But the passage isn’t in the Two Treatises, it’s in the Essay on Toleration.)

Now if Nelson can make a mistake this big and this obvious, how likely is it that that’s the only one in the book? Not likely, alas; how many hard-to-catch errors are lurking behind this easy-to-catch one? In fact there’s another somewhat harder-to-catch error, albeit a more minor one, on the immediately following page, where Nelson conflates two different anecdotes about Alexander Hamilton. But are there other, less minor flubs I didn’t catch? That seems the way to bet.

Several sketches of Disney characters, including this one of Pinocchio, are thought to have come from the pen of Adolf Hitler. No kidding. (Conical hat tip to LRC.)

Comparing Hitler’s version of Pinocchio with the original – is it my imagination, or has Hitler altered Pinocchio’s hairstyle to make it look more like … Hitler’s?

Pinocchio’s cap looks more like a traditional Tyrolean hat to me in Hitler’s version than in the original too – less floppy or something:

But I may really just be imagining that one. I feel more sure about the hairstyle, though.

Say, it’s a pity Hitler’s nose didn’t grow longer when he lied.