RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 281 Aviva Chomsky on Activism, Palestine, Immigration, Borders, Ecology, and more
Episode 281 of RevolutionZ has Avi Chomsky as guest to discuss current campus and community activism, colonialism, nation states, immigration, borders, lessons from Central America and the Global South, and the role of students, labor, and religious organizations in sustaining resistance. We consider the logical and emotional innards of dissent, where strategic pursuit of immediate relief intersects with a longer term quest for societal transformation.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I'm the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. Our guest today is Aviva Chomsky. Avi is Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. She has published widely on labor history, immigration and undocumentedness, central America, cuba and Colombia. Her most recent books include Is Science Enough? 40 Critical Questions About Climate Justice, central America's Forgotten History, revolution Violence and the Roots of Migration, and Organizing for Power Building a 21st Century Labor Movement in Boston. The latter is co-edited with Steve Striffler. She has been active in Palestine and Latin America solidarity and immigrants' rights movements for several decades. You can probably tell from the introduction that she can talk on lots of things, and while we probably won't be able to get to all of them time-wise, we will get to some. So, avi, welcome to Revolution Z.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Although I particularly want to get to issues of immigration. How about if we start with what I assume is occupying your mind, like it is occupying mine the incredible US and international outpouring of resistance to Israel's violence in Gaza and, of course, the Israeli policies and US support for them? Where do you think things are headed?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's the worst question to ask a historian. It is really hard to predict where things are headed. And you know that's one of the things that, as a historian, I think about a lot, because people always ask me that question. And you know that's one of the things that, as a historian, I think about a lot, because people always ask me that question. And you know, when we go back to different points in history, unexpected things always happen. So you know, one of the things where I feel like I can answer really clearly about what I think is going to happen is when we talk about climate, because then we're talking about science and, like we actually know, exactly what we're doing and what the effects are going to be.
Speaker 2:But human history is so much more unpredictable than than you know what happens when there's so much CO2 accumulating in the in the atmosphere, so much CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere. But so you know, just in immediate terms. I haven't even had a chance to look at the news throughout the day today. But you know, yesterday evening and early this morning I didn't think Hamas was going to agree to the ceasefire proposal. I didn't think Israel was really going to move into Rafah. And you know, as I said, I have no idea what I'm going to see when I look back at the news. I've just been running around all morning so I haven't had a chance to, but okay. So, but a couple of trends that I guess I can say that I see happening. You know, if we talk about shifting global geopolitics, the decreasing that you know the United States still is the global hegemon, that the United States is going to be finding it more and more necessary to acknowledge the global south here. You know, I was just being reminded recently that in 1947, when the UN partition plan was voted on at the United Nations, the United Nations consisted basically of the global north and since then so many countries of the global south have become independent and are part of the United Nations. So now of course that means the United Nations, the United States won't let the United Nations do anything. But you know, south Africa bringing the case before the ICJ and then Nicaragua bringing the case before the ICJ or the ICC, the capacity and voice of the global South is going to be taking more and more of the global stage. I think I hope more of the global stage. I think I hope, and that can only be good for the Palestinian cause and bad for the imperial ambitions of the United States and Israel. So I guess that's one thing. And then the other thing that we see kind of shifting in the United States is generational. And the other thing that we see kind of shifting in the United States is generational where the younger generation is just not buying the story about Israel being the victim. And you know the ironclad support for Israel and its struggle against terrorism. The younger generation is not buying that story.
Speaker 2:And I have to say just this semester in my classes I am astonished at the political sophistication of some of my students and this is not common. At my institution I teach a class on colonialism and the making of the modern world. I've been teaching that since the early 2000s and every single semester students come into the class. They hear the word colonialism and they think the class is going to be about pilgrims, nation states and how nation states are like. We tend to think of nation states, countries as we call them, as the sort of eternal you know historical, historically real entities but really they're a very modern invention. And this year in my colonialism class it was filled with anti-colonial radicals, like they knew exactly why they were taking that class and what colonialism is.
Speaker 2:And in my class on Latinos in the US, where we read that part about undocumented, all of the students were saying I don't think countries are real and eternal, I don't believe in countries. Where did these students come from? But I think that's emblematic of what we're seeing in the younger generation with respect to Israel, but also with respect to some of the propaganda and institutions that the older generations have been, you know, trying to brainwash generation after generation about the, you know the superiority of the American system and capitalism and the American dream and all of these things. The younger generations, they are seeing climate, they are seeing debt, they are seeing the world, and they're seeing the global South and they're seeing race, and they are seeing the world from a different perspective. So I think that is also something that is happening that is really heartening, as horrific and distressing everything that's happening day to day is because it's almost like this is embryonic and we need it to be now, and it's not there yet, even though it's growing and in the case of both climate and Gaza.
Speaker 2:Like we can't wait another 20 years for this generation to be in charge. We need the change now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wonder. I don't know exactly what's been going on at Salem State, but the change that you describe has struck me also, and I don't even have a classroom in which I can be hit over the head by it. And in particular, with respect to Palestine, the scale of the outpouring for Palestinians took me by surprise. It just it was big and then it was huge. I recognize that speed from way back when. But still, it's not about initially at least the US, it's about another country and that level of awareness and passion is remarkable. So I agree with you about that Go ahead.
Speaker 2:It's not about the US, it's about another country, but it is also about the.
Speaker 1:US. It is also about the US, of course. I think it really goes beyond Palestine.
Speaker 2:I think that there's a really deep identification with anti-capitalist and anti-colonial global critiques. Well, that's what I want to ask you. Okay, but that's what?
Speaker 1:I want to ask you, in your own classes and whatever you've seen beyond that also, the extent to which what's happening is outrage, totally justifiable outrage at a particular phenomenon, you know, a genocidal assault on a people, I mean, how can you not be outraged about that? But the extent to which it goes beyond that and is, you know, sort of morphing into or even produced by what you're suggesting, a more general rejection of existing relations, rejection of the economy and the polity and so on, what's your impression of that?
Speaker 2:Perhaps rejection of is too strong a term, but I would say critique of or disillusionment with, and you know there's a couple of different factors. One is, I think, if we sort of look at, the progression of Vietnam ended when I was in high school, so it was a little bit before my time Of Palestine with regard to Central America, with regard to South Africa, apartheid and so like all of those were about other places in a way, but they were all about the United States too. But I feel like this generation, like those roots, are there. And you know, civil rights was definitely before my time, except in Boston, of course, where we're still fighting the good fight. But you know, the progression that I see is forming these students as they're coming into college is sort of like Occupy, black Lives Matter and climate justice. And you know, occupy may have been in some ways or, you know, maybe even anti-globalization, if we want to go back to before 9-11. Now this is before the days of most of my students, but I still think it. You know it had roots and impacts.
Speaker 2:Anti-globalization movements got sort of derailed after 9-11 and all of the xenophobia and national security state and everything following 9-11.
Speaker 2:But Occupy was a pretty deep critique of capitalism, I think, really awakened a lot of people to an analysis of, like structural racism and what it has to do with the economy, and not so much in terms of movements although there are movements around this but I don't think they've been as big in terms of forming students' ideas. But climate and debt are ideas that they just that are forming this generation and they're thinking like they know there's something wrong with the global economic system that and you know, putting it to, putting all of those things form a sort of a stew feel like they have no political voice, like they know we live in a so-called democracy, but I have yet to meet a student who feels like they have a political voice in the country, you know, at least through mainstream political channels. So you know, perhaps the spark or the urgency of the genocide was more is that people feel like, okay, this is something we can do. Like, rather than just sitting around and being upset about this is something that we can actually do.
Speaker 1:I have two lines of questionings. I don't know how to do both, but I'll tell you what they are and you can go in whichever way you want.
Speaker 1:You know, from what you just said, one is and please don't take this wrong but you mentioned Black Lives Matter, you mentioned Occupy, you mentioned climate. You mentioned there was something missing Debt no, me Too. Oh Me Too. Yes, yeah, but I don't think that's an. I think nowadays it is somewhat missing. Oh Me anger.
Speaker 1:The frustration is all sitting there and it has been sitting there In my mind. It's been sitting there for 55, 60 years. I mean, that's there. I even think it's there in the regular population, right, which is very different than when the 1960s emerged and we all thought corporations are great, they're for the people, lawyers are for justice, doctors are for health, and on and on and on. People really believed all that.
Speaker 1:And then along came the civil rights movement and the war and we became furious at the hypocrisy that we had been lied to, in other words, because the lie was revealed. I don't think that happens nowadays. I don't think students are deceived at all. I mean, at some level everybody knows everything's broken and what's going on. So the question becomes and you partially answered it okay why does Gaza spark everything, spark the giant response? And two months before, same political level, same awareness level, same frustration, two months before you know much less is happening.
Speaker 1:Well, why does occupy do that, or why does me to do that, or why does you know, in other words, what causes the surge and why don't the surges last, beyond the the precipitating thing, because those are the, I mean, that's what's going to determine whether we're watching another surge that stops, which is very. You know, summer is coming and it's a killer. I mean, summer is like a serial killer of movements. So I know I just asked a lot. I apologize, but it means that your words, you know, sparked a lot. So that's good. So take up anything you want.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know why? Why don't searches last? I feel that there is something specific to the United States in terms of the fragmentation of the left and the lack of institutional continuity in the left. So we don't have a political party system here and in other parts of the world, say in Latin America you know I won't even talk about Europe but in Latin America you see the political party system where you actually have parties of the left that last for generations and that people are raised in and that are so deeply embedded into so many different social institutions in the country and also play a role in a democratic political system. When there is a democratic political system but the parties survive the dictatorships and they come back. Oh, and then you know there's labor movements and you know the way that the US labor movement was kind of seduced into the Cold War mentality and the guns and butter business unionism. So I think the lack of parties and the lack of a strong left labor union movement in the United States has meant that it's been really difficult to build institutional continuity that can survive a summer when students go home. And why so much of politics in the United States seems to be these flashes in the pan and then people moving on.
Speaker 2:You know there are some, you know, I think. Just think about Lynn, massachusetts, which is, you know, two towns away from me, where there is still a big industry, ge, and there is a leftist union there that has been there for decades and the way that organizational culture in Lynn differs from any other town I've ever been in is just incredible. Like having the long-term generational presence of a left-leaning union in the town. So at the May Day rally and I'm not there every year, but I'm there frequently you just see the way that different like, first of all, just the level of community organizing that goes on in Lynn and the different kinds of organizations. It's a heavily immigrant community, so there's a lot of different immigrant rights organizations focusing on different issues. There's the union, of course. There's just so much going on. You feel like you've gone into a different century or something when you go to Lynn and see these, when they bring these people together. But I do feel like the union and its continuity has been a really important way of avoiding that flash in the pan issue.
Speaker 2:Now, in other parts of the you know where you don't have those churches, religious institutions have become the kind of a backbone where progressive organizing can can take this kind of generational, you know, going beyond the flesh and the pan. But those are much weaker in so many ways because well, and this is something that happened in Lynn One of the organizations that the city leftist coalition has worked with for years is the Essex County Community Organization, echo, which is an interfaith organization that works mostly on racial justice and immigrant rights issues. So it's been very, you know, much part of the progressive coalition, but they do everything by consensus, and not all of the churches or synagogues, but even more than the synagogues is the evangelical churches, and some of the Catholic churches would adopt the ceasefire cause, and the May Day Coalition decided that ceasefire had to be absolutely prominent in their demands this year, and so the religious organizations dropped out. So even if they can be kind of progressive, once you move from progressive into the left it gets a lot more complicated, I think, for organizing based in the churches. So that's what I have to say about surges and like flashes in the pan In terms of Gaza.
Speaker 2:I think that, in addition to the just absolute horror of what's going on there, it's the disgusting mendaciousness of our political leaders, even those who have tried to pose as pseudo-progressives like Biden, and you know, elizabeth Warren, and you know here in Massachusetts, just their sycophancy towards Israel and no matter what crime Israel commits. It's like, oh, but we love Israel so much and people hate feeling like they're being lied to. And the outrage at not just what Israel's doing but at what our country is doing and at the lies we are being spoon fed day after day after day, I think are also contributing to the outrage. And you know clearly it is just something that's happening over there, but I think that everybody knows that it's not really Israel, it's the United States. So I don't think it feels as over there as some other things that are happening in the world do. I think people really feel that it's over here too.
Speaker 1:But that does require some understanding, obviously, which people have. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:You can't help understanding because the United States is vetoing every ceasefire resolution. The United States is sending billions. Those bombs are made in the USA. It's not really hidden.
Speaker 1:It's not hidden at all. If there's one thing about this that's really unique, it's that people are bragging about it, not hiding it. I mean, they're literally. Ordinarily, you expect a massive effort to disguise, to rationalize to, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, some of that's going on, but for the most part it is really right out in the open. But for the most part, it is really right out in the open and it is really even bragged about, I mean.
Speaker 1:But people can manage to take the wrong side. I've gotten emails from very smart, intelligent, sophisticated, in-touch people that, on this issue, say the most insane things that are immediately self-contradictory. I mean, the gap between them and the person who supports Trump, who has a working class background, et cetera, et cetera, and who is denying their own existence by what they're saying, is minuscule. I mean, it's the same phenomenon, right? It's the same tribe and, to me at least, I'm much more angry at upset with the person who has access to all the information and who does it than the person who is in a situation where their position is understandable, albeit wrong, you know. You can sympathize with it, Anyway.
Speaker 2:There's just one other thing you mentioned, which was Me Too, and why did I leave that out, and why is it not so much a part of the discourse?
Speaker 2:And that is actually not something that I had thought about in depth before, but I do feel like, in terms of it's like we didn't really see the kind of street mobilization occupations that that that are very inspiring to young people, in terms of thinking like we could really make change, I think Me Too felt a little bit more mainstream, like it's happening through the legal system, it's happening through the mainstream media. It's I don't think it had that kind of emotional sense like this could really change the world, like we can do it and we can change the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the other part of what you were saying. That, I think, is I mean, one reason for not doing stuff is there is no alternative. Not that you're going to lose, but it wouldn't matter if you were strong enough to win, because there is nothing else. So that's one obstacle. And then the other obstacle is even if you have something else in mind, even if you have a clear picture of something else, you can't win because we've gotten to a point where the other side is just too damn strong, and so your answer sort of suggested that these various things that have been happening have been chipping away at the other side is too strong argument, in other words, we don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:Nothing we do can have an impact that's getting chipped away at the moment considerably, although again there's this problem if they go into Rafah and if things really I mean things can get worse. In fact, the agenda is for things to get worse. I thought from day one Israel's agenda was kill them or exile them, period.
Speaker 2:I mean, they said it straight out. They said it yeah, Did you listen to the ICJ hearings. I listened to the entire South Africa case I couldn't take it.
Speaker 1:I couldn't, even I couldn't stand to listen to the Israeli case, but I did listen to the South Africa case.
Speaker 1:Oh, I read the South African case, right, yeah, and it was clear enough, yeah. And actually the other thing that that says is that their strategy, their choices, actually all make sense once you accept the destination. Why are they bombing schools? Why are they bombing hospitals? Well, they're bombing out schools and hospitals so you have no place to go back to, no place to stay, and you can either die or leave. You know, if that's what you want to do, what they're doing makes sense. It's incredible, but it makes sense. But it's not that you know they're still small fry compared to the US.
Speaker 1:I mean you know, they're more blatant, you know, and per capita it's arguably as intense as Vietnam was, maybe more so, but the scale is still another thing. I still think the crucial point for people who are trying to win, who are trying to establish something new, resides in that area. Who's an organizer to overcome the feelings of cynicism or of defeatism or of there is nothing else? What can one do to overcome that? And to me it seems obvious, and yet I could be just completely wrong. If you want to overcome the belief that you can win, and if you want to overcome the belief that that you can't win, and if you want to overcome the belief that there is nothing else, you have to talk about the something else and how to win.
Speaker 1:Why don't left political people understand that? Why do they keep writing over and over again that poverty hurts, war hurts, bombs hurt, people are dying. You know, everybody knows, that has been communicated. And the thing which people are revealing stops them is the belief that there's nothing better, it's the way it is, period, and the belief that, even if there is something better, we can't win it. And I wonder I mean you have a lot of interaction with left faculty, I suspect- Not on my campus, but nationally All right, but okay.
Speaker 2:We don't have left faculty on my campus.
Speaker 1:Well, you got you, but in any case, where are the courses on? This is how things could be. You know, where are the courses on? This is how things could be. Where are the courses on? And then the talks on the speeches, on the writing, on the articles on. I mean, I get millions of articles because of all the years of flow of stuff. There's so little on how to win, on what to win. Why is that?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean one thing, I think, is that a lot of it is coming from the global South. And you know, one thing that always really strikes me is you know, I have worked mostly in Latin America, in Central America, in Cuba, in most recently, primarily in Colombia, colombia, south America, that is the country, not the university, and the region where I work in Colombia is unbelievably poor and marginalized. It's mostly desert and most of the population is indigenous and afro-descended. Um, you know, if you read james scott, a kind it's been a kind of a shatter zone where people escaped to during colonial times and a zone of refuge, um, you know, outside of state authority, and really there was no state presence in the region until this multinational mine came in in the 1980s. And there's still really no state presence in the region.
Speaker 2:But now the mine has, like, brought state-like activities, both in terms of repression and also in terms of social services. And, to the extent that there is any government, people there always say you know, all the politicians are in the pocket of the mine. So you know, they're basically the servants of the mind. So you know, people there don't have water, the illiteracy rate is 65%, they don't have healthcare, they don't have schools, they don't have food, they don't have shelter, they don't have anything. And they are some of the most politically mobilized people I've ever seen. And every time I go there it's like OK, so we're planning the civic strike and we need you to support us by doing this, and we're planning this protest and we're going to be doing occupation here. We're doing this and doing that, doing this and doing that.
Speaker 2:Nobody ever stops to say, oh, but it's not going to make any difference, we're not going to be able to win. And then, when I come back to the United States, I mean I get inspired and energized by being there and like is this the highest phase of imperialism, where we have to extract our motivation from the third world? You know, I don't want their resources, I just want their resources, I just want their, their inspiration. But hopefully people feel better about sharing that. But but that, this feeling like we can't do it here, so we have to go there to get it. And then I come back here and I give talks about what's going on and the first thing anybody says oh, but well, what can?
Speaker 2:we do? What can we do? Should we stop buying coal? Should we boycott coal? No, that is not going to help anybody. Yes, of course we should stop using coal, but that's not going to help anybody in La Guajira, if that's what you want to do. And so the extraordinary depoliticization and sense of failure and lack of alternatives here, I think, is a product of the system. And in Colombia the system is just much less lived. In Cuba under the revolution, you know. Now, now Colombia has the, the, the tradition of leftist activism in politics is very strong, whether through revolutionary means or you know the Chilean road to socialism. You know, this is one of the things that if you study Latin America, you know about, and if you are in Latin America, you know about. So you know, partly it's because the system has been less successful in just convincing people that it's the only way.
Speaker 1:But I used to, ages ago. I used to see that. But I also would say to myself okay, so in China they're going to make a revolution. What do they have to communicate to more and more people? Because you get more and more involvement, more and more commitment, etc. Etc. Basically, food is better than starvation. Having something to eat and a little bit of dignity is more than enough to battle for. But then you come back to the United States, based upon our ripping everybody off forever, and you ask what do you have to convince people of? And I think it's something much larger. In other words, there's not this obvious. The Columbia left when you encounter it. Okay, so it has spirit, it has energy, it has demands, it has actions. Does it have a vision? That would matter, that would convince somebody in the United States that they should give a significant part of their life to change the United States. Similarly, or England, or France, or wherever. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I think people in the United States are capable of being inspired by the idea that another world is possible.
Speaker 1:It's not easy, though.
Speaker 2:In terms of what are the ideas for what this other world could look like. Let me just mention two really it's not easy, though. North One is plurinationalism, the idea that the nation state is not the state of one people, it's the state of many peoples who all, as peoples, have rights and sovereignty within the nation state, that a nation state does not have to be a nation state, it can be a plurinational state. And the other is Buen Vivir, and interestingly, both plurinationalism and Buen Vivir are coming primarily out of the Andean countries and the other parts of Latin America, but have spread to other parts of Latin America, but especially those regions with large indigenous populations that have been marginalized and colonized and fighting against.
Speaker 2:You know we talk about settler colonialism as characterizing certain parts of the world, like the United States. You know the British settler colonies, the US, canada, australia, new Zealand. But there's also a move now to think about. What does settler colonialism mean in Latin America, as opposed to ordinary colonialism, where the Spanish colonized and then they left? Well, what characterizes settler colonialism is that colonizers never left right. It's a structure, not an event. But in many ways, latin America also fits that concept of settler colonialism because Euro-descended people still dominate indigenous people, and indigenous people have been utterly marginalized from the states that were formed in Latin America after independence. So in that respect they share some similarities with settler colonialism.
Speaker 2:Also has come out of increasingly strong indigenous movements in Latin America that the goal of the economy and of the state should be not to promote economic growth and increasing consumption and this road to environmental destruction. It has an environmental aspect, but also a socio-political aspect, that living well means living in harmony with the natural world. And that means questioning the entire capitalist system, because the capitalism cannot live in harmony with the natural world, because capitalism is the idea that you have to keep progressing by. So the whole concept of economic development and what it's supposed to mean and how it's supposed to happen is being challenged with this idea that the goal should be living well rather than getting more, and that living well has it's a stance toward climate, it's a stance toward capitalism. And you know it's been written into the constitutions of several and the rights of nature in Ecuador and in Bolivia and it's a very prominent idea in Latin America. And these are both of these, I think, are ideas that are not widely known in the global north. They're not unknown in the global north but they're, you know, off in the far corners of academia rather than in kind of mainstream political discourse.
Speaker 2:But I think Puendirir, which in more academic circles like the People's Declaration of Cochabamba from Bolivia it was a Global South initiative with a very strong indigenous participation from 2010, tells us exactly what is a really fundamentally anti-capitalist from 2010, tells us exactly what a is a really fundamentally anti-capitalist, but also anti-capitalist from an environmental perspective. And you can see a kind of a harmony between, like scholarly, de-growth economics that talk, that challenge capitalism and the idea that looking at economics through ecological economics, that is, production, you know, the extracting, producing, consuming and throwing away for the profit of the few is basically how the capitalist system works and you have to keep all the pieces of it going. That is inherently incompatible with environmental survival, especially in the era of climate change, but even well before that, that degrowth and buenier asked the question of what are basic human needs and also granting rights to nature. That is, that instead of just producing more and more, we need to ask that the economy should be based on not some people making a profit but meeting the basic human needs of the planet.
Speaker 1:And more than basic. See, sometimes I mean I like part of it, but then there's a part of it that bothers me. Let's call it. There's nothing wrong with meeting more than basic needs. And there's nothing wrong with more if the more is aimed at human well-being and development.
Speaker 2:But that's why I'm talking about the economy, Like what are we producing and consuming? And there's lots of other things that don't rely on extraction and production and consumption and waste that are incorporated in Buen Vivir waste that are incorporated in Buen Vivir.
Speaker 1:So the issue is smart production good. Stupid production, self-defeating production, suicidal production, production that benefits only a few bad. But when it starts to drift over into production bad, it's making a mistake. I don't think it should do that.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say production redistributed, because if by production we're talking about extraction and industrial production and consumption and waste, that actually does have to be reduced if we're going.
Speaker 1:I mean, we've already exceeded 1.5.
Speaker 2:If we want to keep it below 2, we have to lower that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Which also means we have to reorient a lot. Well, we have to redistribute. Producing solar panels is not a bad idea, we have to redistribute. Yes, because as long as there are people whose basic human needs are not being met, we should not be thinking about producing more for those of us whose basic human needs are met. I mean that's basic justice.
Speaker 1:I agree, but it might not be the best way to couch things in order to develop a movement that's capable of accomplishing what you want to accomplish.
Speaker 2:Well, most people who I have talked to feel like if they felt it would really make a difference. They are excited about imagining living differently.
Speaker 1:Sure, I agree. I mean, we're shifting into global climate issues, et cetera, et cetera. So let me ask you a question about that, because it came up much earlier in what you were saying. What do you young, radical, well-motivated blah, blah, blah who says you can't have a sensible climate outcome, you can't deal with the current crises unless you've already eliminated capitalism?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think we have time to eliminate capitalism.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So what do you say now?
Speaker 2:So we have to control it, starting right now.
Speaker 1:And the young person says stop it with controlling capitalism. Capitalism is problematic, it is gross. For all these reasons, we have to get rid of it. And you say, yes, I agree. I agree, all these reasons, we have to get rid of it. And you say, yes, I agree, I agree. But then this person says reducing fossil fuel, that's just a reform, reducing this or that it's just a reform. How do you deal with that? I'm asking you, like, personally, how do you deal with it? You probably encounter it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I feel like every political movement that I've been involved in since my early college days has had to negotiate between how can we make things better for real people right now while at the same time struggling for larger goals that we're not going to see next year or maybe even in our lifetimes not going to see next year or maybe even in our lifetimes? And the answer for me has always been trying to look at smaller scale projects that contribute to a larger scale project. So you don't want to choose a smaller scale project that goes in counter to the larger goals you're struggling for. You want to be a drop in the bucket towards the larger goal that you're struggling for. You want to be a drop in the bucket towards the larger goal that you're struggling for, and keeping those two in mind like understanding how your small piece of the puzzle fits into the larger piece. So, whether it's, you know, working with the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant in the early 1980s to try to get Central American refugees connected to housing and health care and things like that, Like yeah, we're not going to change the world by helping three refugees get urgent medical care that they need.
Speaker 2:It's a good thing in and of itself, but we contextualize it with, like educational events and political events about like, why are we in this situation, when are these people coming from and why and how do we have to change US policy? So you know, I feel like pretty much every issue that I've been involved in. You know, when we were doing Palestine work after the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, we were organizing runs for Palestinian universities. We're raising money for Palestinian universities. We're raising money for scholarship funds for students on the West Bank. So, yeah, you know, we're actually going to help three or four students get access to higher education, but that's not the whole goal. The whole goal is trying to end the Israeli occupation. But this is a piece of working towards the whole goal and we never stop talking about the whole goal.
Speaker 1:That's the thing.
Speaker 2:It's not like we just want this one person to go to college and then we're done, we're going to be happy, and the same thing with the work in Colombia. It's all about articulating projects that contribute to the larger goal, but that are also going to help the people who need help right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the manner or the likelihood that they're going to contribute to the larger goal is, of course, totally dependent upon how you talk about them and what you say and how you. So the crucial thing is there. I think almost anything that helps people has merit. You can imagine larger. Sanders just came out for a 32-hour work week and a little thing attached to it, which wasn't noticed much, was people should not get less income, so wages should be raised also. Now he could have added wages should be raised up until a certain level and after that you do get a smaller income. Wages should be raised up until a certain level and after that you do get a smaller income. Then it's even more redistributive. And maybe he could have added you know, when you're down to 30 hours in the week, I don't know exactly how you would formulate it, but the extent to which you can use that additional time for your union or for your this, this or four-year, that in part is also non-reform. I mean, it also contributes to the longer-term future.
Speaker 1:But immigration is coming up. So let me ask you a question about immigration Not so much. Why are people doing it? That is, why are people looking for another place to be. If you want to talk about it, okay, but the question I have for you is in line with this whole idea of non-reformist reform struggles, of battling for something in a way that also moves forward, and in line with the idea of contributing to that process. What's the demand? Is the open borders demand which most people I think I'm not even sure about this, but I think most people who are really concerned about immigration and coming immigration problems due to global warming, et cetera have in mind is open borders and I wonder two things open borders now viable? In other words, can you is open borders and I wonder two things open borders now viable? In other words, can you say open borders and organize around open borders, as compared to some change in quota or this side of the other thing, usefully or effectively? And is open borders even correct in the long run?
Speaker 2:correct in the long run. Okay, yes, I can talk about all that. So I am an advocate of open borders.
Speaker 1:I'm an advocate of no borders.
Speaker 2:I'm an advocate of four national states without borders all over the world. But yeah, I mean, as a historian, you know the world had open borders until very recently and somehow humans survived without having borders that tried to restrict freedom of movement. I think freedom of movement is a human right and you know, we need to rethink what we mean by sovereignty. We need to rethink what we mean by borders. The borders of today's world are created to maintain colonial and post-colonial inequality. That's the main reason for borders in today's borders. They're completely illegitimate and there's no reason to talk about maintaining them or defining sovereignty in terms of militarized borders, again, these are just really contemporary iterations of colonialism and apartheid. I would say so.
Speaker 2:I have no love for borders at all. At the same time, I often use the comparison of how borders between the states of the United States work, like the border between Massachusetts and Connecticut. Like we can have an open border that has a legal existence. Like there actually is a border between Massachusetts and Connecticut. The speed limit changes when you cross that border. You know medical marijuana or I don't know. Like states have different laws in many ways.
Speaker 2:So there's no contradiction between legal borders and freedom of movement. So you can have a border that says, like, once you cross into the United States you have to obey the speed limits and you have to pay your taxes, and it's just the same ways when you cross the border from Massachusetts into Connecticut, that having a border does not mean restriction of freedom of movement. So if you want to keep borders for other reasons, without militarizing them and using them to to to imprison people in poor countries, that can also be done.
Speaker 1:What would?
Speaker 2:you say, Whether you call it open borders or no borders is fine with me, I don't care. But In terms of the realistic nature of what can we fight for in the next six months and year and lifetime, I'd like to look at how have we made the border more policed, more militarized, more dangerous, more repressive in, say, the past 10 years? Can we start rolling back those things, Like that's a more realistic way of saying OK, what can we do right now to demilitarize, decriminalize and dismantle the repressive apparatus of the border, bit by bit, just by rolling back some of the most draconian human rights violations that we have put into place at the border itself? So that's one piece of what we can fight for I think is about precisely the border and the militarization of the border, but also even beyond the border, in our relations with Mexico, in our militarization of Mexico's southern border, in our relations with Guatemala, in our militarization of Guatemala's southern border. That is, there's a whole infrastructure that goes way beyond the southern border of the United States and it also extends well into the United States.
Speaker 2:The criminalization of immigration is a set of policies that have been put into place over the past couple of decades that I think we can realistically talk about reversing. If it's only been there for a year, we can talk about how it was before and we can undo it. So that's part of it, but another piece of it is, you know, you started out by saying, well, you're not going to ask why people migrate. But I think we have to ask why people migrate, and the vast majority of migrants do not want to leave their homes.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot to uproot somebody from their history, from their community, from their life.
Speaker 2:Like, yes, there's always going to be a few people out there, like my daughter, who actually just want to travel because they're excited about living somewhere else, but that's not the vast majority of people who migrate.
Speaker 2:And if migration were to be reduced to that tiny percentage of people my daughter lives in Japan right now nobody would be talking about it, but the vast majority of people who migrate would much rather stay home if they had the chance, the choice, but they don't. So, thinking about how we got to the place where so many people are forced to leave their home and to advocate for what David Bacon calls the right to remain home and this also connects us back to the climate issue and to some of the issues of global economic justice that I think are so deeply tied into the way, should be tied into the way we talk about climate so we should not have vastly different standards of living on different sides of a border, and the reason we have those is the same as the reason that we have the border to keep that division and to maintain different legal structures that keep people poor in one place and legal and military structures that keep people poor in one place and keep people over consuming and destroying the planet.
Speaker 2:And then you have, you know, the people suffering the effects of climate change in the poor regions. So that's where you know the people suffering the effects of climate change in the poor regions. So that's where you know, the People's Agreement of Cochabamba that I was starting to talk about before, and then we got distracted. But that was put together in 2010. And if you look at it today, it's like wow, if only we had listened to them in 2010, we wouldn't be where we are now. These are the issues that are still being debated in every COP meeting that goes on. It's like wow, the global North still hasn't opened its eyes, but the global South was saying this what is it 25 years ago? No, 15 years ago, no, 15 years ago.
Speaker 1:So combine the two discussions, the two recent discussions. There is this immigration issue situation. It has gotten steadily worse over, let's say, the last 10 or 20 years. One wants to do something about it, and so what to do? And the prior discussion was do things that make the situation better for people who are suffering and suffering more and simultaneously do it in a way and with words and with activities also that are going to lead to people wanting more and are going to lead further, are going to lead to people wanting more and are going to lead further. And so now, with immigration, it sounds like you're saying the way to do that is okay. The first half is pretty obvious rollback, horror and, when possible, introduce something positive, not just a rollback but the talking about it. I guess maybe what you're saying is sufficient, but I'm not sure that it is. Let's take the example of Connecticut and Massachusetts. Suppose it was the case that on one side of that border people were living at least relatively well compared to the other side, significantly so.
Speaker 2:But that's not the case because we don't have a border Significantly so, but that's not the case because we don't have a border.
Speaker 1:If you eliminate the border between a better circumstance and a worse circumstance, well, better circumstances and worse circumstances don't just happen.
Speaker 2:They are historical products right. Of course, they're the product of relationships between imperial powers and their colonies in general.
Speaker 2:And the construction of the borders, whether they are internal borders, like in the United States restricting citizenship to white people. That's an internal border right. So only some everybody can be physically present, but they can't all be part of the country. And really, if you look at the history, restrictions on immigration only start when those internal borders are broken down, when citizenship by birth is created. That is when the border becomes an issue and restricting the freedom of movement across borders becomes an issue, internal borders that can completely deprive people of rights when they are physically present. Then, when those internal borders break down, like with the abolition of slavery and the creation of birthright citizenship, that is when the restrictions on the border start to be implemented, start to be implemented. So borders are created to deprive people of rights, people who are part of the same, whether it's the same geographical area or the same economic system to deprive some of them of rights.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure I'm hearing. I'm understanding totally, but it sounds like you're saying and I've never heard it before the internal border is not a line, it's a set of rules or understandings that are enforced, that keep people in line, that keep those who are deprived, or so, for instance, Differential rights to different people.
Speaker 1:And then you're saying okay, if for some reason and the reason is probably going to be social activism, but whatever if for some reason those borders start to weaken, then you have to keep those people out. And that's when you have to keep the external facing border, so to speak, stronger. You have to put people on one side and not on the other side.
Speaker 2:Right Back to Palestine, yeah, back to Palestine, yeah, back to Palestine.
Speaker 1:Well, isn't it the archetype example of this kind of dynamic?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is. If Israel wants to be a democracy, it cannot allow for the right of return. It has to close the border to Palestinians in order to claim to be a democracy internally.
Speaker 1:Do you think it's conceivable that there is at least a slight erosion of the asymmetry between Jewish and Palestinian constituencies inside Israel and the increasing energy put into literally exiling those in Gaza and perhaps next to West Bank? I mean, I don't know much about the situation inside Israel proper, so to speak, where there are Palestinians and there are Jewish. Is the situation between them changing? Because we just described a situation in which, if Spanish-speaking people in the United States are, by whatever dynamic, getting a bit more rights, getting a bit more access, et cetera inside the country, then you have to solidify the border to keep the numbers down. Is there any analogy here?
Speaker 2:It's not a perfect analogy because, first of all, so if you look at from, say, 1948 to 1967, Palestinian Israelis lived under military rule, right Under a completely different legal structure than Jewish Israelis did, Right Under a completely different legal structure than Jewish Israelis did After. So, after 67, there was a transition to democracy in Israel where Palestinian Israelis had supposedly equal rights, but more important than equal rights internally, because that was much of that is a facade, because there's very important legal distinctions that in terms of land ownership, in terms of the privileges that come with military service and who is who is mobilized for military service Jews. Who has access to land ownership? Jews. So there's some very clear legal apartheid, as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem, the Israeli Human Rights Organization, use the term freely to describe not only the situation on the West Bank and Gaza, but also inside 1948 boundaries 1948 boundaries. But Israel needs to present to the world a facade of democracy. So Palestinian Israelis do have political rights, they can vote, they can serve in the Knesset, and that is a big part of how Israel presents itself as a democracy to the larger world.
Speaker 2:But that is precisely why Israel will not. I mean, Israel has opened borders for Jews right, but Israel will not even in the remotest terms acknowledge the right of return for Palestinians who have left, and that there is this or you know, who were driven out in 1948, who have been forced out or left since 1948. So, and there has been an ongoing attempt to expel Palestinians not only from inside 48, but also from the West Bank and Gaza, given that large sectors of Israeli society are still firm believers in from the river to the sea. You know one state, Israel, where where we bring in as many Jews as possible and kick out as many Palestinians as possible. So I would say that, yes, the facade of democracy and political rights as citizens for Palestinian Israelis does depend on Israel's complete negation of the right of return, but I wouldn't say that that has particularly changed since 1967.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that change is the change in 1967 is real and the subsequent dynamic is real.
Speaker 2:Well, but the right of return was absolutely off the table before 67 as well, because even with the military rule for the Palestinian population before 67, Israel still wanted to present the facade of a democracy, and you can only have a democracy for Jews when you have a numerical majority. I mean a democracy for only Jews. When you have a numerical majority of Jews Right To have a democracy, to have a Jewish state that you call a democracy.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've gotten far. I wanted to ask you one last question. Let's try and do it in a not too long an answer, because you have another commitment Among your students. Is there any comprehension of the validity of, look, this election too? There is a much lesser and a much greater evil. Fine to say stop Trump, then bash Biden. Bad to say never Biden and to mean it so that you just stay home or whatever, at least in swing states, you know, in contested states. Is there any awareness or is it just Never Biden?
Speaker 2:I would say not only among students, but in my own mind this is a struggle, and among some of my closest friends, it is a struggle, yeah, okay you know I'm I live in a blue state and usually I vote a protest vote because I live. I know that I live in a blue state.
Speaker 1:Um, but that's following what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:Or not. Voting is following what I'm saying. I've never voted for a presidential candidate.
Speaker 2:Not once. And we promoted the voting against Biden in the primary which, in the case of Massachusetts, was voting. I think it was voting, I can't even remember because, the organizations went and round. But I think in the end here it was voting no preference but we were part of the national vote for ceasefire in the primary.
Speaker 1:Which was fine, as far as I was concerned, it's excellent right.
Speaker 2:I can't even remember if it was 2016 or 2020 where because I do a lot of bike riding and when I ride my bike I usually go into, like wealthy parts of Massachusetts because that's where the great biking facilities are. I saw a lot of Trump signs and again, I can't remember which, which one it was, but there was one where I decided I actually was going to have to vote. I guess it must have been 2020, because I think it was Biden who I decided I was going to have to vote for, or maybe it was Clinton, I don't know.
Speaker 2:But because I just wasn't sure that Massachusetts was even going to go blue after all the signs I was seeing. You know, the counter argument, which I have heard from a lot of young people, and which I, um have a lot of sympathy for, is that if we keep giving in and voting for the Democrats, no matter how bad they are like, we have to teach them a lesson that they cannot take us for granted, um, and that refusing to vote for them is the best way that we can do that.
Speaker 2:So I'm pretty sure that in the end I'm going to cave and vote for him, but I have to say that I have a lot of sympathy for that position also.
Speaker 1:Unless it was a contested state, I wouldn't vote for him. So it's not as if you know state I wouldn't vote for him. So it's not as if you know. But I don't see how the problem of putting more pressure on the Democrats is enhanced, is propelled by allowing Trump to transform the entire apparatus of the United States into a disgusting mess, and it isn't even just Trump. Now it's the Republican Party, but I don't want to debate it or argue it out.
Speaker 1:I wanted to get a feeling for it, for what's going on In 1968, here you don't have to respond to this personally personally, but in 1968 I and everybody I knew didn't think twice, didn't give it an iota of attention to vote for humphrey over nixon. It wouldn't even enter your mind, right? I I don't even know whether it entered noam's mind, but it certainly didn't enter any of our minds that we would Inconceivable. Now it's conceivable People, and I think that's more sophistication, not less, among the radicals, among the people who are out there. You know, doing encampment, that it does at least enter people's minds as a possibility. But I fear that it needs to enter people's minds as more than a possibility, or we're going to get Trump and I do think that would be absolutely catastrophic.
Speaker 2:It would be but Biden's pretty catastrophic too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but not remote.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I don't want to argue it.
Speaker 1:I don't want to argue it either, so all right, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I just it's not completely obvious to me. I hope something happens so that we have another choice, although we just learned yesterday that we have a very right-wing Democrat as our congressional rep here in my district and we were trying desperately to get another candidate to run against him in November. So we've been collecting signatures and we just learned yesterday that we didn't get enough.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, anyway, maybe they'll both disappear and we can have a real choice, who knows? My usual final question is there something that we didn't cover but that you really feel an urgent need to cover now?
Speaker 2:No, we did a great job.
Speaker 1:Okay and we'll get another shot. Maybe we'll have another shot in the end of the summer and then we can talk about the electorate issue, which will be front and center, and duke it out or agree. I bet by. Then we're going to agree completely center and duke it out, or agree, I bet by then, we're going to agree completely, but we'll see, okay, all that said, thank you for doing this, and this is Mike Albert signing off. Until next time for Revolution Z.