Book Review: “Pilgrims’s Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier” by Tom Kizzia – posted 8/27/2013
I suppose I have a fascination with crazy people who do things that are very out of the ordinary. This book, “Pilgrims’ Wilderness”, by Tom Kizzia has that but it veers in a very dark direction.
The book tells the story of Robert Hale, later known as Papa Pilgrim, and his wife and 15 children who move from New Mexico to Alaska in 2002. We are not talking a move to downtown Anchorage. They moved to McCarthy which is a boondocks town north and east of Anchorage. It is more than 300 miles from Anchorage to McCarthy.
When I lived in Alaska in 2010-11, I drove around some on the weekends. I bought a Honda Fit while I was up there. On one trip, I headed up to Matanuska Glacier to hike around on the glacier. You have to drive through Palmer and head east into some really spectacular country with 13,000 foot mountains in the background and fast running rivers along the road. McCarthy was quite a bit farther east than I ever went. The roads are remote and they get pretty bad from what I have heard. McCarthy is located in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Moving out there was not for the faint of heart.
I am a northeasterner, not a real Alaskan, so I would say McCarthy is a pretty extreme location. Pilgrim said that Alaska was the sweet name whispered by God as his firstborn came of age. That is how Pilgrim said he landed there. Kizzia says that Pilgrim searched around Alaska for 3 years before deciding to settle in Hillbilly Heaven aka McCarthy..
The story of Papa Pilgrim is fundamentally about domestic violence. The family presented to the outside world as hippie back-to-the-landers who were heavy duty Christians. Papa constantly quoted scripture. Country Rose, Papa’s wife, and the children were quiet, well-behaved in public, and quite subordinate There was no doubt Papa was the head of that household. The family played music together and entertained neighbors. The public did not see what was going on behind the scenes.
For a very long time, no one had a clue that Papa Pilgrim viciously beat Country Rose and the children, particularly his oldest daughter legally named Butterfly Sunstar and later called Elishaba. Papa had been secretly raping Elishaba and beating her repeatedly. He hid his actions for a long time but he also used verses of scripture as justification to his family. When his rape behavior became known to the family, he argued that Leviticus allowed father-daughter relationships. This was a guy who had a line of self-justification for everything he did. He actually had other family members refer to him as Lord.
The guy’s dark side included incest, multiple rapes, brutal physical assaults, kidnapping, emotional abuse and manipulation , child abuse, and theft. And all in the name of Jesus. He was finally brought down by the courageous actions of his own children who were able to step outside of Papa’s brainwashing. A criminal case put him away. Papa died in prison in 2008.
Part of Papa’s modus operandi was to isolate his family. He did not allow his children any education. Life was taken up with surviving in the very harsh, separated environment in which they had located.
Papa did work at creating conflict with the National Park Service by bulldozing a road and creating a path through National Park land to the place they settled. He never got a permit for the bulldozing. He would not talk to the National Park people at all and when they investigated, Papa and sons blocked their way. Papa had also posted signs on National Park land saying “No Trespassing NPS”. Coming after Ruby Ridge and Waco, the National Park rangers were very careful about provoking armed response. Ultimately Papa lost in federal court regarding the permit issue.
Papa was briefly a cause celebre for conservative property rights groups who hated the federal government. The Pacific Legal Foundation had taken his case. That was before he was exposed. Kizzia does a good job of pointing out the contradictions between hating the government and depending on the Alaska Permanent Fund to support the family. While Papa actively hated the government, he was happy to take the annual dividend awarded to Alaska residents that could range from $800-$2000 per person. For a family the size of Papa Pilgrim’s that was pretty good money.
Not surprisingly, Papa was a strict disciplinarian. He used a long leather bullwhip on his own family members when he believed they needed “correction”. As his children grew into their later teen years, he taught that lust was an abomination. Papa freaked out about their budding sexuality. There is a brutal description of how Papa turned a barrel on its side and whipped the boys who were made to lie on the barrel. Country Rose held the boys hands and stuffed hankerchiefs in their mouths when they screamed too loud. Papa blamed Country Rose for the boys’ sins. Among Papa’s corrections was the silent treatment. If a child was bad, they could not be spoken to. They might get no food except for bread and water. They could be made to sit out alone in the rain or snow. That treatment could go on for days.
Papa trained the children to report misbehavior and to listen for prideful or rebellious words. He closed the world off so his children had no escape from him.
Because he was a McCarthy neighbor (Kizzia and his wife owned a cabin there) Kizzia gained some degree of trust with Papa. I liked how Kizzia slowly evolved the story so that the abuse did not become apparent until later. I think the hidden aspect of domestic violence in the story is quite consistent with how domestic violence is discovered, if it is discovered. People never know what is going on next door or right down the road. Papa like many abusers was good at facade. He was very self-righteous in public.
I do have a hard time with the notion that Papa was some kind of counterculture figure. Really Papa’s values were loony and once you get past the hippie look, he was simply another deranged Christian lunatic who used biblical verses to justify all kinds of criminality. He was certainly not part of any 60’s style counterculture I would recognize. He was very much a fringe Christian. Unlike Christian homeschoolers who develop educational plans when they homeschool their children, Papa used the Bible to justify ignorance, male supremacy and violence. When you strip away the religious verbiage, he was about maintaining demagogic power and control over his family. Education threatened to expose him so he prevented it.
Papa’s “dream” had a romantic throwback quality that could appeal to those with superficial knowledge of the man. He appeared to be a rebel, living off the grid, defying the modern world. living a self-reliant, subsistence lifestyle, and raising his children by eternal Christian values. When he moved to McCarthy, he conned people into believing his family was something entirely different than what they were. Again, from a distance, his war with the National Park Service appeared to be the justified actions of a brave man striking back against an overreaching bureaucracy.
Things are often not what they seem. Up close, Papa was a nightmare. Behind the seeming god-fearing Christian was a sociopathic megalomaniac who twisted religion to justify his perverse whims. Papa did everything in the name of his religion. How often do we see this or things like it? Kizzia’s book is quite a cautionary tale. I am reminded of this quote from Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Egypt: Cry Beloved Country by Uri Avnery – posted 8/24/2013
I am reprinting a piece written by Uri Avnery, a leader in the Israeli peace movement. Jon
I DIDN’T want to write this article, but I had to.
I love Egypt. I love the Egyptian people. I have spent some of the happiest days of my life there.
My heart bleeds when I think of Egypt. And these days I think about Egypt all the time.
I cannot remain silent when I see what is happening there, an hour’s flight from my home.
LET’S PUT on the table right from the beginning what’s happening there now.
Egypt has fallen into the hands of a brutal, merciless military dictatorship, pure and simple.
Not on the way to democracy. Not a temporary transition regime. Not anything like it.
Like the locusts of old, the military officers have fallen upon the land. They are not likely ever to give it up voluntarily.
Even before, the Egyptian military had enormous assets and privileges. They control vast corporations, are free of any oversight and live off the fat of a skinny land.
Now they control everything. Why should they give it up?
Those who believe that they will do so, of their own free will, should have their head examined.
IT IS enough to look at the pictures. What do they remind us of?
This row of over-decorated, beribboned, well-fed generals who have never fought a war, with their gold-braided, ostentatious peaked hats – where have we seen them before?
In the Greece of the colonels? The Chile of Pinochet? The Argentina of the torturers? Any of a dozen other South-American states? The Congo of Mobutu?
All these generals look the same. The frozen faces. The self-confidence. The total belief that they are the only guardians of the nation. The total belief that all their opponents are traitors who must be caught, imprisoned, tortured, killed.
Poor Egypt.
HOW DID this come about? How did a glorious revolution turn into this disgusting spectacle?
How did the millions of happy people, who had liberated themselves from a brutal dictatorship, who had breathed the first heady whiffs of liberty, who had turned Liberation Square (that’s what Tahrir means) into a beacon of hope for all mankind, slide into this dismal situation?
In the beginning, it seemed that they did all the right things. It was easy to embrace the Arab Spring. They reached out to each other, secular and religious stood together and dared the forces of the aging dictator. The army seemed to support and protect them.
But the fatal faults were already obvious, as we pointed out at the time. Faults that were not particularly Egyptian. They were common to all the recent popular movements for democracy, liberty and social justice throughout the world, including Israel.
These are the faults of a generation brought up on the “social media”, the immediacy of the internet, the effortlessness of instant mass communication. These fostered a sense of empowerment without effort, of the ability to change things without the arduous process of mass-organization, political power-building, of ideology, of leadership, of parties. A happy and anarchistic attitude that, alas, cannot stand up against real power.
When democracy came for a glorious moment and fair elections were in the offing, this whole amorphous mass of young people were faced with a force that had all they themselves lacked: organization, discipline, ideology, leadership, experience, cohesion.
The Muslim Brotherhood.
THE BROTHERHOOD and its Islamist allies easily won the free, fair and
democratic elections against the motley anarchic field of secular and liberal groups and personalities. This has happened before in other Arab countries, such as Algeria and Palestine.
The Islamic Arab masses are not fanatical, but basically religious (as are the Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries.) Voting for the first time in free elections, they tend to vote for religious parties, though they are by no means fundamentalist.
The wise thing for the brotherhood to do was to reach out to other parties, including secular and liberal ones, and lay the foundation for a robust, inclusive democratic regime. This would have been to their own advantage in the long run.
At the beginning it seemed that Mohamed Morsi, the freely elected president, would do so. But he soon changed course, using his democratic powers to change the constitution, exclude everybody else and start to establish the sole domination of his movement.
That was unwise, but understandable. After many decades of suffering from state persecution, including imprisonment, systematic torture and even executions, the movement was thirsty for power. Once it got hold of it, it could not restrain itself. It tried to gobble up everything.
THAT WAS especially unwise, because the brotherhood regime was sitting next to a crocodile, which only seemed to be asleep, as crocodiles often do.
At the beginning of his reign, Morsi drove out the old generals, who had served under Hosni Mubarak. He was applauded. But this just replaced the old, tired crocodile with a young and very hungry one.
It is difficult to guess what was going on in the military mind at the time. The generals sacrificed Mubarak, who was one of them, in order to protect themselves. They became the darling of the people, especially the young, secular, liberal people. “The army and the people are one!” – How nice. How naïve. How utterly inane.
It is quite clear now that during the Morsi months, the generals were waiting for their opportunity. When Morsi made his fatal mistakes and announced that he was going to change the constitution – they pounced.
All military juntas like to pose, in the beginning, as the saviors of democracy.
Abd-al-Fatah al-Sisi does not have an exciting ideology, as did Gamal Abd-al-Nasser (pan-Arabism) when he carried out his bloodless coup in 1952. He has no vision like Anwar al-Sadat (peace), the dictator who inherited power. He was not the anointed heir of his predecessor, sworn to continue his vision, as was Hosni Mubarak. He is a military dictator, pure and simple (or rather, not so pure and not so simple).
ARE WE Israelis to blame? The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says so. It’s all the making of Israel. We engineered the Egyptian coup.
Very flattering, But, I’m afraid, slightly exaggerated.
True, the Israeli establishment is afraid of an Islamic Arab world. It detests the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother of Hamas and other Islamic movements which are committed to fighting Israel. It enjoys a cosy relationship with the Egyptian military.
If the Egyptian generals had asked their Israeli colleagues and friends for advice on the coup, the Israelis would have promised them their enthusiastic support. But there is nothing much they could have done about it.
Except one thing. It is Israel that has assured the Egyptian military for decades its annual big US aid package. Using its control of the US Congress, Israel has prevented the termination of this grant through all these years. At this moment, the huge Israeli power-machine in the US is busy ensuring the continuation of the 1.3 billion or so of US aid to the generals. But this is not crucial, since the Arab Gulf oligarchies are ready to finance the generals to the hilt.
What is crucial for the generals is American political and military support. There cannot be the slightest doubt that before acting, the generals asked for American permission, and that this support was readily given.
The US president does not really direct American policy. He can make beautiful speeches, elevating democracy to divine status, but he cannot do much about it. Policy is made by a political-economic-military complex, for which he is just the figurehead.
This complex does not care a damn for “American Values”. It serves American (and its own) interests. A military dictatorship in Egypt serves these interests – as it does the perceived interests of Israel.
DOES IT really serve them? Perhaps in the short run. But an enduring civil war – on the ground or under ground – will ruin Egypt’s shaky economy and drive away crucial investors and tourists. Military dictatorships are notably incompetent administrations. In a few months or years this dictatorship will crumble – as have all other military dictatorships in the world.
Until that day, I shall weep for Egypt.
Our Secular Heritage – Whitman had it right: ‘Argue not concerning God’ – published in the Concord Monitor 8/9/2013
When Judge John Lewis of Stratford County Superior Court ruled in June that the tax credit program for private religious schools was unconstitutional, he relied on Article 83 of the New Hampshire state constitution. That article plainly states, “no money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of schools or institutions of any religious sect or denomination”.
On its face, that language seems clear. However, the case is being appealed to the state Supreme Court. Like so many other church/state issues, there are always two sides. Both sides appealed Judge Lewis’s ruling.
As Judge Lewis noted, the issue has deep historical roots. Really since the very beginning of the United States, separation of church and state, in multiple contexts, has been highly controversial. The threads of secularism and religion have been closely interwoven in American history. Judge Lewis’s decision is just the latest reflection of that tension.
People on the secular side of the divide have often been put on the defensive by religious fundamentalists and biblical literalists. They are derided and demonized as secular humanists, atheists, and elitists.
The fundamentalists have framed the church/state debate as between the believers (themselves) and the non-believers (the godless). Allegedly, they have values and secularists are value-free. I think this framing is grossly unfair to those of us on the secular side. While there certainly are hardcore atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris, I would stake out a different position on the secular side. It is what I would call the Walt Whitman viewpoint. I actually think this viewpoint is more consistent with the views of many Founding Fathers who were Enlightenment thinkers.
In Leaves of Grass, Whitman famously wrote:
“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyranny, argue not concerning God…”
I think there is much wisdom in the advice “argue not concerning God”. Whitman argues for the acceptance and validity of the views of both believers and non-believers. In the face of ultimate mystery, he respects multiple perspectives. In a country as diverse as the United States, Whitman’s perspective makes much sense. Look only as far as Egypt to see the potential for bloodshed and divisiveness when one sectarian religion gains power and tries to consolidate its gains at the expense of others.
The name-calling against American secularists has obscured our secular tradition in America which is honorable and insufficiently appreciated. There is no single repository of this tradition which is part of the reason it is underappreciated.
I wanted to acknowledge some of the contributors to the American secular tradition whom I admire, including a couple who are relatively unknown now. All the secularists I highlight have fought theocracy and have struggled to make America a more egalitarian society. It has to start with Tom Paine. The outstanding propagandist of the American revolution, Paine agitated in both the American and French revolutions and always fought economic privilege. In 1805, John Adams wrote this about Paine:
“I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine.”
In the 19th century, secularists played a vital role in both the abolitionist and women’s rights movements. I would mention the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, who were Quakers but who were fiercely anti-clerical and anti-slavery. They publicly spoke out against slavery before interracial audiences of both sexes, a practice that shocked the public of that day.
I also wanted to mention Lucretia Mott and Ernestine Rose. Both have landed in the forgotten category but they also deserve recognition and appreciation. They fought for equal rights for women in a very tough climate. Mott helped found the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society and she also helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 which was the first public women’s rights meeting in the United States. Rose was the first Jewish immigrant to campaign aggressively for social reform in the United States. In her book, “Freethinkers”, Susan Jacoby describes Rose as “the Emma Goldman of the 1840’s and 1850’s”.
Robert Ingersoll also deserves special mention. Known as “the Great Agnostic”, Ingersoll may be the most famous man of his time who is unknown now. A lawyer and an eloquent orator, Ingersoll made fun of religion, supported the Bill of Rights, and opposed the death penalty. He has been described as the American Voltaire. He spoke widely around the country in the late 19th century and he had a gift for charming audiences by using humor to disarm opponents. Of the Founders, he wrote:
“They knew that to put God in the constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.”
Moving into the 20th century, I will only mention two names – Clarence Darrow and Eugene V. Debs. I know others might question this choice. Darrow is certainly one of the most famous American lawyers of all time. In the Scopes monkey trial, Darrow represented a Tennessee high school biology teacher accused of teaching evolution. Debs, a labor leader who ran for President five times on the Socialist Party ticket, was extremely charismatic and inspirational. He was a die-hard supporter of working class Americans. Later in his career, he went to jail for opposing World War I and the military draft. At his sentencing hearing in November 1918 when he faced ten years in prison, he stated:
“Your honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
I wanted to put in a plug for Susan Jacoby’s book, Freethinkers, that I had mentioned earlier. Freethinkers is a very comprehensive history of American secularism. It is an entertaining read and it gives great background on a far wider range of characters than I acknowledged in this short piece.
Jacoby makes the point that maybe secular humanists should call themselves freethinkers. It might be harder to demonize that term. I think it is past time for freethinkers to be defensive about arguing for reason and science rather than faith in the supernatural. There is nothing wrong with bringing a rationalist approach to fundamental questions of earthly existence. It is really a matter of intellectual integrity.
Lenny Bruce and My Uncle Dave – posted 7/21/2013
When I was 10 years old, I had my first experience with the law. My dad took me to court in downtown Philadelphia. It was the early 1960’s and it was not just any court. It was the court where my uncle, the Honorable E. David Keiser, presided. Uncle Dave was a magistrate in the lower courts in Philadelphia.
I do not remember everything about that day but some details remain vivid. It was right after New Years Day. I sat up on the bench with Uncle Dave which I thought was cool. The only case I remember was a case where the defendant was a transvestite. I think he was being prosecuted for being a transvestite. The case involved some New Years Day revelry. For a sheltered kid from the suburbs, this was some pretty eye-opening stuff. At that point in my life, my knowledge of sexual minorities was zilch.
One other thing I do remember. My dad pointed out a guy in the back of the courtroom. My dad said.”That’s the bagman”. I did not know about courts or bagmen. My dad explained it to me. The bagman was the guy who took bribes and payoffs. Apparently, the magistrate got a cut as did others.
I puzzled over that. The bagman was so publicly out there and he appeared to be just another part of the normal court proceedings. The memory of the bagman stayed with me.
I do not know how Uncle Dave got to be a magistrate. He was not a lawyer. Back in those days, being a lawyer was not a necessary prerequisite for becoming a magistrate in Philadelphia. I believe that was true for becoming a judge in many other places too, including district courts in New Hampshire.
My mom told me Uncle Dave was a neighborhood bigshot, kind of a mini-rock star. He circulated and gave away small amounts of money and candy to neighborhood kids. He was a friendly guy in his circles. He and his girl friend Tina lived in the same building as my grandmother, my Nana Keiser, at 2601 Parkway in Philadelphia. I remember periodically seeing a very dapperly dressed Uncle Dave and Tina there.
Things did not end well for Uncle Dave. Later in the 60’s, Uncle Dave was investigated for corruption. He got indicted and he was removed from the bench. I do remember the screaming large type headlines in the Philadelphia Inquirer as well as the Bulletin. After the charges, my Uncle Dave got sick and he killed himself.
I found out some years back that the legendary comedian Lenny Bruce had appeared before my Uncle Dave. As a fan of comedy, my curiosity was peaked and I was not to be disappointed. It turned out that Lenny has a long bit about his Philadelphia bust and court appearance on his album “Lenny Bruce Live at the Curran Theater”.
For those who may not know anything about Lenny Bruce, some explanation is in order. Before there was Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Chris Rock, there was Lenny Bruce. It seems tame to say he was an original bad boy. Lenny was a fearless boundary pusher, way ahead of his time. He was committed to exposing The Lie. He upset many people in that unforgiving era and he was made to pay. I suppose he was most famous for talking dirty but that is a shallow perspective on his artistry. He was a compulsive, no-holds-barred, truth teller. He wonderfully mixed in yiddish into his performances. He prided himself on not doing the same dopey routines. As his career evolved, he went free form in comedy, talking about whatever was on his mind. He had a reputation for criticizing religion.
During the 5 year period from 1961 until the year he died in 1966, Lenny was actively persecuted and he faced a number of narcotics and obscenity charges. The Philadelphia narcotics bust, along with another 1961 obscenity bust in San Francisco, provide the material for his riff on the lower courts.
Lenny came to Philadelphia to perform at the Red Hill Inn in Pennsauken. He had not been feeling well. He also clearly did have significant substance abuse issues. Lenny went to a local doctor and then a pharmacy to have his prescriptions filled. As Lenny recounts, four Philadelphia police officers came to his hotel room and repeatedly knocked on the door. Lenny was in bed and he yelled back that he did not want to be disturbed. The cops broke the door down. The cops had a search warrant and they were hunting for drugs and drug paraphernalia. One cop said,
“Hey, whaddya doin’ with all these books here? Hee-hee.”
Lenny replied,” I smoke them at night. They’re all dipped in secret sticklach”. Warming up, Lenny said, “…I’ll tell you something if you’re ever in a strange town, just clip the ad for the local jazz club out of the paper, roll it up and smoke it – and you’ll be right out of your kayach.”
After being bailed out, Lenny started calling lawyers. He said he went through 15 and his takedown of the lawyers is funny in itself. He got referred to a criminal defense lawyer named Gary Levy. Lenny asked him, “Okay how much is this going to cost me?”. Levy replied, “Lenny, this will cost you $10,000.” “What”.Lenny exploded, “That’s a telephone number! Are you crazy?”
Levy responded that he had to give money to the D.A.’s Office, to Magistrate Keiser, to the police, the bail bondsman, and he, of course, needed his fee. Lenny then tried to bargain Levy down from $10,000 to $5,000 and then $3,500. No deal was reached and Lenny said he was going to sleep on it. That night he decided to fire Levy and he went to the press. He told reporters, “Magistrate Keiser is a crook”. He had decided to name names and quote prices. He explained that Attorney Levy had made the offer.
When Levy was asked about Lenny’s allegation, Levy said, “He’s a liar. He’s a sick kid. The kid’s crazy.” Levy said he would sue Lenny for slander. Levy went on to say: “I wouldn’t know who to payoff. Payoffs certainly are not going on in the courts of our land.”
When Magistrate Keiser was asked about the bribery charge, he said, “This is the first time I have heard anything of this nature…But it sounds ridiculous”.
Lenny had never been to court before the Philadelphia bust. He described his view of judges this way. “I thought judges were …”I listen, I am wise, the scales. I listen to all, then I weigh what I hear”.
Lenny was indignant at seeing justice turned into a shakedown. It is hard not to wonder about the prevalence of justice for sale in that era. Not exactly the good old days.
When Lenny appeared in court, Magistrate Keiser led off with, “This looks like a sinister character to me.” He was so prejudiced and bugged that Lenny said there was no need for a D.A. Lenny described Keiser as ” a momser. my first villain, and my first lover who did me in and told a lie.” This is how Albert Goldman, Lenny’s biographer described Keiser:
“On a salary of $18,000 a year, he has become a rich man, presiding over his business in bribes and gratuities from a palatially furnished office better suited to a big corporation head than it is to a local judge.”
Lenny realized that if he paid a bribe he would become a mark for crooked cops and judges all over the country. There is a tradition in America of big-name entertainers settling problems by payoffs in order to salvage their careers. Lenny wanted to fight it out on the law which he believed in. I do not know for sure but I would not be surprised if Lenny’s famous saying, “In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls” comes from this experience. The case against Lenny was eventually dropped by a grand jury but this was just the beginning of his troubles.
It is now over 50 years past the events I have described. Still, as a relative of Magistrate Keiser, as a judge and as a lawyer, I want to offer a belated but sincere apology to Lenny Bruce. I too saw the bagman in Magistrate Keiser’s court. My uncle disgraced himself and his office. Lenny did not deserve the persecution and mistreatment he received. Years of legal battles broke Lenny and turned him into a self-described “drug addict meshuganah”. Besides taking his mental health, all the fights cost him a fortune and tremendously narrowed his employment opportunities.
Albert Goldman accurately wrote that Lenny worshiped the gods of spontaneity, candor and free association. I think he is an insufficiently appreciated American hero and comic genius. In writing this piece, I wanted to honor his memory and encourage people to listen. He is still funny.
No Good Reason to Cut The Food Stamp Program – published in the Concord Monitor 7/6/2013
Presently at issue before Congress is what will happen to the federal Food Stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. Both branches of Congress have been addressing food stamps in the context of the Farm Bill.
On June 20, the House rejected a version of the Farm Bill that would have resulted in very significant cuts to the Food Stamp program. The House Agriculture Committee bill which came to the floor would have cut two million low income individuals off benefits entirely. Working families with children and senior citizens would have taken the major hit. Another 850,000 households would have had their benefits reduced by $90 a month. The total projected savings in food stamp cuts under the bill would be almost $21 billion over the next decade.
These cuts would follow on the heels of a further food stamp cut. The 2009 Recovery Act had increased household benefits to the tune of $20 to $25 a month or roughly $240 to $300 a year. That increase is slated to expire on November 1 unless Congress acts.
As of January 1, 2013, the Food Stamp program reached 120,000 New Hampshire residents which is 9% of the state population. Nationally, the Food Stamp program serves 47,772,000 participants, 15% of the total population in the United States. The average monthly food stamp benefit is $246 a month. Food Stamps pumped $166 million into the New Hampshire economy in 2012.
How the Food Stamp program is viewed is a rorschach test for politics. On the one hand, you have the Reagan-Gingrich-Romney view which sees food stamp recipients as takers, frauders, and welfare queens. On the other hand, you have people like former Senators George McGovern and Bob Dole who both championed the program and who saw it as a way to feed the needy.
I suppose how you see the Food Stamp program depends on whether you think hunger is a real problem in America.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that over 50 million Americans lived in food insecure households in 2011. Food insecurity is defined as the condition of not having regular access to enough nutritious food for a healthy life. Of that 50 million, over 33 million are adults and over 16 million are children. USDA further estimates that about 17 million live in households considered to have very low food security. These are the food stamp recipients with the deepest struggles. These people regularly skip meals or cut the amount eaten below what is minimally needed.
I would argue that food stamps have been the most effective and targeted public benefit ever devised in the United States. The program has played a critical role in lessening hunger and malnutrition. A host of bad consequences can flow from childhood food insecurity including physical, emotional, and cognitive impairment.
In the world of public benefits, food stamps is the current program that is serving the widest number of needy people. Welfare no longer plays that role. Far fewer people get it. Food stamps is the big enchilada as far as benefit programs are concerned.
The logic of cutting the program now escapes me. The need is still there. The economy has only marginally improved. Pretending that need does not exist is a form of denial. If the economy does improve, less people will need the benefit and less people would be on the program. It is worth pointing out the countercyclical nature of food stamps. The program helps the economy since people typically spend their benefits quickly after receipt. They have to – otherwise they will be hungry.
Legislators who favor cutting the food stamp program do not talk about hunger. They try to keep discussion away from the impact on actual human beings. It is about deficit-cutting. You cannot get more abstract than that. How bloodless and how removed!
Talk about politicians who are so out of touch, it is like they live in a bottle. This is a perfect example. The food stamp cutters, a wealthy crowd, are oblivious to hunger, a condition that is, no doubt, quite foreign to them. The cutters offer no alternative for feeding the hungry. More likely, they would talk about fraud in the program or they will highlight a recipient somewhere who used food stamps to buy a lobster. The food stamp cutters are big on passing negative moral judgments on poor people.
The food stamp fraud discussion is one that should be welcomed by food stamp proponents. While no program is without some degree of fraud, the food stamp program has been very good at minimizing fraud and trafficking. The fact there is some small amount of fraud does not negate the need of the overwhelming majority who depend on the program. I would mention that the food stamp program in New Hampshire has been particularly vigilant about fraud and it has a good record in recovering overpayments not only from those who commit intentional program violations but also from those who commit inadvertent household errors.
Although food stamps was designed to be a nutritional supplement and not the sole basis for a monthly diet, it is the bulwark against poor people going hungry. For tons of people, who for whatever reason are lacking in income, food stamps may be the only source of nourishment.
A bunch of years back, I participated in the now defunct state Food Stamp Advisory Council. Made up of advocates, nutritionists, and representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services, we used to discuss the program’s functioning and ideas for improving it. One idea we had back then still resonates: using the Low Cost Food Plan rather than the Thrifty Food Plan for food stamps. The Thrifty Food Plan only gets most families 3/4 or 4/5 of the way through the month. The Low Cost Food Plan is a 25-30% higher allotment than the Thrifty Plan and it is based on a more realistic assessment of actual need. It is more in line with what low and moderate income people report they spend on food and it is more likely to provide the nutrition that will get recipients through the month.
I would suggest that food stamp cuts are not like other budget cuts. This is not like cutting a weapon system or even other social services. Before food stamps are cut, legislators should remember 16 million children potentially going hungry. In this, the richest country in the world, that is an entirely preventable situation.
Birdbrain by Allen Ginsberg – posted 6/23/2013
Not that it matters but…
Watching the New Hampshire Legislature not accept Medicaid expansion this last week was a crime against reason. Medicaid expansion would insure 58,000 uninsured low income people and it would bring $2.5 billion dollars into the state. Somebody needs to tell the NH Senate majority that insuring uninsured people is a good thing, not a problem.
It is hard not to be filled with trepidation waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to issue rulings on anything, let alone Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Anyone who thinks the United States should intervene in Syria must have not been paying attention to what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years.
The zealous over prosecution and over charging of people like Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning is an embarrassment to the federal government. Really how are they any different than Daniel Ellsberg who is now widely seen as a hero? Charging Snowden with espionage is ridiculous.
Cutting food stamps in the present economic environment makes no sense. Food Stamps is one program that is reaching masses of Americans and providing tangible help. It is counter-cyclical and it immediately puts money back into the economy. One can only hope that when a federal Farm Bill passes, cuts will be minimized.
Cape Cod is lovely in June.
Since I like to share poetry, the political stuff above makes me think of this Ginsberg poem:
Birdbrain by Allen Ginsberg
Birdbrain runs the World!
Birdbrain is the ultimate product of Capitalism
Birdbrain chief bureaucrat of Russia, yawning,
Birdbrain ran FBI 30 years appointed by F. D. Roosevelt and never chased Cosa Nostra!
Birdbrain apportions wheat to be burned, keep prices up on the world market!
Birdbrain lends money to Developing Nation police-states thru the International
Monetary Fund!
Birdbrain never gets laid on his own he depends on his office to pimp for him
Birdbrain offers brain transplants in Switzerland
Birdbrain wakes up in middle of night and arranges his sheets
I am Birdbrain!
I rule Russia Yugoslavia England Poland Argentina United States El Salvador
Birdbrain multiples in China!
Birdbrain inhabits Stalin’s corpse inside the Kremlin wall
Birdbrain dictates petrochemical agriculture in Afric desert regions!
Birdbrain lowers North California’s water table sucking it up for Orange County
Agribusiness Banks
Birdbrain harpoons whales and chews blubber in the tropics
Birdbrain clubs baby harp seals and wears their coats to Paris
Birdbrain runs the Pentagon his brother runs the CIA, Fatass Bucks!
Birdbrain writes and edits Time Newsweek Wall Street Journal Pravda Izvestia
Birdbrain is Pope, Premier, President, Commissar, Chairman, Senator!
Birdbrain voted Reagan President of the United States!
Birdbrain prepares Wonder Bread with refined white flour!
Birdbrain sold slaves, sugar, tobacco, alcohol
Birdbrain conquered the New World and murdered mushroom god Xochopili on
Popocatepetl!
Birdbrain was President when a thousand mysterious students were machinegunned at
Tlatelulco
Birdbrain sent 20,000,000 intellectuals and Jews to Siberia, 15,000,000 never got
back to the Stray Dog Café
Birdbrain wore a mustache & ran Germany on Amphetamines the last year of World War
II
Birdbrain conceived the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in Europe
Birdbrain carried it out in Gas Chambers
Birdbrain borrowed Lucky Luciano the Mafia from jail to secure Sicily for U.S.
Birdbrain against the Reds
Birdbrain manufactured guns in the Holy Land and sold them to white goyim in South
Birdbrain supplied helicopters to Central America generals, kill a lot of restless Indians,
encourage a favorable business climate
Birdbrain began a war of terror against Israeli Jews
Birdbrain sent out Zionist planes to shoot Palestinian huts outside Beirut
Birdbrain outlawed Opiates on the world market
Birdbrain formed the Black Market in Opium
Birdbrain’s father shot skag in hallways of the lower East Side
Birdbrain organized Operation Condor to spray poison fumes on the marijuana fields of
Sonora
Birdbrain got sick in Harvard Square from smoking Mexican grass
Birdbrain arrived in Europe to Conquer cockroaches with Propaganda
Birdbrain became a great International Poet and went around the world praising the
Glories of Birdbrain
I declare Birdbrain to be victor in the Poetry Contest
He built the World Trade Center on New York Harbor waters without regard where the
toilets emptied—
Birdbrain began chopping down the Amazon Rainforest to build a woodpulp factory on
the river bank
Birdbrain in Iraq attacked Birdbrain in Iran
Birdbrain in Belfast throws bombs at his mother’s ass
Birdbrain wrote Das Kapital ! authored the Bible ! penned The Wealth of Nations !
Birdbrain’s humanity, he built the Rainbow Room on top of Rockefeller Center so we
could dance
He invented the Theory of Relativity so Rockwell Corporation could make Neutron
Bombs at Rocky Flats in Colorado
Birdbrain’s going to see how long he can go without coming
Birdbrain thinks his dong will grow big that way
Birdbrain sees a new Spy in the Market Platz in Dubrovnik outside the Eyeglass Hotel—
Birdbrain wants to suck your cock in Europe, he takes life very seriously, brokenhearted
you won’t cooperate—
Birdbrain goes to heavy duty Communist Countries so he can get KGB girlfriends while
the sky thunders—
Birdbrain realized he was Buddha by meditating
Birdbrain’s afraid he’s going to blow up the planet so he wrote this poem to be
immortal—
Victor Serge – posted 6/15/2013
For a trending twitter culture drenched in celebrity worship what could be of less interest than the story of an obscure European revolutionary who died a penniless exile in Mexico over 60 years ago. The story of Victor Serge is anything but known.
I happened on Serge’s book, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, many years ago and have long thought it was one of the greatest books I ever read. There has been a bit of a Serge renaissance in the last decade or so. I have seen essays on Serge written by Susan Sontag, Christopher Hitchens, and Adam Hochschild.
Susan Weissman, a professor of politics at St. Mary’s College in Moraga California, wrote a biography of Serge in 2001 which came out in paperbook this year. It provides the important service of giving a comprehensive history of Serge’s incredible life. It is difficult to capsulize Serge’s life. I will defer to Peter Sedgwick who was his translator:
“Victor Serge, who was born in 1890 and died in 1947 was an anarchist, a Bolshevik, a Trotskyist, a revisionist Marxist, and, on his own confession, a “personalist”. Belgian by birth and upbringing, French by adoption and in literary expression, Russian by parentage and later by citizenship, he eventually became stateless and was put down as a Spanish national for purposes of his funeral documents. He was a journalist. a poet, a pamphleteer, a historian, an agitator, and a novelist. Usually he was several of these things at once; there were few times in his life when he did not combine at least two or three nationalities, ideologies and professional callings.”
Serge had a long honorable history as a revolutionary. He was always in opposition to ruling powers, first to capitalism and then later to Stalinism. He did have a period when he was aligned with the Bolsheviks but it did not last. He had a sometimes shaky alliance with Trotsky. Serge opposed Stalin from early on. He was expelled from the Bolshevik Party and arrested in 1929. He was later deported to Orenberg in Central Asia and was allowed to leave the Soviet Union after protests led by Andre Gide and Romain Rolland. Barely escaping the Nazis when they invaded France, he made his way to Mexico where he lived his remaining days, writing as an anti-Stalinist leftist. He did not live to see either his Memoirs or his novels achieve publication before he died.
About his early life, Serge wrote that he acquired bitter experience of the unwritten commandment “Thou shalt be hungry.” He wrote:
“I think that if anyone had asked me at the age of twelve, “What is life?” (and I often asked it of myself), I would have replied “I do not know but I can see that it means “Thou shall think, thou shall struggle, thou shall be hungry.”
Serge describes watching his younger brother Raoul die of hunger. Hunger was an ongoing issue in Serge’s life. Hardship defined his circumstances and his writings did not ever bring in much money. He had four stints in prison along with several political exiles.
There is a passage in his Memoirs which captures his outlook on his early life:
“…a pamphlet by Peter Kropotkin spoke to me at that time in a language of unprecedented clarity. I have not looked at it since, and at least thirty years have elapsed since then, but its message remains close to my heart. “What do you want to be?” the anarchist asked young people in the middle of their studies. “Lawyers, to invoke the law of the rich, which is unjust by definition? Doctors, to tend the rich and prescribe good food, fresh air and rest to the consumptives of the slums? Architects, to house the landlords in comfort? Look around you and then examine your conscience. Do you not understand that your duty is quite different: to ally yourselves with the exploited and to work for the destruction of an intolerable system?”.
It is tempting simply to offer a collection of quotes from Serge’s work because he wrote so beautifully. What always has impressed me about Serge was his vantage point as a participant in the revolutionary movement, especially in the Soviet Union. He was a boots on the ground activist. Serge’s Memoirs contain dead-on thumbnail sketches of many of the leading left-wing personalities of the 20th century including Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci, and Lukacs. His views were shaped by extensive personal experience with the people he wrote about. Serge offers a perspective on Stalin that helps to explain his rise as well as the crimes which defined him and his sick rule. Serge’s unique experience allowed a first hand view of the degeneration of the Bolshevik revolution.
As a writer, Serge never sacrificed or subordinated artistic truth to any political party. He remained a revolutionary socialist committed to the values of democracy and free expression. He was critical of the Bolshevik handling of Kronstadt as well as Lenin’s use of the Cheka. He opposed the practice of secret hearings for those in political opposition rather than public tribunals. He also opposed the death penalty. Later he influenced Trotsky to oppose formation of a one party state rather than allowing a broader range of socialist parties to operate openly.
When Stalin started consolidating power, Serge allied with the Left Opposition and Trotsky. Weissman described Serge’s years of opposition to Stalin and the huge price Serge paid. She showed how the world of oppositionists was closed in until there was no room left for any opposition to function. Then, and even worse, Stalin’s terror and purges further decimated a revolutionary generation. Serge wrote:
“All of my party, all of it, has been shot or murdered and so I am alone, a curiously disturbing figure.”
Through his arrest and internal deportation to Orenberg, Serge came to see firsthand the evolution of the totalitarian system that replaced socialism. Weissman wrote:
“Serge’s experience in the Lubianka, followed by three years of deportation in Orenberg, helped him understand how the great trials were orchestrated, how confessions were fabricated and how the accused were ‘ripened’ by ten years of persecution, demonization, solitary confinement and torture until they were ready to sign the baseless documents. The charges against Serge, like others, were based on false testimony.”
As I mentioned, Serge could not get his books published. Being in opposition to both the bourgeois press and the Stalinist press greatly reduced publishing options. The Stalinist press, in particular, made him the subject of slander campaigns. Considering that Serge was trying to support himself by writing, this was no small matter since writing was almost his only way to make a living. What is amazing is that under the most dire of circumstances, Serge wrote voluminously. There were a number of novels including The Case of Comrade Tulayev, Conquered City, Men in Prison, and Birth of our Power.
Weissman wrote that George Orwell wanted to get Serge’s Memoirs published but Serge was so poor he only had one copy of the Memoirs and he was reluctant to part with it out of fear it would not get to Orwell and it would be lost.
In his Memoirs, Serge elucidates three points which he wrote took precedence over any tactical considerations. He wrote this in Moscow on February 1, 1933. I think it is a good summary of lessons learned by Serge during his political experience.
” I. Defense of man. Respect for man. Man must be given his rights, his security, his value. Without these, there is no Socialism. Without these, all is false, bankrupt, and spoiled. I mean: man whoever he is , be he the meanest of men – “class enemy”, son or grandson of a bourgeois, I do not care. It must never be forgotten that a human being is a human being. Everyday, everywhere, before my very eyes this is being forgotten, and it is the most revolting and anti-Socialist thing that could happen…
II. Defense of the truth. Man and the masses have a right to the truth. I will not consent either to the systematic falsification of history or to the suppression of all serious news from the Press (which is confined to a purely agitational role). I hold truth to be a precondition of intellectual and moral health. To speak of truth is to speak of honesty. Both are the right of men.
III. Defense of Thought. No real intellectual inquiry is permitted in any sphere. Everything is reduced to a casuistry nourished on quotations.. Fear of heresy, based on self-interest, leads to dogmatism and bigotry of a peculiarly paralyzing kind. I hold that Socialism cannot develop in the intellectual sense except by the rivalry, scrutiny and struggle of ideas; that we should fear not error, which is mended in time by life itself, but rather stagnation and reaction; that respect for man implies his right to know everything and his freedom to think. It is not against freedom of thought and against man that Socialism can triumph, but on the contrary, through freedom of thought, and by improving man’s condition.”
So what is the relevance of Serge’s life and experience to our time? I will offer a couple thoughts. The word “revolutionary” has been sullied by a litany of bad examples. A first word association might be “power-hungry” or “meglomaniacal”. This is so far from the noble example of a Serge. He lived a passionate life devoted to the ideals of socialism, free expression and democracy. He was clear-headed, tenacious, modest, honest, and a master writer. In truth he was as much artist as revolutionary. For people on the left, his example is an inspiration and an example of life-long creativity and self-expression. He set an ethical example that is worthy of emulation.
Either the Memoirs or Weissman’s biography are a good introduction to Serge. My personal preference remains the Memoirs. It is a fascinating read and window into the Russian revolution. Serge remains largely unacknowledged as a writer and he deserves a far wider readership than he has achieved to date.
My Advice To High School Seniors – published in the Concord Monitor 6/9/2013
My local newspaper, the Concord Monitor, solicited readers to write in and offer advice to graduating high school seniors. The advice had to be under 200 words. Below is my submission. Jon
To all you graduates of the class of 2013 heading into the Great Beyond, I offer the following line from William Shakespeare’s King Lear:
“Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel…”
It might seem like an odd bit of advice on this joyous occasion – feel what wretches feel.
I think the biggest deficit we face today is not in our economy. It is emotional. It is our lack of feeling for our fellow humans, animals, and the planet.
The playwright Julian Beck wrote that if we would really feel, the pain would be so great we would stop all the suffering at once. I would urge something considerably more modest.
As you set out on your individual journeys, try putting yourself in the position of the other. Imagine their feelings and feel them. That habit might lead you down some surprising, unforeseen paths that will enrich your life.
When my son Josh sings, he always talks about feeling the music. My advice is a variation on that theme. Feeling the pain around you will put you in touch with some universal blues and it will place you closer to the heart of humanity. Try it.
Domestic Violence Is Our Greatest Threat – published in the Concord Monitor 5/26/2013
The two big news stories of the last six months, the Boston Marathon bombings and the Newtown school shootings, have highlighted the behavior of two terrorists and a psychopath. However, I would argue that day in and day out the greater threat of assault and murder is more likely to come from a disgruntled spouse or ex-boyfriend.
On average, three women are murdered daily in the United States by a current or former intimate partner. Guns have generally been the weapon of choice for intimate partner homicide and just the presence of guns has increased the lethality of domestic violence incidents. Murders are often preceded by a lengthy history of domestic violence and stalking that can include the use of guns to intimidate. I believe this pattern has been long-standing.
About 15 years ago, I represented a client who was a domestic violence victim. She was a single working woman who lived in a rural part of New Hampshire. She wanted to separate completely from her former boyfriend. The two of them argued frequently and on one occasion, he grabbed her around the throat with both hands and he attempted to strangle her. She got away but he warned her that he could kill her if he wanted to. He had made several threats to shoot her.
My client was very scared. The ex-boyfriend was a gunowner and my client felt his behavior had become increasingly unpredictable. She obtained a temporary restraining order. She also purchased a cell phone for protection in the event of an emergency.
At the final hearing on the domestic violence, the ex-boyfriend admitted to the abuse but he asked the court to allow him to keep his guns. He explained that hunting season was coming up and hunting was his favorite activity. My client asked the court not to allow her ex-boyfriend access to his guns. He hunted in the woods near her house. She was afraid of being stalked and murdered.
The court initially ruled he could check his guns in and out of the police station when he wanted to hunt. The court found my client’s request to confiscate guns was unreasonable and inconsistent with New Hampshire’s venerable hunting tradition. On reconsideration, the court did change its mind and confiscated the guns because of federal domestic violence law.
New Hampshire has come a long way since those days. The state now has one of the strongest domestic violence laws in the country. Courts can order abusers to relinquish firearms after issuing a temporary retraining order. The law also allows courts to issue a warrant to search for guns if necessary. If there is a finding of abuse, the perpetrator loses the right to hold firearms for a year.
It is not an automatic that the guns come back after a year. The perpetrator must petition the Court and a hearing will be held to determine if he still represents a credible threat to the victim of the abuse. Law enforcement will not release firearms without a court order granting such release.
A March article in the New York Times by Michael Luo showed the wide range of state responses to the matter of guns and domestic violence. Twenty states require surrender of firearms and ammunition when a protective order is issued. In many states, gun rights organizations have stymied and stopped the type of reforms passed in New Hampshire. As a result, many states have less protective law for domestic violence victims than New Hampshire.
In Virginia, the gun lobby has repeatedly stopped efforts to make it illegal for people subject to court injunction to possess firearms. In Washington state, judges will only order the surrender of weapons in very specific situations like a determination by clear and convincing evidence that the person had used the weapon in a felony or had committed another offense that by law would disqualify him from having a firearm.
The variety of domestic violence laws in the states gives more appreciation for the wisdom of New Hampshire’s current law in this area. Only New Hampshire allows law enforcement the broad authority to remove all firearms and ammunition in the abuser’s control, ownership, or possession at the time of a domestic violence incident.
Other states allow the removal of only certain firearms or allow removal only if certain conditions are met. For example, some states only allow removal of weapons used in the domestic violence incident. A different group of states only allow for removal of weapons observed at the scene or in plain view. There are also states that will only allow removal of weapons pursuant to a consensual search.
The duration of the firearm removal is yet another issue. Many states hold weapons for much less time than a one year restraining order.There are states where law enforcement will only hold the firearms until proceedings against the abuser are concluded or until the weapons are no longer needed as evidence. Then the weapons are returned to the abuser.
As we contemplate new gun control reforms like universal background checks, our state’s experience has shown that sensible reforms can work and very likely save lives. I think universal background checks would add an additional tool to keep guns out of abusers’ hands as well as others who should not have them.
At present, domestic violence offenders who are federally prohibited from purchasing guns can avoid a background check by buying guns from unlicensed private sellers, either through online transactions or at gun shows. In 2012, an estimated 6.6 million guns were exchanged in private transfers without any criminal background check.
Private party sales are central to illegal commerce in firearms. It has been estimated that 40% of all firearm transactions occur directly between private parties. A universal background check that applied in all states would be a significant block to illegal commerce in firearms. Universal background checks would be an eminently reasonable crime-fighting reform.
Reducing gun violence in America is a public health issue. Gun policy needs to be based on evidence and clear thinking analysis. In the area of guns and domestic violence, New Hampshire has provided a positive example.
Conviction of General Rios Montt in Guatemala: Amy Goodman interview with Rigoberta Menchu – posted 5/18/2013
I am reprinting the transcript of an interview Amy Goodman conducted with Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu after the conviction of General Efrain Rios Montt. The interview can be seen on the democracynow.org website. The interview was conducted on May 15, 2013. It is amazing that this story has received so little coverage in the United States. General Rios Montt was convicted for genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison by a 3 judge panel. Back in 1982-83, the Guatemalan military conducted a scorched earth campaign that caused the indiscriminate death of thousands of civilians. The military campaign was directed against Guatemala’s Mayan population. The Guatemalan military had associated the Mayan people with an insurgency against the government.
Rios Montt was a Pentecostal priest who said that a true Christian had the Bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other. He had been supported by the United States during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. I expect there will be much legal commentary about this trial from international human rights lawyers. It is remarkable that a former head of state could be tried and convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in his own country. I would not have expected the legal process to be that strong that a court could make such a judgment. It is an important precedent for the whole international community. As more is written about the trial, I will cover this further. Jon
Days after Guatemala’s former U.S.-backed dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt, was convicted of genocide, we’re joined by a woman largely responsible for making sure he was brought to justice. Rigoberta Menchú began the process over a decade ago with legal cases filed against Guatemalan generals for atrocities committed in the Mayan region. Her lawsuits helped culminate last week in Ríos Montt’s landmark guilty verdict and 80-year sentence for his role in the killings of more than 1,700 Ixil Mayan people. Menchú lost her father, mother and two brothers during the Guatemalan genocide, later winning the Nobel Peace Prize for her campaigning on behalf of Guatemala’s indigenous population. “The conviction of Ríos Montt may provide an opportunity to close a chapter of our lives, a chapter of profound pain, [allowing] us to begin a new relationship amongst Guatemalans,” Menchú says. “Because during the genocide, we felt so alone, we felt powerless, and we felt that nobody had our back. … The fact the genocide was committed is [now] recognized means that nobody will ever forget.”
Transcript
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Guatemala. The country’s former dictator, Efrain Ríos Montt, is spending a second day at a military hospital after fainting en route to a court hearing. Prison authorities say a judge will decide when 86-year-old Ríos Montt must return to prison.
Last week, Ríos Montt became the first former head of state to be found guilty of genocide in his or her own country. The former dictator was jailed Friday to begin an 80-year sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the killings of more than 1,700 Ixil Mayan people after he seized power in 1982.
Ríos Montt was a close ally of the United States. Former President Ronald Reagan once called him, quote, “a man of great personal integrity.”
After the verdict, Judge Yassmin Barrios ordered the attorney general to launch an immediate investigation of, quote, “all others” connected to the crimes.
JUDGE YASSMIN BARRIOS: [translated] In continuation of the investigation on the part of the public ministry, the tribunal orders the public ministry to continue the investigation against more people who could have participated in the acts which are being judged.
AMY GOODMAN: One former general implicated in abuses during the trial was Guatemala’s current president, Otto Pérez Molina. In the early ’80s, Pérez Molina was a military field commander in the Ixil region where the genocide occurred. At the time, he was operating under the alias “Major Tito Arias.” During the trial, one former army officer accused him of participating in executions. It remains yet to be seen if he’ll also be tried for crimes of genocide.
Well, today we’re going to Mexico City to be joined by a woman largely responsible for making sure that Ríos Montt was brought to justice. She began the process over a decade ago with legal cases filed against Guatemalan generals for atrocities in the Mayan region. Her name is Rigoberta Menchú. She’s the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She has published many books, including I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. She’s been translated into many languages, awarded more than 30 honorary degrees, and runs the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation.
We’re also joined by Allan Nairn. He was due to be a witness in the trial and covered Guatemala extensively in the early ’80s. He attended the trial.
Rigoberta Menchú and Allan Nairn, we welcome you to Democracy Now! Let’s start in Mexico City. Rigoberta Menchú, your response to the verdict and the 80-year sentence of Ríos Montt?
RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ: [translated] Thank you, Amy Goodman. Thank you for this opportunity. I want to express my condolences to the victims of Boston and Pennsylvania. I am here with you today.
This verdict is historic. It’s monumental. The verdict against Ríos Montt is historic. We waited for 33 years for justice to prevail. It’s clear that there is no peace without justice. There is no peace without truth. We need justice for the victims for there to be real peace. This verdict is crucial. It complements a long process of investigation, of denouncing the abuses, and a process that the victims hope will heal and result in reparations. So this verdict isn’t just about asking somebody to say they’re sorry. It is important to apologize, and President Otto Pérez Molina has to apologize. And the court will move in that direction. President Otto Pérez Molina must apologize, and the court has instructed him to do so.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Rigoberta Menchú, do you believe President Molina should resign?
RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ: [translated] Not just that alone does not suffice.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Do you believe, Rigoberta Menchú, that President Molina should resign?
RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ: [translated] Well, I would prefer not to embark on that debate. The most important thing is to understand the verdict for genocide as part of a larger process, and I am confident that there will be more trials. And if there are other high command officers who are responsible, I am confident that they will be brought to justice and the abuses will continue to be denounced and that justice will prevail in those cases, as well.
But in this case, a very important precedent has been set by this verdict. I am sure that Mr. Mauricio, who was the head of military intelligence and who was also part of the team of Ríos Montt, was absolved. And we thought that he should have also been convicted for genocide because he knew what was going on. So, this verdict shows that, on one hand, that Ríos Montt should be convicted for genocide, on very clear criterias, and he certainly was responsible for the genocide in Guatemala, but there are other high officials implicated in the genocide.
And the most important thing is that this verdict be respected and the court respected, and that the verdict and sentence be fulfilled, and that the court be fully respected, and that Judge Yassmin Barrios’ life be protected and all of the witnesses and victims, because a lot of people who are responsible for genocide are still free, and they are very aggressive, because they said that the victims were communists and subversives, and that’s why they deserved to be exterminated. And they accused the court and the judge of being communists, as well. And so, that shows that very little has really changed in Guatemala. So, we’re no longer in the Cold War, but certainly the rhetoric smacks of Cold War rhetoric. So this is a very delicate moment in Guatemala, and the most important thing is not to take a step backwards.
For me, there are four important reasons why we need to demand that the sentence be served, the verdict that was handed down on May 10th. First of all, this is a precedent and the first president in the whole world where a verdict has been handed down for genocide of a head of state in the country where it in fact occurred.
Secondly, this conviction for genocide proves that the victims spoke truth. For 32 years, victims have been seeking justice and have been documenting the abuses and suffering attacks by those who are responsible for genocide. They were. And we were accused of being liars. They said that we invented things, and they turned their back on us, and we were not supported by them. The hatred against the Mayans and the victims of the genocide is very—a tangible history in the last 32 years in Guatemala. So, justice has prevailed, though it sure took its time. But justice is prevailing, and the most important thing is that the sentence be served and the verdict respected.
The third crucial element has to do with the region that the genocide was committed in against the Ixil people, you know, that there were 200,000 victims of the genocide in Guatemala. There are 50,000 people who were disappeared. And there are victims throughout the country, not just in the region that was addressed in the trial. And so, in this regard, we are all Ixils. We identify fully with them, because we all suffered genocide as Mayans. And we need to remember that the policy of extermination and genocide against Mayans was also a policy of extermination of non-Mayans, as well. Unionists, student leaders also suffered. So, the genocide was by no means limited to the region of the territory of the Ixil people. So this is a crucial legal precedent for our country, and I think it can serve as the cornerstone for a new relationship amongst Guatemalans.
And I want to stress something that we have been saying for years. We have the International Criminal Court, but this International Criminal Court has not convicted genocide that has been committed. It’s waiting for new cases. It’s not retroactive. It doesn’t address those cases that were committed before the court was created. So the statute of limitations on the International Criminal Court should be lifted. So, this case really represents a—it poses a tremendous challenge to humanity. It’s a challenge for all countries who have allowed for genocide to occur in Guatemala.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break—
RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ: [translated] I don’t want to be controversial, but I do see that under Ronald Reagan and Bush’s administration there was a fantasy created of a third World War. And this fantasy really damaged the mentality of the military in Guatemala and Guatemalan fascists, and they still believe that communism exists. I don’t know what they’re referring to, but the truth is that here in Guatemala, women were raped, girls were raped, they strangled children, they assassinated and wiped out entire indigenous peoples, just because they thought they were so-called subversives and communists. So humanity really has to look into what occurred.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to our discussion with Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace laureate. She has just flown from attending the trial in Guatemala City to Mexico City, where we’re speaking to her, and we’ll be joined by investigative journalist Allan Nairn. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest in Mexico City is the Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú. It was her lawsuit that helped to lead to the conviction—first trial, then conviction and 80-year sentence of the former U.S.-backed dictator of Guatemala, Efraín Ríos Montt. He began his sentence on Friday night, after the sentence was read. Rigoberta Menchú, can you describe what happened to your own father?
RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ: [translated] Yes. Yes, well, as you know, the conviction of Ríos Montt has awakened the suffering that we carry, and we’re going to always feel that suffering as victims. In the case of my own family, my brother Patrocinio was burnt to death in the Ixil region. We never found his remains. We have looked for them. He may be on a farm that’s called the San Francisco Ranch, and he’s probably just in one of the mass graves.
As for my mother, we never found her remains, either. We don’t know if she was buried in a mass grave or eaten by wild animals. If it wasn’t her remains that were eaten by wild animals after having been tortured brutally and humiliated, then her remains are probably in a mass grave close to the Ixil region, because the truth is my family comes from an area very close to Ixil, even though we speak another language, which is Mayan Quiché.
My father was also burned alive in the embassy of Spain in January 30th, 1980. So this is why I feel the suffering of the victims who are clamoring for justice in the case against Ríos Montt, because under Lucas García, right before the coup d’état led by Ríos Montt, they burnt down the Spanish embassy where [my] father was. So, all of the abuses and violations that happened in 1982 and 1983, I suffered personally. My father had recently been burned alive. His name was Vicente Menchú.
So, in ’83, my brother Victor was also shot dead. His name was Victor Menchú. He was killed, murdered in Uspantán, also very close to the Ixil region. He was captured by the army. He had fled with his three children to the rainforest. His wife had her throat slit, and he was fleeing with his three children. After a couple of months, they captured him and took him to Uspantán. And Victor was jailed in the little town, but his three children were kept in a military bunker. It was called Chajul, this bunker. So my two nieces died of hunger in this military base, and my brother Victor was shot. We still have not found the remains of Victor. We found a file about his cadaver being found with multiple gunshot wounds in the place where people say he was probably shot, but a judge who ruled on his death drew up a death certificate, but it doesn’t specify where he was murdered. So we think that my brother Victor is also buried in a mass grave.
And these are the people closest to me who were murdered during the genocide. My father, my mother, my brother Victor, my brother Patrocinio and my sister-in-law Maria were the closest members of my family affected by the genocide.
And this is why I think that the conviction of Ríos Montt may provide an opportunity to close a chapter of our lives, a chapter of profound pain and a chapter that closes and allows us to begin a new relationship amongst Guatemalans, because during the genocide, we felt so alone, we felt powerless, and we felt that nobody had our back. But now a court has convicted Ríos Montt of genocide. So, for us, that suffices, that the fact that genocide was committed is recognized means that nobody will ever forget that genocide was committed.
Jonathan P. Baird 