Psyche, Science, and Society

Progressive Jews say calling for Israeli boycott not antisemitic

Progressive Jews in Europe, Israel, and North America unite against idea that calling for a boycott of Israel is antisemitic. [Note, I signed.]:

We are peace activists of Jewish background. Some of us typically identify in this way; others of us do not. But we all object to those who claim to speak for all Jews or who use charges of anti-Semitism to attempt to squelch legitimate dissent.

We have learned with dismay the allegations regarding Hermann Dierkes, a trade unionist and leader of the Left Party (DIE LINKE) in the German city of Duisburg. Dierkes, in response to the recent Israeli assault on Gaza expressed the view that one way people could help Palestinians obtain justice would be to support the call of the World Social Forum to boycott Israeli goods, so as to put pressure on the Israeli government.

Dierkes has been subjected to widespread and vitriolic denunciations for anti-Semitism, and accused of calling for a repeat of the Nazi policy of the 1930s of boycotting Jewish products. Dierkes responded that “The demands of the World Social Forum have nothing in common with Nazi-type racist campaigns against Jews, but aim at changing the Israeli government’s policy of oppression of the Palestinians.”

No one has made any claims of anti-Semitism against Dierkes for anything other than his support of the boycott. Yet he has been accused of “pure anti-Semitism” (Dieter Graumann the Vice-President of the Central Jewish Council), of uttering words comparable to “a mass execution at the edge of a Ukrainian forest” (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung editorialist Achim Beer), and of expressing “Nazi propaganda” (Hendrik Wuest, General Secretary of the Christian Democratic Party).

We signatories have differing views on the wisdom and efficacy of calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. Some of us believe that such a boycott is an essential component of a campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions that can end the four-decade-long Israeli occupation; others think the better way to pressure the Israeli government is with a more selective boycott focused on institutions and corporations supporting the occupation. But all of us agree that it is essential to apply pressure against the Israeli government if peace and justice are to prevail in the Middle East and all of us agree that a call for a boycott of Israel has nothing in common with the Nazi policy of “Don’t buy from Jews.” It is no more anti-Semitic to boycott Israel to end the occupation than it was anti-white to boycott South Africa to end apartheid. Social justice movements have often called for boycotts or divestment, whether against the military regime in Burma or the government of Sudan. Wise or not, such calls are in no way discriminatory.

Violence in the Middle East has indeed led to some acts of anti-Semitism in Europe. There was a call to boycott Jewish-owned stores in Rome that was widely and appropriately condemned. We deplore such bigotry. Israel’s crimes cannot be attributed to Jews as a whole. But, at the same time, a boycott of Israel cannot be equated with a boycott of Jews as a whole.

An acute and disturbing form of racism rising in Europe today is Islamophobia and xenophobia directed at immigrants from Muslim countries. Dierkes has been a champion in defense of the rights of immigrants, while some of those who accuse all critics of Israel of being anti-Semitic often participate themselves — like the Israeli government and state — in such forms of racism.

The Holocaust was one of the most horrific events in modern history. It is a dishonor to its victims to use its memory as a bludgeon to silence principled critics of Israel’s unconscionable treatment of Palestinians.

[We have spent just a week gathering names on this letter, circulating it only in a few countries. We apologize to all those who would have liked to sign, but didn't get a chance or whose names arrived too late for inclusion. For information on how you can help support this effort, please contact Dierkes.Letter@gmail.com.]

Signatories

(organizations listed for identification purposes only)

BELGIUM

Marc ABRAMOWICZ, Psychothérapeute

Mateo ALALUF, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Joëlle BAUMERDER, Directrice institution culturelle

Marianne BLUME, Professeur

Jacques BUDE, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Willy ESTERSOHN, Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique

Fanny FILOSOF

Thérèse FRANKFORT, Professeur

Victor GINSBURGH, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Tom GOLDSCHMIDT, Journaliste

Martine GOLDSTEIN, Psychologue, Université libre de Bruxelles

Henri GOLDMAN, Auteur

José GOTOVITCH, Professeur retraité

Anne HERSCOVICI, Sociologue

Miaden HERZL

Henri HURWITZ, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Paul JACOBS, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Willy KALB

Daniel LIEBMAN, Romaniste

Léon LIEBMAN, Magistrat honoraire

Nicole MAYER, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Henri ROANNE-ROZENBLATT, Journaliste

Dominique RODRIGUEZ, Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique

Edith RUBINSTEIN, Femme en noir

Serge SIMON, Ecrivain et Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique

Michel STASZEWSKI, Professeur

Léo TUBBAX

Elie VAMOS, Médecin

Esther VAMOS, Professeur émerite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Serge VIDAL

Jean VOGEL, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Laurent VOGEL, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Henri WAJNBLUM, Co-président de l’Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique

CANADA

Elizabeth BLOCK, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism, Women in Solidarity with Palestine, Independent Jewish Voices

Corey BALSAM, Student

Julia BARNETT

Lawrence BOXALL, Jews for a Just Peace

Mark Robert BRILL

Anne-Marie BRUN

Smadar CARMON, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism

James DEUTSCH, MD

Judith DEUTSCH, MSW, President, Science for Peace

Gordon DOCTOROW

Inge FLEISCHMANN FOWLIE, Independent Jewish Voices

Barry FLEMING

Matt FODOR

Inge FOWLIE

Daniel FREEMAN-MALOY, Activist and writer

Sam GINDIN, York University

Rachel GUROFSKY, Trent University

Larry HAIVEN, Saint Mary’s University

Jean HANSON, Independent Jewish Voices

Jake JAVANSHIR, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism

Mira KHAZZAM, Independent Jewish Voices

Mark KLEIN

Naomi KLEIN, Author

Jason KUNIN

Richard Borshay LEE, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto

Abby LIPPMAN, Independent Jewish Voices

Henry LOWI

Elizabeth MOLCHANY, Esquire

Rabbi David MIVASAIR, Ahavat Olam Synagogue, Vancouver

Joanne NAIMAN

Yakov M. RABKIN, Professeur titulaire, Département d’histoire, Université de Montréal

Diana RALPH, Independent Jewish Voices

R.S. RATNER, University of British Columbia

Herman ROSENFELD, Instructor, Labour Studies, McMaster University

Martha ROTH, United Jewish Voices-BC

Marty ROTH, United Jewish Voices-BC

Regine SCHMID

Alan SEARS, Ryerson University

Edward SHAFFER, University of Alberta

Sid SHNIAD, Independent Jewish Voices

Greg STARR, Jews for a Just Peace

Vera SZOKE

Judith WEISMAN

Suzanne WEISS, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism

FRANCE

Houria ACKERMANN, Directrice de crèche

Nuri ALBALA, Avocat

Paula ALBOUZE

Paul ALLIÈS, Professeur à l’Université de Montpellier

Arlette ALVARENGA, Consultante retraitée

Simon ASSOUN, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Marc AYBES, Infographiste

Bernard BATT

Raphaël BÉNARROSH, Avocat retraité

Eliane BÉNARROSH, Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples

Zvi BEN-DOR, Professor, New York University (Paris, France)

Daniel BENSAÏD, Professeur à l’Université Paris 8

Jean BRAFMAN, Conseiller régional d’Île-de-France

Kurt BRAININ, Médecin

Rony BRAUMAN

Kenneth BROWN, Mediterraneans/Méditerranéennes

Alice CHERKI, Psychiatre, psychanalyste, auteure

Élisabeth CHOPARD-LALLIER, Conceptrice d’édition

Sonia DAYAN-HERZBRUN, Professeur émérite à l’université Paris 7

Gilles DERHI, Pédopsychiatre, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Sylvia EVRARD, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Mireille FANON-MENDÈS-FRANCE, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Patrick FELDSTEIN, Bureau national, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Rafael GOLDWASER

Jean-Guy GREILSAMER, Président des Amis du Théâtre de la Liberté de Jénine

Serge GROSSVAK

Bertrand HEILBRONN

Avi HERSHKOVITZ, Cinéaste

Thamara HORMAECHEA, Médecin

Gonzague HUTIN, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Bernard JANCOVICI, Professeur émérite, Université de Paris-Sud

Christine JEDWAB, Psychologue

Jacques JEDWAB

Samuel JOHSUA, Professeur émérite, Université de Provence

Nicole KAHN

Florence KERAVEC, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Maurice KERNBAUM

Daniel LARTICHAUX-ULLMANN, Documentaliste

Catherine LÉVY, Sociologue

Daniel LÉVYNE, Enseignant retraité

Michaël LÖWY, Sociologue

Françoise MALFROID

Alain MARCU, Petit fils de déporté, fils de juifs résistants

Jean François MARX

Véronique MARZO, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Pierre MAUREL

Ariane MONNERON, Ancien Chef de Clinique, Directeur de recherche au CNRS

Jean-Hugues MORNEAU, Bibliothécaire, Université Joseph Fourier de Grenoble

François MUNIER

Josiane OLFF-NATHAN, Université de Strasbourg
Perrine OLFF-RASTEGAR, Porte-parole Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Paix

Martine OLFF-SOMMER, Psychologue

Henri OSINSKI

Marie-France OSINSKI

Nahed PUST, Femmes en Noir de Strasbourg

Jocelyne RAJNCHAPEL-MESSAÏ, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Sabrina RANASINGHE

Claude RAYMOND, Retraitée

Yaël REINHARZ HAZAN, co-directrice du Festival du Film et Forum International sur les Doits Humains

Suzanne ROSENBERG

Jacques SCHWEIZER, Physicien

Michèle SIBONY, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Claude SZATAN

Hannah TAIEB, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Marlène TUNINGA, Présidente section française, Ligue internationale des femmes pour la paix et la liberté

Dominique VENTRE, Directeur de Formation Télécom

René VONWALLENBERG, Avocat
Fabrice WEISSMAN, Directeur d’études Fondation Médecins Sans Frontières

Adek ZYLBERBERG

Marie Claire ZYLBERBERG

GERMANY

Galit ALTSHULER, European Jews for Just Peace

Linda BENEDIKT

Stacey BLATT

Elias DAVIDSSON, Komponist, Menschenrechtler

Ilil FRIEDMAN, European Jews for Just Peace

Ruth FRUCHTMAN, Writer, European Jews for Just Peace

Harri GRÜNBERG, Mitarbeiter der Bundestagsfraktion DIE LINKE

Iris HEFETS, European Jews for Just Peace

Tal HEVER

Michal KAISER-LIVNE, European Jews for Just Peace

Kate KATZENSTEIN-LEITERER, European Jews for Just Peace

Jason KIRKPATRICK

Felicia LANGER

Mieciu LANGER

Jean Joseph LEVY

Edith LUTZ, European Jews for Just Peace

Jakob MONETA, früherer Chefredakteur der Zeitung Metall

Abraham MELZER, Publisher, European Jews for Just Peace

Moshe PERLSTEIN, European Jews for Just Peace

Fanny Michaela REISIN, European Jews for Just Peace

Paul Otto SAMUELSDORFF

Lawrence ZWEIG, Solidarity International

ISRAEL

Hillel BARAK, Movement Against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine

Ronnie BARKAN, Anarchists Against the Wall

Judith BLANC, Bat Shalom, Women in Black, HADASH

Matan COHEN, Tarabot

Adi DAGAN, Coalition of Women for Peace

Rotem DAN MOR, Student, Center of Middle Eastern Classical Music in Jerusalem

Yvonne DEUTSCH, Social worker and feminist peace activist

Daniel DUKAREVICH

Emmanuel FARJOUN, Professor of Mathematics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Naama FARJOUN

Alon FRIEDMAN, MD, Departments of Physiology and Neurosurgery, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Yodfat Ariela GETZ, Filmmaker and social activist

Rachel GIORA, Tel Aviv University

Angela GODFREY-GOLDSTEIN, Action Advocacy Officer, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Neta GOLAN

Vardit GOLDNER

Amos GVIRTZ, Recognition Forum

Connie HACKBARTH, Alternative Information Center

Roni HAMMERMANN, Machsomwatch

Shir HEVER, Alternative Information Center

Tikva HONIG-PARNASS

Ronnee JAEGER, Bat Shalom, Coalition of Women for a Just Peace

Jimmy JOHNSON, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Matan KAMINER

Reuven KAMINER

Teddy KATZ

Hava KELLER

Adam KELLER, Journalist

Idan LANDAU, Department of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics, Ben Gurion University

Yael LERER, Publisher

Orit LOYTER

Eilat MAOZ, Women’s Coalition

Anat MATAR, Department of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University

Dorothy NAOR, Activist for justice and peace

Israel NAOR

Gilad NATHAN

Amos NOY

Adi OPHIR, Professor of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University

Amit PERELSON

Shai Carmeli POLLAK

David REEB, Artist

Andre ROSENTHAL, Civil rights lawyer

Yehoshua ROSIN

Sergeiy SANDLER, New Profile

Ayala SHANI

Kobi SNITZ, Technion

Lea TSEMEL, Attorney, SOS Torture

Roy WAGNER

Michel WARSCHAWSKI, Alternative Information Center

Sergio YAHNI, Alternative Information Center

Uri ZACKHEM

Beate ZILVERSMIDT

ITALY

Liviana BORTOLUSSI, Rete Radiè Resch di solidarietà Internazionale

Paola CANARUTTO, Medico

Giorgio CANARUTTO, Impiegato

Marina DEL MONTE, Psicoterapeuta

Ronit DOVRAT, Pittrice

Douglas DOWD, Professor of Economics

Giorgio FORTI, Professore Emerito Università di Milano

Milena MOTTALINI, Avvocata

Carla ORTONA, Funzionaria sanità

Marco RAMAZZOTTI, Funzionario Nazioni Unite, Rete Ebrei Contro L’occupazione, Jews Against Occupation

Stefano SARFATTI , Commerciante

Susanna SINIGAGLIA

Ornella TERRACINI, Insegnante in pensione

SWITZERLAND

Guy BOLLAG

Shraga ELAM, Winner of the Australian Gold Walkley Award for Excellent Journalism 2004

Dorrie ITEN, Jewish Voice for a Just Peace

Leo KANEMAN, Co-directeur Festival du Film et Forum International sur les Droits Humains

Rolf KRAUER, Gewerkschafter UNIA

Martine RAIS, Médecin

Peter STRECKEISEN, Soziologe

Ursel URECH, Lehrerin, Gewerkschaft VPOD

Sharon Weill, Ph.D. candidate in International Law, University of Geneva

Robin WINOGROND, Jewish Voice for a Just Peace

UK

Hanna BRAUN, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Richard BRENNER, Editor, Workers Power

Haim BRESHEETH, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies

Peter COHEN, London South Bank University

Angela DALE, Jews Against Zionism

Mark ELF, Jews Sans Frontieres

Liz ELKIND, Scottish Jews for a Just Peace

Rayah FELDMAN, London South Bank University

Alf FILER

Sylvia FINZI, Jews for Justice for Palestinians

Tony GREENSTEIN , Trade unionist (UNISON)

Pete HALL

Abe HAYEEM, Jews for Justice for Palestinians /International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Rosamine HAYEEM, Jews for Justice for Palestinians/International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Dan JUDELSON, Secretary, European Jews for a Just Peace

Yael KAHN

Bernice LASCHINGER

Les LEVIDOW, Open University

Vivien LICHTENSTEIN

Yosefa LOSHITZKY, Professor of Film Studies

Moshe MACHOVER, Professor Emeritus, founding member of the Socialist Organization in Israel “Matzpen”

Hilda MEERS, Scottish Jews for a Just Peace

Diana NESLEN, Jews Against Zionism

Esther NESLEN

Susan PASHKOFF, Jews Against Zionism

Roland RANCE, Jews Against Zionism

Anna ROBIN

Shrila ROBIN

Brian ROBINSON

Miriam SCHARF

Ruth SIRTON

Inbar TAMARI, Jews Against Zionism

Norman TRAUB

Eyal WEIZMAN, University of London

Jay WOOLRICH

USA

Deborah AGRE, Middle East Children’s Alliance

Michael ALBERT, ZNet

Barbra APFELBAUM, Riverside Language Program, New York City

Rann BAR-ON, International Solidarity Movement and North Carolina Coalition for Palestine

Trude BENNETT

Phyllis BENNIS, Institute for Policy Studies

Carl BLOICE, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy & Socialism

Audrey BOMSE, Lawyer

Daniel BOYARIN, University of California-Berkeley

Lenni BRENNER

Stephen Eric BRONNER, Director of Global Relations, Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, & Human Rights, Rutgers University

Judith BUTLER, Professor, University of California-Berkeley

Leslie CAGAN, National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

Ellen CANTAROW, Writer

Barbara H. CHASIN, Professor Emerita, Montclair State University

Noam CHOMSKY, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jill Hamburg COPLAN, Journalist

Lawrence DAVIDSON, West Chester University

Daniel ELLSBERG, Revealed Pentagon Papers, writer

Carolyn EISENBERG, Hofstra University

Judith FERSTER, Jewish Voice for Peace and BritTzedek

Michelle FINE, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Barry FINGER, Editorial board, New Politics

David FINKEL, Managing Editor, Against the Current

Norman G. FINKELSTEIN, Independent scholar

Laurie FOX

Racheli GAI, Co-editor, Jewish Peace News

Irene GENDZIER, Boston University

Jack GERSON, Oakland Education Association Executive Board

Alice GOLIN, Bloomfield-Glen Ridge NJ Peace Action

Steve GOLIN, Bloomfield College

Linda GORDON, Professor of History, New York University

Marilyn HACKER, Writer, City College of New York

Stanley HELLER, Moderator “Jews Who Speak Out”; Host “The Struggle” TV news magazine

Edward S. HERMAN, Professor Emeritus, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Carol HORWITZ, “Jews Say No”

Louis KAMPF, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Stan KARP, Rethinking Schools

Melanie KAYE/KANTROWITZ, Queens College, City University of New York

Richard LACHMANN, University at Albany – State University of New York

Joanne LANDY, Campaign for Peace & Democracy

Jesse LEMISCH, Professor Emeritus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Howard LENOW, American Jews For A Just Peace

Zachary LEVENSON, University of California-Berkeley

Joseph LEVINE, Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts

Mark LEVINE, Professor of Middle East History, University of California, Irvine

Nelson LICHTENSTEIN, University of California, Santa Barbara

Lawrence LIFSCHULTZ, Author and journalist

Zachary LOCKMAN, New York University

Marvin MANDELL, Co-editor, New Politics

Marilyn Kleinberg NEIMARK, co-host of “Beyond the Pale: Jewish Culture and Politics,” WBAI radio, New York

Joan NESTLE

Henry NOBLE, National Secretary, U.S. Section, Freedom Socialist Party

Judith NORMAN, Co-editor, Jewish Peace News

David OST, Hobart & William Smith Colleges

Frances Fox PIVEN, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Karen REDLEAF, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Adrienne RICH, Poet and activist

Bruce ROBBINS, Columbia University

Robert C. ROSEN, William Paterson University

Deborah ROSENFELT, Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland

Emma ROSENTHAL, Cafe Intifada/Los Angeles Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee

Paula ROTHENBERG, Professor Emerita, William Paterson University

Matthew ROTHSCHILD, Editor, The Progressive magazine

Rachel RUBIN, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Marjorie SCHEER, Jews for a Just Peace – North Carolina

Michael SCHWARTZ, Stony Brook State University

Alexander SHALOM, Lawyer

Beverly SHALOM, Social worker

Evelyn R. SHALOM, Health educator

Stephen R. SHALOM, William Paterson University

Sami SHALOM CHETRIT

Ira SHOR, City University of New York

Jerome SLATER, Writer

Alan SOKAL, New York University

Stephen SOLDZ, Co-founder, Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

David S. SURREY, Saint Peter’s College

Norman TRAUB

Carol WALD, War Resisters League

Richard I. WARK, Jews for a Just Peace-North Carolina

Lois WEINER, Professor of Education, New Jersey City University

Adrienne WELLER

Eleanor WILNER, Writer

Howard ZINN, Historian

OTHER

Marshall ANSELL, Sweden

David BARKIN, Mexico

Viviane COHEN, Architect, Morocco

Hans DIELEMAN, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Mexico

Mary ELDIN, Ireland

Dror FEILER, Musician, Chairperson of European Jews for a Just Peace and Judar för Israelisk Palestinsk Fred, Sweden

Jacques HERSH, Professor Emeritus, Denmark

Zachris JÄNTTI, Finland

Jakob LINDBERG, Judar för Israelisk Palestinsk Fred, Sweden

Margot SALOM, Palestinian & Jewish Unity for Justice and Peace, Australia

March 30th, 2009

Greenwald on Jim Webb’s brave call for criminal justice reform

I never got around to posting on Sen. Jim Webb’s brave call for major reform in our criminal justice system. Well, now Glenn Greenwald’s done it for me:

Jim Webb’s courage v. the “pragmatism” excuse for politicians

By Glenn Greenwald

(updated below)

There are few things rarer than a major politician doing something that is genuinely courageous and principled, but Jim Webb’s impassioned commitment to fundamental prison reform is exactly that.  Webb’s interest in the issue was prompted by his work as a journalist in 1984, when he wrote about an American citizen who was locked away in a Japanese prison for two years under extremely harsh conditions for nothing more than marijuana possession.  After decades of mindless “tough-on-crime” hysteria, an increasingly irrational “drug war,” and a sprawling, privatized prison state as brutal as it is counter-productive, America has easily surpassed Japan — and virtually every other country in the world — to become what Brown University Professor Glenn Loury recently described as a “a nation of jailers” whose “prison system has grown into a leviathan unmatched in human history.”

What’s most notable about Webb’s decision to champion this cause is how honest his advocacy is.  He isn’t just attempting to chip away at the safe edges of America’s oppressive prison state.  His critique of what we’re doing is fundamental, not incremental.  And, most important of all, Webb is addressing head-on one of the principal causes of our insane imprisonment fixation:  our aberrational insistence on criminalizing and imprisoning non-violent drug offenders (when we’re not doing worse to them).  That is an issue most politicians are petrified to get anywhere near, as evidenced just this week by Barack Obama’s adolescent, condescending snickering when asked about marijuana legalization, in response to which Obama gave a dismissive answer that Andrew Sullivan accurately deemed “pathetic.”  Here are just a few excerpts from Webb’s Senate floor speech this week (.pdf) on his new bill to create a Commission to study all aspects of prison reform:

Let’s start with a premise that I don’t think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world’s population; we have 25% of the world’s known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world’s greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .

In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us. . . .

Another piece of this issue that I hope we will address with this National Criminal Justice Commission is what happens inside our prisons. . . . We also have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.

Importantly, what are we going to do about drug policy – the whole area of drug policy in this country?

And how does that affect sentencing procedures and other alternatives that we might look at?

Webb added that ”America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace” and “we are locking up too many people who do not belong in jail.”

It’s hard to overstate how politically thankless, and risky, is Webb’s pursuit of this issue — both in general and particularly for Webb.  Though there has been some evolution of public opinion on some drug policy issues, there is virtually no meaningful organized constituency for prison reform.  To the contrary, leaving oneself vulnerable to accusations of being “soft on crime” has, for decades, been one of the most toxic vulnerabilities a politician can suffer (ask Michael Dukakis).  Moreover, the privatized Prison State is a booming and highly profitable industry, with an army of lobbyists, donations, and other well-funded weapons for targeting candidates who threaten its interests.

Most notably, Webb is in the Senate not as an invulnerable, multi-term political institution from a safely blue state (he’s not Ted Kennedy), but is the opposite:  he’s a first-term Senator from Virginia, one of the “toughest” “anti-crime” states in the country (it abolished parole in 1995 and is second only to Texas in the number of prisoners it executes), and Webb won election to the Senate by the narrowest of margins, thanks largely to George Allen’s macaca-driven implosion.  As Ezra Klein wrote, with understatement:  “Lots of politicians make their name being anti-crime, which has come to mean pro-punishment. Few make their name being pro-prison reform.”

For a Senator like Webb to spend his time trumpeting the evils of excessive prison rates, racial disparities in sentencing, the unjust effects of the Drug War, and disgustingly harsh conditions inside prisons is precisely the opposite of what every single political consultant would recommend that he do.  There’s just no plausible explanation for Webb’s actions other than the fact that he’s engaged in the noblest and rarest of conduct:  advocating a position and pursuing an outcome because he actually believes in it and believes that, with reasoned argument, he can convince his fellow citizens to see the validity of his cause.  And he is doing this despite the fact that it potentially poses substantial risks to his political self-interest and offers almost no prospect for political reward.  Webb is far from perfect — he’s cast some truly bad votes since being elected — but, in this instance, not only his conduct but also his motives are highly commendable.

* * * * *

Webb’s actions here underscore a broader point.  Our political class has trained so many citizens not only to tolerate, but to endorse, cowardly behavior on the part of their political leaders.  When politicians take bad positions, ones that are opposed by large numbers of their supporters, it is not only the politicians, but also huge numbers of their supporters, who step forward to offer excuses and justifications:  well, they have to take that position because it’s too politically risky not to; they have no choice and it’s the smart thing to do. That’s the excuse one heard for years as Democrats meekly acquiesced to or actively supported virtually every extremist Bush policy from the attack on Iraq to torture and warrantless eavesdropping; it’s the excuse which even progressives offer for why their political leaders won’t advocate for marriage equality or defense spending cuts; and it’s the same excuse one hears now to justify virtually every Obama “disappointment.”

Webb’s commitment to this unpopular project demonstrates how false that excuse-making is –  just as it was proven false by Russ Feingold’s singular, lonely, October, 2001 vote against the Patriot Act and Feingold’s subsequent, early opposition to the then-popular Bush’s assault on civil liberties, despite his representing the purple state of Wisconsin.  Political leaders have the ability to change public opinion by engaging in leadership and persuasive advocacy.  Any cowardly politician can take only those positions that reside safely within the majoritiarian consensus.  Actual leaders, by definition, confront majoritarian views when they are misguided and seek to change them, and politicians have far more ability to affect and change public opinion than they want the public to believe they have.

The political class wants people to see them as helpless captives to immutable political realities so that they have a permanent, all-purpose excuse for whatever they do, so that they are always able to justify their position by appealing to so-called “political realities.”  But that excuse is grounded in a fundamentally false view of what political leaders are actually capable of doing in terms of shifting public opinion, as NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen explained when I interviewed him about his theories of how political consensus is maintained and manipulated:

GG:  One of the points you make is that it’s not just journalists who define what these spheres [of consensus, legitimate debate and deviance] encompass. You argue that politicians, political actors can change what’s included in these spheres based on the positions that they take. And in some sense, you could even say that that’s kind of what leadership is — not just articulating what already is within the realm of consensus, which anyone can do, but taking ideas that are marginalized or within the sphere of deviance and bringing them into the sphere of legitimacy. How does that process work?  How do political actors change those spheres?

JR: Well, that’s exactly what leadership is. And I think it’s crippling sometimes to our own sense of efficacy in politics and media, if we assume that the media has all of the power to frame the debate and decide what consensus is, and consign things to deviant status. That’s not really true. That’s true under conditions of political immobilization, leadership default, a rage for normalcy, but in ordinary political life, leaders, by talking about things, make them legitimate. Parties, by pushing for things, make them part of the sphere of debate. Important and visible people can question consensus, and all of a sudden expand it. These spheres are malleable; if the conversation of democracy is alive and if you make your leaders talk about things, it becomes valid to talk about them.

And I really do think there’s a self-victimization that sometimes goes on, but to go back to the beginning of your question, there’s something else going on, which is the ability to infect us with notions of what’s realistic is one of the most potent powers press and political elites have. Whenever we make that kind of decision — “well it’s pragmatic, let’s be realistic” — what we’re really doing is we’re speculating about other Americans, our fellow citizens, and what they’re likely to accept or what works on them or what stimuli they respond to. And that way of seeing other Americans, fellow citizens, is in fact something the media has taught us; that is one of the deepest lessons we’ve learned from the media even if we are skeptics of the MSM.

And one of the things I see on the left that really bothers me is the ease with which people skeptical of the media will talk about what the masses believe and how the masses will be led and moved in this way that shows me that the mass media tutors them on how to see their fellow citizens. And here the Internet again has at least some potential, because we don’t have to guess what those other Americans think. We can encounter them ourselves, and thereby reshape our sense of what they think. I think every time people make that judgment about what’s realistic, what they’re really doing is they’re imagining what the rest of the country would accept, and how other people think, and they get those ideas from the media.

We’ve been trained how we talk about our political leaders primarily by a media that worships political cynicism and can only understand the world through political game-playing.  Thus, so many Americans have been taught to believe not only that politicians shouldn’t have the obligation of leadership imposed on them — i.e., to persuade the public of what is right — but that it’s actually smart and wise of them to avoid positions they believe in when doing so is politically risky.

People love now to assume the role of super-sophisticated political consultant rather than a citizen demanding actions from their representatives.  Due to the prism of gamesmanship through which political pundits understand and discuss politics, many citizens have learned to talk about their political leaders as though they’re political strategists advising their clients as to the politically shrewd steps that should be taken (“this law is awful and unjust and he was being craven by voting for it, but he was absolutely right to vote for it because the public wouldn’t understand if he opposed it”), rather than as citizens demanding that their public servants do the right thing (“this law is awful and unjust and, for that reason alone, he should oppose it and show leadership by making the case to the public as to why it’s awful and unjust”).

It may be unrealistic to expect most politicians in most circumstances to do what Jim Webb is doing here (or what Russ Feingold did during Bush’s first term).  My guess is that Webb, having succeeded in numerous other endeavors outside of politics, is not desperate to cling to his political office, and he has thus calculated that he’d rather have six years in the Senate doing things he thinks are meaningful than stay there forever on the condition that he cowardly renounce any actual beliefs.  It’s probably true that most career politicians, possessed of few other talents or interests, are highly unlikely to think that way.

But the fact that cowardly actions from political leaders are inevitable is no reason to excuse or, worse, justify and even advocate that cowardice.  In fact, the more citizens are willing to excuse and even urge political cowardice in the name of “realism” or “pragmatism” (“he was smart to take this bad, unjust position because Americans are too stupid or primitive for him to do otherwise and he needs to be re-elected”), the more common that behavior will be.  Politicians and their various advisers, consultants and enablers will make all the excuses they can for why politicians do what they do and insist that public opinion constrains them to do otherwise.  That excuse-making is their role, not the role of citizens.  What ought to be demanded of political officials by citizens is precisely the type of leadership Webb is exhibiting here.

UPDATE:  Three related points:

(1) John Cole attacks those who were angry about Obama’s marijuana answer by arguing that it was unrealistic to expect Obama to say “yes” to the question.  But as I told Cole in an email just now, I don’t think anyone expected him to advocate legalization or was angry that he didn’t.  It was his mocking, childish snickering about the issue and his refusal to address it seriously (even if to explain why he didn’t favor legalization) that prompted the objections.  My email to Cole is here.

(2) An angry emailer chides me for calling Webb’s proposal one of “prison reform,” as that actually diminishes the scope of what Webb is doing, and says instead that Webb’s proposal is really one to reform the entire criminal justice system.  Prison reform is just one of several critical (and politically difficult) issues Webb is addressing.  It’s a fair point, as Webb’s own website — which describes his bill as one to “overhaul America’s criminal justice system — makes clear.

(3) On Friday, April 3, at noon, I’ll be at the Cato Institute in Washington to present my report on drug decriminalization in Portugal and how it relates to drug policy debates in the U.S. (I wrote about that report here, and event details and/or live video streaming are here).

March 30th, 2009

Kuutner: We have “a dictatorship of the Fed and the Treasury, acting in the interests of Wall Street”

Robert Kuttner has one of the most stinging evaluations of the Obama administrations’ economic planning I have seen from the liberal left. He views the plan as a complete sell-out to Wall Street. A few key quotes:

What we have is something perilously close to a dictatorship of the Fed and the Treasury, acting in the interests of Wall Street….

But unlike Roosevelt, who used the public’s indignation and Congress’s support to constrain the barons of private finance, Obama’s economic team is using government funds to put the most abusive players on Wall Street back in the saddle. And Geithner and Summers, working with the Fed, are assembling their plan with no public scrutiny.

In the course of a week, the administration’s own rhetoric on the A.I.G. bonuses has shifted from “We were bound by contracts” to “This is an outrage” to “Never mind.” Wall Street was out for favor for just days.

He sets out a program for Congress, one unlikely to be undertaken by the current Congress:

Second, where is Congress? Basically, the key Democratic Committee chairman, whatever their private reservations, have been persuaded that they need to support their president and that the Geithner plan is worth a try. But at the very least, they should be asking harder questions and demanding more transparency. For instance, the Treasury needs to define tactics to game the bailout that will be be prohibited. Congress needs to know which Wall Street moguls the Treasury team met with, and exactly what they were promised. And the whole plan needs to be legislated, rather than made up on the fly by Summers, Geithner, and Bernanke.

At the very least, Congress should act now to cap the kind of windfall profits that hedge funds and private equity companies are likely to make with government bearing nearly all of the risk. There is a good precedent for this. During and after World War II, ending only in the early 1970s, there was a government agency called the Renegotiation Board. Defense Contractors had to agree to a contractual provision allowing a post-audit, after the contract was finished. If their profit exceed the stipulated amount, the government got a refund. By the same token, hedge fund and private equity bets made with government guarantees should have limits on their upside.

And before the Fed is turned into an even more potent all-purpose regulator, Congress should turn it into a true public institution–a reform project that has been deferred since Roosevelt’s day.

His stinging conclusion:

It’s possible that the Geithner plan will “work” in the sense of re-starting the Wall Street bubble machine, this time with a limitless line of direct credit from the Federal Reserve. If that happens, it will defer an even more serious day of reckoning, as the cost of the Fed’s immense credit creation comes due. But the greater likelihood is that the plan will merely enrich some speculators, but neither bring zombie banks back to life, nor get a normal banking and credit system operating again. And then the administration will need to come back to Congress, this time with less credibility, with the economy in even worse shape, having burned through more than a trillion dollars.

We were promised unprecedented openness. In the most momentous area of policy for getting the economy functioning again for ordinary Americans, we have instead unprecedented secrecy, designed by and for Wall Street. We expected better of Obama.

See also Jeffrey Sachs‘ Making Rich Guys Richer. The beginning:

In his review of the Geithner-Summers Plan to remove toxic assets from the banks, NY Times columnist Joe Nocera writes (March 28, p. B8), “As for the complaint that it will make rich guys richer, well, you can’t win ‘em all.” If Nocera had looked at alternatives that many of us have been suggesting and if he still concluded that helping rich guys get richer was the only conceivable strategy, his attitude might be acceptable. But he does no such thing. He did not explore alternatives. Nor did he explain to his readers that the taxpayer transfers to make “rich guys richer” could amount to tens, or hundreds, of billions of dollars of the public’s money, massive transfers that are avoidable.

And the conclusion:

We all know the end of the story as it’s now being written with an overpriced rescue of the banks. When it comes time for health care reform, education funding, infrastructure rebuilding, and (heaven forbid) help for the world’s poor and dying people, there will be no fiscal space. Budgets will be tight. Spending that helps make rich guys richer while leaving the poor to die of hunger and disease seems to be par for the course in our Wall-Street-besotted public policy.

Last week I stood in a village in Africa where the mines had closed and people had nothing to eat. Pleading eyes looked into mine. Those are the eyes that I still see when I read Nocera’s flippant acceptance of shoveling taxpayer funds to the undeserving rich.

March 30th, 2009

Charles Dickens on solitary confinement

After a visit to an American prison where total solitary confinement was practiced Dickens wrote:

I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow creature. I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore the more I denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.

March 30th, 2009