Big Government is the Answer

By Sudip Bhattacharya

Having been on Medicaid, I understand that state power is not inherently unjust. Government overreach does exist and must always be countered. Yet the notion that state power can only be a vehicle of repression and violence is an extremely conservative one, even when uttered by those of us on the Left. It is politically naïve and reductive.  

Not only has government power been a positive for many oppressed and marginalized groups, including working people; its ability to use force and coercion has been a necessary tool in shifting power away from the entrenched few. Taxing the rich, regulating major corporations, and redistributing land are all necessary forms of government coercion to raise living standards for the masses. These are all things that government has done in the United States and elsewhere.

In Black Reconstruction, W.E.B. Du Bois’s classic work examining the Reconstruction era following the demise of chattel slavery in America, Du Bois wrote of federal government intervention in the former Confederacy and its benefits. Through its direct military occupation of the South, the federal government created space for civic and political groups organized by white progressives and African Americans for the first time in the region’s modern history. There was also the creation of federal bureaucracies, such as the Freedmen’s Bureau, that Du Bois cited as being historic. For the first time, a majority of African Americans and poor whites were finally being provided free universal schooling and healthcare.

“The Freedmen’s Bureau was the most extraordinary and far-reaching institution of social uplift that America has ever attempted,” Du Bois stated. “It was a government guardianship for the relief and guidance of white and black labor from a feudal agrarianism to modern farming and industry.”

Du Bois himself published his work on Reconstruction politics while living through the New Deal, another era that saw the federal government playing a greater role in providing resources and rights for a larger share of the American populace. It was under the New Deal that social welfare programs were finally created to offset the precarity that people faced existing in a so-called free market world where companies could hire and fire whomever and whenever they wanted. It was also through the New Deal that the right to unionize was protected against corporate zealotry and overreach.

Social security and unemployment insurance were created, followed by a more emboldened Internal Revenue Service focusing on corporate returns. Not to mention the federal government decades later, pushed by grassroots efforts, to take a more serious interventionist role in protecting the rights and freedoms of African Americans and other marginalized groups against white terror. One could argue more coercive means should’ve been used, with more Klansmen being arrested and disappeared, as well as white supremacists who chose to wear suits rather than robes to their meetings. The prison system should’ve been filled with racists and their sympathizers.

Why is it so important to have this broader view of government power and its benefits? Because this view enriches us, providing a clearer analysis of how to generate power and change for the working masses. It also reminds us that the era we’re in remains an era of narrowed political interests and horizons. Biden or Trump, government functions as a vehicle for private capitalist interests to grow fat and ever more looming over the rest of society.

The Biden administration has been more open to ideas such as the right to unionize, and yet, it still resists any real attempts at utilizing government institutions, which it could, to seize more power from the major capitalists that render our society a swamp for their own profit motive and greed. In a capitalist society such as ours, state power includes that of capitalist institutions, along with civic associations and groups. Government competes with capitalists who concentrate the distribution of goods and services within their grasp. After all, when wanting more housing or healthcare, where do we turn to? The government? Perhaps when we need some kind of reprieve. But usually, we are dependent upon the private insurance company or landlord for our salvation, for what we need to live. We depend on a job to access scraps and crumbs.

As Kevin Young, Michael Schwartz, and Tarun Banerjee state, “Capitalists routinely exert leverage over governments by withholding the resources — jobs, credit, goods, and services — upon which society depends.” During the Obama administration, even when tepid reforms and regulations were pushed ahead, major businesses responded by withholding critical investments that would cause the economy to become far more precarious for a growing segment of the population because they had the power to do so. “The ‘capital strike’ might take the form of layoffs, offshoring jobs and money, denying loans, or just a credible threat to do those things, along with a promise to relent once government delivers the desired policy changes,” Young, Schwartz, and Bannerjee add.

When COVID became our enduring reality, the medical industry had been caught flat-footed. In a saner society, not one dominated by profit-hungry entities called companies, there would’ve been a stockpile of masks and other medical resources in case of emergency, especially as pandemics become more commonplace.

However, most major companies were uninterested in having an excess of masks, depreciating assets whose value was only speculative. Money is far more important than saving lives, of course.

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“But executives in the medical supply industry said that while they are rushing to accelerate their output of face masks, it could take months to ramp up,” it was reported at the time, as body bags lined the streets of Manhattan, as the medical industry staggered through the crisis to meet critical demand at basically the last second, leading to countless needless infections and deaths. Imagine if the healthcare industry was not an industry at all but rather part of a national system. Imagine the experts who could’ve predicted the need for a stockpile of masks. Imagine that stockpile being available the moment people start feeling their chests get muddy, their breathing cut short.

As Donald Cohen and Aillen Mikaelian note in their dissection of neoliberal privatization, the government, especially at the federal level, could and should step in, not just in terms of regulating major industries but providing an actual public option of many goods and services that people need. Why keep such important goods, like housing and health, in the supposed care of a select few major corporations, and landlords? These are things that all people need, not the same as choosing between what cereal or TV show to purchase/binge.

“If we take back control of our public goods — if we reject what political philosopher Michael Sandel calls ‘a market society’ — we will gain an incredible opportunity to build instead a society based on public values and a commitment to ensuring that public goods are available to all,” they explain in The Privatization of Everything, adding, “We’re all better off when we limit privatization and market competition over things we all need — things including public health, key infrastructure, water, education, and democracy itself.”

After the Russian Civil War, which saw an army of proto-fascists and fanatics unleashed onto the Russian working classes and peasantry, Vladimir Lenin, the great theoretician of the “state,” believed that having some level of government bureaucracy was necessary in forging the transition from a country ruined by war and capitalism toward something more oriented toward the needs and interests of the masses. Of course, the government bureaucrats would be accountable to the various levels of revolutionary pressure, from the Bolshevik party to members of the working class and peasantry who understood their historic role inside the country.

Nevertheless, much like Du Bois, Lenin embraced the realpolitik of government institutions being capable and willing to coerce the ruling elite and to forge a society that finally abolished class distinctions itself.  There was much work to be done, according to him.

“Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yet got on to new rails,” he stated in an essay collected in The Day after the Revolution, “The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say ‘state’ we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class.”

People can certainly exist in a future society in which they care for each other and check in on those around them in terms of what neighbors might need. People have that capacity to perform mutual aid. However, none of that individual or hyper-local level of care negate the fact that a society still needs major institutions to function for people to truly feel liberated, from the maintenance of hospitals (no longer run for profit) to schooling (also free and universal) to, of course, such institutions filled with a level of expertise, whether its medical or educational or the ability to maintain the traffic lights at the nearest intersection, that not everyone should be expected to have. Is it really a liberated society in which everyone, regardless of their interests or capacity, is expected to produce and provide asthma inhalers and other types of medicine for those around them? Is it liberation for everyone to have to spend every day gathering food and other resources so that everyone can survive?

This is where Big Government intervenes, cultivating people and institutions that respond to our needs so that we’re truly free and less burdened overall. Or, as Jodi Dean has said regarding the masses and the party form, channeling and developing peoples’ skills and energies far higher than simply being obsessed with the extremely local. We need a world that’s free. We are against capitalist forces imposing their nightmare upon us — a nightmare that’s global in reach.

Now, questions do remain of how to create that government we so desperately need. One could argue somehow that all we must do is run candidates, possibly independent of major parties, and for them to simply “take over” existing institutions. To some degree, this is indeed important — at least in the short term when it means providing and tweaking policies that could improve peoples’ lives, such as appointing officials sympathetic to labor to the NLRB or hiring more IRS officials to pursue white-collar tax dodging, or at a more visceral level, providing free money to people during a pandemic.

And yet, Lenin’s insight that the state or particularly government power doesn’t automatically change simply because there’s an immediate changing of the guard also holds true. In the United States, even as the government is reoriented to be more perhaps, “sympathetic”, toward interests beyond the elite, it remains a network of institutions situated to sustain capitalism, and other forms of oppression. Even the New Deal itself, as much as it curried favor and improved peoples’ lives tremendously, was itself a “compromise” between workers and their employes, and hence, sought a friendlier version of capitalism, well-regulated of course, to survive, which it did until more extremist elements of the capitalist class demanded more in terms of government largesse and power.

There will need to be a dramatic break with how government is currently oriented to truly meet the political aspirations and dreams of most people. It will be a government that does more than just tax the wealthy but abolishes them. It will be a government that does more than create programs to achieve balance but rather completely redistributes land and wealth, completely addresses historical wrongs from the dispossession of indigenous groups to the ghosts of enslavement, to paying money and making amends to the recent victims of the War on Drugs, and militarized policing.

This break necessitates revolution, always. There still is a need for a revolutionary party to break through the white noise of our status quo politics, and gather our forces to confront and challenge, and reinvent. There is still that need for more than just simply running candidates for re-election, no matter how radical platforms may seem.

But one can’t sustain without the other. Shorter-term needs get met, and longer-term horizons expand. People become emboldened as they win, not when they lose everything, including their sense of self and sanity.

Whatever the path toward political synergy might be, it cannot be wedded to an analysis of government and state power that is not only reductive, but stinks of political immaturity and a form of libertarian analysis that only sees government as somehow oppressive and all forms of “independence” from it as liberatory.“One reads the truer deeper facts of Reconstruction with a great despair,” Du Bois had written regarding the violent defeat and the shutting down of progress at the tail end of the Reconstruction period. Similarly, as much as people are being immiserated and, in some instances, compelled to take on a more radical opposition or critique, we also have seen a rise in rightwing violence and a predilection amongst the capitalist classes to express antipathy and throwing obstacles against any form of progressive reform even. Both the Democratic and Republican parties, with different levels of intensity, are very much against the cries of the oppressed and the dreams of the politically voiceless. The working classes who envision a socialist world have no real political home, let alone political momentum at this point.  

Crises beget more crises, which beget the oppressed and exploited being overwhelmed and politically confused. Big Government is an answer, and yet, who or what will spread the gospel and make it heaven on earth before the waters rise above our knees?

The DNC’s Successful Strategy of Failure

[Photo Credit: Charles Dharapak / AP]

By Petra Glenn

In the last few decades, on multiple occasions, Democrats have secured unified control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. Each time, they failed to deliver on their promises. Abortion rights are an infamous example.

The Biden and Obama administrations had years to codify reproductive freedom. In 2007, before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, President Obama told abortion rights activists that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act [FOCA],” which would have established abortion as a fundamental right nationwide. Yet, even with 257 seats in the House, the largest number of Democratic seats since 1994, and a supermajority in the Senate, Obama did not attempt to pass the FOCA.

Biden secured the House and Senate with narrow majorities, but despite his campaign claims that if made President “Roe would be the law of the land,” no action was taken to secure abortion rights. This allowed Donald Trump’s decidedly anti-choice bench to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. Democratic inertia has terminated much of the goodwill the party once had on the abortion issue. Yet, in the leadup to the 2024 election, Democrats are claiming that your donations and votes will lead to the reproductive protections the party has promised for decades. Ignoring their misconduct, Democrats point the finger squarely at Republicans for widespread abortion bans that endanger millions across America.

The Republican Party indeed deserves much blame. Though Republicans once viewed abortion as a personal right, efforts to court evangelicals made them increasingly anti-choice. And they embrace this new identity, with Republican senators like Lindsey Graham calling for a national abortion ban. Oppressing women fits logically with the rest of their platform, which includes exploiting the environment and working class to line the pockets of corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

Democrats, meanwhile, are a party of contradictions. They too continually bend to the ultra-wealthy but cloak it in the rhetoric of minority empowerment and progression. Abortion isn’t the only right Democrats dangle above the heads of their voting base. The Democrats have continually built their party off the supposed interests of Black communities, immigrants, workers, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. This alignment is typically purely symbolic, as both Biden and Obama increased police funding, sped up the process of deportation, blocked asylum seekers, and expanded imperialist foreign policies. Democrats have continually doubled down on oppressive systems while boasting of their diversity, equality, and inclusion.

It’s no wonder to those with intersectional class consciousness that the election of Vice President Kamala Harris, former “top cop” of California, didn’t smash the patriarchy. While standing for the same corporate interests, the two parties act like bitter enemies fighting to save the country from the other. Petty disputes take center stage while both vote for tax cuts, police expansion, more military spending, and genocide.

This hasn’t always been the case. In the 75th Congress from 1937-1938, Democrats secured 77% of the Senate seats and 75% of the House. With this majority, that hasn’t been achieved since, the Democrats heavily subsidized education and social services by raising the top marginal income tax to 75%. Fast forward to the 1990s and Democrats had a chance to achieve similar successes. Under Bill Clinton, they won unified federal government control after decades of Republican dominance. Clinton ran as a change agent, rekindling the optimism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election 60 years prior. 

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Despite campaigning as a progressive, Clinton governed as a corporate neoliberal. This shattered the electorate's hopes and set the tone for the Democratic Party as a whole. Taking office amid a recession, Clinton made economic growth his primary policy goal, not equality. This posture and the desire to create a “new economy” led to the embrace of free trade policy, which assumed that globalization would catapult the country into the 21st century. It was a crushing lie. As was the Clinton administration’s financial deregulation, which planted the seeds of the 2008 economic crash. But these choices made sense. Servility to the capitalist class meant more corporate money flowing into Democratic coffers—Clinton’s broken promises made for a more viable — but increasingly useless — party.  

In 2020, Joe Biden adopted the Clinton playbook. His campaign framed the notoriously conservative Washington insider as a staunch progressive. Behind closed doors, “Uncle Joe” promised maintenance of the status quo for his mega-donors. In public, Biden was a climate savior, reproductive champion, and working-class hero, bringing morals back to the Oval Office. Yet he was fully capable of turning on a dime. The same weekend Biden vowed to tackle poverty, he also promised a wealthy audience at the Ritz-Carlton that “nothing would fundamentally change.” He would not “demonize” the rich through higher taxation.

Ahead of the 2024 election, there is much discussion of Democratic failure to achieve any of the goals they set in 2020. A lack of climate urgency, the fall of Roe, not forgiving student loans, inflation, and funding a genocide are particular ways the DNC has failed Americans and millions abroad. Abortion, and other rights, have been used as leverage over Democratic voters. When the right continues to be at risk, at-risk populations have continual reason to vote for the party that claims to fight for such rights. The threat of the Republicans and Donald Trump, in particular, are utilized to explain policy failures and to create cop-outs when failure occurs.

Failure and purposely losing is therefore the strategy of the DNC. The more Democrats lose and fail to provide the rights they allegedly support, the further reasons to vote for them occur. Both parties have no issue voting bipartisanly to cut taxes for the ultra-rich or to fund genocides abroad, yet rely on their construed ‘differences’ to secure votes from their constituents. Republicans’ platform better aligns with their corporate interests, making it easier for them to follow through with their campaign promises.

Democrats, however, contradict their campaign with their funding, making their promised policies of rights, universal healthcare and education, and climate policy impossible. Therefore, the more the Democrats lose, the more they can campaign for further funding from voters and corporations, to hopefully ‘defeat’ the Republicans in the future.

Supporters can argue that Republicans, gridlock, and budgeting have been obstacles to the success of the Democrats, yet these same hindrances appear to be no issue when foreign governments need billions of dollars to commit a genocide that the American public does not support. Our foreign policy simply cannot be majorly adjusted, as “stability” abroad is vital to the security of the American people more than relieving student debt, prioritizing healthcare and education, and addressing poverty. So despite the skyrocketing prices, taxes used to bomb children, and attacks on women, BIPOC, and queer Americans, the very same Democrats who are the ones dropping the bombs remain the saviors.

Dissent against this losing strategy has been met with greater force than any Republican threat has. Forcing Bernie Sanders out of the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primary elections was a key strategy of the DNC to avoid being held responsible for their promises and losing corporate interests. The DNC would have rather lost with Clinton than won with Sanders so they can continually look like the victims of the fascist haters of the Right. When Republicans vocally support a genocidal ethnostate, they are racist monsters that need to be voted out of the government so that the moral Democrats can quietly fund the atrocity instead.

Anything to the left of ethnic cleansing and continual tax cuts for the 1% is censored and any representatives who oppose such policies eventually succumb to the establishment to survive. The contradictions of this political game have led to representatives trading their political identities for social status. When progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attended the Met Gala — which requires upwards of $50,000 for a ticket — in a gown displaying the message “tax the rich,” it became clear that progressive rhetoric is best used for social clout.

The spiel that continual funding and voter mobilization for the DNC will be the savior for the American people has continually failed to create meaningful change. Biden’s presidency has proved that identity politics can only take our country so far. Our political parties are working how they were designed to: for and by the rich. One party is simply more honest about it.

Petra Glenn is an activist and aspiring political scientist. She is pursuing her PhD and aims to aid in bridging the gap between academic theory and practice.

On the Development of Political Consciousness

By Peter S. Baron

Political consciousness involves understanding how our lives are shaped by social, economic, and political systems, particularly within the framework of capitalism. By developing political consciousness, we can recognize how the capitalist system perpetuates everyday issues like poverty and inequality. Doing so, we can explore ways to work together towards a fairer, more cooperative society.

To develop political consciousness, we must understand that regardless of our class—whether lower, middle, or upper—we are part of the general population. We are not part of the small group who holds real power regarding how society is organized. Since we lack significant power to influence decisions that shape the structure of our society, it's crucial to recognize that our capitalist and hierarchical systems, which impose economic inequality, social stratification, and power imbalances, are not inherent to "human nature." These structures are artificially constructed—man-made—and therefore, they can be reimagined and changed.

Social ills like poverty, war, crime, poor health, long working hours, and job dissatisfaction are intrinsic to the capitalist system, designed to maximize profits and reinforce the power of the wealthy few. Capitalism thrives on inequality, ensuring a steady supply of cheap labor by maintaining poverty. Wars, driven by capitalist competition for resources and markets, not only benefit the elite through military-industrial profits but also open new markets, force rebellious countries into the capitalist world order, and dominate natural resources. Economic disparities lead to crime, which keeps people scared of each other instead of the capitalists producing these conditions and creates a perceived need for police, who are necessary to suppress social movements that threaten capitalism. The for-profit healthcare system locks out the poor, keeping them sick, irritable, and in pain, leading to more social problems in their communities and hurting their chances for upward mobility. Employers push for long hours and monotonous jobs to numb people's minds, conditioning them to accept an unfulfilling existence while draining them of the energy to resist. These issues are not accidental but are systematically perpetuated to maintain elite control and economic dominance, highlighting the need for systemic change.

We have the technology and resources to meet everyone's basic needs and more. However, within the capitalist system, owners of essential resources deliberately keep them scarce to boost their profits and maintain socioeconomic and political control over society. This enforced scarcity compels us to compete for money, which we need to purchase these essential resources. We compete by vying for jobs or by selling goods and services.

Remember, money doesn’t materialize out of thin air; it comes from our pockets, circulating among individuals and businesses, continuously moving from one person to another. Think of it this way: when you pay rent, your hard-earned cash goes straight into the landlord's bank account. The landlord then uses that money to pay for services, transferring the money to other workers and businesses. This cycle repeats in countless ways: your grocery store purchase goes to the store owner, who then pays employees and suppliers. This constant flow of money among us shows how our economic system is interconnected, continuously shifting money from one person to another. Each transaction becomes a competition for businesses and individuals to maximize their earnings at the expense of others. This pits us against each other, making us competitors rather than collaborators, and ultimately making it harder to work together for our common good.

The ruling elite (owners) maintain this system because it keeps us preoccupied with our own survival, ensuring that we don't challenge their power. By keeping us competing for resources, they maintain their control over society. We need to see through this manipulation and understand that cooperation, rather than competition, can help meet everyone's needs. Instead of competing, we can support and create systems where resources are shared fairly, like community food banks or cooperative housing projects.

Currently, we find ourselves competing with each other over slivers of wealth and power—small salary increases, slightly better apartments, marginally better schools for our kids, and slightly more powerful positions at work—while the corporate community and ruling elite hoard vast wealth and control. We undermine and exploit each other while competing for the limited resources distributed by the ruling elite, yet we often don’t even stop to think about it! By perpetuating these systems, we reinforce power structures that serve a select few at our collective expense.

Recognizing and Challenging the Capitalist System

We can live better lives without capitalism. We should question why we must compete. Wouldn't we rather work together to improve our quality of life? We have the power to choose to cooperate. It is a fool’s errand to continue upholding these oppressive structures when we can create a society based on mutual aid and cooperation, where everyone has access to what they need and the freedom to pursue their desires without harming others.

Importantly, such questioning requires a recognition that we, the people, have been conscripted to willingly, and often enthusiastically, do the rulers' bidding of perpetuating systems that serve ruling interests. We do exactly as they wish by competing with each other over shavings of wealth and power. How much longer will we allow ourselves to be driven by the spiritually bankrupt belief that accumulating wealth and power equates to a better quality of life?

At our core, we are all humans—essentially apes who share 99.5% of our DNA with chimpanzees—sharing the same planet (which capitalism is currently ravaging…). None of us are inherently superior to one another, regardless of the social constructs or values we use to measure each other. While intelligence tests, work performance, and other criteria may create the illusion of ranking and comparison, these are merely human-made constructs. They do not reflect the fundamental reality that we are all essentially the same. As humans, there is no true measure of being better at being human; these constructs fail to capture our shared essence and humanity. Ultimately, we are all just apes, and these rankings do not define our worth or existence. How can we look at someone struggling under capitalism and tell them they deserve this suffering? How can we be so cruel as to shame them into believing they are inferior because of mistakes, factors beyond their control, or simply losing in this ruthless, competitive society?

While some argue that individual agency, effort, and personal responsibility, measured through intelligence tests and work performance, drive personal and societal progress by incentivizing innovation, hard work, and excellence, this perspective overlooks a crucial aspect of human nature. Humans are inherently innovative and social beings who thrive on helping each other. We don't need money to drive our creativity. The wheel wasn't invented for profit, and Nikola Tesla pursued his groundbreaking work out of passion, not for financial gain. When we create a society where people can take risks without the fear of homelessness or destitution, we unleash a greater potential for innovation. Moreover, imagine a world where our inventors and entrepreneurs innovate out of pure passion and a genuine desire to help others. It's disheartening to think that self-interest alone should drive innovation, as this often warps the true potential and purpose of their creations. Isn't it far more inspiring to envision a society where the love for one's work and the commitment to collective well-being fuel our greatest advancements? By fostering a culture of mutual support and cooperation, we can inspire more people to contribute their ideas and talents for the collective good, leading to a more prosperous and innovative society for all.

The real culprit here is the capitalist system that warps humanity to such an extent that people commit inhumane acts. This system creates conditions of scarcity, competition, and alienation, driving individuals to extreme behaviors as they struggle to survive and succeed. When we encounter individuals who are “lazy,” “irresponsible,” or “antagonistic,” it's easy to overlook that these behaviors often stem from systemic pressures and the dehumanizing effects of capitalism. Similarly, when we see extreme cases like murderers or Nazis, we must remember that their actions are also the result of systemic traumas and distortions created by the same flawed system.

Mother Teresa’s compassion and service were commendable, but her worth wasn’t greater than anyone else's. I’m positive she would say the same. As Carl Jung reminds us, we must acknowledge our “collective shadow”—the parts of society that we’d rather ignore or vilify. Instead of scapegoating individuals, we need to dismantle the system that perpetuates these cycles of harm.

By understanding that harmful behaviors are symptoms of a deeply flawed system, we can shift our focus from blaming individuals to transforming society. This means fighting for a world where resources are shared, and where everyone has the opportunity to live with dignity and purpose. It’s not about excusing wrongdoings but recognizing that our collective liberation depends on changing the conditions that lead to such acts in the first place. Only then can we truly honor our shared humanity and work together for the common good.

The capitalist system continues because we support it daily, despite its burdens. We  must understand that the capitalist system inherently creates inequality and suffering, which pushes all of us into the position where we may either contribute to the problem or work towards solutions. We have the power to create a society where communities and individuals possess meaningful control over their own lives. We do not have to live according to the dictates of corporate overlords who shape the material conditions we must live within, forcing us to compete for marginally better status in a fundamentally oppressive system. We can build communities that work together, share resources fairly, and make decisions together. By focusing on mutual aid and cooperation instead of competition, we can make sure everyone has what they need.

But this, what we are doing today, is crazy! Look at how we treat each other. Our society is based on all of us competing with each other over money and power to determine how we allocate basic necessities like where we live, what we eat, and the quality of our healthcare. What kind of society plays such a sadistic game where “losing” or refusing to submit to ruthless competition results in a poor quality of life? It’s certainly not a “civilized” society. Yet, we continue to perpetuate these exploitative systems, harming each other for what? The benefit of a small elite who couldn’t care less about our well-being. This is ridiculous. This relentless competition is a brutal and dehumanizing way to organize our lives, and it's time we see it for what it is.

So, what do we do? How do we help each other realize these truths? We should help each other develop our political consciousness. We should understand the flaws of the current order while simultaneously envisioning a cooperative society. By living in ways that emphasize cooperation, without hierarchy, profit, or commodified life, we can experience the benefits of a non-exploitative system firsthand. This lived experience is crucial in fostering a deeper political consciousness.

Thus, the development of political consciousness and the building of a cooperative society go hand in hand. As we disengage from the capitalist system and start creating alternatives, we strengthen our awareness and commitment to a more equitable future. In this sense, helping each other reach political consciousness is not just a step toward revolution—it is the revolution itself.

Awakening

The journey towards political consciousness requires a profound psychological transformation that we undergo together. It's a process where we collectively change how we see the world and our place within it. This transformation involves several key stages, each marked by significant shifts in our awareness, understanding, and emotional responses.

Initially, many of us exist in a state of false consciousness; that is, a state in which we don’t realize our true interests as a collective group and instead accept things as they are. In this stage, we often internalize the dominant capitalist ideology, accepting the status quo as natural and unchangeable, perhaps even good for us. We might attribute our socio-economic conditions to personal success or failings, believing in meritocracy, which asserts the harder and more productive we are as workers, the more we deserve to receive. This way of thinking is kept alive by the promotion of “rags-to-riches” stories, media narratives, and education systems that hide the truth about class oppression and exploitation.

Envision working tirelessly, dedicating yourself fully, yet seeing your socio-economic status remain stagnant or even deteriorate. Imagine doing everything you were told to do growing up, graduating from college, only to enter a workforce that offers survival-rate salaries and benefits. Your employer piles on intense pressure for you to consistently meet targets to avoid demotions or termination. Your work feels mind-numbing, your apartment is a tiny, overpriced box, and you’re scrambling to make ends meet while drowning in a mountain of student loan debt that grows faster than your paycheck. When you complain, your friends and family tell you “That’s life, work harder.” 

The first psychological shift happens when we start to experience cognitive dissonance, a deep sense of unease born from the glaring contradictions between our lived experiences and the dominant ideology. This realization hits hard, maybe making you question everything you've been taught. It's a jarring wake-up call, filled with confusion and frustration, leading to a budding skepticism of the status quo.

In this stage, we often begin to look for things to blame. Demagogues will try to exploit this confusion, urging us to scapegoat minority groups like immigrants, claiming they are driving down wages. But this is where we must stand together and help each other see the truth. The real culprit isn't the migrant who traveled vast distances seeking a better life for their family, only to be exploited even more harshly than we are. The responsibility lies with the exploitative systems and the wealthy elites who perpetuate them, pitting us against each other to maintain their power and control. But let's be clear: these systems would collapse without our participation. We, the people, are the ones shouldering the burden and perpetuating these oppressive structures. It's time we recognize our power and refuse to uphold a system that exploits and divides us.

Spiral Dynamics of Political consciousness

From here, it’s helpful to conceptualize the development of political consciousness through the lens of “Spiral Dynamics,” as articulated by psychologists Don Beck and Christopher Cowan and explained eloquently by Ken Wilber in his book “A Theory of Everything.” Spiral Dynamics offers a framework for understanding human development and societal evolution through a series of stages. The journey towards political consciousness can be viewed as an ascent through various stages of the spiral, each characterized by a distinct way of understanding and addressing social issues.

Within the Spiral Dynamics framework, we can visualize two main tiers of consciousness development. Stages 1-3 make up the first tier, while stages 4 and 5 belong to the second tier. Completing the third stage prepares individuals to make a significant leap into second-tier consciousness.

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At this higher tier, individuals can appreciate the entire range of political consciousness development, recognizing that each stage is crucial for the validity of the overall spiral. Understanding the validity of the spiral means recognizing that every stage, even the lower ones, plays an essential role in the growth and development of human consciousness. We all have to start at the beginning. Each stage provides foundational insights and experiences that are necessary for progressing to more advanced levels of understanding.

In other words, in second-tier consciousness, people understand that earlier stages are not just obstacles to be overcome but integral parts of a holistic system. For instance, while stages 1-3 involve more basic levels of awareness and critique, they are necessary steps that lay the groundwork for more complex and integrated thinking. This perspective allows individuals to see the value in every stage, fostering empathy and reducing animosity towards those at different levels of consciousness, ensuring that no one is left behind and that the transformation process is grounded in a deep understanding of human development. This stands in opposition to those at the lower stages of consciousness (1-3) who often believe their perspective is the only correct one and may react negatively when challenged.

So, what exactly are the stages in the spiral dynamics of political consciousness? (Note: the stages described below are original and presented in broad strokes to provide a general overview for the purpose of this article.)

Stage 1: Viewing Individual Political Personalities as the Cause of Social Issues

At the first stage of political consciousness, individuals may attribute social problems to specific political figures, believing that changing leaders will resolve these issues. This perspective, heavily influenced by media portrayals, focuses on authority and order, viewing strong leadership as essential for stability. For example, liberals may blame Donald Trump or the GOP for various social ills, while conservatives target figures like Joe Biden or blame the liberal “establishment”, seeing them as symbols of corruption.

Individuals at this stage are often attracted to simplistic solutions, such as believing that removing certain leaders will resolve systemic problems (e.g., “If only the democrats could control all three branches”). Although this is the lowest stage on the spiral, it is widely perceived as the only valid perspective because media narratives, driven by corporate interests, emphasize personalities and scandals over substantive policy discussions.

This focus on individuals distracts from the systemic nature of issues such as capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. It perpetuates the illusion that we simply have the wrong leaders, but if we vote for the “good ones” they can bring about meaningful change. However, this perspective misses the point that simply changing leaders, especially when we are forced to choose from options essentially handpicked by the corporate elite, is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. While it might appear to offer temporary relief, it does nothing to address the underlying problem. Additionally, this stage fosters divisive politics, weakening collective action and solidarity among the working class.

Thus, this stage represents a superficial understanding of societal issues, justifying its placement at the bottom of the hierarchy. It upholds the existing political and economic systems by implying they can function justly with the "right" people in charge. Ignoring the fundamental issue of power—the flawed belief that any leader should have the authority to make decisions for us—overlooks the inherent potential for abuse and denies individuals their inherent right to have a meaningful say in decisions that affect their lives.

To progress, individuals must engage in political education to understand systemic power dynamics, build solidarity among diverse groups, and develop a critical approach to media consumption.

Stage 2: Blaming Greedy Billionaires and Individual Corporations for Social Issues

At the second stage of political consciousness, individuals move beyond blaming political figures and start identifying greedy billionaires and individual corporations as the main culprits of social issues. People in this stage may target figures like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg for their immense wealth and exploitative practices. Corporations like Amazon, Facebook, and ExxonMobil are criticized for contributing to income inequality, data privacy violations, and environmental degradation. Solutions at this stage often include calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, stricter antitrust laws, and stronger labor protections to curb corporate excesses.

This sort of thinking is (sometimes) championed by people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While this stage is a step forward from blaming political leaders, it remains incomplete. Focusing on the greed and unethical behavior of billionaires and corporations still personalizes systemic issues, attributing problems to individual actions rather than recognizing these behaviors as inherent to capitalism itself. The pursuit of profit at any cost, driven by competition and the need to maximize shareholder value, is a fundamental feature of capitalism, not a deviation.

The proposed reforms, such as regulatory measures and higher taxes, do not fundamentally challenge the capitalist system. They might temporarily mitigate some of the worst excesses, but they leave the underlying structures of capitalism intact, allowing exploitation to evolve and continue in different, often stealthier, forms.

Notably, these reforms necessitate the existence of a powerful centralized government, which itself can become an instrument of oppression and control. True liberation requires dismantling these systems entirely, rejecting the illusion of top-down solutions, and embracing grassroots, decentralized approaches that empower individuals and communities to create a just and equitable society from the ground up.

Stage 3: Recognizing Capitalism's Inherent Inequalities

At the third stage of political consciousness, individuals move beyond blaming specific people or organizations and recognize capitalism itself as the root cause of social issues. Individuals at this stage, engage in a systemic critique of capitalism, understanding that issues like inequality, exploitation, and environmental degradation are inherent to a system based on year over year profit growth. They understand how capitalism alienates workers by separating them from the products of their labor, stripping away their sense of humanity, and isolating them from each other. They also see how capitalism intersects with other forms of oppression, such as racism and gender inequality, creating a complex web of inequality.

While this stage marks significant progress in political consciousness, it still overlooks a critical element: understanding the deeper psychological and existential factors that drive human behavior. It misses the crucial realization that it is us, the people, who enable the rulers to maintain the capitalist system.

Individuals at this stage often face the difficult challenge of balancing their anger at capitalism with the necessary effort to understand why people act and believe as they do, including those who perpetuate the system like billionaires and corporate leaders, as well as the managerial white-collar workers who comprise most of upper-middle class. This stage may still portray figures like Jeff Bezos as simply evil or greedy without considering the complex motivations and fears that drive such behavior.

The problem lies in failing to recognize the existential fears and psychological mechanisms that influence everyone. This includes understanding how fear of insecurity, mortality, and existential anxiety can shape beliefs and actions. Without this deeper understanding, the critique remains superficial, failing to address why people cling to harmful systems or resist change.

Stage 4: Recognizing Our Own Fear of Insecurity and Uncertainty as Holding Us Back

At this advanced, second-tier stage of political consciousness, individuals transcend systemic critique and develop deep self-awareness, recognizing that our fear of insecurity and uncertainty fundamentally impedes social progress. This stage integrates systemic thinking with holistic understanding, emphasizing the psychological insights of Ernest Becker's book "The Denial of Death" and Om Søren Kierkegaard's concept of the "automatic cultural man."

Capitalism not only exploits materially but also conditions people to internalize feelings of powerlessness and dependency. Becker argues that human behavior is profoundly influenced by our fear of death. To cope with this fear, we create "cultural systems"—the shared beliefs, values, norms, and practices of our society—that give our lives a sense of meaning. These cultural systems offer a symbolic form of immortality by allowing us to feel part of something enduring and larger than ourselves, thus providing psychological protection against our innate fear of mortality. The denial of our mortality thus often results in our irrational adherence to oppressive systems like capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Kierkegaard describes individuals who conform to societal norms to avoid existential anxiety as “automatic cultural men.” These "automatic cultural men" uncritically accept systems such as consumerism, competition, and hierarchical structures, seeking security in conformity rather than challenging the status quo.

Ultimately, this fear of death is a fear of life itself. Many people prefer the manufactured security of societal norms and the capitalist status quo because it helps them avoid facing the harsh reality that nothing in this world can provide true security. Many of us advocating for social change hold onto the belief in gradual reforms and working within the system to bring about change for the same psychological comfort, driven by a fear of uncertainty, insecurity, and vulnerability in a ruthless world.

Yet, we are vulnerable beings on a ruthless planet, subjected to various dangers, including dangers from each other. There’s no escaping this reality. However, acknowledging this truth can be liberating. Accepting our vulnerability allows us to confront life head-on. Instead of each person seeking false comfort in societal norms and the capitalist system, which turn us into the “automatons” Kierkegaard describes, we can embrace our collective strength. Through solidarity, we can support one another and create a more secure and fulfilling existence.

Those in stage 4 understand it is important to recognize that billionaires, too, are "automatic cultural men," bound by a life philosophy that sees cold-blooded success in capitalism and the accumulation of wealth as the ultimate goal. They are held captive by this belief. Recognizing this, individuals at Stage 4 understand that everyone, including billionaires, must break free from these psychological constraints. However, the primary focus remains on the broader populace, particularly the most downtrodden and oppressed, since our liberation does not hinge on the billionaires awakening.

In the spirit of Rousseau's cry that "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains," it is evident that our innate drive for power, which Nietzsche identified as the driving force of all life in his concept of the "will to power," is being grotesquely misdirected. In our current predicament, instead of channeling this “will to power” towards individually and collectively conquering life's challenges and mastering our own existence, we tragically seek to dominate each other.

We are social beings born with the potential to cooperate and help each other confront life’s obstacles directly. Yet, we elect to willingly rush headlong into the chains of capitalist cultural systems that confine us, blinding ourselves to our tremendous collective capacity. These systems, which we so readily accept, serve as deceptive sanctuaries, allowing us to hide from the profound realities of life and death. They seduce us into maintaining power structures that channel our energy for justice into judgmental and oppressive avenues, putting a smile on the face of our rulers.

We must unchain ourselves, reject the comfort of our accepted systems, and collectively confront life with the raw, untamed will to power Nietzsche envisioned. Only then can we realize the freedom Rousseau proclaimed was our birthright, casting off the chains that bind us and standing unflinchingly in the face of life's ultimate truths.

At stage 4, individuals realize these truths, understanding that overcoming the fear of insecurity and uncertainty is crucial for genuine social transformation. Addressing these fears unlocks human potential for empathy, creativity, and collective action. Recognizing that we psychologically and philosophically seek comfort and security to protect us from our fear of death, individuals begin to see that the only way out of the suffocating society we have constructed lies in enabling individual creativity and diversity to flourish freely.

Stage 5: Integrating All Stages with Negative Capability and the Perennial Philosophy

At the highest stage of political consciousness, individuals not only integrate the insights from earlier stages but also embody John Keats' concept of "negative capability" and Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy. This stage, characterized by a holistic, global, and transcendent perspective, represents a profound understanding of interconnectedness and a deep commitment to creating a just and equitable world. Here, individuals transcend ego and personal desires in favor of collective well-being.

In this stage, we move beyond simply recognizing the need for individuals and communities to flourish creatively and autonomously. We understand that such flourishing is only possible through mutual aid. This realization is grounded in the Perennial Philosophy, which posits that all existence is interconnected.

Picture a vibrant community where people actively support each other's growth and well-being. Artists collaborate on public murals, transforming blank walls into colorful expressions of collective creativity. Farmers share their harvests at local markets, ensuring everyone has access to fresh, healthy food. Neighbors form childcare co-ops, allowing parents to pursue their passions while knowing their children are cared for by trusted friends. Volunteers organize educational workshops where knowledge and skills are freely exchanged, empowering everyone to reach their potential.

In this interconnected community, self-interest and the interests of others are seamlessly intertwined. The success of one person directly contributes to the success of all, fostering an environment where everyone can thrive. This tapestry of mutual aid shows that our well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of others—including all people, other living beings, and the Earth itself. This interconnectedness reveals that our interests are not separate, highlighting that mutual aid is essential for our collective flourishing.

Negative capability is a term coined by the Romantic poet John Keats in a letter written in 1817. It refers to the ability to remain comfortable with ambiguity, uncertainty, and doubt without the need to seek concrete answers or rational explanations. Keats believed that this capability allowed poets and artists to fully embrace the complexity and mystery of life, creating works that captured the depth of human experience. Negative capability is characterized by openness to multiple interpretations and the acceptance that not all questions have definitive answers. It contrasts with the drive for resolution and certainty, emphasizing the value of intuition and imagination in understanding the world.

Embracing negative capability, individuals at this stage navigate the uncertainties of creating this new form of social organization described above without clinging to rigid ideologies. They understand they cannot perfectly plan the future but must start building it by embracing ambiguity with confidence. They embrace the inherent uncertainties and complexities of dismantling existing structures without seeking immediate, definitive solutions. This openness to ambiguity fosters creativity and adaptability, enabling us to envision and implement more fluid and organic forms of social organization. This mindset asserts the means are the ends. It prompts action with the understanding that maintaining a holistic and integrative perspective will lead us to our goals. In fact, those in stage 5 realize that every moment they practice this mindset, they are already achieving their goals.

Ultimately, Stage 5 calls for a profound internal and external transformation. By understanding and addressing the psychological and existential factors driving human behavior, individuals adopt a compassionate, holistic approach to political consciousness.

Creating a just society requires taking a bold leap into the unknown. After all, let’s reflect on why so many idolize America's founding fathers. It’s certainly not because they were paragons of virtue. These men owned hundreds of slaves, were consumed by the pursuit of profit, and stood as the wealthiest individuals in the nation. Despite their deeply flawed characters, they are revered because they dared to take a leap of faith, striving to create a new nation in the face of brutal opposition from the British crown and resistance from their own countrymen. They exhibited undeniable courage.

We must channel their bravery into a new direction. Instead of perpetuating a system designed to protect capital and profit, we must harness our collective courage to create a system that truly facilitates human flourishing. It’s time to transcend the flawed ideals of the past and build a society rooted in equity, compassion, and the well-being of all its members. The true revolution lies not in defending the interests of the few but in uplifting the humanity of everyone.

This movement requires facing our basic vulnerability as animals on a dangerous planet and recognizing that no “cultural system” we manufacture can fully protect us. Fear will never totally leave us; we must learn to live in spite of it. There’s nowhere to run. We must begin embracing the uncertainty that is inherent in life, doing so with poise and confidence. Crucially, we must do so together. Life can be ruthless, but through solidarity, we can provide each other security.

We can overpower our innate fears as a collective. By embracing our vulnerability, we see that the unknown is precisely what makes life so beautiful. Embracing our vulnerability through decentralized mutual aid systems and maintaining a constant skepticism of power enables us to take risks, be adventurous, and pursue our creativity, all with the support of friends and community. Isn’t that what it means to be human?

But right now, we are shrinking in the face of life. We must stand up to life, and we must stand up together! We cannot allow fear to deter us. We must face it and realize that what we truly fear is our own potential—a potential so great it is impossible to imagine the forms it will take. By taking the leap to collectively reorganize society, we will unlock this potential and transform our world. The time to act is now; together, we can help each develop political consciousness and build a future where everyone thrives.

Peter S. Baron is the author of “If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society” (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Ultra-Processed Food: The Profitable Filth Capitalism Feeds Us

By Ezra Ellis

Republished from In Defence of Marxism.

Capitalism is polluting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the very food we eat: all in the name of profit. Further evidence of this comes from a review published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on 28 February, evaluating the best available research on the effect of ‘ultra-processed food’ (UPF) on our health. This review included 45 studies and almost 10 million participants, and crucially did not include any research funded by the big food companies. The findings are categorical.

The review found that consumption of UPF was linked to a substantially increased risk of at least 32 harmful health outcomes including all-cause mortality, cancer, diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases and mental health problems. This review confirms what UCL doctor and health researcher, Chris van Tulleken, argued in his book Ultra Processed People (published 2023): the food we eat is making us sick.

In general, the discussion around diet today is a monotonous sermon. From the newspaper columns to the television studios, the problem, we are told, begins and ends with the individual. The root cause of the global nutrition epidemic is boiled down to a lack of will to exercise, a lack of discipline to resist unhealthy snacks, and a lack of intelligence or capacity to teach oneself how to cook and prepare varied meals.

In this stale atmosphere, van Tulleken’s book, Ultra Processed People comes as a breath of fresh air. He puts forward a rigorous materialist analysis of the effect of the capitalist system on both the global food system and human diet.

Using a wide range of research data and interviews, van Tulleken challenges the consensus that humans have just become lazy and greedy.

Instead, he proposes the leading cause of growing levels of obesity is the drastic change in our modern diet that has come with the introduction and proliferation of UPF, pushed for profit over all else. UPF now constitutes more than half our diet in the UK, US, Canada and Australia but the big food companies are trying (successfully) to make it the staple across the globe.

UPF: not really food

UPF is a scientific definition for a category of food, originally drawn up by Carlos Monteiro, a Brazilian nutrition researcher. The hallmarks of UPF are the addition of stabilisers, emulsifiers, gums, lecithin and obscure oils you’ll never find in a supermarket or ordinary kitchen. What these ingredients have in common is they save corporations money, as they reduce the need for real ingredients in the food.

Not all scientists are in agreement that UPF is the problem. There have been many to speak out in defence of UPF, some even arguing that it can be good for you. However, a closer inspection shows that these scientists defending UPF have ties to the big food corporations manufacturing UPF such as Mcdonald's, Nestle and Coke.

UPF and Overeating

By analysing the past 100 years of research, the book demonstrates that it's neither fat, sugar, nor lack of exercise that has fundamentally led to the obesity crisis and increase in metabolic disorders. Instead, it is the nature of UPF itself that results in weight gain and poor health, as these foods are designed to encourage overeating.

UPF is soft and low in fibre making it faster to eat and digest, leaving you less full, and the flavour additives in it rarely correlate to the nutritional content interfering with our bodies' hormonal appetite regulation. UPF is engineered to keep you eating, and studies have found it can activate the brain in the same way as alcohol and drugs.

Van Tulleken references a study that demonstrated UPF leads to overeating and associated weight gain. The researchers fed two groups a diet identical in nutritional content, one 80 percent UPF and the other UPF-free, and swapped the groups over after two weeks. The same individuals ate an average of 500 calories more a day on the UPF diet.

This overconsumption of food has become a global health epidemic. Since 2017, more people in the world have been obese than underweight. Obesity is paradoxically beginning to be understood as a form of malnutrition, as UPF is high in calories but low in nutritional content.

In some places, this transformation has happened over just a few years, as multinational food companies like Nestle extend their reach into the developing world and swamp the local markets with UPF. The consequences for people in low-income and developing countries can be devastating as they have no access to dentistry or healthcare to address the problems UPF consumption causes, like tooth decay and diabetes.

You can’t ‘run off’ UPF

The proposed solution to overeating is exercise. This is often pu forward by the same multinationals causing the crisis. For example, Coke funded the ‘Exercise is Medicine’ programme, and funded many studies to ‘prove’ that the cause of the obesity crisis is lack of exercise, not Coke consumption.

However, Ultra Processed People examines the evidence and demonstrates that increasing exercise will not increase our bodies' expenditure of calories.

The book uses a study of the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania, and discovered they burned the same amount of calories as an American office worker. This isn’t to say Van Tulleken believes we should stop exercising. Exercise is good for your health – both physical and mental. However, diet is the crucial factor.

UPF is often the only option

Despite the effect UPF has on our bodies, the domination of the big food monopolies means that, for many, UPF is the only option.

23.5 million Americans live in food deserts, where fresh food isn’t available. 3 million people in the UK don't have a shop selling raw ingredients within 15 minutes of their home by public transport. Almost a million people in the UK don’t have a fridge, 2 million have no cooker, 3 million have no freezer, and the cost of energy now means many who do have it, can’t use it. UPF is consequently indispensable.

Deprived areas of England have more than twice as many fast food outlets (per capita) as more affluent areas. Teenagers are swamped with UPF, their bus tickets contain McDonald’s vouchers and fast food restaurants are often the only place they can hang out after school given the closure of youth clubs and community centres.

In the developing world, the situation is even worse. Coke is often cheaper than water, and as the influx of cheap UPF squeezes local farmers out of the market, UPF quickly becomes the only option. Globally 75 percent of our diet today consists of only 12 plants and five animals, UPF has replaced traditional foods.

To see the depravity of the capitalists you need look no further than the baby formula monopolies, like Nestle. They have aggressively pushed their products in countries where it was impossible to access safe drinking water, leading to 80,000 preventable infant deaths a year.

Why companies can’t stop selling it

What Ultra Processed People makes clear is that we can’t just change UPF and make it healthier. The products that are most addictive will sell best and do best on the market.

The book gives the example of ice cream. This is most often made using emulsifiers as an egg substitute, as it is cheaper and easier to store and transport. The reason companies are driven to experiment with the ingredients is that there is no room left to reduce costs in other areas. Capitalism drives companies to cut costs in production wherever possible, and UPF is cheaper to make, easier to store and transport, and has a much longer shelf life.

The evidence of the dangers of UPF, as found by the BMJ, falls on deaf ears for the capitalists, who respond with more processing: adding probiotics to ‘counteract’ their microbiome-damaging emulsifiers, adding artificial sweeteners, adding vitamins and minerals after all the original ones have been bleached out.

However they reformulate their products, their ultimate priority will always be to make profit, to sell as much as possible, and therefore to drive excess consumption.

The reason for the proliferation of UPF, despite these detrimental effects on nearly every aspect of human health is straightforward economics: a food that people consume more is food that sells more. This comes with the double benefit that you can sell a gym plan, “weight loss” branded UPF, or private healthcare membership as solutions to add even more revenue.

It is no coincidence that our diets are killing us – it is part and parcel of the capitalist profit-seeking system.

Why we need a revolution

What Ultra Processed People demonstrates is that consumers are largely powerless to cut out UPF, as we eat what we can afford. Companies are almost equally powerless to change things as they must produce the most profitable commodities, and rubbish that we can’t stop eating is a gold mine for them.

The main shortcoming of Van Tulleken’s book is that, having drawn these conclusions, he calls for government reform as the solution. In reality the government – through campaign funding, outright bribes and lucrative ‘job’ opportunities for MPs – is bought off by the food companies. And capitalists trying to cut their costs by feeding us rubbish is as old as capitalism itself; Marx was talking about the adulteration of bread going back to the beginning of the 18th century.

If we want to imagine a world without UPF, which is possible, we have to imagine a world without capitalism.

UPF has become indispensable, because the living and working conditions of the working class are so poor. Even before the cost of living crisis, British people spent 8 percent of their household budget on food. If the poorest 50 percent of households wanted to eat a diet that adhered to current healthy living guidelines they would need to spend 30 percent of their budget on food. The reason we spend so little? Because everything else (rent, utilities, transport) costs so much.

Even if you can afford to buy healthier real food, most people don’t have the time or energy after work to cook three meals from scratch every day. Many other people are completely dependent on ready meals because they are unable, through disability or illness, to cook for themselves.

Despite the industrialisation of agriculture, and the production of 2.6 times the food that humanity needs to feed itself, at least 2.3 billion people lack secure access to healthy and nutritious food. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Through a socialist plan of production, we could easily produce enough real food to meet everyone’s needs. With the creation of public canteens serving healthy and delicious food, we could socialise the domestic labour of cooking, which is currently primarily the burden of women. We could enable people to engage socially at mealtimes, rather than the lonely reality many face today of returning from a long day at work to eat a ready meal in front of the television.

This is all possible and it is the only way we can free ourselves from dependence on UPF. But it requires abandoning the profit motive and recreating our society at every level for the benefit of the working class – the overwhelming majority of the population.

Menace on the Menu: The Financialization of Farmland and the War on Food

By Colin Todhunter

Republished from Countercurrents.

Between 2008 and 2022, land prices nearly doubled throughout the world and tripled in Central-Eastern Europe. In the UK, an influx of investment from pension funds and private wealth contributed to a doubling of farmland prices from 2010-2015. Land prices in the US agricultural heartlands of Iowa quadrupled between 2002 and 2020.  

Agricultural investment funds rose ten-fold between 2005 and 2018 and now regularly include farmland as a stand-alone asset class, with US investors having doubled their stakes in farmland since 2020.  

Meanwhile, agricultural commodity traders are speculating on farmland through their own private equity subsidiaries, while new financial derivatives are allowing speculators to accrue land parcels and lease them back to struggling farmers, driving steep and sustained land price inflation. 

Top-down ‘green grabs’ now account for 20% of large-scale land deals. Government pledges for land-based carbon removals alone add up to almost 1.2 billion hectares, equivalent to total global cropland. Carbon offset markets are expected to quadruple in the next seven years. 

These are some of the findings published in the new report ‘Land Squeeze’ by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES), a non-profit thinktank headquartered in Brussels. 

The report says that agricultural land is increasingly being turned into a financial asset at the expense of small- and medium-scale farming. The COVID-19 event and the conflict in Ukraine helped promote the ‘feed the world’ panic narrative, prompting agribusiness and investors to secure land for export commodity production and urging governments to deregulate land markets and adopt pro-investor policies.  

However, despite sky-rocketing food prices, there was, according to the IPES in 2022, sufficient food and no risk of global food supply shortages. Despite the self-serving narrative pushed by big agribusiness and land investors, there has been no food shortage. The increased prices were due to speculation on food commodities, corporate profiteering and a heavy reliance on food imports.  

At the same time, carbon and biodiversity offset markets are facilitating massive land transactions, bringing major polluters into land markets. The IPES notes that Shell has set aside more than $450 million for offsetting projects. Land is also being appropriated for biofuels and green energy production, including water-intensive ‘green hydrogen’ projects that pose risks to local food production. 

In addition, much-needed agricultural land is being repurposed for extractive industries and mega-developments. For example, urbanisation and mega-infrastructure developments in Asia and Africa are claiming prime farmland.   

According to the IPES report, between 2000 and 2030, up to 3.3 million hectares of the world’s farmland will have been swallowed up by expanding megacities.  Some 80% of land loss to urbanisation is occurring in Asia and Africa. In India, 1.5 million hectares are estimated to have been lost to urban growth between 1955 and1985, a further 800,000 hectares lost between 1985 and 2000, with steady ongoing losses to this day.  

In a December 2016 paper on urban land expansion, it was projected that by 2030, globally, urban areas will have tripled in size, expanding into cropland. Around 60% of the world’s cropland lies on the outskirts of cities, and this land is, on average, twice as productive as land elsewhere on the globe.  

This means that, as cities expand, millions of small-scale farmers are being displaced. These farmers produce the majority of food in developing countries and are key to global food security.  In their place, we are seeing the aggregation of land into large-scale farms and the spread of industrial agriculture and all it brings, including poor food and diets, illness, environmental devastation and the destruction of rural communities.  

Funds tend to invest for between 10 and 15 years and can leave a trail of long-term environmental and social devastation and serve to undermine local and regional food security. Returns on investments trump any notions of healthy food, food security or human need. 

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The IPES notes that, globally, just 1% of the world’s largest farms now control 70% of the world’s farmland. These tend to be input-intensive, industrial-scale farms that the IPES says are straining resources, rapidly degrading farmland and further squeezing out smallholders. Moreover, agribusiness giants are pursuing monopolistic practices that drive up costs for farmers. These dynamics are creating systematic economic precarity for farmers, effectively forcing them to ‘get big or get out’. 

Factor in land degradation, much of which is attributable to modern chemical-intensive farming practices, and we have a recipe for global food insecurity. In India, more than 70% of its arable land is affected by one or more forms of land degradation. 

Also consider that the Indian government has sanctioned 50 solar parks, covering one million hectares in seven states. More than 74% of solar is on land of agricultural (67%) or natural ecosystem value (7%), causing potential food security and biodiversity conflicts. The IPES report notes that since 2017 there have been more than 15 instances of conflict in India linked with these projects. 

Nettie Wiebe, from the IPES, says: 

“Imagine trying to start a farm when 70% of farmland is already controlled by just 1% of the largest farms – and when land prices have risen for 20 years in a row, like in North America. That’s the stark reality young farmers face today. Farmland is increasingly owned not by farmers but by speculators, pension funds and big agribusinesses looking to cash in. Land prices have skyrocketed so high it’s becoming impossible to make a living from farming. This is reaching a tipping point – small and medium scale farming is simply being squeezed out.” 

Susan Chomba, also from the IPES, says that soaring land prices and land grabs are driving an unprecedented ‘land squeeze’, accelerating inequality and threatening food production. Moreover, the rush for dubious carbon projects, tree planting schemes, clean fuels and speculative buying is displacing not only small-scale farmers but also indigenous peoples. 

Huge swathes of farmland are being acquired by governments and corporations for these ‘green grabs’, despite little evidence of climate benefits. This issue is particularly affecting Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. The IPES notes that some 25 million hectares of land have been snapped up for carbon projects by a single ‘environmental asset creation’ firm, UAE-based ‘Blue Carbon’, through agreements with the governments of Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia and Liberia. 

According to the IPES, the ‘land squeeze’ is leading to farmer revolts, rural exodus, rural poverty and food insecurity. With global farmland prices having doubled in 15 years, farmers, peasants, and indigenous peoples are losing their land (or forced to downsize), while young farmers face significant barriers in accessing land to farm. 

The IPES calls for action to halt green grabs and remove speculative investment from land markets and establish integrated governance for land, environment and food systems to ensure a just transition. It also calls for support for collective ownership of farms and innovative financing for farmers to access land and wants a new deal for farmers and rural areas, and that includes a new generation of land and agrarian reforms. 

Capital accumulation based on the financialisation of farmland accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis. However, financialisation of the economy in general goes back to the 1970s and 1980s when we witnessed a deceleration of economic growth based on industrial production. The response was to compensate via financial capitalism and financial intermediation.  

Professor John Bellamy Foster, writing in 2010, not long after the 2008 crisis, states: 

“Lacking an outlet in production, capital took refuge in speculation in debt-leveraged finance (a bewildering array of options, futures, derivatives, swaps, etc.).”  

The neoliberal agenda was the political expression of capital’s response to the stagnation and involved four mechanisms: the raiding and sacking of public budgets, the expansion of credit to consumers and governments to sustain spending and consumption, frenzied financial speculation and militarism. 

With the engine of capital accumulation via production no longer firing on all cylinders, the emergency backup of financial expansion took over. Foster notes that we have seen a shift from real capital formation in many Western economies, which increases overall economic output, towards the appreciation of financial assets, which increases wealth claims but not output.  

Farmland is being transformed from a resource supporting food production and rural stability to a financial asset and speculative commodity. An asset class where wealthy investors can park their capital to further profit from inflated asset prices. The net-zero green agenda also has to be seen in this context: when capital struggles to make sufficient profit, productive wealth (capital) over accumulates and depreciates; to avoid crisis, constant growth and fresh investment opportunities are required.  

The IPES report notes that nearly 45% of all farmland investments in 2018, worth roughly $15 billion, came from pension funds and insurance companies. Based on workers’ contributions, pension fund investments in farmland are promoting land speculation, industrial agriculture and the interests of big agribusiness at the expense of smallholder farmers. Workers’ futures are tied to pension funds, which are supporting the growth and power of global finance and the degradation of other workers (in this case, cultivators).   

Sofía Monsalve Suárez, from the IPES, states: 

“It’s time decision-makers stop shirking their responsibility and start to tackle rural decline. The financialisation and liberalisation of land markets is ruining livelihoods and threatening the right to food. Instead of opening the floodgates to speculative capital, governments need to take concrete steps to halt bogus ‘green grabs’ and invest in rural development, sustainable farming and community-led conservation.” 

Unfortunately, ordinary people cannot depend on ‘decision-makers’ and governments to bring about such change. Ordinary people themselves have always had to struggle for change and improvements to their lives. Groups across the world are fighting back, and the IPES report provides some inspiring examples of their achievements. 

Readers can read the IPES report here. 

The author specializes in food, agriculture and development issues and his two recent books on the global food system can be read here.

Crisis in the Carolinas: The Lowcountry and Climate

By Erica Veal and Karl Malone

Republished from Hood Communist.

Africans are largely left out of conversations about environmentalism, despite the fact that we suffer from the triple threat of climatic, environmental and human rights crises. Our communities bear the brunt of the climate catastrophe, and this is especially true in the South Carolina Lowcountry where sea level rise threatens to wash away our Gullah Geechee homelands. Our relationship to environmental racism stretches back to the emergence of the local phosphate mining industry in the 1860’s and manifests today in the disproportionate exposure of Black and low income residents to environmental hazards. Today, Gullah Geechee communities disproportionately neighbor hazardous waste sites like landfills, sewage plants, incinerators and manufacturing facilities. Add to this gaping racial disparities rooted in the region’s history of chattel slavery, and it becomes clear why Black people should be the vanguard of the environmental movement.

Cooperation Jackson and the Black Environmentalist Movement

When people think about environmentalists, stereotypes about white, tree-hugging hippies come to mind. For Black environmentalist Kali Akuno, co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi, it is important for Black people to challenge these stereotypes by taking charge of the environmental movement. As someone who has closely followed the climate crisis, he calls attention to the fact that by 2050 the large portions of the Black Belt will be underwater if the predictions of environmental scientists are accurate. The Black Belt refers to the crescent shaped strip of fertile land in the Southeastern United States which has historically been home to an almost unbroken chain of majority (or near majority) Black counties stretching from Virginia to East Texas. It is the historic homeland of Africans trafficked to North America to build the wealth of this nation during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and where the majority of their descendants still live today. According to Akuno, the land millions of Africans in North America currently occupy is some of the most vulnerable to climate change and, as such, Black people are most likely to be displaced as a result of climate change induced natural disasters. The rising costs of housing means finding new homelands for ourselves may prove an insurmountable task, which is why our stake in the environmental movement is so high.

Sitting less than 20 feet above sea level, Charleston, South Carolina is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise. For Gullah Geechee residents, the constant flooding, brought about by regular storms and unusually high tides, exacerbate the racial disparities we face. Flooding causes transportation delays and can mean missing work. It also causes property damage for residents whose homes flood constantly, as is the case for several public housing projects across the Charleston peninsula. Wading through flood waters can mean exposure to raw sewage, which can lead to adverse medical outcomes, medical expenses and the list goes on. For Black residents on fixed incomes, many of whom live below the poverty line, flooding is a constant nuisance and it’s only getting worse.

In the few weeks of lockdown we experienced during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic we saw how quickly the environment regenerated albeit temporarily. Industrial emissions dropped, the air became cleaner, as did waterways, migratory patterns of wildlife improved, and the list goes on. We saw that change is possible, but we live in a capitalist system that puts profits before people and the planet. We cannot afford to be silent and sit idly by while billionaires and private corporations continue to pollute our world and the people living on it to enrich themselves. Akuno says we’ve already surpassed the worst case scenario according to many climate models. Therefore to “curb ecological destruction,” Black people have a compound responsibility to organize against the systems that oppress us and take climate change seriously.

Learning from Cuba’s Fight Against Climate Change

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel in our effort to fight the climate crisis. We can learn from places like Cuba, a majority African, island nation in the Caribbean, that is largely the most sustainable country in the world. Cuba has embraced environmentalism like no nation has. It is the only country to meet the World Wildlife Fund’s definition of sustainable development. Its government has implemented policies to reduce the waste of natural resources and minimize its carbon footprint in the form of a successful 100 year plan to combat climate change called Tarea Vida (Life Task). Tarea Vida includes a ban on new home construction in potential flood zones, the introduction of heat-tolerant crops to cushion food supplies from droughts, and the restoration of Cuba’s sandy beaches to help protect the country against coastal erosion. Cuba is a leader in the environmental movement and all while struggling under an unjust and deadly 60+ year economic blockade imposed by the United States government.

Cuba underwent a successful, largely Black-led socialist revolution in the 1950’s, freed itself from the imperialist exploitation of the United States and naturalized its resources. In addition to leading the environmental movement, Cuba leads in medicine (sending doctors all over the world), has eradicated illiteracy, subsidized housing and food, has universal education from pre-K to PhD and is a shining example of what the world could be if we put people before profits. Although socialism in Cuba poses no threat to the United States, the government has kept the blockade in place and caused shortages in food, medicine, gas and other essential items at the expense of the Cuban people. Most recently, under the Trump administration, Cuba was added to the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list, further exacerbating shortages on the island.

In the face of all this, there are many parallels around the climate crisis between Cuba and Gullah Geechee communities in the South Carolina Lowcountry, e.g. soil erosion and sea level rise are clear. Additionally, when considering the racial disparities faced by Gullah Geechee people (and the entire Black Belt region), it is as if we, too, are living under a form of economic blockade. Africans in North America are more likely to face food and housing insecurities and less likely to have access to quality schools, day care, health services, and a living wage. We are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards that expose us to adverse health outcomes and all of this is a direct result of the choices made by our bought and paid for government officials, both democrats and republicans alike. Yet, Cuba, the socialist capital of the western world, has shown us things do not have to be this way. For these reasons and more we should actively organize against the US economic blockade and the removal of Cuba from the SSOT list. The future of Gullah Geechee communities may literally depend on our ability to learn from Cuba’s people centered policies and innovations in environmental science.

Environmental Racism in North Charleston

The socio-economic state of the Gullah Geechee people is daunting and stretches back to the era of slavery. Africans in North America were never meant to be anything more than a source of cheap labor for Europeans to exploit. We were kidnapped, enslaved and trafficked here for our knowledge of rice agriculture and we transformed the landscape of the Southeast Atlantic coast from a vast expanse of Bottomland Hardwood Forests to a seemingly never ending complex of rice fields working in some of the harshest conditions as chattel slaves. As a result, Charleston became the richest city in colonial America and with the the largest slave port on the continent.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, phosphate mining became the most successful form of industry in the Lowcountry, replacing the major agricultural and textiles industries that could no longer be sustained due to the loss of the free labor of enslaved Africans. Since calcium phosphate was discovered in the beds of the Ashley River, it provided former the enslavers who owned this land an opportunity to “recoup some of their financial losses after the Civil War” by either selling their land, leasing it out to mining companies that began forming everywhere, or establishing mining companies of their own. The increasing demand for labor was quickly filled by newly “freed” Gullah Geechee people, who dominated this industry due to their being locally available and accustomed to working in the sub tropical Lowcountry climate.

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Though the rise and fall of the phosphate industry in South Carolina lasted roughly 20 years, the long term damage to the environment is still being felt today. This period marked the beginning of a long history of environmental racism in the Gullah Geechee community. Studies show that “exposure to these harmful conditions results in negative health outcomes, stressed communities, and reduction in quality of life and neighborhood sustainability.” The Environmental Protection Agency has identified many of these old mining and processing locations as hazardous waste sites. One such waterfront site in North Charleston, could potentially be developed into another heavy industrial boat manufacturing facility, but Black residents are actively fighting against this.

In 2015, the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (CCPRC) acquired the former Baker Hospital site off Azalea Drive in North Charleston with the intention of developing the 57 acre property into a waterfront park. It has since leased 11 acres to a local company called Sea Fox Boats. According to an online petition circulated in March 2024, although “The City of North Charleston has zoning in place that will keep industrial uses off of the park property,” CCPRC applied to change the zoning to either heavy or light industrial to accommodate their new lease agreement. CCPRC claims profits from the tenant will fund the environmental cleanup and development of the remaining 46 acres park site while representatives for Sea Fox claim the manufacturing plant will bring jobs to the community. Black residents like KJ Kearney, from communities surrounding the proposed park site, are pushing back on this saying they already have jobs and this segment of North Charleston has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the area. Others have said they don’t need or want heavy industry in their communities, particularly on a site that is already contaminated because of decades of industrial use. Jobs won’t matter if residents are sick from exposure to contaminants and they don’t want jobs that will lead to the death and destruction of the environment.

While North Charleston’s city planning commission voted to deny CCPRC’s recommendation to rezone the site in March, the ultimate decision is up to city council. On Thursday, April 18th, 2024, Black residents again voiced their concerns at a public meeting saying they felt left out of the decision making process. Yes, residents want a waterfront park in that area of North Charleston, but not at the expense of exacerbating environmental conditions and hazards. The controversy surrounding the Baker Hospital site is an example of environmental racism at its best. While proponents of Sea Fox push the narrative of job creation, Kearney says, “the community is not against jobs” rather they are against the idea that “the only value historically Black communities have to their city is as a labor force.” He went on to talk about how the plant will produce tons of hazardous air pollutants and that, for a community which ranks” in the 95 percentile for asthma,” that is a risk they cannot afford to take. He suggested that the paternalistic framing of the situation by Sea Fox supporters is clear– Black people should be grateful for the opportunity to work for a rich white man who wants to invest in their communities and simply ignore the impact of the plant on their quality of life. After a long and heated meeting, the council voted to postpone making a decision on the rezoning for another 60 days so the council can gather more information, but the people who live in this area have made their position clear.

While the city council in North Charleston is mostly Black and so is the new mayor, that is not enough to ensure the will of the people is carried out. The masses of Africans in the Lowcountry must continue to actively organize against this type of blatant environmental injustice to mitigate damage to our communities and the environment. We already suffer tremendously under the crushing weight of capitalism and its partners in crime (racism, white supremacy, sexism, gender bias, etc.), but this isn’t just about us. We know the success of our liberation struggles benefit all oppressed people. If we don’t act, the climate crisis will be the death knell that marks the permanent destruction of our communities. None of us will be free until all of us are free, but what use is freedom on a dead planet?

The authors represent the Lowcountry Action Committee, a Black led grassroots organization dedicated to Black liberation through service, political education, and collective action in the Lowcountry.

Sources

1. Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi, edited by Kali Akuno and Ajamu Nangwaya

2. “Is Pollution Poisoning Charleston’s African American and Low Income Communities?” https://charlestoncitypaper.com/2016/03/09/is-pollution-poisoning-charlestons-african-american-and-low-income-communities/

3. “Free the Land w/ Kali Akuno” Hood Communist Radio https://open.spotify.com/episode/789OXvt1LdjEJ5e8pFCMUp

4. The Black Belt Thesis: A Reader by the Black Belt Thesis Study Group

5. “Flooding Intensifies Charleston Region’s Racial and Wealth Inequalities” https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/flooding-intensifies-charleston-regions-racial-and-wealth-inequities

6. Could Covid lockdown have helped save the planet? https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/could-covid-lockdown-have-helped-save-the-planet

7. Cuba’s Life Task: Combatting Climate Change documentary by Helen Yaffe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APN6N45Q6iU

8. “Consequences of a Blockade of Cuba” 23 April 1962 Central Intelligence Agency https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79R00904A000800020016-7.pdf

9. “The State of Racial Disparities in Charleston County, South Carolina, 2000–2015” https://avery.charleston.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The-State-of-Racial-Disparities-in-Charleston-County-SC-Rev.-11-14.pdf

10. History of the Corridor: Industry https://ashleyriverhistoriccorridor.org/history/industry/#:~:text=In%201883%20over%203%2C000%20African,well%20as%20state%20convict%20labor

11. History of the Corridor: Bulow/Long Savannah https://ashleyriverhistoriccorridor.org/sites/long-savannahbulow-plantation/

12. “A History of the Phosphate Mining Industry in the South Carolina Lowcountry” http://nationalregister.sc.gov/SurveyReports/hyphosphatesindustryLowcountry2SM.pdf

13. “Baker Hospital site to become a new county park” https://www.postandcourier.com/archives/baker-hospital-site-to-become-a-new-county-park/article_0630e058-999d-5de4-9319-5addea566537.html

14. “Public input process to start this winter for Charleston County Parks’ North Charleston Ashley River Site” https://www.ccprc.com/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/1423

15. “Preserve the Former Baker Hospital as a Park” https://www.change.org/p/preserve-the-former-baker-hospital-site-as-a-park?original_footer_petition_id=35513102&algorithm=promoted&source_location=petition_footer&grid_position=15&pt=AVBldGl0aW9uAEWcQgIAAAAAZe1wynNJJ%2BAxMzdmNTMxMQ%3D%3D

16. “N. Charleston argues plans for former Baker Hospital site, fate in council hands” https://www.live5news.com/2024/03/12/n-charleston-argues-plans-former-baker-hospital-site-fate-council-hands/

17. “Delay in North Charleston zoning decision fuels frustration over old Baker Hospital site” https://abcnews4.com/news/local/delay-in-north-charleston-zoning-decision-fuels-frustration-over-old-baker-hospital-site-south-carolina-wciv-news-4

How the U.S. Helped Israel Promote the 'Hamas Mass Rape' Lie to Justify Mass Murder in Gaza

[Pictured: Joe Biden cited the since-debunked Hamas mass rape accusation on multiple occasions. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90]

By Joyce Chediac

Republished from Liberation.

Rape is a terrible crime. It can never be justified or defended. The natural inclination is to abhor rape and those who commit it.  However, because it is such a charged issue, false rape accusations, while in general rare, have been used time and again to whip up hatred against oppressed people. This has been seen in the United States with the myth of the “Black rapist” which launched countless lynch mobs.  

Today, the claim: “Hamas committed mass rape of Israeli women on Oct. 7 as a weapon of war” is another example. This claim has been shown to have no basis in fact; instead it’s an Israeli government propaganda campaign meant to manipulate public opinion in the west to justify genocide in Gaza.

To this day no rape victims from Oct. 7 have stepped forth. There is no forensic evidence. The sensationalized “eyewitness accounts” of “horrific sexual assaults” have been thoroughly debunked and discredited by independent news outlets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even openly said the rape stories  help legitimize and extend Israel’s mass murder in Gaza.

Yet to this day, U.S. politicians and the corporate media regularly preface Gaza reports by mentioning “horrific atrocities” allegedly committed by Hamas.

U.S. promoted ‘mass rape’ fraud

This is because U.S. politicians and the establishment media are an integral part of this deception. The Biden administration, members of Congress and the mainstream media repeat the mass rape lie at every turn. A U.S. newspaper and a UN official have used their prestige to keep the rape story going after it had fallen apart by repackaging the debunked Israeli atrocity stories and claiming ‘independent investigations” found “new evidence.” 

This shameful exploitation of people’s horror at this crime that is committed mostly against women is meant to cover up the horror of genocide, where Palestinian women and children are the main victims. Some 70% of those killed are women and children. Women and children have been arbitrarily executed. With starvation used as a weapon of war, women are the last to eat and children the first to die. A Palestinian child is killed in Gaza every 10 minutes. Two mothers are killed every hour. Of the 1.9 million displaced, close to 1 million are women and girls.

Hamas and other groups in the Palestinian armed resistance have roundly denounced as “slander” the charge that they ordered fighters to rape women. They also point out that individual acts of sexual assault may have occurred, as others came through the fence later on Oct. 7 who were not under their discipline

Rape lie used to justify destruction of Libya

In November of 2023  many Palestinian women’s groups within historic Palestine and in exile came together and declared ending the Gaza genocide a feminist issue. They made an urgent call to all those truly interested in women’s rights to join feminists worldwide and others fighting for a ceasefire, to end the blockade and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza unimpeded.

Israel’s answer was a PR event at the UN on Dec. 4, 2023, that excoriated women’s and feminist groups that backed a ceasefire, claiming they were indifferent to the suffering of Israeli women because they did not condemn “Hamas rapes.” Among the speakers was Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has been especially helpful in propagating the “mass rape” falsehood under the guise of supporting “women’s rights.” She knows the drill. When she was Secretary of State her department fabricated a later-debunked story that Libyan leader Qaddafi gave his troops Viagra to rape rebels. This racist falsehood was used to justify NATO’s carpet bombing and total destruction of Libya.

No #MeToo for Palestinian women

“Believe women” these pro-Israeli propagandists said, hijacking for settler colonialism the words of the #MeToo movement.  Only there were no women to believe. To this day no Israeli women have stepped forth to say they were raped by a Palestinian fighter on Oct. 7. And contrary to the U.S. Congressional resolution saying there were thousands of women raped, not one “eyewitness testimony” has withstood scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the women who should be believed are instead ignored by the media and by politicians who do not speak out on their behalf. They are the many Palestinian women who have come forward, with credible witnesses,  to testify to rape and sexual assault at the hands of Israeli soldiers in Gaza and in Israeli detention.   

For example, to this date Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has ignored for months recommendations from his own staff to suspend aid to Israeli military and police units accused of abusing Palestinians, including interrogators accused of raping and torturing a teenager.

While ignoring the plight of Palestinian women, U.S. politicians loudly and often repeat debunked stories that resistance fighters committed mass rape. For example, in his March 7 State of the Union speech Pres. Joe Biden accused Hamas of “massacre” and “sexual violence” against 200 “women and girls, men and boys.” The House of Representatives passed a resolution in February falsely claiming there were “thousands of testimonies from eyewitness” of “countless instances of rape, gang rape, sexual violence” by Hamas.

Israel directs media to unreliable sources

The most horrific descriptions of mass rape and other alleged atrocities against Israeli women and children on Oct. 7 come  from ZAKA. This ultra-right religious group collects bodies and body parts from sites of “unnatural” deaths and transports them to morgues. Its founder, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, attempted suicide after he was implicated in  dozens of rapes and sexual assaults of teens, women and children.  

ZAKA’s members have no professional training and are not qualified to make assessments about rape on the bodies they collected. Their testimonies have no details: no age, no location, and no time. There are no pictures or videos to back up their claims. The bodies they describe were buried quickly without examination for forensic evidence. All one has is their word.

ZAKA atrocity stories have even been debunked in the Israeli press. The source for the widely publicized beheaded babies, children tied together and burned, a child ripped from its mother’s womb and other debunked  atrocity stories, is one ZAKA official, Yossi Landau. Recently Landau admitted that his claim of “executed children” were a lie.

ZAKA volunteers are not credible. Yet when the international media wants to know what happened on Oct. 7 the Israeli Government Press Office sets up an interview with ZAKA.

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ZAKA testimony praised for giving Israel ‘maneuvering room’

The director of the Israeli Press Office, Nitzan Hein, called ZAKA “remarkable, valuable, and effective,” and “extremely important in hasbara.” Hasbara is the Israeli word for propaganda that justifies government actions, often portraying Israel as the victim.

Netanyahu praised them  for helping to legitimize and extend Israel’s war on Gaza.   He told ZAKA, “We need to buy time … by turning to world leaders and to public opinion. You have an important role in influencing public opinion, which also influences leaders. We are in a war; it will continue. The war is not only to take care of the 1,400 people…but also to give us the maneuvering room.”

Relative says NY Times’ invented’ the rape of a victim

Independent media, including The Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss, along with the Intercept, have written many articles thoroughly exposing the alleged “eye witnesses to rape” on Oct. 7 as unreliable, debunking their atrocity stories, and revealing their links to the Israeli government. This information has been widely circulated on social media. However, CNN, the BBC, the New York Times and other major media have ignored these exposes, choosing to report as fact whatever the Israeli government presents.  

No U.S. media outlet has come to Israel’s rescue more than the New York Times. On Dec. 28 it showcased an article headlined, “‘’Screams Without Words’: How Hamas  Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.”  Claiming to have done its own investigation, the Times found “new details” that Hamas “weaponized rape and sexual violence against Israeli women on Oct. 7.”

The Times Is a major influencer of the 24-hour news cycle, often determining what and how issues are covered by other major news outlets like BBC, The Washington Post and CNN.

But the article began to unravel the very next day when the family of an alleged rape victim said the Times interviewed them under false pretenses.

About a third of the Times article covers the alleged rape of Gal Abdush, who the Times called “The Woman in the Black Dress.”  On Dec. 29, Etti Brakha, Abdush’s mother, said that the family knew nothing about the sexual assault issue until the piece was published. Nissim Abdush, Gal’s brother-in law, said his brother’s wife was not raped and that “the media invented it.” Abdush’s sister, Miral Alter, said  the Times reporters “mentioned they want to write a report in memory of Gal, that’s it. If we knew that the title would be about rape and butchery, we’d never accept that.”

Two teen sisters the Times also said were raped and murdered in their bedroom in Kibbutz Be’eri, were not raped either. Be’eri spokesperson Michal Paikin said: “They were shot and were not subjected to sexual abuse.”

Experts call the Times investigation ‘disgraceful’

None of the media repeating ZAKA atrocity stories has bothered to call in independent experts to examine these stories for veracity. MENA Rights Group, a legal advocacy NGO representing Middle East and North African victims of human rights violations, stepped forward to do just this after the Times article was published  MENA calls the Times investigation “disgraceful” in a statement signed by 16 organizations and 1,000 individuals from 50 countries. The statement cites lack of forensic evidence,  no victim involvement or testimonies  and sensational testimonies that were not fact checked.

MENA denounced the Times for “its exploitation of women’s bodies and struggles as a means to fabricate assault incidents and push propaganda for an unlawful occupation, thereby abetting the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.” 

No major media has covered the MENA statement.

Writer could find no rape victims

There is a backstory to this article. Anat Schwartz, who the Times hired to do most of the on-the-ground investigation, is an inexperienced writer with a pro-Israeli bias. She had served in Israeli Air Force intelligence, and on social media she liked a tweet saying Israel needed to turn Gaza into a “slaughterhouse.”

In a Jan. 20 interview with Israel’s Channel 12 ,she explained that she tried to find rape victims by calling the 11 Israeli hospitals that examine and treat potential victims of sexual violence. “They told me, ‘No, no complaint of sexual assault was received,’” she said.  The manager of the sexual assault hotline in south Israel’s told her they had no reports of sexual violence either. She found no corroborating evidence at alleged places of sexual attack. Schwartz said she then turned to Israeli officials, police, soldiers and witnesses being managed by the Israeli government to write the article.   

Media interviews with the unnamed paramedic who falsely said he saw “evidence” that two teenage girls had been raped at Kibbutz Be’eri, were being handled by a spokesperson for the Israeli government, Eylon Levy,.

Schwartz spoke extensively with ZAKA members. Yossi Landau, originator of the debunked “40 beheaded babies” and “pregnant women shot and stabbed with her stomach ripped open” fabrications, is featured in the Times article.

UN report recycles debunked stories

When the Times article lost credibility a new source brought the “mass rape” falsehood back to life.  A March 5 report by Pramila Patten, UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, claimed that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas had committed rapes on Oct. 7. The media spun the report as if it backed Israel’s claims.

But the report didn’t support Israeli claims. Her report says it couldn’t find one direct testimony of sexual assault on Oct. 7. It found “no digital evidence specifically depicting acts of sexual violence.” It was “unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence.” It says a “full-fledged investigation is needed,” and notes that Israel won’t permit UN agencies with an investigative mandate to make independent assessments.

The report based its dubious conclusion of “reasonable grounds” for Hamas rapes not on evidence but on information “sourced from Israeli national institutions” — the Israeli military, the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet and the Israeli national police, the same forces committing genocide in Gaza. In Be’rre, Patten was accompanied by Yossi Landau of ZAKA.

There is a backstory here as well. Far from being neutral, in each meeting that she attended in the settlements near Gaza, “Patten consistently expressed her solidarity, empathy and sympathy towards Israel,” the Israeli newspaper YediothAhronoth reported.

Patten’s position, UN Envoy on Sexual Violence in Conflict, is an advisory, not investigative, position that was created by Hillary Clinton in 2009. Patten has used this position to advance a pro-western agenda before. In October 2022 she claimed that Russian soldiers were being supplied with Viagra to rape Ukrainian women. A month later she admitted this was a fabrication. 

While Patten could not find one victim to interview, one Israeli former hostage has recently come forward to say she was sexually abused while she was held in Gaza.  She is Amit Soussana, who was released from Gaza in a prisoner exchange on Nov 30 after being held for 55 days. She said on March 26, in another detailed Times article, that she was made to perform a sexual act at gunpoint while captive. 

Hamas, while skeptical, has offered to investigate the allegations, but said an inquiry was not possible in the current circumstances. Surely a ceasefire and an alleviation of the suffering Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza and the reestablishment of government institutions there to conduct an inquiry would be a minimum prerequisite to any meaningful investigation of Soussana’s claims.

But Israel will not allow this and is, in fact, spinning hostage rape allegations to justify the continuation of the genocidal war that makes a meaningful investigation impossible.  

Politicians and media have discredited themselves

The Biden administration, elected officials and the media have worked overtime to create and keep alive this racist trope. Certainly it has had an effect, but at the same time, in the eyes of many, the media and the politicians that go along with and promote this false narrative  have only discredited themselves.

From college campuses to work places, to churches to trade union halls, hundreds of groups and hundreds of thousands of individuals are taking to the streets to demand a ceasefire, many also demanding a free Palestine. Hundreds of thousands have voted “uncommitted’ in state Democratic primaries rather than endorse the U.S. president, dubbed “Genocide Joe.” Activists are confronting politicians everywhere.

These activists see fraudulent claims of ‘mass rape” as a  loathsome U.S.-Israeli manufactured atrocity meant to detract from the real atrocities being committed against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. They detest this exploitation of women’s oppression for imperialist ends. They are revolted at the phony feminism of the Hillary Clintons, and sickened by blatant misuse of feminism by the Israeli and U.S. governments as a tool to silence those who would speak out against the genocide in Gaza

These protesters are listening to the voice completely left out of the corporate media and ignored by the politicians — the Palestinian voice. They are inspired by the resilience of the Palestinian people even when subjected to unspeakable atrocities. They note the overwhelming Palestinian support for their armed fighters as a legitimate and necessary part of their struggle against oppression and for national liberation.

The feminists they believe are Palestinian

To this movement, “believe women” means believing the women of Palestine. The Palestinian Feminist Collective explains that a key component of Zionist settler-colonialism is gendered/sexual violence and oppression. The PFC has asked all women’s and feminist organizations to support Palestine liberation and to back it as a feminist issue because there is no real feminism for anyone without anti-imperialism.

On the Marxist Critique of Heidegger

By Carlos Garrido

Martin Heidegger is undoubtedly one of the most creative and influential philosophers of the 20th century. Virtually all areas of philosophy, along with many other disciplines as well, have had to tackle in one form or another the questions he poses, and the insights he provides. His work grasped the zeitgeist of the 1930s and 40s for most of continental philosophy. It is a tour de force Marxist philosophers must face head on. Simply calling it ‘bourgeois,’ ‘Nazi’, or the expression of the middle-class state of being in post WW1 Germany is not enough. While it is important to situate Heidegger in his proper historical and class context, and while it is essential to show the Nazism and antisemitism he was undoubtedly committed to for a significant period of his life, this is insufficient to defeat the thought of this giant.

Other leftist scholars have already made tremendous inroads in this area. Since at least the publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, but especially now with the publication of Richard Wolin’s recent text, Heidegger in Ruins, the intimate connection between Heidegger and Nazism is indisputable – even though many, including those working within his Gesamtausgabe (collected works), have tried to paper over it. Certainly, to borrow an expression Domenico Losurdo uses to describe Nietzsche scholarship, there has pervaded a “hermeneutic of innocence” in Heideggerian scholarship which tries to divorce his work from the essentially political context that embeds it. Its political horizon, its class basis, its connection with Nazism, these are all things any Marxist discussion on Heidegger should include. But we must ask, is this enough to ‘defeat’ Heidegger? If he was simply a ‘Nazi,’ why hasn’t he, like Emmanual Faye suggests, been taken off philosophy shelves and put next to Goebbels?[1]

Why have so many leftist scholars in the Global South and East, thinkers aware of Heidegger’s Nazism, turned in various parts of their work to Heidegger for insights? Unlike the tradition of Western Marxism, where the eclecticism is intimately connected to a politics that throws on the support of imperialism a radical veneer, a lot of these scholars are fervent critics of U.S. imperialism and have stood for decades on the side of socialist construction. Why does, for instance, the late Bolivian Marxist, Juan Jose Bautista Segales, find that he can incorporate insights from Heidegger’s critique of modernity into the process of understanding the dimensions of the indigenous struggle for socialism, a struggle that must, necessarily, tarry with the question of capitalist modernity?  Why does the Brazilian theologian, Leonardo Boff, one of the founders of the radical, Christian Socialist liberation theology tendency, central to so many socialist and anti-imperialist struggles in Latin American, turn to Heidegger to discuss the question of care in ethics?

In his Prison Notebooks Antonio Gramsci reminds us that:

A new science proves its efficacy and vitality when it demonstrates that it is capable of confronting the great champions of the tendencies opposed to it and when it either resolves by its own means the vital questions which they have posed or demonstrates, in peremptory fashion, that these questions are false problems.[2]

Gramsci would go on to lambast Nikolai Bukharin, in part, for failing to address in his ‘Manual’ the critics of Marxism in their utmost coherence, i.e., for failing to deal with the best bourgeois philosophy and science had to offer, opting instead to obtaining the quick victories one gets when they challenge an opponent of a lower caliber. Gramsci says that while reading Bukharin’s text, “one has the impression of someone who cannot sleep for the moonlight and who struggles to massacre the fireflies in the belief that by so doing he will make the brightness lessen or disappear.”[3]

Unfortunately, a similar fatal flaw can be observed in the traditional Marxist-Leninist critiques of Heidegger. Far from engaging with him honestly and comprehensively, we have opted for quick victories based on dismissals of his thought as petty-bourgeois, subjectivist, Nazi, etc. While components of this critique are certainly true, they are not enough – i.e., they are not worthy of proper Marxist-Leninist critique. Yes, Marx, Engels, and Lenin name-called their opponents and spoke of the class positions and subsequent political interests they often spoke from – but in conjunction with this was always a thorough demolishing of their arguments along the kind described by Gramsci previously. Additionally, how these thinkers expressed in their work and concerns a class position was something that was proved, i.e., there was a concrete study of the relationship between the base and superstructure, between the class the thinker represents and the ideas they enunciate. This refined analysis has often been missing in our tradition’s treatment of Heidegger. Far too often conclusions that have to be proven are accepted simply at face value. As R. T. De George, who did an umbrella study of Marxist-Leninist writing on Heidegger up until the mid-1960s, argued,

The failure of Marxist criticism of Heidegger, as well as of other Western philosophers, is not necessarily that it has been wrong; but rather that most of it has been shallow, polemical, beside the point, and poor Marxism. Marxist criticism is difficult. Marxist-Leninist criticism has become too easy. It would perhaps be too much to ask that Marxists follow Lenin's advice and criticize not in the manner of Feuerbach but in the manner of Hegel, i.e. not by merely rejecting views but by correcting them "deepening, generalizing, and extending them, showing the connection and transitions of each and every concept". But this presumably is what Marxist and Marxist Leninist philosophy should do.[4]

De George is, of course, not a Marxist. But he is right to call us out on this shortcoming. In doing so he is being a good ideological enemy, an enemy that, to use an obscene American expression, wants us to get our shit together.

In the 20th century, the best inroads into the Marxist-Leninist critique of Heidegger would be made by Georg Lukács, who situates him within the irrationalism of the imperialist period in his seminal Destruction of Reason. Here Lukács is correct about what it takes to carry forth this critique in a proper Marxist manner. He writes:

To reveal [a thinker’s] social genesis and function is of the greatest importance, but in itself by no means sufficient. Granted, the objectivity of progress will suffice correctly to condemn as reactionary an individual phenomenon or orientation. But a really Marxist-Leninist critique of reactionary philosophy cannot permit itself to stop at this. Rather it must show in real terms, in the philosophical material itself, the philosophical falsity and the distortion of basic philosophical questions, the negation of philosophy's achievements and so on… To this extent, an immanent critique is a justified and indeed indispensable element in the portrayal and exposure of reactionary tendencies in philosophy. The classic Marxist authors have constantly used it. Engels, for example, in his Anti-Duhring and Lenin in his Empirio-Criticism. To reject immanent criticism as one element in an overall survey also embracing social genesis and function, class characteristics, exploration of the true nature of society and so on is bound to lead to a philosophical sectarianism, to the attitude that everything which is axiomatic to a conscious Marxist-Leninist is also immediately obvious to his readers…[Therefore, while] the antithesis between the various bourgeois ideologies and the achievements of dialectical and historical materialism is the self-evident foundation of our treatment and critique of the subject-matter, [we must still] prove in factual, philosophical terms the inner incoherence, contradictoriness, etc., of the separate philosophies [as] also unavoidable if one wants to illustrate their reactionary character in a truly concrete way.[5]

This is precisely the task that Lukács sets for himself in this monumental text. However, as he tells us, it is a task that cannot possibly be completed in one book, even an 800 page one. The Heidegger section, for instance, is a mere 25 pages. Even shorter is his treatment of Heidegger in Existentialism or Marxism, published a few years after. Nonetheless, it is on the basis of this limited work that a proper Marxist-Leninist critique of Heidegger can be developed.

Lukács tells us that with Heidegger phenomenology “turned into the ideology of the agony of individualism in the imperialist period.”[6] He performed a “terminological camouflaging of subjective idealism,” a “transference of purely subjective-idealist positions into objective (i.e., pseudo-objective) ones.”[7] His “ontological materiality” and claims to concreteness “remained purely declarative,” dominated through and through by irrationalistic arbitrariness and an “epistemological hocus pocus.”[8] Even in the aspects of his thought that are ‘historical’, what is operative, Lukács argues, is the “transformation of real history into a mythified pseudo-history.”[9] In Heidegger the “Husserlian tendency towards a strictly scientific approach,” intuitivist and irrationalist though it might have been in its own right, had now “faded completely.”[10] Philosophy’s task was “to keep investigation open by means of questions.”[11] The discipline is turned into a big question rigamarole centered on a question of Being that had already been answered by the discipline more than a century prior in Hegel’ Science of Logic, where it was shown, in its indeterminacy, to be indistinguishable from nothing, impelling us to move beyond pure being into being as coming to be and seizing to be, being as becoming, determinate being, and all the subsequent categories unfolded out of these in the Logic.

The context which situates the rise of Heidegger, Lukács writes, is akin to the post-1848 context which saw the rise of Soren Kierkegaard’s romantic individualist agony: “Kierkegaard's philosophy was aimed against the bourgeois idea of progress, against Hegel's idealist dialectics, whereas the renovators of existential philosophy [i.e., Heidegger and et. al.] were already principally at odds with Marxism, although this seldom found overt and direct expression in their writings.”[12] This mood of despair, for Lukács, produced like it had decades prior, an “ideology of the saddest philistinism, of fear and trembling, of anxiety” which “was precisely the socio-psychological reason for the influence of Heidegger and Jaspers” on the eve of Hitler’s seizure of power.[13] It was a “yearning to rescue naked existence from universal collapse.”[14] Philosophically it was marked by an attempt at ‘third ways’ beyond idealism and materialism and rationalism and irrationalism, but in each instance, idealism and irrationalism ultimately showed their dominance.

While his phenomenology and ontology were, in Lukács’s words, little more than “abstractly mythicizing” a “vitalistic anthropology with an objectivistic mask,”[15]it nonetheless provided, he admits, an “often grippingly interesting description of intellectual philistinism during the crisis of the imperialist period.”[16] In his phenomenological description of the inauthenticity of everyday existence, pervaded by Verfallensein, a state of falling prey, we come under the “anonymous dominance of das Man” (the one or they).[17] Lukács argues that Heidegger’s detailed description of this fallen state “constitute the strongest and most suggestive part of Being and Time, and in all likelihood they formed the basis of the book’s broad and profound effect… [It is] here, with the tools of phenomenology, [that] Heidegger [gives] a series of interesting images taken from the inner life, from the worldview of the dissolute bourgeois mind of the post-war years.”[18] While he was fundamentally unable to understand the socio-historical causes that grounded such experience, Lukács holds that the value of his account is seen in the fact that it “provides – on the descriptive level – a genuine and true-to-life picture of those conscious reflexes which the reality of the post-war imperialist capitalism triggered off in those unable or unwilling to surpass what they experienced in their individual existence and to go further towards objectivity, i.e., towards exploring the socio-historical causes of their experiences.”[19]

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Here Heidegger follows to the T the tradition of irrationalism which preceded him and of which he becomes a central figure of in the 20th century. As Lukács writes in Existentialism or Marxism:

In times of the crisis of imperialism, when everything is unstable, everything is in disarray, when the bourgeois intelligentsia is forced to observe, as the next day refutes what seemed indestructible today, it is faced with a choice. It must admit either its own defeat or the defeat of reason. The first path means recognizing your inability to comprehend reality in thought. Here it would be the turn of reason, but it is from this rationality that bourgeois thinking must withdraw. It is impossible to recognize this defeat from a bourgeois standpoint, for that would mean a transition to the camp of socialism. Therefore, at the crossroads, the bourgeois intelligentsia must choose a different path; it must proclaim the collapse of reason.[20]

While the scope of the work leads Lukács to sometimes move too quick in his critique of Heidegger, his situating of him in the tradition of irrationalism and its rejection of the enlightenment is a thread that must be picked up and developed by Marxist scholarship on Heidegger. The best place I have seen this done is in Domenico Losurdo’s Heidegger and the Ideology of War, published first in Italian in 1991, and in English a decade after. Here it is lucidly shown how Heidegger and the Nazis inherit the Kreigsideology (War ideology) of the post-WW1 period, rooted in a mythical Gemeinschaft (community) inhibited by an equally dubious notion of fate (Schicksal) and a fetish of death and its proximity as central to authentic life. Reason, which is tied to civilization and society (Gesellschaft), is lambasted for tearing communal bonds and breaking from the community’s destiny.[21] The enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Marxism, which takes the rational kernel of the former to their historical and logical conclusion, are necessarily condemned.[22]

The rejection of modernity and the Enlightenment has been a fad in Western academia for decades. Heidegger alone is not to blame. But he is, as a fellow traveler of the tradition of irrationalism, a key voice in the anti-modernity and anti-Enlightenment discourse. The Enlightenment, although imperfect and filled with contradictions, brought with it the notion of a universal humanity that we all share in as rational creatures, that provides for us the ability to see and fight for progress in history. It represented the thought of the bourgeoisie in its most progressive moment, before it undeniably turns into a force of reaction after the 1848 revolutions. The universalist ideals of the enlightenment have been given concrete content through the various progressive struggles of the last three centuries – from the American revolution to the French to the Haitian and to the socialist and anti-colonial revolutions of the 20th century. Those who have stood against it have been the forces of reaction – those who deny our common humanity in favor of tribalism (usually of a hierarchical and supremacist kind). It has been the reactionary and conservative forces who have historically rejected the use of reason and the notion of progress, since both of these can provide challenges to the ruling order… an order which can become the object of critique through reason, and which can be shown, through an appeal to the progressive dialectical unfolding of history (or, in Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, through the arch of the moral universe that bends towards justice) to be just a moment in humanity’s development towards greater freedom.

Central to any Marxist critique of Heidegger, then, is also considering how this foundational rejection of the enlightenment – necessary for bourgeois philosophical irrationalism and its turn towards indirect apologetics of the system – takes alternative forms after Heidegger. John Bellamy Foster has done important work in this area, showing how currents dominating contemporary social sciences in Academia like postmodernism, post-Marxism, post-colonialism, post-humanism, etc. all share a foundation in philosophical irrationalism and its indirect apologetics of the dominant order.[23] Although with certain downfalls, the work of Susan Neiman in Left is Not Woke also does a swell job in showing how the tribalism central to contemporary wokeism is fundamentally rooted in the reactionary, anti-modernist and anti-enlightenment tradition which Heidegger is a central figure of. For all the claims to being ‘woke’, this dominant ideology in the liberal wing of capital is deeply ignorant of the reactionary philosophical foundations underlaying their worldview – a worldview that serves to reinforce the dominant order under the delusion that it is waging an emancipatory attack on it.

A Marxist critique of Heidegger, therefore, must also contain an awareness of how the tradition he works through has seeped into the Academic and activist left, often giving its deeply reactionary philosophical foundation a seemingly progressive gloss. For this we must also study the work of our colleague Gabriel Rockhill, who outlines the political economy of knowledge that has facilitated and promoted this eclecticism to counter the genuine communist left.

In sum, while necessary, exposing Heidegger’s Nazism and his thought’s class basis is insufficient to defeating him. As Gramsci and Lukács have argued, we must also beat these monumental figures of contemporary bourgeois thought in the realm of ideas as well – showing how the problems they pose are baseless, or how the response they provide to real problems are insufficient. These are things that must be shown, not just taken axiomatically for granted simply because we understand the Marxist worldview to be the most advanced humanity has given rise to. If in questions of ethics or meta-historical narratives comrades of the left (like the two I previously mentioned) turn to Heidegger, it is not sufficient to just lambast them for taking partial insights from a problematic thinker. We must also inquire into what deficiency is there in our answering – or even asking – of the problem that led them to turn to Heidegger. How can the Marxist worldview extend itself to commenting concretely on every possible topic of intellectual inquiry such that the need to turn to Heidegger, or any other bourgeois thinker, is superfluous for those within our tradition.

This requires an explicit turn away from the Western Marxism accepted in the Academy. This so called ‘Marxism’, imbued with postmodernist sensibilities, cringes at the description of Marxism as an all-encompassing worldview. They wish to limit Marxism to the sphere of history and social analysis, rejecting the dialectics of nature and the fruitful insights the dialectical materialist worldview can provide in any sphere of investigation. In China, where Marxism-Leninism has been able to develop relatively peacefully since at least 1949, the tendency is towards the contrary. The more fields the Marxist worldview can be present in the merrier. I would like to conclude with a quote from Cheng Enfu’s China’s Economic Dialectic,

Marxism is a telescope through which we can clearly see the trends according to which reality develops, and a microscope through which we can see its crucial details. It is a set of night-vision goggles through which we can see light and hope in the darkness, a set of diving goggles through which we can see things at a deeper level, a fluoroscope through which we can see into the nature of the matter beyond the level of appearance, and a megaloscope through which we can make sense of blurred images. Marxism is a reflector through which we can see the truth behind things, a polygonal mirror that enables us to see the diversity and unity of opposites, an asymptotic mirror that allows us to see things near and far with multiple focal points and a monster-revealing mirror in which, if we have sharp eyes, we can see mistakes clearly.[24]

This should help to get us to see Marxism as an all-encompassing worldview. A worldview which, as Lenin told the Young Communists in 1921, absorbs and develops upon the “knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind.”[25] When we are successful in this task, the need for anyone in the camp of the genuine progressive forces to turn to Heidegger or any other bourgeois thinker would be superfluous, since they would find a much more concretely explicated account for their inquiry within the tradition itself… or, at the very least, the tools to do so themselves ready-to-hand (pun intended).

Notes

[1] Gregory Fried, “A Letter to Emmanuel Faye,” in Confronting Heidegger: A Critical Dialogue on Politics and Philosophy (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), 5

[2] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 2014), 433.

[3] Ibid.

[4] R. T. De George, “Heidegger and the Marxists,” Studies in Soviet Thought, 5(4) (1965), 294.

[5] Georg Lukács, The Destruction of Reason (New York: Verso, 2021), 5-6.

[6] Ibid.,489.

[7] Ibid., 496, 494.

[8] Ibid., 495-6, 493.

[9] Georg Lukács, “Heidegger Redivivus,” in Existentialismus oder Marxismus. Retrieved through Marxist Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive//lukacs/works/1951/heidegger.htm

[10] Lukács, Destruction of Reason, 497.

[11] Ibid. 498.

[12] Ibid. 491.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid., 493.

[15] Ibid., 498, 497.

[16] Ibid., 498.

[17] Ibid., 498-9.

[18] Ibid., 500.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Georg Lukács, “The Crisis of Bourgeois Philosophy,” in Existentialismus oder Marxismus. Retrieved through Marxist Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1948/bourgeois-philosophy.htm

[21] Domenico Losurdo, Heidegger and The Ideology of War: Community, Death, and the West (New York: Humanity Books, 2001), 15-40.

[22] I am happy to see my friend, Colin Bodayle, recently take this task up. I have known no other Marxist who has studied Heidegger’s work as closely as he has (and in the original German). For more, see the series titled “Why the Left Should Reject Heidegger’s Thought,” published through the Midwestern Marx Institute for Marxist Theory and Political Analysis. Part one is here: https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/why-the-left-should-reject-heideggers-thought-part-one-the-question-of-being-by-colin-bodayle

[23] John Bellamy Foster, “The New Irrationalism,” Monthly Review 74(9) (February 2023):

https://monthlyreview.org/2023/02/01/the-new-irrationalism/

[24] Cheng Enfu, China’s Economic Dialectic: The Original Aspiration of Reform (New York: International Publishers, 2019), 20.

[25] V. I. Lenin, “The Task of the Youth Leagues,” in Collected Works Vol. 31 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 287.

The Exploitative Alliance: How Corporate Strategies and Union Investments Undermine Worker Security

[ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX NABAUM]

By Peter S. Baron

A major obstacle to the collective well-being of workers is how corporate employers connect retirement funds to the stock market. This linking means that workers bear the brunt, as publicly traded companies aim to maximize profitability through cost-cutting measures that negatively impact their wages, job security, and working conditions. Similarly, labor unions like the United Auto Workers (UAW) channel membership dues into investment funds that often hold stocks in the very companies they may confront or negotiate with.

Recent history has witnessed a significant transformation in the structure of labor's retirement portfolios; they are now primarily sustained by individual contributions, with companies only occasionally offering modest matching contributions. Individuals now shoulder the entire risk, while corporations benefit from reduced financial liabilities and greater predictability in managing retirement expenses. Insidiously, as corporations have shifted financial risk onto individuals, they have also directed these investments toward financial management behemoths. These entities hold control over each individual investor’s voting rights, effectively seizing the collective power of working-class retirement funds. This power is then leveraged to amplify the relentless profit-driven mechanisms at the core of capitalism. Running parallel, organized labor’s advocacy power has been undermined by union bureaucrats who have chosen to tether the union's financial health to the success of the same corporate giants it should be challenging, effectively making the union a complacent, and likely complicit, partner in the very corporate strategies that exploit its members. 

These financial realities, carefully engineered by corporations and meekly accepted by labor, are riddled with contradictions that reveal the blatant exploitation at the core of the elite’s oppression of workers. They serve as stark reminders that security and well-being, let alone collective liberation, won't come from corporate investment schemes or the leadership of corporate bureaucratic puppets, but only from the solidarity and unified strength of the workforce. The power to dismantle this exploitation lies in workers rejecting the illusion of corporate benevolence and instead building unwavering unity to reclaim their future through collective action.

Background

Traditionally, workers' retirement funds were managed through Defined Benefit (DB) plans, which ensured a stable pension for retirees and placed the investment risk on employers, who shouldered the costs of employees' retirement benefits. Though these DB plans were similarly invested in the stock market, the companies themselves were responsible for ensuring that the retirement fund has enough resources to meet those guaranteed payouts, meaning the employer must cover any shortfall if investment returns do not meet expectations. These plans became seen as economically burdensome by corporate executives who aimed to maintain steadily growing profits in an era marked by rapid market shifts and increasing global competition (https://livewell.com/finance/why-have-employers-moved-from-defined-benefit-to-defined-contribution-plans/).

The transition to 401(k) and other Defined Contribution (DC) plans offloaded these risks onto employees, fundamentally transforming the nature of retirement savings. Defined Contribution plans prioritize contributions over guaranteed payouts, requiring employers and workers to allocate set amounts into individual retirement accounts. With the employer no longer liable to provide a guaranteed income, workers must now shoulder the burden of their own retirement funding, gambling their hard-earned savings in the unpredictable stock market. Though favorable returns can occur, sustained gains are elusive due to regular market crashes that occur every six years on average. This means that when the market plummets, it's the employees who bear the brunt, not the employers, exposing workers' financial security to the whims of an unstable market while leaving them vulnerable to navigating a system designed to shift the risks and costs of retirement away from corporations.

The neoliberal ideological shift that encouraged employers to search for cost-cutting measures also aligned with broader economic changes, including a shift from manufacturing to service and IT sectors, where new companies were more likely to adopt DC plans. Furthermore, legislation like the Pension Protection Act of 2006 facilitated this transition by imposing stricter funding requirements on DB plans and enhancing the attractiveness of DC plans through various incentives (https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v69n3/v69n3p1.html).

Running parallel, the recent trend of labor unions—such as the massive United Auto Workers (UAW)—investing membership dues in the stock market, including in companies they might challenge or negotiate with, starkly illustrates how union bureaucracies are increasingly co-opted by the very corporate forces they are supposed to oppose. From the 1980s onward, the government-corporate alliance has evolved into a toxic web of aggressive market liberalization and ruthless deregulation. The calculated removal of oversight was a brazen move that handed corporations unchecked power while shredding public accountability. Worker protections were gutted, and investment returns soared on the backs of labor exploitation, as corporate greed flourished at the expense of those who toil.

The UAW, like many other unions, seized on the opportunity to increase their cash reserves and began channeling part of their dues and pension funds into the stock market. Superficially, this was a move to diversify and increase the assets available to serve and protect members. However, it effectively entangled the unions' financial interests with those of the very corporations they were meant to be monitoring and moderating, at the very least.

This alignment with corporate performance underscores a deeper ideological shift within the union bureaucracy, from champions of workers' rights to managers of complex financial portfolios. This shift has distanced the union's leadership from the everyday realities and immediate needs of their rank-and-file members, leading to decisions that favor long-term financial stability over aggressive advocacy for better wages, benefits, or working conditions.

In both scenarios, workers face a ridiculous contradiction: pursuing their true interest in collective emancipation from the exploitative capitalist class risks undermining their wages, benefits, and retirement savings.

The Paradox of Worker Investment in Corporate Profits

The transition from traditional pension plans to 401(k) plans encapsulates a critical transformation in the relationship between labor and capital, deeply embedded with ideological and material implications.

By investing their retirement savings in the stock market, workers are compelled to support, and indeed root for, the success of the very entities that exploit their labor. The corporate profits that boost their retirement funds are sourced directly from corporate strategies such as suppressing wages, reducing workforce sizes, and demanding increased productivity. This is effectively a transfer of wealth from workers to the rulers, who assume the title of “shareholders” and “executives.” Yet, this extraction of wealth is cleverly disguised as a harmless, or more often, benign, retirement savings scheme, misleading workers into passively acquiescing to their own exploitation.

Under the oppressive gears of capitalism, driven by the relentless hunger for perpetual growth, these savings plans don't just subtly coerce workers into endorsing their own exploitation—they force them to champion an ever-escalating cycle of exploitation. This vicious spiral is demanded by a system addicted to ceaseless profit increases year after year, chaining workers to a fate where they root for deeper cuts into their own flesh. Essentially, through these defined contribution plans, workers unwittingly empower their rulers to repeatedly enact the very cost-cutting measures that threaten their jobs, deny them raises, and increase their workload and hours.

Relinquishing Control

A troubling feature of 401(k) plans is the significant loss of control they impose on workers, who must hand over their financial decision-making to corporate giants like Vanguard, Blackrock, or State Street. Workers are compelled to hand over their retirement funds to corporations like Vanguard, Blackrock, or State Street because these financial goliaths contract with employers to manage 401(k) plans, effectively controlling the investment options and strategies available to employees. These management companies administer 401(k) plans, offering workers only a limited selection of investment options that are chosen to serve corporate goals rather than the financial needs or preferences of the employees themselves. This limited selection gives the appearance of choice, but in reality, it substantially diminishes workers' autonomy over their own retirement funds.

In other words, these managers make critical investment decisions without direct input from the workers, decisions that shape the potential growth and security of the workers' retirement savings. Consequently, workers are left on the sidelines, passive observers of their own financial destinies, reliant on the strategies and ethical considerations of entities that prioritize corporate profitability over individual security.

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Despite the fact that, collectively, the controlling stake in almost all publicly traded companies is technically "owned" by a broad base of worker-investors, the reality is starkly different. By channeling investments through entities like Vanguard, workers are stripped of any direct influence over corporate actions. When workers entrust their savings to financial behemoths like Vanguard, they effectively hand over their shareholder "voting rights," surrendering any semblance of control over the corporations their collective labor has built.

This arrangement starkly illustrates how capitalist structures co-opt workers’ assets for corporate gain, rendering them powerless in decisions that affect their own economic futures. Intermediaries like Vanguard wield our collective power to relentlessly pursue corporate profit growth, endorsing actions that ruthlessly undermine our interests as workers. They push for job cuts, relentless lobbying against fair wage laws, and environmental shortcuts—all leveraging our collective votes to bolster shareholder value at the expense of the very workforce that enables it.

The systemic channeling of worker investments into entities like Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street is not merely a feature of modern financial management; it is a cornerstone of capitalist power dynamics. This process ensures that the vast pool of capital derived from workers' savings is used not to empower those workers as shareholders, but rather to fortify the very structures that oppress them. With our collective investments holding controlling stakes in nearly all publicly traded companies, the corporate elite deliberately divert this immense power into their own hands to maintain dominance. They design this system to crush any potential worker resistance, ensuring their agendas remain unchallenged while deepening economic disparities that empower the elite at the expense of the working majority.

Blindness to Class Antagonisms

The financialization of workers' savings essentially turns their labor into a commodity. By reducing their economic agency to numbers in an investment portfolio, workers are disconnected from the real outcomes of their own economic contributions. As their hard-earned money is invested in large capitalist enterprises, it's managed under the guise of seeking growth and security. However, this management actually reinforces the power structures that limit workers' autonomy and freedom.

Investment funds serve as tools that embed workers deeper within the capitalist system, presenting their subordinate position as a necessary efficiency rather than exploitation. This makes the process seem like prudent financial management, but it's really about maintaining the status quo. This creates a cognitive and practical dissonance, where the worker’s financial planning for the future is tied up with strategies that undermine their present livelihood and working conditions.

As workers see their retirement savings—invested in volatile stock markets—potentially jeopardized by decisive labor actions, there arises a rational general reluctance to engage in or support extensive strikes or vigorous protests. This caution stems from the fear that disrupting the market, even temporarily, could diminish their financial security, despite the potential long-term benefits such actions could have on improving working conditions.

Without the backing of unorganized laborers whose retirement funds are entrenched in the stock market, organized labor faces a much tougher challenge in gaining public support for substantial changes that would shift power from the elite to the people. This dynamic introduces a significant delay in the class struggle, reducing the momentum for radical change. Thus, the capitalist class gains a buffer period to adjust and refine oppressive strategies, reinforcing the status quo and perpetuating the cycle of worker exploitation, all while maintaining a facade of empowering workers through financial participation.

The capitalist class exploits this lag, not only through overt repression but also through more subtle forms of coercion. By shaping norms and expectations—such as the prioritization of market stability over the improvement of labor conditions—they manipulate workers into accepting, and even defending, a system that fundamentally works against their interests. This ideological control helps sustain the status quo, continually diverting attention from the systemic exploitation that underpins the capitalist system and muffling the calls for transformative change that might otherwise resonate through the working class. This clever manipulation of worker priorities ensures that any potential disruptions to capitalist accumulation are blunted, securing ongoing dominance by the ruling elites.

The UAW’s Investment Strategy and Worker Conflict

Even within organized labor contexts such as unions, bureaucratic structures often paralyze workers into a passive acceptance of a system that purports to aid their financial well-being while subtly undermining their real interests, just as unorganized laborers, with their retirement funds tied to the stock market, passively support the corporate entities they should be challenging. In unions, this dynamic is replicated through bureaucratic controls that bind workers to the same detrimental financial entanglements, ensuring that even within organized frameworks, the mechanisms ostensibly designed to empower workers instead reinforce their submission to a system that undermines their genuine interests.

For example, the UAW bureaucratic apparatus derives a substantial portion of its revenue from indirect auto company subsidies and Wall Street investments. These funds have been used not just for operational costs but to swell the ranks of its high-paid staff and finance extravagant leadership conferences, from which the ordinary union member is conspicuously absent.

Dues from UAW members are funneled into various mutual funds and stocks globally, including stakes in companies whose workers are represented by the union. In essence, the auto workers' union is investing in the very companies they are negotiating with for better wages and conditions! Notably, the UAW also has investments in notorious hedge funds like Bardin Hill Investment Partners and Kohlberg Investors IX, firms infamous for harsh worker cuts, operating out of places like the Cayman Islands. Thus, the UAW is investing in both the employers that exploit their own members and in corporate entities that extract wealth from workers generally.

As a result, net spending for the UAW, excluding strike payouts, escalated dramatically from $258 million in 2022 to $318.4 million in 2023, with compensation for headquarters staff rising from $52.57 million to nearly $59 million. This investment strategy has undeniably benefitted from the stock market's recent boom, driven largely by Wall Street's aggressive undermining of the working class's social standing, particularly through widespread layoffs, wage suppression, and the denial or reduction of benefits.

Ostensibly, these vast reserves bolster the UAW's strike fund, yet strikes are rarely called and are often restricted in scope. Last year's "stand up strike" saw most auto workers continue to labor, while the employers’ revenues actually increased. The strike fund, rather than serving as a militant tool against corporate power, increasingly appears as a financial cushion for the union bureaucratic elite, not the workers it claims to represent.

This arrangement embodies a conflict: while the union fights for better wages and conditions, its financial health and the ability of its strike fund to grow are largely dependent on the prosperity of the same corporate entities they may be contesting. This interdependence complicates the union’s role and its strategies in advocating for workers' rights.

Conflict Between Worker Advocacy and Financial Interests

The financial maneuvers of the UAW, particularly its investments in the very companies its members labor under, reveal a stark betrayal orchestrated by union elites. These leaders—career unionists who have risen through the ranks—are entrenched in safeguarding their own positions, power, and privileges at the expense of the rank-and-file workers they claim to represent. These bureaucratic elites have distanced themselves from the daily struggles of the workforce, becoming gatekeepers who often suppress radical initiatives that could genuinely empower workers.

This leadership stratum, with its grip firmly on the union’s strategic levers, has consistently shunned aggressive labor actions that might jeopardize their investment portfolios and their cozy relationships with corporate powerhouses, or possibly even invite state backlash. Their risk-averse, conservative tactics dilute the potential for revolutionary changes, favoring instead incrementalistic policies that do little more than maintain the status quo. In negotiations, these leaders are quick to prioritize job security over substantial wage increases or essential adaptations to industry evolution, such as retraining for emerging technologies. This strategy goes beyond mere conservatism; it is actively complicit. It represents a deliberate choice by a self-interested bureaucratic elite to align with corporations and a co-opted state, entities that actively resist transformative changes.

Reflection

The seismic shift from defined benefit (DB) plans to defined contribution (DC) plans marks a significant transformation in the landscape of worker retirement security. This transition encapsulates a broader trend in the neoliberal economic agenda, prioritizing market solutions and individual responsibility over collective welfare and guaranteed benefits. By shifting the burden of retirement savings to individuals, workers find themselves compelled to invest in and support the very corporate systems that may undermine their job security and wage growth. The involvement of financial giants like Vanguard in managing these investments exemplifies a deep entrenchment of capitalist interests in workers' lives. These firms, by controlling vast pools of retirement funds, not only influence corporate governance but also align workers' financial futures with the health of the stock market and corporate profitability, effectively muting potential collective dissent against exploitative practices.

In parallel, the role of unions like the UAW in this financialized landscape reveals a troubling convergence of interests between union leadership and corporate power. As unions invest in the stock market, including in companies they negotiate with, there arises a conflict between advocating for robust labor rights and maintaining the financial performance of their investments. This duality suggests a corrosion of union solidarity, driven by a bureaucratic elite more attuned to the fluctuations of the market than to the struggles of the rank-and-file members. Such dynamics underscore a broader erosion of labor power, where the traditional role of unions as bulwarks against corporate excess is compromised, making them less a force for challenging the status quo and more a part of the financial systems they should be critiquing.

It's time to disengage from these capitalist structures that exploit us and instead cultivate solidarity rooted in class consciousness. Only by recognizing our collective power and prioritizing mutual welfare can we dismantle the financial machinery that subjugates workers and reclaim our future.

Peter S. Baron is the author of “If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society” (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.

The State Can't Isolate the Imagination: Vernon T. Bateman and the Struggle to Free Them All

[Photo: Vernon T. Bateman and his supporters at “Eclipsing Injustice” at the District Theatre in Indianapolis. Credit: Indianapolis Liberation Center.]

By Jay Grillo and Derek R. Ford

U.S. prisons are universally known for their exceptional brutality and terror, with even corporate media covering their routine barbarity. What is less widely acknowledged, however, is the ongoing history of resistance against the mass incarceration system that is organized behind, across, and outside of prison bars. This political resistance is visible in the heroic hunger strikes and uprisings of our people behind enemy lines; it is also evident in the hope and creativity that not only survive, but actually foster in such isolating and despairing conditions.

There is perhaps no better example of this resistance that defies the state’s repressive apparatus than Vernon T. Bateman who, in 1998, was falsely charged and convicted of rape, criminal deviant conduct, and confinement in Gary, Indiana. The state had no evidence connecting him to the crime. Even worse, what physical evidence existed never materialized in court. As detailed below, Bateman was convicted based entirely on prosecutorial misconduct and false testimonies that were later recanted, yet he wasn’t released from prison until 2023, and he continues to live in a social prison under severe parole conditions. Although Bateman has maintained his innocence and fought for his freedom since 1998, the organized battle for his full exoneration is just beginning.

Imagination Flourishing and Isolating Conditions

Most people don’t know Bateman’s history of wrongful incarceration. He is, however, widely known for his art, something his grandfather–a poet, framer, and painter–introduced him to as a child. Vernon could draw years before he could read or write, skills he only learned once incarcerated. He did more than learn common literacy, however: he combined writing and drawing with his burgeoning artistic imagination, and he realized that creative capacity under the most repressive conditions.

Out of his 25 years served in prison, the state subjected Bateman to 10 years in solitary confinement. He turned a box meant to isolate and torture him into a space of imagination, resilience, and even community building. Solitary confinement was where Bateman, using crayons smuggled into the prison, wrote his first children’s book: Mommy I Want 2 Fly. Published in 2012, he wrote the first of what would be several children’s books as a way to parent his child from behind bars after her mother was killed by a drunk driver. The next year he published They Can’t Hurt Me No More, which tackled anti-LGBTQ bigotry and bullying.

Bateman’s art continues to expand, as does the people’s desire for it. At the end of March 2024, he unveiled his “Eclipse Murals” at The District Theatre in downtown Indianapolis to a crowd of artists, faith leaders, community organizers, friends, family, and passersby. If you watch Bateman discuss the murals, you can hear, see, and feel his dedication to community, creativity, and  justice. Originally created as gifts for the public, he eventually gave into the venue owner’s insistence on remuneration.

How the State Sent Another Innocent Black Man to Prison

Maintaining his innocence, Bateman refused to accept any plea deals. Within a few years of his sentencing, the disturbing systemic injustices and significant irregularities in the state’s case against Bateman started surfacing, ones that do more than establish reasonable doubt; they establish his innocence. Nonetheless, Bateman spent 25 years in prison, over half of his life so far. Although he was released from prison in 2023, he continues to be subjected to conditions that amount to house arrest, including ankle monitoring and curfews, the inability to attend therapy or take driving classes to get his license, and more. He hasn’t even been able to meet his own grandson yet.

Fortunately, a growing community of support is working to exonerate Bateman, a fight you can aid by signing a petition demanding his full and immediate exoneration. A new documentary provides a glimpse into the humility, kindness, optimism, and commitment to justice Bateman and his artistic work and community projects, like Baby22 Gun Safety LLC, exemplify.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK BY MAKING A DONATION TODAY!

A Corrupt Detective, False Testimony, and a Lying “Eyewitness”

When the trial started on September 14, 1998, Angela Truitt, the complaining witness, failed to appear causing the judge to issue a bench warrant; however, the next day, the same judge granted the State a continuance until September 22, 1998, rather than dismissing the charges against Bateman. That Bateman’s public defender did not object or ask for a dismissal evidenced the ineffective assistance he received at trial. Truitt’s absence is notable, especially when accompanied by the self-revelation that she did not come to court because she had “reasonable doubt” that Bateman was even involved in the crime at all.

In 2004, the alleged victim, Angela Truitt, testified under oath that chief investigator Detective Mary Banks told her to identify Bateman as one of her assailants. After confirming this, Attorney Ray L. Szarmach asked if it “was, in fact, Vernon Bateman at the rape, or was Vernon Bateman in that rape?” In her sworn testimony, Truitt said “I’m not sure. I told you they told me that’s who it was. I didn’t know who none of them guys were. The police told me he was a suspect.” When asked why Truitt recanted her testimony and if she wanted him to be free, she responded “Yes.”

The other testimony used by the state was delivered by Det. Banks, who said she got Bateman’s name “from the other suspect [Sa’ron Foley] that was in custody.” Foley was a co-defendant tried separately for the same crime. He never appeared on the stand during Bateman’s trial, depriving Bateman of his constitutional right to cross-examination. Banks delivered his testimony, which he later admitted was fabricated. Since at least 2005, Foley has adamantly worked to atone for his lie. In a 2009 affidavit, Foley stated that he “made falsified statements against Vernon Bateman on 1-23-98 to Det. M. Banks,” and that he had contacted Bateman’s attorney about five years prior to relay his willingness to testify on Bateman’s behalf. He never heard back.

Nine years later, in a handwritten letter addressed to FOX59 and reporter Angela Ganote and signed by a Notary Public, Foley wrote he had “been silent for too long” and “this evidence should have been brought to the court’s attention 20 yrs ago… Vernon Bateman was never [at the scene of the alleged crime]... That was made up by me & Det. Mary Banks.”

That same year, Foley even dedicated an entire hearing before the parole board, which only happens once a year, to advocate for Bateman’s freedom rather than his own. Foley lied because of a grudge he held against Bateman, but, as Ganote reported, “he has been trying to make things right for decades. He has written attorneys, a judge, the governor and me. He says no one will listen.” The state’s continued refusal to listen is the answer to Foley’s question.

A “Missing” Rape Kit

What is perhaps most perplexing–or rather, convincing–is that the sexual assault forensic exam performed on Truitt, the very thing that could exonerate Bateman, was never entered into evidence. Bateman’s motions requesting the results of the examination and to submit his own DNA into evidence were denied.

A physician at Methodist Northlake Hospital examined the alleged victim, Angela Truitt, and released the sexual assault kit to Det. Banks. However, the state neither tested nor introduced the rape kit as evidence during Bateman’s trial. When asked if the examination results came back during cross-examination, Banks said “I don’t know.” In 2019, when Indiana reporter Angela Ganote tried to track it down, the hospital referred her to the Gary police, who referred her to the city’s attorneys, who “told me they didn’t have it.”

To this day, the kit hasn’t been recovered. The prison authorities later explicitly denied Ganote from visiting Bateman while he remained behind bars.

Throughout this period, various legal petitions and appeals were filed, including petitions to challenge Bateman's conviction and justify his release. These efforts were met with resistance and legal hurdles, further prolonging Bateman's unjust imprisonment. Notably, a petition to vacate highlighted violations of Bateman's constitutional right to cross-examine his accuser, including the loss of crucial evidence such as the rape kit and ineffective assistance of counsel, were denied.

Join Bateman’s Struggle and Free Them All!

Bateman says he doesn’t have any ill feelings towards Truitt. “You got to understand, people like me aren’t mad at the alleged victims, but at the system. In my case, my accuser was a victim of the system, too,” he said in an April 2024 interview with the Indianapolis Liberation Center.

Bateman, his family, and even his former enemy have been fighting for his freedom for decades. The state remains unwilling to acknowledge the abundant judicial misconduct, recanted testimonies, and police corruption that kept an innocent man in prison for over half of his life and to this day keep him locked in a social prison. They can only do so as long as his story remains hidden.

What will it take to exonerate yet another innocent man held captive by the state of Indiana? An organized struggle that forces the truth into the open and makes it impossible for the state to continue avoiding accountability. This struggle, which is only possible because of Bateman’s enduring belief that justice will prevail in the end, is one that needs your support, whoever and wherever you are.

Bateman’s story demonstrates that, despite all of its repressive powers, the state remains impotent when confronted by the imagination, creativity, and resilience of humanity. That is the most powerful lesson–the one often neglected in the doomsday pieces about the racist and capitalist U.S. mass incarceration system–that Bateman’s words, works, and very being teach us every day. It’s up to us to learn and act on that lesson to win freedom not only for Bateman, but for all wrongly convicted, political, and social prisoners in the United States.

Exonerate Vernon T. Bateman now!