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“No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner”
by David Gilbert
2004 Abraham Guillen Press/Arm the Spirit
I recommend this book. David Gilbert, lifelong political prisoner in New York since 1981, and former member of the Weather Underground (now being exploited in McCain political ads), here writes on many subjects of interest to all anti-imperialist activists.
David’s a great writer; very straightforward, focused, but with tenderness and humor, and he has a way of making sense of complicated and terrible political dramas in short and effective little essays. In addition to essays on Gilbert’s own history in SDS and Weather, the best samples here are on the U.S. white working class historically, the prison system, Colombia, Afghanistan, and neoliberalism. But Gilbert delves into a wide array of subjects from feminism to AIDS to institutional racism in many forms, and always with an amazing insight without requiring a lot of effort on the part of the reader.
It’s a damn shame that this man is behind bars, but luckily he’s still able to share his wisdom with us. Check this out!
updated 12/4/2010
by Alex Knight, endofcapitalism.com
Would you rather receive a hearty welcome or a cordial reception?
Notice the imagery and feelings evoked by the two phrases. The first has a Germanic origin, the second, French. The English language is split along class lines — a reflection of the Norman invasion of England, almost 1000 years ago. German-derived English words carry with them a working class connotation, and French-derived words come off sounding aristocratic and slightly repulsive.
Even though cordial literally means “of the heart” in French (cor is Latin for heart), the picture that comes to my mind is a royal douchebag entering a hall of power amidst classical music and overdressed patrons and nobility. The image I get from hearty welcome is the extreme opposite: a single peasant reaching out to hug me and get me into their little hovel, out of the weather. Class is deeply embedded within our language, each word having its own unique history.
Wikipedia teaches many fun facts. The English language derives mainly from:
- Old German — the Angles and Saxons (from Saxony) conquered Britain in the 5th century, mixing with Scandinavians and developing Old English.
- Old French — the Normans (from Normandy) conquered England in 1066.
William the Conqueror, first Norman king of England, as depicted on the famous Bayeux Tapestry. His royal descendents would speak French until Henry V, 350 years later.
After the Norman invasion, England was dominated by a small French aristocracy, ruling over a much larger German working class. For more than three centuries, the rulers of England spoke French, while the common person spoke a Germanic language (Old English).
The two cultural groups began to intermarry after the Black Death of the 1340s wiped out half of the population, and over time the languages slowly merged, greatly simplifying the grammar of English, but also leaving a huge combined vocabulary.
The really interesting thing is that a lot of words in English carry a class connotation, based on whether they derive from French or from German. Words that mean basically the same thing will have either a formal, fancy, academic, upper-class connotation, or a casual, down-to-earth, gut-level, working-class feeling depending on the origin of the word.
Check this list out!
| German-derived | French-derived |
| begin | commence |
| talk/speak | discuss/converse |
| ask | inquire/demand |
| teach | educate |
| think/wonder | consider/ponder |
| understand | comprehend |
| truth | verity |
| answer | reply |
| before | prior |
| come | arrive |
| meet/find | encounter |
| leave | depart |
| wall | barrier |
| make/build | construct |
| break | destroy |
| small/little | petite |
| feeling | sentiment |
| good | beneficial/pleasant |
| hope | aspire |
| lucky | fortunate |
| help | assist |
| mistake | error |
| forgive | pardon |
| buy | purchase |
| have/own | possess |
| yearly | annual |
| careful/wise | prudent |
| child/youth | juvenile/adolescent |
| earth | soil |
| cold | frigid |
| wild | savage |
| belly/gut | abdomen |
| drink | beverage |
| hungry | famished |
| eat | dine |
.
Notice that the Germanic words are usually shorter, more concrete and direct, while the French words are more elaborate, more abstract and indirect. What kind of person do you imagine speaking the words in the left column vs. the right column?
It’s interesting to me that nature and children are described by the French-derived English words as somehow negative or hostile, as with savage and juvenile. To me this reflects the hatred on the part of the wealthy and powerful for that which is untamed and free.
The medical-industrial complex also uses almost exclusively Latin and French-derived words, to sound more technical. This has the effect of making the body seem lifeless and mechanical, as with abdomen.
Plus, meat words are almost all French-derived, which reflects that while the Anglo-Saxon working class was responsible for hunting/shepherding the animals, it was only the Norman nobility who could actually afford to eat meat.
| German-derived | French-derived |
| cow | beef |
| pig | pork/ham |
| deer | venison |
| sheep | mutton |
| calf | veal |
.
Chicken and fish are the exceptions here, most likely because these meats were less expensive and more available for peasants and workers.
Finally, most of our government/state words are all French: court, judge, jury, indict, appeal, traitor, prison, military, representative, parliament, Congress, president, and marriage.
I notice that when I use the French-derived words, I experience a slight feeling of discomfort, as if I’m trying to impress people with my big words. This is precisely how academia functions, which is why if you attend a university or graduate school, you will be inundated with French and Latin-derived vocabulary, to distinguish you from the uneducated masses with their street language.
Might all of this explain why American conceptions of the French are as snooty, pompous, pretentious, easily-hate-able snobs? In occupied England, THEY WERE!
And for anyone interested in working class revolution, the best way not to talk down to people: stick with the more common Germanic words instead of bureaucratese.
Towards freedom! (not mere liberty)
p.s. George Orwell wrote an awesome essay called Politics of the English Language, where he breaks down how abstract, complex language is a tool for those who seek to confuse the populace, and he outlines how to make use of concrete, plain English to actually reach people. A highly recommended essay for anyone who wants to write.
“I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle”
by Charles Payne
1991 by University of California Press
I’ve Got the Light of Freedom is a book about organizing, for organizers. It chronicles SNCC and the Mississippi Freedom movement from its beginnings to ends, especially highlighting the individual organizers and families that put the movement together and sustained it.
The book is great because it analyzes the movement from a variety of perspectives, including understanding the strategies, tactics, gender dynamics, class dynamics, white/black organizing dynamics, local/rural dynamics, mentorship and leadership development, state and white repression, and the rise and fall of trust and community that were the backbone of the movement. The thread throughout is the brilliance of the Ella Baker/Septima Clark school of organizing, based on meeting people where they’re at and developing their leadership so they can lead their own fights. It’s about valuing the day-to-day work that sustains organizations above the flashy actions or speeches, and about seeing our work as part of a long-term struggle towards freedom that will need to involve millions of people.
My criticisms Read the rest of this entry »
“The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”
by Naomi Wolf
2007 Chelsea Green
Naomi Wolf’s short, straightforward book is a warning that the prospects for fascism emerging in America are real and growing. She lays out 10 steps that governments take in order to concentrate power and stifle dissent, on the road to fascism, all of which are underway in the good ol’ US of A.
1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat
2. Establish Secret Prisons
3. Develop a Paramilitary Force
4. Surveil Ordinary Citizens
5. Infiltrate Citzens’ Groups
6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens
7. Target Key Individuals
8. Restrict the Press
9. Cast Criticism as ‘Espionage’ and Dissent as ‘Treason’
10. Subvert the Rule of Law
This issue is obviously incredibly relevant today, and I happen to agree that fascism is an imminent threat in the US. But I wasn’t terribly impressed by this book. Read the rest of this entry »
This week, food riots are erupting in the poorest countries of the world, such as Haiti, where the majority of the population lives on under $2 a day. The protesters are calling for the resignation of their government, for its inability to provide basic necessities to the population. See this BBC News short video.
The price of grains, especially wheat (which has doubled in the past year), has been on a steady uphill trend for the past few years, causing major food shortages across much of the Global South.
(image from BBC)
I want to highlight 4 underlying causes of this global food shortage:
1) Growing Inequality between the wealthiest and poorest people. Greater affluence in industrializing countries is driving larger levels of meat consumption, which requires far more wheat, other grains, and water to be consumed in order to produce the same amount of food. In fact, the majority of grains produced in the world are now fed to animals for meat. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people in the Global South are on the brink of starvation, or literally already starving.
2) Global Warming is causing unreliable and chaotic weather patterns across much of the food-producing regions of the world. Arable lands are turning into deserts as droughts worsen, while other regions are flooding with unseasonable downpours. These combine to create massive agricultural loss.
3) Biofuels like ethanol from corn production in the U.S. are quite literally food being used to fuel industry and automobiles. This manifests in driving up the cost of food for everyone, especially the poor, so that the largest agribusiness firms can earn huge profits, and the illusion of American prosperity surrounding large cars and wasteful consumerism can be maintained at all costs.
4) Most fundamental, The Global Oil Production Peak, which took place in 2006, is causing declining supplies of oil while demand surges across the industrial and industrializing world. We have seen a drastic and increasing rise in the price of oil over this period, which most Americans recognize in the high cost of gasoline. But for the poor of the world, a much more dire situation is emerging with food, because oil and other fossil fuels are the sources for most industrial fertilizers and pesticides, and because the modern system of food production and distribution are heavily dependent on oil for transportation, processing, packaging, refrigeration and cooking. In fact, the average American consumes over 10 calories of fossil fuels for every calorie of food eaten! Most people in the world can’t continue to afford this oil subsidy, and the crisis will only deepen as oil production declines in the coming years.
(Image courtesy OILNERGY)
“The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex”
by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
2007 South End Press
This is a pretty wonderful collection of essays, put together by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, covering the rise of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex and it’s vampiric and co-opting effects on radical movements for social change. Some of the essays are more compelling than others, but I particularly found the historical background of the NPIC undercutting and distorting radical movements of the last 25 years revelatory. Plus the case-studies of groups that went for the 501(c)3 tax status and got the foundation grants, only to have it delegitimize and undermine their organizing, were extremely worth reading. Read the rest of this entry »
Check out this awesome essay by Paul Kivel – it really helped me understand my class background (as a member of the “buffer zone”) and how I can relate to others in an accountable way to achieve social change! – Alex
Social Service or Social Change?
Who Benefits from your Work
by Paul Kivel
copyright 2000
MY FIRST ANSWER TO THE QUESTION POSED IN THE TITLE is that we need both, of course. We need to provide services for those most in need, for those trying to survive, for those barely making it. We need to work for social change so that we create a society in which our institutions and organizations are equitable and just and all people are safe, adequately fed, adequately housed, well educated, able to work at safe, decent jobs, and able to participate in the decisions that affect their lives. Although the title of this article may be misleading in contrasting social service provision and social change work, the two do not necessarily go together easily and in many instances do not go together at all. There are some groups working for social change that are providing social service; there are many more groups providing social services that are not working for social change. In fact, many social service agencies may be intentionally or inadvertently working to maintain the status quo.
The Economic Pyramid
I want to begin by providing a context for this discussion: the present political/economic system here in the United States. Currently our economic structure looks like the pyramid in Figure One in which 1% of the population controls about 47% of the net financial wealthii of the country, and the next 19% of the population controls another 44%. That leaves 80% of the population struggling to gain a share of just 9% of the remaining financial wealth. That majority of 80% doesn’t divide very easily into 9% of resources, which means that many of us spend most of our time trying to get enough money to feed, house, clothe, and otherwise support ourselves and our families.
Illustration by Alberto Ledesma Read the rest of this entry »
“The Collapse of Complex Societies”
by Joseph Tainter
1988 Cambridge University Press
A classic book, highly recommended for anyone becoming aware of the coming collapse of industrial capitalism, or just anyone who is interested in the origins and failings of civilization more generally. Tainter approaches the subject as an archaeologist, and attempts to decipher a general theory behind collapse – a process he describes as declining returns on investments by the ruling class.
Tainter doesn’t view it in terms of class, so he strangely falls into the realm of historical materialism while criticizing Marxism for not being materialistic enough. The examples given (Rome, Maya, Chaco Canyon) help elucidate the topic by showing how the majority of the population tends to benefit and welcome collapse (he mentions how the average citizen/slave of Rome welcomed the ‘Barbarians’ who freed them from brutal debt and servitude). Despite some academic and boring language, my only major complaint is the lack of substantive mention of oil and fossil fuel depletion, which has doomed global capitalism. But the book is 20 years old, I guess he didnt see it coming.
The End of Capitalism 
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