World Citizen: Garry Davis vs. National Borders

In September 1948, when delegates to the new United Nations met at the grand Palais de Chailot in Paris, a twenty-something American wearing the flak jacket of a bomber pilot pitched a tent on the Palais steps. Guards descended and angrily ordered him to leave, but he politely declined. I’m no longer in France, the young man explained, eyes twinkling. I’m standing on “international territory.”

     As a crowd gathered, so did the world press. With days the name of this pilot-turned-peacenik, Garry Davis, was known around the world. Newsreels captured a mounting drama that featured curious crowds, inspired celebrities and perplexed authorities.

     When a reporter asked Davis what he was about, he replied, “I’m a world citizen.” With that simple assertion a global movement was born.

     Garry Davis was part rebel, part performer and completely original, a world-class Don Quixote who for more than half a century jousted at one of the biggest windmills of all – nationalism. It was a wild ride that took him around the world, in and out of 34 jails, and across countless frontiers.

     After renouncing his US citizenship as an anti-war protest, camping out in Paris, and crashing a UN session to deliver a speech, Davis launched his first major organizing project, a registry for world citizens. More than a million people responded to the call. Forced out of France, he next went on tour, stateless and without documents. This time thousands of people turned out to meet him and local governments passed supportive resolutions.  Yet, over the next few years he was also repeatedly thrown in jail and deported.

     In 1953, for example, while he was appearing as an actor in a London stage production of Stalag 17, the show closed unexpectedly when the Queen died, and Davis found himself without a visa. A kindly magistrate gave him an idea: build a home on public property. But he was arrested anyway and taken to Brixton prison.

     Officials there laughed at first when Davis wrote to the new Queen. But they had to eat some crow when she responded with a thank you note. She would not step in, Her Majesty explained. But she did appreciate his situation.

     Three years later, wearing a homemade uniform and carrying a “World Passport” he had printed himself, Davis traveled to India. Necessity was helping him to become adept at intimidating low-level bureaucrats and exploiting the local media. His discussions with border officials were often hilarious, exposing the arbitrary rules and artificial boundaries of nations. But once inside country, he shifted focus to study with a Buddhist guru. The break also helped clarify his mission and prepare him for the next phase of the journey.

     At this point, for Davis, world government already existed. After all, he had announced its formation in a 1953 declaration. Before a small audience in Ellsworth, Maine, he had called it the World Government of World Citizens, and explained that its legitimacy was based on three laws – one God, one world, and one humankind. And although he was only one person, all humans were potential world citizens. They just needed to “claim their rights and assume their responsibilities.”  Yet Davis also understood that many more people would have to reach the same awareness before things began to change.

     In the early years, the tactics Davis used sometimes put not only his freedom but his life at risk. A year after his stay in India, for instance, Davis was almost shot before he could show his passport in Germany. It happened in Berlin after he left his bicycle near a barbed wire fence that separated East from West. Crawling under the wire in a pre-dawn mist, he was caught by several gun-toting police, arrested, interrogated, and ultimately put on a train to West Germany.

     As the scenery passed he could not help but remember another view of the same countryside --- from the cockpit of his bomber during the war – and also what the experience had taught him. “We are born as citizens of the world,” he realized. “But we are also born into a divided world, a world of separate entities called nations. We may regard each other as friends, and yet we are separated by wide, artificial boundaries.”

     Garry Davis spent the rest of his life trying to change that. One of his main strategies was to develop and issue documents, including the extraordinary World Passport. Recognized on a case-by-case basis by more than 100 countries – and officially by a handful – the passport has evolved into a convincing document in seven languages, issued to at least a million people over the years. Davis often argued that the right to travel, outlined in the passport, was grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

     Just as important as the fundamental right involved, however, was knowing how to use tools like the passport and other identity documents. As explained in Passport to Freedom, a book we co-authored in 1991, many nations have accepted World Passports and other documents issued by the World Service Authority, the non-profit organization Davis founded. But step one in effectively using them is to know what you are talking about. “The official, as part of the machine, knows little more than his narrow function and the regulations on which it is based. When you ask questions, you shift the burden of responsibility.”

     Other steps include remaining cool, going to the top of the chain of command as soon as possible, always assuming you are right, keeping track on your paperwork, choosing the right words, looking good, and remaining firm. It’s basic, but solid advice for anyone forced to deal with arbitrary authority. That said, over the years Davis refined the approach into a long-running piece of political performance art that he repeatedly took around the world.

     In April 1984, for example, he arrived at Tokyo’s Narita Airport. At this point Davis was already in his 60s and could look like an elder statesman if he wished. Determined as ever, he was nevertheless detained after a mind-boggling exchange and told he could not enter the country. The next night, however, when the authorities attempted to put him on a return flight, he protested so effectively that the captain threw him off the plane.

     A day later he escaped from detention and went downtown for public interviews at a daily newspaper.

     When he was caught, the Japanese put Davis in detention, then on a plane for Seattle. There he was told that he would be placed on trial for entering the US illegally. He was now classified as an “excludable alien,” the officials claimed. It was beginning to look like he was trapped in a Kafka-like tale.

     Two weeks after setting out for Japan, Davis stood before a US immigration judge. Both governments were refusing to admit him. ‘Quite a dilemma,” mused Judge Jones. But before he could decide how to handle the convoluted case, a telex arrived from Washington, DC. The news was almost inconceivable: Davis’ entire file had somehow been “lost.”

     As a result the Seattle case was closed and the world citizen was free to go.

     Five years later Davis was back in Japan. This time he opened an office in Tokyo and helped many undocumented workers and Chinese students who were fleeing repression. For them the World Passport and other documents meant proof of identity, access to a job, or a way to get from one place to another.

     During this extended visit, Davis met the Japanese Prime Minister and had a private, personal talk with Andrei Sakharov. The Cold War was winding down then, and the Soviet Union would soon dissolve. Like Davis, Sakharov had reached the conclusion that it was time to move beyond nationalism and create a democratic world government.

     After more than a year of looking the other way, however, Japanese Immigration eventually decided to pounce and had Davis arrested in July 1990. He was jailed for several weeks and questioned each day by the same immigration official who had handled his original case more than five years earlier. Gradually, Davis managed to convince this man his claim to world citizenship made sense. The Japanese deported him anyway.

     When Davis landed in Los Angeles in August 1990, he fully expected to be arrested again. This time he was handled a letter instead. It announced that the Secretary of State had unilaterally decided to classify him as a “parolee in the public interest” and let him go.

     During this period Davis moved to Vermont, a safe haven that remained his home for the rest of his life. However, he never stopped fighting for his vision for a world without borders. In July 2013, just a week before he died on July 24, just shy of 92 years old, Davis was still finding ways to spread the word. At this point NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was trapped in a Moscow airport after his US passport was revoked. For Davis the response was obvious: the World Service Authority would issue him one.

     The World Passport may not have reached Snowden*, but Davis made his point one last time. “All we're doing is conforming to the idea that human rights must be protected by law," he told reporters. "The world passport opens the door. Anyone can get it; everyone is a human being, everyone has a right to travel.'"

* It did reach contacts in Russia near Snowden, according to WSA's David Gallup, but whether Snowden received it wasn't confirmed.

Greg Guma knew Garry Davis for more than 20 years, co-authoring and editing two of his books, Passport to Freedom: A Guide for World Citizens and Dear World: A Global Odyssey. A memorial service for Davis was held at Burlington City Arts in Burlington, Vermont on January 5, 2014.

Immigration Fight at the AZ Corral

April 23, 2010

Arizona is in the grip of an anti-immigrant fever. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose popularity was built on his tough enforcement tactics and willingness to defy the federal government, is on the edge of a run for governor. But even if he doesn’t, the state has a controversial new law that requires police to determine the status of anyone if there is a "reasonable suspicion” they are in the US illegally – and arrest them if documents can’t be produced. Hiring day laborers off the street has also become a crime.

Supporters see the law as an anti-crime measure and part of a larger campaign to secure the border. Opponents call it racial profiling and claim it is unconstitutional.

Gov. Jan Brewer, the Republican who replaced Janet Napolitano when she became Obama’s Homeland Security chief, waited as long as possible before taking a position on SB 1070. Caught between a conservative primary challenge and the prospect of her state becoming the target of a Latino-led boycott, her first step was to issue a border security plan of her own. It includes increased surveillance, redirecting stimulus money to local law enforcement, and a request to President Obama for more National Guard border support.

Then, on April 23, as large crowds protested in Phoenix and Tuscon, Brewer signed the bill. Arguing that she is responding to a crisis, she linked her decision to the drug war.

Latino members of Congress had urged Gov. Jan Brewer to veto. "When you institutionalize a law like this one, you are targeting and discriminating at a wholesale level against a group of people," Rep. Raul Grijalva said. More than 50,000 people signed petitions opposing the law, about 2,500 students from high schools across Phoenix walked out of school and marched to the Capitol, and nine college students were arrested during protests for chaining themselves to the Capitol building doors to pressure the governor.

Interim County Attorney Rick Romley called it an unfunded mandate that is “tearing the community apart” and pledges that, despite the law’s thrust, he will focus on organized crime syndicates engaged in human smuggling. Obama says it is “misguided.” But Arpaio accuses opponents of just not wanting to enforce immigration laws, and state polls reveal strong public support.

Tourism and business leaders worry that the law will discourage visitors and economic development, comparing it to what happened when another Arizona governor rescinded recognition of Martin Luther King Day as a holiday in 1987. At least $300 million in income was lost and the NFL pulled the Super Bowl from Phoenix. Eventually, voters approved the state holiday.

Despite the social and economic dangers, Arizona’s two US Senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, don’t just support the move. They’ve unveiled their own 10-point plan, including 3,000 National Guardsmen to be deployed to the state's border, 24/7 monitoring by unmanned aerial vehicles, permanent addition of 3,000 Custom and Border Protection agents, and completion of 700 miles of fencing.

The Arizona legislation "is exactly why the federal government must act on immigration reform," argues state Democratic leader Jorge Luis Garcia. "We cannot have states creating a jigsaw puzzle of immigration laws. This bill opens the doors to racial profiling with the provision that allows an officer to ask for citizenship papers from someone who only looks illegal."

When Napolitano was governor, she vetoed similar bills. She was relatively tough on immigration, especially on businesses who hired undocumented people, imposing what she called a "business death penalty" – basically taking away licenses – from those violating an employer sanctions law twice. However, she opposed punishing immigrants who were already here and didn’t think much of a border fence. "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," she said.

Things have changed since she left. Whether or not the 77-year-old Arpaio runs for governor and wins the GOP primary (or the general election), immigration will remain front and center in state politics for the foreseeable future, potentially accelerating and certainly influencing the national debate over reform. The Arizona law also plays into the “state’s rights” thrust of the current anti-federal government surge.

Dangerous Tactics

Anti-immigrant sentiment is a persistent theme in US politics. In 1996, for example, when then-California Gov. Pete Wilson announced that undocumented pregnant women should be denied prenatal care, his underlying message was clear and brutal: If you’re “illegal,” get out of our country!

Wilson’s statement came at another dangerous time, one marked by resurgent racism, increased police brutality, vigilante violence, and rationalization of virtually any attack. In other words, we’ve been here before.

In the early 1980s, low intensity conflict (LIC) theorists constructed a Los Angeles insurrection scenario requiring a military response and sealing the nearby border. A decade later, the Border Patrol played a key role in the L.A. riots of 1992, deployed in Latino communities and arresting more than 1,000 people. Afterward, the INS began work with the Pentagon’s Center for Low-Intensity Conflict, and the line between civilian and military operations was largely erased.

Throughout the 1990s, Human Rights Watch accused the US Border Patrol of routinely abusing people, citing a pattern of beatings, shootings, rapes, and deaths. In response, INS detainees in a private jail rioted in June 1995 after being tortured by guards. After 9/11, the federal government considered placing US soldiers along the Mexican border.

But efforts to curtail immigration through tighter security have done little but redirect the flow into the most desolate areas of the border, increasing the mortality rate of those crossing. Between 1998 and 2004, at least 1,900 people died trying to cross the US-Mexico border. In recent years, Arizona has become the main entry point for undocumented immigrants into the US. An estimated 460,000 live in the state, but the total has dropped by at least 100,000, or 18 percent, since 2008.

In the last five years, around 200 people have died annually along the Arizona border in wilderness areas, according to medical examiner data compiled by Coalicion de Derechos Humanos. On the other hand, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu charges that “numerous” officers have been killed by illegal immigrants, and that the violence has reached “epidemic proportions.” Although that’s true, the main spikes in crime have been in home invasions and kidnapping, both of which are linked to the drug war and organized crime based in Mexico.

Anti-immigrant activists deny charges of racism. But the facts tell a different story. Almost unlimited numbers of immigrants from mostly white, European countries are allowed into the US, while Latin Americans and Africans rarely even get tourist visas. And although sweatshops that employ undocumented workers are condemned, they aren’t often shut down, but merely raided, resulting in deportations. The owners may be fined, but they still come out ahead. After all, deported workers can’t collect back wages.

The Arizona law makes police go after anyone whose look or dress is “suspicious,” yet does little to toughen the employer sanctions legislation passed in 2007. That gave authorities the power to suspend or revoke the business licenses of employers caught knowingly hiring illegal workers and required all businesses to use E-Verify to check the work eligibility of new employees. Since then, only two cases have been settled in which the employers admitted guilty. All the new law says is that they must maintain those E-Verify records.

Border Wars

More than 150 years ago, at the end of a two-year war between Mexico and the US, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. Many Latinos still feel that the treaty, accepted under pressure by a corrupt dictator, was an act of theft violating international law. Mexico surrendered half its territory — now the Southwestern United States — and most of the Mexicans who stayed in the ceded region ultimately lost their land.

In a sense, that war never ended. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, US officials, working closely with white settlers and elites, used often-violent means to subdue Mexicans in the region.

Once the region was “pacified,” border enforcement became a tool to regulate the flow of labor into the US. With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, the Border Patrol emerged as gatekeeper of a “revolving door,” sometimes processing immigrant labor, sometimes cracking down. The Bracero Program, which brought in Mexican agricultural laborers, was followed (and overlapped by) Operation Wetback, an INS-run military offensive against immigrant workers.

The border is still a battlefield. During recent decades, government strategies for combating undocumented immigration and drug trafficking have re-militarized the region.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) meshed neatly with more obvious aspects of low-intensity conflict doctrine. The definition of immigration and drug trafficking as “national security” issues has brought state-of-the-art military approaches into domestic affairs. But just as the projection of a “communist menace” was a smokescreen for post-war expansionism, a “Brown wave,” the “Drug War,” and terrorism have been used as pretexts for military-industrial penetration.

LIC doctrine uses diverse tactics — from the subtle and psychological (“winning hearts and minds”) to the obvious and brutal. Such flexibility requires the most sophisticated tools available, and the integration of police, paramilitary, and military forces. It also requires a plausible “enemy” — in this case, immigrants who can be accused of almost anything and abused with impunity.

In this kind of war, borders are ultimately unimportant. Battles are waged everywhere, even in communities far from a frontier. This blurs the line between police and the military, and further threatens basic rights.

Future Shock

Latinos soon will be the largest minority group in the US, according to Census Bureau predictions: at least 44 million, or 15 percent of the nation’s population. Although the biggest expansion will occur in states that draw the most immigrants — California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey — the spill-over will reach from Atlanta to Minneapolis and Washington state. California is expected to undergo the most dramatic transformation — to at least 50 percent Latino and possibly only 32 percent white by 2040.

Overall, immigration is fueling US population growth, and the Census Bureau predicts a tripling of the Hispanic and Asian populations in less than 50 years. While the number of whites may increase by seven percent, the three largest minorities — Hispanic, Black, and Asian — are expected to rise by 188, 71, and 213 percent respectively. The bottom line is that these three groups are expected to constitute at least 47 percent of total US population by 2050. While such forecasts certainly have much to do with the current anti-immigrant climate, the trend won’t be reversed by race-motivated legislation.

Low-intensity war against non-white immigrants is especially evident along the US-Mexico border. It takes many forms: militarization, criminalizing the undocumented, repressive legislation, human rights violations, and cruel, discriminatory attacks on children and the poor. Arizona’s new law is the latest development – the toughest state law on illegal immigration yet.

According to Sen. Russell Pearce, architect of the plan, the idea is to wipe out the "sanctuary policies of cities.” He says that politicians and others have handcuffed the police, keeping them from finding and arresting those in this country illegally. State action is necessary, he adds, because of political failure in Washington. Democratic Sen. Rebecca Rios agrees that the federal government hasn’t done enough to secure the border, but doesn’t think this is the answer. "This bill does nothing to address human smuggling, the drug cartels, the arms smuggling,” she says. “It creates a lot of negative effects that none of us here want, she adds. "And, yes, I believe it will create somewhat of a police state."

Despite the state’s libertarian streak, Arizona lawmakers apparently have other concerns. In addition to pushing through a roundup of “illegals” by any means necessary, they’re considering legislation that would require any future presidential candidate to produce a US birth certificate – a nod to the “birthers” who think Obama isn’t a citizen. The governor has already signed a law letting people carry concealed weapons without a permit, and another saying that federal laws don’t apply to weapons and ammunition manufactured wholly within Arizona.

The picture emerging is of a state that’s armed and paranoid, hostile to federal oversight, and suspicious of anyone who looks or talks like an outsider. The immigration law, along with other recent legislation, support for the “birther” movement, and the statement by J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging McCain, that same sex marriage laws would lead to men marrying horses is leading many people to ask: What’s wrong with Arizona?

In some respects, its situation is unique. Combined with its proximity to the border, there is the enormous growth of Phoenix, the arrival of so many transplants from Eastern cities and California, and a general disinterest in politics that has let things careen out of control. Turnout is low for primary elections, and the legislature is more conservative than the general public. This has created an opening for figures like Pearce, who has associated with Nazis, Hayworth and Arpaio, who have become influential political allies.

On the other hand, Arizona represents an extreme manifestation of the anger and reactionary sentiments roiling across the country. With the rise of a new state’s rights, anti-immigrant movement, the choice facing the state and the nation as a whole has become basic, between what Mexican author Jose Vasconcelos once called Universopolis – a place in which all the peoples of the world are melded into a “cosmic race” – and the Blade Runner scenario.

In Blade Runner, a prescient 1982 film, Los Angeles in the 21st century has become an ominous “world city” marked by cultural fusion and economic stratification, a sunless and polluted place, overcrowded with Asian and Latino drones who barely look up at the metal fortresses of the rich. USC professor Kevin Starr warned of this possibility, “a demotic polyglotism ominous with unresolved hostilities” in “L.A. 2000,” a city-sponsored report that touted it as “the” city of the future. In essence, that option is an advanced imperialist state, one that encompasses colonies within its own borders. Phoenix could go the same way.

Like Vasconcelos, author Salman Rushdie can envision a more optimistic, multicultural alternative. Immigrants may not so much assimilate as leak into one another, he suggests, “like flavors when you cook.”

Of course, this is precisely what frightens many angry, fearful people. For them the USA is hot dogs and apple pie, and they have no desire to change their diets. They want “their country” back, and with Sheriff Arpaio as an immigrant-hunting Wyatt Earp, plus a tough new law on the books, Arizona has become a flashpoint for that fight.

Related video: The Ballad of Sheriff Joe

Immigration, Rights & Citizenship

In 1996, when President Bill Clinton signed a so-called Anti-Terrorism Bill, he was actually setting the stage for a long-term assault on civil liberties and undermining non-citizens' rights. A few months later, in an election-season capitulation condemned even by his supporters, Clinton embraced welfare "reform," denying benefits to immigrants – even legal residents. The law imposed a state feudalism that punished the poor and the vulnerable while giving governors open-ended welfare checks – called Block Grants – to spend as they pleased.

Ending an entitlement that began with the New Deal, welfare "reform" also put much of the burden of cuts on immigrants, eliminating access to food stamps and Supplemental Security Income. Even disabled legal immigrants lost benefits. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called this "a form of officially sanctioned brutality aimed at the usual suspects – the poor, the black and the brown, the very young, the uneducated, immigrants. Somebody has to be the scapegoat and they're it."

Anti-terrorism legislation passed during that era also hurt immigrants. For example, it allowed asylum officers at the border to turn back people fleeing persecution or death if they just didn't thoroughly document their case – or request travel documents from the government that was threatening them.

But the most sweeping attacks, then and now, have come in the guise of immigration "reform" legislation, largely designed to drive the undocumented underground, perpetuate exploitation, divide communities, and punish children. A true example of post-modern doublespeak, such "reform" epitomizes a fortress mentality that fuels hate crimes and allows racism to wrap itself in the flag.

Throughout the 1990s, Human Rights Watch accused the US Border Patrol of routinely abusing people, citing a pattern of beatings, shootings, rapes, and deaths. In response, INS detainees in a private jail rioted in June 1995 after being tortured by guards. But even when such crimes – including the sexual abuse of women in custody – have been reported, agents know that the most they will get is a slap on the wrist.

More recently, the US Congress considered legislation that would combine a “compromise” legalization program with new border and interior enforcement measures likely to increase arrests, detentions, and confrontations in Latino and ethnic communities. Blocking traditional avenues of legalization, the leading proposals would increase the size of the undocumented population, while undermining the legal and human rights of immigrants.

After 9/11, the US considered placing soldiers along the Mexico border. It hasn’t happened yet, but similar plans - from a higher wall to drone patrols -- are often touted. Meanwhile, efforts to curtail immigration through tighter security have redirected the flow into the most desolate areas of the border, increasing the mortality rate of those crossing. Between 1998 and 2004, at least 1,900 people died trying to cross the US-Mexico border.

Fragile Rights

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States," states the 14th Amendment, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

That could change, however. Some politicians want to abolish the citizenship guarantee of this 130-year-old Amendment. The rationale? Too many undocumented immigrants come to the US to insure citizenship for their children. Like the idea of letting states deny free public education to children of undocumented parents, it uses the immigrant "threat” as a pretext for attacks on basic rights and constitutional principles.

“Citizenship in this country should not be bestowed on people who are the children of folks who come into this country illegally," argues Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who has led the charge. In 2006 at least 83 GOP co-sponsors pushed a bill that would restrict automatic citizenship at birth to children of U.S. citizens and legal residents.

In the past, the Supreme Court has described citizenship as the most basic of all rights, a "priceless possession." The opening clause of the 14th Amendment was designed principally to grant both national and state citizenship to the newly free Blacks. Under its terms, citizenship is acquired by either birth or naturalization; thus, any person born in the US is a citizen – regardless of parentage.

A primary goal of the Amendment was to overrule the Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court held that neither Blacks who were "imported into this country and sold as slaves nor their descendants" could become citizens. During debate in 1866, Congress also considered the likelihood that it would apply to children of immigrants. Until the 14th Amendment, there was no constitutional definition of US citizenship. Ironically, the Republican Party pushed this and other Reconstruction measures through Congress after the Civil War.

Some claim that, if children born in the US to illegal immigrants are citizens, it's too easy for their parents to obtain visas and citizenship later. The idea surfaced in a 1996 GOP platform proposal; recommended by a panel created by then House Speaker Newt Gingrich, it called for "a constitutional amendment or constitutionally valid legislation declaring that children born in the United States of parents illegally present are not automatically citizens." Scholars have warned that an amendment would almost certainly be needed to make such a profound change.

A month before she died, Barbara Jordan, former chairwoman of the US Commission on Immigration Reform, eloquently denounced the idea. "To deny birthright citizenship," she told Congress, "is to derail the engine of American liberty." Walter Dellinger, Acting Solicitor General at that time, added the following prediction: It would create "a permanent caste of aliens, generation after generation born in America but never to be among its citizens." Nevertheless, the proposal is back.

This article is excerpted from a longer analysis written in 2006 but contains material originally published in Toward Freedom and Borderlines, and from a talk delivered at Eastern New Mexico University on September 15, 1996.

Restless Times, Big Love and Nagging Questions

This is the fourteenth chapter of a series excerpted from “Maverick Chronicles,” a memoir-in-progress. Previous stories can be found at VTDigger. By Greg Guma

Visiting Nicaragua as part of a peace delegation in 1983 was an inspiring experience. But I also noticed that the Sandinista road had some potholes. In bookstores, for instance, I saw only Marxist literature and imports from the Soviet Union. The country’s literacy crusade had made a huge difference, but right-wing propaganda was being replaced by ham-handed left-wing indoctrination.

     

Paulo Freire teaches

As a student of Paolo Freire, the Brazilian educator whose approach stressed the development of critical consciousness, I concluded that Nicaragua’s revolutionaries were passing up a chance to transform society. "We are unfinished beings in an unfinished reality,” Freire had explained in class. “We become educated every day. But education doesn't have to do with the quantity of information you eat. You are educated to the extent that you are engaged in creating knowledge."

     But how is knowledge created? I had asked.

     “Knowledge is a mixture of thought and action which becomes like a ball in permanent motion,” he said. “It moves in spirals until the 'teachment' comes forth and knowledge appears."

     The process sounded a bit like giving birth, a painful but liberating experience. Knowing demands reflection, action, curiosity, patience, hope to create and taking risks, Freire explained. But in most schools, the acts of knowing and creating new knowledge are divided, so places of education have essentially become shopping centers that sell existing knowledge.

     "In Latin America fatalism is expressed in reliance on God,” he said. “In North America it is the power of the establishment and technology that replaces God. It is as though history is already finished and not being created and growing."

     When I shared my impressions of Nicaragua during a speaking tour, some people in audiences nevertheless objected to my questions about the Sandinistas’ decision to suppress dissent or censor books and newspapers. They have no choice, folks said, pointing to US attempts to overthrown the new regime. They were right. The Reagan administration was funding a violent insurgency and other forms of destabilization. But the Sandinistas weren’t perfect, and support for them need not exclude a bit of constructive criticism.

      Self-criticism was supposedly an aspect of the Left’s approach to process. When it came to “our side,” however, any break from “unity” could be grounds for a charge of disloyalty, perhaps even “collaboration” with the enemy.

     Frustrated with such reactions, I stopped speaking about politics in public for a while and returned to the book business to launch Maverick Bookstore and Gallery in Burlington’s Old North End. The name felt appropriate, philosophically and because the Lloyds, my son’s family on Robin’s side, were related to the Maverick clan in Texas.

     Samuel Maverick was a big Texas personality and the origin of the word’s modern usage. The official story is that he won a ranch in a card game and afterward declined to brand his steers. Unbranded steers became known around San Antonio as mavericks.

     The TV show Maverick was pure fiction, but there was a large maverick family. Robin’s grandfather married Lola Maverick. He became famous briefly as a so-called “Communist millionaire;” she helped organize the Ford Peace Ship before World War I and co-founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Some of their children were activists as well, including Robin’s dad Bill. So, when I thought about an independent enterprise, not to mention my journalism and peace work, the name felt apt.

     Running a local business replaced political arguments with community service, brought in a modest income, and provided the opportunity to create an outlet for new community projects. But I was still restless, and spent considerable time over the next several years in Europe, seeing as much of the world as I could afford.

     At the end of the 1980s I tried to reconnect with Vermont as coordinator of the Burlington Peace and Justice Center and commissioner on the local Library Board. I even made a second run for the City Council, again getting 42 percent of the vote. In that race the local GOP Chair called me a “serious professional revolutionary anarchist,” an attack I turned into a campaign button. But despite some modest successes – forging a connection between the peace and environmental movements, publishing a book about Vermont, bringing the local library under direct city control – I felt disconnected, out of synch with the increasingly gentrified Burlington scene.

     

One of our Mexican campsites

Fortunately, I was deeply in love at the time. If we are lucky, at some point we experience a great love, one that stirs the soul and rocks the world. Mine was a Danish guitarist who visited Burlington with an international work camp when I was in my mid-30s and she was 20. For the next six years we pursued a trans-continental affair, wintering in my camper on the Mexican coast, mushroom hunting on a remote Danish island, trying to live together in Denmark and Vermont, breaking up and re-uniting and breaking up again. Finally, in 1990, we gave up struggling and married. A year later we picked up stakes and moved to southern California.

     Before arriving we were both offered jobs, she as a music therapist at a state hospital, me as manager of a bookstore in Santa Monica. Gail Stevenson, a successful therapist with celebrity clients and a Frazier Crane-like husband who offered advice on the radio, was about to open a trendy “eco-feminist” bookstore across from the Santa Monica Museum. She’d heard about my Vermont business and hoped to create something similar, a bookstore that was also a center for community activity. She already had a name – Revolution.

     The location was prime, the patrons affluent, sometimes famous, the space large and airy. But Gail was more concerned about what it looked like than how well it functioned as a business. The interior was designed by an architect partial to deconstructionist style, so books were piled on rough crates and lodged on stark metal shelves that made effective display difficult. Six months after the opening, an event heralded by a front page piece in the style section of the Los Angeles Times, the renovations still weren’t complete.

     No matter how much money we made it wasn’t enough. The main reason was Gail’s inability to stop spending on anything but books. The kid’s section had to be a posh playground with toys and designer pillows, the coffee bar had to feature only the best espresso machine and pastries. There were always more ads to place for events, and new ideas for an even better image. Meanwhile, I struggled to make payroll for a large seven-days-a-week staff and keep up with monster bills from our wholesalers.

     When I mentioned the problems to Gail, pleading with her to get a grip on the spending, her gaze would drift away, as if distracted by an invisible marvel somewhere in the distance. When I finished talking she’d turn back and say something like, “We need better biscottis.” It was maddening.

     Eventually, I demanded some changes. Making a comprehensive list of what was essential to get the operation into the black, I presented my case. The next day she introduced my replacement.

     Two weeks later I was unemployed. Three weeks after that I received a call from a member of the bookstore staff. On Gail’s 46th birthday, the staffer recounted, she had purchased a gun, learned how to use it at a shooting range, then driven to her Westwood office and killed herself. She was beautiful, blonde and wealthy, with a young son, an admired spouse and A-list friends. None of it turned out to enough.

    I stayed in L.A. for another year, but after the Revolution disaster I just couldn’t connect with the city’s ephemeral, often narcissistic culture. Three of my screenplays made the rounds – an historical epic on the Haymarket bombing, a film noir take on the CIA’s notorious MK-Ultra mind control program and a contemporary thriller about religious fundamentalists who carry out assassinations for a covert right wing group – but none of them survived the Hollywood meat grinder. After a few years neither did my marriage, although my love never faded and the memories remain.  

     Back in Vermont, the editorship of Toward Freedom opened up at the right moment, so I returned East and tried to recover. Still, the restlessness would not go away.

     In 1995, when an ex-girlfriend got in touch and I learned that she was moving to New Mexico for health reasons, I decided to give the west another try. Fortunately, the Internet had gone public by then, so it was possible to edit Toward Freedom long distance, even increase its immediacy and writer network. Dave Dellinger, who was co-chairing the board with Robin Lloyd, was skeptical but willing to give the idea a chance.

     A few months after arriving I was both editing TF and running yet another progressive non-profit, the Albuquerque Border City Project, an immigrant rights organization that provided legal services. As it happened, the US was just entering one of its periodic bouts with anti-immigrant fever.

     While living in L.A., I had watched the Border Patrol play a key role in the riots of 1992, deployed in Latino communities and arresting more than 1,000 people. Afterward, the INS had begun work with the Pentagon’s Center for Low-Intensity Conflict. The line between civilian and military operations was largely being erased. Human Rights Watch accused the US Border Patrol of routinely abusing people, citing a pattern of beatings, shootings, rapes, and deaths. In response, INS detainees in a private jail rioted in June 1995 after being tortured by guards.

     In many ways Los Angeles embodied the American Dream. The confluence of climate, capital and demographics had made California one of the world’s largest economies, an “international” state that was also the image capital of the world. But it was also rapidly becoming a "third world" state. As David Rieff noted in Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World, the rest of the country – and perhaps the world – might well follow the L.A. model. Rieff considered it, at the very least, a national archetype. The US was no longer an extension of Europe, he argued, becoming instead "an increasingly nonwhite country adrift, however majestically and powerfully, in an increasingly nonwhite world."

     While I worked in Albuquerque, the border became a battlefield, and government strategies for combating undocumented immigration re-militarized the region. The recently-passed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) meshed neatly with more obvious aspects of low-intensity conflict (LIC) doctrine. The definition of immigration and drug trafficking as “national security” issues brought state-of-the-art military approaches into domestic affairs. Just as the projection of a “communist menace” was a smokescreen for post-war expansionism, a “Brown wave,” the “Drug War” and terrorism were being used as pretexts for military-industrial penetration.

     In New Mexico I immersed myself in immigration law and regional race politics, developing a coalition of sympathetic groups to fight back against the most draconian aspects of a new immigration reform law. We staged public rallies in Old Town, and brought Latino and Asian spokesmen to Santa Fe to testify at legislative hearings. Sensing potential, the progressive power structure welcomed such initiatives and offered me a spot on the State Human Rights Commission.

     I remained an outsider, however, one who didn’t fully understand the nature of the local culture or embrace some of its assumptions. The cause was just. But the small, progressive enclave I’d entered was isolated from a larger and essentially conservative community. Neither felt like a place where I could comfortably put down roots.

    What was I, an activist or a writer? A foot soldier in the long progressive march – a movement about which I was having some doubts – or a social critic and observer, always questioning conventional wisdom? Was it possible to be both? Wherever I went such questions followed.

     Maybe my standards were too rigid, or my expectations too high, I thought. Maybe a more practical, less perfectionist approach to life and work would serve me – and whatever came next – a bit better. After years of self-imposed exile it was time to go home and find out.

Maverick Chronicles will continue ...

Diversity Plan Spotlights Race Debate

As most students went to classes at Burlington High School on Thursday morning about 40 students, most of them English language learners (ELL) from Somalia, gathered at the school's entrance for a surprise protest.

     Angered after seeing a newspaper article posted on a school bulletin board that described them as “statistical outliers” who lagged behind, they overcame embarrassment and delivered their message with youthful energy and creativity. They feel unfairly judged by outdated tests and object to statistical analysis that correlates poverty with poor academic performance.

     They also made it loud and clear that, despite any progress or the promises of change ahead, racism remains a real and persistent problem in local schools.

     Their goal, chanted while marching around school property, was to “end racism at BHS.”

^^^

     When the findings of the Diversity and Equity Task Force established by the Burlington School District were released last October Vince Brennan was almost as optimistic.

     As Task Force Chairperson and a Progressive member of the City Council he saw in the year-long effort the “noble ideal of building a better future.” Six months later what he sees instead is “fear and a loss of hope for change.

     Last Monday, during the city council’s first working session with the new Weinberger administration, he had some strong words for BSD Superintendent Jeanne Collins after a report was delivered by school officials on the new strategic plan for diversity, equity and inclusion.

     In a commentary submitted to the Burlington Free Press in late March – but not published – Brennan questioned whether Collins was “really being true to her words about free speech or is picking and choosing who to silence.”

Councilor Vince Brennan

     The school system needs “new leadership,” Brennan concluded. He was calling for the superintendent’s replacement because she had declined to intervene after Math teacher David Rome issued a pointed refutation of the report’s findings.

     Brennan’s commentary was written in response to a Burlington Free Press op-ed that said he was wrong to criticize Collins for not speaking out about Rome’s rebuttal. The teacher’s questioning of statistics and conclusions cited as the basis for the school system’s strategic plan undermined the report’s initial public reception and has raised fresh questions about racism in the schools.

     Brennan insists he does not want to silence Rome, despite suggestions in the press that it is a free speech issue. But he does think that “not participating with the Task Force while it was assembled and then condemning the whole process after it was accepted is exercising what researchers call ‘privilege’ based on race.” 

Disparities and disagreements

Schools in Burlington are considerably more diverse than most in Vermont.  Students of color—Asian, Black, Latino, Native American and Multiracial—make up 27 percent of student body, according to school district figures. About 15 percent are English language learners from other countries. Over 60 languages and dialects are spoken by their families. Statewide, the ELL population has more than doubled in the last ten years.

     Minorities will be more than 50 percent of the US population by 2042. Although the white community may be able to maintain the status quo, the report argues, doing so will create “an inhospitable climate for students and families of color and will severely limit the potential of all our students to succeed in a rapidly changing environment.”

     With these and other trends in mind the Task Force attempts to make the case for rapid change with a portrait comprised of “statistically measured facts” about the local system.  The report states, for example, that the dropout rate for African American students is measurably higher, that “students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch” are 25 percent less likely to graduate, and that “there is nearly a one in five chance that an otherwise qualified student of color did not take the SAT or ACT exam.”

     It also notes that minority students “are extremely over-represented (60%) in being punished through out-of-school suspensions,” and although students of color make up 27 percent of the student body, they represent only 13 percent of those passing Algebra 1.

     The strategic plan that has emerged from this analysis involves top-to-bottom change in educational policies. That includes ongoing training and professional development for all employees, hiring more people of color along with “culturally competent” staff, leadership and accountability by the school board and administration, increased transparency, and incorporation of a “multicultural mindset” into curriculum, hiring and other policies that “values cultural pluralism and affirms students from all backgrounds.”

     In a section on what needs to be done during the next year to change the local climate, the primary objective is to “infuse the district with the message that the social and educational climate in our schools requires urgent attention to erase many negative stereotypes, subtle and overt behaviors, assumptions, and decisions that favor conventional, white upper middle class Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.”

     Rome’s response focuses mainly on statistics he has found inaccurate, but he also calls the report’s references to Judeo-Christian culture inflammatory and divisive. “The use of this phrase is truly an insult to the professionals who work with individuals at BHS to make the school as inclusive and welcoming to as many students as possible,” he writes. At least one other teacher has publicly agreed with him.

     Rome’s central argument is that factual errors in the report have produced “false conclusions leading to a reaction by the Board and community members that the school system is badly flawed and in need of drastic repair when, in fact, it is doing a remarkably fair and equitable job.”

     The Task Force cites a 5 percent dropout gap between African American and White students, but Rome notes that only one African American dropped out of the senior class last year. He adds that it is unfair to expect newcomers to the country to graduate within four years. On math performance he argues the figures actually indicate improved course completion for students of color. He also disputes suspension statistics cited in the report.

     Sara Martinez De Osaba, director of the Vermont Multicultural Alliance for Democracy, sees such criticisms as an attempt to “negate that there are disparities.” Like Brennan she describes Rome’s critique as an example of “white privilege.”

Developing the new roadmap

The process that led to the new plan began in 2008 with an attempt by the board to define diversity. “We are a community of many cultures, faiths, abilities, family constellations and incomes, birthplaces and aspirations,” said the resulting statement. “The depth and richness of this diversity is our strength when we work toward a common goal.”

     The Task Force on Equity and Diversity was created two years later, and initially grappled with the hiring of a new principal for the Integrated Arts Academy. Since the district “faced extensive needs in recruitment and hiring of teachers and staff of color,” it focused in the early months on human resource questions. A Town Hall meeting and three other community input events helped to inform the work.

     After the report was completed and accepted by the school board last fall a town hall-style gathering was staged in February to present the findings and strategy. About 120 people attended. By then Rome had released his rebuttal and the local mood gradually turned less hopeful.

     According to the Task Force “troubling educational disparities exist in Burlington along race and socioeconomic status. They represent an ‘opportunity gap’ as well as a shortfall in the overall number of high school graduates and potential college grads.” The situation produces “inequalities of all kinds which in turn have multiple long-term effects.”

     BSD’s plan describes broad-ranging changes in leadership, human resources, climate and curriculum. Within the next year, for example, one objective is system-wide staff training aimed at creating an “anti-racist and culturally responsive curriculum to support all students.” The idea is to have teachers “consistently reference the multicultural nature of their teaching tools, noting the contributions and accomplishments of distinguished individuals from a variety of cultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. “

      One example in the plan discusses teaching about westward US expansion. Rather than focusing on the perspective of hunters, pioneers, the beginning of the industrial age and the harnessing of natural resources, the report suggests that curriculum should look at the impacts on different groups and cultures, as well as the role of various institutions “in achieving specific outcomes.”

     Curriculum activities during the first year are expected to include an online resource guide for teachers; workshops and use of diversity coaches; advisory groups at each school; an Interdisciplinary Curriculum Guidebook that presents “the rationale for using an anti-racist, culturally responsive and socially just method of inquiry;” and development of working definitions for key terms like “anti-racist,” “culturally responsive,” and “social justice.”

     To jump-start that process the report includes a six-page glossary of terms. Defining “anti-racist education” it notes that racism is not only manifested in individual acts of bigotry but also in policies like “failure to hire people of color at all levels and the omission of anti-racist regulations in faculty and student handbooks.”

     Cultural competence involves “being aware of one’s own assumptions” and “understanding the worldview of culturally diverse and marginalized populations,” the report explains.

     Two key concepts are “institutionalized racism” and “privilege,” both of which came up during the city council’s review of the plan.

     The glossary explains that “institutionalized racism” is seen in “processes, attitudes and behavior which totals up to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantages people from ethnic minorities.”

     “Do you believe while privilege exists?” Brennan asked Collins during an extended question period during the council meeting. Absolutely yes, she answered. Ward 1 Democrat Ed Adrian agreed.

     But Ward 7 Republican Paul Decelles was troubled by the question and asked, “Could you explain what you mean by that comment you just made.” He didn’t get a direct response but the report includes a definition.

     White privilege, it says, “helps explain how white people – relative to people of color and who do not present as part of the white racial group – and despite their intentions, are ‘advantaged’ to access and opportunities over people of color and those who do not appear to be in the white racial group.”

Voicing frustration and dissent  

Faulty research and conclusions by the task force are pointing Burlington in the wrong direction to address the real problems, Rome argues. “Hiring teachers of color has little, if any, correlation to student performance, but hiring competent teachers, regardless of color, does."

     He also suggests that the district should focus on “improving the economic situation of lower socio-economic families and educating them about the link between academic success and their future.”

     Beyond questioning the statistics used as a rationale Rome also finds fault with the report for failing to mention areas of local success, a list on which he includes a higher rate of students of all colors going to college than the state average, a knowledgeable staff with  “a great amount of diversity and cultural experiences,” student resources like the Homework Center and Shades of Ebony, and “the conscious choice that most staff members make to work at BHS precisely because of the diverse student population and the high level of professionalism of the staff.”

     Rome also claims that both teachers and students were excluded from the task force report committee. “At no time were teachers interviewed or questioned for their expertise about the veracity of the comments made at the meetings or discussions in an effort to get their input for further discussion,” he charges. As a result the report’s release was “a blow to morale” that he claims has upset many teachers.

     As evidenced by the Thursday protest many ELL students at the high school are also frustrated and upset.  According to De Osaba, who put out a call to local activists to show up in support, students are offended by the suggestion that they are “statistical outliers.”  The term does not appear in Rome’s report, but she says that he has used the term in a hand out. Others claim that he has brought up the dispute in class.

     Like teachers who feel their efforts have been undervalued, students attending the protest were angry and disappointed by the sense they are being blamed for the school’s problems. The ELL curriculum used at the high school is outdated, they charge, and they don’t want to be judged on the basis of unfair testing.

     “BSD has been beleaguered with racism issues since the '80's,” De Osaba contends. She adds that tensions are increasing because many steps identified years ago by the school system have not been taken. “None of this is the fault of the African ELL students. They are not running the schools. 

     UVM faculty member Denise Dunbar, who also attended the protest, points to the emotional toll of social isolation and humiliation faced by students attempting to learn English and adjust to a new society. Some statistics in the plan may be off, she acknowledges, but the problems should not be minimized and cannot always be measured.

     Collins sees things similarly. There is room for debate about the math, she admits. But despite some suggestions that the report should be rescinded she continues to think the conclusions and strategies are on target.

     That position hasn’t been sufficient for Brennan or others who believe that failing to respond to criticism by Rome has undermined what the district is trying to accomplish and should be grounds for administrative change. De Osaba goes farther, charging that the administration condones the Rome’s report by not taking steps to refute or stop him.

     Collins insists that a greater concern is “silencing any voice in this important conversation.”

Staying Occupied in Burlington

MAVERICK CHRONICLES, 11/23/2011:  Practicing democracy – from the city council to a park encampment and on to the caucus. Plus, Is America over? Thanksgiving memories – Mumbai and Obama, immigration and the moving border, Burlington’s mayoral race, financing downtown redevelopment, and a few rumors. Stories and Thoughts by Greg Guma

What can I say? It’s been hectic. And it certainly feels as if we’re living through tumultuous, even revolutionary times. The pace is rapid, sometimes overwhelming. Six month ago the Middle East erupted in what we now call the Arab Spring. Since September protests against economic inequality have spread to hundreds of cities across the US and far beyond.

Marching past City Hall

Whatever happens with the onset of winter, the national discourse has shifted – from the Tea Party’s anti-government rage to a focus on concentration of wealth by a tiny elite, the illusive, wealthy and well-connected one percent. Conservatives call the new movement a form of class warfare, but it actually reflects an overdue recovery from a long period of mass amnesia.

On the other hand, some participants in recent protests seem shocked at the heavy-handed official response, as if they’ve discovered some new truth about the relationship between the state and those who dissent. Haven’t they heard of Cointelpro, the Palmer Raids and assorted other counter-intelligence ops? Others suggest that their efforts to create self-governing communities represent a breakthrough of paradigm-altering significance.  A little grand for a movement less than a year old.

On the ground, things aren’t so simple. To say that you represent almost everyone – except a few super-rich pigs at the top – doesn’t mean that you actually do, or that the vast majority of people will continue to identify with various tactics or the overall grievance, no matter how it is presented.

But that’s a discussion for another day. Instead, here is a bit of what I’ve been studying and writing about. And first, a side trip down memory lane...

The Edge of Obama: Thanksgiving 2008

This excerpt from The Howie Rose Show, originally broadcast on WOMM-FM in Burlington in November 2008, looked at the recent bombing in Mumbai, the opening weeks of the Obama era, and other timely topics . It was a lively post-Thanksgiving conversation with FP Cassini and his dad. Enjoy. 

^^^

Practicing Democracy: From the Border to the Caucus

Cardenas: The border is moving.

After interviewing four Democrats running for mayor in Burlington, I recently took a brief break from local politics to attend a talk by Mexican organizer Macrina Cardenas and Danilo Lopez, who recently played a key role in sparking a revision of state policy on bias-free policing. Macrina’s point, in saying that the border “is moving,” seemed to be that free trade and inconsistent immigration policies have produced devastating social, legal and economic impacts far away from Mexico. Maybe it also relates to the general militarization of society since 9/11. Another topic for the future. Meanwhile…

Nov. 7: Immigration problems don’t stop at the border

There is much doomsday talk these days, even in establishment circles. The cover of the latest Foreign Affairs, official house organ of the eastern establishment (only kidding/not really), screams:

IS AMERICA OVER?

The lead article by George Packer goes directly at inequality: “Inequality hardens society into a class system, imprisoning people in the circumstances of their birth – a rebuke to the very idea of the American Dream.”

But the next essay counsels that the way back is “retrenchment,” or “cutting back to move forward.” In this case, the topic is overextension of US imperial ambitions. The authors, Joseph Parent and Paul MacDonald, suggest what they see as a more humble – and frugal – approach. But the best they can offer is a prescription for “modest decline.” They actually admit that overseas “commitments” are unsustainable and suggest making “a virtue” of the necessity to pull back. It’s making lemons out of…  The advantage for America? This can “not only slow its decline but also sow the seeds of its recovery.”

Inspiring stuff.    

No less dispiriting is much of the left’s analysis. Here is John Feffer, assessing whether Europe is over in Foreign Policy in Focus:

“The social ideals that once animated the European project are dissipating fast. The continent has simply become a good place to do business, particularly in financial services. The current crisis and the resulting austerity measures have served to further Americanize Europe through privatization, reduction of government services, and the like.

“Europe as a continent will, of course, continue. But what made Europe a compelling political, economic, and social alternative wedged between Anglo-American free marketeers and Soviet nomenklatura is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. A much less appetizing European history, whether the dangerous interwar period of the 1930s or the fratricidal melee of the 8th century, now threatens to repeat itself.”

Roman infrastructure?

It’s good to know that Europe will continue to exist, though it may look a bit like pre-Nazi Germany.

The mood in Burlington is a bit better, despite the untimely death of a 35-year-old homeless man in a tent at Occupy Burlington. Things had been going well, in contrast with the violent confrontations between police and non-violent protesters elsewhere. But an impromptu concert seems to have sparked relaxation of the normal restrictions on drugs and alcohol. The next day a number of people at the camp were still intoxicated, including Joshua Pfenning.

His death, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was traumatic for those in the movement, especially those who knew and tried to help.

A few days earlier, representatives from the encampment had attended a City Council meeting, eager to build on their success and win official support. It was an unusual session, also featuring public comments from local skateboard enthusiasts and a lively council debate over their own democratic rules.

Nov. 9: New Rules for Democracy

That Sunday, just three days after the Pfenning’s death and the city’s decision to end the encampment, more than 1,300 people gathered two blocks from my home for an historic Democratic Party caucus.

As the Regime Changes: Caucus Interruptus

It’s been a strange journey already, and it has hardly even begun. The elections aren’t until March 6, 2012 – just two days after my 65th birthday.

Decades ago, back when I was editing The Vanguard Press and chairing the Burlington branch of the Citizens Party, I ran for the City Council myself as a fusion candidate. In that case, it meant getting the Democratic nomination after entering the race as a “third” party candidate. Democrats like Phil Hoff and Joey Donovan were supportive, understanding even then what Tim Ashe has been saying lately – that the feud between Democrats and Progressives need not be permanent.

But this is now, and it will take some time to heal several decades of mutual mistrust, and some moments that veered into open hostility. In a recent series of articles for VTDigger.org I have attempted to delve a bit deeper into this tumultuous relationship at a time of transition. Here are three recent dispatches:

Nov. 10: A Defining Moment for Burlington Politics

Nov. 14: Caucus Stumbles on Mayoral Ties

Nov. 21: Doubts about Fusion

DJADOG rocks the caucus.

One of the pleasures on my new job is the chance to spend time in and around City Hall, an elegant building at the corner of Church and Main Streets, at the base of the city’s famous pedestrian area. Even when there isn’t an encampment in the adjacent park it is a lively and beautiful spot.

Most City Council meetings aren’t as well attended as the one on Nov. 7 when the skateboarders and Occupiers came to make their cases. Often it is just the 14 members of the council (also known as the Board of Aldermen), plus the mayor, a few key staff, and the Channel 17 camera person.

Some of the business is tedious, and, for those unfamiliar with parliamentary process, a bit opaque. But there are also frank and informative discussions at times, and actions that reveal underlying issues and new directions.

At the most recent meeting, for example, the council heard about a proposed tax incremental financing (TIF) district, a financial strategy designed to promote redevelopment and increase the tax base. It’s a big deal – the city wants authority to take on $10 million in debt in hopes of making public improvements that promote private development. Yet I was the only journalist who did more than mention it.

Yet that isn’t what makes it odd. It’s that, 30 years ago, back when I was a candidate for the council and Bernie Sanders was making his first run for mayor, the impact of redevelopment was one of the main problems the emerging progressive movement pledged to solve. When Bernie said “Burlington is not for sale,” he was talking about redevelopment on the waterfront and throughout downtown, the whole thrust of a proposed “master plan” designed to gentrify the city beyond recognition.

That didn’t happen, in part due to Sanders’ election, but also because local citizens continued to resist redevelopment plans. In fact, when the Sanders administration tried to make a deal for waterfront development that included a hotel and condos near the water’s edge, public opposition stopped it.

But that was then… and now all three political parties apparently support targeted redevelopment through TIF.

Yes, times are tough, and state and federal help with some worthwhile local projects is unlikely. But those projects will likely be things like parking garages and amenities that increase the value of nearby properties. In the short term, there will be jobs; in the long term, more valuable real estate and tax revenue. It sounds fine, except that success also means higher rental prices, more downtown traffic, and more tourism dependency.

As Bernie and others used to note, the jobs will be temporary or low-paying, and the local cost of living and luxuries will increase. It’s a tough bargain. But this is now…

In any case, here’s a report on the most recent City Council meeting, including details about TIF, some recent praise for the city’s oft-maligned Mayor, and a resolution on oversight that failed to persuade.

Nov. 17 Financing for Downtown Redevelopment

It was upbeat session and ended with an official nod to the Occupy movement: wiggling fingers to vote for adjournment. But some juicy questions hung in the air. Considering the recent praise and success in pushing his agenda, will Mayor Bob Kiss run again? Rumors are circulating that he may step in as an Independent candidate if the Progressives decline to give him another nomination.

Stranger still is the whisper that Councilor Karen Paul, who introduced the doomed oversight resolution, may also run as an Independent – if Miro Weinberger doesn’t prevail at the reconvened Democratic Caucus. Was the resolution really the tentative start of a campaign?

Or is this all just smoke and mirrors? We’ll have to see. Until then…Occupy Yourself. And have a restful time despite the holiday.