Reviews of Five Recent Releases

 Anti-Capitalism

By Ezequiel Adamovsky

Seven Stories Press, 2011, 176 pp.

Review by Henry Milne

It’s not surprising that Trotskyists were annoyed by this book. In one section, it depicts a bearded and bespectacled leftist intellectual, in an impeccable illustration, lecturing protesters who are engaged in a confrontation with police that: “I’ve come to show you how to fight capitalism.” Under his arm is a book with “Trotsky” emblazoned across the front. In another section, it quotes an appealing-looking Trotsky saying, “The Soviets will be able to continue to function: Anyway, real power is already in the hands of the party. Workers’ control over production should cease because of its inefficiency. In its place, we the state will name company directors.” Of course, most open minded Trotskyists who are capable of being critical of their own tradition rightly reject this particularly unsavory attitude in favor of workers’ democracy. And while Trotsky’s ideas and legacy can’t be reducible to a decontextualized quote, the illustrations and text certainly give vent to the all too common behavior of posturing leftist militants. However, the sheer quality of this little book far supersedes the generalizations it must inevitably offer. To ignore it would be to miss perhaps the best book to convey anti-capitalist ideas in such an understandable way.

Ezequiel Adamovsky is an Argentine political activist and historian who has written numerous books, articles, and essays (much of his work can be accessed online in English at ZNet). His book Anti-Capitalism has recently been translated into English. It is illustrated by Ilustradores Unidos, a group of artists who are co-authors in elaborating the ideas discussed and add a unique aesthetic flair. As the book describes, they “are visual artists who participate in the Taller Popular de Serigrafia, a group that formed during the intense upsurge of political and social movements during the popular rebellion of December 2001. They formed with the objective of stamping images of support, artistic, and political accompaniment to all kinds of protests.” As veterans of the December 2001 revolt in Argentina, this biography gives a sense of authenticity to their illustrations. It also encapsulates the ethos of this book, in that the artists and the author do not represent a political party or line, but are simply committed to supporting progressive struggles.

The book is divided into five sections, beginning with an analysis and disassembling of all the political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual justifications for capitalism. It describes capitalism as an oppressive, classist, imperialist, and globalized system, which reproduces itself and its own ideology under the hegemony of the dominant class, the bourgeoisie. So far, so good. Karl Marx explains economic coercion, Mikhail Bakunin tells us that the state “is a fundamental instrument of oppression,” and Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci, and John Holloway, among others, pop up to give their opinions on a variety of issues.

One particularly perceptive page, under the heading “a global and expansive system” elucidates: “Even though capitalism arose in Europe only five centuries ago, it quickly spread throughout the entire globe; its expansive logic seems to have no limit.” The illustration then aptly summarizes these five centuries in the drawn black and white palette that is utilized throughout the book. It starts on a medieval sailing ship, with two figures in medieval frocks standing on the bow. One says: “We’re going to America to conquer new lands and bring back riches.” The other figure replies “and to conquer souls.” A few centuries later, the sailor on a steamship explains that: “we are bringing progress and civilization to Asia,” while a capitalist in a top hat replies: “and to trade with the natives.” And in the modern era, a USAF bomber says: “We are on a humanitarian mission in Eastern Europe,” while a fat cat capitalist with a cigar drawls: “and we’re going to do great business.” The relationship between capitalism and the exercise of state power could not be made clearer. Indeed, as Adamovsky writes later in the book: “the State adopts the form of the capitalist society that it belongs to.”

Far from promoting democracy, capitalism undermines it. Adam- ovsky cites the example of the 1973 coup against democratically elected socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, as a historical example of how whenever elected representatives threaten the power of the dominant class, they are removed by force. In that case, it was organized by the U.S. government and local capitalists. From this, Adamovsky draws the conclusion that: “we can’t say that we live in a true democracy; really, we live in a dictatorship of capital in which we can choose representatives and make decisions regarding only minor issues.” This will resonate with many who feel little difference between the center-left and center-right political parties, as both adopt almost identical neoliberal programs.

The second section of the book is entitled “from resistance to anti-capitalism” which explores historical developments, pre-capitalist resistance struggles, the emergence of anti-capitalist ideologies, and political revolutions. In the pre-capitalist era, we are introduced to such figures as Thomas Muntzer, a German theologian who was a rebel leader in the German Peasants’ War of 1524-1526, though he himself was captured and decapitated in 1525. The peasants who joined Muntzner in this revolt found inspiration in biblical stories and “organized themselves into a sect and decided to collectivize property, so as to live life just as they imagined the early Christians had done.” After a brief look at the impact of the French and Industrial Revolutions, the basic ideas of socialism, anarchism, and Marxism are discussed.

Among the ranks of the early socialists are the utopians Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, while the three main anarchist figures are Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Piotr Kropotkin, and, of course, Bakunin. Beneath a picture of a white bearded Marx, the Marxist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is mentioned but not explained, along with the hoped for ultimate disappearance of the state and inequality in a communist society. In terms of the legacy of Marx’s ideas, Adamovsky trots out the familiar argument of blaming Friedrich Engels for distorting Marxist thought for presenting it as “scientific and flawless.” A quote from Engels follows: “Marx is the Newton of social sciences; his socialism is the only scientific truth. The rest is nothing but utopian socialism.” Adamovsky does concede that, “Marxism inspired millions to fight for socialism,” but that by then it had converted itself into a dogma and found itself in difficulty to adapt to changing circumstances. While Marxists may take issue with some of these characterizations, clearly it is not the task of this book to get into the nitty gritty of Marxism and its historical legacy. Generally, it treats socialist and Marxist ideas fairly and seriously. On the very next page, the history of the First International is recalled. In an image sure to bring a smile to the lips of every socialist and anarchist, Marx and Bakunin, looking rather silly, yell insults back and forth at each other.

The Russian Revolution, “the first anti-capitalist revolution” as Adamovsky calls it, is examined sympathetically, starting with the activities of the soviets. The Bolshevik party is credited with gaining support “from the majority of sectors struggling for revolution.” Adamovsky lists the immediate achievements of the Bolsheviks as treating national minorities in a far more egalitarian fashion, and new rights for women. It might have been pertinent to mention perhaps the Bolsheviks most popular policy—removing Russia from the horrific conflagration known as World War One. Unfortunately, these achievements quickly disintegrated in the course of invasion and civil war. Adamovsky sees the growing authoritarianism and brutality of the Bolsheviks as part and parcel with Leninism as much as anything else. He does not detail just how severe the impact of Tsarism, World War I, imperialist invasion, civil war, and the backward development of Russia had on the aspirations of the Bolsheviks. Moreover, he does not relate the belief of Lenin that the only means to save the infant Russian workers’ state would be a revolution in a more developed country like Germany. As that failed, it doomed the Bolsheviks to failure.

However, it should be remembered that both Lenin and Trotsky did make queasy theoretical justifications for massive centralization of power into the hands of the state, despite also elucidating ideas for human liberation and having a revolutionary and democratic rhetoric. To romanticize them in any way is to do them and history a disservice. It can’t be denied that the Bolsheviks acted appallingly when they thought it served their interests.

The real question is, were these inherent traits of Bolshevism or the inevitable results of monstrous circumstances? Also, could the soviets have survived; could any kind of socialism have existed in the conditions of the time? Did the Socialist Revolutionary Party or the anarchists really pose any kind of successful alternative? Perhaps we shall never know, but a closer examination of the period in other texts would be required. Democratic centralism is viewed by Adamovsky as contributing to how “Lenin’s party ended up imposing on society its own centralized and hierarchical structures” which saw the rise of the bureaucracy which replaced capitalists as the dominant class, but was just as oppressive. He then cites how there were similar results for other countries which implemented the communist model, “far from the ideals of equality and emancipation,” but does not mention the pernicious influence of Stalinism, colonialism, imperialism, poverty, and underdevelopment. Despite this, Adamovsky’s criticism is well founded and effectively challenges assumptions while providing a quick history lesson.

Adamovsky is keen to make a distinction between the “traditional Left” and the “new anti-capitalism,” a somewhat amorphous term for a movement with amorphous qualities. Adamovsky does try to quantify some basic aspects that distinguish the “new anti-capitalism,” with particular regard to power and autonomy. Adamovsky judges that historically, most Leftist traditions have had one common feature—that is, whether reformist or revolutionary, their aim was to “use the State as a tool to emancipate society.” The illustration below this text depicts a goateed male and a female with short hair and an eyebrow piercing, who represent the people emblematic of the ideas and values of the “new anti-capitalism.” The man explains that power is not only political and not just concentrated in the state, while the woman reinforces his point by questioning whether state power is really in the hands of nation-states. The man continues: “the state is a machine that divides, disciplines, and subordinates people. And one can’t create a new world with a machine like that.” A worthwhile and necessary observation, to be sure. Adamovsky clarifies his position through the proxy male figure: “The new anti-capitalism tries to avoid being taken over by power. It’s about creating social relations where power disappears or is limited. It’s more about “disempowering” the state than it is about “taking over” it.” This has been labelled “popular power,” “anti-power,” or “counter-power,” and “refers to the struggle to extend autonomy to the oppressed.” As such, it has links to the ideas of Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, and Holloway especially. While Adamovsky’s aversion to state power is clear, he does take a nuanced position, explaining that elections and occupying the state can sometimes be useful, but it isn’t the overall political tactic. Autonomy beyond the state is the goal, and in that noble aspiration lie the seeds of a new world.

The last two sections explore contemporary anti-capitalist movements and some ideas as to how to change the world. The Zapatistas are prominently featured, along with illustrations and quotes from Subcomandante Marcos. Environmentalist, feminist, workers’ control, immigration, anti-privatization, and alternative media movements show both the ingenuity, diversity, and perhaps most importantly, the scale of the struggles occurring worldwide. This is very important to express as many activists often feel isolated and this section shows just how much they are connected to a global movement. Helpfully, website links to these organizations are also provided. The final section, which is the shortest in the book, shows ideas in action and posits realistic proposals that can be fought for right now. Some are familiar, such as the “immediate cancellation of foreign debt and the abolition of the IMF,” an unconditional universal basic income, and global citizenship. Ideas about participatory and direct democracy are considered, as is non-commercial exchange, market socialism, libertarian municipalism, and Michael Albert’s participatory economy model.

The sheer level and scope of the history, concepts, and contemporary political debates that manage to be covered in this little book make it an invaluable resource. Not only is it useful to those beginning to become politically active, but it even manages to offer something for grizzled old veterans. In its rush to excoriate many ideas from the past, it may end up throwing off a cliff some excellent ideas that are still worthy of debate and consideration. It would also have been nice for Adamovsky to include a discussion of libertarian Marxist figures like CLR James, Raya Dunayevskaya, and the constantly overlooked Anton Pannekoek. Indeed, Pannekoek is perhaps the best libertarian communist critic of Lenin and Leninism and his book Workers’ Councils deserves to be as widely read as Lenin’s State and Revolution. Overall, Anti-Capitalism is easy on the eyes, refreshing, and never dull.

Z

Harry Milne is an Australian writer, freethinker, and libertarian socialist. His writings have been published in the Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal and Political Affairs. He blogs at http://theredstartwinklesmischievously.wordpress.com.

Refusing to be Enemies:
Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israeli Occupation

By Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta

Ithaca Press, Garnet Publishing, UK, 2011

Review by Jim Miles

Israel has always indicated that there is no partner for peace in its relationships with the Palestinian people. Refusing to be Enemies refutes that idea solidly through its investigation into the non-violent resistance movement taking place in Palestine and Israel. It also clarifies the nature of the Palestinian resistance and the nature of what non-violence truly stands for. As cited from Mohammed Khatib, “what the state of Israel fears most of all is the hope that people can live together based on justice and equality for all.”

A forward by Ursula Franklin points out that, “it is the violent response, the abnormal, that is recorded, and analyzed and taught.” It is also the corporate media that finds the violence agreeable to its narrative of events, which for the most part, as indicated by Jeff Halper, depicts “Israel as an innocent democracy and a victim of terrorism that is simply defending itself,” rather than the reality of Israel using “occupation as a pro-active policy by an ethnocracy that is the strong party in the conflict and is engaged in ethnic cleansing.” The “lethal dynamic” of having “Palestinians resisting violently and resisting through things like suicide bombings,” supports the innocent victim narrative. It helps create inside Israel a “war culture that is perpetrating wars.”

As with U.S. foreign policy, linked tightly to that of Israel, having an enemy is very convenient for the distribution of a narrative to the general population; in contrast, as indicated by Franklin, “for individual citizens, refusing to be enemies is a profoundly political act.” This relates very strongly to the often expressed idea that the simple act of living and existing is a form of resistance to the Israeli occupation. In Refusing to be Enemies, Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta extends the idea of non-violence beyond the merely passive.

Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta interviewed many participants in the non-violent organizations participating in resistance to that Israeli occupation and all that it entails. From these many interviews several themes and arguments stand out.

The first idea is that of non-violent resistance itself and what it actually comprises. Obviously violence is not part of the process, but the other extreme of passivity in the face of occupation is also not part of the process. Non-violence in this book becomes a pro-active dynamic, with actions taken similar to civil disobedience (in cultures where there is civil law, rather than military rule). One of the main examples relates to the iconic olive tree and the manner in which non-violent demonstrators from both Israel and internationals have assisted the Palestinians in their age-old rhythms of harvesting their olives. Other acts include tax avoidance, peaceful protests against the wall and house demolitions. These are not passive acts and have led to serious injury and death, but it is the Israeli violence of occupation producing those results.

Another aspect that rises is that of normalization. Normalization was the process before the first Intifada when Israeli governance tried to make life appear “normal” in the occupied territories through various means of trade, labor practices, and non-invasive policing. In this sense, the Palestinians do not want to “normalize” their relationship with Israel, they wish to dramatically alter it to that of equality in all areas. In other words, through non-violent resistance, the Palestinians are not accepting the status quo, are not accepting that the media will be able to present a picture that life continues as normal in the occupied territories.

The non-violence campaign involves mostly the Palestinians, with support from several Israeli groups and from the international community. Without the latter as witnesses, the campaign for non-violence would be met with much stiffer military reaction than already occurs. Refusing to be Enemies recognizes that while international solidarity is essential, it is the Palestinians who by necessity must perform most of the actual non-violent actions.

With the western media essentially presenting the full Israeli narrative and with the full support of the U.S. in all dimensions, the non-violent campaign by a similar necessity must be carried on and enlarged by the international community. The boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign is a prime factor in raising people’s awareness of the true nature of the occupation in Palestine. That this campaign is successful is evident by the responses of the Israeli government and other associated governments (U.S. and Canada, in particular) to try and quash the campaign as being anti-semitic or a race-based hate campaign. The majority of informed global citizens appear to be able to see through this charade.

BDS, as described by George Rishmawi, is “definitely one of the most important methods that can really get people around the world to be part of the attempts to end the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.” The boycott involves, “not only Israeli products, but any products that contribute to maintaining the occupation.” As with South Africa, BDS will be a long struggle, as Israel has commercial military ties with most western countries and the corporate elites that rule them. With more information available, with more media attention, and with the ongoing persistence of the Palestinian people, some form of non-violent solution could be attainable.

The discussion at the end of the book covers the many permutations of one state, two states, federated states, bi-national states, but with the all encompassing underlying idea that, yes, there is a way to peace, that there are many “partners for peace” looking for a similar response from Israel. The nature of U.S., Canadian, and EU support for the “war on terror” and its creation of the evil other makes this a difficult yet imperative challenge.

Kaufman-Lacusta’s work is a valuable addition to the library of books supporting the Palestinian cause and the necessary wider cause of global justice. 

Z

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’s work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.
 

Revolutionary Doctors:
How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the World’s Conceptualization of Health Care

By Steve Brouwer

NY, Monthly Review Press, 2011, 245 pp.

Review by Don Fitz

As Venezuela becomes the first country to reproduce the Cuban medical model on a mass scale, it is doing so in unique ways. Steve Brouwer’s Revolutionary Doctors is essential reading for anyone interested in the transformation of medical systems at a cost vastly less than in the U.S. and other overdeveloped countries. Readers knowledgeable of developments in Cuba and Venezuela, as well as those first learning about them, can learn from Brouwer’s insights into how medicine intertwines with national and international politics.

Revolutionary Doctors builds on the growing body of information about medicine in Cuba. Some of the best recent writings include Linda Whiteford and Laurence Branch’s Primary Health Care in Cuba (2008) and John Kirk and Michael Erisman’s Cuban Medical Internationalism (2009). Together, the three works show how the Cuban model grew by responding to a series of contradictions.

The first was the enormous disparity in the quality of medical care between rich and poor, urban and rural, and light-skinned vs. dark-skinned that characterized Cuba in the 1950s. The revolutionary government immediately devoted itself to increasing the number of hospitals throughout the island.

Expansion of the access to medical care during the 1960s presented a new contradiction. The best medical care would be preventive rather than a hospital-based reaction to disease. So the 1970s saw the introduction of polyclinics, which provided preventive care in the form of inoculations and education for 20,000 to 40,000 residents (they now serve 40,000 to 60,000).

Cuba was probably the first country in the world to recognize that clinics, though invaluable, do not create the close contact between health professionals and patients that are essential for genuine preventive care. In the 1980s, the Family Doctor Program began Basic Health Teams (BHTs), which are a doctor and nurse pair living at a small medical office, or consultorio, in the community they serve. The most revolutionary concept of Cuban medicine is family doctors being responsible for everyone in a defined geographical area.

Unlike the first three contradictions, that of the 1990s was 100 percent external in origin. The fall of the Soviet Union, the crash of the Cuban economy, and U.S. embargo bills left the island with much less energy, food, and medicine. Hardships were extreme: young men lost 25 percent of their caloric intake and nutritional deficits led to 50,000 cases of optic neuropathy. But Cuba trained four times more doctors during this decade than it did during the 1970s. Amazingly, rates of infant mortality continued to fall. Polyclinics and consultorios had become so much a part of life that Cuba was able to weather the economic storm.

The fifth contradiction was Cuba’s understanding that socialized medicine could not be realized in one country alone. Though international medical humanitarianism spanned 50 years of revolutionary change, it was the first decade of the 21st century when it grew by leaps and bounds, with international medical brigades responding to crises throughout the world and over 20,000 students from 100 countries coming to Cuba for free education to become doctors.

The Cuban concept of medicina general integral (MGI, comprehensive general medicine) defines the Family Doctor Program put into effect in the 1980s. Building close doctor-patient relationships means seeing patients in the morning at the consultorio and making home visits in the afternoon.

The Venezuelan Barrio Adentro (inside the neighborhood) program is likewise based on this concept of medical professionals living in the same communities as their patients. Its foundation was laid with the October 2000 agreement signed by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, which included Venezuela’s pledging oil and other goods and Cuba’s providing human resources: teachers, agronomists and medical professionals. Though 17 of 24 million Venezuelans had no regular access to medical care when Chavez took office in 1998, in 2003 the first wave of 2,000 Cuban doctors arrived to help extend care to every corner of the country. By 2009, 14,000 Cuban doctors had participated.

Like the Cuban MGI model, the Venezuelan MIC program (comprehensive community medicine) begins by recruiting thousands of students who go to medical school for six years. They observe doctor/patient interactions beginning with their first year. In addition to treating people in their communities, the MIC program trains doctors in village settings. Some Venezuelan students are mothers and Brouwer describes one who began medical school at 71 years of age. Barrio Adentro I began in 2003 with a massive expansion of neighborhood consultorios populares. In 2004, the Chavez government initiated Barrio Adentro II, which supported the mushrooming consultorios populares with a system of Clinicas Diagnosticas Integrales (CDIs, Comprehensive Diagnostic Clinics). CDIs have a variety of specialists, analytic equipment and treatment alternatives not available in neighborhood settings. The following year saw the introduction of Barrio Adentro III, which attempted to overhaul Venezuela’s complex maze of hospital systems. In 2007, Barrio Adentro IV began the construction of specialty hospitals.

One of the most striking differences between health care in Cuba and Venezuela is their time frames. Each major shift in Cuban medicine marked a decade. A year was devoted to corresponding modifications in Venezuela: 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 for initiating Barrio Adentro I to IV. Brouwer notes the inevitable conflicts and problems which accompanied such rapid transformation.

It is not surprising that a course which takes decades to chart can be recreated much more rapidly. But it is not obvious that stages of the process may be reversed in doing so. It took three decades for Cuban medicine to evolve from focusing on hospital care and polyclinics before hitting upon the MGI concept of the Basic Health Team.

Once the Cubans realized that a doctor-nurse pair living in the community should be the cornerstone of community health, the Venezuelans used it as the beginning point of the Barrio Adentro program. With massive expansion of consultorios populares as their first step, the Venezuelans built more clinics to strengthen neighborhood health and then overhauled their hospital system, modifying their medical systems in an order opposite to what Cubans had done.

Of course, many other differences affected conversions of health systems in the two countries. With 11 million residents, Cuba has a much smaller population and when the vast majority of nay-sayers departed from Cuba, it was able to develop a cohesive approach to health care. Venezuela, by contrast, has the continued presence of large anti-revolutionary forces using the media they control to denounce any progressive change.

Despite these differences, there are many parallels between revolutionary medicine in Cuba and Venezuela, beginning with doctor-nurse teams living in areas served. As in countries throughout Latin America, established physicians were highly reluctant to practice medicine in poor barrios or rural areas. The revolutionary government needed to train thousands of doctors who would themselves go to areas most in need, as Che Guevara said, “immediately and with unreserved enthusiasm to help their brothers.” The beginning point of revolutionary medicine is a new generation of doctors motivated by revolutionary consciousness. These doctors work not to become wealthy, but because they find their efforts rewarding and meaningful for their patients’ lives.

Governments in both countries quickly increased spending on medicine in the poorest areas, resulting in rapid reductions in infant mortality and infectious diseases and increases in life expectancy. These improvements could only occur because Cuba and Venezuela realized that improving medical care presupposes simultaneous improvements in literacy, education, and housing.

U.S. doctors not seeing patients until they are sick is symptomatic of “sickness-based” medicine. When Brouwer described statistical charts on the walls of a consultorios popular in Venezuela, I remembered the same types of charts I saw in a Havana consultorio. Charting behaviors that need to change reflects the “wellness-based” medicine of doctors who are familiar with their patients because they interact with them informally throughout the year.

As the U.S. moves toward destruction of Medicare and programs which are essential for healthy living (such as Social Security), international financial Scrooges demand “austerity” approaches that sacrifice the health of entire nations on the alter of bank security. Brouwer describes an alternative in Venezuela which is truly revolutionary because patients are anything but passive recipients of a benevolent government.

Each neighborhood of 1,500 to 2,000 people that wanted a Cuban doctor to serve them was expected to organize a committee of 10 to 20 volunteers from the community who would commit themselves to finding office spaces, providing sleeping quarters, collecting furniture and simple fixtures, and feeding the medical providers.

Venezuela is now emulating Cuba’s example of training doctors from other countries at its medical schools. If the Cuban MGI model morphs into MIC in Venezuela, what new concepts will be born in countries of Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean? We can be sure that they will not rely on expensive technologies of Western “sickness-based” medicine. We also know that they will not be static repeats of Cuba or Venezuela but dynamic recreations of medicine for the cultures they serve. 

Z

Don Fitz is editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought, which is sent to members of the Greens/Green Party USA. He produces Green Time TV in St. Louis.

Smeltertown:
Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community

By Monica Perales

University of North Carolina Press, 2010, 277 pp. 

Review by Gabriel San Roman

In writing Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community, University of Houston assistant professor of history, Monica Perales, tells the important story of how the Southwest border community shaped or made the lives of those who lived and worked there before it was ultimately leveled for lead contamination four decades ago. Perales, a former El Paso resident with family ties to Smeltertown, used newspaper clippings, employee records from ASARCO, parish newsletters, and oral history in putting the book together. In focusing on the people of Smeltertown, it joins David Romo’s Ringside Seat to Revolution in creating an ever emerging historiography of El Paso from the bottom up.

The book begins with an ironic introduction as Smeltertown’s existence is threatened by a new environmental consciousness of the early 1970s with the ushering in of Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency. ASARCO’s decades-long polluting of the area with lead caused many children to have unhealthy levels of it in their blood. As a result, angry residents gathered at the local Catholic Church in March 1972, demanding answers to their suspicions that lead contamination was a ruse to uproot Smeltertown. After the introduction, Perales goes on to describe ASARCO’s role in El Paso within a larger context of international capitalist commerce and the migrant labor force from Mexico it attracted—turning the city into a copper capital of the Southwest by the 1930s.

As ASARCO began operations and La Esmelda grew, it was divided into two sections: El Alto where the Anglo managers and supervisors lived and El Bajo where Mexican families lived in substandard conditions. The separation between the two was so vast in many dimensions that my mother—who grew up there—recalls never even knowing of El Alto’s existence. Through quoted racist statements from institutions like El Paso’s Chamber of Commerce and with the employee records provided by ASARCO, Perales was able to demonstrate the wage discrepancies that correlated with the bigoted view of Mexican men as an exploitable labor pool. It wasn’t until the 1940s, through the union leadership of people like Humberto Silex, that basic worker rights were demanded and attained at the smelting plant.

For women living in Smeltertown, the copper plant wasn’t the arena for assimilation. Instead, schools were the main channels of “Americanization.” My grandmother Consuelo Roman, as a student at Courchesne Elementary School, was once sent to the principal’s office for tearing out a page from the history textbook that described Mexicans as cowardly during the insurrection that established the Republic of Texas. When it wasn’t history or discouraging speaking Spanish, it was home economics. Perales, interestingly, illustrates how instruction on cooking sought to change a Mexican household into a more “American one.”

Was La Esmelda simply a classic “company town?” The book makes compelling arguments about the real and imagined worlds the residents created, while also transcending the capitalist paternalism of ASARCO. The church, of course, figured prominently as a social space that preserved Mexicanidad to the extent it is intertwined with Catholicism. If company stores were a means of strengthening ASARCO’s grip on workers and their access to basic goods, that gave way over time to family owned and operated small businesses. Residents didn’t refer to stores by their banner name, but by the names of the people who ran them.

As Perales’s book comes to a close, the “remembering” part of her subtitle takes shape. Readers see the demise of Smeltertown in the 1970s and begin to see ASARCO for the environmental nuisance that it was. The company had a long history of pollution abuses that came to a head with the testing of Smeltertown’s children for unhealthy levels of lead in their blood compelling El Paso’s Mayor Bert Williams to declare a medical emergency—one that would set the wheels in motion for the ultimate leveling of the community. Relocation was proposed setting the stage for a final battle. It’s not as if esmeltianos were woefully unaware of the environmental hazards. Memory frames that have passed through my family history include the retellings by my mother of how one could blow their nose there only to find a white handkerchief dirtied by soot.

Nevertheless, skepticism surrounded the sudden interest of outsiders, as did more immediate and pressing economic concerns. Where would the residents relocate to? In what sector of El Paso’s post-World War II economy would they find comparable wages? The environmental concerns of the city regarding the public health safety were valid, but the improper manner in which relocations were carried out showed that the rage and suspicions of residents were also valid. As the January 1, 1973 deadline loomed, only a handful of families stayed until the very end.

As a student of history, I deeply appreciated the analytical frameworks that informed me of the political economy of this particular section of West Texas. For my family, whose fondest memories are often drawn from their childhood in La Esmelda, they sought, not so much an explanation, but more of a recreation of the world they inhabited with all its stories and characters. Smeltertown started the conversations and recollections anew anyway and drew us closer together in the process.

Z

Gabriel San Roman is a contributing writer for the Orange County Weekly. He blogs about music and politics at donpa labraz.com.

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve

By Adrienne Rich

New York, W.W. Norton, 2011, 89 pp.

Review by Gregg Mosson

In her latest book of poetry Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, Adrienne Rich tackles the contemporary American landscape of war, consumerism, and social conflicts by internalizing it as both public intellectual and poet. This twin capacity—intellectual rigor and emotional resonance—is what makes Rich’s recent work so fresh. Rich’s outlook, though often dark, is explorative, creative, and full of vibrancy. Tonight No Poetry Will Serve actually serves well as surprising, challenging, and explorative poetry for our times.

In the book’s title poem, Rich despairs over America’s embrace of torture and writes:

                    verb force-feeds noun
                              submerges the subject

    noun is choking 

                        verb  disgraced 

goes on doing 

By transforming history into grammar, Rich highlights brute force versus moral contemplation at the crux of political and moral choice. That the verb “goes on doing” despite the “disgrac[e]” is part of the mystery of our times. Today the information superhighway forecloses the excuse of I did not know. Rich ends the poem with a command: “now diagram the sentence.” This contrasts today’s brutalities with how formal schooling often distracts us. School teaches skills—like grammar—but not the essentials, such as how to live or handle crisis. For instance, how can Americans “diagram” the recent blunder of spending trillions on murderous wars rather than energy independence and ameliorating global warming? Maybe the subtle point here is that rational categorizations can’t capture the human experience. Further, poetry and history can portray and explain our human choices.

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve is a good summary of where Rich is now as a poet in her elder years. In the 1991 Atlas of a Difficult World, Rich began a reconsideration of what it means to be a writer in an America embracing consumerism, personal isolation, militarism, and free markets that create vast disparity. Does it mean a writer should simply write, as she ponders in the book’s title poem? Should a professor simply teach, wonders “USonian Journals 2000” in Rich’s 2004 book, The School Among The Ruins? Rich’s answer in both poems is that being neutral embraces the status quo. Rich’s solution is to live, as well as write, through her conscience, as augmented by intellectual studies and personal experiences.

In the title poem of her 1995 Midnight Salvage, Rich imagines a businessman pushing his daughter onto the dance floor to dance with a nerve-gas salesman just to make a deal. Her new book takes place within this same worldview. It may be difficult to read for those not familiar with her recent work. Starting with some of the other titles mentioned here is a better bet. Rich does come to some sort of new reckoning, however, in her new book in both “Don’t Flinch” and “Reading the Illiad (As If) for the First Time.” In “Don’t Flinch,” Rich looks at the role of brute force in history and life and chants:  

Reach again 

for the Iliad. 

          The lines 

pulse into sense.

          Turn up the music 

now do you hear it? 

          Can you smell the smoke 

under the near shingles?
 

In “Reading the Illiad,” Rich contrasts the idealization of art and history as captured best by Romantic poet John Keats in “Ode to a Grecian Urn” with the realities of war, as described through re-reading the Illiad. This leaves Rich asking, “Beauty?” Her collection as a whole answers: maybe not. But life, the collection answers, is vibrant.  There is a lot of sensuality and partial song in her fragmented, imagistic poetry. 

Since 1991, Adrienne Rich has been asking herself and her readers how a progressive vision of society can reckon with human nature and the negative trends in America. Tonight No Poetry Will Serve augments the proposition that all social thinkers must reckon with humanity’s proclivity for brute force and violence.

In “Domain,” Rich recalls somewhat nostalgically and somewhat ironically the “[r]ebuked utopian projection” of her 1960s domain in Northern California. Nevertheless, in the very good poem “Scenes from the Negotiation,” Rich offers a dialogue between multiple voices, ranging from someone clinging to work to support their family to an underground anti-establishment revolutionary to a visiting neophyte. This collage poem, like many of the poems in her new book, is difficult to summarize or encapsulate. Its overall effect, I think, favors courage of living one’s convictions.

Dana Gioia, former head of the National Academy of Arts & Sciences under the last president, complained in his well-known book Can Poetry Matter? that contemporary poetry has made itself culturally irrelevant. Poets themselves are often ensconced in academia these days and write myopically. Adrienne Rich is a poet as public intellectual and internal explorer. In Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, one finds a dynamic poetry for our times. 

Z

Gregg Mosson is the author of two books of poetry, including Questions of Fire. He most recently edited the anthology Poems Against War: Bending Toward Justice (Wasteland Press 2010).