Terrorism on the Prairie

One of the battlegrounds of the war on terror is our own backyard. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was a citizen of Qatar and a legal resident of the US, living with his family and attending Bradley University. Al-Marri is on trial in a federal court in Peoria.

Al-Marri had been arrested in 2001 and charged with credit card fraud in 2002, but was then detained as an enemy combatant and transferred to a brig in South Carolina in 2003. He was held there without charges and without access to a lawyer until 2004. He's been involved in complicated litigation since then. He was finally released from the brig in February 2009, only to be arrested for terrorism charges and transferred back to Peoria. Although he wasn't transferred to Guantanamo, he was isolated from other prisoners, denied access to all reading materials other than the Koran, and subjected to extreme cold.

The bottom line is that with the change of administration, al-Marri is going to be tried by a civilian court rather than these ginned up military commissions. And the conditions he was subjected to in the brig are likely to come out.

If those of us on the Prairie can possibly make it, the federal courthouse in Peoria is going to be the place to be for the next several months.

Obama's Civil Rights Appointment

It's hard to be upset at Obama given what he's up against and what he's done so far to restore the rule of law to this beleaguered country, but this was a bit disappointing.

The LA Times reports -- and the NY Times editorial page rues -- the fact that Obama bypassed Thomas Saenz, a prominent civil rights lawyer and the counsel to the Mayor of Los Angeles, for an appointment to the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice.

Saenz has been an important voice in the effort to make the rights of immigrants an important civil rights issue -- a frame for immigration policy that is sorely in need of development. In our policy debates, it is frustrating that immigration policy is so often discussed in terms of "homeland security" or law enforcement or border control or lots of other things that seem to involve weaponry. What's lost in all that discussion is the fact that immigrants, especially those who are undocumented, have basic human needs that don't always get met -- that is, immigration is a longstanding and pressing civil rights issue.

Saenz was trying to address those problems. In his legal career, he has led the effort to protect immigrants from unwarranted police raids, and he's worked on trying to secure rights to social services for immigrant populations. But because of these efforts, he's been labeled as an extremist. Google his name and see all the hysterical right wing propaganda that bubbles up.

Obviously, we don't know for sure, but that right wing hysteria is probably what kept Obama from naming Saenz to this post. But Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) noted the irony for us: “In what other position do you find that your life experience, your educational knowledge and commitment to an issue actually hurts you?”

Don't get me wrong -- it's all an improvement over the past 8 nightmarish years. Still, I sense that there will be more disappointments like these along the way.

Closing the Plant

I've recently been on hiatus from the blog due to working my 9 to 5 this summer (just more evidence that I am destined for academia where I can make my own hours). However, last night my Dad told me a really sad story, that is worthy of a blog.

My father worked for most of my life in a large plastics plant in Connecticut. About eight years ago, he went into business for himself. He told me that yesterday, some of his old friends from the plant stopped by the business to tell him that the plant was closing. They gave the employees the 5th off with pay, and then told them they were out of a job. No warning, just a meeting attended by everyone at the plant...and the local police. Some of my Dad's friends had worked there for over thirty years. No deals, no early retirement, just laid off.

I asked my Dad if the workers had a union, and he said no. Surely, if they had representatives, the abrupt closing of the plant would not have happened. They would have had some notice, or some form of severance pay. I understand that from a purely economic standpoint, the company probably found the plant expensive to keep open, and it may have been losing money. The cost of living in Connecticut is high, so opening a plant down south or offshore is more cost-efficient. But the people who put years into this job, figuring they'd retire from the plant are now jobless, with their age working against them in an already competitive job market. Even if the plant was losing money, it is owned by one of the wealthiest companies in the world (whose name I'll omit for the purpose of the blog). I cannot believe the company did not have the money to compensate its workers at all.

While I am not very theory savvy, after hearing this story, I can begin to understand what Marx is talking about. The working class is powerless against the bourgeois unless they unite. As long as there is competition for jobs, and people willing to work for less and less money, with no union representation, the worker will continue to be exploited. I want to go further with this, but I feel somewhat under-qualified...anyone want to help? Possibly a fellow blogger who is teaching theory this summer whose name begins with an E?

Frank Rich: Conservatives Heart South Park

Frank Rich had a piece in the NYTimes today that discusses the Terri Schiavo South Park episode I previously commented about. If you want to check it out, here it is. He also talks about censorship. Its a great article, I would write more, but I should be writing a paper...

Gun Raffle

I received this email today, which I am going to post here:

Hello, Quoting the president of the RSO the Orange and Blue observer, "If more women carried firearms, there would be fewer cases of rape."On Thursday, April 14, the Orange and Blue Observer will be raffling off 3 semi-automatic handguns to display their constitutional right to bear arms as well as their contention with the Illinois laws prohibiting citizens from carrying concealed weapons. Shocking though it may seem, their actions are completely legal, and the only recourse we as students have is to protest their actions, acknowledging them to be extreme distortions of the concepts of safety and self-defense. Two weeks ago, when the OBO raffled off an AK-47, we were able to rally together students within 2 hours to protest. ..Please help us increase our numbers and strengthen the protest against deadly weapons --without safety training-- on our campus.

Quoting both the Daily Illini and the Orange and Blue Observer, here's the other side of the story:"If more women carried firearms, there would be fewer cases of rape"'"God made man and woman," Observer Editor Leo Buchignani said. "Smith and Wesson made them equal. For the first time in history, handguns neutralize the male strength advantage over women. I don't understand why all feminists don't arm themselves." The Observer held the "Defense of the 2nd Amendment" to protest Illinois' gun laws, some of the strictest in the nation. These laws cause hundreds of preventable rapes, murders and robberies. Gun laws hurt vulnerable groups like inner city communities, minorities and women the most because they are most in danger from predators. The Observer feels gun law is a moral issue and protests the immoral Illinois gun law regime." (End of Email)

First, I would like to applaud the students who are protesting for getting that together so quickly. I am happy to know that people are mobilizing against this. Maybe I am just naive, but I can't believe this is occurring on a college campus. Is it necessary for any college student to have an AK-47? I am also shocked that this group is using feminism as its basis for why people should be able to carry concealed weapons. The answer to violence against women IS NOT to give everyone guns without training or permits. How about the obvious other answer: work to restructure society in a way that violence against women is reported and the perpetrators are prosecuted. If violence against women wasn't tolerated (or in some ways sanctioned) by society, maybe it would occur less. The Observer believes that carrying guns is a moral issue, and that Illinois has an immoral gun law. WHOSE MORALS? Who defines moral rights? We do live in a violent society, however, I do not believe the answer to this is more violence. I know the gun debate will probably never end, this is just another chapter. I am actually too flustered right now to get together the sociological argument against this (if someone wants to help with this, please comment). I just want to be on the record stating that this is the most disturbing thing that I've encountered on this campus since I arrived two years ago....

PS - I know I'll get nasty comments on this post, so bring them on.

Go Illini!

With 36 hours to go, I need to give a shout out to the team: GO ILLINI!! (And woohoo to my old student cheerleader who has been on TV 8 million times!)

Maria Full of Grace

Since my weekend plans got foiled by a sinus infection, last night I stayed parked on my couch and made it a Blockbuster night. I heard that "Maria Full of Grace" was a good movie, so I made it one of my feature presentations ("I Heart Huckabees" was the other, also worth a rental). "Maria Full of Grace" is a must-see. The basic plot of the movie is that Maria, a 17-year old Colombian girl, finds herself pregnant and unemployed. She doesn't want to get married to the baby's father, so she needs to find a new job with a substantial income. She becomes a "mule" for the drug trade. Mules ingest small pellets filled with cocaine, get on a plane, fly into New York, and then excrete them and pass them off to dealers in America. Its extremely dangerous, because if even one opens, it will kill the carrier. The mules are paid $100 a pellet, and swallow between fifty and one-hundred, depending on their size.

The film follows Maria through her entire journey. She finds out that she is one of four mules sent at once, her employers like to send more than one, so if one gets caught, the others are more likely to get through. All four mules are young women. Throughout the entire film, they are treated as objects, walking shipping containers, whose lives are not worth the amount of drugs they are carrying within them. After one of the girls has a capsule open up inside of her and dies, the dealers in America cut her stomach open to get the rest of the drugs out, and dump her body in New Jersey.

What struck me about this movie is how well the directors capture Maria's perspective. She sees this opportunity as a way to overcome her dismal future, as a poor single mother living with various family members in a cramped house. If she crosses the border safely, and survives, she will make $6200 in one week. While the viewer knows what she is doing is illegal, and extremely dangerous, I found myself beginning to understand why, and admiring her courage. Maria is extremely intelligent, composed, and street-smart for her age, and I couldn't help but think that if she had been born somewhere other than Colombia, she would have infinitely more options for what to do with her life. When faced with a life working on a flower plantation, de-thorning roses all day for little money, becoming a mule seems like a much better opportunity.

After staying in a dingy hotel room for a couple days, Maria makes her way to Queens. Twice during the film, Maria looks out onto Manhattan, with the Empire State Building glittering in the sunlight; she is clearly not part of this shiny image of New York. Having grown up only a train ride away from New York, I've spent plenty of time there. I realized that I know absolutely nothing of the New York that Maria sees when she arrives from Colombia. In fact, if it wasn't for the scenes of Manhattan from a distance, I would not even be able to identify the city. In Sociology, we often talk about privilege, and being aware of how we as individuals are privileged. I am aware that as a white, middle-class, female who grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut, I have had certain advantages. As I watched Maria navigate this New York, I realized how privileged my friends and I actually are. We walk around New York, eating at this trendy restaurant, shopping at that cool store, finding the hippest club. New York is our playground. For Maria, the New York I know is inaccessible. Because of her status as a poor woman from Colombia, she sees Manhattan from the outside. Even if she decides to stay in New York City, she will face working in a sweatshop (a job that is offered to her during the course of the movie), living in a poor, possibly unsafe neighborhood, and raising her child alone. I have always been aware that this New York exists, but somehow Maria makes it real. In actuality, I don't think Maria and I are that different, but due to my privilege, I am working on a Sociology PhD, on my way to becoming a professor. She is a human shipping container for the drug trade.

The film ends with Maria deciding to remain in New York. We have the sense that she will be okay, that America offers her opportunities that she did not have in Colombia. However, the hurdles she faces as a new immigrant to this country are many. But that is material for another post...

Canada or Bust...

The NY Times just had an article about people who are actually moving to Canada. Bitch Magazine (a magazine that does a feminist critique of media) also just had a story about some of the contributors friends and loved ones who moved north. As the Times article pointed out, this is not an easy process, the Canadian government does not just say "come on up". So, people who are actually moving to Canada...I salute you. You have more guts than I do.