WHAT IS THE “NON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX?”

The non-profit industrial complex (or the NPIC) is a system of relationships between:

• the State (or local and federal governments)

• the owning classes

• foundations

• and non-profit/NGO social service & social justice organizations

that results in the surveillance, control, derailment, and everyday management of political movements. The state uses non-profits to:

• Monitor and control social justice movements;

• Divert public monies into private hands through foundations;

• Manage and control dissent in order to make the world safe for capitalism;

• Redirect activist energies into career-based modes of organizing instead of mass-based organizing capable of actually transforming society;

• Allow corporations to mask their exploitative and colonial work practices through “philanthropic” work;

• Encourage social movements to model themselves after capitalist structures rather than to challenge them

Read further.

Keep in mind, non-profit job growth often outpaces private sector growth.  This is a growing industry.

Anyone involved in this type of work will consider the system’s good intentions, but may find an alienation from executive/donor-level management which can really muck up an organization’s on-the-ground staff.  If you understand systems, often this conflict with management reflects the state of a system and the roles assigned within.

Working directly with folks an organization may label “clients”, it can be aggravating when important directives are passed from the top down.  This frustration personally led me on a journey of understanding what executive non-profit staff are concerned with.  Most often, they are concerned with the proper functioning and budgeting of their organization.  As the size of the organization grows, the gap between the community and the executive-level staff increases.  This is not due to a lack of care, it tends to be the price one pays when they enroll themselves in high-stakes fundraising, board meetings, budgets, and other operational concerns.

After working in both small and large non-profits with varying budgets, I can report this effect is par for the course.  There is very little accountability for community engagement, and I have sadly encountered an “us” vs. “them” mentality that is pervasive in corporately-organized NGO’s.  To me, these organizations represent the anti-grassroots, and will never achieve the type of community investment a sustainable movement for human rights requires.

Check out this amazing cover art from Alina Josan!

I have really enjoyed purging my materials, and digitizing allows us to hold onto lots of things in a small space.  We are capable of photographing our art projects, scanning our journals and ripping our media.  Now, I can store my data on a central server, so even if my hard drive kicks the bucket, I can still access my stuff!

This act of simplicity is a journey, I am surprised with how much this process has affected my mood.  I feel less weight, less worry.

There is a story about a man who approached Gandhi and said that he’d been thinking about living a simpler life, but he didn’t feel like he could give up his collection of books. Gandhi is said to have replied, “As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you.”

My take on this, and on your question, is that simplicity is not an endstate that is achieved but a path that one is walking. I find all kinds of ways in my life that I’m not living quite like I wish, and then I try to see if there is a way to change my life. So, to me, a simple lifestyle is always in the middle ground.

- Tim Kasser, associate professor of psychology at Knox College and author of The High Price of Materialism (via U.S. News interview)

The more I consider how great it feels to not have things, I still find myself attached to certain items.  Most important is my music gear and my transportable technology: laptop, hard drives and interfaces.  They are enablers of creativity, communication and innovation.  I generally ignore how these materials simultaneously inhibit what they exhibit.  Perhaps I will find the best tools in a space void of the materials I find most important.

John Leslie forwarded this piece from CNN:

‘My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military,’ said Harman, who has long sought better
protection of women in the military.

‘Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and downward spirals many of their lives have taken since.

‘We have an epidemic here,’ she said. ‘Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.’

As of July 24, 100 women had died in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

In 2007, Harman said, only 181 out of 2,212 reports of military sexual assaults, or 8 percent, were referred to courts martial. By comparison, she said, 40 percent of those arrested in the civilian world on such charges are prosecuted.

Sexual assault in military ‘jaw-dropping,’ lawmaker says

I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a soldier to report a rape.  The culture of the military (PDF) resents weakness, and to report oneself as a victim presents an enormous challenge.

Speaking of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network was in Philly this summer to help push the movement to end this policy.  Philly’s LGBQT community has been working for decades to help bring issues like this to light, which show us the inequities homosexuals face that are beyond marriage.

They still face an uphill battle.

Read more:

• The Rape of Latinas in the US Military - La Voz de Aztlan
• ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Turns 15 - TIME
• Stop Military Rape
• The Private War of Women Soldiers - Democracy Now!

How ethical is it to not allow the world to see the true devastation, the true impact of our invasion and occupation of Iraq?  If you saw the face of a small child screaming because her parents were just executed in front of her, would that have an impact on your complicity in this war?  What if you saw a fresh photo like this everyday?

I want to celebrate the journalists and publications who risk banishment for distributing and publishing photos that the world must see.  We cannot make informed decisions when the media does not tell the whole story.

Read more:

• Picturing Casulaties (NY Times Slideshow of War Wounded)
• 4,000 U.S. Deaths and a Handful of Images (NY Times)
• Zoriah Miller - disembedded freelance photojournalist

This past Sunday, we played a live set and had an interview with Jake Rabid and John Viteese from Y-Rock.  I’m working on getting an MP3 of the show up soon.  Grubstake also played live on Sunjay’s Brekky Shift Monday afternoon radio show on WKDU.

I put the lay out for the CD to bed around 4am this morning.  It is a pure pleasure, working for myself and setting my own schedule.

Pat also alerted me to a write-up for our CD Release show this Saturday in Philadelphia:

Grubstake

Sat., Aug. 2, 10pm. Free. With Dr. Tommy Thunder. Fergie’s, 1214 Sansom St. 215.928.8118. www.fergies.com Named for an arcane mining term, Grubstake have been hammering out mud-caked guitar-drum blues for about a decade now. Patrick McHugh led the band in Boston for much of that time before returning to his old stomping grounds in Philly and nabbing drummer/engineer Steve Bozzone to make a fifth album, Make an Animal Noise. It’s another gritty, ground-down outing, with McHugh hollering about TV dinners and other mundane miseries on “Delaware” and trafficking heavily in spite on “Sophisticated Whore.” Most garage-rock duos putter out when they cease to mix things up musically, but McHugh’s been around long enough to know when to throw a wrench into the works. (Doug Wallen) - Philadelphia Weekly

Grubstake has been a great experience, it’s been a good time working with Pat McHugh, playing random shows in Pittsburgh, Boston, Providence, NYC and Philly on weekends and putting together a CD.  Come catch my last show with the grubbers this Saturday at Fergies!

From a recent Philadelphia City Paper article:

Most of Camden looks like the deadly Badlands of North Philadelphia during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early ’90s — if not worse. While signs of rebirth sprout along the waterfront, whole swaths of North and South Camden are urban disasters reminiscent of Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Kingston. Countless open-air drug markets occupy rubble-ravaged corners like bargain circuses, the blaze-eyed dealers momentarily turning their heads toward the sky and scratching their goatees whenever a police cruiser drives past. Newly organized gangs furiously murder off independent drug dealers in a battle for limited turf. And then there are the more mundane, but equally deadly, street operas, like the one involving Jason Santos, which play out almost nightly. - Who Will Pray for Camden?

And from local filmmakers, Camden advocates, and friends Sean Dougherty and Father Michael Doyle:

Poet of Poverty

This is close to Jena, and also is the close to the area where Marquee Haspeth was ’shot 48 times’ by cops a few years ago (you can read about that here. )

CNN reports: Man dies after cop hits him with Taser 9 times

WINNFIELD, Louisiana (CNN) — A police officer shocked a handcuffed Baron “Scooter” Pikes nine times with a Taser after arresting him on a cocaine charge.

He stopped twitching after seven, according to a coroner’s report. Soon afterward, Pikes was dead.

Now the officer, since fired, could end up facing criminal charges in Pikes’ January death after medical examiners ruled it a homicide.

Speaking of Tasers being deadly:

A Statesville man died after being shocked multiple times by Tasers at the Iredell County jail over the weekend, sources say.

Anthony Davidson, 29, was unresponsive when he was taken to Iredell Memorial Hospital Saturday afternoon. He was put on life support and died late Sunday night, police said.

His death is the second Taser-related death this year in the Charlotte area. In March, 17-year-old Darryl Wayne Turner, died after Charlotte-Mecklenburg police used a Taser on him at a Food Lion store in Charlotte. - Suspect Dies After Taser Hits In Jail - Charlotte Observer

And to further wrap up our coverage of criminal acts by our men and women in blue, from the recent Philadelphia City Paper:

Daniel “Scotch” Williams was pacing around his living room, alternately distraught and despondent. Several of his friends were present, seated in a circle; they were not officially in vigil, but might as well have been. The following morning, the group was headed to a funeral. Just four days prior, their good friend Butter had been shot dead by police — shot at 85 times, hit about 20.

The other thing Scotch couldn’t understand was how the police could shoot at a man 85 times and call it justice. After the shooting, he’d gone to a community meeting where the police commissioner had, in essence, defended the cops. Eighty-five shots!  Read the entire story.

Further reading: Stunning Revelations: The untold story of Taser-related deaths - In These Times

]]> http://www.stevebozzone.com/62/feed http://www.stevebozzone.com/61 http://www.stevebozzone.com/61#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:21:19 +0000 Steve http://www.stevebozzone.com/?p=61

After spending time in Portland and London, I’m convinced Critical Mass is unproductive and reduces respect for bicyclists on the streets.  HOWEVER, the type of state-sponsored violence depicted in this video, is completely unnecessary. It offers further proof the NYPD, and police agencies around the United States, are a modern day hit-squad.

As we bicyclists continue to violate the rules of the road, we contribute to the criminalization and elitism of bike culture.  As Alina Josan put it yesterday, “I’d give up reading red lights and stop signs tomorrow, for respect.”  Philadelphia, while touted as a bike-friendly city, is still a stressful place to ride a bike.  The same can be said for New York City.  Once we double and triple the number of riders in the streets and on mass transit, we can start to enjoy more livable cities.

Guess I’ll be stopping at reds, a hard habit to break!

Lawrence Lessig defends Barack Obama’s vote to support WARANTLESS WIRETAPPING and RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FOR CORPORATIONS WHO FAIL TO DEFEND THE PRIVACY OF U.S. CITIZENS:

1. Obama is no (in the 1970s sense) “liberal”
2. Obama has not shifted in his opposition to immunity for telcos:
3. Obama’s shift was in his promise, as relayed by a member of his staff, to filibuster any bill with telco immunity
4. Unless, of course, it was good politics
5. But assume you reject #4 completely. Then one more thought: Isn’t it time for Obama to resign from the Senate?
6. Finally, and 2bc: please, fellow liberals, or leftists, or progressives, get off your high horse(s).

I edited for simplicity, read his entire reaction, “The Immunity Hysteria“.

Meanwhile, two critically important organizations, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, have taken action:

The ACLU is suing on behalf of journalist and human rights groups, asking the court put a halt to Congress’s legalization of Bush’s formerly secret warrantless wiretapping program. The ACLU contends (.pdf) the expanded spying power violates the Constitution’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

In passing the FISA Amendments Act, Congress gave the executive branch the power to order Google, AT&T and Yahoo to forward to the government all e-mails, phone calls and text messages where one party to the conversation is thought to be overseas.

“We are also preparing a new case against the government for its warrantless wiretapping, past, present and future,” said EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston, who said the details were being withheld to keep the element of surprise.

“But suffice to say it will be quite different from the other cases against the government that have been filed so far,” Bankston said. “Like with our case against AT&T, however, the ultimate goal will be the same: to halt the mass interception of Americans’ communications and to dismantle the dragnet spying network that was first exposed by our witness, AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein.”

You don’t have to be a liberal to believe this far-reaching power to spy on Americans without judicial oversight is a complete disaster.   But let’s be honest with ourselves: this type of work has been going on for a long time.  It was a secret program which journalists uncovered, and now we’ve missed our opportunity to actually disable illegal wiretapping programs and enable accountability for politicians who violate our trust.  And by the way, Barack Obama voted in support of this, along with both of Pennsylvania’s Senators.

I have remained optimistic about Obama as president, but I have not supported him or any major party candidate this far.  Lessig jabs a bit at folks who are “fair weather” liberals, who surge when Obama does something cool, otherwise bashing him for not being liberal enough.  I voted Democrat in 2006, with the expectation that we would see a swift end to funding of the occupation of Iraq, and impeachment proceedings would move forward against George Bush and Dick Cheney.  What we received was a session of complete mediocrity, which has done it’s part to continue the current administration’s abuse of powers.

This election, third-party candidates Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader remain alluring.  Obama is a far better candidate than his major-party contender John McCain, especially considering what he might be able to do for this country.  What I have learned however, is we must consider a peaceful revolution the United States, in order to properly heal our wounds and move our world forward.  Until we put people before profits, a position Democrats and Republicans have not supported, our cities and farms will remain oppressed by the people who profit from our silence and imprisonment.