By Eric Schechter

The author, attempting to convince his fellows.

This essay is my response to the shooting of children in Connecticut, the bombing of children in Pakistan, the poisoning of our water by the fuel companies, the global warming that Republicans deny and Democrats ignore, the pre-trial torture of whistle-blower Bradley Manning, and so on, though how these are all connected may not be fully apparent until much later in the essay. In fact, this essay is my response to all the many evils facing us –

the root cause of all these evils is our culture of separateness, both economic (external) and psychological (internal)

There’s an old saying that “money is the root of all evil.” That’s actually an abridgment of 1 Timothy 6:10, in which apostle Paul said that “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” Biblical scholars emphasize that word “love,” claiming that greed is the problem, not money itself. But in my opinion the abridgment is closer to the truth: the mere use of money reinforces separateness between humans, corrupting us so subtly that most would hardly notice it at first.

Money is a method of exchange. We must have some sort of exchange if each of us wants things that the other has — i.e., if your things are separate from my things. We’ve lived with private property for 10,000 years, and we’ve become so accustomed to economic separateness that most people find it hard to imagine living any other way. But for 100,000 years before that we shared everything of importance, and that’s still our genetic nature. We must return to it soon, as I’ll explain in this essay.

Keeping our material possessions separate leads us to see our lives as separate. Private property teaches us an attitude of apathy:  your well being is not my concern.

And that permits evil:  “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men, seeing evil done, do nothing about it” (attributed to Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, or Sergei Bondarchuk). But apathy not only permits poverty and wars; I will explain that that it  gives rise to them, subtly but inevitably.

(By the way, have you ever noticed that Yahweh never answered Cain’s question, “am I my brother’s keeper?”  My own answer would be yes, you should be his keeper, and he should be yours.)

In a healthy society, an isolated case of apathy would be easily dealt with: the many people who care about an uncaring person would bring him back into the fold through their gentle coaxing. But apathy is harder to uproot after it becomes widespread and metamorphoses into a symmetric form,

the root cause of all these evils is our culture of separateness, both economic (external) and psychological (internal).

This attitude is not greedy — it does not ask anything from others. Indeed, with its symmetry, it can claim to be an instance of the Golden Rule, “treat others as you wish to be treated,” which is often presented as our society’s highest morality. Ayn Rand gave separateness all the legitimacy and dignity of logic and philosophy. Her followers believe that it is possible to respect other people without actually caring about them, but I think they are mistaken.

And although most people in our society see Ayn Rand for the sociopath that she was, nevertheless her ideology has won: Separateness is implicit in the way that the corporate news media portray our lives. Separateness is as ubiquitous and unquestioned as the air we breathe. Its alternative, sharing, is praised as saintly or condemned as radical, but in any case excluded from normal. This view has permeated our entire society: Meaning and cooperation are replaced by cynicism and competition. Perceiving the people around us as uncaring strangers, we grow anxious; our tranquilizers and antidepressants may numb the anxiety but they cannot address its cause.

Private property teaches us psychological separateness, as I’ve already noted. Conversely, a philosophy of unconcern justifies private property. Thus, the economic and psychological aspects of separateness generate each other; neither can be found entirely free of the other. Hereafter I will refer to them together simply as separateness.

At first glance, separateness appears to be neither constructive nor destructive, but merely neutral. Its harmless appearance is why our society doesn’t struggle against it, but that harmless appearance is deceptive, for in fact our lack of cooperation is the root of all our problems. Remove separateness, and together we will soon solve our shared problems. Leave separateness intact, and the hydra’s heads will continue to grow in number and size, regardless of our struggle to lop them off.

Economic separateness is external, and so it has plenty of room to grow; let’s look at that. Our view of markets is shaped by an incessant flood of propaganda in their favor. That propaganda is a mixture of:

• errors (some people believe what they’re saying) and
  lies (some people know better),

but it’s false either way. The truth has been hidden in plain sight, right under our noses; we just need to focus our vision a little differently. Let’s look at a few of the main falsehoods in the propaganda:

“We’ve strayed from our society’s fundamental principles, into a mutant form of capitalism. We just need a few reforms, to get back to our basic principles. The problem is just a few bad capitalists.” –

False. The horrors that we’re now seeing are consequences of our society’s fundamental principles, as I’ll explain presently; thus, the changes we need are much deeper than mere reforms. Those “few bad capitalists” are generated by the system. Capitalism itself is toxic, both materially and spiritually, even when it is honest, and it can’t be kept honest. Our economic system is not “broken” — it was built to malfunction this way, right from the start.

“People are basically lazy, greedy, and selfish. If they were guaranteed an income, they would stop working instantly, and the economy would totally collapse.” –

False, though both assertions are partly true. We see much laziness, greed, and selfishness around us, but that’s just the result of a sick culture; there is plenty of evidence that the true nature of humans is empathic and cooperative. And people would quit their jobs in an instant, if they were guaranteed an income and no other changes were made in our society. That’s because the jobs, structured to benefit the owners, are unsatisfying, and offer no rewards except money. There may be a few exceptions — e.g., the firefighter and the nurse might feel good about what they are accomplishing; we need to restructure our economic system so that all jobs are like those.

“Capitalism is smart, because it harnesses greed for the good of all.” –

False. Bargaining with the devil is stupid, because it always ends badly. You’re the one who will end up in the harness.

“In a capitalist society, anyone who works hard will succeed.” –

False. If that were true, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.

“Capitalism is justified by mathematical economics.” –

False. The math only obscures what is really going on. The real ideas in economics are in the assumptions about human nature that are introduced before mathematics ever enters the reasoning. The world is in a terrible mess economically, so evidently the assumptions have all been wrong.

False. The falsehood here is in the word “simply.” We don’t have the time, money, and skills to do our own private research on every product we buy. For years, the cigarette companies knowingly concealed their own research showing that cigarettes are harmful; many other companies that have not yet been exposed are behaving similarly. All large corporations are psychopaths, compelled by competition and by their legal charters to maximize profit, disregarding or even concealing harm to workers, consumers, and the rest of the world. Any CEO who begins to show scruples will quickly be replaced. A process of natural selection thus fills the upper reaches of power with psychopathic individuals. Big businesses ride on the legitimacy of small businesses, which often behave honorably; but small ones are crushed and swallowed by big ones. And big and small can’t be separated, because they swim in the same sea of competition.

“To solve the jobs problem, we need (a) more stimulus spending or (b) tax cuts for the ‘job-creators’ or (c) a balanced budget.” –

ALL false. Under any economic system, people gradually figure out better ways of doing things, and so productivity rises — i.e., we get more goods and services per hour of labor, and that really ought to be a good thing. But under capitalism, the owners pocket all the gains in productivity; the workers get layoffs, not leisure. Then more unemployed are competing for fewer jobs, so wages go down. The “jobs problem” is a capitalism problem, and widespread unemployment is inevitable under late stage capitalism, regardless of stimulus, tax cuts, or a balanced budget.

“People simply need to pay off their debts.” –

False. Again, too much is concealed in the word “simply.” Nearly all the money in our economy is created as debt — it  is loaned into existence out  of thin air by banks that are authorized to do fractional reserve lending (i.e., loaning out more money than they have) — especially the Federal Reserve banks, which have the further authorization to print money. They are not part of the federal government; they create money and then loan it to the government at interest. Our system of debt is like a game of musical chairs, in which there are never enough seats for everyone. Because interest is charged, the total amount of debt in the system is greater than the total amount of money in the system; people can only pay off their debts by increasing someone else’s debts. The resulting problems might be manageable, if the economy could keep growing; but our planet is not getting any bigger.

“Voluntary exchanges benefit everyone.” –

False. The non-rich have few options, and must accept any deal that keeps them from starving; that’s why we say that the so-called “volunteer army” is maintained by the “poverty draft.” And how many people would choose to be migrant farm-workers? But the rich can afford to decline any deal that does not make them richer. Thus, every market transaction increases economic inequality.

As noted above, the owners of our workplaces and our debts enrich themselves through our efforts. A market economy inevitably concentrates wealth into few hands, like the board game of Monopoly, even if everyone plays fairly. And once wealth has become concentrated, you can say goodbye to fair play, and to any notion that separateness is “neutral.” Wealth is power, and power corrupts; that old saying has been verified by the Stanford Prison Experiment and other sociological evidence. People with power over others become less empathic, more authoritarian, more greedy.

I would speculate that this is because the people with power feel a need to justify their power to themselves with some sort of philosophical theory — e.g., that they are somehow more deserving, or that their thefts somehow are helping the world. Then they come to believe in their own theory, and it perpetuates their antisocial behavior. Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman-Sachs, said that he was “doing God’s work,” and perhaps he even managed to convince himself of that. (On the other hand psychopaths like the villain of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four embrace their own lust for power without concerning themselves about justification. There is some indication that they may have been corrupted by the childhood trauma of an uncaring society.)

One justification commonly given for power is authoritarianism, the belief (held not only by leaders but also by many followers) that someone needs to be “in charge” of society or it will crash, like a ship without a helmsman. The 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote that people are basically selfish and greedy, and people would engage in a “war of all against all” if they were not held back by the iron fist of a strong central authority, e.g., a king. (Joke: If three authoritarians are shipwrecked on an island, the first thing they will do — even before searching for food or water — is to elect a president.) Hierarchical authority structures result in dogma and one-way communication — i.e., those at the top say “we know what is good for you, and we don’t need to hear any uneducated backtalk.” If the system is malfunctioning and someone at the bottom is in pain, the people at the top may never hear about it.

The alternative to hierarchical authority is anarchy — i.e., “no rulers.”  False propaganda tells us that anarchy would mean chaos, disorder, and destruction (and the Black Bloc has reinforced that view, unfortunately). But actually, the society envisioned by most self-identified anarchists is highly ordered. It spontaneously self-organizes by consensus democracy into a peer-to-peer, horizontalist network, with two-way caring communication, which is the only effective way to really know what is going on with other people. Some of the theory of non-authoritarian organizing has been explored and explained by ex-authoritarian Carne Ross in his recent book The Leaderless Revolution. That people do self-organize, given the need and the opportunity, has been amply illustrated by Occupy Wall Street and by historical evidence collected in Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell.

After wealth becomes concentrated, it becomes self-perpetuating. It erodes through any government regulations, buying off both legislators and enforcers. Wealth twisted the USA’s 14th constitutional amendment into a justification for corporate personhood, and it is just as likely to twist into ineffectiveness the new amendment to end corporate personhood that is now being proposed by many reformists. Government and business merge, as in Mussolini’s description of fascism. Wealth rules, not primarily through secret cabals, but by buying the media, framing the issues, and distracting the public from what really matters.

And once profit has been enshrined as the ruling principle of society, it wreaks terrible damage. Lies are told to justify wars that bring profit to the sellers of military goods and services — Martin Luther King called the USA “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” decades ago, and it’s still true. Harsh and arbitrary laws are passed to fill prisons that are run for profit; the self-described “land of the free” is actually the world’s leader in incarceration. Air, water, and arable land are poisoned by big corporations who are in a hurry to extract whatever profits they can in whatever fashion they can. The profits are privatized by companies “too big to fail,” and the bailouts, subsidies, and other costs are “socialized,” i.e., borne by the taxpayers.

The only way to avoid rule by the wealthy class is to not have a wealthy class — which requires ending markets — which requires ending private property. Reform is not possible, because the changes needed are too fundamental; but the bureaucracy of brutality will fall without a shot when its workers awaken and walk out.

Perhaps we are not yet ready to act on our shared interests — perhaps we will need to go through some sort of transitional phase — but there is no need to delay in getting people to think about our shared interests. “Imagine all the people sharing all the world,” John Lennon sang, and just imagining is a good way to begin. Will sharing work? Will it avert the destruction of the ecosystem and the extinction of our species? Quite honestly, I’m not sure, but I have become entirely convinced that not sharing is destroying the world, so the time has come for us to try sharing.

We need great changes. A friend of mine, growing impatient, recently said she’d like to buy a gun and take out some of the people who are causing all our problems. I told her that, aside from any ethical considerations, her plan was entirely impractical: she would never get close enough to any of the important people — but even if she did manage to take one out, he would quickly be replaced by someone similar, and the new person would be better protected. It’s like the hydra all over again. Even if we somehow manage to overthrow the entire oligarchy, the culture will just generate a new oligarchy. We must strike at the root: we must change the culture. That’s not a matter of guns, nor even a matter of laws (though changes in law will follow changes in culture, if we still feel a need for laws after the age of Aquarius begins). We must accept the reality that people speaking of new ideas will be beaten down with violence; but we who promote the ideas will not win any recruits through violence — people will only join our side voluntarily. “I hope someday you’ll join us,” John Lennon sang.

But someday had better come soon, because there isn’t much time left. Separateness has tormented us in diverse ways for 10,000 years, but it’s finally approaching a limit. That’s most evident in global warming, which now is self-perpetuating and accelerating, due to feedback loops — i.e., some of its consequences (dying forests and phytoplankton, melting tundra and icecaps) are also causes. Already we can see increases in hurricanes, floods, droughts, and crop failures, and those will get worse. Some plants and animals are migrating to get away from the heat, but they can’t migrate fast enough; species are going extinct at a rate much faster than the planet has seen in many millions of years. Species depend on other species, and so falling biodiversity is making the whole ecosystem weak and fragile. At some point soon it may simply collapse, leaving nothing but anaerobic bacteria. Then even the rich will see the end, for they can’t eat money. We need to quickly implement carbon-negative technologies on a massive scale, but that won’t happen while the world is ruled by private profit; evidently we must end that rule.

Really, the ongoing ecocide is a special case of a still more general principle. Humanity has had its ups and downs — stock markets rise and fall, empires rise and fall, even civilizations rise and fall — but humankind’s store of information keeps increasing. That makes each of us more powerful, for good or ill — and in a society of separateness, ill predominates. Knowledge is not wisdom. Global warming is a consequence of increasingly powerful technologies used without wisdom, and there are other consequences, more direct forms of violence. Old methods of control are failing: An authoritarian bully armed with drones cannot stop a suicidal madman armed with assault rifles or improvised bombs or germ warfare.

We’ll only be made safe by a caring culture that heals bullies and madmen, a universal family that leaves no one behind. The change that I am describing here is bigger than has generally been understood by the term “revolution”; it is better summarized (metaphorically, if you like) as a move to a higher spiritual plane. Nothing less than that change will suffice to halt the ecocide and avert the extinction of our species; nothing more than that change is needed to guide us to utopia. To change the culture, we simply must see the world (including ourselves) more clearly, and react to it honestly, and spread our understanding and inspiration to many more people. Of course, we all have different trusted sources for what we believe to be facts, and trust can’t be won through debate; it’s going to take us a while to build our network. Join the conversation — we’re all on the planning committee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric Schechter is an American mathematician, currently an Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University. His interests started primarily in analysis but moved into mathematical logic. His Erdős number is five.[2] Schechter is best known for his 1996 book Handbook of Analysis and its Foundations, which provides a novel approach to mathematical analysis and related topics at the graduate level.

by GUI ROCHAT
In 1940, when I was six years old, we were living in a small town in the Netherlands at the mouth of one of the Rhine subsidiaries. My father who was an eye surgeon needed a large house so that he could have the correct distance in his practice room for measuring people’s eyesight. Since both parents were artistically inclined, he designed an art moderne inspired open fire place in our living room to go with our tubular steel furniture, which was adjacent to a large by plate glass enclosed veranda, where a circular art moderne dining table was set up.

The morning of the German invasion we were sitting at this table when suddenly we heard loud explosions from the high circling German airplanes trying to bomb the main bridge over the nearby river. Luckily my parents decided to duck with us children under the table because the large plate glass windows came crashing down breaking into a thousand small pieces. It was our first introduction to a five-year occupation, which started with contingents of German soldiers marching into town and setting up administrative offices. Our house was chosen for the commanding officer because of my mother’s Jewish background and her connection to a banking dynasty in Hamburg. My parents were told to get out within twenty four hours and leave behind all their furniture and belongings. In the middle of the night my parents heaved as much as they could of our possessions over the garden wall to our neighbors. Then they were homeless but one of my father’s patients offered his small apartment for us to take refuge in.

Both of my parents were shell shocked as it became apparent that our survival was at stake. My mother’s father disappeared suddenly and as was later found out, died in a German concentration camp. Her mother was placed by my father in a mental institution, where she stayed for four years to protect her from being deported in the same manner.  My father compensated by literally disappearing into his practice and stayed at the hospital where he tried to save as many people from the Germans as he could. My mother who was left with two children and the unknown fate of her parents, developed a psychosomatic disease, called the illness of Meuniere which attacks one’s equilibrium. She was hospitalized for several months at a time and we were left with a part-time helper and a cousin of my father who came to stay with us for almost a year. There was very little to eat and sugar beets were almost the only food available. The community set up soup kitchens for the poor who were starving and we also went there often to stand in line for a cupful of watery and hardly nourishing broth. When my mother was home she browned what little flour was available to make us fake peanut butter and she cooked on the few coals that I accompanied by a small girl friend dug up with a spoon, small pieces of coal that were spilled on the sides of a train track where the German army supply trains passed by.

But as a child one can compensate for dispossession and scarcity of food. The anxiety of adults is absorbed, but forgotten in playing as we did with what we could find discarded on the street and which in fact fed our imagination. We even accepted that our clothes became raggedy, though stitched together as much as was possible because needles and thread were scarce and our shoes worn out and falling apart and not repairable as there were no materials available for shoemakers. Thus left on our own, some of my parents’ friends took pity on us pseudo street orphans but they could do little because they were mostly in the same circumstances as us. But all this was bearable and even though we by instinct learned to stay away when we saw German soldiers on the street and learned to cope with no heat in winter by huddling together and running around, the emotional damages became lasting and hurtful.

I was in kindergarten at the outbreak of the war in 1940 in total bliss and innocence, having loving parents and feeling safe at home. One of the small kids came from a poor family that had lived in the same town as my maternal grandparents and he in a kind of envy told me that the Germans would kill my mother and us because of the Jewish connection. I ran home in tears feeling an outcast and very vulnerable and needed to be reassured by my poor mother that this would not at all be the case. Nevertheless once again when playing near an office of the Dutch Nazis, I saw large colored posters with images of faces of people bathed in blood from having their tongues cut out above a text that this was what the Jews had done to good Germans. I felt as if all the forces of the world were threatening me because I was guilty of some inferiority and again I ran home in tears. The onslaught of the war came close to us when we heard the horrible sounds of falling airplanes whenever there were air fights near and above us and once I went to a place where a plane had fallen and disintegrated with small pieces of flesh remaining of its crew. The physical fear became intense and any loud sound made my sister and I cringe and run for cover. Towards the later parts of the war because there was nobody who could take charge of us, my sister was placed in an orphanage where she almost starved and I with farmers, patients of my father, who resented that they had another mouth to feed. They secretly raised a few rabbits, that when they were strung up for slaughtering, emitted a pitiful crying sound that to this day remains with me as a symbol of the war years.

Though I know that many children had a fate far worse than us, I am writing this to show what effect adult wars and occupations have on children who lack the emotional maturity to cope with horrible events and how the relative safety of the Anglo-Saxon world make it hard to comprehend what effect these wars have on children in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other countries under attack.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roaming contributing editor Gui Rochat is —among other things—an art dealer and consultant, specializing in in seventeenth and eighteenth century French paintings and drawings. He lives in New York.    

By Marlee Macleod, TruTV.com

Lost Innocence

“He was our initiation into a terrible time.”
-Guadalupe Street merchant, Austin TX.
Several biographical and character strains surface in Whitman and many other multiple killers: hyper-individualism; authoritarian fathers or broken families; gun infatuation; seeing themselves as “losers” or “failures”; and almost always, avid hunting. None of these traits can be controlled by law successfully except for arms possession and hunting. They are largely culturally determined. But most importantly, in the final analysis, the killers are also victims. —Eds

VICTIM AND VICTIMIZER
College photo of Charles Whitman (University of Texas)

By now, Americans are virtually unshockable. When we hear of the latest workplace shooting, the latest school shooting, the latest loner who snapped and took others with him to his final rest, we are saddened, certainly, but not shocked. It has happened so often that we’ve long since lost count of the shooters and the victims, long since forgotten which towns bear the indelible marks of random violence. So it is difficult for us to understand the horror to which Americans were introduced by Charles Whitman on August 1, 1966. Until Whitman undertook his shooting spree in Austin, Texas, public space felt safe and most citizens were utterly convinced they were comfortably removed from brutality and terror. After August 1, 1966, things would never be the same.

The Texas Tower

Whitman’s story stands out for many reasons, not the least of which being that it features a co-star-the University of Texas Tower, from which he fired almost unimpeded for 96 minutes. The Tower afforded Whitman a nearly unassailable vantage point from which he could select and dispatch victims. It was as if it had been built for his purpose. In fact, in previous years Charlie had remarked offhandedly to various people that a sniper could do quite a bit of damage from the Tower.

The Tower is big-307 feet tall. It is a shorter building than the nearby State Capitol, but it stands taller as it is built on higher ground. It opened in 1937 and by 1966, it attracted roughly 20,000 visitors a year, most of whom wanted to take in the spectacular view of Austin from the 28th floor observation deck. The first death associated with the tower came during its construction; a worker slipped and fell twelve floors in 1935. There was another accidental death in 1950. There were also suicides in 1945, 1949 and 1961. Despite these tragedies the Tower stood as a beloved symbol of Texas pride and expansiveness, the figurative heart of the surrounding campus and city.

Early Charlie

The Whitman family, Charles in the
back row.

On the surface, Charles Whitman would have seemed as steady and upstanding as the Texas Tower itself. He came from a wealthy, prominent family in Lake Worth, Florida. He was a gifted student, an accomplished pianist, and an Eagle Scout. But the trappings of the Whitman home concealed turmoil. C.A. Whitman was a self-made man, a plumber who had worked and willed his way to the top of his profession and into polite society. He brooked no weakness in any of his three sons, and he ruled his home dictatorially. “I did on many occasions beat my wife,” he would later say, “but I loved her…I did and do have an awful temper, but my wife was awful stubborn….because of my temper, I knocked her around.” His discipline with his sons was equally harsh—he often employed belts, paddles and his fists to make sure they complied with his rules and met his expectations. Materially, though, C.A. Whitman’s family was amply provided for. C.A. and Margaret always drove late-model cars, and each of the boys was given guns, motorcycles, and other gifts C.A. thought fitting. Their home was the nicest in the neighborhood, with all the amenities and a swimming pool. But the luxuries did nothing to alleviate the troubles within the Whitman household.

In June of 1959, shortly before Charlie Whitman’s 18th birthday, tensions with his father came to a head. Charlie came home drunk from a night out with friends, whereupon C.A. beat him and threw him into the pool, where he nearly drowned. A few days later he applied for enlistment in the United States Marine Corps. He left for basic training on July 6, 1959.

Charlie spent the first part of his stint with the Marines at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. He worked hard at being a good Marine, following orders dutifully and studying hard for his various examinations. He earned a Good Conduct Medal, the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal, and a Sharpshooter’s Badge. Chillingly, the records of his scores on shooting tests show that he scored 215 out of 250 possible points, that he excelled at rapid fire from long distances, and that he seemed to be more accurate when shooting at moving targets. Captain Joseph Stanton, Executive Officer of the 2nd Marine Division remembered, “He was a good marine. I was impressed with him. I was certain he’d make a good citizen.”

It was important to Charlie that he be the best Marine he could be. After years of belittlement and abuse from his father, he was anxious to prove himself as a man. Every opportunity for advancement was a chance to distance himself from his brutal upbringing. The Naval Enlisted Science Education Program (NESEP) seemed tailor-made for the up-and-comer Charlie fancied himself to be. NESEP was a scholarship program designed to train engineers who would later become officers. Charlie took a competitive exam and then went before a selection committee which chose him for the prestigious award. He would be expected to earn an engineering degree at a selected college and follow that with Officer’s Candidate School. His tuition and books would be paid for by the Marine Corps. He would also receive an extra $250 a month.

Charlie was admitted to the University of Texas in Austin on September 15, 1961. After years of rigid discipline at home and regimented life in the Marines, he was suddenly free to use his time as he wished. Almost immediately he began to get into trouble. He and some friends were arrested for poaching deer. He accumulated gambling debts and refused to pay them, angering some dangerous characters in the process. His grades were unimpressive. He did manage some improvement after he married his girlfriend, Kathy Leissner, in August, 1962, but the Marine Corps was unforgiving of his previous behavior. His scholarship was withdrawn and he returned to active duty in February, 1963.

He was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. After a year and a half of freedom, he found the discipline and structure of military life oppressive. His wife was back in Texas finishing her degree and he was lonely. He tried to recapture his scholarship but failed, and was informed that the time he’d spent in Austin did not count as active duty enlistment. He resented the Marine Corps and it showed in his behavior. In November 1963, he was court-martialed for gambling, usury and unauthorized possession of a non-military pistol. He had threatened a fellow soldier who had failed to repay a $30 loan with 50 percent interest. He was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days confinement and 90 days hard labor. A promotion he had received upon his return to active duty was stripped from him. Lance Corporal Whitman was once again Private Whitman, and he was desperate to be free of the Marine Corps. He turned to his father for help. C.A. Whitman had made connections in his years as a prominent businessman, and he set about trying to pull strings to get Charlie’s enlistment time reduced. Charlie’s stint was reduced by a year, and in December 1964, he was honorably discharged from the Marines.

Back In Austin

Charlie returned to Austin with a fervent sense of purpose. His failure as a Marine and as a student embarrassed him, and he was determined to redeem himself. He changed his major from mechanical engineering to architectural engineering and began applying himself more vigilantly than he had in his first spell at the university. He took a job as a bill collector for the Standard Finance Company, then moved on to a teller position at Austin National Bank. In his spare time, he served as scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 5. He worked hard at being upstanding and admirable, yet constantly berated himself for not living up to his own expectations. His copious journals contain countless self-improvement schemes and lists of traits he felt he should develop. In the early period of his marriage, he had followed his father’s example and become violent with his wife. He was determined not to repeat this behavior and reminded himself in his journal of how a kind and caring husband should act. He seemed to have no inner foundation of morals on which to build his own character; his constant self-instruction was an attempt to impose such a structure from outside himself. A friend described him as, “like a computer. He would install his own values into a machine, then program the things he had to do, and out would come the results.” From time to time, though, his façade would crumble. He was subject to bouts of temper and frustration, which only served to further damage his self-respect.

Kathy Whitman
(Texas Dept of Public
Safety)

Kathy Whitman did the majority of the breadwinning in the Whitman household. Her job as a teacher at Lanier High School in Austin provided a salary and health insurance; Charlie’s income supplemented hers, but he was keenly aware that his wife earned more than he.

Furthermore, he continued to receive money and expensive gifts from his father. Charlie hated freeloaders, yet that was how he saw himself. He hated failure, yet he had failed to accomplish anything he had set out to do since he left home at 18. He saw being overweight as a sign of weakness, yet he was unable to keep himself as trim as he had been in the Marines. Outwardly, Charlie was diligent and conscientious, a devoted husband and a hard worker; inwardly, he seethed with self-hatred.

Kathy Whitman noticed her husband’s ever bleaker outlook and began to gently urge him to seek counseling. Meanwhile, C.A. and Margaret Whitman separated after another violent row. Margaret and Charlie’s brother Patrick moved to Austin in the spring of 1966. C.A. called ceaselessly, begging Margaret to return to him, but she refused. In May she filed for divorce. Charlie’s troubled family, it seemed, had followed him. In this place where he was determined to make a new start he was constantly reminded of his past. His depression and anxiety worsened, and Kathy finally persuaded him to see a doctor that spring.

Dr. Jan D. Cochrun prescribed Valium for Charlie and referred him to University Health Center Staff Psychiatrist Dr. Maurice Dean Heatly. Heatly found that Charlie “had something about him that suggested and expressed the all-American boy,” but that he “seemed to be oozing with hostility.” Charlie spoke mainly of his lack of achievement and his hatred of his father. At one point, he told Heatly that he had fantasized about “going up on the Tower with a deer rifle and shooting people.” Heatly was not disconcerted. Many of his patients had made references to the Tower, and Charlie showed no behavior patterns as of yet that indicated that he was serious. He had, in fact, been making such comments for years, and everyone dismissed them as nonsense. Heatly suggested that Charlie return a week later, and told him that he could call at any time. Charlie did not return, nor did he call.

In the summer of 1966, Charlie dutifully attended to his class work and his job as a research assistant with the help of the amphetamine Dexedrine. Sometimes he went for days without sleep, studying and attending to various projects. He was taking a very heavy course load, trying harder than ever to excel. But the drug made him inefficient. Even though he spent many hours working, he could not seem to accomplish what he wanted. As a result, his self-esteem suffered even more. Additionally, his father was still calling, trying to get Charlie to convince Margaret Whitman to return to him in Florida. Though friends and family generally agreed that Charlie was under strain and trying to do too much, no one noticed he was edging quietly toward violence. As the Texas summer heat intensified, Charlie became ever more consumed by his fantasies of killing.

Preparations

Charlie’s first concrete action toward the plan he’d been formulating came on July 31. That morning he bought a Bowie knife and binoculars at a surplus store, and canned meat at a 7-11. Afterwards, he picked up Kathy from her summer job as a telephone operator for Southwestern Bell. They went to a movie, and then joined Margaret Whitman for a late lunch at the cafeteria where she worked. Following lunch, they dropped in on their friends John and Fran Morgan. The Morgans found Charlie unusually quiet, but suspected no trouble. Kathy returned to Southwestern Bell for another shift at 6:00 p.m. Charlie went home alone. At 6:45 p.m,. he began typing a letter of explanation and farewell.

“I don’t quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter,” he wrote. “Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed.” He went on to say he’d increasingly been a victim of “many unusual and irrational thoughts” and that his attempt to get help with his problems (the visit to Dr. Heatly) had failed. He expressed a wish that his body be autopsied after his death to see if there was a physical cause for his mental anguish. As he continued, he outlined his plan for the coming 24 hours. “It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight after I pick her up from work at the telephone company,” he revealed. “The prominent reason in my mind is that I truly do not consider this world worth living in, and am prepared to die, and I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it.” He continued, “similar reasons provoked me to take my mother’s life also.”

Charlie’s typing was interrupted by a visit from Larry and Eileen Fuess, a couple with whom Charlie and Kathy were friends. The Fuesses found Charlie unusually calm, but happy. They chatted for a while. Charlie told stories, talked of buying land on Canyon Lake, and spoke very sentimentally of Kathy. Twice he said, “It’s a shame that she should have to work all day and then come home to…..” but didn’t finish the sentence. The three friends bought ice cream from a street vendor, and the Fuesses left around 8:30 p.m.

Presently, Charlie left the house to pick up Kathy. Her shift ended at 9:30, and they were probably back home by 9:45. Kathy chatted on the phone for a while, then Charlie called his mother, asking if he and Kathy could come over and enjoy the air conditioning at her apartment. But Kathy didn’t accompany him to his mother’s place. She went to bed, and Charlie left their house around midnight.

Margaret Whitman greeted her son in the lobby of her apartment building, The Penthouse. When they were inside apartment 505, Charlie attacked her. The exact circumstances are not known, but it seems that he choked Margaret from behind with a length of rubber hose until she was unconscious. He then stabbed her in the chest with a large hunting knife. There was also massive damage to the back of her head, but since no autopsy was performed, it is uncertain if the wound was inflicted with a gun or with a heavy object. Margaret Whitman was dead by 12:30 a.m., at which time Charlie sat down to write another letter of explanation. “I have just taken my mother’s life,” he wrote, “I am very upset over having done it…I am truly sorry that this is the only way I could see to relieve her sufferings but I think it was best.” He placed his mother’s body in bed and pulled up the covers, then composed another note, this one designed to delay the discovery of what he’d done. He posted this one, intended for the building houseman, on the door of apartment 505. It read, “Roy, I don’t have to be to work today and I was up late last night. I would like to get some rest. Please do not disturb me. Thank you. Mrs. Whitman.”

Charlie left The Penthouse at about 1:30 a.m. but quickly returned saying he was Mrs. Whitman’s son and needed to get into her apartment to get a prescription he’d promised to fill for his mother. Probably, he had forgotten a bottle of Dexedrine, which he would need in the coming hours. The doorman let him into the apartment, and he returned in about five minutes with a pill bottle. He left The Penthouse for good around 2:00 a.m.

Kathy Whitman lay in bed asleep when Charlie returned home. Quickly and quietly, he pulled back the bedding and stabbed her five times in the chest. She probably never awoke. He then turned his attention to the letter he’d been typing the previous evening when the Fuesses had visited. “3:00 a.m.,” he scrawled on the page in blue ink, “Both dead.” With his pen he continued the explanation of his crimes, placing the blame for everything on his father and trying to make sense of the twisted morality that had brought him to murder. “I imagine it appears that I bruttaly [sic] kill [sic] both of my loved ones,” he wrote. “I was only trying to do a quick through [sic] job.” He wrote a few more notes, one to each of his brothers and one to his father. He left instructions that the film in his cameras be developed, and that his and Kathy’s dog be given to her parents. For a little while he looked back in his diaries, highlighting entries where he had extolled his wife’s virtues in years past. Then he set about preparations for the killing spree which would follow in a few hours.

Ready for Battle

(Austin Police Department)

In his old Marine footlocker Charlie packed an array of supplies. He brought a radio, 3 gallons of water, gasoline, a notebook and pen, a compass, a hatchet and hammer, food, two knives, a flashlight and batteries, and various other implements which made it clear he was prepared for a lengthy standoff. Additionally, he packed guns—a 35 caliber Remington rifle, a 6mm Remington rifle with a scope, a 357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, a 9mm Luger pistol, and a Galesi-Brescia pistol. Later that morning he would buy two more weapons, a 30 caliber M-1 carbine and a 12-gauge shotgun. As he packed he refined his plan. At 5:45 a.m. he called Kathy’s supervisor at Southwestern Bell and told her his wife was sick and wouldn’t be reporting to work that day.

Charlie spent the morning accumulating more supplies. At around 7:15, he went to Austin Rental Company and rented a two-wheeled dolly to help him transport the heavy, unwieldy footlocker. He cashed checks amounting to $250 at the Austin National Bank, and bought guns and ammunition at Davis Hardware, Chuck’s Gun Shop, and Sears. Arriving home again at around 10:30 he called his mother’s employer and said she was ill and wouldn’t be coming to work that day. Then he took his new shotgun out to the garage and sawed off part of the barrel and the stock. At around 11:00 a.m. he put on blue coveralls over his clothes, trundled his footlocker to the car, and headed for campus.

At 11:30 a.m. Charlie arrived at a security checkpoint on the edge of campus. His job as a research assistant had provided him with a Carrier Identification Card, which was issued to those with a need to deliver large items onto the campus. He told Jack Rodman, the guard at the checkpoint, that he would be unloading equipment at the Experimental Science Building and that he needed a loading zone permit. Rodman issued him a forty-minute permit. By 11:35 Charlie had parked, unloaded his gear and entered the Tower. With his coveralls and dolly he attracted no undue attention—he looked like a janitor or maintenance man. He took an elevator up to the 27th floor, and then dragged the dolly and footlocker up three short flights of steps.

Edna Townsley was the receptionist on duty to supervise the 28th floor observation deck that morning. Her shift was to end at noon. Charlie hit her on the back of the head, probably with the butt of one of his rifles. He hit her again after she fell, then dragged her across the room and behind a couch. She was still alive, but would die in a few hours. At around 11:50, Cheryl Botts and Don Walden entered the reception area from the observation deck and found Charlie leaning over the couch, holding two guns. They greeted him, and though they found him strange and noticed some “stuff” on the floor (Edna Townsley’s blood), they were not immediately alarmed. Charlie watched them board the elevator, which took them to safety.

Meanwhile, M.J and Mary Gabour, their two sons, and William and Marguerite Lamport were headed up the steps from the 27th floor. They found the door barricaded by a desk. Mark and Mike Gabour pushed the desk away and leaned in the door to see what was going on. Suddenly Charlie rushed at them, spraying them with pellets from his sawed-off shotgun. Mark died instantly. Charlie fired down the stairway at least three more times. Marguerite Lamport was killed; Mary Gabour was critically wounded, as was her son Mike. They would lay where they fell for more than an hour. William Lamport and M.J. Gabour ran for help.

From the Tower

View from Texas Tower
(Austin Police Department)

On the lower floors of the Tower the alarm spread. People began barricading themselves into classrooms and offices. On the observation deck, Charlie unpacked his array of supplies and his guns. He wedged the door to the deck shut with the dolly and quickly set about firing. Turning his attention to the area of campus known as the South Mall, he began with his most accurate weapon, the scoped 6mm rifle. His first target was Claire Wilson, a heavily pregnant eighteen-year-old. The bullet pierced her abdomen and fractured the skull of the baby she carried, killing it. When she cried out, an acquaintance, Thomas Eckman turned and asked her what was wrong. Just then he was hit in the chest. He fell dead across his wounded girl. Nearby, Dr. Robert Hamilton Boyer, a visiting physics professor, took a bullet to the lower back. He died quickly.

To the east of the Tower at the Computation Center, Thomas Ashton, a Peace Corps trainee, was shot in the chest. He died later at Brackenridge hospital. As others in areas around the Tower began falling, those in surrounding buildings began to take notice. Wounded victims lay helpless, pinned down in the 95+ degree heat and fearful of being shot again. At about noon, University Police arrived at the Tower and proceeded to the 27th floor, where they discovered the Gabour/Lamport party. An order was given to secure the exits and shut off the elevators. It was not yet clear how many shooters there were, but from the number of calls that were coming in to both the Austin Police and the University Police, it seemed there must be an army atop the Tower.

Charlie was still moving about the observation deck unhindered, and turned his attention westward, toward Guadalupe Street. Known as the Drag, the busy street was lined with businesses and formed the western boundary of the UT campus. Initially, people on Guadalupe Street thought the echoing gunshots were part of a college prank. Then Alex Hernandez, a newsboy on a bicycle, fell wounded. Seventeen-year-old Karen Griffin fell next, and would die a week later. Thomas Karr, who had probably turned to render aid to Griffin, was then shot in the back. He died an hour later. Those inside Guadalupe Street businesses huddled together away from windows.

Austin Police were arriving on campus and trying to make their way to the Tower. Officers Jerry Culp and Billy Speed were huddled, with others, under a statue south of the Tower, trying to figure their next move. Charlie shot Billy Speed through a six-inch space between two balusters, which were part of a rail that surrounded the statue. Though Speed’s wound looked superficial to those around him, it was in fact grave. He was dying.

Back on the Drag, the carnage continued. Harry Walchuk, a thirty-eight-year-old doctoral student and father of six was exiting a newsstand when a bullet entered his chest. He died at the scene. Nearby, high-school students Paul Sonntag, Claudia Rutt and Carla Sue Wheeler dove for cover behind a construction barricade. As Paul peered out from behind the barricade to see what was happening, Charlie shot him through his open mouth. He was killed instantly. Another shot hit Claudia Rutt, who died later at Brackenridge Hospital.

By now word of what was happening had spread, and police began returning fire toward the Tower, trying to pick off Charlie as he rose up over the parapet to take aim. Citizens went home and got their own guns, and hundreds of shots chipped away at the Tower in the next hour. Charlie began shooting through the rainspouts on each side of the building, making himself virtually impossible to hit. He switched guns from time to time. The greater part of his killing had been done in his first twenty minutes on the observation deck, but he was not finished. Over 500 yards to the South, city electricians Solon McCown and Roy Dell Schmidt parked their truck and joined a group of reporters and spectators. They huddled behind cars for safety. Schmidt, probably thinking that they were out of range, stood up. He was hit in the abdomen, and was dead ten minutes later.

As more victims fell, police officers made their various ways to the Tower. Austin Police Officers Jerry Day, Houston McCoy, and Ramiro Martinez, Department of Public Safety Officer W.A. Cowan, civilian Allen Crum and others converged on the 27th floor. They cleared the floor and brought down Mary and Mike Gabour, who had lain critically wounded in a deep pool of blood for over an hour. Martinez and Crum moved carefully up the steps and into the reception area. McCoy and Day soon followed. There was no definite plan of action; each man had to improvise as the situation developed. From inside the reception area, they could cover windows on the south, southwest, and west sides of the Tower. Martinez tried the door to the observation deck, but found it had been wedged shut. He kicked the door until the dolly fell away, freeing the door. The men waited and watched the windows.

Charlie Whitman dead
(Austin Police Department)

Ramirez emerged onto the deck, and began crawling toward the northwest corner, where the shots seemed to be coming from. McCoy followed, while Crum and Day guarded the door. As Charlie tried to change position, Crum misfired his gun, sending him back to the northwest corner. There he sat with his back against the north wall, aiming his carbine toward the south, from whence Crum’s shot had come. Martinez and McCoy continued their slow crawl, friendly fire from the ground zinging around them. When Martinez reached the northeast corner, he rounded it and began firing his .38. Charlie tried to return fire but could not bring his weapon around in time. McCoy fired his shotgun twice at Charlie’s head, knocking him to the floor. Martinez then grabbed McCoy’s gun and ran toward Charlie’s twitching body, firing into it point blank. At 1:24 p.m. Charlie was dead.

Aftermath

Charlie had killed fourteen people and injured dozens more in a little over ninety minutes. Soon, Charlie Whitman’s name was being broadcast nationwide in television and radio news bulletins. In Needville, Texas, Kathy Whitman’s father heard his son-in-law’s name on the radio. Concerned for his daughter, he contacted Austin police. Kathy’s friends were calling, too, expressing concern and offering support. A car was sent to the Whitman’s Jewell Street home. Peering through a window, Officers Donald Kidd and Bolton Gregory saw Kathy’s body lying in bed. They entered the house through the window and found that she had been dead for some time. They also found Charlie’s notes. “Similar reasons provoked me to take my mother’s life also,” one read. Arriving at the Penthouse at around 3:00 p.m., police found the body of Margaret Whitman.

It soon became known that Charlie had sought the help of Dr. Heatly some months before, and Heatly released all his records regarding him to the public. Because Charlie had told Heatly of his fantasy of killing people from the tower during his one appointment, Heatly was suddenly under intense scrutiny. He was never found responsible in any way for the killings, however. The general consensus was that he’d done the best he could with the information he was given by Charlie. Nothing else about Charlie suggested that he would do what he did, so Heatly did not consider him a threat to himself or others.

When Charlie’s body was autopsied doctors discovered a small tumor in his brain. Some of his friends and family have seized upon this as the cause of his actions, but experts concur that this is doubtful. Charlie was buried in Florida beside his mother. As he was an ex-Marine, an American flag covered his coffin. Kathy Whitman was buried in her hometown of Needville, Texas.

At the Texas Tower the observation deck remained open for several years. The University spent $5000 repairing bullet holes in 1967. There were suicides, though, four of them in the years between 1968 and the closing of the deck in 1974. In 1976 the University of Texas Regents declared the deck permanently closed, and so it remained for over twenty years.

In October, 1998, University of Texas President Larry Faulkner announced plans to reopen the observation deck. He asked for the support of the University Regents in making the Tower a positive symbol of Texas pride once again. The Regents approved his plan, and on September 15, 1999 (the school’s 116th anniversary) the deck was reopened. There are security guards on the ground floor of the Tower and on the deck itself, which is surrounded by a stainless steel lattice to prevent suicides and falls. Visitors can once again enjoy the panoramic view from the Tower, but must pass through a metal detector to gain entry. The ghost of Charlie Whitman is, for the most part, exorcised. Yet the security precautions remind visitors that safety can only be ensured through hyper-vigilance.

There was a time when things weren’t like that. Charlie Whitman ended it for good.

Bibliography

Fox, James Alan and Jack Levin, Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed. Dell Publishing, 1996.

Lane, Brian and Wilfred Gregg, The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder. London: Headline Book Publishing, 1994.

Lavergne, Gary M., A Sniper in the Tower: The True Story of the Texas Tower Massacre. Bantam, 1997.

Newton, Michael, Mass Murder: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1988.

Steiger, Brad, The Mass Murderer. New York: Award Books, 1967.

Contemporary accounts may also be found in archives of these Texas newspapers: Dallas Morning News and the Austin American-Statesman

 

 

The   B u l l e t
Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 748
December 22, 2012

Anti-Morsi protests in Tahrir Square.

Araz Bagban

The new constitution submitted to referendum by Mohamed Morsi, the president of Egypt elected with the support of the Freedom and Justice party, i.e. the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in addition to its properties of attacking working-class achievements as well as women’s and minorities’ rights, is preparing the legal ground for the Brotherhood to seize the whole political power in the country. The powers proposed for the president in the constitution, not subject to any supervision, are leading Egypt toward dictatorship.

This picture in Egypt is perhaps not precisely the same with what happened in Iran after the 1979 revolution, but by looking at Iran we can clearly see how the restoration of a dictatorship took place. The only important difference might be that the people of Egypt have detected the prospect of such a restoration and are trying to defend the achievements of the revolution without any hesitation.

Although the continuous protests of religious minorities and women (despite all the attempts of the supporters of president Morsi such as sexual harassment and physical assaults) as well as those of political organizations forced the president to make concessions on the content of the constitutional declaration related to the powers granted to the president, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have gone on to complete the constitutional referendum, denying any delay requested by protesters and opposition.

Morsi gave the oversight of the security of the referendum to the army by allowing the army to arrest protesters. As a response to this unnamed state of emergency-like situation the masses chanted “we are not afraid, we will not surrender, because we are used to plastic bullets.” In another attempt Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tried to reduce the protests to anti-religious rallies, and the conflict to one between the religious and the secular. The attempt was not too effective because of the presence of many religious people and also some clerics from Al Azhar University in the protests.

The Iranian Revolution

The people of Egypt have shown that they are eager to defend the achievements of the 2011 revolution, but let us remember what happens if there is not such a resistance on the basis of the restoration of the dictatorship in the Iranian experience after the 1979 revolution.

On another 11th of February but in 1979, the Iranian revolution declared its victory. There was an important difference from the Egyptian revolution: the presence of a charismatic leader. Although the revolution was the result of a permanent struggle of the masses and also of political organizations, the achievements of the revolution were amassed in the hands of this leader. In the early days of the revolution Khomeini, the charismatic leader of the revolution, was claiming that he would secure all the rights and freedoms, but it only took a few months to explore his real face and aim and the political line he represented.

Only two months after the revolution a referendum took place asking people to choose between the new system and the old, but without defining the new system or giving any details. Before going to referendum and just after the revolution Khomeini ordered to remove and cancel the law protecting the family. According to this law men were not allowed to choose a second wife until they have permission from their first wife and also a woman had the right to divorce in case her husband was marrying a second wife. This law was canceled only two weeks after the 11th of February. On March 9, the women’s right to judge was removed and on March 11 the Hijab (the head and body covering in Islamic fashion) became compulsory. Women organized the largest protest by women in the history of Iran on March 8 against the orders of Khomeini. Tehran hosted a weak of rallies and protests, regarding which the progressive forces and the intellectuals remained silent.

In a two-choice referendum of accepting the new regime of the Islamic Republic or the old regime of the Shah, having already overthrown the old regime, the people naturally were obliged to accept the new form of the state. A major feature of this referendum was the lack of transparency about the details of the new form of the state, i.e. the Islamic Republic. Khomeini defined the Islamic republic as a state in which all would enjoy their rights. The prime minister of the interim government responsible for organizing the referendum said, in response to a question of a journalist asking “what is the Islamic Republic?,” “it is a nice thing.” He also added that women’s rights shall be secured under the new regime. People voted in the referendum in favor of the Islamic Republic whereas they didn’t know what it really was. According to the official records, 98 per cent of the electorate participated in the referendum and 99 per cent of them said “yes” to the Islamic Republic.

The dictatorship was going to be built step by step but there was no serious objection to it. Leftist organizations, which called the March 8 movement a petty-bourgeois demand, boycotted the referendum because of the Islamic Republic’s undefined character. The boycott was not supported by all leftist organizations and the Tudeh Party (the Iranian communist party) supported the new form of the state. The People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a radical Islamist organization conditionally accepted the Islamic Republic and declared that if the people’s interests are secured in the future they will support the new regime unconditionally, otherwise they will cut their support completely.

The Islamist liberals inside the interim government under the leadership of the prime minister defended the idea of a republic without any qualifications, but gave support to the Islamic Republic after Khomeini’s rigid reaction of “only Islamic Republic, no more, no less.” The referendum didn’t face any mass opposition and because of that the new regime’s supporters called the opposition “the 2 per cent.” It is true that organizing the masses against such a charismatic leader would not be easy, but the only chance to move the people had already been lost during the March 8 incident.

Ethnic Minorities

To restore the dictatorship there was another step to be taken and it was going to be done through the new constitution. The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (Velayat-e Faghih) was the messenger of the new dictatorship. The constitution giving all the political power to the religious leader of the Islamic Republic was submitted to the referendum on November 1979. Before the referendum Iran again experienced another important development. Ethnic minorities having found their hopes crushed in the new state put up resistance. The Kurdish people rose with a demand for autonomy for the Kurdistani region in Iran. The centralist government in Tehran interpreted it as an attack on Iranian unity and immediately attacked Kurdistan using the new army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. A long war started in Kurdistan during which some of the leftist organizations gave their support to the struggle of the Kurdish people. After the March 8 women’s rallies against the regime’s reactionary decisions, the Kurdish uprising was the most important development in the early stages of restoration of the dictatorship in Iran.

With such a background people voted in the constitutional referendum. For the second time the people accepted the new regime changes with a huge percentage. Most of the leftist organizations again boycotted the referendum and found it anti-democratic, but Tudeh Party and the majority wing of the Iranian People’s Fedai Guerrillas gave their full support to the constitution. The organization of the People’s Mujahedin this time cut their support as they mentioned in the last referendum. But the only severe objection came from another ethnic region, Azerbaijan, and mainly from its largest city Tabriz. Surprisingly a conservative party called the Muslim People’s Party, followers of a secular religious leader, raised against the Velayet-e Faghih, but the uprising was harshly suppressed by the so-called revolutionary army.

The post-constitution period is the elimination of the opposition from society. The elimination took place step by step, first by exterminating the opposition that publicly declared its objection against the new dictatorship and then by cleaning the post-revolutionary society from the new regime’s genuine supporters but potential opposition movements, such as the Tudeh Party. The organized actions of some political parties and organizations, even relatively vast armed struggles, couldn’t find mass support and they were suppressed in a bloody way.

The Egyptian Opposition

There are very similar aspects in the restoration of the dictatorship in Iran and Egypt, but as we mentioned before with a very important difference. The people of Egypt are opposing this restoration in the way they started the revolution on January 25, 2011. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood first attacked women and their rights. They even took this attack to the demonstrations using the same method (sexual harassment and physical assault against women) that Mubarak used during the revolutionary demonstrations to keep women away from Tahrir Square and demonstrations elsewhere. In the constitution, the law of protecting family unity is an attack on women’s rights and leaves them with no protection. The definition of Judaism and Christianity as the only religious minorities is also an attack on other communities with different beliefs.

With this constitution prepared and submitted to referendum, if the Muslim Brotherhood had not met a serious opposition, they would bring a more reactionary constitution. It is obvious that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood will move to attain all they have lost against the mass resistance in the constitutional process. Consequently, any break in the will and resistance of the people will take Egypt to a state of a new reactionary dictatorship. •

Araz Bagban is an Iranian political activist.

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If there ever was a united human family, this would probably be their anthem.

The editors of the Greanville Post send you all a comradely embrace for the coming year.

Click anywhere on the image and open the video window on the lower left. Don’t forget to give it maximum width.

Gary Oldman as Ludwig van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved (1994)

Conductor Leonard Bernstein on the universality of Beethoven’s music