by Dan Fitch

[updated version of this article published in Tone Madison September 15]

Let’s delve into local coverage of the jail communication contract and mail scanning, Alec K style. If you need background, get lost in the sauce with a deep dive from last month. The summary: The sheriff’s office is arguing that we need to scan mail to save lives from overdoses caused by contraband coming via the mail. The evidence for this? Nonexistent.

First, let’s look at what got published in the media. Then, we have to dive into the sheriff’s two attempts to convince the citizens that mail scanning is about safety. [Spoiler: it’s mostly by saying “safety” a lot.]

A quick tl;dr summary of this whole analysis: there is very little proof that mail scanning reduces overdoses or improves safety, and quite a lot of proof that it does not. Mostly, mail scanning is a “Trojan horse” [as Smart Communications have said themselves] for getting tablets into prisoners’ hands and selling them music and movies and everything else at exorbitant prices. If the sheriff gets more surveillance power along the way, more the better. Plus, the current contract as written doesn’t even restrict usage of the data until after the contract’s term, despite the sheriff’s office claiming the county controls the data.

This contract is bad for all kinds of reasons; pick your poison. Mail scanning with zero proof of safety improvements? Check. Badly written contract that lets maximum extraction happen, up to the point that mail and messages could get used to train AI, or sent to other corporations or government entities without Dane County’s say so? Check. Corrupt corporation that has bribed carceral agencies in the past, and has filed for bankruptcy? Check.

Oh yeah, just pound that point in: this corporation applied for bankruptcy back in December 2024. Shouldn’t that be… something we want to avoid? The county procedures that picked this contract out of the two available are opaque, at best. And while I don’t understand corporate economics in our current hellscape, it doesn’t seem exactly great that we are signing up with a sketchy company trying and failing to file for Chapter 11, right?

(As far as exploitation, how much do you think it costs to stream an hour of music on the jail’s current GTL-run tablets? By my math, it’s $3.00. Would you pay for a streaming service where you had to pay $3 every time you wanted to listen to an hour of music? Although the initial planned price is only $1.80 for an hour in this new contract, there are no upper limits, and the county has zero oversight on pricing outside of calls and texts. If you’re thinking “people in jail don’t deserve to listen to music, who cares if it’s expensive”, you’re forgetting: half the people in there are innocent until proven guilty. They’re almost all poor. And your ass is showing.)

Local coverage

Cap Times reporter Sarah Eichstadt wrote an early piece in June, quite clear on the state of things. The community was upset, Smart Communications was [is] a shady company, the sheriff was pushing mail scanning with weak justifications, and the flimsy evidence around all this is directly addressed in the article. Overall, it captures the tone in the room, where both people from the public and on the committee were disturbed by some of the media coverage of Smart Communications’ very public flaws.

One thing Eichstadt’s piece doesn’t mention is how the Public Protection & Judiciary (PPJ) committee members had just received the proposed contract merely a few business days before the June 17 meeting. [Notice that the proposed contract is not OCR’d, so you can’t easily search for words in it. And why can’t our newspapers link into Legistar for folks to easily dig into meeting details?]

Three days after that first Cap Times article was published, PPJ talked about the contract a bit at a joint meeting with Health and Human Needs on June 30. Then Scott Gordon and I published one of our patented “ow, it’s too long” deep dives on July 14 in Tone Madison. A single point I want to call out from that: the Dane County Sheriff’s Office (DCSO) has been saying conflicting things about contraband in the mail for years. They claim to have a big problem with drugs getting into the jail in the mail, but they don’t have records they can release. From that article:

Asked point-blank whether this is an acknowledgement that DCSO’s records are incomplete or unreliable, Schaffer responds: “I wouldn’t put it that way. We’ve been clear that we have not historically tracked the specific data you are requesting (incidents of drugs entering the jail through the mail).”

Other local coverage has been weak, at best. WKOW’s initial piece talks only to the sheriff, and only mentions “potential concerns” without detailing any, and then they reprinted DCSO’s talking points from a recent press release, but even attempted to strengthen the argument, claiming: “In 2024, there were four incidents of drugs entering the jail through mail, contributing to three in-custody drug-related deaths, according to officials.” That little word “contributing” connects the incidents of drugs in the mail with the in-custody deaths in our minds, creating causation where it wasn’t. If you read DCSO’s press release, it very carefully does not say the incidents of drugs in the mail contributed in any way. It says there were four incidents of drugs in the mail, and then “While this may seem like a relatively small number, it’s important to note that there were three in-custody deaths that same year, all involving drugs.” See how there is no causation proven, just that it’s “important to note” the two facts?

WMTV’s coverage doesn’t make that incorrect connection, and at least adds a throwaway “Opponents of the plan cite privacy concerns”… but quickly follows that with “but Sheriff Barrett says safety is his top priority.” Of course he says that. He says it a lot. But opponents are citing more than privacy concerns, we are citing that this will not stop contraband, it will slow mail access, and it will further isolate people in our jail.

The first missive

The Sheriff’s first letter hit just before the July 22 PPJ meeting, where the committee voted 4-3 to recommend for denial. (Hooray?) So this timing may have been an attempt to convince supervisors that mail scanning was a no-brainer… except for the fact that some of them were unaware of it at the July 22 meeting. Could have been just a PR fail, where it didn’t reach its intended targets. Or, possibly, the letter was intended to target the wider Dane County community, because the sheriff had guessed PPJ was not going to rubber-stamp it.

So, what’s the meat of this letter?

He opens with the fentanyl overdose crisis, which is, to be clear, a real thing and a huge public health concern.

Then he pivots: “Within the jail community…” Now, if I threw people in my basement and locked them up, it would be pretty weird if I called them my “basement community”. He goes on to say contraband comes in through “seemingly innocent letters”. “Seemingly innocent” is a fun phrase, you can put it in front of anything and make it sound spooky. Our “seemingly innocent” sheriff sure is penning a lot of letters to newspapers!

Notice throughout that we have plenty of appeals to emotion, which is fine; and plenty of appeals to reason, but still no numbers, no frequency, no evidence. But in the last line of his opener he lays out the key idea: “Implementing advanced mail scanning in the Dane County Jail is a critical step to saving lives.”

This is going to be his main argument, but the problem is, there’s just no proof. We’ll dive deeper into that below.

Inexplicably, he writes that “scanning technologies, like X-ray and chemical detection systems” can identify threats. But uh, that’s not what’s on the menu. This contract is not for X-ray or chemical detection systems. We don’t know how it compares to what DSCO is currently doing to check mail. This contract is for paying a corrupt Florida company to hire schlubs who open envelopes and scan mail on normal document scanners or cameras or whatever, to be shredded later. This whole section is very confusing, and I don’t understand what it’s doing here. Maybe it snuck in from some other argument for surveillance technology. But it’s not an accident, because [spoiler alert] it pops back up in the second op-ed.

Next, Barrett claims “…scanning mail supports rehabilitation by reducing access to substances that derail recovery.” And we are once again grinding in the teeth of the question: is there any evidence that scanned mail provably reduces access to contraband substances? I have been able to find no research which supports this claim, not even biased research paid for by carceral technology companies. There’s just people like our sheriff saying it loudly, hoping that it’s true.

I did find one paper, Utilizing Electronic Mail to Prevent Drug Trafficking in Prisons (Warshaw 2020) which argues for mail scanning on flimsy grounds. On p. 77 you can find Warshaw laying out Pennsylvania’s plan [in 2018] to prevent contraband: moving to scanned mail through a company called Smart Communications. Hmm, sounds familiar. She writes that “Since the implementation of the new system, Pennsylvania has had positive results,” and quotes a punishment bureaucrat saying it has cut down on the quantity of synthetic cannibinoids in their system.

The only problem with this narrative is that, unfortunately, “After a slight decline in the immediate aftermath of the policy change, the number of positive drug tests rebounded quickly and is now higher than it was before.” [Emphasis mine.]

Mail scanning is not a magical panacea that stops contraband, because mail is not the primary way that contraband gets into carceral institutions. Ask yourself: why is the primary way it gets in not mentioned by the sheriff, ever? Why is it only hinted at in Eichstadt’s article? Might it be because we all know that contraband enters our jail via the workers there, who have dangerous incentives to sell access to contraband?

There’s no evidence that mail scanning stops contraband. There is, however, evidence that increased contact via mail, phone calls, and visits with friends and family has many positives, including reducing recidivism, in-prison misconduct, and depression.

Finally, the sheriff claims that “Investing in mail scanning is a proactive, humane solution” and that “Lives depend on it.” If we’re talking about proactive, humane solutions that save lives, there is one major reform the sheriff should be fighting for: abolishing cash bail and keeping more people out of jail pre-trial, as Illinois has. Guess what? No crime waves happened there. None of the predicted “Purge”-style chaos. There were overall savings for the taxpayers, and less lives got wrecked by carceral punishment. [We also need to address Wisconsin’s backwards approach to crimeless revocation, compared to our neighbors, but that’s a whole other ball of wax.]

“Ensuring safer facilities and stronger communities,” if Barret is actually interested in this, should involve actively reducing our jail population, and rethinking our reliance on punishment as a path to try to cruelty our way to stronger communities. We’ve tried cruelty. We’ve tried cruelty with a neoliberal smile on top. Why would we try cruelty with maximum capitalism smeared on that smile? Let’s try some smarter options.

The second missive

After the PPJ 4-3 denial, Personnel and Finance voted 5-2 to recommend denial on August 11. After that second failure is when we get the second shot from the sheriff, this time in a longer op-ed.

Barret fires off out of the gate with “The evidence is clear: Jail mail scanning saves lives by addressing the growing threat of smuggled drugs, weapons and other illicit materials that fuel violence, overdoses and instability within our jails.” But he adds none of this “clear” evidence to the conversation, still. And wait, what is “weapons” doing in that sentence? Is this another slip, or are mail-in weapons a problem we can’t figure out how to solve?

After that, he points to the opioid crisis, with good reason. He names the sad fact that 3 people died from overdoses in his supervision in 2024. But notice that he does not provide any evidence to link those overdoses to the mail. Plus, he fails to address the fact that people died in Wisconsin prisons in 2024 from overdoses… but we’ve been scanning that mail since late 2021, when the Department of Corrections claimed it was a necessary step to stop K2 overdoses.

Okay. Now. I’m gonna need you to take a deep breath, because there are two extremely strange sentences to delve into coming up.

Chemical detection

“Mail scanning technology, which uses advanced imaging and chemical detection, can identify these threats [substances] before they reach jail residents, preventing overdoses and saving lives.”

Remember above? What is this chemical detection stuff? We are talking about mail scanning with scanners like your grandma uses to scrapbook. Smart Communications is not doing any chemical detection, they’re just… scanning. Digitizing. And then sending the results over the internet. Then shredding the original mail, eventually. Nowhere in this plan do we need any “advanced imaging and chemical detection” for substances. You can look at the steps in the contract yourself under “XIII. MAIL SCANNING – OFF PREMISE MAIL SCANNING” on page 34 of the contract [page 38 of the PDF.]

… followed by a bunch of boring surveillance and review things that happen with the [again, digital] images. I simply do not understand what the “chemical detection” argument is doing in these letters from the sheriff.

Weapons, escape plans, or gang communications

I’m just going to put the entire next two paragraphs here:

Beyond drugs, mail can conceal weapons, escape plans or gang communications that jeopardize the safety of everyone in the facility. Traditional hand-inspection methods are labor-intensive and prone to human error, allowing dangerous items to slip through.

Modern scanning systems, however, provide a non-invasive, efficient and highly accurate means of detecting contraband. They can identify hidden compartments, chemical residues or suspicious materials without compromising the privacy of legitimate correspondence. By ensuring that all mail is thoroughly screened, we reduce the risk of violence, gang activity and escapes, creating a safer environment for jail residents and staff alike.

After the first paragraph, I’m thinking, sure, scanning is a way to guarantee no weapons, but at no point so far has the claim been that weapons in the mail have been a problem. But by “identify hidden compartments, chemical residues or suspicious materials” I’m once again completely baffled. Does Barret mean “stop” instead of “identify” here?

Let me lay a scenario out.

In the dark near-future of this contract with Smart Communications, Alice gets arrested. She can’t make bail, and sits in jail. Her husband Bob wants to send her a birthday card, but somehow sneak in a hidden compartment with a key in it, like in the old movies.

It doesn’t matter what Bob tries to do, because he mails it care of Smart Communications. Whatever clever mechanism he employed goes to Florida, gets scanned in, and a random office drone gets to have a bit of a laugh at someone trying to mail a key through their foolproof system.

The original mail never goes to Dane County Jail.

A picture of it goes over the internet, and Alice can look at a crappy version of it on her tablet. Maybe she can pay money to have a crappy printout of it, too. But a small team of office workers with a scanner and a shredder is what I think this contract is for, not for some fancy centralized CSI lab with shiny equipment that can “identify… chemical residues”.

And then, after all that, he adds “without compromising the privacy of legitimate correspondence.” Huh? Jail mail has been read and checked and not-at-all-private since the beginning of when people first sent mail to gaols. Now there’s an extra layer of office workers in the loop, as well as the AI that initially scans it, plus the usual sheriff’s deputies who manually check, and whoever else from the county, state, or other jurisdiction has access to the scans. [Legal correspondence in this plan will go through a scanner that’s actually at Dane County Jail, for delivery to tablet… or to be reprinted.]

Why do I smell toast?

Back to the plot

Copaganda sometimes directly intends to confuse us, I think.

Let’s get back to the sheriff’s hard evidence for why mail scanning will save lives. I’m sure it’s in here. Oh, here we go, he’s gonna drop some knowledge bombs:

In facilities where mail scanning has been implemented, such as those in Ohio and Pennsylvania, overdoses have dropped significantly, and staff report feeling safer. These outcomes demonstrate that scanning is not just a theoretical solution but a proven strategy.

Hmm. Don’t think we should be looking to Ohio, recently sued over their mail scanning program, as an example.

And the other problem with this narrative is, uhh, remember Pennsylvania? “After a slight decline in the immediate aftermath of the policy change, the number of positive drug tests rebounded quickly and is now higher than it was before.“

Déjà vu, anyone? Prisons and jails all over the country have moved to scanned mail in recent years, and they have not gotten safer. If the evidence for safety held up, these companies trying to push the mail scanning programs would be trumpeting it from the rooftops, instead of making vague claims and bribing departments.

One last bit of phrasing to stare at here: the “staff report feeling safer.” Feeling safer. I feel like most of our problem in the punishment sphere comes down to doing counterproductive and cruel things because people “feel safer.” We arrest non-white people at racist, biased rates because it makes people “feel safer”. We fund prisons and police instead of trying to deal with root causes, because that makes people “feel safer”.

So what?

So the problem with the sheriff’s claims about safety is that these mail scanning systems are already in place in jurisdictions [including the State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections] where they have not shown a proven reduction in drug use and overdoses. It’s obvious why these mail scanning systems are spreading: they give punishment bureaucrats more surveillance powers, allowing them to claim they care about safety, while enriching some jackasses who think making money off of helpless poor people is the American Way.

It shouldn’t surprise us that the sheriff would desire more surveillance power, and attempt to ignore the most common way contraband gets into jails and prisons: through workers.

After those two evidence-free bowls of word salad from the Sheriff, If the sheriff writes a letter and an op-ed pushing for increased surveillance based on platitudes and outdated, incorrect evidence, does our local media not think that’s… interesting?

What next

Now the county board will discuss this as a full body on September 4, after two committees have voted to deny this contract.

Grandstanding politicians are going to say a lot of stuff about our county values, but they’re still likely to push this contract through with the mail scanning even though Jan Tetzlaff, the DSCO representative, said at that first June 17 meeting: “[Mail scanning] is provided free by the vendor, and if we don’t want to start it, we don’t have to start it.”

All that doesn’t even touch on a possible solution: the county self-hosting communication services, or paying all costs for an extant service entirely, so that communication in the jail is free. Some places have done this with jails, and there’s a trend around the nation in prisons.

The community doesn’t want to start mail scanning, for good reason. The sheriff really, really does want it. And we need to start being less naive about what our punishment bureaucrats argue for. Body cameras, mail scanning, automated license plate readers, and more technologies and tools only give our broken, biased carceral institutions more power to coerce poor people into unfair plea bargains… and possibly worse.

We don’t need all that. Mass incarceration is a failed experiment that continues to prove it is super harmful to our community.

We need to stop billionaires and wage theft. We need to build so much more housing and real non-coercive addiction care. We need to do all this while the climate is hurtling off a cliff, and our “trusted” institutions are failing us.

We’ve got a lot of work to do as a society, and it would be great if we could all spend less time fighting punishment bullshit like this, and more time building actual solutions. We have to build better systems in the dying husks of the old hierarchies. They have proven to be failures. How much more evidence are you going to wait for?

If we don’t do that work, we’re just going to end up in full on white nationalist fascism with a lot of people still thinking “If we only invest in more technology, surely the authoritarians will stop feeding us all into the Torment Nexus!”

If you want to help stop this particular bullshit, check out this community reference doc.

by a comrade

On July 8th, chapter members of MADSA met for the monthly general meeting at the First Unitarian Society. While the agenda for every chapter meeting differs, July’s meeting carved out some time for some much needed discussion on how chapter members are feeling about our current political climate. Many members voiced their feelings about what it is like to be a socialist in Madison and how best they can start speaking to members of their community about socialism.

For many MADSA members (and socialists in general), the task of raising class consciousness is a topic that is frequently discussed. Madison has a large population of folks working in academia, tech, and the government. This particular makeup of highly educated individuals presents its own unique challenge in the arena of developing class consciousness. How do we as socialists build class power when a majority of people we speak to don’t have a full grasp on their role as a member of the working class? How do we engage in these conversations with our friends, family, and community members? How do we open the minds of others to the existence of class struggle and the need to be an active participant in the fight against the ruling class?

Some members expressed different points of view on how to tackle these unique issues that socialists are faced with. Comrade Will P, who recently attended the Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago, mentioned how there was discussion about the importance of taking action. Specifically, the idea that action dictates belief. Instead of focusing on talking to community members in order to change their mind, we can also operate in the reverse. Instead of just engaging in debate with someone, we can take them to an action and see how their minds change when they find themselves actively participating. According to Will P, they are much more likely to continue doing actions after they show up to their first one.

Halsey H, co-chair of the MADSA chapter, spoke about the importance of building class power by focusing any discussions we have as socialists on bread and butter issues. Madison is home to many liberal protest movements, and Halsey stressed the need to center class struggle and socialism as an alternative to liberalism. MADSA members (and the general public alike) have been reinvigorated by the Democratic mayoral primary win of Zohran Mamdani, a NYC-DSA member. According to Halsey, one key lesson to take from Zohran’s campaign is the centrality of his class messaging. 

In recent years, DSA electoral work has been focused on participating in Democratic primaries, which traps us in engaging constantly with liberal voters who vote Democrat. Rather than get stuck in this cycle of only trying to appeal to liberals, Zohran’s campaign went beyond to activate new voters. These were voters who had previously not voted at all, and were not aligned with the Democratic party. Firing up this base of former non-voters by focusing on class issues turned out to be a winning strategy.

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On August 12th, chapter members of MADSA met again for the next monthly general meeting. August’s meeting agenda was full of report backs from different ongoing efforts from chapter members, including the power mapping committee, the abolitionist working group, and the delegates who traveled to Chicago for the 2025 DSA National Convention. 

The power mapping committee, which was formed after the Doing Politics in Public resolution was passed by the chapter during the yearly chapter convention in March 2025, presented their work on creating different maps that highlight the political makeup of the MADSA chapter. Further, the committee expressed their future goals to challenge certain districts in Madison, with the intention of running independent socialist candidates in the future. This work will involve canvassing, speaking with neighbors, and searching for the right candidates to run or endorse. Electoral efforts within the MADSA chapter have been on hold in recent years, but anyone interested in flexing their campaign skills or working with data are welcome to join the power mapping committee and work to put socialists in office. 

The abolitionist working group presented on the current battle to block Dane County from accepting a new county jail communications contract with Smart Communications, a private business that seeks to generate profit from charging incarcerated individuals and their families for phone calls, video calls, and emails. The abolitionist working group detailed their successful efforts to organize other MADSA members, local abolition activist groups, and concerned community members to show up and express dissent on the contract. This resulted in two county board committees voting to deny the contract! 

Member of the abolitionist working group, comrade Ally B, spoke on their work to fight the contract: “This really is a testament to the ongoing steady work of not only our working group but also all abolitionist organizers who’ve shown up. We began researching this contract and working on our strategies against it last summer so when the county made the contract public only one day before it was supposed to be voted on in committee, we were ready to take action quickly.” 

The fight is not finished! The final vote on the contract by the Dane County Board of Supervisors is on September 4th. The abolitionist working group urges everyone to express their dissent via email or by attending the meeting. Further information about the contract, including an email template to send to your local county board supervisor, is included here.

Lastly, MADSA delegates to the 2025 DSA National Convention spoke briefly on their experience at the convention. These delegates, voted on by MADSA members to represent the chapter at the convention, traveled to Chicago and met with over 1,300 other socialists from around the country. They heard a keynote speech by Representative Rashida Tlaib, a member of the Metro Detroit chapter of DSA. Key issues discussed and voted on were related to fighting Zionism, labor organizing, democracy within DSA, and more. MADSA delegates all spoke briefly on their feelings about attending, what they learned, what they wished went differently, and how we should move forward as a chapter based on what passed at Convention.

These discussions at our general meetings serve as a positive way for people to vent in a safe space and engage in proactive conversations that can influence our organizing work going forward. During these tumultuous times, chapter general meetings remain a place where like minded comrades can get together and spend some time in each other’s company, knowing that we are all united in our belief that socialism is the best path forward for this country. How do we get everyone else in Madison on board? We ask for anyone reading this to consider attending the monthly chapter meetings, even if you are not a member. Feel free to discuss politics, the future, and important history with your neighbors in MADSA!

Author: Geoff B

Disclaimer

I am a licensed Mental Health Counselor and will be discussing mental health and potential mitigations for some of neoliberalism’s most insidious impacts on one’s psychological state.  Still, none of what I mention here is medical advice and, if you are struggling, please reach out to the appropriate mental health or crisis services provider.

Additionally, while aspects of neoliberalism can affect and/or exacerbate psychological issues, the reality is that any mental health difficulty is influenced by a multitude of biopsychosocial factors, so even if capitalism falls overnight and tomorrow’s brilliant dawn heralds the beginning of the socialist utopia, you should still definitely talk to your doctor before chucking your Lexapro in the trash.

The Issue

Neoliberal Capitalism is wrecking our mental health and is a major contributor to stress, depression, burnout, and nihilism.  

First, it’s important to lay out what exactly I am talking about when addressing neoliberal capitalism, the driving economic force globally since the tawdry, mid-80s affair between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a type of liberalism which favours a global free market without government regulation, with reduction in government spending and businesses and industry controlled and run for profit by private owners.”  On its surface, the definition is dry, boring, and seemingly innocuous.  The most harmful aspects of neoliberalism, however, are seen in what it smuggles in, just under the surface: competition decides what or who is right; government market intervention is inherently destabilizing; humans are consumers; everything should be commodified; inequality is not just fair, but a virtue, as everyone, in the end, gets what they earn.  

The financial and societal impacts of neoliberalism are clear to anyone paying attention. Extreme concentrations of wealth and power and catastrophic levels of inequality are pushing the most people into poverty, marginalization, and disenfranchisement. Just as damaging are the erosion of education systems and the weakening of trade unions.  Then, of course, there are the financial catastrophes:  From the Savings and Loan crisis in the mid-80s (all roads lead back to Ronnie) right through the 2008 Housing Correction to the ongoing post-pandemic inflation, the neoliberal system delivers a regular drumbeat of financial devastation for the common person alongside incredible opportunities for the upward redistribution of wealth.  At this point, it is probably overkill to discuss the details of the numerous neoliberalism-induced wars, famines, and episodes of pestilence during that same period.

What doesn’t get enough press, however, is the psychological toll that all of the above takes on us as individuals.  We struggle to stay financially afloat.  It becomes difficult to envision a bright future for ourselves or our children.  We are algorithmically corralled into isolation, consumerism, and disinformation – all designed to prop up the system.  If one dares point these negative outcomes out, the system responds, “You didn’t grind hard enough, it’s your own fault,” or “You’re just being a snowflake.”  But the truth is, the impact is substantial, measurable, and not grounded in personal failing.  

The so-called deaths of despair – suicide, drug and alcohol overdoses, and alcohol-related liver and coronary disease – have doubled in the US since the 1980s and tripled since the post-war 1940s.  The World Health Organization reports a 13% increase in reported mental health disorders over the past decade, indicating that domestic and global mental health trends coincide.  

Some of the most worrisome examples of the damage done by a capitalistic system supercharged by neoliberal policy are the impacts on young people and children.  For example, Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Anxious Generation, lays out a compelling argument that unregulated social media algorithms are directly responsible for the rapid increase in rates of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders in teens.  (It would be dialectically biased for me to not mention, in their defense, that the algorithms monetizing our kids have driven some very healthy returns for investors.) 

The Solution

Recognizing the impact of the Neoliberal Capitalist system can be overwhelming.  There are, however, viable methods of engaging with the system in healthy, purposeful, and self-preserving ways.  While perhaps not a panacea that guarantees bliss in an oppressive system, we can use practices and tactics found in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to reclaim some peace of mind.  

ACT, in a nutshell, is the idea that: 1) the current situation is, the feelings arising from one’s existence in the situation are, and that one can accept those realities and the associated emotions without needing to endorse them; and 2) one can make a commitment to values-driven action to drive change.  In practical terms, this can be understood in three overarching action items:  Mindful Participation, Solidarity/Mutual Aid Building, and Efforts towards Change.

Mindful Participation

Despite our misgivings, despite seeing the injustices and the ugliness of the current system, our participation in it is (nearly) unavoidable.  (I say “nearly” because while becoming a cave-dwelling hermit is still technically possible, it seems unnecessarily extreme and the WiFi sucks.)  We live, mostly through no fault or choice of our own, in a world where the rent has to be paid, shopping has to be done, and, if you want to hedge against starving in your senior years, saving for retirement in an IRA or 401k is unavoidable.  

We can, however, participate in ways that are mindful of our impact and as aligned as possible with our ethical values.  Employers can be found that are more ethically tolerable than others.  Mortgage payments, rent, and banking are unavoidable, but we do have some level of choice in who we do business with.  And, despite still being embedded in an oppressive system, ethically focused investments can have fewer negative impacts on our world than purely profit/return-driven investing.  We may not be able to step out of the system, but we can certainly be mindful of how we participate and evaluate our actions through the lens of our ethical and moral framework.  Consider it behavioral harm reduction.

There can be a sense that participation is inherently collaboration, making the acceptance part of ACT a bitter pill to swallow.  We can string together two ideas from Michel Foucault (don’t mistake respect for his philosophy as an endorsement of his alleged – ahem –  unsavory behavior in his personal life).  First, he wrote, “Power is exercised through networks, and individuals do not simply circulate in those networks; they are in a position to both submit to and exercise this power,”  and in a related quote, “Where there is power, there is resistance.”  That is to say, resistance can only exist within a system of power.  

Our aforementioned hermit may have avoided the ethical pitfalls of participating in a corrupt system, but fails to take advantage of the power for resistance that is intrinsic to the system itself. (For example, the message of this essay is much more effectively delivered using a MacBook and the internet than it would be sending it via smoke signal from an ideologically-pure cave.)

Creating Solidarity/Mutual Aid

Nearly 1200 words into this and I haven’t brought out the big guns of theory, so let’s rectify that.  Karl Marx, posits in The German Ideology, “Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible.”  Herein lies the first of the two aspects of commitment that we can examine: the recognition that not only are we not alone in our suffering under this system, but that we will only emerge victorious by combining forces and assisting one another.  (After all, as they say, you can’t do socialism without being social, baby!)

Like in our evaluation of mindful participation, we need to parse this through our ethical framework, as well as our individual capacity.  What counts as helping or community building is nearly endless.  If you’re outdoorsy, organize a hiking group; if you’re proud of those baking skills honed during lockdown, bring some cookies to your neighbors; if you can swing it, donate to a worthy local cause.  One of my personal commitments to community building, as a further example, is to always engage the numerous people with whom I have micro-interactions (think cashiers, Uber drivers, receptionists) in a way that shows I see them as a person, not just as a robot performing a public-facing task.  (Sometimes, they look at me like I’m a weirdo.  Sometimes they spend five minutes giving me the down-and-dirty details as to why they’re having a bad day.  So, if I am ever late to a meeting, it’s probably the latter, and certainly not my predilection for losing track of time.)

Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that community building and helping are two-way streets.  None of us are in the position to always be the helper.  Solidarity is likewise strengthened when one reaches out and asks for needed help.  

A common sight, in the early morning hours, in many Southeast Asian countries, are the columns of orange-clad Buddhist monks, winding their way through dense Bangkok neighborhoods or remote Laotian villages.  The faithful line the road, waiting their turn to fill the alms bowls, so as to generate good karma. But, according to Buddhist philosophy, you know who is really racking up the karmic merit points…the monks, by providing those villagers with an opportunity for giving and generosity.

Efforts towards Change

The final leg of the ACT stool we’re crafting is a commitment to collective action aimed at systemic change.  There can be some overlap here with our community building, but these acts are more overtly political; more intentionally designed to upset, alter, or rework the system itself.  

Constructing a new society demands focused, strategic, and coordinated effort.  Plenty of hard work is required. Something as revolutionary as a just and democratic society won’t materialize from thoughts and good vibes.  Luckily, the range of activities that qualify and move us forward is wide and deep.  

-Have you gone to a general meeting and voted on something?  You are a change agent and absolutely pushing us towards a better future.  

-Have you worked a phone bank or marched in a protest rally?  You are a legitimate paradigm-shifting Rock Star.  

-Have you logged in to a DSA meeting via Zoom, listening and learning, trying to find where you can plug in to the organization?  Well, my friend, you are a warrior for humaneness and should regard yourself as such!   

As a warrior, you should certainly become familiar with the sage advice from everyone’s favorite Prussian General, Carl von Clausewitz, “Wearing down the enemy in a conflict means using the duration of the war to bring about a gradual exhaustion of his physical and moral resistance.”  Every action that chips away at neoliberalism, no matter how small, matters.

The Wrap-Up

I am of the opinion that there is plenty in this world to inspire wonder and amazement, but concede that it sometimes feels like we are living through the worst timeline.  We have borne witness to a steady decline in fairness, equality and the political agency of the common person.  We have seen and experienced financial exploitation, social oppression, and the continued concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.  The modern age has driven a sense of psychological brutalism and strategic isolation.  

Dogged, collective action is the singular means by which a more just and humane future society can be won.  But, the strength required to carry out this action cannot exist without individual psychological resilience.  Our ability to protest, organize, or lead is directly tied to our capacity to keep ourselves from succumbing to the immediate pressures of a brutal system.  The coping skills and survivor mindset that can be cultivated with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy tools can not only make the day-to-day more bearable but also increase our ability to stay in the fight.  

None of the actions suggested by the ACT framework are momentous.  They can be executed in small chunks, step-by-step, inch-by-inch.  Even if we’re moving an inch at a time, we’re still gaining ground, and, in good time, will arrive at a better place, personally and as a society.  I am truly optimistic about that.

The post Acceptance, Commitment, and Class Struggle: Maintaining Resilience During Late-Stage Neoliberal Capitalism appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

To my comrades in the arts,

I write to you today, hopeful that I can answer one of the most important questions of our time.

This question sits at the back of my mind, and no doubt, most likely yours. It festers and manifests into either hope or defeat.

It inspires many, but it also leaves us with feelings of conflict. This, combined with the constant attacks from those in power and those who have been brainwashed to believe they will someday join their oppressors on that blood-soaked throne, can even make us feel unworthy and like impostors to the cause.

The question I’m here to ask today, to you, myself, and our allies across the nation and around the world, is this: How, without taking up arms, can I truly call myself a revolutionary?

We watch as the vampiric class takes our pleas for a better society as at best a tantrum, and at worst, an attack on their so-called “free world.”

We watch as the left hand of the establishment monster pats us on the head and sends us on our way, then reaches over to the right to collect its share of the wealth and power. All the while, that same right hand just moments before, with a clenched fist, slammed down and snuffed out the cries of the working class.

It’s by acknowledging that these are the likely outcomes that many of us may be too afraid to march or speak out, with the fear that you can just be abducted, sent to a place you may not even know, or risk losing what little stability you have in an already broken, unjust, and unstable system.

And all this, again, begs the question: How, without risking what little I have, can I truly be a revolutionary?

And throughout countless hours of reflection, sleepless nights, and a painful analysis of the hate rampant on social media, it’s that I’ve recognized what can be one of the most revolutionary acts of our modern times.

And that, my friends, is to create.

For too long, they have told us that our lives as creatives are meaningless. That our pursuit of the arts and knowledge about everything that makes us human is not worth it because it is not profitable.

That to live a fulfilling life, you need to give yourself to a system that does as little as possible to ensure your wellbeing in the name of profit.

Sacrifice what little time you have to pursue your passions to make even more money, and to leave little energy in your reserve so as not to question or step out of line.

To that I say, be relentless in your rebellion.

And by that I mean we must execute the perversion that is this self-hatred and submission to capitalist degradation.

Creativity feeds the human spirit, consequently fueling the desire to learn, and as we’ve seen, education is what tyrants fear most.

Because it’s through education that we can make vital steps toward achieving solidarity and collective class consciousness.

So take everything going on around you

And write a poem,
Draw a picture,
Make a song,
Pen an essay,
Record a video,

Use the arts to fuel the revolution. To create the blueprint for a world that values people over profits.

And if you say to yourself you’re not an artist, I challenge you to prove yourself wrong.

And when you do, you will realize that you are a revolutionary.

The post You Are a Revolutionary: A Letter to Working-Class Creatives first appeared on Salt Lake DSA.

The following is an article first published on August 10th on Lisa’s substack.

Hundreds of cars, many from out of state, crept past [on August 9th] in Brunswick, Maine as 43 of us held our monthly statewide coalition protest on Route 1 covering all four corners of a sprawling intersection. Some banged or just held empty pots; one held a shrouded baby to represent all those killed or starved by the U.S.-Israel’s genocide in Gaza. A musician just departed from a summer program at nearby Bowdoin College had passed on his signboard reading: IF YOU’VE WONDERED WHAT YOU’D DO IN A GENOCIDE, YOU’RE DOING IT NOW. A fierce messenger, he will be missed.

People had come from as far away as New York and in Maine from Bass Harbor. Most were boomers but there were young people, too, including two cute kids that waved Palestinian flags and a cute dog named Raffi who’s an old hand at protesting. We made some new friends and greeted some old friends we hadn’t seen in a while.

Bannermeister Lou was out with another of his high impact messages but was told by the owner of the laundromat on the corner that she “agreed” with us but if he didn’t untie it from their sign pole she would call the police. Also that his car would be towed if he was parked there (he wasn’t). Lou and I agreed we think of snappy comebacks after it’s too late e.g. As a young student of history the essential question was: how could the German people have allowed the Nazis to do the Holocaust? Now I know how that happened.

It was a great day to use the banner my husband and I created this week using materials and methods from the Backbone Campaign. With 15 inch high orange letters held aloft by painters’ extension poles, it made for a message highly visible even to the most distant cars in line waiting for the light to change.

For legibility we’d added a black sheet behind the message STOP ARMING GENOCIDE and that made holding the banner in a light breeze something like sailing. Ever mindful of the wind direction, we leaned into it with our bodies to keep the thing aloft. It’s meant to be used without the sheet on freeway overpasses where the sky is the background. We’ll try that soon, too.

Some images of resistance are new while others are sadly still relevant 80 years on from the Nakba. Handala on this man’s shirt is the cartoon character of an impoverished Palestinian child who keeps his back turned on Zionist occupiers.

The police kept a close eye on us but never approached, though at one point a Palestinian flag flew from the tree outside their station.

By contrast, in the UK, 400+ people were being arrested in Parliament Square holding signs that said I OPPOSE GENOCIDE – I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION — a proscribed group that takes direct action targeting weapons manufacturers. I not only support them, I try to emulate them every chance I get.

In Brunswick we were standing about four blocks from General Dynamics with our big banner facing that direction. Did they get the message? Hundreds of motorists honked, waved, cheered, and flashed us peace signs while passing by. A handful yelled “Israel” or gave thumbs down or middle fingers. Every outing shows us how much the tide of public opinion is turning against the Zionist genocide in Palestine.

Activists in southern Maine reported that the sign in front of GD’s Saco bomb factory is now missing. Evidence of attempts at cleaning off red paint seem to have damaged the granite marker and its surround. How will people find this popular protest spot now?

Before the summer is out we will definitely be bringing our new banner to the regular Friday afternoon protests there.

As summer concludes you can join us in Unity, Maine to share your message with hundreds of people on their way to the Common Ground Fair on Saturday, September 20. We’ll start at noon rather than our customary 1:30pm so protestors have time to go to the fair after if so desired. Here’s a link to coverage of our outing there in 2024.

The post New Banner, New Location, New Friends appeared first on Pine & Roses.

By: Joanne Coutts

This article was originally published in Riverwise magazine.

By April 2020, as the world grappled with the harsh reality that the COVID pandemic was not going to be over quickly and that not everyone who contracted the virus could be saved, I had been volunteering to provide humanitarian aid in the Sonoran Desert surrounding Ajo, Arizona for about two years.

I was also grappling with another harsh reality: no matter how much water I put out in the desert some of the people crossing were still going to die. In the end, although the capacity for providing humanitarian aid remained solid all through spring and early summer of 2020 and we put out a lot of water, that summer came to be known in the humanitarian aid community as the “Summer of SAR” (Search and Rescue/Recovery). Perhaps because, or in spite of the pandemic, people continued to cross the border. The heat rose. The monsoons never really came to the west desert around Ajo. And the calls to the volunteer SAR line kept on coming.

Simultaneously, around the U.S. white activists were being asked to and beginning to question narratives of “white saviorism” in their work. For me the intersection of the reality that I could not put out enough water to save everyone’s life with the conversations surrounding white saviorism sparked an internal questioning of how I might reconsider my relationship to providing humanitarian aid. I very much wanted to move towards a perspective of solidarity — of recognizing, highlighting, and foregrounding the partnership of equals between U.S.-based volunteers and people crossing the desert in an inequitable place and time.

Solidarity takes many forms. It means not victimizing, disenfranchising, or denying the agency of people crossing the desert in our narratives of the border. For me, this includes not using or co-opting their stories, their experiences, or their deaths in my own quest for personal or community resolution and redemption. It means taking to heart the guidance of Gangula activist Lilla Watson, who reminded us that “If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time… But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” It also means telling the story of my own experiences, thoughts, and feelings to give a glimpse into why I choose to show up for humanitarian aid at the so-called U.S./Mexico border. The following is an excerpt from a journal I kept for a week in April 2020.

The only experiences we can know, stories we can tell, thoughts and feelings we can share, are our own. (Not necessarily. Solidarity also means being able to empathize and use that understanding for advocacy when others can’t. This means being able to understand how to tell stories without co-opting them for transactional purposes). Perhaps something like: For me, this means not just using the stories of others or co-opting their experiences and pain to fuel my own needs for resolution or redemption, but understanding deeply that my own liberation is connected to that of everyone’s, and providing through my own experiences a way for others to understand why I show up for others in the way I do.

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Today was a chill day. It was a logistics day because we have received a waypoint (GPS coordinates) in the Bryan Mountains from one of the SAR hotlines of a person who was left behind by his group about a month ago.

There are many reasons (blisters, dehydration, exhaustion, death to name a few) that cause groups to leave one or more of their members behind. Sometimes, when we find someone who has died, I think about what the rest of their group could have gone through having to leave that person behind. I think about how clear and distinctive water drop locations seem in my mind in the moment. How quickly the image loses focus. How when I try to describe them to other volunteers, I forget details. Does this happen to groups? Do people tell themselves they are going to get help? Feel that the spot is ingrained in their memories? Only to find that when they call the SAR hotline and try to recall the location it has vanished like a dust devil into the enormity of the desert.

None of us has ever been to the Bryan Mountains. We will have to hike 11 miles from the nearest road, the Camino del Diablo, just to get to our search area. In addition to completing a thorough search, we will also take the opportunity to explore the area and try to understand how people are traveling through it. To accomplish all this, we are spending the weekend out there.

I feel that no one is interested in the details of my food, camping, COVID safety and truck preparations. So, I am going to take this opportunity to share something I get in my feelings about.

That something is — items left in the desert by people traveling. Generally, I believe in the principle of “leave no trace.” I pack out my trash and pick up water bottles that we have left in the desert at our drops. But, when it comes to items left behind in the desert by people traveling, I definitely do not pick them up and pack them out. Why not?

First, I do not consider these items to be “trash.” I think of these items as artifacts, tools that people have made a conscious choice about, for example, pantouflas. Pantouflas are carpet slippers that people wear over their shoes to cover their footprints and make it harder for Border Patrol to track them. Like pottery, or other cultural artifacts that you see in museums, pantouflas have a cultural relevance to life in the Sonoran Desert in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Second, I see these items as providing signs and guides for others traveling through the desert. They might help someone to navigate the easiest way through an area. This is especially true when there are multiple apparent canyons going into a mountain range. Some of the canyons will dead end or lead to high cliffs. By following the signs of other travelers, people may be able to identify which canyon leads through the mountains. Items can also identify safe or unsafe places to rest depending on what they are or how they are arranged. For instance, randomly left clothing and blankets can indicate a safe place to sleep, but a circle of camouflage clothing, accompanied by small Kirkland water bottles can indicate a detention site — that is a place where a group has been arrested by Border Patrol.

Third, sometimes items can be reused, a water bottle that has recently been left can replace one that is leaking, or it could be cut in half to make a bowl for eating the beans that we leave or to collect water from rain or a natural rock tank.

I have ideological reasons for not picking up items too.

I want people visiting the desert to see the impact of Prevention through Deterrence on people and on the land. Sometimes the number of items can be overwhelming. Every water bottle, every tuna packet, every backpack, blanket, jacket, pair of jeans, shoe represents someone who has traveled through the heat and surveillance to save themselves or to search for a better life. It is hard to believe that anyone could see the endurance and resilience that these items represent and not feel compassion for their fellow humans.

Finally, there is the hypocrisy of the land managers, who complain vociferously about the environmental impact of items left behind by travelers in a desert that is, and since 1941 has been, an active military training ground. We find all kinds of military trash, from bullets to tow darts, flares, and even full-size missiles. The military says it is too hard to collect their trash because of the terrain and distances they must travel to pick it up. Usually, I am all about community rather than individual responsibility, but as the military has dropped more “trash” in the desert than anyone else and as it is militarization of the desert that is causing people to travel through wilderness areas leaving items behind, it is, perhaps, the military’s responsibility to clean it up.

Friday, April 17, 2020

Summer is coming! Knowing that we had an 11.2-mile hike just to get to our search location in the Bryan Mountains, we left Ajo in the afternoon for the 40ish-mile drive to camp in the Agua Dulce Mountains so that we would be up and walking by 5 a.m. tomorrow.

By 7 p.m. in the evening, everyone was at the campsite. We ate dinner, then planned for the next day’s search around the campfire.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

This morning, we woke up to a beautiful desert sunrise. There was little time to enjoy it. We had a long hike and the heat of the day was coming. We loaded our packs, wolfed down some breakfast and set off across the San Cristobal valley towards our search location in the Bryan Mountains.

I know full well that when I talk about Search and Rescue/Recovery to people who have never participated in it in the Sonoran Desert, the term conjures up images of helicopters, well organized lines of searchers, 4-wheel drive trucks, drones, and high-tech navigation equipment. For us, however, SAR is a complex, messy tangle of information of varying degrees of accuracy and relevance and random groups of people walking on foot using handheld GPS units and distinctly low-tech walkie-talkies.

Normally on SAR we would walk in a line, each person spaced 50 feet apart. We would have a left and right line anchor on either end and a line manager in the middle making sure that we are all walking at the same pace and that everyone is accounted for when we go through washes or thick desert brush. Today, because we had such a great distance to walk just to get to the search area, we used a restricted administrative road — a road that the public is allowed to walk on but only the various arms of Law Enforcement are allowed to drive on — as the fastest way to travel across the valley. This strategy gave us more time to do a proper search once we got to the Bryan Mountains.

And we walked and walked, and it got hotter and hotter, and we walked some more. We stopped chatting and kept walking. After about five hours of walking, we hunted for lunchtime shade and ate and then started walking again. Finally, at about 2 p.m., after seven hours of walking, we arrived at the waypoint we had been given where the man we were looking for had been left behind. And there was nothing but desert. We did not find any sign of the man or any sign of his group.

Like the desert itself, information for SAR can be an illusion. Time, space and distance look different from different places. A slight rise in the terrain or a wash with tall trees can make a mountain look closer or a valley look narrower than it really is. Also with SAR, one piece of information, such as a waypoint, can seem larger and more important than it is. Another piece of information that might seem small and insignificant can lead the search team to the correct place.

Just because we found nothing at the waypoint, we did not immediately decide that there was no-one or nothing to be found.

We rested, unpacked our packs, and set up camp. Then, somewhat refreshed, we set out with only essential items, water, a little food, GPS, marking tape and walkie talkies for a line search of the area north of the waypoint. We spread out with the west line anchor on the lowest slopes of the Bryans and the east line anchor (me) on the fringe of the San Cristobal valley.

We walked slowly, checking under palo verde and mesquite trees, looking in washes and stopping to investigate items left behind in the desert. Our line moved deliberately and thoroughly north for just over an hour. Then we stopped, the sun was starting to set, and the Bryan Mountains threw a big shadow over the valley. It was time to turn back to reach our camp before it got dark. We bumped the line out to the east to continue our search as we went southward. I moved about a quarter mile out towards the center of the valley and the west anchor, moved to about the line that I had taken coming North. We returned in the same methodical way that we had come.

We did not find the person.

Days like these in the desert bring up so many questions. There are obvious logistical ones like: Was the waypoint wrong? Did we look in the correct directions? Where should we look tomorrow? How much time should we spend doing general exploration to gain information that might be helpful for future SARs? There are also emotional questions: Is it OK if we do not find the person? Is it OK if we laugh, tell stories, and generally enjoy each other’s company while we are on a SAR? Is it allowable to love and appreciate the beauty of the desert while looking for someone who has died in it?

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Back in the day when I had a steady income, I used to play Texas Hold ’Em. Not particularly well, but I was an almost decent recreational player. Aside from the obvious benefit of occasionally winning money, I learned a lot from the game which I have applied to my life as an humanitarian aid volunteer.

Texas Hold ’Em Poker is, according to Annie Duke, and I concur, a game of “decision making under conditions of incomplete information.” What counts is the quality of the decision regardless of its outcome. Hold ’Em also requires you to take the long view, to accept that the universe owes you nothing. Just because you have patiently folded bad starting cards for hours does not mean you now deserve to get dealt pocket Aces. Poker teaches you to maintain a Zen state of detachment, to hold the outcome you are looking for lightly and accept that it may or may not come.

All these lessons apply to doing humanitarian aid work in the Sonoran Desert. Not that people’s lives in the desert are a “game” in the frivolous sense of the word. Clearly there is nothing frivolous in the disappearance of thousands of people as a result of “Prevention through Deterrence.” It is a “game” in the sense that to recover the disappeared and deliver supplies to help people keep themselves alive requires strategy, adapting to change and trying to think as both your allies and your opponents might think, to aid the former and outsmart the latter.

Our SAR this past weekend required using all my poker skills.

We began the search with a waypoint. In the context of the Search and Recovery, a waypoint is very little information. With no corroboratory information, such as the starting location of the group, their destination, how long they had been walking before they left the man behind, which mountains they had passed or were headed towards, a waypoint is almost no information at all. In this situation of incomplete information, the first decision is, “do we go out and look for this person at all?”

In this case the answer to that question was “yes.” It was “yes” for some practical reasons. First, we had the capacity in terms of people ready, willing and able to mount a search. We also had a bigger picture motive of exploring an area (the Bryan Mountains) that none of us had ever been to before. It was also “yes” for existential reasons, even if we did not find him, the very fact of looking demonstrated that this man was a person worth looking for. That seven people hiked 22 miles to look for him (even though we do not know his name or family) hopefully went out into the universe and he and they got a moment of a sense that some people cared.

As we got closer to the waypoint the sense of expectation grew. It is human nature to get excited when you feel you are close to achieving your goal, especially one that has required the exertion of a great deal of physical and mental effort. Here is where poker comes in again: the fact of expending the effort does not equate to deserving the expected outcome. The person we were looking for was not at the waypoint. That does not invalidate the decision to look for him. It does not invalidate the effort expended. It is simply the unexpected result of a good decision.

Next we did a grid search, now a Zen poker mindset is most needed and hardest to maintain. You have been sitting at the table for hours, you have been getting dealt Queen/Three off suit for hours. You want something to happen. You envision Aces or Kings coming your way as the cards are dealt and you peek at the corner of the cards, Q3 again. This happens to me a lot on searches. I have been walking for hours, looking under trees for hours and I want to find the person. I start to imagine finding them under the next tree, in the next wash, over the next saddle. I look and there is still just the desert. I tell myself to let go, to hold the thought of the person lightly, to think about something else. Sometimes that works after a fashion. Sometimes I become so focused on trying to hold the person lightly I end up clinging to them tighter than ever.

Back in Ajo tonight, looking at the stars, I remember that this is a “long game.” I believe that the universe knows we looked for this man and I believe that one day, if we all hold him lightly and constantly enough, he will be found.

Now say his name aloud:

“Desconocido.”

“Presente!”

Epilogue

Reading this four years later brings back memories of the beautiful community we shared in the desert during the height of the COVID pandemic. How special it was to be able to walk with that group out to the Bryan Mountains. There are parts that I still agree with and parts where my thinking has changed since 2020. It would be a sorry thing if my thinking had not grown and evolved in the intervening years.

I continue to be drawn back to Ajo every year by my frustration at the inhumanity of U.S. immigration policy. And by my need to do something, anything to contribute to ameliorating the devastating human costs of “Prevention through Deterrence” I am also drawn by my desire to just be in the desert. I don’t know if I am any closer to resolving how to be in genuine solidarity with people crossing the desert. I cannot imagine the external pressures and internal strengths that would get me to pack just one backpack and leave behind the life and home I have built for myself. I do not like to think of people crossing the desert as “needy, desperate migrants.” I believe that humanitarian aid work and the language we use to describe it must recognize the agency, need and determination as well as the desperation in people’s journeys. As we move deeper into our technological and AI age, I become ever more acutely aware that people crossing the desert today are the vanguard. We will all be learning from them in a future where all our liberation is bound up in the freedom of people to move across “borders.”

My favorite day’s writing is Thursday, the day I talk about items left behind in the desert. I still stand solidly behind my arguments for not picking up items left by people traveling. I wince a little when I read that I wrote the words “leave no trace” and “wilderness.” When people say those words to me now my hackles rise. What wilderness? The Sonoran Desert has always been a place of people and communities and travel. Humans and their movement are as much a part of life in the desert as pronghorn, pack rats and saguaros.

The intervening years have also added another layer of complexity to my relationship with humanitarian aid. I have been thinking and learning about the relationship between our work with the Sonoran Desert’s Indigenous O’odham himdag (way of life) and the land itself. Today, I try to think of humanitarian aid as the current iteration of a centuries old desert culture of giving assistance to travelers and caring for water sources. It feels important to me to be in solidarity with land and water as well as people. The Sonoran Desert once provided water for travelers naturally. Now it is unable to do this on its own due to climate change and the never-ending thirst of cities like Phoenix, Tucson and Buckeye. The honor of creating and caring for water sources is an opportunity to try and practice valuing and learning from Indigenous ways of living with the land and to reestablish and rebalance my relationship with my human, plant, animal, mountain, rock, and water relatives.

Joanne Coutts is an independent cartographer and activist whose practice is centered on the connections between our relationships with land and water, and commitment to humanitarian aid and solidarity in response to climate change. Her current projects use counter-mapping to support humanitarian aid at the so-called US/Mexico border and contribute to efforts for water rights, and rights for water, in Detroit. She is a member of Metro Detroit DSA.

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In Search of Solidarity: Reflections on a Weekend of Search and Discovery in the Sonoran Desert was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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