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Talk:Uses of torture in recent times/Archive 1

Bias Against the U.S.
You keep posting these biased reports about the use of torture within countries and cultures that don't tolerate it. But you won't allow any reports on countries that use it every day, such as Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Niger, etc...

You are a biased fool.

Epsilon3 02:17, 18 December 2004 (UTC)

New to this article, and noted. In fact the article has encyclopedic potential but was heavily slanted both in terms of geography (as stated above) and organisation (split into "democratic" and "non democratic"). It also had a somewhat POV introduction which didnt set out the background too well.

Ive had a go at these, the lack of info on other countries will doubtless cause edit wars but remember, NPOV means show ALL sides and let the reader decide. So any countries missing, just add them. FT2 04:01, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Record in case needed
I have just had a personal attack posted by User:162.97.100.170 signed "Epsilon3" on my talk page, following the expansion on this article noted above. Link here. This is apparently the same user as vandalised this article a couple of days ago, and has had vandalism reverted 4 times already today (Dec.18 2004, see article history). Should this user cause further trouble please feel free to inform me or to cite this as evidence to any request for comment, mediation or arbitration. He may also be the same as User:68.206.32.245 (see ). FT2 18:38, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism in Progress report
See WP:VIP for Dec.18 2004

For the record, I also gather a ban was also fixed either by user:Hadal or User:Schneelocke on this vandal. FT2 19:13, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Birmingham six

 * Birmingham pub bombing Birmingham pub bombing
 * The Birmingham six had the most obvious signs of maltreatment when seem in public.
 * The court of appeal ruled the confessions worthless.
 * The six alleged torture.
 * No one has been found guilty of torturing the six, BUT the legal use of issue estoppel makes this of little value in deciding if torture was or was not used.
 * If torture was used, there is no evidence at all that HMG condoned it.
 * If torture was used, then it is a classic case of why torture is discredited as a method, because the confession so obtained can not be trusted and this increases the likelihood of a miscarriage of justice, if the Jury is not directed by the Judge to consider that a confession was extracted under torture and may not be relied upon. Philip Baird Shearer 16:41, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Old version: "however if they were, it was not authorised by the British government, and it would show how unreliable information extrated by torture can be."

New version: "The British government denied this was the case, or that torture would have been authorised."

Criticisms of old version. The old version makes 2 POV assertions:
 * 1) That "if anything happened it wasn't authorised".  But clearly if something did happen, some official of authority authorised it. So there is an inherent POV here, "if anything happened it wasn't supposed to have happened". The article takes the British Govt POV on it. I don't think thats appropriate, either to imply by doubt whether or not torture took place, or that if it did, it was unauthorised.  We don't know either of these authoritatively.
 * 2) The article then draws a conclusion, "if they were tortured it shows how worthless torture is for confessions".  Again whilst that may be true, it implies a POV in the specific case of the Birmingham 6. That is not a lesson of the B'6, because it generalises heavily, and assumes they were tortured (if they werent then no lesson on the value of torture confessions could logically be drawn).

By contrast, the new version covers the ground which should be covered - namely, that the govt denied that torture was used (which is more NPOV than implying doubt ourselves), or authorised. It does not form an opinion that "the lesson of the Birmingham 6 is that if torture was used it proves it was worthless", because we don't know if it was used.

If we are that sure of our facts, then the old version should say "A court found they were tortured, and decided that the confessions were worthless", which is also NPOV, and not hedge around by saying "If they were...".

 * In June 1975 fourteen prison officers were charged with varying degrees of assault but were found not guilty. In 1977 the six men pressed charges against the West Midlands police; these charges were dismissed under issue estoppel.... New evidence of police fabrication and suppression of evidence, the discrediting of both the confessions and the 1975 forensic evidence led to the Crown offering no case against the men. The courts never in your words "found they were tortured". Philip Baird Shearer

For these reasons I have reverted to the NPOV wording on this issue. FT2 10:16, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

 * "The British government denied this was the case". In Britain thanks to the independence of the courts, the government does not to decide if a criminal act of torture was performed on the Birmingham 6, the English courts do that. But because of Issue Estoppel the case is to use a Scottish legal expression is "not proven". Hence the wording "however if they were". This is because you may think they were, I may think they, but it has not been proven. Your wording implies that the government has a constitutional ability to decide on this issue it does not. If you have a source where a British minister made such a statment please post it here.

I would argue that as British ministers can not confirm or deny that torture took place, so they never needed to state "that torture would [not] have been authorised". If you have a source where a miniter says this then please post it.

 * "however if they were", "it was not authorised by the British government" is a statement of fact. I have never seen a document or a witness statement presented to the courts, or to a public inquiry, which say that any illegal interrogation methods were authorised by a higher authority than those who were accused of torture. If you have such a source then please post it here and we can change the wording and quote the source.

 * If they were tortured ... "it would show how unreliable information extracted by torture can be." is true because they were innocent and it was the confessions which was a major contributor to the jury finding them guilty.

I will put back the original statment and if after my explanation you are still not happy perhpase we could use a bland statment like this one: "After two trials and several appeals to higher courts, no one was ever found guilt of torture to back up the allegations." Philip Baird Shearer 23:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I have left your approach, with minor tweaks to wording which casts it slightly cleaner (to my mind). Any better? FT2 12:57, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

If this was the case, it appears not to have been officially authorised by the British government, and shows the unreliable nature of information extracted by torture.

 * It second clause has a problem because there is no evidence that it was unofficially authorised either.
 * I have problems with the last clause as you have it at the moment thought because it reads that torture did take place, It has to be more conditional.

How about: ''If they were, it appears not to have been authorised by the British government ''and it would show the unreliable nature of information extracted by torture.

If it is written like this one can break it into two sentences.
 * If they were, it appears not to have been authorised by the British government.
 * if they were, it would show the unreliable nature of information extracted by torture

Which I think is a better construction than the current one. As we are not miles apart I have not changed the current wording and look forward to you thoughts on my proposed wording. Philip Baird Shearer 19:39, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * As you have not replied I am replacing you text with my tweeks. Philip Baird Shearer 10:31, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Introduction

 * ...However, it has been used throughout history, and, despite its prohibition, it is still used by many governments.

 * Realistically, torture has been a tool of many states throughout history and for many states it remains so (unofficially and when expedient and desired) today.

FT2 it seems to me that the two sentences say the same thing. Is there any way you can combine them? Philip Baird Shearer 10:30, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Try that. Edit it if its not perfect :)  FT2 04:49, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

done ;-) --Philip Baird Shearer 08:37, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hi all, I really like intros which are short and to the point, that provide concise overview about the subject of an article. I strive for one paragraph of three to four sentences. Hence, I have pruned the intro along these lines.

Since this article is ancillary to the article [torture, we don't need to cover ground best covered there, especially in the intro. So, we don't really need to define torture, excerpt perhaps parenthetically. Some of the other information belongs either in the body of the text or in the parent article.

A couple of specific points:

I deleted this cumbsome, largely redundant sentence: :''Realistically, torture has been a tool of many states throughout history and for many states it remains so (unofficially and when expedient and desired) today.

And, please, let's avoid these kinds of weasly expressions unless absolutely necessary:
 * to use techniques which appear to be a form of torture

-- Viajero 15:06, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Israel
I feel the treatment of Israel is unfair. Firstly, it does not even mention the landmark 1999 Supreme Court ruling (http://62.90.71.124/files_eng/94/000/051/a09/94051000.a09.HTM) that all torture - even moderate physical pressure - is illegal. This makes Israel the ONLY country in the world to have outlawed any form of physical violence in a non-military setting. To say the least, this is impressive. Please can people read the Supreme Court ruling, and then decide how to incorporate it into the article. Batmanand 17:37, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * You said that "Israeli law - technically - allows it". Thus it's not illegal. // Liftarn

I assume you are referring to my discussion of the Supreme Court ruling on the Torture talk page. When I say technically allows it, I mean that there is a clause in an Israeli Law that basically says there is a legal defense called the "necessary defense". This is true of just about every country in the world. For example, if I am a fire-arms trained police officer, and I shoot a man who is carrying a piece of wood because I thought at the time that his action would harm me and others, I can use the "necessary defense" to say it was necessary, in that situation, from my viewpoint, to shoot him; even though shooting unarmed people is illegal. Torture, or even moderate physical pressure, are not legal in Israel. However, there are legal defenses for those who could be tried for them. --Batmanand 16:01, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Batmanand, your wording and lack of any recognition of the long history of torture in Israel above smacks of the logic of an apologist for Israeli military tactics, just good news talking points with no background. You speak of a 1999 ruling as though that erases decades of state sanctioned torture? Let's visit the "night of the broken clubs", Nablus, January 20, 1988, a well documented case of the Israeli government ordering soldiers to maim Arab civilians of both sexes and any age, at random, simply to terrorize the populace. Yehuda Meir, at one time one of the highest ranking officers in the IDF, has been tape-recorded jovially speaking about that night and of many other instances of the various acts of torture committed under his watch. Yet Judge Advocate General Strashnow, a man who oversaw hundreds of cases of alleged torture by the Israeli military, immediately dismissed this case, as he did nearly every single one, apparently with no real review whatsoever. This was condemned not only by HRW and the UN, but Israels own ACRI. They took the case to the Supreme Court, who, in an unprecedented act at the time, not only took the case; they also forced the civilian prosecutor to file charges, who had until then, despite his own "investigation", supported Strashnows ruling. Despite Herculean efforts by the IDF to derail the investigation and proceedings, Strashnow was eventually ordered to court marshal Meir, in what was intended by the court to be a recognition of the action that night and lead to further indictments. Meir was subsequently slapped on the wrist by JAG Strashnow, and despite Judge Levin of the high courts written position that "everyone involved" should be penalized, the IDF made sure no one else was ever indicted. While google should give you hundreds of references for this incident, I will suggest "Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People", John Conroy, 2000.

I use this example because it was the first time Israeli courts tried to do anything about its rampant government sanctioned torture. Now, I think instead of writing another paragraph to illustrate a similar example that has occurred since 1988, I'll let any interested souls look for themselves to find the dozens of documented cases that are out there. Lastly, I'm not trying to argue Israel is any worse than, say, the U.S, the U.K, Algeria, various gulf states, Syria, North Korea, etc., etc., etc...I actually wouldn't try to "rate" any government an a "torture scale". They're all sickening. My response isn't intended to demonize Israel. I'm saying don't be so damn pious, and do enough research to realize Israel's no different than all the rest. KVND 00:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand that torture is also illegal in China.--Streona (talk) 01:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Israel changes
I made some changes based on your comments Batmanand, it did look a bit unbalanced after I read your post. Hope you find it better now.

TonyClarke 22:45, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - the article is now better from this point of view. It is still biased against democracies, but I think this is inevitable, for the simple reason that they have the most infomation coming out of them! --Batmanand 20:28, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So biased it's barely useful
While I take Batmanand's point about lack of info, this article is so slanted it seems hardly worth bothering with. There are paragraphs on the Birmingham 6 (even though there doesn't seem to be any evidence of torture) but nothing on North Korea, Iraq, etc. Surely whoever created this article could have found evidence, for example, on Argentina in the 70s or 80s, or Guatemala. It's not as if this information isn't out there. In fact the UK section is particularly strange - is the 1977 case really eligible? After all, it was ruled not to be torture. As for Bread Basket, does that really qualify? Degrading treatment almost certainly, but torture? JW 12:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed Sentence
"This practice is seen as ironic, given America's strong emphasis on the values of freedom and self-determination." I think this sentence was beyond a reasonable amount of POV. Its not wikipedia's job to decide what is and what isn't ironic. Frederick12 22:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

US Expansion
yes, the US section was long, but it focused on individual cases in the last three years, when a pattern of domestic torture exists. it's about time to make this a separate article and condense the description here.--Carwil 19:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed pending sourcing and verification
I took out the following text

 * Western democracies tend to have fewer but far higher profile cases, compared to more numerous, lower profile cases in other countries, which introduces a significant element of geographic bias in reporting.

because the weight of evidence of systematic torture in prisons in the US, immigration detention facilities in various Western democracies, against political prisoners in Spain and Italy... is quite overwhelming. They are neither consistently high profile, nor infrequently numerous (see the prison torture additions I made to the United States). It's probably accurate to say that majority groups in Western democracies have an expectation of living free from torture which their counterparts in authoritarian states do not. I realize this was an attempt to overcome reporting bias, but it carries its own internal bias.--Carwil 07:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

US Domestic Police and Prisons
The US is a very ligitious society. If there is torture in by US police and prison service officers then there will be lots of court cases which can be quoted as proof of this. There is no need to use blog sites as sources of alleged torture.

Torture: "does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions." This puts the whole question of Supermax prisons using torture into question. Are there any court cases which confirm that torture is taking place?

Rape unless "intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession..." is not torture. Even if this rape "were done for purposes as obtaining from her or a third person information or a confession", a court would have to decide if the rape inflicted such pain or suffering that it constituted torture. Are there any court cases which confirm that rape has been used by the Police or Prison staff to torture anyone? --Philip Baird Shearer 11:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Information and confession are two of the reasons for torture, punishment is the third.

 * On the legal status of rape as a form of torture, see ALRC:Recognition of rape by State-officials as torture.
 * See Prosecutor v. Tihomir Blaskic - Trial Chamber I - Judgment - IT-95-14 (2000) ICTY 4 (3 March 2000) (Appeal) - a stomach churning case. The description and the judgement makes a clear distincion between rape and torture eg:
 * "[t]he particular forms of unlawful act (murder, enslavement, deportation, torture, rape, imprisonment etc.) are less crucial to the definition than the factors of scale and deliberate policy, as well as in their being targeted against the civilian population in whole or in part"
 * So I am not sure where the ALRC gets "and by recognizing rape as a crime against humanity and as torture". Yes to the CAH, but I do not see in that case the direct link between rape and torture which is made in the ALRC article. Perhapse you would like to look through it case and direct me to the clause. The AYDIN v TURKEY, Judgment of the ECtHR, 25 September 1997 IIHRL 111 (25 September 1997). In this case rape along with a beating was part of an interrogation and quite rightly included by the court as part of a torture session. This does not mean though that all rape is torture. As Amnesty International submits in the court case " C. Submissions of Amnesty International:...noted that the rape of a female detainee by an agent of the State for purposes such as the extraction of information or confessions or the humiliation, punishment or intimidation of the victim was considered to be an act of torture under current interpretations of international human rights standards" Or put another way to be torture, the rape must be coupled with the motives of the perpetrator expressed in UNCAT Article 1 "Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession..." --Philip Baird Shearer 13:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, Amnesty International claims:
 * Many acts of sexual violence - including rape, gang rape, abduction and sexual slavery, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, forced maternity, and sexual mutilation - constitute torture under customary international law. These acts are considered war crimes [in the context of war] and constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Convention.

 * Rape in a war is a war crime and mass rape may be a crime against humanity, but a rape is not torture unless "intentionally inflicted...'' (See above) --Philip Baird Shearer 12:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Supermax units are fairly unique to the US, and law has not settled on their status as torture. However, numerous rights advocates have described them as torture, or as "inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment" which is also prohibited under the torture convention. See this briefing to the UN Committee Against Torture by Amnesty International:

 * Amnesty International believes that conditions in many US supermax facilities are far more punitive than is required for legitimate security purposes and constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of international standards.(42) ...
 * Although a few courts have ordered changes to some aspects of the operation of some units, no court to date has found that long-term supermax confinement per se violates the US Constitution. In general the US courts have given broad leeway to states to impose harsh conditions of segregated custody on security grounds.

 * This does not make the conditions torture --Philip Baird Shearer 12:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Conditions in US supermax units have, however, been criticized by international bodies, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Human Rights Committee.(46) Similar conditions elsewhere have also been found to violate the international prohibition of torture or ill-treatment. (47) In its concluding observations on the initial report of the USA under the ICCPR in March 1995, the Human Rights Committee recommended that the US Government should scrutinize conditions in maximum security prisons with a view to guaranteeing that persons deprived of their liberty be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and implementing the UN Standard Minimum Rules....(48) However, no such scrutiny has taken place, and the federal government has continued to operate units in the federal system and fund the building of some state supermax facilities.(49)

 * Ill-treatment and torture are two differnt things. There is nothing there which says that the conditions amount to torture. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

 * (46) E/CN.4/1999/61 Report of the SR on torture, 12.01.99.United States of America, 739, 740; and CCPR/C/79/Add 50: “..The Committee is particularly concerned at the conditions of detention in certain maximum security prisons which are incompatible with article 10 of the Covenant ..”.

 * Which convention? Does it mean ICCPR?  Please see the Wikipedia section CCPR: National implementation and effects. Article 10 says
 * All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. 2. (a) Accused persons shall, save in exceptional circumstances, be segregated from convicted persons and shall be subject to separate treatment appropriate to their status as unconvicted persons;  (b) Accused juvenile persons shall be separated from adults and brought as speedily as possible for adjudication. 3. The penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation. Juvenile offenders shall be segregated from adults and be accorded treatment appropriate to their age and legal status.
 * Nothing there that says that a breach of this article is torture. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

 * (47) There is not a large body of international case law on conditions directly analogous to US supermax facilities, mainly because the USA is virtually unique in housing prisoners on such a scale in such units. However, the Human Rights Committee found violations of Article 10(1) of the ICCPR (right to be treated with human dignity) in several Uruguayan cases in the 1980s in which prisoners were held in conditions which combined isolation with constant non-contact surveillance, a lack of access to natural light and exercise, together with other cruel treatment. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has also found conditions in several isolation units in Europe to be incompatible with international standards for humane treatment.-- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carwil (talk • contribs) 20:29, 15 March 2006

 * There is not a large body of international case law. I have not counted them but I doubt if there are more than about a dozen cases. The ICCPR Article 10 (see above) has nothing to say about torture. The right to be "treated with human dignity" is a long way removed from torture which is:
 * Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
 * --Philip Baird Shearer 12:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

As interesting as a detailed debate on these questions would be, there are two other operative/applicable definitions. The US Congress' prohibition on torture (18 U.S.C. § 2340 (available at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=18&sec=2340) says:

 * "Torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

The INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION TO PREVENT AND PUNISH TORTURE says

 * Article 2: For the purposes of this Convention, torture shall be understood to be any act intentionally performed whereby physical or mental pain or suffering is inflicted on a person for purposes of criminal investigation, as a means of intimidation, as personal punishment, as a preventive measure, as a penalty, or for any other purpose. Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.

 * The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures, provided that they do not include the performance of the acts or use of the methods referred to in this article.

 * Article 3: The following shall be held guilty of the crime of torture:
 * a. A public servant or employee who acting in that capacity orders, instigates or induces the use of torture, or who directly commits it or who, being able to prevent it, fails to do so.

 * b. A person who at the instigation of a public servant or employee mentioned in subparagraph (a) orders, instigates or induces the use of torture, directly commits it or is an accomplice thereto.

Now, the US is obviously governed by the first, but is not a signatory or a ratifier of the second. I think it's clear that rape by guards in prison meets the US legal definition, while permitting a preponderance of prison rape by inmates (which I didn't put in for just this reason) meets the second. Bonus question: does each state that doesn't ratify a treaty get exempted from us calling their behavior according to it? If you find this compelling please restore the rape sections.

Meanwhile, Abner Louima's case meets not one, but two of the purposes described in the CAT (punishment for an alleged crime, discrimination ["They said, 'Take this, nigger,'" 30-year-old Abner Louima said in an interview from the hospital. -CNN ]); I'm restoring it. --Carwil 19:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

 * As you point out unlike UNCAT, the US has not signed or ratified the INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION TO PREVENT AND PUNISH TORTURE so the INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION is not legaly relevant to this debate.

 * Article "2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;... Why did you not include it in this summary?

 * You may "think it's clear that rape by guards in prison meets the US legal definition" however if US lawyers agreed with you interpretation there would be court cases of the breach of US domestic laws on torture, and so presumably you will have no problem finding cases of such torture. Likewise if the Abner Louima is a case of a breach of the US domestic law on torture, then there will be similar legal actions. If you can not find any it would suggest that there is no legal case of torture to answer and you opinion is not correct. To date you have not provided reliable and reputable sources (WP:V) for these assertions please do so--Philip Baird Shearer 21:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

 * The domestic law cited above is criminal law, so only Federal prosecutors are the only ones empowered to apply it. Further, they are constrained by rules against double jeopardy from charging it for activities already prosecuted under state laws.

 * This argument does not hold water. There is no double jeopardy, See the Rodney King case where the Federal government brought a case of violating King's civil rights after the local courts had found after the police involved were found not guilty of assault. If a person has not already been tried for torture they can be tried for that specific crime. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Furthermore, prosecution and/or litigation makes a bad metric for torture. In the extreme case of Abu Ghraib, major perpetrators have not been charged under the torture statute. State actors have a conflict of interest in prosecuting their own agents for outrageous acts, and a relationship to maintain with law enforcement officials. Private lawyers will choose which statute to apply based on burden of proof and likelihood of success.

 * We are not talking about external political events, which effect national security. We are talking about domestic issues. Even in the case of Abu Ghraib, a highly political issue, that would inevitablely lead to the death of US soldiers if proceeded with, some people were prosecuted and allegations of order from higher up the command chain are in the court record. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * In other cases cited in the article, this is self-evident. Putting someone in boiling water (Uzbekistan) or forcing them to masturbate for an audience (Abu Ghraib) prima facie meets the definition of torture. Otherwise the article would be Torture prosecutions in recent times. If you still disagree, let's solicit another opinion from editors of this page or go to "Third Opinion".

 * As I said above: "If there is torture in by US police and prison service officers then there will be lots of court cases which can be quoted as proof of this. There is no need to use blog sites as sources of alleged torture." At the very least there would be acres of commentary in the heavy weight US newspapers about it being torture. There is after all lots and lots about the US involvement in alledged international torture. So far you have not produced one article in the Washington Post of New York Times to back up your allegations. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Meanwhile, the following text from Rights for All, an Amnesty International report (fact-checked to fit Verifiability) subsantiates the police summary, which I'm restoring.

 * Suspects have been tortured or ill-treated inside police stations. In September 1997, two former officers from the Adelanto Police Department, San Bernardino County, California, were jailed for two years on federal charges, after pleading guilty to beating a suspect during questioning and forcing another man to lick blood off the floor in 1994. At the time of writing, four NYPD officers were awaiting trial, charged with the torture of Abner Louima in August 1997.

 * What was the crime that the police in California were they jailed for? Was it torture or some other crime? When was "time of writing"? Were the NYPD officers found guilty of torturing Abner Louima? --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Ten men who were allegedly tortured and signed confessions in a Chicago police station remain on death row.[32] Allegations of systematic torture in one police station over a 20-year period came to light in 1989, involving at least 65 suspects who reported torture including electric shocks and having plastic bags placed over their heads. The cases were reopened by Chicago’s Office of Special Investigations in the 1990s and the area’s commander was dismissed. Other officers, however, were allowed to retire with full benefits.

 * This mentions alledged torture. As no one was prosseduted, it is exactly that "alledged". Further it has nothing to do with the allagations you placed in the text of the article page.--Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * OC spray has sometimes been applied in a deliberately cruel manner to suspects who are already restrained. In October 1997, Sheriff’s deputies in Humbolt County, California, swabbed liquid OC spray directly into the eyes of non-violent anti-logging demonstrators, action Amnesty International condemned as tantamount to torture.

 * What is OC? "tantamount to torture" is not torture. Are there any prosecutions over this and what was the outcome of any prosections --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Iberia Parish Jail, Louisiana: A lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in 1996 claimed that sheriff’s deputies had routinely subjected inmates to "cruel and unusual punishment, and physical and mental torture" by leaving them strapped in restraint chairs for extended periods in their own urine and excrement. According to the lawsuit, prisoners in the chair had their feet strapped behind them and their hands shackled behind or beneath their buttocks. Some prisoners had tape wrapped round their mouths and football helmets placed backwards on their heads. They were, "rarely, if ever, examined by medical personnel while restrained or after release". One 18-year-old inmate was reportedly held in the chair for eight days, another inmate for 43 hours.[114] The jail authorities agreed to stop using the chair and hogtying (restraining with the ankles bound from behind to the wrists) inmates as part of a pre-trial settlement in December 1996. (--Carwil 00:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC))

 * This is much better. What is the source for "A lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in 1996" ? --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Further on rape, the UN Special Rapporteur, Peter Koojimans, speaking in an official capacity said:

 * Professor Kooijmans, in his oral introduction to his 1992 report to the Commission on Human Rights, noted that "[s]ince it was clear that rape or other forms of sexual assault against women in detention were a particularly ignominious violation of the inherent dignity and the right to physical integrity of the human being, they accordingly constituted an act of torture." (E/CN.4/1992/SR.21, para. 35). (quoted in E/CN.4/1995/34, PDF online at ).

 * I could not access the document you gave is this the same document? If it is, then the complete paragraph (No. 16 ) states in the first sentence "Methods of torture involving sexual abuse may be characterized as essentially gender-based". This makes clear that they are talking about rape as a method of torture. Not rape as a sexual crime.--Philip Baird Shearer

 * Finally, the same rapporteur, in a report outlining the scope of the mandate of the SRT, notes on the purposes listed in the CAT [confession, punishment, any reason based on discrimination], that "the list... appears to be self-explanatory and not exclusive ('such purposes as ...')." Likewise, the US and OAS laws extend to all purposes..

 * I don't understand what you have written in this paragraph --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

 * One last request, please ask for a third opinion before concluding that sodomizing a suspect with a broom is not torture. --Carwil 00:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

 * It depends on the motives of the person performing the act. Some people who are on the receiving end enjoy such practices and are willing to pay for it, in which case it defiantly is not torture. You and I do not have to decide the issue, because as we are talking about domestic crimes within the United States, then one would expect the victim to file a case against the perpetrator, and for that case to received publicity. In which case there will be information on the case and if the motive for the act was as a form of torture that will be apparent from the transcripts of, and the commentaries on, the case. As I said more than once: If there is torture in by US police and prison service officers then there will be lots of court cases which can be quoted as proof of this. There is no need to use blog sites as sources of alleged torture. At the very least there would be acres of commentary in the heavy weight US newspapers about it being torture. There is after all lots and lots about the US involvement in alledged international torture cases. So far you have not produced one article in the Washington Post of New York Times to back up your allegations (or for that matter any other respectable US or foreign broadsheet). You have mentioned at least two incidents on this page where people were put on trial for torture in the US. If they were found guilty of torture then providing the sources meet the Verifiability criteria then I for one will not object to their inclusion in this article. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Britons tortured many communists to death in 1946
(I copied this discussion from Talk:Torture. This is recent but before 1948. -- Petri Krohn 13:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC))

Big scandal and cover-up described in recent Guardian news article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1745489,00.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.70.32.136 (talk • contribs)

 * I added some material in Bad Nenndorf. Someone had already added the links. The agency involved was called Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC). Petri Krohn 12:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Abner Louima
is now fully referenced. We have several clearly referenced, criminally prosecuted, torturous assaults in one paragraph which should confirm that "police brutality has at times escalated to torture," a fairly cautious claim. I won't dignify the "some times consensual" argument with a reply. The Louima case even meets the Gonzalez memo's standard of damage to internal organs (Louima's bladder). Mainstream sources consistently referred to the event as torture, notably CNN and the New York Times. I hope we can put this debate to rest. --Carwil 04:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Torture legalized in the US
I haven't followed all the turns, but was torture declared legal in the US or is it still pending? // Liftarn

Main page for Torture and the United States
I've created a new main page, Torture and the United States, merging material from Uses of torture in recent times and Human rights in the United States. The merger is still sloppy, but I've tried to clean it up and at least create a clear format for references. Summary sections could make two very long articles shorter. The naming (not Torture in the United States, which will redirect) is due to the extensive interest in US practice of torture abroad, and because no neat line seemed possible to draw between this and the domestic legal issues. Have fun editing!--Carwil 18:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

NPOV tag
I think I have tagged an article as globally "POV" by use of a template maybe a couple of times in 10,000+ edits. I try to fix them first. But in this case I don't know how best to and it needs collaboration.

WP:NPOV requires that an article, overall, presents an impression that gives a balanced view of the subject and aspects. Without taking sides, it seems obvious that there is much more said about torturous acts in UK/USA and these countries therefore have sections so long, compared to others, as to give an unbalance (non-neutral) impression of the subject.

There is a lot to say about those countries, and the material given is valid. But a way must be found to show it, without distorting a reasonably fair balance.

Perhaps one easy fix would be to content-fork those, as they stand, to "torture in the UK" and "torture in the USA" (the latter now exists), then use edit summaries to ensure the sections in this article remain a balanced size, proportionate to other countries. That would work well.

Thoughts and suggestions? FT2 (Talk 02:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I created Torture and the United States for just that purpose. Just make sure that nothing is deleted that doesn't make its way to that page.--Carwil 04:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Looking through Human Rights Watch's website, as well as my own knowledge, I'd say there probably should be a mention of allegations concerning North African nations and also concerning North Korea. Probably Myanmar as well. I'm not willing to go through the work on it though. Still here's HRW on North Korea, HRW on Burma, HRW on Libya, Amnesty International on Torture in Egypt, Amnesty International on torture in Myanmar, AI on North Korea, and some Google News results. (Also some news archive results on police torture with several nations currently listed filtered out)--T. Anthony 14:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

torture in the gulf nations !
It seems like the author has turned a BLIND eye to such countries like the smaller gulf nations. Countries like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar both have an unbelievable history in torture both against its citizens and foreigners. These cases are well known and they are in the thousands. You might want to look into the case were Tover SIX THOUSAND Qatari nationals were stripped of the nationalities and all documents. They were sacked from their jobs and kicked out of their homes literally. those who dared to talk were sentenced and tortured. Plus the secret police and the horrors they committed and still do to this day especially in the emirate of abu dhabi .Dubai is by far better than the rest of the emirates, so long as u don't do anything "stupid".

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Samjianka (talk • contribs) 16:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

So why don't you add to the article ?

Streona (talk) 18:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. If there are thousands of well known cases, as you say(and I don't doubt it), reference them and add it to the article. And yes, Abu Dhabi is probably worse than dubai, and Sharjah is probably worse than both, but aren't all of these countries that torture pretty much equal on the fucked-up scale?KVND 01:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Source this!
FYI, here are the unsourced statements I found: --Carwil 21:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * In 2002, in Cologne, Germany, a history of physical torture at Eigelstein police station only came to light because the victim died, and a post-mortem examination unearthed the facts.
 * Under Enver Hoxha's Communist dictatorship, torture was widely used.
 * The government headed by Baathist Saddam Hussein made extensive use of torture, including at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
 * Israel has used "moderate physical pressure" on terrorist suspects defined as "ticking bombs" for their knowledge of imminent terrorist attacks against civilians which the information they possessed had the power to prevent, at least since the 1970s. In 1987 the Israeli Supreme Court formed a special commission headed by retired Justice Moshe Landau, to review the whole question of physical pressure during investigations of this kind. In their report they reinforced the criteria for the use of "moderate physical pressure".
 * Russian army is believed to use torture extensively in Chechnya and the surrounding districts, as investigative tool, and as a deterrent/punishment for captured fighters.
 * Torture was widely practiced in the Soviet Union prior to its transformation to a federation in the 1980s, to extract confessions from suspects, especially in case of alleged plots against the security of the state or alleged collaboration with "imperialist powers".

Argument in Favor of the Article
This is a useful article and should not be deleted. It is ohvious that countries that engage in torture would want it to be deleted because they do not want their actions to be documented. This is also a topic that should be separate from the main article on torture. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.125.109.74 (talk • contribs) 23:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Comparative Sources
Two steps toward a global comparison on torture are provided by

 * Oona A. Hathaway's Torture Scale (in "Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?," The Yale Law Journal, 2002) a quantitative coding based on the United States Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights (yes, that's a political bias, which must be noted). Annual ratings for 1985 to 1998. Methodology described at p. 1969-1972 (35-38 in PDF). Data table at 2034ff (100ff in PDF). Online at

--Carwil 14:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Self-reported assessments of the prevalence of torture in people's own countries in the Gallup International Millennium Survey, Survey shows no tolerance for Torture.

A similar map, based on Amnesty International's assesments is at Evil under the Sun.

A map prepared by the US has "no data" for the US? Huh? 199.125.109.74 16:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

 * The State Department doesn't produce a human rights report on the United States. Its reports are used as a source for Hathaway's coding, which is illustrated on this map.--Carwil 19:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Afghanistan and Iraq.
via

China
Shouldn't china be added to this list? their abuse is clearly documented - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.168.147.50 (talk • contribs)
 * If you have documentation, add it. 199.125.109.85 04:14, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Reference #10
It links to a Yahoo page that declares that the article was not found. Recommend change or removal. Meta 17:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed. 199.125.109.74 19:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Arguably Legal ?
No they are not.

Streona (talk) 18:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Singapore
There's a dispute tag on the Singapore section, but I don't see what is being disputed? Caning does fit the letter of the definition of Torture, viz. any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as ... punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed. Jpatokal (talk) 11:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

France
I am not sure most of the information in this section (France) is relevant to the article, as most of the exmples given don't constitute torture. I would suggest maybe removing the latter part of this section altogether Jihmiller (talk) 16:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

So any objections to removing some of this section? Jihmiller (talk) 16:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. There is a whole controversy as to where to draw the line between torture and some more euphemistic phrase. The British Government went to great lengths to appeal against a finding of torture in Northern Ireland which was eventually downgraded to "severe mistreatment". What the hell difference does it actually make is beyond me. If you succeed in breaking a person in captivity it amounts to the same thing. Rape and beatings will achieve this just as surely as thumbscrews. Calling it something else is just letting the perpetrators off the hook. The French have been some of the major innovators and exporters of torture in the 20th century. -Streona —Preceding unsigned comment added by Streona (talk • contribs) 23:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

There are no references for the first part of this section, but i really wouldn't want to get into suggesting completely deleting the "france" section, as the only parts referenced dont seem to be relevant. The rest of this section also seems to need some work.

"France has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for the conditions of detention in prisons, including the use of torture on detainees. Although the law and the Constitution prohibits any kind of torture whatsoever, such practices happen."

As far as i can find that report by the ECHR was in reference to French deportation of individuals to countries where they would be at risk of being tortured, if that is indeed the case the above section needs re-writing, otherwise it needs referencing, as i may well be wrong.

"In 2004, the Inspector General of the National Police received 469 registered complaints about illegitimate police violence during the first 11 months of the year, down from 500 during the same period in 2003. There were 59 confirmed cases of police violence, compared to 65 in the previous year."

The above section doesn't seem to relate to torure and would appear to be very selective copying and pasting of a 2004 report.

"In April 2004, the ECHR condemned the French Government for violating article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights in their treatment of Giovanni Rivas. In the 1997 Mr Rivas, at the time a minor, was kicked in the testicles while in police custody, resulting in him needing urgent medical attention[23].Article 3 prohibits the use of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

I have re-worked the above section a little, as it was simply a copy and paste from a 2004 US Department of state report. "The head of the police station in Saint-Denis, near Paris, has been forced to resign after allegations of rape and other violences committed by the police force under his orders. Nine investigations concerning police abuse in this police station were done in 2005 by the IGS inspection of police.[24][25] These repeated abuses are one of the causes of the 2005 civil unrest.[26]Conditions in detention centers for illegal aliens have also been widely criticized by human rights NGO.In 2006, a young 20 years-old Serbian girl accused a policeman of attempting to have raped her in such a centre in Bobigny, in the suburbs of Paris, the year before[27]"

Again this doesn't seem to suggest torture, abuse, violence and rape but not necessarily torture. I would argue for more evidence of actual torture or deletion. Jihmiller (talk) 08:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Rape is a form of torture that in many states, such as Saddam's Iraq became almost standard operating procedure for both men and women. In Chile this was often carried out by specially trained Alsatian dogs.--Streona (talk) 09:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that France has played a central part in the history of torture, since the French Republic legally banned it after the Revolution. In the 1930s they invented electrical torture in Indo-China using dynamos for telephones. After the Second World War, the French in an attempt to hold their failing empire together introduced torture schools at Paolo Condor in Vietnam and Phillipeville in Algeria. Much of this expertise was gained by the Foreign Legion's German personnel during WW2 and after the fall of Algiers was disseminated by them to South Africa, South America and the British empire in Yemen (Fort Morbut) and Hola camp in Kenya. This has been highlighted by often personally very brave individuals like Henri Alleg, Franz Fanon and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. many editors do not seem to like it that heir own favoured countries have been accused of torture. Well it is not POV to point out unpalatable truths. The fact that other countries may be worse is irrelevent- if you have evidence about say the Syrians use of "The German Chair" (which hinges backwards to stretch the backbone)- put it in. don't use it as an excuse for say Israeli use of "Palestinian Hanging". --Streona (talk) 14:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

While rape has indeed been used as been used as or as an element of torture, this doesnt mean that every case of rape is torture. I don't question the argument that France has used torture extensively in the past and may well still be doing so, what i am questioning is whether most of this section is relevant to that history. I would suggest you put an expanded version of the infomation above in the french section, as it would be far more informative and relevant than this section is currently, rather than defending fallacious examples of "torture". Also, you say that "many editors do not seem to like it that heir own favoured countries have been accused of torture". Well i would just like to point out that i have no axe to grind as far as France is concerned and i have no French connection, as it were, which is precisely why i chose this section to see about maybe trying to help a little, in improving this section and article. Jihmiller (talk) 06:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have just found a reference to a film called "Death Squadrons; The French School" by Marie-Monique Robin which essentially confirms the above thesis. Thu I will post on the article as this is a better reference than the numerous individual books that I have ploughed through. What is significant about the incidents referred to is that they were committed by police officers under orders from the "Head of the Police Station", which would imply that the rapes were part of a policy rather than simply due to priapic policemen. I suggest that this would be torture.--Streona (talk) 01:02, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Objection to: Vietconginterrogation1967.jpg - as described in text box
In the section titled "Inter-state collaboration" there exists a text box photo/description combination which I object to. The photo linked to is "Vietconginterrogation1967.jpg".

I am interested to know the history of this photo - does the provable history of this photo support the description of the photo, as written in the text box?

The text says: "A Viet Cong prisoner captured in 1967 by the U.S Army awaits interrogation, he has been placed in a stress position by tying a board between his arms."

Let's examine the suspect assertions of the sentence:

 * 1) "A Viet Cong" - Are we certain the bound squatting person in the photo is indeed a "Viet Cong" or is this an assumption based on his appearrance?
 * 2) "prisoner" - Are we sure of this. Though it seems unlikely to us that he could be anyhting but a prisoner, I am interested that this be proven true about this particular photo.
 * 3) "captured" - this goes to prisoner. If he's not a prisoner, it's unlikely he was captured. How do we know he's not an ARVN soldier being punished for some reason?
 * 4) "1967" - Are we sure of the year? How so?
 * 5) "[captured in 1967 by the] U.S Army" - While do see the torsos of what appear to be US Army soldiers in the photo, does this prove that this man was "captured" by U.S. Army? No, the mere presence of those men in the photo, without more information, tells us only that they are present, not that they or any other U.S. Soldiers were involved in the squatter's "capture".
 * 6) "stress position" - Are we sure? If the arms are not tied too tightly, there is not much stress on the arms. Personally, from what see, I think that being in a squat position for a long time would cause more stress than having one's arms bound. The lynchpin here is how tight were the arms tied? If we don't have corroboration of that, we can't honestly say "stress"?
 * 7) "awaits interrogation" - Are we sure of this? He could be awating release, execution or transport to jail for all we know.

Without corroboration regarding the actual circumstances of this photo, our textual representations as they now stand are no more than our POV of what we think this photo shows.

I ask group consensus that this photo either be verified as to what it actually represents, or that we remove it from the article. From what I can tell, there are several equally plausable explainations for the content of that photo which makes our current description POV - unless we verify it some how... Any comments? 7390r0g (talk) 03:02, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Go to stress positions. This indicates that the image has been obtained from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration under the ARC identifier 531447 where it is titled "Thuong Duc, Viet Nam, a Viet Cong prisoner awaits interrogation atthe A-109 Special Forces Detachment at Thuong Duc, 25 miles west of Da Nang". It was taken on 23 January 1967 by PFC David Epstein, US Army--Streona (talk) 22:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


text: User talk:69.202.147.103

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:69.202.147.103


text:
Luigi Galleani

Luigi Galleani (12 August 1861 – 4 November 1931) was an Italian insurrectionary anarchist best known for his advocacy of "propaganda of the deed", a strategy of political assassinations and violent attacks.

Born in Vercelli, he became a leading figure in the Piedmont labor movement, for which he was sentenced to exile on the island of Pantelleria. In 1901, he fled to the United States and he joined the Italian immigrant workers movement in Paterson, New Jersey. He subsequently moved to Vermont and Massachusetts, where he launched the radical newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva. He gained many dedicated followers among Italian American anarchists, known as the Galleanisti, who carried out a series of bombing attacks throughout the United States.

For his involvement in the anti-war movement during World War I, he was deported back to Italy, where he was subjected to political repression following the rise of fascism. During the final years of his life, he published The End of Anarchism?, a defense of anarchist communism from criticisms by reformist socialists. He rejected reformism, in favor of "continuous attack" against institutions of capitalism and the state, and opposed any form of formal organization, which he saw as inherently corrupting and hierarchical.

Early life
Luigi Galleani was born on 12 August 1861, into a middle-class family, in the Piedmontese city of Vercelli. He first became interested in anarchism while studying law at the University of Turin, eventually renouncing his career in law in order to carry out anarchist propaganda against capitalism and the state. His skill in oratory and writing quickly made him a leading voice in the new generation of the Italian anarchist movement. Alongside Sicilian anarchist Pietro Gori, he led a resurgence of militant anarchist activism, which gained a large following among the workers of Northern Italy.

Labor movement activism
By the mid-1880s, the anarchists had already lost ground to the Italian Workers' Party (POI), which developed a large support base among northern workers. The anarchists were initially skeptical of the POI, due to the latter's tendencies towards workerism and reformism, but relations between the two parties became more cordial over time. In 1887, Galleani led the Piedmontese anarchist movement's reorientation towards the labor movement and its rapprochement with the POI. That year, he established the Turin-based newspaper Gazzetta Operaia, formed a number of workers' organizations in Vercelli, and distributed revolutionary propaganda among the factory workers of Biella. In 1888, he went on a lecture tour in towns throughout Piedmont and led a series of strike actions by Piedmontese workers in both Turin and Vercelli, increasing support for the anarchist movement and the POI.

Relations between the anarchists and the POI worsened, due to the latter's continued participation in local elections. Nevertheless, Galleani continued to pursue the anarchist infiltration of the POI, in order to attempt to bring it towards revolutionary socialism. He continued to advocate for a conciliatory approach between the reformists and revolutionaries, resulting in the POI both continuing its electoral participation while also endorsing class conflict. Although he prevented a formal split from occurring, the two factions were ultimately irreconciable and Galleani's attempts to transform the POI proved unsuccessful.

When his radical activism threatened him with arrest, in 1889 he fled to France and then to Switzerland. There he collaborated with the French anarchist geographer Élisée Reclus in the preparation of his Nouvelle Geographie Universalle and organised a students' demonstration at the University of Geneva, in honor of the Haymarket martyrs. Galleani was also scheduled to attend the Italian anarchist movement's Capolago congress, but en route to the congress from Geneva, he was arrested by the Swiss authorities and expelled back to Italy. Back in Italy, he immediately continued his radical activities, embarking on a speaking tour of Tuscany, with the aim of fomenting an uprising on International Workers' Day of 1891.

In 1892, together with Pietro Gori and Calabrese anarchist Giovanni Domanico, Galleani was delegated to represent the anarchists at the Genoa Workers' Congress, with the intention of obstructing the motions of the dominant reformist faction. In opposition to the social democrats, led by Lombard lawyer Filippo Turati, an alliance was formed by the anarchists and the workerists, who both opposed political participation. On 14 August, a fierce argument broke out between the anarchist and socialist delegates, leading to two separate meetings being convened the following day. Having finally forced the anarchists to split from the movement, Turati's social democratic majority established the new Italian Socialist Party (PSI), despite the objections of Galleani and his fellow delegates, whose own attempts at forming an anarchist party were unsuccessful. The congress proved that Galleani's agitational campaign had ultimately failed to gain a mass following among the workers, leading to many Italian anarchists becoming disillusioned with the labor movement, which came under the direction of the PSI.

Exile
In the wake of the Fatti di Maggio (Bava Beccaris massacre), the Italian government launched a new campaign of political repression against the anarchist movement, arresting anarchists en masse and internally exiling them to small islands for up to five years, all without a trial. Galleani himself was swiftly arrested, convicted for conspiracy, and exiled to the Sicilian island of Pantelleria. There he met and married Maria Rallo, who already had a young son. Luigi and Maria Galleani had four children of their own.

With Elisee Reclus's aid, Galleani managed escape from Italy to Egypt, where he stayed with other Italian immigrants for a year. When he was threatened with extradition back to Italy, he fled to the United States, arriving in October 1901, shortly after the assassination of United States President William McKinley.

Life in the United States

Galleani settled in Paterson, New Jersey, a hub for Piedmontese immigrant silk weavers and dyers, where he took up editing the Italian anarchist newspaper La Questione Sociale. He became a vocal supporter of the 1902 Paterson silk strike, giving a series of speeches in which he called for a revolutionary general strike to overthrow capitalism. When the striking workers clashed with police, he was shot in the face and charged for incitement to riot. He escaped to Canada and recovered from his wounds, before covertly returning over the border and hiding out in Barre, Vermont, where he stayed with Tuscan stonemasons from Carrara. With these new comrades, on 6 June 1903, he launched Cronaca Sovversiva, which rapidly became the most influential Italian anarchist periodical in North America, receiving worldwide distribution. Through this new publication, in 1905 he published the bomb-making manual La Salute è in voi!, in which he supplied to his readers the formula for making nitroglycerine, compiled by a friend and explosives expert, Professor Ettore Molinari.

In 1906, the editor of the rival Italian socialist newspaper Il Proletario publicised Galleani's location and he was quickly located by the authorities. Arrested, he was brought back to Paterson and tried for incitement, although a hung jury resulted in him being released. He returned to Barre, where he once again resumed giving fiery speeches and writing hundreds of articles for his newspaper, quickly becoming a leading voice in the Italian American anarchist movement. In late 1907, in response to Neapolitan socialist Francesco Saverio Merlino's public renunciation of anarchism in favour of reformist labor unionism, Galleani published a series of articles in defense of anarchism. By this time, he had become disillusioned with the labor movement and came to reject labor unions entirely, instead adopting an anti-organizational form of anarchism, which became the dominant tendency within the Italian American anarchist movement. He even openly broke with the anarcho-syndicalist Carlo Tresca over the latter's cooperation with the Industrial Workers of the World, causing a rift between their followers that undermined the Italian American anarchist movement's cohesion.

Galleani gained many militant and highly devoted followers, known as the Galleanisti, who likewise rejected all formal organization and developed markedly extremist tendencies. These disciples included Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who promoted Galleani's lectures and distributed his literature. The Galleanisti, following Galleani's anti-organizational principles, formed small, tight-knit cells made up of "self-selecting individuals". Although they rejected formal leadership, Galleani himself was treated with reverence and he had the status of an unofficial leader.

Deportation and death
Following the American entry into World War I, Galleani became a leading voice in the anti-war movement, declaring that the anarchist movement was "Against the War, Against the Peace, For Social Revolution!" In response to the Selective Service Act of 1917 being passed into law, he urged his followers to refuse registration and go into hiding, with he and many of his comrades moving to a cabin in the woods near Taunton, Massachusetts. At his direction, some Galleanisti escaped to Mexico, from which they planned to return to Italy, where they believed a revolution was imminent. Despite the ongoing Mexican Revolution, Galleani had rejected the possibility of an anarchist revolution in Mexico itself, due to its high population of people of color, whom he characterized as "uninterested" racial groups.

His anti-war activities made him a target for political repression by the American government. On 17 June 1917, federal agents raided the offices of the Cronaca Sovversiva in Lynn, Massachusetts, arresting Galleani and shutting down the newspaper. Charged with conspiracy, he and eight of his followers were subsequently deported back to Italy, leaving his family behind in the United States, on 24 June 1919.

He attempted to continue publishing Cronaca Sovversiva upon arrival in Turin, but it was quickly suppressed by the Italian authorities. In the wake of the March on Rome in 1922, he was arrested and convicted of sedition by the new fascist authorities, which sentenced him to 14 months in prison. After being released, he concluded his polemic against Merlino, writing a further series of articles and publishing them together in his book The End of Anarchism? (1925). While the book was hailed by Neapolitan anarchist Errico Malatesta as a key text in anarchist communism, in November 1926, it provoked his arrest by the fascist authorities, on charges of insulting the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Galleani spent time in the cell he had been kept in for months in 1892, before being banished to Lipari and later Messina, where he was imprisoned for 6 months.

In February 1930, he was granted compassionate release due to his failing health. He retired to Caprigliola, a 'frazione' of Carrara, where he was kept under close and constant surveillance. After returning from a walk through the countryside, during which he was followed by the police, he collapsed from a heart attack, dying on 4 November 1931.

Political ideology
Galleani's conception of anarchist communism combined the insurrectionary anarchism expounded by German individualist Max Stirner with the mutual aid advocated by Russian communist Peter Kropotkin. He defended the principles of revolutionary spontaneity, autonomy, diversity, self-determination and direct action, and advocated for the violent overthrow of the state and capitalism through propaganda of the deed.

He rejected all forms of formal organization, including anarchist federations and labor unions, and opposed participating in the labor movement, as he believed it was inherently reformist and susceptible to corruption. From his rejection of reformism, he concluded that social change could only be brought about through violent attacks against institutions, which he believed could build towards a popular insurrection. As such, he publicly endorsed terrorism, or what he called "propaganda of the deed", which came in the form of the assassination of authority figures and the expropriation of private property. Galleani defended both the assassination of William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz and the assassination of Umberto I of Italy by Gaetano Bresci.

In his own words, his ultimate aim was to establish "a society without masters, without government, without law, without any coercive control—a society functioning on the basis of mutual agreement and allowing each member the freedom to enjoy absolute autonomy." But he also rejected prefigurative politics, such as that advocated by anarcho-syndicalists, as he believed that people themselves would instinctively understand how to live as a free and equal society once the state and capitalism were overthrown.

Legacy

In retaliation for Galleani's deportation from the United States, the Galleanisti launched a campaign of terrorist attacks, carrying out a series of bombings in 1919. In April 1919, the Galleanisti sent around thirty bombs out to government officials. Most of the bombs were intercepted and disarmed before reaching their destination, with only one detonating - injuring the intended target's maid. In June 1919, they carried out a coordinated attack of nine bombings throughout the North-eastern United States, but none of their targets were killed or gravely wounded. One of the bombs detonated prematurely outside Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's house, killing the attacker. Another bomb that was placed in a church detonated following its discovery by police, killing ten police officers and a bystander. In the political repression that followed, many of the Galleanisti were arrested, including Italian American anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were executed despite the lack of evidence against them. In reprisal, the Galleanist Mario Buda was alleged to have carried out the Wall Street bombing of 1920, which killed 33 people.

During the 1930s, the Romanian American anarchist Marcus Graham attempted to revive the Galleanist movement with the San Francisco-based newspaper Man!, but its efforts were unsuccessful and the paper was shut down in 1939. By the time of the defeat of Italian Fascism in World War II, the Italian American anarchist movement had largely dissipated. The Galleanist L'Adunata dei Refrattari continued publication until 1971, when it was succeeded by the anti-authoritarian periodical Fifth Estate.

By the late-20th century, Galleani's figure fell into obscurity, receiving relatively little research from scholars. It was only in 1982, when The End of Anarchism? received a translation into English, that interest in him again began to grow. In 2006, more English translations of his work were published in a compilation by AK Press.

Selected works

 * (1914) Contro la guerra, contro la pace, per la rivoluzione sociale; English translation: Against War, Against Peace, For The Social Revolution (1983, Centrolibri Books)
 * (1925) La fine dell'Anarchismo?; English translation: The End of Anarchism? (1982, Cienfuegos Press)
 * (1927) Il principio dell'organizzazione alla luce dell'anarchismo; English Translation: The Principal of Organization to the Light of Anarchism (2006, Pirate Press)

title: Luigi Galleani


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Cross Lake

Cross Lake is on the border of Cayuga and Onondaga Counties in New York, United States. The lake lies within the boundaries of the traditional Onondaga Indian Nation, and is reputed in local tradition to be the boyhood home of Hiawatha, the great peace maker. However, Onondaga Lake is also said to be Hiawatha's home.

Cross Lake has a maximum depth of 65 feet and has an average depth of 18 feet. The Seneca River flows west to east through the south end of the lake. Since Cross Lake is part of the New York State Canal System, there are a variety of fish that pass through it. Cross Lake has a flushing rate of 51 times per year; once per week.

Fishing
Fish species present in the lake are walleye, white perch, tiger muskie, northern pike, largemouth bass, yellow perch, black crappie, channel catfish, black bullhead, pumpkinseed sunfish, bluegill, longnose gar, gizzard shad, and sheepshead. There is public access with fee at the Cross Lake Campground off Duger Road and access at the marina with a fee on Fire Lane 18.

title: Cross Lake


text:
David Graeber

David Rolfe Graeber (February 12, 1961 – September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Bullshit Jobs (2018), and The Dawn of Everything (2021), and his leading role in the Occupy movement, earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time.

Born in New York to a working-class Jewish family, Graeber studied at Purchase College and the University of Chicago, where he conducted ethnographic research in Madagascar under Marshall Sahlins and obtained his doctorate in 1996. He was an assistant professor at Yale University from 1998 to 2005, when the university controversially decided not to renew his contract before he was eligible for tenure. Unable to secure another position in the United States, he entered an "academic exile" in England, where he was a lecturer and reader at Goldsmiths' College from 2008 to 2013, and a professor at the London School of Economics from 2013.

In his early scholarship, Graeber specialized in theories of value (Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, 2002), social hierarchy and political power (Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, 2004, Possibilities, 2007, On Kings, 2017), and the ethnography of Madagascar (Lost People, 2007). In the 2010s he turned to historical anthropology, producing his best-known book, Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011), an exploration of the historical relationship between debt and social institutions, as well as a series of essays on the origins of social inequality in prehistory. In parallel, he developed critiques of bureaucracy and managerialism in contemporary capitalism, published in The Utopia of Rules (2015) and Bullshit Jobs (2018). He coined the concept of bullshit jobs in a 2013 essay that explored the proliferation of "paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence".

Although exposed to radical left politics from a young age, Graeber's direct involvement in activism began with the global justice movement of the 1990s. He attended protests against the 3rd Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001 and the World Economic Forum in New York in 2002, and later wrote an ethnography of the movement, Direct Action (2009). In 2011, he became well known as one of the leading figures of Occupy Wall Street and is credited with coining the slogan "We are the 99%". His later activism included interventions in support of the Rojava revolution in Syria, the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and Extinction Rebellion.

David Graeber died unexpectedly in September 2020, while on vacation in Venice. His last book, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, co-written with archaeologist David Wengrow, was published posthumously in 2021.

Early life and education
Graeber's parents, who were in their forties when Graeber was born, were self-taught working-class Jewish intellectuals in New York. Graeber's mother, Ruth Rubinstein, had been a garment worker, and played the lead role in the 1930s musical comedy revue Pins & Needles, staged by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Graeber's father, Kenneth, was affiliated with the Young Communist League in college, participated in the Spanish Revolution in Barcelona and fought in the Spanish Civil War. He later worked as a plate stripper on offset presses. Graeber grew up in Penn South, a union-sponsored housing cooperative in Chelsea, Manhattan, described by Business Week magazine as "suffused with radical politics."

Graeber had his first experience of political activism at the age of seven, when he attended peace marches in New York's Central Park and Fire Island. He was an anarchist from the age of 16, according to an interview he gave to The Village Voice in 2005.

Graeber graduated from Phillips Academy Andover in 1978 and received his B.A. from the State University of New York at Purchase in 1984. He received his master's degree and doctorate at the University of Chicago, where he won a Fulbright fellowship to conduct 20 months of ethnographic field research in Betafo, Madagascar, beginning in 1989. His resulting Ph.D. thesis on magic, slavery, and politics was supervised by Marshall Sahlins and entitled The Disastrous Ordeal of 1987: Memory and Violence in Rural Madagascar.

Yale University (1998–2005)
In 1998, two years after completing his PhD, Graeber became assistant professor at Yale University, then associate professor. In May 2005, the Yale anthropology department decided not to renew Graeber's contract, preventing consideration for academic tenure, which was scheduled for 2008. Pointing to Graeber's anthropological scholarship, his supporters (including fellow anthropologists, former students and activists) said the decision was politically motivated. More than 4,500 people signed petitions supporting him, and anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins, Laura Nader, Michael Taussig, and Maurice Bloch called on Yale to reverse its decision. Bloch, who had been a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and the Collège de France, and a writer on Madagascar, praised Graeber in a letter to the university.

The Yale administration argued that Graeber's dismissal was in keeping with Yale's policy of granting tenure to few junior faculty. Graeber suggested that Yale's decision might have been influenced by his support of a student of his who was targeted for expulsion because of her membership in GESO, Yale's graduate student union.

In December 2005, Graeber agreed to leave Yale after a one-year paid sabbatical. That spring he taught two final classes: "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology" (attended by more than 200 students) and a seminar, "Direct Action and Radical Social Theory".

"Academic exile" and London (2005–2020)
On May 25, 2006, Graeber was invited to give the Malinowski Lecture at the London School of Economics. Each year, the LSE anthropology department asks an anthropologist at a relatively early stage of their career to give the Malinowski Lecture, and only invites those considered to have made significant contributions to anthropological theory. Graeber's address was called "Beyond Power/Knowledge: an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity". It was later edited into an essay, "Dead zones of the imagination: On violence, bureaucracy and interpretive labor". The same year, Graeber was asked to present the keynote address in the 100th anniversary Diamond Jubilee meetings of the Association of Social Anthropologists. In April 2011, he presented the anthropology department's annual Distinguished Lecture at Berkeley, and in May 2012 he delivered the second annual Marilyn Strathern Lecture at Cambridge (the first was delivered by Strathern).

After his dismissal from Yale, Graeber was unable to secure another position at an American university. He applied for more than twenty, but despite a strong track record and letters of recommendation from several prominent anthropologists, never made it past the first round. At the same time, a number of foreign universities approached him with offers. In an article on his "academic exile" from the United States, The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed several anthropology professors who agreed that Graeber's political activism could have played a role in his unsuccessful search, describing the field as "radical in the abstract" (in the words of Laura Nader) but intolerant of direct political action. Another factor suggested by the article was that Graeber had acquired a reputation as being personally difficult or "uncollegial", especially in light of allegations of poor conduct made by Yale during the dispute over his dismissal. Graeber himself interpreted his exclusion from American academia as a direct result of his dismissal from Yale, likening it to "black-balling in a social club", and arguing that the charge of "uncollegiality" glossed a variety of other personal qualities, from his political activism to his working-class background, that marked him as a trouble-maker within the academic hierarchy. Laura Nader, reflecting on Graeber's case amongst other examples of "academic silencing" in anthropology, speculated that the real reasons could have included Graeber's growing reputation as a public intellectual, and his tendency to "write in English" rather than jargon.

From 2008 to 2013, Graeber was a lecturer and a reader at Goldsmiths College of the University of London. In 2013, he accepted a professorship at the London School of Economics.

Graeber was a founding member of the Institute for Experimental Arts in Greece. He gave a lecture with the title "How social and economic structure influences the Art World" in the International MultiMedia Poetry Festival organized by the Institute for Experimental Arts supported by the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Scholarship
Graeber is the author of Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology and Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. He conducted extensive anthropological work in Madagascar, writing his doctoral thesis, The Disastrous Ordeal of 1987: Memory and Violence in Rural Madagascar, on the continuing social division between the descendants of nobles and the descendants of former slaves. A book based on his dissertation, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, was published by Indiana University Press in September 2007. A book of collected essays, Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire was published by AK Press in November 2007, and Direct Action: An Ethnography appeared from the same press in August 2009. Moreover, the aforementioned publisher printed a collection of essays by Graeber – co-edited with Stevphen Shukaitis and Erika Biddle – called Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations/Collective Theorization (AK Press, May 2007).

In December 2017, Graeber and his former teacher Marshall Sahlins released a collection of essays entitled On Kings, outlining a theory, inspired by A. M. Hocart, of the origins of human sovereignty in cosmological ritual. Graeber contributed essays on the Shilluk and Merina kingdoms, and a final essay that explored what he called "the constitutive war between king and people". He was working on a historical work on the origins of social inequality with David Wengrow, published posthumously as The Dawn of Everything.

From January 2013 until June 2016, Graeber was a contributing editor at The Baffler magazine in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he, too, participated in the public debate about futures of technology. From 2011 until 2017 he was editor-at-large of the open access journal HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, for which he and Giovanni da Col co-wrote the founding theoretical statement and manifesto of the school of "ethnographic theory".

Charles Kenny, writing in the political magazine Democracy, claimed that Graeber sought out data that "fit the narrative on the evils of neoliberalism" and challenged or criticized data which suggested otherwise.

Debt: The First 5000 Years
Graeber's first major historical monograph was Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011).

Karl Schmid, writing in the Canadian Anthropology Society's journal Anthropologica, described Debt as an "unusual book" which "may be the most read public anthropology book of the 21st century" and noted that "it will be difficult for Graeber or anyone else to top this book for the attention it received due to excellent timing". Schmid compared Debt to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and James C. Scott's The Art of Not Being Governed for its "vast scope and implication". However, Schmid expressed minor frustrations with the sheer length of the book, and the fact that Graeber raises many claims and examples which he does not go on to develop in full.

J. Bradford DeLong, an economic historian, criticized Debt on his blog, alleging mistakes in the book. Graeber responded that these errors had no influence on his argument, remarking that the "biggest actual mistake DeLong managed to detect in the 544 pages of Debt, despite years of flailing away, was (iirc) that I got the number of Presidential appointees on the Federal Open Market Committee board wrong". He dismissed his other criticisms as representing a divergence of interpretation, truncation of his arguments by DeLong, and mistakes in the copy editing of the book.

Bureaucracy, managerialism, and "bullshit jobs"
Much of Graeber's later scholarship focused on the topic of "bullshit jobs", proliferated by administrative bloat and what Graeber calls "managerial feudalism". One of the points he raised in his 2013 book The Democracy Project—on the Occupy movement—is the increase in what he calls bullshit jobs, referring to forms of employment that even those holding the jobs feel should not or do not need to exist. He sees such jobs as being typically "concentrated in professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers". As he explained also in an article in STRIKE!: "Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed".

Because of the article's popularity, Graeber then wrote the book Bullshit Jobs: A theory, published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster. Writing for The New Yorker, Nathan Heller described the resulting book as having "the virtue of being both clever and charismatic". Reviewing the book for The New York Times, Alana Semuels noted that although it could be criticized for generalizations about economics "Graeber's anthropological eye and skepticism about capitalism are useful in questioning some parts of the economy that the West has come to accept as normal." The Guardian gave a mixed review of Graeber's Bullshit Jobs, accusing him of having a "slightly condescending attitude" and attesting to the book's "laboured arguments", while referring to aspects of the book's thesis as "clearly right". Bullshit Jobs spent four weeks in the top 20 of the Los Angeles Times' bestseller list.

Activism
In addition to his academic work, Graeber was directly and indirectly involved in political activism. He was a member of the labor union Industrial Workers of the World, protested at the World Economic Forum in New York City in 2002, supported the 2010 UK student protests, and played an early role in the Occupy Wall Street movement. He was co-founder of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence.

Graeber became a strong advocate of the democratic confederalism of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria after visiting the region in 2014, often drawing parallels between it and the Spanish Revolution his father fought for in the 1930s.

On October 11, 2019, Graeber spoke at an Extinction Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square about the relationship between "bullshit jobs" and environmental harm, suggesting that the environmental movement should recognize these jobs in combination with unnecessary construction or infrastructure projects and planned obsolescence as significant issues.

Occupy movement
In November 2011, Rolling Stone credited Graeber with giving the Occupy Wall Street movement its theme: "We are the 99 percent". Graeber wrote in The Democracy Project that the slogan "was a collective creation". Rolling Stone said he helped create the first New York City General Assembly, with only 60 participants, on August 2. He spent the next six weeks involved with the burgeoning movement, including facilitating general assemblies, attending working group meetings, and organizing legal and medical training and classes on nonviolent resistance. A few days after the encampment of Zuccotti Park began, he left New York for Austin, Texas.

Graeber argued that the Occupy Wall Street movement's lack of recognition of the legitimacy of either existing political institutions or the legal structure, its embrace of non-hierarchical consensus decision-making and of prefigurative politics made it a fundamentally anarchist project. Comparing it to the Arab Spring, he claimed that Occupy Wall Street and other contemporary grassroots protests represented "the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire." Writing in Al Jazeera, he noted that from the beginning the Occupy movement was about a "commitment to answer only to a moral order, not a legal one" and so held meetings without the requisite permits. Defending this early decision of the Occupy movement, he said, "as the public, we should not need permission to occupy public space".

Graeber tweeted in 2014 that he had been evicted from his family's home of over 50 years due to his involvement with Occupy Wall Street. He added that others associated with Occupy had received similar "administrative harassment".

British politics
In November 2019, along with other public figures, Graeber signed a letter supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, calling him "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world" and endorsed him in the 2019 UK general election. In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few." Graeber, who was Jewish, also defended Corbyn from accusations of antisemitism, saying that "What actually threatens Jews, the people who actually want to kill us, are Nazis", and that the allegations represented a "weaponization" of antisemitism for political purposes.

Graeber advocated for a boycott of The Guardian newspaper by fellow left-wing authors after alleging that the paper published distortions against Corbyn for years. He denounced what he claimed was the weaponization of antisemitism for political purposes, and The Guardian's alleged role in undermining Corbyn in the 2019 election, which, according to Graeber, resulted in a landslide victory for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. He asserted that The Guardian only publishes progressive authors in order to gain credibility with its readership, but its editorial policy is at odds with socialist politics. He was a vocal critic of the Labour centrists who attacked Corbyn, stating their disdain for socialist movements was due to their previously selling-out: "If those activists were not naive, if this man was not unelectable, the centrists' entire lives had been a lie. They hadn't really accepted reality at all. They really were just sellouts."

Influence and reception
Kate Burrell wrote, in the journal Sociology, that Graeber's work "promotes anarchist visions of social change, which are not quite believed possible by the Left, yet are lived out within social movements every day" and that his work "offers poetic insight into the daily realities of life as an activist, overtly promotes anarchism, and is a hopeful celebration of just what can be achieved by relatively small groups of committed individuals living their truth visibly."

Hans Steinmüller, reviewing On Kings in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, described Graeber and his co-author Marshall Sahlins as "two of the most important anthropological thinkers of our time" and considered their contribution to represent a "benchmark" for the anthropological theory of kingship.

As stated by Penguin Random House editor Tom Penn, "David was a true radical, a pioneer in everything that he did. David's inspirational work has changed and shaped the way people understand the world... In his books, his constant, questing curiosity, his wry, sharp-eyed provoking of received nostrums shine through. So too, above all, does his unique ability to imagine a better world, borne out of his own deep and abiding humanity. We are deeply honoured to be his publisher, and we will all miss him: his kindness, his warmth, his wisdom, his friendship. His loss is incalculable, but his legacy is immense. His work and his spirit will live on."

Personal life
After a relationship with anthropologist Lauren Leve, Graeber married artist Nika Dubrovsky in 2019. The two collaborated on a series of books, workshops, and conversations called Anthropology for Kids and on the Museum of Care, a shared space for communication and social interactions nourishing values of solidarity, care, and reciprocity. According to Graeber's website, "The main goal of the Museum of Care is to produce and maintain social relationships." The concept "museum of care" was coined by Graeber and Dubrovsky in their article "The Museum of Care: imagining the world after the pandemic", originally published in "Arts of the Working Class" in April 2020. In the article, Graeber and Dubrovsky imagine a post-pandemic future, where vast surfaces of office spaces and conservative institutions are turned into "free city universities, social centers and hotels for those in need of shelter". "We could call them 'Museums of Care' – precisely because they are spaces that do not celebrate production of any sort but rather provide the space and means for the creation of social relationships and the imagining of entirely new forms of social relations."

Death
Graeber died suddenly from necrotic pancreatitis on September 2, 2020, while on vacation with his wife and friends in Venice. Graeber died during the COVID-19 pandemic and instead of a funeral, his family organized an "Intergalactic Memorial Carnival" of livestreamed events that took place in October 2020. His wife, Nika, attributed the pancreatitis to COVID-19, pointing to his prior good health, strange symptoms they both had for months beforehand, and the connection scientists have found between COVID-19 and pancreatitis.

title: David Graeber