The Turner Difference

Many people have stated, as consolation for Councilor Turner's departure from the Boston City Council, the fact that the council is still basically progressive. Others have sounded a line from Chuck Turner himself: he may not be on the city council but he will still be organizing, no matter the place. To all of them I offered one anecdote: the vote on Arizona.

On Cinco de Mayo this year, Councilor Arroyo offered a symbolic but powerful response to Arizona's anti-immigrant and racist bill, AB 1070. "We're asking that the people's money, the people of the city of Boston ... that their money (not) be used to support something like [AB1070]," declared the city-wide councilor. Before a council chamber packed with pro-immigrant activists, Councillors Arroyo and Ross offered their resolution calling on the city to cut its economic ties with the state of Arizona.

Then the city's progressive councilors took their turns explaining why AB 1070 was so reprehensible. Councillor Yancey likened the vote to one he initiated decades ago to isolate Apartheid South Africa. Councilors Ross, Arroyo and Pressley spoke both to the American Dream and the hope that America is purported to offer immigrants. In doing so, they pushed the envelope on traditional liberalism and spoke for integration and tolerance.

Then the Peoples' Councilor rose.

Why is it, he asked quietly, that these people are coming to America's shores? Parenthetically, he noted that he had not planned to speak to the topic, although he intended to vote in support of the Arroyo-Ross resolution. It was a humble question, to be sure, but it was carefully chosen and one he proceeded to answer in a profound way.

There are the wars, after all. Those initiated by Washington, D.C. Readers will remember the Central American wars of the 1980s when half-a-million Salvadoreños were forced to flee their homeland as Ronald Reagan repressed the popular revolution in their country. And then there's the small matter of genocide in Guatemala when US-connected, right-wing evangelicals took control of that country, providing America's professional classes with live-in nannies and roses as they orphaned a generation.

Then there are trade issues. The councilor spoke to the destruction of livelihoods in both the US and the Global South as rapacious corporations go in search of profits... all the time aided by the power of Washington and the “free” trade treaties it negotiates. Take NAFTA, for instance, which forced Mexican peasants off the land into the maquillas on the border and onto suburban gardens in the US.

The Boston Globe, the Associated Press and other publications quoted Councilors Ross, Arroyo and Pressley.

There it was. While everyone spoke truth to power, some truths were more equal, more radical, than others.

That's the Turner Difference.