I’m burned out after months of nonstop reading blogs/news/nonfiction books/etc and need a break. No mystery that this also comes with the last bit of warm weather, bringing on perpetual crankiness, an understanding of animals that hibernate, and no desire to censor myself at the moment. I can’t resist a few parting shots with the things I’ve been kicking around before the blog goes silent for a bit. So I guess this is kind of messy and unpolished, but whatever. And who knows, maybe tomorrow I will be miraculously motivated again.
I feel remiss that I did not acknowledge the historical significance of Obama’s presidency at all, despite having a number of fundamental problems with him.
I am bitterly amused that continued outrage is being leveled towards Michael Vick for his torture of dogs, yet we continuously honor men who are rapists and abusers. If I had a dime for every time someone blew off a man’s abuse of a woman to wax poetic about him I’d be rich. (And no, I don’t condone what he did, I think it’s abhorrent. I just wish there was some parity here.)
The conversations going on around me about the auto industry all have to do with those “greedy” auto workers who get paid “too much” for such an “easy” job and how unions need to be weakened. It strikes me as incredibly odd that our remaining factory workers, lionized as models of class mobility and the American Dream, are now bearing the brunt of the blame for reaping the benefits that make those things possible. I feel more like an alien than I thought I could.
The ongoing fight over auto is not about saving jobs and communities, or converting the industry to sustainable mass transit. It’s about whether the bankruptcy of the Big Three would be one of those moments of “creative destruction” so dearly beloved by free-market ideologues, whose own lives of course aren’t at stake. It’s about whether the companies will go bankrupt anyway – so why postpone the inevitable? – or whether the impact of their precipitous collapse on the system as a whole is too enormous to risk.
I am frustrated and disgusted at a culture of learned callousness. Going into the city and seeing homeless, the performances they need to put on to solicit people’s kindness, the way people ignore them anyway. If the victim isn’t perfect we knee jerk and withdraw our support. I see this in my own thought patterns when I give them money and hear their stories.
The “it’s my paycheck” bullshit. I abhor this. Your paycheck is earned on the backs of others. You are not a monolith, a person all by yourself that you earn your paycheck in a vacuum, that it is not linked to a local and global community of people. And I do believe that this is one of America’s greatest failings – this teaching of such extreme individualism that so many couldn’t care less about others outside of “their circle”, having no understanding of community and the way one’s actions ripple outward.
I did not drop from the womb with a desire to wear makeup. As someone who was born with a vagina it is not a biological imperative that I put on lipstick. This is not intended to shame women who do so, it is directed towards people who seem to think they can tell me I should do this because I am a woman.
I just finished Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks and well, damn if she isn’t brilliant when it comes to discussions of the way power works.
I have finally put an actual name to that ethereal thing I’ve wanted to study for years and this makes me kind of excited. (Sounds much better than “I am interested in economic tyranny and the way development is a vehicle for neocolonialism.” – which is NEVER this concise when I get asked to describe my primary interest. I feel a little dense that it took me this long to actually find a discipline that has the potential to explore this.)
And a link I meant to quote but never did. I thought there were more, but oh well:
The Sanctuary >> Hate Doesn’t Happen in a Vacuum – A post that details the rhetoric and the hate crimes towards immigrants that have been occurring in the Long Island area. I’m shocked that it’s this extensive in my area and had no idea. I like the way the post emphasizes the importance of the way we speak about issues and how this can create an environment where these things occur – too often we devalue language and its impact.
I am somewhat excited about a new film coming out called Battle in Seattle – it is a reenactment of the protests that went on against the World Trade Organization when they came to Seattle in 1999. It was a pivotal moment in that it showed the strength and voice of the anti-globalization movement. (The way the media covered the protests is a much different story – I did a speech about how this seems to be a pivotal point in the way the media began to cover protests and its intended impact on public opinion. Perhaps I’ll turn it into a post. The Solnit article linked at the bottom goes nicely into detail about it though.)
On the other hand, after having viewed the trailer my excitement has been tempered by a hunch concerning how they covered some of the factions of protesters – and sure enough found a bit of commentary on it at the Wiki:
Despite director Stuart Townsend’s stated intention of portraying the events of protest accurately, the film was criticized by anarchist collective CrimethInc. for what they saw as its sensationalistic portrayal of events.[7] In a pamphlet titled “And What About Tomorrow?”, the collective allege that the protests were characterized in the film as an isolated spontaneous uprising in which a “small fringe group” of black bloc anarchists “stole the show”, whereas CrimethInc. contend that “anarchists were involved in all different aspects of the protests” including nonviolent organization and Food Not Bombs, and credit the adoption of anarchist direct action tactics with the success of the uprising.[7] A review published by Anarkismo praised the film as “clearly well-researched”, citing the pacing and general narrative as quite accurate, but criticized the presentation of anarchist politics as one-dimensional and a caricature.[8]
The story of resistance to the WTO in Seattle in ’99 is one of how people power can change the world. It’s a dangerous example for the elites and a powerful one for people. That’s why for eight years, the corporate media, governments, and their police have waged a dis-information campaign about Seattle ’99.
In fall ’08, a major motion picture, “Battle in Seattle,” will be seen across North America. It’s a huge improvement over corporate media lies, but won’t tell the motives or thinking of the people who shutdown the WTO. Only we can do that.
Stories are how we understand the world and thus shape the future- and the story of Seattle ’99 shapes what people think of protest, corporate globalization and repression. It’s time that we in the social movements tell our own stories, reclaim our own histories, and publicly fight damaging myths past and present. This website is doing just that!
My stomach clenched the first time I heard that actor Stuart Townsend was making a mainstream movie about the 1999 shutdown of the WTO ministerial meetings, Battle in Seattle.
I was an on-the-ground organizer in Seattle, and for me and many other activists, the event was a high point in our social change work. It was a moment when organized resistance became a genuine popular uprising, successfully shutting down the opening day of the WTO meeting, taking over the downtown core of a major American city, and contributing to the collapse of negotiations that would have increased poverty, destruction, and misery around the world.
But for years, that story has been distorted. In mainstream media, the Seattle protesters have been portrayed either as violent extremists or as irrelevant “flat-earth advocates … and yuppies looking for their 1960s fix” as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it.
The story of Seattle has itself become a battleground, one where activists fight the lies and disinformation used to stoke public fears and justify repression against grassroots movements across the U.S.
Now Townsend wanted to tell our story, and I wondered if he’d do any better.
What would a multimillion-dollar Hollywood-star-studded film tell Americans about the sometimes life-or-death struggle against trade policies that threatened to wreck local economies and dismantle environmental protections the world over? Would it tell about the extraordinary power of 50,000 ordinary people in Seattle and their millions of counterparts around the world to demand a just and democratic world—or repeat media myths about riots and violence that activists had fought so long to change?
——
Widespread amnesia about the history of movements and rebellion is part of what has made grassroots organizing in the U.S. so difficult. Many activists have romanticized Seattle as a semi-spontaneous rebellion that arose as if by luck. This ignores the key strategizing, mass mobilizing, networking, education, and alliance-building that made Seattle possible. Battle in Seattle’s greatest contribution may be that it reminds us of this and spurs us to action.
For more on the impact of free trade, I highly recommend the documentary Life and Debt. My only gripe is that it desperately needs subtitles. Argh!
And on a side note, I’m excited to see !!three!! actresses I’ve really enjoyed watching play strong characters in other things – Connie Nielson, Michelle Rodriquez and Charlize Theron.
A woman called up to proclaim a few things about herself on the Sean Hannity show in an oh-so-chipper manner – A Christian who rents with her husband because she understands she can’t afford a home!
And Sean!! We love to give!!!
Well, that makes me feel so much better about you, considering you felt the need to backhand people who are losing their homes in this crisis. I’m so much more convinced of your sterling character now.
(Proceed to some drivel about how if Obama gets elected it will destroy her “giving spirit.”)
I was pointed to this NPR program – The Giant Pool of Money – as a means to try and better understand what’s going on right now, and I have to say, so far I am really liking it.
Trying to get a handle on recent events in Bolivia beyond what the mainstream news is going to tell us, a search for “Bolivian opposition funded by US” yields an article at Democracy Now. An interview with Benjamin Dangl reveals that Peace Corp volunteers were requested to spy on Venezuelans and Cubans in Bolivia, and FURTHER, that USAID is funding rightwing groups in Bolivia to help oppose Evo Morales.
USAID is the US government’s development agency but I’ve always wondered where the “helping hand” stops and the imperialism begins.
I started Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine. She begins with a brief history of torture and how research funded by the US in the 50s and 60s has been put into practice. Let me just say, that seeing the pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib and having read that portion of the book puts it into a whole new terrifying perspective. The idea they tried to sell us that this was just a few bad apples having their “fun” was laughable anyway, but this seals it. State sanctioned torture. Sickeningly enough they don’t even need to lie anymore. It is well known that we are still doing these things to “terrorists” (No proof needed – classification of “enemy combatant” can be bestowed at any time to anyone.) in Guantanamo Bay and other secret prisons around the world.
Family values, morals, FREEDOM and democracy – aren’t they beautiful? But I guess this is the “liberal” (According to Republicans anyway, I think I must be far past liberal at this point.) way – It’s so weak and girly to give a shit about things like the human rights of people.
Have I mentioned that I completely envy/admire/love/idolize/want to be Naomi Klein? As much as I hate to “reduce” her to the level of celebrity crush or something.
