I put this whole article here because the American press has been harping about the travesty of Palestinians voting in a Hamas led government, while never attempting to understand, even for one moment, why they might have done so... why do we celebrate Iraqi elections as a sure sign of progress in that occupied country (for instance Senator Bill Frist three times today pointed to there democratic elections as symbols of progress) and then turn around and condemn/punish the Palestinians for exercising there democratic rights?
(Courtesy of Rebecca Glasscock)
We will not sell our people or principles for foreign aid Palestinians voted for Hamas because of our refusal to give up their rights. But we are ready to make a just peace
by Khalid Mish'al
The Guardian
It is widely recognised that the Palestinians are among the most politicised and educated peoples in the world. When they went to the polls last Wednesday they were well aware of what was on offer and those who voted for Hamas knew what it stood for. They chose Hamas because of its pledge never to give up the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and its promise to embark on a programme of reform. There were voices warning them, locally and internationally, not to vote for an organisation branded by the US and EU as terrorist because such a democratically exercised right would cost them the financial aid provided by foreign donors.
The day Hamas won the Palestinian democratic elections the world's leading democracies failed the test of democracy. Rather than recognise the legitimacy of Hamas as a freely elected representative of the Palestinian people, seize the opportunity created by the result to support the development of good governance in Palestine and search for a means of ending the bloodshed, the US and EU threatened the Palestinian people with collective punishment for exercising their right to choose their parliamentary representatives.
We are being punished simply for resisting oppression and striving for justice. Those who threaten to impose sanctions on our people are the same powers that initiated our suffering and continue to support our oppressors almost unconditionally. We, the victims, are being penalised while our oppressors are pampered. The US and EU could have used the success of Hamas to open a new chapter in their relations with the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims and to understand better a movement that has so far been seen largely through the eyes of the Zionist occupiers of our land.
Our message to the US and EU governments is this: your attempt to force us to give up our principles or our struggle is in vain. Our people who gave thousands of martyrs, the millions of refugees who have waited for nearly 60 years to return home and our 9,000 political and war prisoners in Israeli jails have not made those sacrifices in order to settle for close to nothing.
Hamas has been elected mainly because of its immovable faith in the inevitability of victory; and Hamas is immune to bribery, intimidation and blackmail. While we are keen on having friendly relations with all nations we shall not seek friendships at the expense of our legitimate rights. We have seen how other nations, including the peoples of Vietnam and South Africa, persisted in their struggle until their quest for freedom and justice was accomplished. We are no different, our cause is no less worthy, our determination is no less profound and our patience is no less abundant.
Our message to the Muslim and Arab nations is this: you have a responsibility to stand by your Palestinian brothers and sisters whose sacrifices are made on behalf of all of you. Our people in Palestine should not need to wait for any aid from countries that attach humiliating conditions to every dollar or euro they pay despite their historical and moral responsibility for our plight. We expect you to step in and compensate the Palestinian people for any loss of aid and we demand you lift all restrictions on civil society institutions that wish to fundraise for the Palestinian cause.
Our message to the Palestinians is this: our people are not only those who live under siege in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but also the millions languishing in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria and the millions spread around the world unable to return home. We promise you that nothing in the world will deter us from pursuing our goal of liberation and return. We shall spare no effort to work with all factions and institutions in order to put our Palestinian house in order. Having won the parliamentary elections, our medium-term objective is to reform the PLO in order to revive its role as a true representative of all the Palestinian people, without exception or discrimination.
Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us - our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people.
We shall never recognise the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights. We shall never recognise the legitimacy of a Zionist state created on our soil in order to atone for somebody else's sins or solve somebody else's problem. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.
Article Link
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Bernardine Dohrn: Four Myths of the 60s
I just read Bernardine Dohrn's introduction to the book Letters from Young Activists and she outlines four myths of the 60s (I got this online from an adaptation republished in Monthly Review Zine--thanks):
Excerpt:
It is clear that the Sixties, which was never really The Sixties, is being wielded as a bludgeon against today's young risktakers; a barrier, a legendary era which can never be equaled today. In fact, the Sixties was annually declared "dead" by the pundits of Time magazine and Newsweek beginning in 1963 and throughout the mid-seventies. During the subsequent three and a half decades, there has been a relentless campaign to promote four myths about those radical social upheavals. These legends about the so-called Sixties must be on the table to be scrutinized by today's young activists.
First, the '60s is enshrined as a heroic time of huge demonstrations, militancy and organizing. It was never all that.
Sixties activism was almost always small, isolated, surrounded by hostile, angry crowds. The groundbreaking actions of the students who joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the women who stood for an end to patriarchy, and the veterans, draft resisters and deserters who defied the military machine are legendary now because they were right about history and morality. Overwhelmingly, their courage was the quiet kind, the inventive sort, often unrecognized, not showy. Millions took a step away from the path well traveled, left the career track, lived on subsistence pay, learned to talk to strangers about politics, went to the point of production, invented communes, built schools, dug into communities, revived midwifery, seized and exposed the universities, were arrested, broke with family expectations and tradition. Black Panthers, GI organizers, environmentalists, Young Lords, gays and lesbians -- the anarchy, the imagination, the gravity, the invisibility to the media, especially the failures are familiar to today’s young activists. So is the sense of isolation, the inadequacy to the task, the frustration with not being heard, the drowning in the American la la machine. The inability to stop the relentless escalation of war and occupation each and every day for a decade. The enormity of the hold of white supremacy on American life, North and South, inside and out. Divisions among ourselves, worst of all.
At the height of 1968's upheaval, activists at Michigan State felt dismayed that they were not strong and powerful, like those in Ann Arbor. Militants in Ann Arbor measured themselves unfavorably against the struggle at Columbia in New York. And at Columbia or Cornell or Berkeley, organizers were unhappy that they were not meeting the high bar set by the May Day events in France, where workers and students brought the government to the brink. The challenge now, as then, is living as a radical organizer in your own time, your own place. The difficulty then and now is working away during what the great educator and founder of Highlander Myles Horton called Valley Times. It involves simultaneously acting and doubting.
Today’s episodic massive organizing achievements can similarly be followed by eerie calm, business-as-usual, invisibility, the sense of never having been. Global solidarity and inventive militancy among AIDS activists, followed by . . . Labor rights and global justice shutting down the World Trade Organization in Seattle, but. . . . Brilliant unity and tactical zaniness at the '04 Republican National Convention building toward. . . . The devastating deflation of electoral defeats and setbacks to independent organizing. . . . GLBTQ direct action and exuberant breakthroughs followed by counter-reaction and withdrawals, momentarily washed up on the shore. . . . This was true also for all but a few seconds of the roughly fifteen years that constituted The Sixties. The consciousness of today is both ahead of and behind the peaks of the past. That was prelude. Now is where we stand.
Second, and paradoxically in counterpoint to romanticization, there has been a relentless thirty-year campaign to demonize and criminalize the Sixties. Militant resistance is portrayed as criminal, mass rebellion transformed into mob action, courageous choices derided as self-serving, moderately outrageous comments in the heat of the moment seized upon and repeated ad naseum as if they were the whole story or true. Fine leaders are degraded and their contributions dismissed due to personal limitations and all-too-real flaws. This is the organized, contemporary, and legal companion to the illegal, secret Counter-Intelligence Program ("COINTELPRO") of the FBI which used disinformation, harassment, and "dirty tricks" against the predominately white movement while using assassination, infiltration and imprisonment against people of color. This demonization of activists was the pretext for physical assassination and character assassination. It finds us still with scores of political prisoners unjustly incarcerated from that time. The Sixties was, in short, neither that good nor that bad.
Third, the struggle has been commodified, sold back to us as clothing, music, drugs, and film. It is trivialized, sucked of content, leaving only the husks of oldies, tattoos and faded murals. What remains invisible is surviving for decades on $20/week, living communally, doing what had to be done without funding from foundations or the approval of program grants, stepping off the career track, risking exile or courts martial, turning Left off the interstate. These were and still are choices made by both the privileged as well as the modest -- first-generation college students, working-class youth, and immigrants who comprised the movement.
Fourth is the lethal, deceptive telling of Sixties' history as if it were predictable and known, smoothing out the turmoil, the turbulence, the anarchy, and the ethical choices. The pat illusions that "we" all opposed the Vietnam War, "we" all were relieved that civil rights were granted to African Americans, and the "media" helped end the Vietnam war
But history is seized, not given, change wrenched as a result of struggles from below. The women who challenged the mangling of our bodies -- the sisters did not know how it was going to turn out. The youth on the freedom rides, the lunch counters, the voter registration drives, urban insurrections, demonstrations against police brutality, struggles for Puerto Rican independence, Chicano liberation, Native American land, resources and dignity -- no one knew how it would turn out. The young men who resisted the draft, who deserted the military, who fought in Vietnam and returned to join the anti-war movement and threw their medals back at the White House, the veterans who today warn and educate about the dread of real war -- they did not know how it would turn out. Dr. King himself was an angry, developing radical -- a constant work in progress, not an airbrushed saint.
When we think about historical moments, of course, we each read ourselves into it in heroic ways. It's so obvious now. We all imagine that if we had lived during slavery, we would have been a catalyst for emancipation, we know what we would risk. Similarly, in our hearts we believe that had we been alive in Europe at the time of Nazi Germany, we would have been part of the Resistance, we would have hidden refugees, we would surely have stepped up to the historic challenge.
What are today's crises of human rights and how will we be remembered? For what we did and for what we failed to do? How do we narrate and act in this historical moment? Let me begin then with those home truths about the Sixties.
Source Link
Excerpt:
It is clear that the Sixties, which was never really The Sixties, is being wielded as a bludgeon against today's young risktakers; a barrier, a legendary era which can never be equaled today. In fact, the Sixties was annually declared "dead" by the pundits of Time magazine and Newsweek beginning in 1963 and throughout the mid-seventies. During the subsequent three and a half decades, there has been a relentless campaign to promote four myths about those radical social upheavals. These legends about the so-called Sixties must be on the table to be scrutinized by today's young activists.
First, the '60s is enshrined as a heroic time of huge demonstrations, militancy and organizing. It was never all that.
Sixties activism was almost always small, isolated, surrounded by hostile, angry crowds. The groundbreaking actions of the students who joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the women who stood for an end to patriarchy, and the veterans, draft resisters and deserters who defied the military machine are legendary now because they were right about history and morality. Overwhelmingly, their courage was the quiet kind, the inventive sort, often unrecognized, not showy. Millions took a step away from the path well traveled, left the career track, lived on subsistence pay, learned to talk to strangers about politics, went to the point of production, invented communes, built schools, dug into communities, revived midwifery, seized and exposed the universities, were arrested, broke with family expectations and tradition. Black Panthers, GI organizers, environmentalists, Young Lords, gays and lesbians -- the anarchy, the imagination, the gravity, the invisibility to the media, especially the failures are familiar to today’s young activists. So is the sense of isolation, the inadequacy to the task, the frustration with not being heard, the drowning in the American la la machine. The inability to stop the relentless escalation of war and occupation each and every day for a decade. The enormity of the hold of white supremacy on American life, North and South, inside and out. Divisions among ourselves, worst of all.
At the height of 1968's upheaval, activists at Michigan State felt dismayed that they were not strong and powerful, like those in Ann Arbor. Militants in Ann Arbor measured themselves unfavorably against the struggle at Columbia in New York. And at Columbia or Cornell or Berkeley, organizers were unhappy that they were not meeting the high bar set by the May Day events in France, where workers and students brought the government to the brink. The challenge now, as then, is living as a radical organizer in your own time, your own place. The difficulty then and now is working away during what the great educator and founder of Highlander Myles Horton called Valley Times. It involves simultaneously acting and doubting.
Today’s episodic massive organizing achievements can similarly be followed by eerie calm, business-as-usual, invisibility, the sense of never having been. Global solidarity and inventive militancy among AIDS activists, followed by . . . Labor rights and global justice shutting down the World Trade Organization in Seattle, but. . . . Brilliant unity and tactical zaniness at the '04 Republican National Convention building toward. . . . The devastating deflation of electoral defeats and setbacks to independent organizing. . . . GLBTQ direct action and exuberant breakthroughs followed by counter-reaction and withdrawals, momentarily washed up on the shore. . . . This was true also for all but a few seconds of the roughly fifteen years that constituted The Sixties. The consciousness of today is both ahead of and behind the peaks of the past. That was prelude. Now is where we stand.
Second, and paradoxically in counterpoint to romanticization, there has been a relentless thirty-year campaign to demonize and criminalize the Sixties. Militant resistance is portrayed as criminal, mass rebellion transformed into mob action, courageous choices derided as self-serving, moderately outrageous comments in the heat of the moment seized upon and repeated ad naseum as if they were the whole story or true. Fine leaders are degraded and their contributions dismissed due to personal limitations and all-too-real flaws. This is the organized, contemporary, and legal companion to the illegal, secret Counter-Intelligence Program ("COINTELPRO") of the FBI which used disinformation, harassment, and "dirty tricks" against the predominately white movement while using assassination, infiltration and imprisonment against people of color. This demonization of activists was the pretext for physical assassination and character assassination. It finds us still with scores of political prisoners unjustly incarcerated from that time. The Sixties was, in short, neither that good nor that bad.
Third, the struggle has been commodified, sold back to us as clothing, music, drugs, and film. It is trivialized, sucked of content, leaving only the husks of oldies, tattoos and faded murals. What remains invisible is surviving for decades on $20/week, living communally, doing what had to be done without funding from foundations or the approval of program grants, stepping off the career track, risking exile or courts martial, turning Left off the interstate. These were and still are choices made by both the privileged as well as the modest -- first-generation college students, working-class youth, and immigrants who comprised the movement.
Fourth is the lethal, deceptive telling of Sixties' history as if it were predictable and known, smoothing out the turmoil, the turbulence, the anarchy, and the ethical choices. The pat illusions that "we" all opposed the Vietnam War, "we" all were relieved that civil rights were granted to African Americans, and the "media" helped end the Vietnam war
But history is seized, not given, change wrenched as a result of struggles from below. The women who challenged the mangling of our bodies -- the sisters did not know how it was going to turn out. The youth on the freedom rides, the lunch counters, the voter registration drives, urban insurrections, demonstrations against police brutality, struggles for Puerto Rican independence, Chicano liberation, Native American land, resources and dignity -- no one knew how it would turn out. The young men who resisted the draft, who deserted the military, who fought in Vietnam and returned to join the anti-war movement and threw their medals back at the White House, the veterans who today warn and educate about the dread of real war -- they did not know how it would turn out. Dr. King himself was an angry, developing radical -- a constant work in progress, not an airbrushed saint.
When we think about historical moments, of course, we each read ourselves into it in heroic ways. It's so obvious now. We all imagine that if we had lived during slavery, we would have been a catalyst for emancipation, we know what we would risk. Similarly, in our hearts we believe that had we been alive in Europe at the time of Nazi Germany, we would have been part of the Resistance, we would have hidden refugees, we would surely have stepped up to the historic challenge.
What are today's crises of human rights and how will we be remembered? For what we did and for what we failed to do? How do we narrate and act in this historical moment? Let me begin then with those home truths about the Sixties.
Source Link
Remembering Coretta Scott King: 1927-2006
Coretta Scott King was a force in the civil rights movements. She was one of the most influential and inspiring leaders of the 20th century.
"When you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone."
She will be missed.
"When you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone."
She will be missed.
Left in SF: State of the Union Speech Outdoors
(Courtesy of the Continental Op at Reports from Poisonville)
At first I thought this was some kind of sick joke--why would anyone want to see more of this face that is projected from the world's TVs, but then reading further I was impressed by the originality of the critical art project and the usefulness of exposing political rhetoric in this manner.
State of the Union Speech Outdoors
At first I thought this was some kind of sick joke--why would anyone want to see more of this face that is projected from the world's TVs, but then reading further I was impressed by the originality of the critical art project and the usefulness of exposing political rhetoric in this manner.
State of the Union Speech Outdoors
Radical Women of Color Blog Carnival
(Courtesy of Hysterical Blackness)
Call For Submissions
**Centering the voices, opinions, issues, interests, demands, problems, and solutions of women of color, this blog carnival will be used to connect the real world issues such as poverty, violence, imprisonment, and community neglect to the blogosphere.
**Publication date will be the first (1rst) of every month.
**The first publication will be put out at Jenn's Blog
**TOPIC ONE:
What does the internet *mean* to a woman of color?
Although often touted as the “last frontier” and positioned as something which is essential to learn in the modern day world, the internet has often been used to further very scary and unrealistic resprentations and fantasies of women of color. Furthering this passive violence, it is often the sweat shop labor of women of color that creates computers to begin with.
At the same time, however, the interent can be and often is used as a tool to connect isolated young mothers to other mothers, survivors of sexual violence to advocacy groups, disabled women to resources and a whole generation of amazing teens to other teens. The blogosphere is also used specifically as a space to cover stories that mainstream press refuse to or is too scared to.
To harnass the good of the internet, it is essential for Women of Color to better define what the interent means to us, (the good and the bad) and then work together to figure out how we can use it for our communities purposes and needs.
As such, we will be accepting submissions which question, challenge, discuss, explore, and name what the internet has meant and what it *could mean* to women of color. Is it a site of sexualized violence? A site of sexualized freedom? An opportunity to make your voice heard where there was none before? A site of further marginilization and disappointment?
The Website and Info on Submitting Your Writing
Call For Submissions
**Centering the voices, opinions, issues, interests, demands, problems, and solutions of women of color, this blog carnival will be used to connect the real world issues such as poverty, violence, imprisonment, and community neglect to the blogosphere.
**Publication date will be the first (1rst) of every month.
**The first publication will be put out at Jenn's Blog
**TOPIC ONE:
What does the internet *mean* to a woman of color?
Although often touted as the “last frontier” and positioned as something which is essential to learn in the modern day world, the internet has often been used to further very scary and unrealistic resprentations and fantasies of women of color. Furthering this passive violence, it is often the sweat shop labor of women of color that creates computers to begin with.
At the same time, however, the interent can be and often is used as a tool to connect isolated young mothers to other mothers, survivors of sexual violence to advocacy groups, disabled women to resources and a whole generation of amazing teens to other teens. The blogosphere is also used specifically as a space to cover stories that mainstream press refuse to or is too scared to.
To harnass the good of the internet, it is essential for Women of Color to better define what the interent means to us, (the good and the bad) and then work together to figure out how we can use it for our communities purposes and needs.
As such, we will be accepting submissions which question, challenge, discuss, explore, and name what the internet has meant and what it *could mean* to women of color. Is it a site of sexualized violence? A site of sexualized freedom? An opportunity to make your voice heard where there was none before? A site of further marginilization and disappointment?
The Website and Info on Submitting Your Writing
Monday, January 30, 2006
Stand Up!
"Those above us look powerful only because we are on our knees. Let's stand up!"
Epigraph to the 18th century French revolutionary newspaper Les Révolutions des Paris
Epigraph to the 18th century French revolutionary newspaper Les Révolutions des Paris
Massachusetts Congressman Marty Meehan's Staff Prompt Wikipedia Investigation
This shouldn't be to much of a surprise, but it is an example of the political information war:
Congressional staff actions prompt Wikipedia investigation
(Courtesy of Ricia at Impetus Java House)
Congressional staff actions prompt Wikipedia investigation
(Courtesy of Ricia at Impetus Java House)
Saturday, January 28, 2006
SF Indy Media: Security Culture
One should be aware of how the government traditionally infiltrated any group that had a perceived "radical" perspective and the tactics they employed--NSA/COINTELPRO?
Recognizing the Agents of a Security Culture
Recognizing the Agents of a Security Culture
Ngugi wa Thiong'o: The Outsider
The Outsider: A vicious attack upon returning to Kenya after 22 years has not deterred Ngugi wa Thiong'o from believing in its democratic prospects; his new book deals with despotism, he tells Maya Jaggi
Saturday January 28, 2006
The Guardian
Growing up in the "white highlands" of colonial Kenya, Ngugi wa Thiong'o was enthralled by flying ace Biggles. But as a teenager during the state of emergency in the 1950s, when his brother joined the Mau Mau uprising against British rule, he lived a "drama of contradictions". The RAF, on whose side Kenyans fought in the second world war, was the same force, he later wrote, "dropping bombs on my own brother in the forests of Mount Kenya".
History has always inspired Ngugi, a novelist, playwright, essayist and children's author who, as James Ngugi, was a pioneer of the African novel in English in the 1960s. Weep Not, Child (1964), A Grain of Wheat (1967) and Petals of Blood (1977) have been translated into 30 languages, and were re-issued in 2002 as Penguin modern classics. But after he changed his name and resolved in the 1970s to write only in his mother tongue, Gikuyu, his work was banned by the government, the village theatre he wrote for was razed, and he was detained without trial for a year in a maximum security prison before leaving the country 22 years ago.
Aged 68, he is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California at Irvine, and heads its International Centre for Writing and Translation. His wife, Njeeri, is director of the faculty counselling programme. They have two children, Mumbi and Thiong'o, aged 11 and 10 (Ngugi has seven older children from previous relationships). Yet the tranquillity of their home, adorned with African art, in Los Angeles belies their recent trauma.
Ngugi had vowed never to set foot in his homeland until President Daniel Arap Moi and his Kanu party were ousted, as happened in democratic elections in 2001. He returned in August 2004 to launch the first volume of a 1,000-page novel, Murogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow). Met by a throng of well-wishers and press at Nairobi airport, he says now, "I told them I wanted to be in touch with the everyday. But we returned to a nightmare." Two weeks into their visit, the couple were attacked by four men in their high-security apartment complex. Ngugi was beaten and his face burned with cigarettes. Njeeri was sexually assaulted - an ordeal she made public, she says, to combat pressures on women to remain silent about abuse. A laptop and jewellery were stolen. Three security guards and a nephew of Ngugi's by marriage were remanded on charges of robbery with violence, and one count of rape. The trial, which began in November 2004, is in its final stages, and the couple have returned twice to give evidence. "I don't want to play with my life," Ngugi says, "but we're determined not to be driven out of the country." Nairobi is notorious for crime. But in his view, "it wasn't a simple robbery. It was political - whether by remnants of the old regime or part of the new state outside the main current. They hung around as though waiting for something, and the whole thing was meant to humiliate, if not eliminate, us." They were held in separate rooms. "When I heard my wife scream, that was the end," he recalls. "Life wasn't worth living - there was nothing left to protect. I said, 'You can kill me'." He made a dash for the door. "They rushed to stop me - including the person raping my wife. Njeeri found me [outside] on the ground with three people on top of me covering my mouth, and a gun pointed at my temple." Yet the noise may have frightened off the assailants. "I don't think we were meant to come out alive. We think there's a bigger circle of forces - not just those who attacked us. I don't know if we'll ever reach the truth. But I'm sure that if it had happened under the Moi regime, we wouldn't be alive."
Wizard of the Crow, whose second of four volumes is published in Kenya this month, is set in the fictional land of Aburiria, ruled by a despot in an era of globalisation. Simon Gikandi, professor of English at Princeton, says: "In its best scatological moments, it echoes the great Latin American novels of dictatorship by Miguel Angel Asturias, Carlos Fuentes, and Gabriel García Márquez." Ngugi's English translation will be published simultaneously this August in London (Harvill Secker) and New York. A book of interviews, Ngugi wa Thiong'o Speaks (James Currey), will appear in Britain this spring.
He began the novel in 1997, before Moi ended his 24 years in power. For the ruler, whose western suits are patched with leopard skin, he drew not only on Moi, but "postcolonial dictators - Marcos, Idi Amin, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto. There's almost a comic element, except that they're so dangerous." The west, he says, colludes, "as though they need an absurd figure to laugh at while making sure he meets their needs; after the cold war, they became disposable". Yet some adapted. As the ruler says, "What I did against communists, I can do against terrorists." The novel marks a break with realism. "How do you satirise someone like Moi, who says he wants all his ministers to be parrots?"
To Read the Entire Article
Saturday January 28, 2006
The Guardian
Growing up in the "white highlands" of colonial Kenya, Ngugi wa Thiong'o was enthralled by flying ace Biggles. But as a teenager during the state of emergency in the 1950s, when his brother joined the Mau Mau uprising against British rule, he lived a "drama of contradictions". The RAF, on whose side Kenyans fought in the second world war, was the same force, he later wrote, "dropping bombs on my own brother in the forests of Mount Kenya".
History has always inspired Ngugi, a novelist, playwright, essayist and children's author who, as James Ngugi, was a pioneer of the African novel in English in the 1960s. Weep Not, Child (1964), A Grain of Wheat (1967) and Petals of Blood (1977) have been translated into 30 languages, and were re-issued in 2002 as Penguin modern classics. But after he changed his name and resolved in the 1970s to write only in his mother tongue, Gikuyu, his work was banned by the government, the village theatre he wrote for was razed, and he was detained without trial for a year in a maximum security prison before leaving the country 22 years ago.
Aged 68, he is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California at Irvine, and heads its International Centre for Writing and Translation. His wife, Njeeri, is director of the faculty counselling programme. They have two children, Mumbi and Thiong'o, aged 11 and 10 (Ngugi has seven older children from previous relationships). Yet the tranquillity of their home, adorned with African art, in Los Angeles belies their recent trauma.
Ngugi had vowed never to set foot in his homeland until President Daniel Arap Moi and his Kanu party were ousted, as happened in democratic elections in 2001. He returned in August 2004 to launch the first volume of a 1,000-page novel, Murogi wa Kagogo (Wizard of the Crow). Met by a throng of well-wishers and press at Nairobi airport, he says now, "I told them I wanted to be in touch with the everyday. But we returned to a nightmare." Two weeks into their visit, the couple were attacked by four men in their high-security apartment complex. Ngugi was beaten and his face burned with cigarettes. Njeeri was sexually assaulted - an ordeal she made public, she says, to combat pressures on women to remain silent about abuse. A laptop and jewellery were stolen. Three security guards and a nephew of Ngugi's by marriage were remanded on charges of robbery with violence, and one count of rape. The trial, which began in November 2004, is in its final stages, and the couple have returned twice to give evidence. "I don't want to play with my life," Ngugi says, "but we're determined not to be driven out of the country." Nairobi is notorious for crime. But in his view, "it wasn't a simple robbery. It was political - whether by remnants of the old regime or part of the new state outside the main current. They hung around as though waiting for something, and the whole thing was meant to humiliate, if not eliminate, us." They were held in separate rooms. "When I heard my wife scream, that was the end," he recalls. "Life wasn't worth living - there was nothing left to protect. I said, 'You can kill me'." He made a dash for the door. "They rushed to stop me - including the person raping my wife. Njeeri found me [outside] on the ground with three people on top of me covering my mouth, and a gun pointed at my temple." Yet the noise may have frightened off the assailants. "I don't think we were meant to come out alive. We think there's a bigger circle of forces - not just those who attacked us. I don't know if we'll ever reach the truth. But I'm sure that if it had happened under the Moi regime, we wouldn't be alive."
Wizard of the Crow, whose second of four volumes is published in Kenya this month, is set in the fictional land of Aburiria, ruled by a despot in an era of globalisation. Simon Gikandi, professor of English at Princeton, says: "In its best scatological moments, it echoes the great Latin American novels of dictatorship by Miguel Angel Asturias, Carlos Fuentes, and Gabriel García Márquez." Ngugi's English translation will be published simultaneously this August in London (Harvill Secker) and New York. A book of interviews, Ngugi wa Thiong'o Speaks (James Currey), will appear in Britain this spring.
He began the novel in 1997, before Moi ended his 24 years in power. For the ruler, whose western suits are patched with leopard skin, he drew not only on Moi, but "postcolonial dictators - Marcos, Idi Amin, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto. There's almost a comic element, except that they're so dangerous." The west, he says, colludes, "as though they need an absurd figure to laugh at while making sure he meets their needs; after the cold war, they became disposable". Yet some adapted. As the ruler says, "What I did against communists, I can do against terrorists." The novel marks a break with realism. "How do you satirise someone like Moi, who says he wants all his ministers to be parrots?"
To Read the Entire Article
Friday, January 27, 2006
Thivai Abhor: Why Dialogic, A Two Year Reflection
This month marks the second year I have been writing/posting on this blog. It started because I was frustrated that I could not find anyone in my community to talk to about these issues. It quickly evolved into a place where I could archive my current research and interests (aided by blogger's handy search functions).
Within the year while working with students I recognized that most of us have a hard time keeping track of the waves of information knocking us about, many of them, like me, felt adrift, without a paddle, or any clue of where a coastline might be found. So, I started the long list of links to map out what websites I believed were important to know (no doubt reflecting my politics/beliefs). At the same time I'm an advocate of the mystical power of the intellectual derive (as I am of physical derives) whereby one should browse and find things through happenstance--thus the lack of clear organization of the links. Here they are, take a chance, click on one (or two, or three, or ...).
Recently because of my constant roaming online and by not giving up on the physical world (as well as my good fortune to have gotten a job in a healthy work environment that connects me to active thinkers) I have made those connections I felt i didn't have two years ago. I started to wonder whether I really needed to keep this forum operating, but you know it still serves all of the purposes it originally did. It helps me to connect with people/ideas from distant places, it helps me to keep track of my interests/research and it connects me to actual events in my own community.
So I'm still at it... I want to thank those that have joined in on the dialogue.
Peace,
Michael aka Thivai
PS Below is my original post on this site--Bakhtin spoke to what I was worried about two years ago and why I started Dialogic:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Monologism at its extreme denies the existence outside itself of another consciousness with equal rights and equal responsibilities, another I with equal rights (thou). With a monologic approach…another person remains wholly and merely an object of consciousness, and not another consciousness. No response is expected from it that could change everything in the world of my consciousness. Monologue is finalized and deaf to the other's response, does not expect it and does not acknowledge in it any decisive force. Monologue manages without the other, and therefore to some degree materializes all reality. Monologue pretends to be the ultimate word. It closes down the represented world and represented persons. (Bakhtin: 292-93)
The dialogic nature of consciousness. The dialogic nature of human life itself. The single adequate form for verbally expressing authentic human life is the open- ended dialogue. Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his whole life: with his eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit, with his whole body and deeds. He invests his entire self in discourse, and this discourse enters into the dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium. (Bakhtin: 293)
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Problems of Dostoyesky’s Poetics. ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P, 1984.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This quote by the great Russian writer/critic Mikhail Bakhtin inspires me to listen to 'other' discourses in order to re-view my understanding of the world. I've started this blog as an attempt to map out what I am hearing/reading/seeing in an open-ended re-imagining of the world. Hopefully it won't remain a monlogue for long...
Within the year while working with students I recognized that most of us have a hard time keeping track of the waves of information knocking us about, many of them, like me, felt adrift, without a paddle, or any clue of where a coastline might be found. So, I started the long list of links to map out what websites I believed were important to know (no doubt reflecting my politics/beliefs). At the same time I'm an advocate of the mystical power of the intellectual derive (as I am of physical derives) whereby one should browse and find things through happenstance--thus the lack of clear organization of the links. Here they are, take a chance, click on one (or two, or three, or ...).
Recently because of my constant roaming online and by not giving up on the physical world (as well as my good fortune to have gotten a job in a healthy work environment that connects me to active thinkers) I have made those connections I felt i didn't have two years ago. I started to wonder whether I really needed to keep this forum operating, but you know it still serves all of the purposes it originally did. It helps me to connect with people/ideas from distant places, it helps me to keep track of my interests/research and it connects me to actual events in my own community.
So I'm still at it... I want to thank those that have joined in on the dialogue.
Peace,
Michael aka Thivai
PS Below is my original post on this site--Bakhtin spoke to what I was worried about two years ago and why I started Dialogic:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Monologism at its extreme denies the existence outside itself of another consciousness with equal rights and equal responsibilities, another I with equal rights (thou). With a monologic approach…another person remains wholly and merely an object of consciousness, and not another consciousness. No response is expected from it that could change everything in the world of my consciousness. Monologue is finalized and deaf to the other's response, does not expect it and does not acknowledge in it any decisive force. Monologue manages without the other, and therefore to some degree materializes all reality. Monologue pretends to be the ultimate word. It closes down the represented world and represented persons. (Bakhtin: 292-93)
The dialogic nature of consciousness. The dialogic nature of human life itself. The single adequate form for verbally expressing authentic human life is the open- ended dialogue. Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his whole life: with his eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit, with his whole body and deeds. He invests his entire self in discourse, and this discourse enters into the dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium. (Bakhtin: 293)
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Problems of Dostoyesky’s Poetics. ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P, 1984.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This quote by the great Russian writer/critic Mikhail Bakhtin inspires me to listen to 'other' discourses in order to re-view my understanding of the world. I've started this blog as an attempt to map out what I am hearing/reading/seeing in an open-ended re-imagining of the world. Hopefully it won't remain a monlogue for long...
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Notre Dame Reins in Gay, Women's Events
What about The Vagina Monologues offends the catholic societies that are attempting to ban it? Are they opposed to women understanding their own sexuality and learning about sexual violence? I understand their homophobia as it is evident in their continuous cycle of ignoring child abuse in the church as an issue to be buried while publicly condemning anyone who has sex outside the church's prescription of what is "normal"? Oh, that is it... if women/men were to reflect on their bodies and their needs and why sexual violence is wrong--would this threaten the religous patriarchal system that seeks to control our private behaviors (and desires)?
This is a complaint against a warped system/bureaucracy (not a condmenation of personal beliefs)--I'm truly curious--why? I've read the play many times, presented a lecture on it before it became popular, and have seen performances--it has changed so many lives and is a very positive force in our lives--why try to ban it (once again I'm against their attempt to ban the Queer Film Festival, but their homophobia is obvious)
------------------------------------------------------------
Link to report that provoked my questions:
Notre Dame reins in gay, women's events: University president says Catholic values may conflict with academic freedom
This is a complaint against a warped system/bureaucracy (not a condmenation of personal beliefs)--I'm truly curious--why? I've read the play many times, presented a lecture on it before it became popular, and have seen performances--it has changed so many lives and is a very positive force in our lives--why try to ban it (once again I'm against their attempt to ban the Queer Film Festival, but their homophobia is obvious)
------------------------------------------------------------
Link to report that provoked my questions:
Notre Dame reins in gay, women's events: University president says Catholic values may conflict with academic freedom
Kentucky Foundation for Women: Art Meets Activism Grant 2006
KFW HOT FLASH:
E-News for Everybody
SPECIAL EDITION: Art Meets Activism Grant 2006
February 18, 2006
For women, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.
Audre Lorde
ART MEETS ACTIVISM GRANT GUIDELINES AND APPLICATION FORMS ARE NOW AVAILABLE!
The Kentucky Foundation for Women staff believes in the power of feminist art to create positive social change in our state, because when women and girls advance, so does Kentucky. If you are working to create change here in Kentucky through your art, consider learning more about the Art Meets Activism grant.
If you have not received a copy of the guidelines in the mail, you can find them on our website, or call the KFW office (502-562-0045, or toll free at 866-654-7564) to request a copy.
The application deadline for the Art Meets Activism grant application is Friday, March 3rd, 2006.
The primary goal of the Art Meets Activism grant program is to support feminist artists and organizations in the development and implementation of art activities that are directly focused on social change in Kentucky. Applicants should be able to demonstrate their commitment to feminism and their understanding of the relationship between art and social change. Applicants may request funds for a range of artistic activities including: arts education programs focused on women or girls, community participation in the creation of new art forms, artist-centered projects involving non-traditional venues or new partnerships between artists and activists, and artist-centered projects with social change themes or contents.
There are several ways to get further information about KFW grant programs:
1. Visit our website. The website contains basic information and detailed instructions relating to all KFW programs.
2. Email Grants Manager Amy Attaway at amy@kfw.org. Amy will be happy to answer your questions or help you make skillful decisions about your grant proposal.
3. Call the KFW office at 502-562-0045 (or toll free at 866-654-7564). Although KFW staff members do not decide which applications get funded, they can offer information based on their experience observing the review panel process.
KFW OFFERS ART MEETS ACTIVISM GRANT WORKSHOPS
Information, Assistance, and Idea-Sharing Related to KFW and the Art Meets Activism Grant Application
KFW staff members will facilitate four workshops throughout the state.
LEXINGTON, Thursday, February 2nd, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm*
Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning
251 West Second Street
Call 859-254-4175 for directions.
*Light food will be provided,
BOWLING GREEN, Saturday, February 11th, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Bowling Green Public Library, Conference Room
1225 State Street
Call 270-781-4882 for directions.
PIKEVILLE, Saturday, February 11th, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Pike County Cooperative Extension Office
148 Trivette Drive
Call 606-432-2534 for directions.
LOUISVILLE, Saturday, February 18th, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Louisville Free Public Library Main Branch, Centennial Room
301 York Street
Call 502-574-1761 for directions.
Preregistration is requested for these meetings by contacting the KFW office at 502-562-0045 (or toll free at 866-654-7564) or by emailing sue@kfw.org. The meetings are free and open to all artists and members of organizations who express a commitment to women’s lives and empowerment through their artistic work, and are interested in learning more about how to apply for an Art Meets Activism grant. Materials and snacks will be provided. All information provided in the meetings is meant to help artists make more skillful decisions about their own grant proposals.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT KENTUCKY FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN GO TO OUR WEBSITE
E-News for Everybody
SPECIAL EDITION: Art Meets Activism Grant 2006
February 18, 2006
For women, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.
Audre Lorde
ART MEETS ACTIVISM GRANT GUIDELINES AND APPLICATION FORMS ARE NOW AVAILABLE!
The Kentucky Foundation for Women staff believes in the power of feminist art to create positive social change in our state, because when women and girls advance, so does Kentucky. If you are working to create change here in Kentucky through your art, consider learning more about the Art Meets Activism grant.
If you have not received a copy of the guidelines in the mail, you can find them on our website, or call the KFW office (502-562-0045, or toll free at 866-654-7564) to request a copy.
The application deadline for the Art Meets Activism grant application is Friday, March 3rd, 2006.
The primary goal of the Art Meets Activism grant program is to support feminist artists and organizations in the development and implementation of art activities that are directly focused on social change in Kentucky. Applicants should be able to demonstrate their commitment to feminism and their understanding of the relationship between art and social change. Applicants may request funds for a range of artistic activities including: arts education programs focused on women or girls, community participation in the creation of new art forms, artist-centered projects involving non-traditional venues or new partnerships between artists and activists, and artist-centered projects with social change themes or contents.
There are several ways to get further information about KFW grant programs:
1. Visit our website. The website contains basic information and detailed instructions relating to all KFW programs.
2. Email Grants Manager Amy Attaway at amy@kfw.org. Amy will be happy to answer your questions or help you make skillful decisions about your grant proposal.
3. Call the KFW office at 502-562-0045 (or toll free at 866-654-7564). Although KFW staff members do not decide which applications get funded, they can offer information based on their experience observing the review panel process.
KFW OFFERS ART MEETS ACTIVISM GRANT WORKSHOPS
Information, Assistance, and Idea-Sharing Related to KFW and the Art Meets Activism Grant Application
KFW staff members will facilitate four workshops throughout the state.
LEXINGTON, Thursday, February 2nd, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm*
Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning
251 West Second Street
Call 859-254-4175 for directions.
*Light food will be provided,
BOWLING GREEN, Saturday, February 11th, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Bowling Green Public Library, Conference Room
1225 State Street
Call 270-781-4882 for directions.
PIKEVILLE, Saturday, February 11th, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Pike County Cooperative Extension Office
148 Trivette Drive
Call 606-432-2534 for directions.
LOUISVILLE, Saturday, February 18th, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm
Louisville Free Public Library Main Branch, Centennial Room
301 York Street
Call 502-574-1761 for directions.
Preregistration is requested for these meetings by contacting the KFW office at 502-562-0045 (or toll free at 866-654-7564) or by emailing sue@kfw.org. The meetings are free and open to all artists and members of organizations who express a commitment to women’s lives and empowerment through their artistic work, and are interested in learning more about how to apply for an Art Meets Activism grant. Materials and snacks will be provided. All information provided in the meetings is meant to help artists make more skillful decisions about their own grant proposals.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT KENTUCKY FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN GO TO OUR WEBSITE
Robert Cray: Twenty
This is a powerful song and a very important music video!
(Courtesy of Rebecca Glasscock)
"New Music Video Features 'Eyes Wide Open' Boots"
Wage Peace Campaign
Last November 1, as the sun rose over a farm near Dover, New Hampshire the Eyes Wide Open crew once again began laying out more than two thousand pairs of boots representing the U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. But this was not a standard stop on the nation-wide tour of AFSC’s acclaimed anti-war exhibit.
The boots were being prepared to play a role in a music video for blues musician Robert Cray’s poignant new song, “Twenty”, telling the story of a young soldier, who questions his mission in Iraq, but is killed before his deployment is up.
To read the rest of the introduction and to watch this video
(Courtesy of Rebecca Glasscock)
"New Music Video Features 'Eyes Wide Open' Boots"
Wage Peace Campaign
Last November 1, as the sun rose over a farm near Dover, New Hampshire the Eyes Wide Open crew once again began laying out more than two thousand pairs of boots representing the U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. But this was not a standard stop on the nation-wide tour of AFSC’s acclaimed anti-war exhibit.
The boots were being prepared to play a role in a music video for blues musician Robert Cray’s poignant new song, “Twenty”, telling the story of a young soldier, who questions his mission in Iraq, but is killed before his deployment is up.
To read the rest of the introduction and to watch this video
We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism
Do not give up hope... working together we can change the world. I know a lot of people are tired, so here is something to keep us all inspired.
The entire book is now online (but do yourself a favor and find a copy)--this is a must read.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Opening salvo
“Never again will a single story be told as if it is the only one.” - John Berger
We are Everywhere falls somewhere between an activist anthology and a grassroots history, agitational collage and direct action manual. It traces the anticapitalist movements from their emergence in 1994 to the present, documenting the rise of an unprecedented global rebellion - a rebellion which is in constant flux, which swaps ideas and tactics across oceans, shares strategies between cultures and continents, gathers in swarms and dissolves, only to swarm again elsewhere.
But this is a movement of untold stories, for those from below are not those who get to write history, even though we are the ones making it.
The powerful look at our diversity and see only miscellany. The media report that we don’t know what we’re talking about, we have no solutions, we represent nobody, we should be ignored. If they would stay quiet for a while, they might begin to hear the many different accents, timbres, voices, and languages in which we are telling our myriad stories.
We wanted a way to document, broadcast, and amplify these unheard stories coming from the grassroots movements that have woven a global fabric of struggle during the last decade. And so we came together as an editorial collective, Notes from Nowhere, to produce this book.
But how does one begin to tell the history of a movement with no name, no manifesto, and no leaders?
The answer is that you tell it the way you live it. Just as there is no single banner we march behind, no little red book, and no doctrine to adhere to, there is no single narrative here. Rather than one dominant political voice, one dogma, one party line, we present you with a collision of subjectivities. These are moments both intimate and public, charged with inspiration, fear, humour, the everyday, and the historic.
Like this movement, we relish intimacy, subjectivity, and diversity, and we think that personal stories have as much (if not more) to teach us as any manifesto. In this, we differ from many past traditions of struggle. We are part of a new, radical, transformative politics based on direct democracy; one that values our individual voices, our hopes, our joys, our doubts, our disasters, and requires no sacrifice from us except that we sacrifice our fear. And so this book subverts the conventional reporting of such movements, taking as its starting point the experiences of those actually involved.
The book is divided into seven sections, each introduced with essays on key characteristics of the movement, written by the editors. After each essay comes a series of stories, in roughly chronological order, which show the progression of the movement as it emerges, comes together, and matures. Interspersed among these texts are do-it-yourself guides to direct action.
Running throughout the book is a historical timeline. We chose to begin with the Zapatistas as we see their uprising on 1 January 1994 as heralding a new era of resistance movements, and we come full circle, ending with their retaking of San Cristóbal de las Casas on 1 January 2003. It reveals the sheer scale and number of undocumented struggles that go on, almost daily, all around the world.
We are Everywhere does not, and could not, seek to present a packaged whole or complete overview, and its limitations, its editorial choices, are our own. In following a few threads of this complex, dispersed, and centreless web, the threads that we began to pull were the ones closest to us, which wove through our own memories and experiences. As we followed them, we realized that there were many places we couldn’t reach, where barriers of language, culture, and distance prevented us from hearing the voices of those directly involved. Inevitably, this was particularly true of the global South, and, in some cases, we have only been able to translate these movements through the voices of Northern visitors working with those movements. Whenever possible, these pieces have been read and commented on by the social movements themselves before making their way into the book.
The Zapatistas have taught us through their struggle founded on radical notions of dialogue and participation to embark on a rebellion which listens. In this spirit, we produced in the summer of 2001 a 100-page preview booklet, Notes from Everywhere, which we gave for free to activists at gatherings and actions in 11 countries on three continents, soliciting critiques, feedback, and further contributions. We continue that dialogue through our website.
When we started to bring these stories together, we were excited to confirm what we’d always suspected - that separate movements converge, recognize each other as allies, and struggle together.
So where do you fit into all of this? Well, the Zapatistas, from behind their masks, are saying not “Do as we do”, but rather, “We are you”.
But don’t forget that what you hold in your hand is only a book. As Gerrard Winstanley, one of the English Diggers - who through exemplary direct action demanded the abolishment of private property and encouraged the poor to reclaim the commons - wrote in 1649: “Thoughts and words ran in me that words and writing were all nothing, and must die, for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing.”
- Notes from Nowhere, Spring 2003.
To get the rest of the book Click Here
The entire book is now online (but do yourself a favor and find a copy)--this is a must read.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Opening salvo
“Never again will a single story be told as if it is the only one.” - John Berger
We are Everywhere falls somewhere between an activist anthology and a grassroots history, agitational collage and direct action manual. It traces the anticapitalist movements from their emergence in 1994 to the present, documenting the rise of an unprecedented global rebellion - a rebellion which is in constant flux, which swaps ideas and tactics across oceans, shares strategies between cultures and continents, gathers in swarms and dissolves, only to swarm again elsewhere.
But this is a movement of untold stories, for those from below are not those who get to write history, even though we are the ones making it.
The powerful look at our diversity and see only miscellany. The media report that we don’t know what we’re talking about, we have no solutions, we represent nobody, we should be ignored. If they would stay quiet for a while, they might begin to hear the many different accents, timbres, voices, and languages in which we are telling our myriad stories.
We wanted a way to document, broadcast, and amplify these unheard stories coming from the grassroots movements that have woven a global fabric of struggle during the last decade. And so we came together as an editorial collective, Notes from Nowhere, to produce this book.
But how does one begin to tell the history of a movement with no name, no manifesto, and no leaders?
The answer is that you tell it the way you live it. Just as there is no single banner we march behind, no little red book, and no doctrine to adhere to, there is no single narrative here. Rather than one dominant political voice, one dogma, one party line, we present you with a collision of subjectivities. These are moments both intimate and public, charged with inspiration, fear, humour, the everyday, and the historic.
Like this movement, we relish intimacy, subjectivity, and diversity, and we think that personal stories have as much (if not more) to teach us as any manifesto. In this, we differ from many past traditions of struggle. We are part of a new, radical, transformative politics based on direct democracy; one that values our individual voices, our hopes, our joys, our doubts, our disasters, and requires no sacrifice from us except that we sacrifice our fear. And so this book subverts the conventional reporting of such movements, taking as its starting point the experiences of those actually involved.
The book is divided into seven sections, each introduced with essays on key characteristics of the movement, written by the editors. After each essay comes a series of stories, in roughly chronological order, which show the progression of the movement as it emerges, comes together, and matures. Interspersed among these texts are do-it-yourself guides to direct action.
Running throughout the book is a historical timeline. We chose to begin with the Zapatistas as we see their uprising on 1 January 1994 as heralding a new era of resistance movements, and we come full circle, ending with their retaking of San Cristóbal de las Casas on 1 January 2003. It reveals the sheer scale and number of undocumented struggles that go on, almost daily, all around the world.
We are Everywhere does not, and could not, seek to present a packaged whole or complete overview, and its limitations, its editorial choices, are our own. In following a few threads of this complex, dispersed, and centreless web, the threads that we began to pull were the ones closest to us, which wove through our own memories and experiences. As we followed them, we realized that there were many places we couldn’t reach, where barriers of language, culture, and distance prevented us from hearing the voices of those directly involved. Inevitably, this was particularly true of the global South, and, in some cases, we have only been able to translate these movements through the voices of Northern visitors working with those movements. Whenever possible, these pieces have been read and commented on by the social movements themselves before making their way into the book.
The Zapatistas have taught us through their struggle founded on radical notions of dialogue and participation to embark on a rebellion which listens. In this spirit, we produced in the summer of 2001 a 100-page preview booklet, Notes from Everywhere, which we gave for free to activists at gatherings and actions in 11 countries on three continents, soliciting critiques, feedback, and further contributions. We continue that dialogue through our website.
When we started to bring these stories together, we were excited to confirm what we’d always suspected - that separate movements converge, recognize each other as allies, and struggle together.
So where do you fit into all of this? Well, the Zapatistas, from behind their masks, are saying not “Do as we do”, but rather, “We are you”.
But don’t forget that what you hold in your hand is only a book. As Gerrard Winstanley, one of the English Diggers - who through exemplary direct action demanded the abolishment of private property and encouraged the poor to reclaim the commons - wrote in 1649: “Thoughts and words ran in me that words and writing were all nothing, and must die, for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing.”
- Notes from Nowhere, Spring 2003.
To get the rest of the book Click Here
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Grist Magazine: Interview of Julia Butterfly Hill
If you have never seen a thousand year old redwood tree you might not understand what would drive someone to climb one and risk their life to keep it from being cut down... I know these trees and I have found few beings in this world as majestic and moving as these huge, ancient trees.
I have heard a lot of people ridicule what Julia did, I believe her act was very heroic... demonstrating a depth of caring about the environment that I find inspiring and a recognition that "being" does not begin and end with the human.
Grist interviews Julia Butterfly Hill and solicits your questions.
More:
- Julia joining the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation
Circle of Life Foundation
I have heard a lot of people ridicule what Julia did, I believe her act was very heroic... demonstrating a depth of caring about the environment that I find inspiring and a recognition that "being" does not begin and end with the human.
Grist interviews Julia Butterfly Hill and solicits your questions.
More:
The common thread humanity shares is that we are all children of the Earth. We all need clean air and water for our survival. We are all planetary citizens, and the ancient trees are living, breathing elders that remind us to respect and honor that which we cannot replace.
Every religion in the world builds shrines, temples, and churches so people can worship and feel connected to creation and the Creator. Yet the ancient forest cathedrals are continuously desecrated by industrial logging practices. Protecting the sacred forest ecosystems is a moral imperative on behalf of all life and compels all spiritual people to unite in this common goal.
- Julia joining the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation
Circle of Life Foundation
Tell Us What You Really Think?
I heard this person was just dismissed form teaching courses for Bluegrass Community and Technical College. She was a sociology professor and in this Chronicle of Higher Education article she laments that the Boy Scouts and the Church are under assault by "The Left" and claimed that the population of community colleges are "the hard-core, inner-city, multi-problemed, poor, underprepared, underachieving and non-motivated, welfare-to-work, drug abusing, functionally illiterate masses."
Her latest column for the local paper waster was Illegals Create Burden on Community. Here is a classic sentence from this column: "Californitis begins with employers, liberals and churches welcoming illegals, euphemistically referred to as undocumented workers, economic refugees and global citizens."
Hmmm, I guess the "left" and the churches made up and went out on a picnic with the employers?
Acchhoo!!!!! Oh no, I hope that isn't Californitis! Does it lead to Californification?
Her latest column for the local paper waster was Illegals Create Burden on Community. Here is a classic sentence from this column: "Californitis begins with employers, liberals and churches welcoming illegals, euphemistically referred to as undocumented workers, economic refugees and global citizens."
Hmmm, I guess the "left" and the churches made up and went out on a picnic with the employers?
Acchhoo!!!!! Oh no, I hope that isn't Californitis! Does it lead to Californification?
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Molly Ivins: Not. Backing. Hillary.
Weltatem has a post on this:
Not. Backing. Hillary.
I'm not giving any support to the Democrats unless they start to find a backbone... but then I must be in left field all by myself?
Will 2006 be one of those watershed moments? I mean come on, every day now when I sign into Yahoo the front page is full of news about Bush administration crimes--I mean that is fairly mainstream news and no one can say "gee, I didn't know?"
Not. Backing. Hillary.
I'm not giving any support to the Democrats unless they start to find a backbone... but then I must be in left field all by myself?
Will 2006 be one of those watershed moments? I mean come on, every day now when I sign into Yahoo the front page is full of news about Bush administration crimes--I mean that is fairly mainstream news and no one can say "gee, I didn't know?"
NBC Bows to Fundamentalist PC Police and Cancels "The Book of Daniel"
I saw an episode and thought it was very good (OK, there goes my cover, I was home on a friday night, I'm going through a divorce and I was depressed--I thought my pagan ways must be the root cause of my problems and I tuned into this show to see how good Christian folk handle their problems--I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they have problems like everyone and I was soon smiling again)
But those nasty fundamentalist PC police do not like any portrayal that deviates from a false, singular vision of what a Christian must think and do:
NBC Pressured to Drop Book of Daniel
But those nasty fundamentalist PC police do not like any portrayal that deviates from a false, singular vision of what a Christian must think and do:
NBC Pressured to Drop Book of Daniel
Readings from The Voices of the People's History of the United States
(Cheers to Danny Mayer who introduced me to the DVD)
Description of the DVD
The book that inspired the DVD's readings.
The book above is a collection of the actual documents of the people whose history is related in this Howard Zinn classic book
"As a teacher, I'm not interested in just reproducing class after class of graduates who will get out, become successful, and take their obedient places in the slots that society has prepared for them. What we must do--whether we teach or write or make films--is educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world." (15)
Zinn, Howard. "Stories Hollywood Never Tells." The Sun #343 (July 2004): 12-15.
All he wants is for us to learn and write our own histories
Description of the DVD
The book that inspired the DVD's readings.
The book above is a collection of the actual documents of the people whose history is related in this Howard Zinn classic book
"As a teacher, I'm not interested in just reproducing class after class of graduates who will get out, become successful, and take their obedient places in the slots that society has prepared for them. What we must do--whether we teach or write or make films--is educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world." (15)
Zinn, Howard. "Stories Hollywood Never Tells." The Sun #343 (July 2004): 12-15.
All he wants is for us to learn and write our own histories
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Eugene Jarecki: Why We Fight
Ornas says:
He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning "military industrial complex," foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.
Fred Davies comments:
Despite obvious comparison with Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11this is not a gonzo bit of egotistic movie making with a big cuddly shambolic star doing stunts. This is a serious piece of research and reporting of the highest standard. Instead of the meaningless Bushite mantra of 'freedom; freedom; freedom' it pinpoints the historical dimension of the Iraq war and the ideological manipulation and monetary and political interests of the military industrial complex that has landed USA into the hand of crypto Fascists who hide the truth from the people who instead are fed 'bread and circuses' by the culture industry. However Jarecki includes key neocons like Richard Perle and great clips of Rumsfeld schmoozing with Saddam Hussein – our ally against Iran to whom US sold his wmd. Jarecki also includes a fascinating story of a Vietnam vet who backs the war because it was against Al Qaidia but falls apart as he watches Bush shuffle sheepishly away from that. It was been premièred at the Sundance film festival where it won the Grand Jury prize for documentary. But I doubt any of the US mass media which colludes with the military industrial complex as part of the 'national security state' will allow it to be shown. But we have had it shown In British TV.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Its not showing in Lexington, KY... anyone seen it yet?
He may have been the ultimate icon of 1950s conformity and postwar complacency, but Dwight D. Eisenhower was an iconoclast, visionary, and the Cassandra of the New World Order. Upon departing his presidency, Eisenhower issued a stern, cogent warning about the burgeoning "military industrial complex," foretelling with ominous clarity the state of the world in 2004 with its incestuous entanglement of political, corporate, and Defense Department interests.
Fred Davies comments:
Despite obvious comparison with Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11this is not a gonzo bit of egotistic movie making with a big cuddly shambolic star doing stunts. This is a serious piece of research and reporting of the highest standard. Instead of the meaningless Bushite mantra of 'freedom; freedom; freedom' it pinpoints the historical dimension of the Iraq war and the ideological manipulation and monetary and political interests of the military industrial complex that has landed USA into the hand of crypto Fascists who hide the truth from the people who instead are fed 'bread and circuses' by the culture industry. However Jarecki includes key neocons like Richard Perle and great clips of Rumsfeld schmoozing with Saddam Hussein – our ally against Iran to whom US sold his wmd. Jarecki also includes a fascinating story of a Vietnam vet who backs the war because it was against Al Qaidia but falls apart as he watches Bush shuffle sheepishly away from that. It was been premièred at the Sundance film festival where it won the Grand Jury prize for documentary. But I doubt any of the US mass media which colludes with the military industrial complex as part of the 'national security state' will allow it to be shown. But we have had it shown In British TV.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Its not showing in Lexington, KY... anyone seen it yet?
Terrence McNally: Battlefield Iraq
Battlefield Iraq
by Terrence McNally
AlterNet
Combat veterans Sean Huze, Paul Rieckhoff and Jimmy Massey discuss the truth -- and the lies -- about the war in Iraq.
Park City, Utah, is a long way from Baghdad. The four Iraq war veterans attending the Sundance Film Festival, which starts this weekend, are probably more comfortable in combat boots than Ugg boots, but they hope their presence will help promote "The Ground Truth," a documentary directed by Patricia Foulkrod in which they appear. Two of those vets, Paul Rieckhoff and Sean Huze, recently joined a third, Jimmy Massey, to talk with interviewer Terrence McNally about their experiences in Iraq.
As a corporal in the Marines, Sean Huze participated in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Huze was awarded a Certificate of Commendation citing his "courage and self-sacrifice throughout sustained combat operations" while in Iraq. After returning to the United States, he starred in his debut as a playwright, "The Sand Storm: Stories from the Front." His third play, "The Dragon Slayer," which focuses on PTSD, will premiere in Los Angeles in March.
Paul Rieckhoff enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves on Sept. 15, 1998. In early 2003, he was assigned as platoon leader for the 3rd Platoon, B Company, 3/124th INF (Air Assault) FLNG, and spent approximately 10 months in Iraq. Third Platoon conducted over 1,000 combat patrols; all 38 men in Rieckhoff's platoon returned home alive. In June 2004, Rieckhoff founded Operation Truth -- now called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) -- along with a couple of other veterans, some volunteers and massive credit-card debt.
To Continue Reading this Article
by Terrence McNally
AlterNet
Combat veterans Sean Huze, Paul Rieckhoff and Jimmy Massey discuss the truth -- and the lies -- about the war in Iraq.
Park City, Utah, is a long way from Baghdad. The four Iraq war veterans attending the Sundance Film Festival, which starts this weekend, are probably more comfortable in combat boots than Ugg boots, but they hope their presence will help promote "The Ground Truth," a documentary directed by Patricia Foulkrod in which they appear. Two of those vets, Paul Rieckhoff and Sean Huze, recently joined a third, Jimmy Massey, to talk with interviewer Terrence McNally about their experiences in Iraq.
As a corporal in the Marines, Sean Huze participated in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Huze was awarded a Certificate of Commendation citing his "courage and self-sacrifice throughout sustained combat operations" while in Iraq. After returning to the United States, he starred in his debut as a playwright, "The Sand Storm: Stories from the Front." His third play, "The Dragon Slayer," which focuses on PTSD, will premiere in Los Angeles in March.
Paul Rieckhoff enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves on Sept. 15, 1998. In early 2003, he was assigned as platoon leader for the 3rd Platoon, B Company, 3/124th INF (Air Assault) FLNG, and spent approximately 10 months in Iraq. Third Platoon conducted over 1,000 combat patrols; all 38 men in Rieckhoff's platoon returned home alive. In June 2004, Rieckhoff founded Operation Truth -- now called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) -- along with a couple of other veterans, some volunteers and massive credit-card debt.
To Continue Reading this Article
Friday, January 20, 2006
Youth Fascism and Totalitarian Style Surveillance
We have targeted, training of youth-fascist informing, combined with totalitarian-style eavesdropping/surveillance
what is happening to us (U.S.)
what is happening to us (U.S.)
M. John Harrison: The Course of the Heart
"Throughout these inane or incompetent speeches--which gave me feelings of nightmare, disorder, the certain failure of everything the ceremony was supposed to represent--the children laughed at every pause, as if they were trying to understand less what to laugh at than when, so that later in life they could measure their responses as accurately by the rhythms of an occasion as by its content."
M. John Harrison The Course of the Heart
M. John Harrison The Course of the Heart
Do Not Be Fooled: Universities and Colleges are Mostly Conservative
Yeah, there are little pockets of us leftist hanging out in humanities departments, and social science or geography or environmentally-influenced disciplines--but even within these departments there is a conservative impulse.
To make it more clear though--think of the disciplines that command the most funding/grants.... business, engineering, hard sciences, medicine... these are dominated by conservatives and their politics rule universities (no matter how much fuss we crazy leftists cause ;)
Yahoo Report That Continues This Silly Controversy
Abby Normal supplies this extra report:
An alumni group dedicated to "exposing the most radical professors" at the University of California at Los Angeles is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of suspect faculty.
Which is ridiculous because they are professors--just go read what they write and you will have plenty of ammo ... and they call us "politically correct" paranoids?
To make it more clear though--think of the disciplines that command the most funding/grants.... business, engineering, hard sciences, medicine... these are dominated by conservatives and their politics rule universities (no matter how much fuss we crazy leftists cause ;)
Yahoo Report That Continues This Silly Controversy
Abby Normal supplies this extra report:
An alumni group dedicated to "exposing the most radical professors" at the University of California at Los Angeles is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of suspect faculty.
Which is ridiculous because they are professors--just go read what they write and you will have plenty of ammo ... and they call us "politically correct" paranoids?
Laugh, and the World Laughs With You, Weep, and You Weep Alone
We watched it tonight and that quote from the film just keeps popping into my head.
(2005/2006 Location and Schedule)
On thursday, January 19th, at 7:30 pm, Bluegrass Film Society will explode back onto the Lexington scene with ...
Revenge is never sweet...
The problems of the human drive to control and manipulate...
Melodrama, it is what it is...
Quentin likes it, so, is that supposed to make me want to see it?
A film that some rave about and that some hate--what is all the fuss about?
All showings, as always, FREE! (half price for Republicans) and open to the public.
(2005/2006 Location and Schedule)
On thursday, January 19th, at 7:30 pm, Bluegrass Film Society will explode back onto the Lexington scene with ...
Revenge is never sweet...
The problems of the human drive to control and manipulate...
Melodrama, it is what it is...
Quentin likes it, so, is that supposed to make me want to see it?
A film that some rave about and that some hate--what is all the fuss about?
All showings, as always, FREE! (half price for Republicans) and open to the public.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
New York: Second Annual Bluegrass Film & Music Festival
Makor, a cultural center in New York, is hosting its second Bluegrass Film & Music Festival next month, and I thought you might be interested in spreading the word – a press release is attached. And if you find yourself in New York, please consider this an invitation.
Best, Meryl
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tickets/Registration
Media contact: Meryl Wheeler, 212.413.8841, mwheeler@92Y.org
MAKOR, just off mainstream
[A program of the 92nd Street Y]
35 West 67th Street (CPW + Columbus)
MAKOR PRESENTS
THE SECOND ANNUAL
BLUEGRASS FILM + MUSIC FESTIVAL
Tue, Wed, Sat + Sun, February 15, 16, 18, + 19
Documentaries, Discussion, and Bluegrass from around the U.S.
New York, NY, January 19, 2006 – Bluegrass - one of America’s indigenous (and traditionally rural) music styles - returns to Gotham as Makor presents its second annual BLUEGRASS FILM + MUSIC FESTIVAL, featuring a variety of documentaries, discussion and music on Tue, Wed, Sat and Sun February 15, 16, 18 and 19. Newsday called last year’s inaugural Festival – the first bluegrass festival in New York - “a vital event.”
FILM
The films document bluegrass pioneers such as RALPH STANLEY and THE CARTER FAMILY as well as current performers and the close-knit fan community. A discussion of the current bluegrass scene follows the screening of BLUEGRASS JOURNEY.
MUSIC
The musical performances feature some of NYC best homegrown bluegrass musicians: MARGOT LEVERETT AND THE KLEZMER MOUNTAIN BOYS pair bluegrass with klezmer, TONY TRISCHKA performs virtuoso banjo and ASTROGRASS does a special show for children. Brooklyn’s COBBLE HILLBILLIES are also on hand for a return engagement.
BLUEGRASS FILM + MUSIC FESTIVAL
Schedule of Events
WED FEB 15 - FILM
7:30 PM / $9
THE RALPH STANLEY STORY (2001)
For more than 50 years, Ralph Stanley’s banjo playing, haunting tenor voice and tradition-inspired repertoire have epitomized old-time bluegrass music. This documentary explores Stanley’s musical roots in Virginia, the early days of The Stanley Brothers and his decision to continue after the untimely death of his brother, Carter.
[Director: Herb E. Smith. Runtime: 82 min. DOCUMENTARY]
WED FEB 15 - MUSIC
$8 PM / $15 (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
OLD SCHOOL FREIGHT TRAIN / MARGOT LEVERETT & THE KLEZMER MOUNTAIN BOYS
Charlottesville, VA-based OLD SCHOOL FREIGHT TRAIN blends jazz, Latin, Celtic, bluegrass and pop into an original acoustic mix. Their most recent CD, Run, was produced by mandolin master David Grisman, for his Acoustic Disc label, and includes an acoustic version of Steve Wonder’s “Superstition” and their interpretation of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927,” in addition to 10 originals. The KLEZMER MOUNTAIN BOYS, led by clarinetist MARGOT LEVERETT, bring the klezmer and bluegrass worlds together, interweaving these styles to create a rich musical tapestry. They blend the haunting beauty of a lost Russian melody with an Appalachian waltz and create irresistible dance medleys of reels and bulgars.
THU FEB 16 - FILM
7:30 PM / $15
BLUEGRASS JOURNEY (2003)
This documentary celebrates the virtuoso artistry in contemporary American bluegrass music along with its devoted fans. Performances by bluegrass luminaries - including the Del McCoury Band, Peter Rowan, Tim O’Brien, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Rhonda Vincent and Nickel Creek - create an indelible impression and explain the genre’s recent popularity. Features a Q&A with filmmakers Ruth Oxenberg and Rob Schumer, moderated by Matt Winters of WKCR-FM, following the screening.
[Directors: Ruth Oxenberg and Rob Schumer. Runtime: 86 min. DOCUMENTARY]
THU FEB 16 - MUSIC
8 PM / $15 (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
THE LONESOME SISTERS
***“Crystalline harmonies and mournful tunes…” (Boston Globe)
THE LONESOME SISTERS - Sarah Hawker and Debra Clifford - are known for their hard-hitting, old-time country and mountain harmonies and a repertoire of classic tragedy and heartache. They have performed with the Levon Helm Band, Tony Trischka, Mike Marshall and Darol Anger, and at such prestigious venues as the Newport Folk Festival and NYC’s Merkin Hall. This is their first gig at Makor.
10 PM / $15
THE STRINGDUSTERS (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
THE STRINGDUSTERS are one of the most talented and creative new bands on the bluegrass scene. The Nashville-based band is steeped in both the tradition of bluegrass vocal harmony and the progressive edge of instrumental music, with a wealth of original songs that helps to set them apart.
SAT FEB 18 - FILM
7:30 PM / $9 (for both films)
SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE (1985)
HAZEL DICKENS: IT’S HARD TO TELL THE SINGER FROM THE SONG (2002)
During the 1920s and ’30s, the records and radio shows of A.P. Carter, his wife, Sara, and his sister-in-law Maybelle spread the music of the southern mountains and earned the Carter family international fame. SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE celebrates the legacy of this country music dynasty. [Directors: Scott Faulkner, Anthony Slone and Jack Wright. Runtime: 58 min. DOCUMENTARY]
From the West Virginia coalfields to the factories of Baltimore, Hazel Dickens has lived the songs she sings. View an intimate portrait of this pioneering woman in bluegrass and hardcore country, featuring interviews with Dickens and other musicians interwoven with archival footage and recent performances. [Director: Mimi Pickering. Runtime: 60 min. DOCUMENTARY]
SAT FEB 18 - MUSIC
8 PM / $15 (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
TONY TRISCHKA’S ‘WORLD TURNING’ / THE COBBLE HILLBILLIES
***“If jazzman Thelonious Monk had ever played the banjo, he would have probably sounded like Tony Trischka” (Bluegrass Unlimited)
***“It’s difficult to believe that Tony Trischka has the same number of fingers as anyone else.” (Alternative Press)
With his command of various banjo styles, distinctive writing and a fearless approach, TONY TRISCHKA is one of the most creative and imaginative banjo players today. His new project, “World Turning,” is a musical history of the banjo in America, with a nod to its African roots. Six friends from such far-flung locales as Quebec, St. Louis, North Carolina, Oregon and Chicago found themselves in Brooklyn and founded the COBBLE HILLBILLIES (named for one of the borough’s neighborhoods, Cobble Hill) in 2003. Along with more traditional bluegrass topics such as riverboat captains and lost lovers, the Cobble Hillbillies also sing about more urban subjects, like the F train.
SUN FEB 19 - MUSIC
1 PM / $12 / SPECIAL CHILDREN’S SHOW
ASTROGRASS
Brooklyn-based ASTROGRASS’ kids show is an interactive, captivating performance featuring a quirky mix of bluegrass, folk, and humor. Highlights of the show include dance contests set to high-energy fiddle hoedowns, musical interpretations of the poetry of Shel Silverstein, and sing-alongs to some beloved favorites. The band and audience also explore the art of songwriting, with kids providing lyrical content for an original song that gets completed by the end of the show.
About the 92nd Street Y
MAKOR, a program of the 92nd Street Y, offers New Yorkers in their 20s and 30s opportunities for exploration and connection within an environment committed to Jewish pluralism, cultural innovation and intellectual excellence. Programs range from cutting-edge music performances, independent and foreign film screenings and art and photo exhibits to workshops, talks and classes on a variety of topics including Jewish culture. Through professional networking and community service initiatives Makor (Hebrew for "source") also provides opportunities to connect and create community. Events take place in the club-like atmosphere of a beautifully refurbished double brownstone at 35 West 67th Street, one of New York's landmark blocks.
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural and community center serving people of all races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y’s mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit each year -- both in person and through Live from NY’s 92nd Street Y!, the Y’s satellite broadcast program. The organization’s East Side headquarters and West Side outpost, Makor, offer comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, arts and Jewish education; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards over $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 6,000 public school children each year through subsidized arts education programs. For more information, visit this link
Best, Meryl
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tickets/Registration
Media contact: Meryl Wheeler, 212.413.8841, mwheeler@92Y.org
MAKOR, just off mainstream
[A program of the 92nd Street Y]
35 West 67th Street (CPW + Columbus)
MAKOR PRESENTS
THE SECOND ANNUAL
BLUEGRASS FILM + MUSIC FESTIVAL
Tue, Wed, Sat + Sun, February 15, 16, 18, + 19
Documentaries, Discussion, and Bluegrass from around the U.S.
New York, NY, January 19, 2006 – Bluegrass - one of America’s indigenous (and traditionally rural) music styles - returns to Gotham as Makor presents its second annual BLUEGRASS FILM + MUSIC FESTIVAL, featuring a variety of documentaries, discussion and music on Tue, Wed, Sat and Sun February 15, 16, 18 and 19. Newsday called last year’s inaugural Festival – the first bluegrass festival in New York - “a vital event.”
FILM
The films document bluegrass pioneers such as RALPH STANLEY and THE CARTER FAMILY as well as current performers and the close-knit fan community. A discussion of the current bluegrass scene follows the screening of BLUEGRASS JOURNEY.
MUSIC
The musical performances feature some of NYC best homegrown bluegrass musicians: MARGOT LEVERETT AND THE KLEZMER MOUNTAIN BOYS pair bluegrass with klezmer, TONY TRISCHKA performs virtuoso banjo and ASTROGRASS does a special show for children. Brooklyn’s COBBLE HILLBILLIES are also on hand for a return engagement.
BLUEGRASS FILM + MUSIC FESTIVAL
Schedule of Events
WED FEB 15 - FILM
7:30 PM / $9
THE RALPH STANLEY STORY (2001)
For more than 50 years, Ralph Stanley’s banjo playing, haunting tenor voice and tradition-inspired repertoire have epitomized old-time bluegrass music. This documentary explores Stanley’s musical roots in Virginia, the early days of The Stanley Brothers and his decision to continue after the untimely death of his brother, Carter.
[Director: Herb E. Smith. Runtime: 82 min. DOCUMENTARY]
WED FEB 15 - MUSIC
$8 PM / $15 (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
OLD SCHOOL FREIGHT TRAIN / MARGOT LEVERETT & THE KLEZMER MOUNTAIN BOYS
Charlottesville, VA-based OLD SCHOOL FREIGHT TRAIN blends jazz, Latin, Celtic, bluegrass and pop into an original acoustic mix. Their most recent CD, Run, was produced by mandolin master David Grisman, for his Acoustic Disc label, and includes an acoustic version of Steve Wonder’s “Superstition” and their interpretation of Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927,” in addition to 10 originals. The KLEZMER MOUNTAIN BOYS, led by clarinetist MARGOT LEVERETT, bring the klezmer and bluegrass worlds together, interweaving these styles to create a rich musical tapestry. They blend the haunting beauty of a lost Russian melody with an Appalachian waltz and create irresistible dance medleys of reels and bulgars.
THU FEB 16 - FILM
7:30 PM / $15
BLUEGRASS JOURNEY (2003)
This documentary celebrates the virtuoso artistry in contemporary American bluegrass music along with its devoted fans. Performances by bluegrass luminaries - including the Del McCoury Band, Peter Rowan, Tim O’Brien, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Rhonda Vincent and Nickel Creek - create an indelible impression and explain the genre’s recent popularity. Features a Q&A with filmmakers Ruth Oxenberg and Rob Schumer, moderated by Matt Winters of WKCR-FM, following the screening.
[Directors: Ruth Oxenberg and Rob Schumer. Runtime: 86 min. DOCUMENTARY]
THU FEB 16 - MUSIC
8 PM / $15 (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
THE LONESOME SISTERS
***“Crystalline harmonies and mournful tunes…” (Boston Globe)
THE LONESOME SISTERS - Sarah Hawker and Debra Clifford - are known for their hard-hitting, old-time country and mountain harmonies and a repertoire of classic tragedy and heartache. They have performed with the Levon Helm Band, Tony Trischka, Mike Marshall and Darol Anger, and at such prestigious venues as the Newport Folk Festival and NYC’s Merkin Hall. This is their first gig at Makor.
10 PM / $15
THE STRINGDUSTERS (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
THE STRINGDUSTERS are one of the most talented and creative new bands on the bluegrass scene. The Nashville-based band is steeped in both the tradition of bluegrass vocal harmony and the progressive edge of instrumental music, with a wealth of original songs that helps to set them apart.
SAT FEB 18 - FILM
7:30 PM / $9 (for both films)
SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE (1985)
HAZEL DICKENS: IT’S HARD TO TELL THE SINGER FROM THE SONG (2002)
During the 1920s and ’30s, the records and radio shows of A.P. Carter, his wife, Sara, and his sister-in-law Maybelle spread the music of the southern mountains and earned the Carter family international fame. SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE celebrates the legacy of this country music dynasty. [Directors: Scott Faulkner, Anthony Slone and Jack Wright. Runtime: 58 min. DOCUMENTARY]
From the West Virginia coalfields to the factories of Baltimore, Hazel Dickens has lived the songs she sings. View an intimate portrait of this pioneering woman in bluegrass and hardcore country, featuring interviews with Dickens and other musicians interwoven with archival footage and recent performances. [Director: Mimi Pickering. Runtime: 60 min. DOCUMENTARY]
SAT FEB 18 - MUSIC
8 PM / $15 (1/2 price with purchase of film ticket)
TONY TRISCHKA’S ‘WORLD TURNING’ / THE COBBLE HILLBILLIES
***“If jazzman Thelonious Monk had ever played the banjo, he would have probably sounded like Tony Trischka” (Bluegrass Unlimited)
***“It’s difficult to believe that Tony Trischka has the same number of fingers as anyone else.” (Alternative Press)
With his command of various banjo styles, distinctive writing and a fearless approach, TONY TRISCHKA is one of the most creative and imaginative banjo players today. His new project, “World Turning,” is a musical history of the banjo in America, with a nod to its African roots. Six friends from such far-flung locales as Quebec, St. Louis, North Carolina, Oregon and Chicago found themselves in Brooklyn and founded the COBBLE HILLBILLIES (named for one of the borough’s neighborhoods, Cobble Hill) in 2003. Along with more traditional bluegrass topics such as riverboat captains and lost lovers, the Cobble Hillbillies also sing about more urban subjects, like the F train.
SUN FEB 19 - MUSIC
1 PM / $12 / SPECIAL CHILDREN’S SHOW
ASTROGRASS
Brooklyn-based ASTROGRASS’ kids show is an interactive, captivating performance featuring a quirky mix of bluegrass, folk, and humor. Highlights of the show include dance contests set to high-energy fiddle hoedowns, musical interpretations of the poetry of Shel Silverstein, and sing-alongs to some beloved favorites. The band and audience also explore the art of songwriting, with kids providing lyrical content for an original song that gets completed by the end of the show.
About the 92nd Street Y
MAKOR, a program of the 92nd Street Y, offers New Yorkers in their 20s and 30s opportunities for exploration and connection within an environment committed to Jewish pluralism, cultural innovation and intellectual excellence. Programs range from cutting-edge music performances, independent and foreign film screenings and art and photo exhibits to workshops, talks and classes on a variety of topics including Jewish culture. Through professional networking and community service initiatives Makor (Hebrew for "source") also provides opportunities to connect and create community. Events take place in the club-like atmosphere of a beautifully refurbished double brownstone at 35 West 67th Street, one of New York's landmark blocks.
Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural and community center serving people of all races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y’s mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit each year -- both in person and through Live from NY’s 92nd Street Y!, the Y’s satellite broadcast program. The organization’s East Side headquarters and West Side outpost, Makor, offer comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, arts and Jewish education; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards over $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 6,000 public school children each year through subsidized arts education programs. For more information, visit this link
Monday, January 16, 2006
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Martin Luther King, Jr. is a radical hero that should be remembered for his ethical challenge to the American government/people:
In this excerpt from Shambhala magazine Charles Johnson reveals The King We Need.
Earl Ofari Hutchison at AlterNet examines how many local government agenices still ignore this national Holiday for a Hero.
Martin Luther King was a pacifist in that he preached change through non-violent protest, but he was not "passive" when confronted with the need to address injustice and oppression. His words were an active rallying cry for a re-vision of the United States of America... now that he has a holiday, streets, and schools named for him it is easy to forget how he, and other strong souls, fearlessly spoke truth to power:
Film: Honor the Legacy, Get Active!
One of the better articles attempting to realize Martin Luther King's "truth force":
Dr. King: The Remix
And from Cornel West:
Prisoners of Hope
A new website asks us to remember the history of segregation in the U.S., but even more importantly we should continue to recognize the continuing reality of racial segregation in our country today
In this excerpt from Shambhala magazine Charles Johnson reveals The King We Need.
Earl Ofari Hutchison at AlterNet examines how many local government agenices still ignore this national Holiday for a Hero.
Martin Luther King was a pacifist in that he preached change through non-violent protest, but he was not "passive" when confronted with the need to address injustice and oppression. His words were an active rallying cry for a re-vision of the United States of America... now that he has a holiday, streets, and schools named for him it is easy to forget how he, and other strong souls, fearlessly spoke truth to power:
Film: Honor the Legacy, Get Active!
One of the better articles attempting to realize Martin Luther King's "truth force":
Dr. King: The Remix
And from Cornel West:
Prisoners of Hope
A new website asks us to remember the history of segregation in the U.S., but even more importantly we should continue to recognize the continuing reality of racial segregation in our country today
The New Standard
(From Dale Fitzgibbons)
The NewStandard
They publish all-original content 5 days a week on a huge range of US news subjects like civil liberties, the environment, work and money, health, the "war on terror," etc. Unlike the mainstream media, which mostly pays attention to politicians and other elites, TNS focuses mostly on the people impacted by and the activists working on issues and current events.
The site also carries lots of other features, like daily links to important stories on other sites to keep you totally informed.
TNS is a reader-funded, nonprofit publication. They have no advertising, no foundation funding, no investors.
Here are just a few great recent articles:
‘Worker Centers’ Pick Up Where Unions, Govt. Leave Off
Chicago Turns Down Discounted Venezuelan Oil
Critics Question Senate’s Supposed ‘Anti-torture’ Stance
Bush’s Immigration Ideas Worry Mexicans ‘Looking for a Future’
German sues CIA, Corporations for Rendition, Torture
Program Nixed in 2001 Could Have Curbed Gulf Coast Damage, Experts Say
I'm helping TNS by donating every month to support their work, but they're struggling for sustainability right now and need every bit of help available. I hope you'll consider joining me in backing this worthy project.
The New Standard
The NewStandard
They publish all-original content 5 days a week on a huge range of US news subjects like civil liberties, the environment, work and money, health, the "war on terror," etc. Unlike the mainstream media, which mostly pays attention to politicians and other elites, TNS focuses mostly on the people impacted by and the activists working on issues and current events.
The site also carries lots of other features, like daily links to important stories on other sites to keep you totally informed.
TNS is a reader-funded, nonprofit publication. They have no advertising, no foundation funding, no investors.
Here are just a few great recent articles:
‘Worker Centers’ Pick Up Where Unions, Govt. Leave Off
Chicago Turns Down Discounted Venezuelan Oil
Critics Question Senate’s Supposed ‘Anti-torture’ Stance
Bush’s Immigration Ideas Worry Mexicans ‘Looking for a Future’
German sues CIA, Corporations for Rendition, Torture
Program Nixed in 2001 Could Have Curbed Gulf Coast Damage, Experts Say
I'm helping TNS by donating every month to support their work, but they're struggling for sustainability right now and need every bit of help available. I hope you'll consider joining me in backing this worthy project.
The New Standard
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Judith F. Baca: Balance
(To read about the Social and Public Art Resource Center projects read Ricia's post at the Impetus Green Room)
Oregon Literary Review: 1.1
Their first issue is online and features:
Fiction by Michael Hollister, Judy Wilson, Peter McDonnell, Jeff P. Jones, Mary Rechner.
Plays by Vincent Kovar, Fred D. White, Robert Caisley, Martin Burke, Sherrie J. Lyons, Rob Carney, Bill Teitelbaum, Vicki L. Wilson, Stephen A. Schrum.
Screenplays by Lisa Frank, Adriane Rainer, Weston Miller, Bill Ballard.
Essays by Claude Clayton Smith, Elizabeth Flood.
Experimental writing by Joel Weishaus, Ron Singer.
Requiems by Stephen DeCesare, Douglas Knehans.
New music by Nathan Wright Shirley, David See, Leonard Dumitriu, Andrian Pertout.
Music drama by Jason Heald.
Music criticism by John Jarvis, Hernan D. Palmieri.
Photography by Peter Ciccariello, Timothy M. Leonard, Annie Dawid.
Paintings by Kenney Mencher, Laura Eklund, Daniel Petrov, Tatyana Uspenskaya-Murphy.
Prints by Robert Canaga.
Animations by Mike Chappell, Joon Sung, Matt Calvert.
Code Poetry by [[mez]].
Haiga by Pris Campbell.
Editors' Showcase
Fiction by Joshua D. Weber.
Art Song by John D. Nugent.
Screenplay by Jeremiah Rickert.
Play by Charles Deemer.
Fiction by Michael Hollister, Judy Wilson, Peter McDonnell, Jeff P. Jones, Mary Rechner.
Plays by Vincent Kovar, Fred D. White, Robert Caisley, Martin Burke, Sherrie J. Lyons, Rob Carney, Bill Teitelbaum, Vicki L. Wilson, Stephen A. Schrum.
Screenplays by Lisa Frank, Adriane Rainer, Weston Miller, Bill Ballard.
Essays by Claude Clayton Smith, Elizabeth Flood.
Experimental writing by Joel Weishaus, Ron Singer.
Requiems by Stephen DeCesare, Douglas Knehans.
New music by Nathan Wright Shirley, David See, Leonard Dumitriu, Andrian Pertout.
Music drama by Jason Heald.
Music criticism by John Jarvis, Hernan D. Palmieri.
Photography by Peter Ciccariello, Timothy M. Leonard, Annie Dawid.
Paintings by Kenney Mencher, Laura Eklund, Daniel Petrov, Tatyana Uspenskaya-Murphy.
Prints by Robert Canaga.
Animations by Mike Chappell, Joon Sung, Matt Calvert.
Code Poetry by [[mez]].
Haiga by Pris Campbell.
Editors' Showcase
Fiction by Joshua D. Weber.
Art Song by John D. Nugent.
Screenplay by Jeremiah Rickert.
Play by Charles Deemer.
Zone Zero
I do not want to waste your time with an introduction here when you could be spending it experiencing an amazing online collection of magazines/exhibits/documentaries. I've visited this site at least two dozen times and I have barely begun to scratch the surface of its resources/experiences. I've also linked one of my favorite sections at the site: "exposiciones" which is a huge collection of photographic documentations of everyday life from around the world and throughout history...
Zone Zero
Zone Zero:Exposiciones
Also a new one for me is their MoBlogs
Zone Zero
Zone Zero:Exposiciones
Also a new one for me is their MoBlogs
Douglas S. Massey: The Continuing Reality of Racial Segregation
(Courtesy of Hysterical Blackness. I highly recommend the print editions of The Next American City.)
INTRODUCTION: The Continuing Reality of Racial Segregation
by Douglas S. Massey
The Next American City
"Every day that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals." So said President George W. Bush, in the wake of Senator Trent Lott's controversial remarks on Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday. Unfortunately the President's use of the past tense is unjustified. In many ways the nation is segregated and we are unfaithful to our ideals. Americans of all races may endorse the principle that people should be able to live wherever they want to, regardless of race. That is far from how we actually live.
According to census data from the year 2000, 48 percent of all African Americans in U.S. metropolitan areas experience conditions of residential isolation so extreme that they satisfy the criteria for "hypersegregation." Within hypersegregated cities, the typical black resident lives in a neighborhood that is virtually all black. These neighborhoods are packed tightly together around the urban center. An additional 21 percent of African Americans in 2000 lived in conditions of "high segregation"; only one-third of urban African Americans lived under conditions of low or moderate segregation.
Typical inhabitants of a hypersegregated ghetto are not only unlikely to come into contact with whites within the particular neighborhood where they live; even if they traveled to the adjacent neighborhood, they would still be unlikely to see a white face. If they went to the next neighborhood beyond that, no whites would be there either. People growing up in such an environment have little direct experience with the culture, norms, and behaviors of the rest of American society and few social contacts with members of other racial groups. Ironically, within America's large, diverse, and highly mobile post-industrial society, blacks living in the heart of the ghetto are among the most isolated people on earth.
Historically in the United States, very few other groups have ever experienced high segregation, and never for long periods of time. Segregation levels for Jews, Italians, and Poles, while briefly "high" during and after the great migrations of the early-20th century, fell sharply in the ensuing decades as generations wore on and socioeconomic status rose. We observe much the same pattern among Latino and Asian immigrants today. No other group in the United States besides African Americans has ever experienced hypersegregation, with the exception of Latinos of Afro-Caribbean origin. Indeed, the only other historical example--anywhere in the world--of such high levels of segregation persisting over a prolonged period of time is South Africa under apartheid, where levels of segregation were only slightly higher than those observed today in the hypersegregated cities of the United States.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
INTRODUCTION: The Continuing Reality of Racial Segregation
by Douglas S. Massey
The Next American City
"Every day that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals." So said President George W. Bush, in the wake of Senator Trent Lott's controversial remarks on Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday. Unfortunately the President's use of the past tense is unjustified. In many ways the nation is segregated and we are unfaithful to our ideals. Americans of all races may endorse the principle that people should be able to live wherever they want to, regardless of race. That is far from how we actually live.
According to census data from the year 2000, 48 percent of all African Americans in U.S. metropolitan areas experience conditions of residential isolation so extreme that they satisfy the criteria for "hypersegregation." Within hypersegregated cities, the typical black resident lives in a neighborhood that is virtually all black. These neighborhoods are packed tightly together around the urban center. An additional 21 percent of African Americans in 2000 lived in conditions of "high segregation"; only one-third of urban African Americans lived under conditions of low or moderate segregation.
Typical inhabitants of a hypersegregated ghetto are not only unlikely to come into contact with whites within the particular neighborhood where they live; even if they traveled to the adjacent neighborhood, they would still be unlikely to see a white face. If they went to the next neighborhood beyond that, no whites would be there either. People growing up in such an environment have little direct experience with the culture, norms, and behaviors of the rest of American society and few social contacts with members of other racial groups. Ironically, within America's large, diverse, and highly mobile post-industrial society, blacks living in the heart of the ghetto are among the most isolated people on earth.
Historically in the United States, very few other groups have ever experienced high segregation, and never for long periods of time. Segregation levels for Jews, Italians, and Poles, while briefly "high" during and after the great migrations of the early-20th century, fell sharply in the ensuing decades as generations wore on and socioeconomic status rose. We observe much the same pattern among Latino and Asian immigrants today. No other group in the United States besides African Americans has ever experienced hypersegregation, with the exception of Latinos of Afro-Caribbean origin. Indeed, the only other historical example--anywhere in the world--of such high levels of segregation persisting over a prolonged period of time is South Africa under apartheid, where levels of segregation were only slightly higher than those observed today in the hypersegregated cities of the United States.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Bill Hicks: On Being Censored
The great comedian and political philosopher Bill Hicks on writing about his being censored on the David Letterman show during the 90s (Found in an extensive post on Hicks at Pooponpolitics):
I did what I've always done - performed material in a comedic way, which I thought was funny. The artist always plays to himself, and I believe the audience, seeing that one person can be free to express his thoughts, however strange they may seem, inspires the audience to feel that perhaps they too can freely express their innermost thoughts with impunity, joy and release, and perhaps discover our common bond - unique, yet so similar - with each other.
This philosophy may appear at first to some as selfish - "I play to me and do material that interests and cracks me up." But, you see, I don't feel I'm different from anyone else. The audience is me. I believe we all have the same voice of reason inside us, and that voice is the same in everyone.
This is what I think CBS, the producers of the Letterman show, the networks and governments fear the most - that one man free, expressing his own thoughts and point of view, might somehow inspire others to think for themselves and listen to that voice of reason inside them, and then perhaps, one by one we will awaken from this dream of lies and illusions that the world, the governments and their propaganda arm, the mainstream media, feeds us continuously over fifty-two channels, twenty-four hours a day.
What I realised was that they don't want the people to be awake. The elite ruling class wants us asleep so we'll remain a docile, apathetic herd of passive consumers and non-participants in the true agendas of our governments, which is to keep us separate and present an image of a world filled with unresolvable problems, that they, and only they, might somewhere, in the never-arriving future, may be able to solve. Just stay asleep, America. Keep watching television. Keep paying attention to the infinite witnesses of illusion we provide you over "Luciferís Dream Box".
The herd has been pacified by our charade of concern as we pose the two most idiotic questions imaginable - "Is television becoming too violent?" and "Is television becoming too promiscuous?" The answer, my friends, is this: television is too stupid. It treats us like morons. Case closed.
And now, the final irony. One of the "hot points" that was brought up as being "unsuitable for our audience" was my joke about pro-lifers. My brilliant friend Andy posited the theory that this was really what bothered and scared the network the most, seeing as how the "pro-life" movement has essentially become a terrorist group acting with impunity and God on their side, in a country where the reasonable majority overwhelmingly supports freedom of choice regarding abortion.
I felt there was something to this theory, but I was still surprised to be watching the Letterman Show (Iím still a fan) the Monday night following my censored Friday night performance and, lo and behold, they cut to a - are you ready for this? - pro-life commercial. This farce is now complete. "Follow the money!"
I did what I've always done - performed material in a comedic way, which I thought was funny. The artist always plays to himself, and I believe the audience, seeing that one person can be free to express his thoughts, however strange they may seem, inspires the audience to feel that perhaps they too can freely express their innermost thoughts with impunity, joy and release, and perhaps discover our common bond - unique, yet so similar - with each other.
This philosophy may appear at first to some as selfish - "I play to me and do material that interests and cracks me up." But, you see, I don't feel I'm different from anyone else. The audience is me. I believe we all have the same voice of reason inside us, and that voice is the same in everyone.
This is what I think CBS, the producers of the Letterman show, the networks and governments fear the most - that one man free, expressing his own thoughts and point of view, might somehow inspire others to think for themselves and listen to that voice of reason inside them, and then perhaps, one by one we will awaken from this dream of lies and illusions that the world, the governments and their propaganda arm, the mainstream media, feeds us continuously over fifty-two channels, twenty-four hours a day.
What I realised was that they don't want the people to be awake. The elite ruling class wants us asleep so we'll remain a docile, apathetic herd of passive consumers and non-participants in the true agendas of our governments, which is to keep us separate and present an image of a world filled with unresolvable problems, that they, and only they, might somewhere, in the never-arriving future, may be able to solve. Just stay asleep, America. Keep watching television. Keep paying attention to the infinite witnesses of illusion we provide you over "Luciferís Dream Box".
The herd has been pacified by our charade of concern as we pose the two most idiotic questions imaginable - "Is television becoming too violent?" and "Is television becoming too promiscuous?" The answer, my friends, is this: television is too stupid. It treats us like morons. Case closed.
And now, the final irony. One of the "hot points" that was brought up as being "unsuitable for our audience" was my joke about pro-lifers. My brilliant friend Andy posited the theory that this was really what bothered and scared the network the most, seeing as how the "pro-life" movement has essentially become a terrorist group acting with impunity and God on their side, in a country where the reasonable majority overwhelmingly supports freedom of choice regarding abortion.
I felt there was something to this theory, but I was still surprised to be watching the Letterman Show (Iím still a fan) the Monday night following my censored Friday night performance and, lo and behold, they cut to a - are you ready for this? - pro-life commercial. This farce is now complete. "Follow the money!"
The Carnival of Feminists
(Courtesy of Ricia at Impetus Java House)
The Carnival of Feminists is held on the first and third Wednesday of each month. Hosted by a different blogger for each edition, it aims to showcase the finest feminist posts from around the blogsphere.
The current issue #6 is at Reappropriate. The theme is The Intersection of Race and Gender: Feminism of Colour
The next issue will be at Feministe The theme will be Feminism and Popular Culture.
The Carnival of Feminists is held on the first and third Wednesday of each month. Hosted by a different blogger for each edition, it aims to showcase the finest feminist posts from around the blogsphere.
The current issue #6 is at Reappropriate. The theme is The Intersection of Race and Gender: Feminism of Colour
The next issue will be at Feministe The theme will be Feminism and Popular Culture.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Anyone Familiar With Copyright Laws?
I just found out that Norton anthologies reproduced one of my writings--without any notice or payment...
Monday, January 09, 2006
War News Radio
(Courtesy of Hysterical Blackness)
Check out this blog put up by Swarthmore students:
War News Radio
Discuss the war in your classrooms!
Check out this blog put up by Swarthmore students:
War News Radio
Discuss the war in your classrooms!
KCRW Top 25 Records of 2005
(As in play time)
1) Gorillaz - Demon Days
2) Thievery Corporation - Cosmic Game
3) Beck - Guero
4) Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
5) The Chemical Bros - Push the Button
6) Royksopp - The Understanding
7) Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
8) Boozoo Bajou - Dust My Broom
9) MIA - Arular
10) Doves - Some Cities
11) Death Cab for Cutie - Plans
12) LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
13) Feist - Let It Die
14) Tom Vek - We Have Sound
15) Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll
16) Jamiroquai - Dynamite
17) Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself
18) Lewis Taylor - Stoned
19) Tosca - J.A.C.
20) Coldplay - X&Y
21) Beck - Guerolito
22) Moby - Hotel
23) DJ Mark Farina - Mushroom Jazz 5 compilation
24) Sounds Eclectico - KCRW live session compilation
25) The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
1) Gorillaz - Demon Days
2) Thievery Corporation - Cosmic Game
3) Beck - Guero
4) Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
5) The Chemical Bros - Push the Button
6) Royksopp - The Understanding
7) Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
8) Boozoo Bajou - Dust My Broom
9) MIA - Arular
10) Doves - Some Cities
11) Death Cab for Cutie - Plans
12) LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
13) Feist - Let It Die
14) Tom Vek - We Have Sound
15) Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll
16) Jamiroquai - Dynamite
17) Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself
18) Lewis Taylor - Stoned
19) Tosca - J.A.C.
20) Coldplay - X&Y
21) Beck - Guerolito
22) Moby - Hotel
23) DJ Mark Farina - Mushroom Jazz 5 compilation
24) Sounds Eclectico - KCRW live session compilation
25) The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Michael Dean Benton: Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus
My heart is broken and I'm distressed. I'm wondering why I repeat these patterns and when will I understand anything... thus D & G was a late night (re)read...
--------------------------------------------------------------
Background:
An introduction to the importance of May 1968 (as well as the aftermath) is essential to an understanding of this book and the development of contemporary French theory.
Guattari’s background as a radical psychiatrist is also very important.
Deleuze on their working relationship:
Form/Style of the Book:
In D & G’s writings before and after Anti-Oedipus they develop an understanding of how theoretical perspectives can actually construct/create subjectivity. This is the critique of psychoanalysis in A-O.
Creating a theoretical model of subjectivity implies an ethical and aesthetic choice on the part of the theorist, in fact Guattari emphasizes this when he subtitles his later book Chaosmosis, “An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm”. Keeping this in mind how is the form/style of this book an attempt to create or construct a model of subjectivity? Is it successful in its attempt? Is Michel Foucault correct in calling this a ‘book of ethics’?
Mark Seem in his introduction following Henry Miller states that “No pain, no trouble—this is the neurotic’s dream of a tranquilized and conflict-free existence” and in reference to A-O that “What it attempts to cure us of is the cure itself” (xvi-xvii). Is the construction of this book centered around the authors’ resistance of the easy cure or strict (dogmatic) program? How are they attacking the “neurotic’s dream” ... keeping in mind that the psychoanalyst is the super-neurotic?
Claire Colbrook states that:
Anti-Psychoanalytic Institution?:
One of the main questions raised in this quote and the accompanying footnote is: How did Freud appropriate the author(ity) of Greek tragedy to legitimize his psychoanalytic concepts? How does this relate to the second chapters critique of the institution of psychoanalysis as a new secular religion set up by the followers of Freud and institutionalized by the industrial-military complex?
Has psychoanalysis shut down the (expanding on D & G) continuously evolving production of an unconscious in order to provide an all-encompassing, static analytic backdrop? What about their referencing of mechanics/engineers who facilitate the flows of production and recognize the collective processes?
This position of D & G seems unfair until we read the notes on the bottom of pages 56 and 59. How does the analyst construct a position free from doubt/criticism (leaving aside that they are supposed to submit to even super-super neurotics for analysis) in order to construct the patient’s world? (is this an unfair view of the analyst?—what does the two notes supply us as evidence of the analyst’s position—or how about the writings of Lacan)
D & G set out to develop schizoanalysis as their answer to this problem.
Schizoanalysis:
First important distinction is to remember that they are proposing an active schizophrenia that differs from the incapacitating medical designation of schizophrenia. D & G’s schizoanalysis grows out of their resistance to institutionalized psychoanalysis that has infiltrated all parts of society with a totalizing theory that masks humanity’s true relationship to the world:
An important part of schizoanalysis is the development of a “schizoanalytic cartography” (A-O, 273-382). Guattari in another work states:
Deleuze adds:
After setting up the problem as they see it in A-O they will later attempt to propose a mutable method for approaching this problem. Of course this will not be a solution that must be seized and made one’s own in order for it to have any effect:
On Capitalism:
Capitalism is schizophrenic because it is interested in profit and it must subvert/deterritorialize all territorial groupings such as familial, religious, or other social bonds. At the same time it relies on the continuous appearance/mythification of social groupings in order to continue functioning smoothly and to re-enforce social ordering needs. Thus, capitalism attempts to re-constitute the need for traditional/nostalgic, or, even, newer forms of social groupings or religious/state institutions. This deterritorialization/reterritorialization and decoding/recoding is happening at the same time—thus the schizophrenic nature of capitalism.
Does this schizophrenia of
1) consume, be an individual, be unique, may the best man win, the cream rises to the top, the romantic creative individual
2) religious revivalism, family values, community first, moral majority, neighborhood watch (and snitch), etc...
cause some of us to break under the strain of an absurd society?
Desire
Socius:
Primitive territorial machine:
Everything is coded and ritualized. Territory is clearly marked out and understood. Everything is social.
Barbaric territorial machine (despot):
The social group is somewhat deterritorialized by the despot who continues to maintain order through a re-inscription of a highly coded production centered around the ruler (what he says goes). Part of the coding (ordering) process is carried out through ritualized dramas of bodily punishment that (re)territorialize (re/produce) the despot’s authority (for a good description of this read the first section of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. NY: Pantheon Books, 1977.)
Civilized capitalist machine (disciplinary society):
Radically deterritorializes and reterritorializes social life. This radical deterritorialization is played out in conjunction with a continuous reterritorialization (re-coding) of traditional/ancient/nostalgic forms of authority. The nation (state), the family (father), God (religion or ideology), education (schools), media (societal super-ego?), etc ... re-appear in modified forms to shore up a shaky social grid and continue the smooth process of production/consumption. (A-O, 33-35) This society creates order through disciplinary institutions that house both the young initiates in order to train them to operate according to custom and the failed individuals that opt to pursue non-legitimized occupations/identities (for the moment let me use this designation—I’m fully aware that there are those who present a serious danger to others and thus must be dealt with, but the disciplinary society represents and treats them as morally weak individuals rather than as products of this society). The development and celebration of the myth of the private individual comes into play in this territorial situation.
Although some excitable critics (both from the left and right—e.g Baudrillard/Fukuyama) see this stage as the ‘end of history’, Deleuze, expanding on Foucault, sees us moving into a new socius stage (plateau?):
For more on this also check out Deleuze’s essay in October #59 (1992): 3-8 and excerpts of D & G’s writings in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. ed. Neil Leach (NY: Routledge, 1997: 309-18.)
Schizo-Politics:
D & G resist a molar politics that frames its operations in a “already” determined future, thus they keep to the idea of a molecular politics that is open to change:
D & G see a central paradox in our fascisms:
This makes all authoritarian and dogmatic movements suspect in that they dictate and predict:
Traditionally many writers have posited that subjects of bloody states are ignorant of the true processes behind-the-scenes that produce orderly societies ... D & G are contradicting this belief ... why do they see fascism as answering a perverted desire of the masses? What causes this perverted desire? Can we see any signs of fascism in the contemporary American culture/societies? Can we recognize the fascist impulse in totalizing revolutionary theories? Is this another problematic of the “totalizing” impulse as manifested in liberatory/resistive movements? Is this a legitimate complaint from marginalized groups?
D & G are calling for a resistance that is molecular, not molar (machinic, not mechanistic). Universal mass movements are not the goal, but they are not denying their potential, rather that mass movements would be forged through alliances/bridges, that are temporary, mutable, and situational.
Machines:
Pgs. 36-41 introduces the “three breaks” or interruptions of machines. When thinking of the bodies in these operations we must learn to alter our emphasis on the individual ‘body’ and recognize social, economic, political, juridical, etc ... bodies in these descriptions.
Claire Colebrook on “machines” in A-O and Deleuze’s theory in general:
In Anti-Oedipus they insist that the machine is not a metaphor and that life is literally a machine. This is crucial to Deleuze’s ethics. An organism is a bounded whole with an identity and end. A mechanism is a closed machine with a specific function. A machine, however, is nothing more than its connections; it is not made by anything, is not for anything and has no closed identity. So they are using ‘machine’ here in a specific and unconventional sense. Think of a bicycle, which obviously has no ‘end’ or intention. It only works when it is connected with another ‘machine’ such as the human body; and the production of these two machines can only be achieved through connection. The human body becomes a cyclist in connecting with the machine; the cycle becomes a vehicle. But we could imagine different connections producing different machines. The cycle becomes an art object when placed in a gallery; the human body becomes an ‘artist’ when connected with a paintbrush. The images we have of closed machines, such as the self-contained organism of the human body, or the efficiently autonomous functioning of the clock mechanism, are effects and illusions of the machine. There is no aspect of life that is not machinic; all life only works and is insofar as it connects with some other machine.
We have already seen the importance Deleuze gives to the camera; it is important as a machine because it shows how human thought and life can become and transform through what is inhuman. By insisting that the machine is not a metaphor Deleuze and Guattari move away from a representational model of language. If the concept of machine were a metaphor, then we could say that we have life as it is, and then the figure of machine to imagine, represent of picture life. But for Deleuze and Guattari there is no present life outside its connections. We only have representations, images or thoughts because there have been ‘machinic’ connections: the eye connects with light, the brain connects with a concept, the mouth connects with a language. Life is not about one privileged point—the self-contained mind of ‘man’—representing some inert outside world. Life is a proliferation of machinic connnections, with the mind or brain being one (sophisticated) machine among others.
Neither philosophy, nor art, nor cinema represent the world, they are events through which the movement of life becomes. What makes philosophy and art active is their capacity to become not just mechanistically, being caused by outside events, but machinically. A mechanism is a self-enclosed movement that merely ticks over, never transforming or producing itself. A machinic becoming makes a connection with what is not itself in order to transform and maximize itself. (56-57)
Schizo-Environmentalism:
D & G denounce the human/nature division and insist that humans cannot be thought separate from nature. Or as they later paraphrase Marx “he who denies God does only a ‘secondary thing,’ for he denies God in order to posit the existence of man, to put man in God’s place” (A-O, 58). Guattari later re-emphasizes the importance of this attempt to recognize the falsity of the division of human/nature:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Background:
An introduction to the importance of May 1968 (as well as the aftermath) is essential to an understanding of this book and the development of contemporary French theory.
Guattari’s background as a radical psychiatrist is also very important.
Deleuze on their working relationship:
We are only two, but what was important for us was less our working together than this strange fact of working between the two of us. We stopped being “author.” And these “between the twos” referred back to other people, who were different on one side from on the other. ... In these conditions, as soon as there is this type of multiplicty, there is politics, micro-politics. (Deleuze and Parnet, 17)
Form/Style of the Book:
In D & G’s writings before and after Anti-Oedipus they develop an understanding of how theoretical perspectives can actually construct/create subjectivity. This is the critique of psychoanalysis in A-O.
Creating a theoretical model of subjectivity implies an ethical and aesthetic choice on the part of the theorist, in fact Guattari emphasizes this when he subtitles his later book Chaosmosis, “An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm”. Keeping this in mind how is the form/style of this book an attempt to create or construct a model of subjectivity? Is it successful in its attempt? Is Michel Foucault correct in calling this a ‘book of ethics’?
Mark Seem in his introduction following Henry Miller states that “No pain, no trouble—this is the neurotic’s dream of a tranquilized and conflict-free existence” and in reference to A-O that “What it attempts to cure us of is the cure itself” (xvi-xvii). Is the construction of this book centered around the authors’ resistance of the easy cure or strict (dogmatic) program? How are they attacking the “neurotic’s dream” ... keeping in mind that the psychoanalyst is the super-neurotic?
Claire Colbrook states that:
Rather than using reason and reasoned arguments, the book sought to explain and historicise the emergence of an essentially repressive image of reason. Rather than argument and proposition it worked by questions and interrogation: why should we accept conventions, norms, and values? What stops us from creating new values, new desires, or new images of what it is to be and think? This book was not a move within an already established debate; it shifted the entire criteria of the debate. Against justification and legitimation, it put forward the power of creation and transformation. It did not adopt the single voice of universal reason but, like a novel, ‘played’ with the voices of those traditionally deemed to be at the margins of reason ... (5)
Anti-Psychoanalytic Institution?:
It is often thought that Oedipus is an easy subject to deal with, something perfectly obvious, a “given” that is there from the very beginning. But that is not so at all: Oedipus presupposes a fantastic repression of desiring-machines. (A-O, 3)
One of the main questions raised in this quote and the accompanying footnote is: How did Freud appropriate the author(ity) of Greek tragedy to legitimize his psychoanalytic concepts? How does this relate to the second chapters critique of the institution of psychoanalysis as a new secular religion set up by the followers of Freud and institutionalized by the industrial-military complex?
It is as if Freud had drawn back from this world of wild production and explosive desire, wanting at all costs to restore a little order there, an order made classical owing to the ancient Greek theater. ... It is only little by little that he makes the familial romance, on the contrary, into a mere dependence on Oedipus, and that he neuroticizes everything in the unconscious at the same time as he oedipalizes, and closes the familial triangle over the entire unconscious. ... The unconscious ceases to be what it is—a factory, a workshop—to become a theater, a scene and its staging. And not even an avant-garde theater, such as existed in Freud’s day ..., but the classical theater, the classical order of representation. The psychoanalyst becomes a director for a private theater, rather than the engineer or mechanic who sets up units of production, and grapples with collective agents of production and antiproduction. (54-55)
Has psychoanalysis shut down the (expanding on D & G) continuously evolving production of an unconscious in order to provide an all-encompassing, static analytic backdrop? What about their referencing of mechanics/engineers who facilitate the flows of production and recognize the collective processes?
For we must not delude ourselves: Freud doesn’t like schizophrenics. He doesn’t like their resistance to being oedipalized, and tends to treat them more or less as animals. They mistake words for things, he says. They are apathetic, narcissisitic, cut off from reality, incapable of achieving transference; they resemble philosophers—‘an undesirable resemblance.’ (A-O, 23)
This position of D & G seems unfair until we read the notes on the bottom of pages 56 and 59. How does the analyst construct a position free from doubt/criticism (leaving aside that they are supposed to submit to even super-super neurotics for analysis) in order to construct the patient’s world? (is this an unfair view of the analyst?—what does the two notes supply us as evidence of the analyst’s position—or how about the writings of Lacan)
It is not a question of denying the vital importance of parents or the love attachment of children to their mothers and fathers. It is a question of knowing what the place and the function of parents are within desiring-production, rather than doing the opposite and forcing the entire interplay of desiring-machines to fit within the restricted code of Oedipus. (47)
Is it possible that, by taking the path that it has, psychoanalysis is reviving an age-old tendency to humble us, to demean us, and to make us feel guilty? ... [is it] completing the task begun by nineteenth-century psychology, namely, to develop a moralized, familial discourse of mental pathology ... keeping European humanity harnessed to the yoke of daddy-mommy and making no effort to do away with this problem once and for all.... Hence, instead of participating in an undertaking that will bring about genuine liberation, psychoanalysis is taking part in the work of bourgeois repression at its most far-reaching level. (50)
D & G set out to develop schizoanalysis as their answer to this problem.
Schizoanalysis:
First important distinction is to remember that they are proposing an active schizophrenia that differs from the incapacitating medical designation of schizophrenia. D & G’s schizoanalysis grows out of their resistance to institutionalized psychoanalysis that has infiltrated all parts of society with a totalizing theory that masks humanity’s true relationship to the world:
From the moment we are measured in terms of Oedipus—the cards are stacked against us, and the only real relationship, that of production, has been done away with. (A-O, 24)
We cannot say that psychoanalysis is very innovative in this respect: it continues to ask its questions and develop its interpretations from the depths of the Oedipal triangle as its basic perspective, even though today it is acutely aware that this frame of reference is not at all adequate to explain so-called psychotic phenomena. (14)
A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic laying on the analyst’s couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside world (A-O, 2)
We no longer believe in the dull gray outlines of a dreary, colorless dialectic of evolution, aimed at forming a harmonious whole out of heterogeneous bits by rounding off their rough edges. We believe only in totalities that are peripheral. And if we discover such a totality alongside various separate parts, it is a whole of these particular parts but does not totalize them; it is a unity of all of these particular parts but does not unify them; rather, it is added to them as a new part fabricated separately. (42)
To withdraw a part from the whole, to detach, to ‘have something left over,’ is to produce, and to carry out real operations of desire in the world ... The whole not only coexists with all the parts; it is contiguous to them, it exists as a product that is produced apart from them and yet at the same time is related to them. (41, 43-44)
An important part of schizoanalysis is the development of a “schizoanalytic cartography” (A-O, 273-382). Guattari in another work states:
From my own perspective, which is guided by a shift of human and social sciences from “scientistic” paradigms to ethico-aesthetic ones, the question is no longer one of knowing if the Freudian unconscious or the Lacanian unconscious offers scientific solutions to the problem of the psyche. The models will only be considered as one among others for the production of subjectivity, inseparable from the technical and institutional mechanisms that support them, and from their impact on psychiatry, on university teaching, the mass media. ... In a more general way, one will have to admit that each individual, each social group, conveys its own system of modelling unconscious subjectivity, that is, a certain cartography made up of reference points that are cognitive, but also mythic, ritualistic, and symptomatological, and on the basis of which it positions itself in relation to its affects, its anxieties, and attempts to manage its various inhibitions and drives. Moreover, today, our question is not only of a speculative order, but has practical implications: do the models of the unconscious that are offered us on the “market” of psychoanalysis meet current conditions for the production of subjectivity? Is it necessary to transform them, or to invent new ones? What processes are set in motion in the awareness of an inhabitual shock? How do modifications to a mode of thinking, to an aptitude for the apprehension of a changing external world, take effect? How do representations of the external world change as it changes? The Freudian unconscious is inseparable from a society that is attached to its past, to its phallocratic traditions, and its subjective variants. Contemporary upheavals undoubtably call for a modelization turned more toward the future and to the emergence of new social and aesthetic practices in all areas. On the one hand, the devaluation of the meaning of life provokes the fragmentation of self-image: representations of self become confused and contradictory while, on the other hand, the conservative forces of resistance oppose themselves to all change, which is experienced by a secure, ossified, and dogmatic consciousness as an attempt at destabilization. (Guattari, “Subjectivities”: 197)
Deleuze adds:
... the diagram is no longer an auditory or visual archive but a map, a cartography that is coextensive with the whole social field. (Deleuze, Foucault: 34)
After setting up the problem as they see it in A-O they will later attempt to propose a mutable method for approaching this problem. Of course this will not be a solution that must be seized and made one’s own in order for it to have any effect:
The rhizome is altogether different, a map and not a tracing. Make a map, not a tracing. The orchid does not reproduce the tracing of the wasp; it forms a map with the wasp, in a rhizome. What distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real. The map does not reproduce an unconscious closed in upon itself; it constructs the unconscious. It fosters connections between the field, the removal of blockages on bodies without organs, the maximum opening of bodies without organs onto a plane of consistency. It is itself a part of the rhizome. The map is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation. It can be drawn on a wall, conceived of as a work of art, constructed as a political action or as a mediation. (A Thousand Plateaus, 12)
On Capitalism:
Capitalism is schizophrenic because it is interested in profit and it must subvert/deterritorialize all territorial groupings such as familial, religious, or other social bonds. At the same time it relies on the continuous appearance/mythification of social groupings in order to continue functioning smoothly and to re-enforce social ordering needs. Thus, capitalism attempts to re-constitute the need for traditional/nostalgic, or, even, newer forms of social groupings or religious/state institutions. This deterritorialization/reterritorialization and decoding/recoding is happening at the same time—thus the schizophrenic nature of capitalism.
Does this schizophrenia of
1) consume, be an individual, be unique, may the best man win, the cream rises to the top, the romantic creative individual
2) religious revivalism, family values, community first, moral majority, neighborhood watch (and snitch), etc...
cause some of us to break under the strain of an absurd society?
Desire
... desire is revolutionary in its essence ... and no society can tolerate a position of real desire without its structures of exploitation, servitude, and hierarchy being compromised. (A-O 116)
Socius:
Primitive territorial machine:
Everything is coded and ritualized. Territory is clearly marked out and understood. Everything is social.
Barbaric territorial machine (despot):
The social group is somewhat deterritorialized by the despot who continues to maintain order through a re-inscription of a highly coded production centered around the ruler (what he says goes). Part of the coding (ordering) process is carried out through ritualized dramas of bodily punishment that (re)territorialize (re/produce) the despot’s authority (for a good description of this read the first section of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. NY: Pantheon Books, 1977.)
Civilized capitalist machine (disciplinary society):
Radically deterritorializes and reterritorializes social life. This radical deterritorialization is played out in conjunction with a continuous reterritorialization (re-coding) of traditional/ancient/nostalgic forms of authority. The nation (state), the family (father), God (religion or ideology), education (schools), media (societal super-ego?), etc ... re-appear in modified forms to shore up a shaky social grid and continue the smooth process of production/consumption. (A-O, 33-35) This society creates order through disciplinary institutions that house both the young initiates in order to train them to operate according to custom and the failed individuals that opt to pursue non-legitimized occupations/identities (for the moment let me use this designation—I’m fully aware that there are those who present a serious danger to others and thus must be dealt with, but the disciplinary society represents and treats them as morally weak individuals rather than as products of this society). The development and celebration of the myth of the private individual comes into play in this territorial situation.
Although some excitable critics (both from the left and right—e.g Baudrillard/Fukuyama) see this stage as the ‘end of history’, Deleuze, expanding on Foucault, sees us moving into a new socius stage (plateau?):
It is true that we are entering a society that can be called a society of control. A thinker such as Michel Foucault has analyzed two types of societies that are rather close to us. He calls the former sovereign societies and the latter disciplinary societies. He locates the typical passage of a sovereign society to a disciplinary society with Napolean. Disciplinary society is defined—by the accumulation of structures of confinement: prisons, schools, workshops, hospitals. Disciplinary societies require this. This analysis engendered ambiguities in certain of Foucault’s readers because it was believed that this was his last thought. This was certainly not the case. Foucault never believed and indeed said very precisely that disciplinary societies were not eternal. Moreover, he clearly thought that we were entering a new type of society. To be sure, there are all kinds of things left over from disciplinary societies, and this for years on end, but we know already that we are in societies of another sort that should be called, to use the term put forth by William Burroughs—whom Foucault admired greatly—societies of control. We are entering into societies of control that are defined very differently from disciplinary societies. Those who look after our interests do not need or will no longer need structures of confinement. These structures—prisons, schools, hospitals—are already sites of permanent discussion. Wouldn’t it be better to spread out the treatment? Yes, this is unquestionably the future. The workshops, the factories—they are falling apart everywhere. Wouldn’t systems of subcontracting and work at home be better? Aren’t there means of punishing people other than prison? Even the school. The themes that are surfacing, which will develop in the next forty or fifty years and which indicates that the most shocking thing would be to undertake school and a profession at once—these themes must be watched closely. It will be interesting to know what the identity of the school and the profession will be in the course of permanent training, which is our future and which will no longer necessarily imply the regrouping of school children in a structure of confinement. A control is not discipline. In making highways , for example, you don’t enclose people but instead multiply the means of control. I am not saying that this is the highway’s exclusive purpose, but that people can drive infinitely and “freely” without being at all confined yet while still being perfectly controlled. This is our future. (Deleuze, “Having An Idea of Cinema”: 17-18)
For more on this also check out Deleuze’s essay in October #59 (1992): 3-8 and excerpts of D & G’s writings in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. ed. Neil Leach (NY: Routledge, 1997: 309-18.)
Schizo-Politics:
D & G resist a molar politics that frames its operations in a “already” determined future, thus they keep to the idea of a molecular politics that is open to change:
Schizoanalysis, as such, has no political program to propose. If it did have one it would be grotesque and disquieting at the same time. It does not take itself for a party, and does not claim to speak for the masses. No political program will be elaborated within the framework of schizoanalysis. (380)
D & G see a central paradox in our fascisms:
As Reich remarks, the astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike: after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only for others but for themeselves? (A-O, 29)
This makes all authoritarian and dogmatic movements suspect in that they dictate and predict:
... no, the masses were not innocent dupes; at a certain point, under a certain set of conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is this perversion of the desire of the masses that needs to be accounted for.” (A-O, 29)
Traditionally many writers have posited that subjects of bloody states are ignorant of the true processes behind-the-scenes that produce orderly societies ... D & G are contradicting this belief ... why do they see fascism as answering a perverted desire of the masses? What causes this perverted desire? Can we see any signs of fascism in the contemporary American culture/societies? Can we recognize the fascist impulse in totalizing revolutionary theories? Is this another problematic of the “totalizing” impulse as manifested in liberatory/resistive movements? Is this a legitimate complaint from marginalized groups?
D & G are calling for a resistance that is molecular, not molar (machinic, not mechanistic). Universal mass movements are not the goal, but they are not denying their potential, rather that mass movements would be forged through alliances/bridges, that are temporary, mutable, and situational.
Machines:
Pgs. 36-41 introduces the “three breaks” or interruptions of machines. When thinking of the bodies in these operations we must learn to alter our emphasis on the individual ‘body’ and recognize social, economic, political, juridical, etc ... bodies in these descriptions.
Claire Colebrook on “machines” in A-O and Deleuze’s theory in general:
In Anti-Oedipus they insist that the machine is not a metaphor and that life is literally a machine. This is crucial to Deleuze’s ethics. An organism is a bounded whole with an identity and end. A mechanism is a closed machine with a specific function. A machine, however, is nothing more than its connections; it is not made by anything, is not for anything and has no closed identity. So they are using ‘machine’ here in a specific and unconventional sense. Think of a bicycle, which obviously has no ‘end’ or intention. It only works when it is connected with another ‘machine’ such as the human body; and the production of these two machines can only be achieved through connection. The human body becomes a cyclist in connecting with the machine; the cycle becomes a vehicle. But we could imagine different connections producing different machines. The cycle becomes an art object when placed in a gallery; the human body becomes an ‘artist’ when connected with a paintbrush. The images we have of closed machines, such as the self-contained organism of the human body, or the efficiently autonomous functioning of the clock mechanism, are effects and illusions of the machine. There is no aspect of life that is not machinic; all life only works and is insofar as it connects with some other machine.
We have already seen the importance Deleuze gives to the camera; it is important as a machine because it shows how human thought and life can become and transform through what is inhuman. By insisting that the machine is not a metaphor Deleuze and Guattari move away from a representational model of language. If the concept of machine were a metaphor, then we could say that we have life as it is, and then the figure of machine to imagine, represent of picture life. But for Deleuze and Guattari there is no present life outside its connections. We only have representations, images or thoughts because there have been ‘machinic’ connections: the eye connects with light, the brain connects with a concept, the mouth connects with a language. Life is not about one privileged point—the self-contained mind of ‘man’—representing some inert outside world. Life is a proliferation of machinic connnections, with the mind or brain being one (sophisticated) machine among others.
Neither philosophy, nor art, nor cinema represent the world, they are events through which the movement of life becomes. What makes philosophy and art active is their capacity to become not just mechanistically, being caused by outside events, but machinically. A mechanism is a self-enclosed movement that merely ticks over, never transforming or producing itself. A machinic becoming makes a connection with what is not itself in order to transform and maximize itself. (56-57)
Schizo-Environmentalism:
D & G denounce the human/nature division and insist that humans cannot be thought separate from nature. Or as they later paraphrase Marx “he who denies God does only a ‘secondary thing,’ for he denies God in order to posit the existence of man, to put man in God’s place” (A-O, 58). Guattari later re-emphasizes the importance of this attempt to recognize the falsity of the division of human/nature:
Our survival on this planet is not only threatened by environmental damage but by a degeneration in the fabric of social solidarity and in the modes of psychical life, which must literally be re-invented. The refoundation of politics will have to pass through the aesthetic and analytical dimensions implied in the three ecologies—the environment, the socius and the psyche. We cannot conceive of solutions to the poisoning of the atmosphere and to global warming due to the greenhouse effect, or to the problem of population control, without a mutation of mentality, without promoting a new art of living in society. (Chaosmosis, 20)
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