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^^^ November 24, 2003    Miami Misery...and Some Good Deeds, Too

[Richard]
Upon hearing news that the FTAA talks were ending early and attendance at the protests was relatively minimal, I foolishly hoped that the protests, though disappointing, might at least end with little incident. Of course, "foolishly" is the key word here. It was depressing to see so many reports about the state attacking protesters (including some good people we know) with excessive force, yet more depressing to learn that they'd even arrested protesters who were peaceably protesting other people’s arrests. And never mind the old generalizations about clashes between police and young, restless anarchists; we know for a fact now that the police also attacked and arrested senior citizens. We can only wonder where it will end, especially considering the reports of torture in the jails. After reading all this horror, I was really yearning to read about something positive that happened there…

Which is one big reason I was so grateful to see a very moving report by Jay Shaft, "In the midst of Miami's FTAA chaos we fed the homeless." As Shaft tells us:

"In the midst of all the chaos and police brutality we tried to bring some love and compassion to the streets of Miami and give a little hope to the homeless and poor. I think that we showed some people a few reasons to oppose FTAA when we gave out the info and talked to them. Some of my friends that were in Miami also went around doing feedings during the days they were in town for the protests.

"I had sent an e-mail out to some of the people I know went to Miami and now I have reports of at least ten groups doing street feedings. In light of all the bad things that went on in Miami there were some very kind and positive acts committed."

I should add that wherever this article appears (and it’s popping up in quite a few places now), there is a longer subtitle that reads, "In the midst of Miami’s FTAA chaos we fed the homeless and guerilla stickered the city." So it’s not as though Shaft and his gang were complete charitable do-gooders who didn’t intend also to spread their political message. But to me, that makes it even better because they managed to do good and do protest and propaganda all at once. It’s good to see worthwhile propaganda backed up by good deeds when the corporate press is trying to convince people that we all simply do propaganda of the deed (in the bomb-throwing 19th century sense). And it’s a great idea for people to do their own small part to help out the destitute while they are protesting international trade ageements that increase global poverty. In the future, I’d like to hear about more actions like this -- and, if possible, even help to create them.

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^^^ November 22, 2003         The Internet and Privilege

[asfo_del]
Noam Chomsky was the guest on Charlie Rose Thursday night. It was serendipity that I saw him, because I never watch the show, but I happened to tune in that night, right from the beginning, and Chomsky was on for the full hour!

Apparently, he was invited to be on the show (which, frankly, does not usually espouse views like his) because many, many viewers demanded it, primarily by email. One of the things Chomsky talked about, briefly, is the usefulness of the internet to communicate and organize around concerns that are ignored or distorted by the mainstream media. He also mentioned that in China, for instance, access to the internet is extremely limited. One of my concerns has been for some time that access to the web is very limited across the board. Those of us who tap away on our computers in the comfort of home are not always mindful that the community with whom we share that privilege is in fact fairly limited. Only the relatively wealthy and relatively privileged have internet access. In the U.S., about 54% of people are online. Worldwide, the figure is a little over 8%.

I wrote a blog entry about this a few months ago, so I won't belabor it now.
This is the entry: http://www.oocities.org/thecommonwheel/archive0503.html#as052103
These are the statistics I refer to in that entry and this one: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/...

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^^^ November 21, 2003         Cooking at Home

[asfo_del]
The best way to eat frugally, I think, is to cook at home, more-or-less from scratch. Any restaurant food, even the cheapest take-out, is wildly expensive compared, for instance, to home-made lentil soup. Chinese tofu-and-vegetables, bought in my neighborhood, is $3.50 for one serving. A pot of lentil soup will make four hearty servings for about 30 cents each. Multiply this by three meals a day, 365 days a year, and the Chinese takeout costs $3800 a year, while the lentil soup is $328 a year. Of course, most of us would prefer not to eat lentil soup every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but you get the picture.

I had vegetable pizza and an eggplant hero just last night, which my sweetie surprised me with. It was especially surprising because it was pouring rain, hard, and he had to go out of his way, on foot, to reach the pizza place on his way home.

I'm not recommending my own eating habits here. (I don't really think cookies should be a staple of one's diet, as they are for me; it's neither frugal nor healthy.)

I'm writing this journal entry for folks who don't eat at home because they feel like they don't know how to cook. An article in Parade magazine (yes, the one that comes with many Sunday papers) said that nine out of ten people surveyed buy convenience foods. Most people said they like these foods because they're faster and easier to prepare, but some said they preferred them to their own cooking!

Sauteed Onions
Okay, so here's some ideas on how to cook if you're a novice: The simplest secret to tasty foods are sauteed onions. Fry them up over a pretty hot flame in a pan that has been coated with a light wash of corn oil (or olive oil, if you're not obsessed with frugality, as I am). Stir them around a bit. Let them get golden-brown. Now you're ready to use them as a base for countless dishes: tomato sauce, soups, stews, sauteed vegetables, rice dishes, beans, you name them.

-For pasta sauce: add a can of tomato sauce to the sauteed onions and let it simmer gently for about ten minutes. Add a little salt. Done. (You cook the pasta at the same time in a pot of boiling water.)

-For Spanish or Italian rice: add rice, water (two cups water for every cup of rice) and a small can of tomato sauce to your sauteed onions; bring to a boil, then immediately cover tightly and simmer on very low heat for 20 minutes, without peeking! (If you open the lid, water will evaporate and your water-to-rice ratio will be thrown off.)

-You can add the sauteed onions to soups (or stews) pretty much at any time while the soup is cooking, although doing it closer to the beginning is probably slightly better. A plain vegetable soup will go from bland to yummy with just this simple addition.

Combinations with Sauteed Onions
If you're more ambitious, you can try combinations of flavors, instead of using just onions:

-Finely minced onions, carrots and celery sauteed together in oil to make a flavor base actually have a name in French cooking: mirepoix (I think that's what it's called...).

-Finely minced onions, bell peppers and garlic, sauteed together in oil to make a flavor base, are good for Latin cooking. (They're great for rice and beans, especially if you add a little cumin.) Warning: garlic tastes terrible if it burns, so it's good to wait a few minutes after the peppers and onions have already started to soften before you add it.

Garlic
Garlic is also very good raw or nearly-raw; it gives everything that zingy bite.

-For extra flavor on any tomato sauce, soup, rice dish, or sauteed vegetables, finely mince together fresh parsley and garlic (maybe 2 or 3 cloves). Add to the dish you're cooking when the pot is almost ready to take off the stove, and then let the whole thing cook for about 5 more minutes to let the garlic develop its flavor.

-Minced garlic, even without the parsley, will add flavor to any soup, sauce, stew, beans, or vegetables. Add it when the dish is almost ready, then let the whole thing cook for 5 or 10 minutes more.

My apologies to experienced cooks, who might find this advice either obvious or incorrect. :)

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^^^ November 20, 2003    Some Good Sites from Greens, Protesters, and Anarchists

[Richard]
I started to write a theoretical contemplation about my own present attitude towards both anarchists and Greens. Unfortunately, I ended up getting a little bored and depressed with my heavy contemplations this time. So, this morning, I'd like to do a more typical blog writer's kind of thing and simply relate a few good sites that I've visited in the past few hours.

The first one is a site from some Greens in Greece, describing the original radical European Greens of the 1970s-'80s. My present knowledge about Greens is still kind of limited (especially compared to my knowledge about anarchists and council communists), but the summary of the 70s-''80s Greens' history on this site seems pretty credible to me. And, after reading this site's description of the radical origins of the Greens, I definitely would like to be counted among those who'd love to see the Greens get closer to their radical origins again.

I have found myself repeatedly returning to a blog put together by someone who's worked with the Greens in Washington, DC, Zoe Mitchell. (Zoe has also worked with Indymedia, she's done good work critiquing the consensus process (which is how the Common Wheel Collective first learned about her), and she's also been involved in who-knows-what-else...) I've actually run into Zoe a couple of times now, and I also found out recently that she is good friends with an old friend of mine. But I think I would be visiting her blog pretty often even if I didn't know her. Admittedly, her political views are often a bit less radical than mine, but I think Zoe has a perspective often worth considering, backed up by a good amount of activism. Plus, her blog has a real independent, skeptical quality that I'm finding very refreshing right now.

Another blog I'm starting to like is Little Red Cookbook by Jenny, the "Texas expatriate" living in Britain. Jenny may have a red-sounding blog title, but she also describes herself as a "Green supporter." Jenny's present posts include some very amusing British responses to Bush's current visit to the UK.

By the way, UK Indymedia has a comprehensive listing of upcoming protests and probably will have good coverage too.

I fear that the FTAA protests,which are being subject to a media blackout right now, will be relatively underreported unless blood is spilled. Of course, I do not want the spilling of blood to happen there, but I would like people to get good information about the protest. Personally, I'll be referring to the special Infoshop site set up by our friend ChuckO, which looks very comprehensive so far.

I might be keeping a special eye on the FTAA protest reports, because I feel a little funny about sitting this one out, especially since I was so active at the FTAA protests in Quebec City two years ago. Back then, I was right at the front of the Red Zone, soaking in the tear gas. But this time, for a variety of reasons, I will simply be sitting at home, watching as the events unfold on my computer screen.

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^^^ November 20, 2003         Simplicity as a Marketing Tool

[asfo_del]
Simplicity, the idea that one can have a fulfilling and joyous life without having to burden oneself with material possessions, has, like everything in our culture does sooner or later, it seems, become another marketing gimmick. While there are many who pursue simplicity honestly and authentically, they don't matter to marketers, so we are unlikely to hear about them in mainstream publications.

In a book I have been reading, I Want That!, by Thomas Hine, the author mentions a magazine I was unaware of, called Real Simple, and published, not surprisingly, by the giant conglomerate Time-Warner. A reader of the magazine explains: "Keeping it simple does not mean reducing the quality of one's lifestyle; it means putting first things first. It's fine not to feel guilt over guilty pleasures."

Thomas Hine comments:
"While not everyone defines simplicity so hedonistically, the simplicity movement is one symptom of a malaise that permeates our culture.... Even those who like to shop sometimes feel moments of disgust with the sheer profusion of stuff and with their own acquisitive impulses. While the logical response to such revulsion should simply be not to shop, more often than not it results in a decision to buy something that will reflect your own taste and superiority."

Anything can and will be used to sell products, even our disgust with buying the products that are sold to us.

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^^^ November 16, 2003    Losing My Sense of (Ordered) Time

[Richard]
In recent weeks, it seems as though my body clock has broken down completely. Last month, when I actually was working a few days a week at similar times (mainly midnight shift), I almost fell into some semi-regular sleeping schedule appropriate to my work schedule, even if it was the reverse of most people's schedules.

This month, work has been less regular in terms of both frequency and hours. I might be working at any time between late afternoon and the early morning, as I always try to keep myself open for at least two shifts when the work slows down. (Some proofreading temps actually keep themselves open for work around the clock, but I try to avoid that pattern, possibly because I find it so hard to deal with a day shift environment in my present state of mind.) For most of the days this month, I have not been working (nor doing much of anything else that requires me to leave my apartment), but I've tried to remain ready to jump up and run whenever my masters at the agency call. And because I want to be prepared to leave for work in the afternoon or leave for work after midnight, I've begun to sleep in shorter, multiple shifts, sometimes deliberately and sometimes not so deliberately. Over the past couple of weeks, especially, there has simply been no particular time when I've expected to be asleep or awake.

The loss of my body clock became apparent one day last week when I woke up and saw that the clock on my wall said 6:00 (or maybe it was 6:30), because I had no idea whether it was AM or PM. Had I fallen asleep for a few hours and woken up right before dawn because I was so used to not going to sleep "for real" until the morning was well underway? (That's happened a couple of times.) Or had I actually enjoyed a regular full day's sleep and woken up after dusk? I simply could not remember and could get no hint from my internal body clock. So, after a few bewildering minutes, I rooted around for my beeper, which has a digital clock, and found out that it was actually 6-something PM. And, as usual, it was a big relief knowing the time, even if it doesn't seem to matter much to me these days whether it is morning or night.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this essentially clockless schedule. The big disadvantage is that, because I do have to work at least occasionally at almost any time, and because I often can't get to sleep when I actually hope to, I sometimes am left with the bleak option of simply sleeping or eating whenever I find the chance. The flip side of this is that sometimes I can simply eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I'm tired, without giving a damn about whether it's the normal time that I should be sleeping or eating.

But the whole concept of a "normal time" or "regular time" really isn't such a natural phenomenon anyway. In actuality, it's just another artificial construct. I've been learning a little more about this fact lately because I happen to be reading Lewis Mumford's 1930s classic, Technics and Civilization. Mumford makes these essential points about time very early on, when he discusses the way that perceptions of time completely changed the minute (so to speak) that medieval monks invented the mechanical clock:

"Now, the orderly punctual life that first took shape in the monasteries is not native to mankind, although by now Western peoples are so thoroughly regimented by the clock that it is 'western nature' and they look upon its observance as a fact of nature....

"Abstract time became the new medium of existence. Organic functions themselves were regulated by it: one ate, not upon feeling hungry, but when prompted by the clock; one slept, not when one was tired, but when the clock sanctioned it."

In other words, our contemporary concept of time -- that is, time measured and determined by the clock -- is a relatively new development in the course of human civilization. And, like other relatively recent developments such as rent and profits, it also is directly connected with industrialization and the development of capitalism. In this book, Mumford shows how the clock, like other forms of technology, facilitated the acquisition of new wealth and power. Similarly, most people had to adapt this new, highly ordered sense of time (measured by the clock) merely to make a living. I suppose that's why we have this particular sense of time drummed into us from a very early age, from the moment we start going to school, if not earlier.

But I wonder if the need to make a living in the present economic environment might actually be having a reverse effect on a lot of people's sense of time. I know that I am not the only round-the-clock contingent worker; in fact, there are more and more people joining this club. And maybe all our time-related conditioning, like so much other conditioning that we were subjected to for much of our lives, didn't really prepare us so well after all. In my own experience, at least, the need to earn wages (or to be available for earning wages) is now actually destoying ordered time.

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^^^ November 16, 2003         Wealth and Circumstances

[asfo_del]
In the debate between the relative influence of environment and genetics in determining the course of someone's life, it seems to me that the obvious is overlooked: the course of most people's lives is almost entirely determined by the circumstances into which they are born. For all the picking up by one's own bootstraps that a person may try, as hard as she can, to do, living in destitution or comfort is not a choice. Although I'm not a religious person, I think the phrase, "There but for the grace of God go I," has great resonance and truth.

Which is why I find it especially appalling that so many can look at the terrible conditions that billions endure throughout their lives and shrug them off. The most callous might even say that it's somehow the individuals' own fault that they are suffering. I may be overly sentimental or fatalistic, but when I read about people who make a very difficult and often utterly insufficient living by working under dangerous and harsh conditions, I think that it could just as easily be me in their shoes, were it not for the accident of my birth. And although I'm not particularly personable or empathetic when I'm actually in the presence of other people, who, in general, tend to make me feel intimidated and shy, I can easily picture myself in someone else's position - and substituting oneself for any one of the great majority of the world's individuals is a frightening and alarming prospect.

For instance, there are 4.7 million children in Tanzania between the ages of 5 and 17 who work. 1.2 million of these kids work in commercial agriculture, mining, prostitution and domestic service, the "worst forms of child labour". Girls are sold into domestic servitude for as little as $20. One billion people worldwide survive on less than $1 a day. Three billion survive on less than $2 a day. On any given day, over a billion don't have enough food to ensure their survival. In the 29 African least developed countries, 87.5% of the people live below $2 a day. 233.5 million people in these countries live in extreme poverty, defined as less than $1 a day.

Throw into the mix outrageous inequality: The world's richest 50 million people earn as much as the poorest 2.7 billion combined. The richest 1% earn as much as the poorest 57%. The poorest 10% of Americans are still better off than two-thirds of the world population. In Brazil, 500,000 huge estates occupy three quarters of the arable land, while 80% of the rural population is relegated to 25% of the available land, and 5 million rural families have no access to any land at all.

How can anybody honestly believe that he has earned his own wealth? Do rich CEOs really think that had they been born desperately poor Tanzanian girls who were sold into servitude at eight years old they would still have ended up where they are? If they thought about it all, I don't think even they would reach that conclusion. The problem is that very few people stop to consider that the circumstances that they were born into are far and away the primary reason for their comfort [or lack thereof], well beyond any hard work or talent that they may have brought to the mix. Which should make keeping one's wealth when so many are in desperate need a terrible moral conundrum.

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^^^ November 15, 2003         My Childhood Was Never Like This

[asfo_del]
We didn't have a TV in our house until I was six, when we moved to Brazil from Italy. That was in 1970. The only TVs I had seen prior to that were in a store window that we passed on the way to the park. Having had a TV wouldn't have mattered much anyway, in terms of being bombarded by advertising and media images, because at the time Italy had only two television channels, which were owned by the state. Programs were not interrupted by ads, which were only shown briefly between shows, and during most of the afternoon there was nothing to see except a test pattern.

In Brazil, there were all kinds of great American shows like I Dream of Jeannie, Lost in Space, and I Love Lucy. We had a little black-and-white TV; you had to hold the antenna just right to be able to see anything at all. My favorites were old Abbot and Costello movies. That seems incredibly quaint now, in the era of crazes like Pokemon and Spongebob. But that is precisely why the current saturation of corporate advertising and incessant grabs for the attentions of both children and adults is so disquieting: because it was nothing like this even as recently as the 1970s. At least not in the countries where I was living.

In Italy no one was complaining that there wasn't more or better television programming. For entertainment we would go visit relatives. My great-aunt played cards for hours with my sister and me, and she told very funny jokes. We would go out strolling on the main avenue, and my grandfather would tip his hat when he passed an acquaintance. He would buy us cones of whipped cream dusted with cinnamon, since ice cream was only served during the summer.

Were we deprived by the absence of fast food and screaming corporate logos? Clothing bedecked with cartoon characters or other advertisements was uncommon. I never had any. My parents actually got a great deal on some heavy wool blankets, which they still have and use, because the reverse had been sullied by an unwanted Mickey Mouse logo in one corner, where it's barely noticeable.

This is not to say that we didn't have a childhood of excess, which in many ways we did. We had more toys than we strictly needed or even wanted to play with on a daily basis. But what we didn't have was a preoccupation with particular brands or characters (although I liked Barbies, which were not available in Brazil, so we had to buy them in Italy). We didn't have a need to be like people on TV, to emulate their mannerisms or what appeared to be their lifestyles. We didn't anxiously seek out particular brands in the conviction that they were vastly superior in some intangible way. We didn't feel validated by adopting a product or logo as our own.

All of that has changed for kids today, and, I would argue, for adults as well. A friend of Mike's who is struggling with actual poverty, supporting several kids on a combination of a laborer's wages and public assistance, recently bought each of the kids a pair of trendy brand-name shoes that cost nearly $100 apiece. He said his wife would have been unhappy with what she would have seen as his lack of regard for her and the kids if he did not. I don't think this attitude is all that uncommon. An aspect of current fashion requires that shoes be not only the approved brand but that they be brand-new, with the tags still on, in order to be fashionable. Unless you want to be seen as a shlub by your peer group, how do you fight that?

And for a child, it would be very difficult to understand that there could be anything wrong with wanting the things you know and have come to love - and that all your friends have. When my four-year old nephew is wheeled through the supermarket, he gleefully points out every product that features a picture of Spongebob, no matter how small the image. Fortunately, he does not demand that the product be purchased for him. Though he often says he wants a present.

"Awareness of global emblems is already strongly implanted in the very young. Last year the International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children reported that 31% of three-year-olds remember having seen the Coca-Cola logo, 69% McDonald's and 66% that for Kinder confectionery. Meanwhile, according to teachers surveyed for a Basic Skills Agency report, about half of four- and five-year-olds entering school for the first time cannot recognise their own names - or speak in a way understandable to others or count up to five."

There are several problems with children's infatuation with consumer culture.
1. It makes their parents broke.

"'When you look at the resources put in to reaching children - even child psychologists are used - it's staggering. It's the cumulative impact that counts, and it hits low-income parents particularly hard.'"

2. It supports the worst that our culture has to offer: corporate power that undermines the democratic process and promotes worldwide inequality and environmental degradation.
3. It distracts form other, more rewarding but less immediately gratifying pursuits.

"'There's definitely more of a consumerist attitude among pupils than 20 years ago,' says Alan Wells, director of the Basic Skills Agency. 'Teachers tell me they expect instant gratification, and that is bound to have an inhibiting effect on getting them doing anything that's difficult, but might help them long term. People sometimes go on about making learning fun. Well, learning is as much fun as going to the dentist sometimes. The problem is it's become more difficult to convince a lot of children that the discomfort is worthwhile.'"

4. It creates constant dissatisfaction and anxiety, since there is always something newer and more attractive on the horizon.
5. It doesn't allow a child to discover who he really is, and grow as person who is grounded in reality and as member of a family, since she is always emulating fantasy figures and doesn't have time for introspection anyway.
6. It promotes a low self-image by encouraging children to measure themselves against unrealistic role models.
7. It encourages girls, in particular, to define themselves in terms of their sexual attractiveness.
8. It discourages children from exploring their real-life surroundings, which seem boring compared to the glitz and fast-paced action of TV images, and does not help them to become active and present participants in their own lives.

"Helping children to gain wisdom; to make balanced judgements; to develop the empathetic and critical intelligence they need to be fulfilled and moral citizens in a demanding world, these are the things I want for my three youngest and their big brothers."

All quotes are from The kids aren't alright, an article that appeared in The Guardian.

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^^^ November 14, 2003         Poverty Denial

[asfo_del]
Poverty is endemic in the U.S., but nobody wants to admit it. Not politicians, who are vested in promoting a rosy picture of their own self-serving free-market strategy. Not the corporate media, whose financial interests also lie in preserving the fiction of opportunity and wealth for all. And not even the poor majority, who, having endured decades of incessant propaganda, have learned to feel ashamed and at fault for our own poverty.

According to a recent article in The Guardian, 34.6 million people in the U.S., or one in eight, live below the poverty line. 31 million are "food insecure," meaning they don't know where their next meal is coming from. But, according to the same article, people are not clamoring for changes in public policy for relief, nor are we demanding government accountability for the choices that have brought us to this disastrous state:

"'There's resentment down deep but people don't know what to do with it. A lot of people turn inward, rather than outward. You think it would be ripe for an outcry. But it's not...,' said Bob Garbo, who runs a regional food distribution centre in...Ohio."

There exists such a disconnect between the reality that we experience every day and the fake reality that is presented as truth on TV, that, not trusting ourselves to analyze and evaluate our own life experience, apparently, we choose to believe the TV:

"Angela Cooper, also queuing [at a food pantry] with a young child, complains that families like hers have been forgotten. But then again, she has relatives posted in Iraq and feels she ought to "support our troops" by voting for the president."

When we read fiction about futuristic dystopias like 1984 in high school, we may have thought that we would be able to recognize agents of mind control by their stentorian tone and heavy-handed rhetoric. We may have thought that government propaganda is obvious and clumsy, like in Soviet-era newsreels. Instead, it has come to us in the form of smiling, chatty news hostesses who tell us amusing and inane stories, and we have accepted them.

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^^^ November 12, 2003         Updated Odd and Interesting Links

[asfo_del]
After a long hiatus, we once again updated the "Odd and Interesting Links" page.


^^^ November 11, 2003    Armistice Day

[Richard]

"...The trains full of reservists are no longer accompanied by virgins fainting from pure jubilation. They no longer greet the people from the windows of the train with joyous smiles. Carrying their packs, they quietly trot along the streets where the public goes about its daily business with aggrieved visages.

"In the prosaic atmosphere of pale day there sounds a different chorus--the hoarse cries of the vulture and the hyenas of the battlefield. Ten thousand tarpaulins guaranteed up to regulations! A hundred thousand kilos of bacon, cocoa powder, coffee-substitute --c.o.d, immediate delivery! Hand grenades, lathes, cartridge pouches, marriage bureaus for widows of the fallen, leather belts, jobbers for war orders--serious offers only! The cannon fodder loaded onto trains in August and September is moldering in the killing fields of Belgium, the Vosges, and Masurian Lakes where the profits are springing up like weeds. It's a question of getting the harvest into the barn quickly. Across the ocean stretch thousands of greedy hands to snatch it up.

"Business thrives in the ruins. Cities become piles of ruins; villages become cemeteries; countries, deserts; populations are beggared; churches, horse stalls. International law, treaties and alliances, the most sacred words and the highest authority have been torn in shreds. Every sovereign "by the grace of God" is called a rogue and lying scoundrel by his cousin on the other side. Every diplomat is a cunning rascal to his colleagues in the other party. Every government sees every other as dooming its own people and worthy only of universal contempt. There are food riots in Venice, in Lisbon, Moscow, Singapore. There is plague in Russia, and misery and despair everywhere."

-- Rosa Luxemburg, from "The War and the Workers" ("The Junius Pamphlet"), 1916.

Happy Armistice Day.

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^^^ November 10, 2003    "That Absurd Inability to Separate Governments from People"

[Richard]
Below is a message that I posted to the Storming Heaven leftist listserv, in response to an earlier message entitled, "Why They Hate Us." The gist of the original message, like so many others I had seen, was that it is easier to understand why people hate America and Americans -- or "us" -- when you look at the recent history of the U.S. government's actions (violent interference, invasions, bombings, etc.) throughout the world. The problem I have with this kind of message is not that it condemns the U.S. government's actions, but that it doesn't even question the notion that people in other countries should naturally hate "us" because of them.

As I said in my e-mail message:

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What is all this talk about "we, we, we..."? I never invaded these countries, and I never supported the bastards who ordered or carried out such invasions. I would not hate anyone for being born within a geographic area ruled over by a reprehensible war monger, and I would never target -- or want to commit violence against -- individual citizens, workers, peasants, etc., for the crimes of "their" government.

I feel far less inclined to identify with "my" government than with poor and working people throughout the world who have been manipulated or victimized by the actions of "their" political and corporate "leaders."

If we want to make real changes in our society, the first thing we've got to do is get rid of our blind acceptance of irrational concepts such as nationalism. Nations are certainly not monolithic entities in which all the people readily identify with their "leaders," and the people living within the borders of a nation should not be victimized as a result of the crimes of those "leaders." Yet, many continue to accept nationalistic thinking, on the left as well as the right....

To hell with that. If there is reason to hate America, then there is reason to hate all nations...and support the people residing within them who are struggling against the systems and conditions imposed upon them.

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I suppose I sometimes get a little hotheaded about this issue. So, I also like to recommend a writer who expresses the same idea in a slightly different way, Arundhati Roy. Roy has written a few articles this year countering critics' assertions that her protests against the U.S. military actions following 9-11 were "anti-American." As she pointed out so well in an article published in Arts & Opinion, "To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you...."

Roy made the point even more strongly a little later, right after the invasion of Iraq, in an article that she wrote for The Guardian, when she explained how this faulty reasoning plagues many opponents of U.S. policy as well as supporters, because of "That absurd inability to separate governments from people...." In truth, as Roy pointed out so well a little later in the article, "The Coalition of the Bullied and Bought consists of governments, not people. More than one third of America's citizens have survived the relentless propaganda they've been subjected to, and many thousands are actively fighting their own government."

If only more people in our own "left" opposition remembered that little fact, maybe we wouldn't be seeing so many sloppily worded rants about the crimes that "we" have been perpetrating on the rest of the world.

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^^^ November 9, 2003         Growing Up

[asfo_del]
When I was a kid, a lot of my experience was of plain old not-knowing. It's remarkable how much of your world is bewildering and inexplicable when you've only been in it for a short time. It seems like it takes decades to begin to understand why other people do the things they do, or how and why things are set up the way they are. Like why other kids say strange and mean things when you're only minding your own business, or why you have to participate in activities, like sports and recess, when the only reason anyone will give you for doing them is that it's fun, and you don't find them to be any fun at all.

But you adapt. I'm not writing this to complain, but to get to the fact that so much of what you do, as a kid and even as an adult, you do because it's laid out in front of you, it's expected, and it's what everybody else is doing. And because if you refuse, the resulting rift is so extreme. A lot of people have read Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" in school. One day Bartleby just started replying, "I would prefer not to," to every request made of him, and, in the end, he was locked up in prison, where he died for refusing to eat.

My own childhood was in some ways like those dreams in which everybody is speaking a strange language and you're in a place where something you don't understand is going on. You're expected to play your role in the scenario, on cue, even though no one you try to talk to is able to tell you what that role might be: they either laugh at your question, or the answer that comes out of their mouth is gibberish.

When I was six, I started the second grade in an American school in Brazil. I only spoke Italian. Not only did I understand almost nothing that was said, but the school was set up in an open classroom system, where the students were supposed to move among different tables set up with activities for every school subject, at their own pace and in the order of their own choosing. I thought "Science" sounded vaguely scary, so I never went to the science table.

I did learn the language[s] soon enough, but there was still no end to puzzling situations. When the teacher asked us to draw "space," I thought of drawing an empty swimming pool but couldn't quite figure out how, so I looked at the other kids' papers. They were all making pictures of planets and rockets. Problem solved. I was placed in the lowest reading group since I didn't speak English, and I adapted by reading slowly and haltingly like the other kids in the group, although I was a good reader. One day, on a whim, I read the way I knew how, and the reading teacher marched me off to another reading group on the spot: sometimes copying others is not the right strategy, but it can be hard to make that judgment [uhm, especially when you're six]. I only knew how to write in script. In Italy, printing is not used as a form of handwriting, except, rarely, in all caps. The teacher demanded that I print, which I did by imitating the writing of others. I don't think it occurred to her that I had to figure out how to print all on my own.

Generally, though, I was not and am not particularly good at being a chameleon. I don't like to conform, to go along. It makes me bristle. There's a lot to be said for non-conformity: great thinkers and artists could not have accomplished what they have without being independent-minded. Social justice cannot be achieved without resistance and refusal to yield to oppression. But to survive day-to-day, insisting on being maladjusted seems like an obtuse decision, although it's one that I personally am probably unable to give up.

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^^^ November 8, 2003    Thoughts on Power, Purges, and Affinity Groups

[Richard]
Once again, I have been inspired to put a lot of thought into a couple of posts during a discussion on the Postanarchism e-mail list. Of all the lists I'm on right now (which actually isn't so many anymore), the Postanarchism list seems to encourage me to do the most thinking and put the most time into my posts. I think it's because it's got a lot of very intelligent people on it, but while it's sometimes very academic, it's not academically intimidating to me (unlike the Aut-Op-Sy list, which is closer to me ideologically but tends to intimidate me academically). Also, it's a place where I'll disagree with many of the opinions expressed (since there's a lot of postmodernist/poststructuralist content here -- which I always have mixed feelings about) but at the same time, because I respect the intelligence of the participants and because my disagreements are not that vehement, I am inclined to write more measured responses here than I might elsewhere.

So, I have decided to take some of my comments on that list during the last couple of days and reproduce them here. I did this once before, when we first started out this journal. I think this is OK to do, since I'm only reproducing my own posts.

By the way, you'll find here that I'm covering some of the same material that we cover in the Collective Book (I'm sure you all know the link for that by now?), but maybe it's a little different too...

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On consensus:

I agree completely that in most cases where consensus is used, there is power at play. That's one of things I've been trying to point out in many places for a long time.

I believe that it is necessary for everyone to find ways to recognize, combat and defuse hierarchical power where it emerges.

These problems tend to occur in any collective form of decision making presently used when people aren't vigilant about keeping power in check.

On the tendency toward power and control:

I do believe that the tendency toward power and control is especially acute because of our social conditioning and that many people who gravitate toward anti-hierarchical movements at the external, theoretical level haven't accomplished the more difficult task of getting rid of the hierarchical orientations within their own minds. (And, I think it is just as important for people to work against hierarchical notions internally as externally -- and hopefully, the internal and external will act upon each other in a positive, cyclical way.)

On affinity groups, and a comment someone made that they provide more choices and greater heterogeneity:

Having lots of groups around doesn't mean having a greater choice in terms of places where one can fit in and feel able to contribute and be valued without encountering the same old manipulation and prejudice. Especially in the present environment, we tend to see the same power games happen over and over again. Also, a huge number of groups can be connected through the same scene (certainly, at affinity-group-based protests and events in North America, people must notice how many participants come from the same age group, the same kind of class background, predominantly the same race, and more or less the same perspective)...

On decentralization and "freedom of dissociation":

I'm all for smaller, decentralized groups. And I'm all for the idea that people don't have to associate with any particular groups. What bothers me is the idea that groups can dissociate themselves from people -- i.e., kick them out -- without having to feel as though they should follow any basic democratic principles, such as giving people a fair hearing. So, the group becomes a little tyranny, and you can end up with lots and lots of these little dictatorships of the clique.

I think that one person rejecting a group is different from a group kicking out one of its members since the collective is at least supposedly more powerful than the individual and is the main means through which the individual can more effectively work toward social change (as opposed to trying to do things all by him/herself).

Back to affinity groups:

I myself have grown less enthusastic about the idea of affinity groups. The problem is, I'm cyncial enough that I don't think people can trust affinity as a reliable way of workng toward somethng, especially in the long term. Affinity changes and shifts, and affinity is not always as promising as it seems to be at first. (Additionally, there is this problem -- which I obviously can't stress enough -- about the clique.)

Maybe it's better for people to drop this word "affinity" so that they can focus on the idea that they're gathered together for a practical purpose and because of shared goals, ideals, etc., and they don't have to feel obligated to like each other.

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I guess I got a little sardonic at the end of that last post, but I'm really put off sometimes by the reverence that some of today's radicals and would-be revolutionaries have toward this idea of an affinity group. Given what I've learned about affinity groups over the past few years, I think these can become very oppressive modes of organization, especially during periods of high tension.

A few years ago, I read some recommendations for affinity groups, distributed in the midst of a high-tension "direct action" protest, that seemed awful to me. These groups were being asked to be so insular, self-protective and cliquish, that the idea of being trapped in one of them seemed scarier to me than the thought of being stranded by myself during the action and getting thrown in jail. (Actually, this was a protest at which a lot of people did get thrown in jail -- and also, fortunately, one protest that I left early, before the trouble really started.) I witnessed at least one affinity group that seemed to follow this advice to the letter, and, if I remember correctly, a few of the members ended up despising each other after they finally got out of that situation.

I suppose I've worked within affinity groups, too, but I've always preferred to think of these groups as small collectives.

Or, sometimes, I'd just like to consider the collaborative efforts that I'm involved in as simply being a matter of a few people (or just a couple of people) getting together to do something. People in radical circles like to give official and/or political names to all the groupings that they get involved in -- collectives, committees, affinity groups, working groups -- as though they will always serve some very serious function in the development of the revolution. But, taking everything into consideration, it seems to me that the revolution isn't going to happen for quite a while.

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^^^ November 6, 2003         What Are Children For?

[asfo_del]
Via the Simple Living discussion forums, I came across an intriguing article with a puzzling title: What Are Children For? The question is unsettling, since children are obviously not utilitarian objects. If they are "for" anything, it's to be recipients of love and affection. But the author reminds us that, in centuries past, children in the United States and elsewhere served a needed family function to help out with farm work and onerous household tasks. [And of course many children the world over are still saddled with such responsibilities today.] He argues that this gave children a sense of purpose and self-confidence that does not exist now.

"It boiled down to this: Children were needed. And children were made to know that. This gave them a gravitas, a maturity, and a sense of responsibility, of a scope and depth virtually unknown among our youth now -- not because our young are less capable, but because we don't raise them that way anymore."

I don't think this author is advocating that children be made to work, although I do think that perhaps he glosses over how hard and grueling a life these farm children must have had. Nor does he offer any evidence of a positive adult outcome of a childhood burdened by heavy chores. But I do tend to agree with his general impression that the pendulum for many American children today has swung so far in the opposite direction that many kids don't know what to do with themselves and are often alarmingly out of touch with the most basic of life's responsibilities.

"The biggest societal function that children serve today is to spend money or to have money spent on them. And, since that is nowhere near enough, confusion reigns -- for the kids, and for their parents, educators, therapists, legislators, and, in fact, most adults."

I don't have kids. With my boyfriend's son, who is 11, we have tried to help him learn to think and do for himself by providing him with opportunities to do stuff around the house, like helping to cook, encouraging him to be aware of his surroundings, learn the local bus routes, pick up after himself, do art projects. We signed him up for a theater group, which he really liked, that also focuses on social justice issues and service to the community - in addition to teaching the kids to dance, sing, act, and make art. We take him to all kinds of non-media cultural events, like live plays, Indian dancing, opera, folk music, which he enjoys well enough. But his mom's influence just seems to be a lot stronger. With her, he is constantly served, pampered and entertained with video games, movies, and TV. And, I guess, who wouldn't prefer that?

Even if the other parent were on board, the issue goes back to my previous post on conformity. Would it be right to insist that a child's day-to-day life be different from every other child's experience that he has ever witnessed, both in person and on TV? If I had kids, and I refused to take them to McDonald's or buy them video games and trendy clothes, wouldn't they just be upset and bewildered? Would it be fair to ask them to be unlike their peers? Would that even be good for them? Isn't it more important to make sure that the kids are well-adjusted and able to get along in their surroundings, even if their surroundings are all about consumption of media culture, than that they learn to be responsible, self-aware, and self-sufficient members of society? I'm asking these questions because I honestly don't know. [Although I think you can tell what I want the answer to be and what I am afraid the correct answer might be.] I think our society is very disturbing. But even if you could somehow get away from its influence, which is mostly about being a dutiful consumer, would that be the right thing to do to a kid?

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^^^ November 3, 2003         Conformity

[asfo_del]
When I was a kid, it seems like most of the books I read and movies I saw - even Disney movies! - had as their central message the joy of marching to one's own drum and refusing to follow convention. This strikes me as odd, since not conforming is anathema to so much of what society expects of kids. Maybe they thought no one would actually listen, and in the meantime they could sell a feel-good message that would make them a lot of money.

I myself had that very message reinforced by my real-life surroundings. I lived in Brazil and Italy, went to an American [international, in practice] school, and had Italian [also, in many ways, international] parents. My teachers were the kind of people who had had the imagination to uproot their lives and go teach kids in a foreign and somewhat distant country. It would not have occurred to me that some people might need to be inspired by Disney movies to break out of conventional lives. And, of course, I didn't think my own life was unconventional, since it was the only life I knew. [And in many respects I still don't think it was.]

If I were in a position to influence a young person, I would want to help her become inspired by the broadness of life's possibilities, including the ones that often go unexplored. But I'm not sure if that would be the right thing. The truth is that, most of the time, refusing to conform, for both a child and an adult, is one of the most maladjusted choices one can make. I couldn't bring myself to laud or urge conformity, which seems so narrow and suffocating, but how much of a favor would I be doing someone [or myself] by encouraging her [me] to become a misfit?

The real challenge, at least for me, is to be accepting and tolerant of people and situations that are mean, dispiriting, or petty. One of the most useful survival skill is grin-and-bear-it endurance, along with placid forbearance in the face of callousness or stupidity. [And I'm using "stupidity" as a way of defining a behavior, not an innate quality. I don't believe that anyone is inherently stupid, only that people of all descriptions can and will do stupid things, including myself, of course.] I don't have that skill. I find it easy to be unconventional. I find it hard to be pliant and easygoing.

Which brings me to the topic that I originally set out to write about. How can anyone convince all the hundreds of millions in the developed world, who are simply living normal lives, that what they do every day is destroying the planet? They are the well-adjusted people, the ones who conform, who do what is normal. Doing the same things that you see most others doing is generally a not unreasonable strategy for living life. All of us employ it to some extent. We cannot possibly be experts on everything, so we have to trust that many of the things we do are okay because they're generally accepted. I don't know exactly how a plane flies, but I know it's okay to ride in one because millions do it every day.

Driving a car for as many as 20,000 miles a year is a perfectly normal thing to do in the U.S. If you were to tell someone that by doing so he is irreparably damaging the environment, you would be the one who is being obtuse. It doesn't matter that you would be right; it's rude to criticize people's personal choices and unseemly to criticize accepted conventions. If you were to suggest to someone that she is digging a bottomless financial hole for herself by accumulating needless things on credit, you would again be obtuse, by speaking on behalf of non-conformity, and rude, by sticking your nose in someone else's business. And I don't think it's good to be rude; I don't practice it [uhm, most of the time...] and don't advocate it. But somehow it isn't considered rude for huge corporations to constantly harangue us with crass entreaties to enrich them while, in the process, sinking ourselves into debt, contributing to world inequality and injustice, and defiling the natural world.

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^^^ November 2, 2003    Black Tape for a Blue Girl

[Richard]
Sometimes I wonder about the relevance of my posts in our journal. I know that a blog is supposed to make room for all sorts of random thoughts, but here we do have a certain focus, and a sort of purpose, that I feel we should stick to as much as possible, at least in a broad sense. Thus, at times, when I post about things such as my favorite bands, I wonder if this material really fits. But then again, sometimes the music turns out to be surprisingly pertinent, either because of the overt lyrical content or because of the thoughts and desires that apparently inspire the members of the band.

In the case of Black Tape for a Blue Girl, the latter is true. Apparently, the band's founder, Sam Rosenthal, has thoughts about consumerism and capitalism that would fit quite well here at Living on Less. That sort of came as a surprise to me, because this is not what you would call a political band. In fact, this whole genre of music, commonly known as ethereal Goth, has a reputation for being anything but political. The music seems to lend itself much more to surreal musings, spiritual visions, and, at least occasionally, lyrics about sex. In Black Tape's case, there are interesting references to artists such as Duchamp and writers such as Kafka, whose work certainly has inspired revolutionaries and dissidents. But, once again, any revolutionary implications are indirect; there is little overt political content in these lyrics, and it would be hard even to picture political lyrics fitting into this dreamy stuff. Thus, I was delightfully surprised to find Sam Rosenthal writing the following musings on an e-mail message stored in a Projectk Records list archive that was linked to the Black Tape for a Blue Girl Web site:

"America is all about the desire to be what we see in commercials during our favorite TV shows.... I think that this western plague of products and inferiority based on one's inability to purchase those products is a real curse on our country....

"I think about what Karl Marx wrote about the working class basically giving their lives to be animals for the moving of things for the rich.... I am forced to be an advertisement for my band. for my 'product' -- because consumerism and capitalism is what keeps me eating, right?

"Here in the west, we have to shit on everyone below us, to keep our spot on the ladder. And that's certainly not what life should be all about....

"We only get about 70 years on the earth. Do we really need to spend it as slaves to the capitalist masters, working a few more hours so we can afford to buy more glittery products? There's got to be a better way!"

Looking at all these comments, I feel now as though there couldn't be a band more appropriate for Living on Less!

But maybe I should add a little more about the music, which, as I said, is dreamy stuff. I discovered this band quite by accident in the late '90s, during the tail end of my rock critic years, when I was still occasionally writing reviews for small-to-medium-sized music magazines such as Option and Alternative Press. I had been sent an invitation to go to a Goth music festival at Irving Plaza in New York City, near Union Square, and I decided to go at the last minute, not really knowing what to expect. I remember being only slightly impressed by the earlier part of the lineup, but when Black Tape for a Blue Girl started playing, I felt as though I had ventured to a different world, getting lost in a unique and beautiful sonic terrain somewhere between Eno and Dead Can Dance.

I have to admit that on disc, Black Tape is occasionally a little difficult to listen to. Sometimes the lyrics and vocals, especially, overreach to the point where they might seem a bit pretentious. But such stumbles can be easily shrugged off with the knowledge that any band that is willing to take so many chances will make a few small mistakes. Plus, I must confess, I am especially willing to overlook the errors and focus on the beautiful moments now that I know that the founder of the band has good politics.

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