politics

Everything is very fine in Tokelau

indymedia.tk is a great parody Indymedia site, set up to prevent abuse of the indymedia.tk domain. tk is the TLD of Tokelau, evidently some little island nation in the south pacific. If only things were really so tranquil! heh...

Three (or 8?) Cheers For Idleness

Back in August my friend Seth told me about a great article in the Guardian (which is now a broken link at their site, dammit)
I finally got around (hah!) to reading it and eventually to reading 2
more well-written pieces on the same subject more recently. one was in the december issue of Harper's.

It mentions an essay by Bertrand Russell, famous philosopher and mathematician and all-around cool british thinker. I have located said essay and it is really rad, not just for promoting leisure but indicting our entire "slave state." I had no idea before this that Russell was so radical.

2 great pull quotes:

"I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached."

and

"One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them
to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the
public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in
payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who
lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the
bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the
man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the
State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better
if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling."

So there ya go. for the good of the world, stop paying your
taxes, and start drinking and gambling more.

While searching for that Guardian article I found a review there about 5 books on the subject. One of them is probably by the author who wrote the article I was looking for, but I can't tell which. Anyway, it's a good review, stitching together and comparing the theses of the 5 writers and extending the topic to cover geopolitical trends and tendencies.

The topic is very resonant to me, personally, because all of my adult life I've wrestled with the opposed goals of productivity and relaxation. Getting things accomplished versus being a calm, content, non-spastic person. I've referred to it often as my personal mixture of existentialism and taoism. It's an ongoing struggle, balancing Will with Being. At least for me. It seems that most people in the world come down much more on one side or the other. Out of anyone that I know or know of, I feel like I'm most directly in the middle of these 2 poles.

Of course one very true statement is something the writer of this Guardian review says: "The point about being idle is not to work at it, surely..." But this bloke is credited at the end with being "chief executive of the Work Foundation." Wow, is that supposed to be some sort of joke?

Kerry Gave Impunity to Bush

I've been thinking and researching the concept of impunity for my Juarez doc I came across a
recent article in the Nation by Naomi Klein about impunity in Iraq.
She pulls no punches dissing John Kerry:

By buying the highly questionable logic that Americans are incapable of caring about anyone's lives but their own, the Kerry campaign and its supporters became complicit in the dehumanization of Iraqis, reinforcing the idea that some lives are insufficiently important to risk losing votes over. And it is this morally bankrupt logic, more than the election of any single candidate, that allows these crimes to continue unchecked.

She talks about a famous photo of a soldier in Iraq, smoking a cigarette, and decodes the image and its social context. It reminds me, very positively, of Barthes' Mythologies, especially the essay about the photo of the black French-Algerian soldier and what it really meant. Klein concludes with this scathing observation: "Genuine impunity breeds a kind of delusional decadence, and this is its face: a nation bickering about smoking while Iraq burns."

(coincidence #6938: as I write this I'm listening to Beck's album Odelay and the song "New Pollution" is playing, but it sounded to me for a moment like he was singing "New Fallujah"...)

Environmental Justice vs. Social Justice

I just got news from the Mexico Solidarity Network about some Zapatista indigenous villages that are being forced to move because they are in or near the Montes Azules bio-reserve in Chiapas. Apparently Conservation Internaional and other environmental groups are pressuring the Mexican government to get them out of there. The zapatistas moved there to avoid paramilitary violence.

I just wanted to take a minute to say what a shame it is that two progressive causes have to be at odds like this. The zapatistas are even, according to the MSN report, abiding by zapatista laws that include protection of the environment. I always thought Conservation International was better than this. The only mention of this on their site is a press release about the "illegal settlements" and a coalition of organizations that are working on the problem, including "17 indigenous communities and villages." The place is Mexico's first bio-reserve, ever. Of course, no mention of why the settlements are there, or the underlying context, or even of the Zapatistas. It's like these environmental problems are just floating in a political vaccuum, as far as CI is concerned.

What a shame. All these things are connected, and the environment is important, but this is why social justice issues are more important to me. I'm sorry, flowers and toucans are great, but people are just more important, and if you take care of people and do the right thing for them, the environment will naturally follow and be healthy too. (Pun intended.)

Pinochet to Stand Trial

Well, this is really great news. A Chilean judge has indicted former dictator Augusto Pinochet. It's an amazing step for human rights but I find it incredible that he is only being charged with 9 kidnappings and one murder, connected with the infamous Operation Condor. I'm sure there's some legal reason why it's easier to convict him for these crimes than for the thousands of others he was responsible for, but it's still pretty insane.

Let's hope it actually goes to trial, and that the trial does not get cancelled because of Pinochet's supposed senile dementia. He apparently gave a lucid interview with a Miami TV station, so he seems fit to stand trial.

Tropical America Game

This wonderful "game" called "Tropical America", by OnRamp Arts in Los Angeles, is a visually and aurally beautiful interactive history lesson, spiritual journey and electronic poem dedicated to the struggles of Latin America. You register on the site and then guide a character around, accomplishing little tasks and talking to other people and creatures, occasionally being asked to make choices and answer questions. It's not a game in the sense of the hyperactive sensory overloads brought to us by Nintendo and company. It's more of a meditative and deliberate process that brings gentle lessons. It's so very
well done, too, a series of beautiful woodcuts come vividly to life.

Bilaterals Site

Just found an interesting site about bilateral trade agreements. There's more information in one place than I've ever seen about all the different free trade agreements, separate from the WTO, that are being agreed on. They are all between unequal sides, mostly U.S. and some smaller, weaker country or countries, or the EU or Austrailia and some smaller, weaker, countries, except for China-Thailand, and even that is a pretty unequal relation. But anyway, bilaterals.org, what a great information source...

Indy Conference

The other day someone mentioned a big Indymedia conference in Austin in February, and I looked it up and sure enough there it is, February 18 to 20. Sounds pretty cool. We need more events where people who are isolated in their own little collectives get together and compare notes, specifically about the indymedia tactic. I feel like there is a lot of re-inventing of the wheel, and mistakes being replicated....

I was planning to be in the Southwest again anyway at that time. Maybe I'll go. I think it would be wonderful to be there and meet a whole bunch of IMCistas from all over the place. As usual whether I go depends on whether I can afford it. I now have about 5 trips I want to make in the next 4 months: Chiapas for Spanish school, D.C for J20, D.C. in March for the final AFTA showdown, and the Collage Conference I've been invited to at U of Iowa at the end of March. And now this. Not to mention the fact that I want to move, probably to Tucson.

If you're planning on going, leave a comment, please.

Bolivia News

Very good article about Bolivia in the "Rabble News" site, which I'd never heard of before (not affiliated with the anarchogeek Rabble - at least I don't think so. heh.)

Anyway, the article is a good and hopeful look at political change in Bolivia and centers around an interview with Oscar Olivera of the Cochabamba Guerra del Agua.

As timing would have it, speaking of hopeful, tommorrow (sunday) is a big election in Bolivia, and this article in the Financial Times suggests that Evo Morales' MAS party is going to do really well, at least compared to the more moderate parties. Things just keep staying interesting in Bolivia.

Live Coverage of AFTA talks, protests

Today we're doing web radio to cover the AFTA ministerial and associated protests in Tucson, Arizona. Here in Portland we've got an 800 number and we're taking calls from activists on the street in Tucson and talking to them about what's happening there.
And of course anyone else could call in and offer their insights on free trade agreements and resistance to them.

the number is 1-800-939-7973. And you can listen to the stream here.

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