It's been crazy...
It's been a crazy week getting back in touch and running into everyone since coming back from Japan. Hopefully I'll be able to keep the juggling going as far as people goes. Between that and class it'll be a crazy time.

In other news, being back on campus also reminds me of the conservatism that I was away from back home and in Japan. Getting back into the Poli Sci classes should hopefully let me cut my teeth on stuff that I haven't really been able to discuss and analyze since I've been focusing on my Japanese language skills and the like. Soon the South Carolina Black Cross should be organizing and we should be able to start getting some work and distroing done in the near future. I'm still brewing up my own fliers and stuff to wheatpaste everywhere, as well as continuing my voracious reading habits. The amount of just sheer quality, cutting edge stuff coming out of the anarchist mileu is amazing, and its exciting times to be involved and playing in the very large chess game of the world, national, and local political scenes.

But writing pamplets, something that anarchists have done exceedingly well for the pass 150 years of their history, isn't going to win us in skirmishes against the powers that be. In fact going over my books in all my political science classes, I am saddened by the sheer lack of presence of anarchists in most of the political struggles of the past century, and the overhwelming dominance of Marxists (usually Leninists or maoists). Now that those ideologies are bankrupt, its time for anarchists to come onto the world stage yet again, and not just for a brief 15 minutes of fame as in 1999 with Seattle, but with a credible threat to everything that is tying us down in this world. The fact that people have been exceedingly receptive to primitivist critiques and the possibilities of lo-tech resistance is awesome, since it nails two problems at once, of social domination and ecological destruction, two things inextricably tied together, but ignored by workerist syndicalists and anarcho-communists. The key will to keep it as a threat as opposed to becoming a cliquish subculture like the punk scene became.

This is all said, the simple fact is that you really, at the end of the day, can't have total or even anything approximating real control, over the outcome of world events. It's a very chaotic mixture of luck, skill, and the decisions of everyone, not just yourself and who your allied with, but the opposition and anyone vaguely in the middle. You can certainly make decisive blows, but you can never fully control anything, nor would you want to, lest you either become Stalinists or Capitalists.
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- posted by Sean @ 1/09/2006 12:14:00 PM

 
Back in Columbia...
After a very long abscence from this blog I have finally returned, and will begin the documentation of my return to America and the ensuing hilarity that will result as I get used to this countries ridiculous ways and try to get the old Super-team back together for one last ride into the sunset.
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"Sugar we're going down swinging..."
- posted by Sean @ 1/05/2006 12:52:00 AM

 
The wonders of flying the friendly skies...
As I've been trying to find out the tricks of the trade in regards to frequent flier miles (so I can get another ticket to Korea at some point, or Japan) I've been kind of bemused by finding the kind of online acrimony that usually applies only to politics applied to, of all things, ones airline preferance. JetBlue fans going head to head with Continental etc, etc. It seems all kind of silly to me considering the best airline for anyone, really has more to do with where you live and fly to than anywhere else.

For instance, theres no reason for me to really choose anyone else but Delta when it comes to flying. Why? Because they have the most flights of CAE, my home airport in Columbia, their hub is in Atlanta, and their in an alliance with Korean Air and NWA, which gets me to Asia with my frequent flier miles. Yes, Skyteam, the alliance Delta is a part of, is weak to Australia, and it doesn't have the cheap discount prices of flyi or Jetblue, but then again, those two airlines don't go where I want to go (JetBlue isn't even in CAE, and flyi only goes to West Palm Beach in Florida). For anyone who doesn't live in Boston/New York/LA , the only real options are the legacy liners. And even if the LCC came to CAE in a bigger way, I still wouldn't choose it since I can't use those frequent flier miles outside of America. And its not like they would really offer the supposed "superior service" they have on short feeder routes on tiny 50 pax planes. And anyways, since Delta changed their pricing so those of us in the small airports don't get these ridiculous 600 dollars tickets they are actually the quickest and cheapest people out of CAE to FTL. Thats the only route I care about.

Obviously if your destinations include Australia frequently, there would be no fucking point to flying anything but American, who has the flag carrier Quantas in its network. And it kind of sucks because the other two airline networks have ANA and JAL respectively, the two biggest Japan carriers, both internationally and domestically. Skyteam just has Korean Air and NWA. And in fact, most of Skyteams recent expansion plans includes more of Europe (Air Europa, Tarom, Aeroflot), South America (Copa), China (China Southern) and of all places Africa (Kenyan Air). I realize, obviously, out of America, Europe, for whatever reason, is still the main tourist destination (a fact that I've argued about with my romance and slavic language learning friends).

Later: Well REDEEMING my skymiles may actually be harder than earning the damn things. From looking around on the net alot it seems that the amount of spaces on any given flight are quite limited for a general member trying to redeem miles, particuarly on popular flights (as I would imagine any NWA or Korean Air flight out to Japan would be). It seems, more than likely, that I will have to rather flexble with my arrival and departure dates, as well as what airports to fly out of and into.


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- posted by Sean @ 11/23/2005 11:31:00 PM

 
"You've been sold out for a hill of beans!"
I have a couple ideas for counter-recruitment fliers that I am going to work on as soon as I have some free time. Most of them will be focusing on the Navy and the Air Force, who have been the least affected by the conter recruitment effort since they are not, nominally anyways, on the "front lines". That doesn't mean of course that their bombs and the supplies they run to the troops on the ground don't kill people but, that will be pointed out in the fliers.

The thing is counter-recruitment efforts really need to pick up pace if they are going to make a dent in anywhere but the anti military conclaves there already in. Having counter recruitment in boston is kind of pointless considering the already strong liberalism there. Everytime I hear of another "large" anti-war turnout for demo or something, its always in the same damn places it always happens. I know work is being done in the southeast, and I know there are strong currents of radicalism there, but stuff needs to be done to get organized as it were. If people like the sons of confederate veterans and stuff can get these huge calls out in the south we need to match up toe to toe with them, or atleast some semblance of opposition. And we also to do stuff in a positive sense, ie not just in response to other issues.

In other radical news I've been sketching out some other ideas for protest or sabotage type actions. Not anything particuarly new, but something that should be a little bit more coordinated than the usual run up with big barriers type thing.

The work for an Anarchist Black Cross is getting up, very slowly, off the ground. I've also found out that theres a possibility of a new Planned Parenthood clinic opening up in Charleston, which would than make South Carolina have two places to have an abortion, and significantly expand reproductive health in general, particuarly in a hostile state. Its not anarchistic, sure, but its a boon either way. I emailed the people about volunteering, have not as of yet received an email back on any volunteer opportunities. I'm going to see about talking to Laura and whoever is now head of the Feminist Majority Leadership group and see if they'd be interested in doing a female condom distro around the time of valentines day. Why let guys have all the fun? I'd have to see what the prices are and how many could be gotten, and if a break could be made for the club as a psuedo non-profit. Maybe to raise money sell condom lollipops as well with the words imprinted "Keep Our Cocks Covered". Again prices would have to be gotten, and I'm not sure who could cover that exactly. Maybe if I do get a volunteer position at Planned Parenthood I can run the idea by them.

Alot of these ideas are, admittedly, not explicitly anarchistic, as they almost all involve simply trying to raise money, and its not like were exactly rolling for the big spenders. But I think its important, especially in the case of reproductive health, an area thats poorly government funded, and often times having incomplete coverage in peoples insurance plans (presuming of course, they HAVE insurance or a job for that matter) to try and share the wealth as much as possible. STD rates, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, all these things are chracteristically unacceptable when all of them are easily and cheapily preventable. But I digress. We will see how things fare when I return in the spring.
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- posted by Sean @ 10/31/2005 08:21:00 AM

 
On Recent Events
One might think that considering the current obstacles and fuck ups facing the Bush administration that I would be pleased. But the fact is that I really could give a shit less what happens to Bush or his illfated administration. I care more about the edifice that he inhabits, the supposed right to power that he has, the military that he commands that will still exist whether or not a Democrat is in office or anyone else.

While there is a heavy focus on the American occupation of Iraq/Afghanistan, little is said of the occupation of Okinawa, an occupation that has been ongoing for more than 50 years. The occupation continues now again, with japan recently accepting the harboring of a nuclear powered ship within its own waters, another acceptance made by the mandarins in Tokyo with little thought to how people on the ground cared. Its also is interesting to note how this affects our other brethren, in this case, the manatee (called dugongs here) that are being screwed over by the massive Naval presence of America and its insistence on turning its habitats into docks.

Of course all of this should come as no surprise to anyone whose vaguely kept track of what goes on with the great American war machine. From its covert aid and help of the contras and the muhjahadeen to its teaching of the various right wing militia groups in south america to asia, to the sale of weapon systems both large and small to countries who should be trying to feed its peoples, the American military has a horrible track record a mile wide. Even if the School of the Americas closes down, like many people want, these things are still going to continue on. I wouldnt be surprised if very soon we saw an invasion of Iran and North Korea, as crazy and as overstretched as the military is now. Because the guys running the machine at the top are fucking nuts. NUTS. I just hope they dont go to war before I can actually get to the country and back into Japan.

I must admit though all this craziness is ripe for insurrectionary moments, and I will be glad to add fuel to the fire upon my return to America...
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- posted by Sean @ 10/29/2005 12:33:00 PM

 
What does Solidarity mean?
The more and more I read about the shitacular situations of certains groups, classes, and castes in other societies, and the effects of our US foreign policy I wonder about the great anarchist word that always goes around, that of solidarity. What does that mean exactly? Does that mean we stand up and hold signs in front of embassies? Does that mean we have divestment campaigns and the like on college campuses? And is any of this actually relevent.

When it comes to international issues those seem to be the only bows in the quiver of liberal single issue groups. Hold rallies, encourage divestment or boycott campaigns, have speakers or celebs come out, wash, rinse, repeat. And it seems to be doing shit nothing to change the facts on the ground. Divestment campaigns, which are usually focused around small liberal arts colleges, are ineffective, because even though university endowments are quite large in some cases (rivalling some institutional investors), its rare for them to be heavily invested in those things that your divesting from (while there are professional and oft times donor connections between large defense firms and colleges with engineerings schools, its rare that they would invest in what is a fairly volatile stock).

The way I look at it, the best way to practice solidarity in such long range situations is improve your own back yard, and start up the domino effect of its spreading outward. Japan is a sexist, patriarchal country. But so is the US, in many, many ways. So how do we confront this? I think we take the beast head on in our own backyards, particuarly in places like South Carolina, where abortion rights, women rights, and everything else have gone down the shitter. I think if you tackle it from there and thinks just domino effect outwards.

I've seen this in action already on a small scale. My learning of sexual and reproductive health this summer has led to Kat! knowing the info and knowledge and stuff which she has then turned around and provided to her brother and his girlfriend, which is useful. Two people, who would have otherwise been woefully underserved by the ridiculously non useful sex education being taught in schools now have the information they need to make choices for themselves and their bodies. Which under all that hyperbole and psuedo-talk is some kickass stuff.

It takes a certain amount of gusto and not piddling in the middle however. I see this in the anti-war, "support the troops not the war" kind of a crowd. While I have been interested in what has been going on in the anti-recruitment areas, I am concerned that it has been focused solely on "this war" as opposed to all wars and militarism in general. This war sucks yes, but so do ALL wars. There is no "just war" theory, and inevitably any "defensive" wars are fought because someone previously had invaded someone else, or because the government you're now "serving" to protect got you into the mess in the first place. Why should I protect a bunch of people who got me into this mess. The phrase really is true; "They can't protect you, but they can get you killed".
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- posted by Sean @ 10/19/2005 10:07:00 AM

 
And off to Korea...
Next month I will be heading off on a jaunt to South Korea to stay with a friend of mine. South Korea is interesting, because like Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, its a country in the midst of a very bitter "ceasefire" (with crackdowns and digging in over square inches predominant). Right over the DMZ is the worlds most heavily fortified guardpost, with a significant "buffer" space between the two sides that is mostly maintained through the UN. You can actually get tours of the UN buildings where daily negotiations still take place in officially "neutral" territory. Hopefully I'll get to see it.

I am also EXCITED to possibly hit up the club/bar scene and get lost within the cold techno lust embrace of neon and electronica. The culutural things should be cool as well. Over all everything should just rock.
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- posted by Sean @ 10/10/2005 01:51:00 PM