Such is the Life of a Cowboy

It's been crazy...

2006-01-09T12:14:00.000-05:00

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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Back in Columbia...

2006-01-05T00:52:00.000-05:00

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..."

The wonders of flying the friendly skies...

2005-11-23T23:31:00.000-05:00

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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"You've been sold out for a hill of beans!"

2005-10-31T08:21:00.000-05:00

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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On Recent Events

2005-10-29T12:33:00.000-04:00

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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What does Solidarity mean?

2005-10-19T10:07:00.000-04:00

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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And off to Korea...

2005-10-10T13:51:00.000-04:00

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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To all our wildest dreams...

2005-10-03T13:59:00.000-04:00

My minorities in Japan class is insanely interesting, mostly because it focuses on the underbelly of Japan's supposed homogenity, and how much of it is a canard, and is revealed to be a brutal system of forced assimilation, colonization gone awry, and balls out racism. It goes to show that you can travel halfway across the world to be met with the same utter horseshit.The sheer negativity that this has brought has been both overhwelming and at the same time not surprising.

What is to be done? I don't know. I'm not even sure how to go about things in America, let alone the rest of the world. I feel irritated, just sitting here, while a literal war rages on around me of oppression, racism, patriarchy, and state sanctioned rape, brutality, and violence the world over. I know I need alot more quivers in my bow before I can take on the amassed forces, but when will that be? Will the day ever come to help make a strike against the system and powers that be?

In a world of little less than 6.5 billion people, armed to the gills with millions of weapons, tanks, nuclear arms, money, soldiers, media, transportation, resources, how is it supposed to be face? What tactics, and what strategy? I have not found an answer to these questions, though I have focused more sharply on how I analyze situations, and my ability to change my own personal behaviour.

I hope my fellow persons in arms in Japan and Asia in genral can heed the call when it is made, and I will heed theirs if it is made. In solidarity, to all our wildest dreams...
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2005-09-18T12:23:00.000-04:00

Even with the shitty connection ehre in japan I have managed to get a couple more episodes of Doctor Who downloaded. The show is definetly much more well strung together than the sometimes disparate serials of the original series (contonuity was often a after thought in most of the original serials).

The most intriguing part of the series thus far though, are the constant allusions to the Time War, that mythical war to end all wars, spanning history and everything else , that has always lurked somewhere a little bit in the back of some of the later serials, though never explicitly named. I wonder if they will ever show it, even though the idea of such might stretch the budget of the show.

On the whole I'm impressed in the new series of the step up in special effects, though it still suffers from alot of the mid grade quality of most scifi tv shows. Due to the schedule and budget, you don't get exactly Star Wars quality shots and composites, but it works, and it works better than the oft times ridiculous ones of the original (though it must be admitted they basically hobbled things together due to their budget). Sometimes I wonder though whether the overuse of CG has hampered the show, as it seems to be preferred to just CG things than to try and use real stuff and cleverly shoot it or cut around it. Also I would like to see the return of more "historical" episodes, and less of the scifi-ish ones. THe historical ones were always a good romp, and it gave an excuse to see period type pieces. While The Unquiet Dead was a cool episode, I'd like to see more.

Either way, hopefully sometime soon I'll have the last of the episodes in place and I can load them onto cd-rs and have them with me till an American DVD is released.
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The moniker for the spring...

2005-09-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

I've decided that my moniker for the spring on all my fliers/posters/artwork is "Robin Hood and The Autonomous Band of Merry People". I've got to find an image of robin hood that I can use for the logo ala Crimethinc to put at the bottom. I already have my intial salvo wheatpasting campaign up. I've got to cook some more up while I'm here in Japan, as well as start getting a bunch of art books/manga in order to use for various cut and paste purposes.

I've decided that part of my experience with volunteering for planned parenthood in the spring will be trying to learn how some of that stuff can be done autonomously, and maybe on a wider, smaller clinic deal. One of the advantages of Mifeprestone, the abortion pill, is that it requires none of the heavy expense of a surgical establishment, and would be important in reaching out to rural setting which are far away from abortion providers. Maybe that combined with a bare bones reproductive health clinic could be feasible in rural settings.

Relying on the current network of Planned Parenthood Federation clinics (which are increasingly being scaled back and closing) and independent ones, means that a smaller, more targetted clinic may be useful. I'm also interested in seeing maybe some sort of sex education/contraceptive education outreach. That would be important to me, as would the general fact that information would blow to shit misconceptions and alot of the rumor type bs floating around about sex. But I digress.

I have to get back to japanese studying and not worrying about politics...ugh...
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2005-09-07T08:14:00.000-04:00

Here's another story that shows just how far the theocratic righ tis willing to go in the face of medicine. Not that long ago theocrats were saying that Terri Schiavo must have EVERYTHING done to her possible to assure her recovery, even in the face of evidence that said she was clinically brain dead. Now their arguing against such care, thinking that the supposed "power of prayer" will heal her. Where were prayers for Schiavos recovery? No where to be seen if you went from her medical charts.

Moreover, the blog I linked to has so many fucking wrong legal arguments I don't think I can even start in on them. For instance, a couple posts down they talk about supposed due process and how EVERYONE and EVERYTHING MUST be heard. What the point of this exercise I have no idea, but clearly they've never heard of basic case procedure, the discovery period (used in criminal cases), and the fact that, what do you know, the judge can allow (or not allow) pretty much whatever he wants in his court. She may be APPEALED on that matter, but it cannot be argued that she has control of what happens in the courtroom. I'm not arguing this is RIGHT per se, but it is what HAPPENS.

Moreover whats amusing is they argue that SHE has a right to her own medical decisions. Yet I GURANTEE you that if it came to abortion, she wouldn't have that choice. I personally feel that if she doesn't want to do it, thats her own business. But lets not parse hairs here. These bastards pick and CHOOSE. If it was abortion she wouldn't be allowed. But now she can when she can choose to effectively die herself?

I believe that you can make that choice if you want. If you do not want to engage is highdose chemotherapy or other therapies, that is your perogative, and yours alone. But why the interference with others? Because the theocrats don't really want autonomy to make decisions but autonomy to make decisions how THEY want them (which is to say no autonomy at all)..

Considering the highcure rate for Hodgkins Disease, and I don't particuarly see the reason for NOT DOING the treatment if its a choice between life and death. There are risks admittedly, but were not talking about months were talking about a very high CURE rate. Even with potential late term adverse effects were talking about a much longer, much better life ahead. I'm not sure if I woul dhave the strength to undergo the assault that is chemotherapy but....then I haven't been faced with the choice.
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Goosestep, one two, goostep, one two.....

2005-09-07T02:59:00.000-04:00

Read THIS and tell me that cops in the katrina disaster were not being goosestepping thugs. Everyone focuses on whether poor black people are shooting themselves yet no one reports about cops (white ones) doing horrendous shit. This is fucking ridiculous, AND its verified by media (remember the people who were trying to walk out on the bridge...this is THEM).

It's not that government failed this time...its that it FAILS everytime...
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Tactics for the spring...

2005-09-06T00:49:00.000-04:00

Besides volunteering for Planned Parenthood in the spring, I've been brewing different ideas to scare the bejesus out of the pro-life lobby (that could also be used for other groups as well).

1)An idea that has been used before, is telling pro life protestors that for every person that shows up, so much will be donated to Planned Parenthood or another abortion organization. There is one guy, who is out every saturday down Assembley in Columbia, that holds up a bunch of pro life signs. In order to counter him, we could set up across the street with just a sign that read "For every 30 mins you stand another $X goes to Planned Parenthood". The X dollars would depend on how much could be raised. I think bare minimum 5 dollars wouldn't be so hard to get (between Laura and Micah's friends).

2) Picket " alternative" pregnancy centers. Why aren't we on THEIR asses. They lie and misinform women not just about abortion, but contraception and reproductive health in general. It's time to knock them down a peg or two and confront them where THEY work (I was also thinking some wheatpasting on their building and whatnot). We could call it Operation Counterinform (a take on the anti-choice group Operation Rescue).

3. The clothes hanger idea that Laura came up with last year with relevent info about abortion on it. Take THEM apples.

4.Wheatpasting campaign on sex/gender issues. Confront homophobia as well as sexuality issues in various ways.

5. Start up an abortion fund, or colloborate with the Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia to get some sort of assistance program together. How realistic this is depends on funds/etc.

I'm going to have some serious tactical discussions with friends of mine as to the feasibility and potential for all these ideas, but I'm confident we could get it off the ground.
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Katrina: Survivalists wet dreams?

2005-09-05T08:48:00.000-04:00

I enjoy THIS article, about the proud white men, from the army no less, standing THEIR ground like REAL men. But read it closer and what you have is a bunch of selfish wingnuts who re-write the rules for themselves. Read the bit on the bottom how he will siphon off gas to keep his generators running, but heaven forbid if those NIGGAR LOOTERS come through the BLINDING DARKNESS, looking for supplies. What the fuck? It's because of hoarding douchebags like this that emergency situations go south, and any sort of revolutionary moment will be inevitably filled with dickwads putting this guys personal MyLai.
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Why being a partisan makes you an idiot...

2005-09-04T08:55:00.000-04:00

Recently a shit storm has brewed about NARAL (an abortion group) supporting a Republican (Lincoln Chafee) amongst so called liberal and Democratic pundits and bloggers. The simply fact is that these walking jizz machines for the Dem party are exactly that. They walk around saying how the Dem's are the party of "working people", of the "environment", of "choice", when they are anything fucking but. The Dem's are not the party of "Women", "Gays", or "Blacks", despite their attempts to pass themselves off as such.

I'm tired of this horseshit good cop/bad cop routine that gets played out. Vote for us, the Dems whisper, we won't take away ALL your rights. Vote for us they say, we won't spoil ALL the land. Vote for us they say, for we won't make ALL the wars. Horseshit you won't. What was East Timor, or Kosovo, or NAFTA, or half a bunch of other ridiculous shit thats gotten passed or conducted while the Dems were supposedly "in control" (in control of what? their bowel movements? thats about it).

And while the liberal punditry aristocracy lines up to sell out womens rights in order to NOT win elections, the reality of abortion access, contraception access, and other reproductive health services in reality is dying. From the fact that 87% of America does not have an abortion provider in their county, to only 4% of all hospitals perform them, to the fact that there is never enough money in abortion funds to help all women in need, to the fight for emergency contraception, shit is just a brewing. Choice doesn't mean shit if you don't have the ability to make it. It's hollow and it isn't filled with creamy nouget.

I can't wait till the spring and I can volunteer for Planned Parenthood and see what I can do on the reproductive health front. That and other projects I have on the back burner will return to the fore...
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"hail, hail the lucky ones..."

A world of 20 different soda drinks...

2005-09-04T07:38:00.000-04:00

..is not one that I'm particuarly interested in living in. A floor below me are two vending machines full of Japanese teas, sodas, waters and sports drinks, from two rival companies. They are, for all purposes, exactly the same. Yet steel, aluminum,syrup, and complicated ad engineering went into putting these damn products out. It's fucking ridiculous. Is this the pinnacle of what civilization has brought us? The ability to choose amongst various sodas? Ugh.

I've been looking into various herbal medications and whatnot to grow in my apartment in the spring. The problem is trying to find legit books and not YOU CAN CURE CANCER WITH A PLANT type ones. If I could start growing things in pots on a window sill etc, it'd be great. The health issue is one little tackled in the anarchist community in a direct way, and its high time we start teaching everyone how to do it. Until teh day we can take back the pharmaceutical factories, amongst other things, we got to use alternatives.
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2005-09-03T05:11:00.000-04:00

I've decided to keep writing political things on this blog so things are kept seperate.

Hurricane Katrina has shown that, again, the state is a piss poor provider of just about anything. But what would an anarchist response be? Some people have floated a ride/housing board. But how could that be done without divulging peoples identities and making a it an essential crack down list for the state.

At the SEANet gathering in april people floated a network of middlemen and intermediaries to somehow get people connected. I'm interested in reading about the various clandestine abortion services in the 60's and see how they managed to get people connected but at the same time protect their anonymity. I'm definetly interested in getting together some sort of reproductive health stuff in the spring. I've been thinking about some sort of bulk purchasing arrangement, and I know condom companies and possibly some pharmacuetical companies that may offer such bulk arrangements. When I volunteer with Planned Parenthood in the spring I'm going to see what can be done on that front. Also we should what can be done with setting up an abortion fund in Columbia.
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The reason I wrote the below post...

2005-08-27T03:13:00.000-04:00

...is because sex, in whatever crazy ass forms you practice, are great, fun, fulfilling and otherwise what you should do whenever you want to. Such things like protection and education poke holes in the scare mongering of the theocratic right that people might actually have sex and HAVE FUN, and then find out that you don't have to play russian roulette with it.

I've been north,
I've been east to the california beach
There's only one place i know where to find you
And all you southern girls got a way with your words
And you show it
You say hump and i'll jump
You say go and i'll know
Waste no time getting
So close to you
And you'll never run way
When you find out why i wanted to find you

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2005-08-25T01:28:00.000-04:00

Wrote more letters to my Florida reps about issues regarding Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, and how the whims of pharmacists should not be able to stop a womans reproductive right. I would like to take the time to expose the rank stupidity of those "liberals" who say this okay, because you can just get it filled "Somewhere else".

1)Somewhere else may be a hell of a long distance. But of course for condescending upper class liberals with no spine, the idea of "yokels" out in Wyoming wanting Plan B is ridiculous. I would have to peruse some statistics of pharmacies in this country (I am unsure how many there are and how they are spread out) but I am confident in many rural states, the situation is drastic.

2) Down the street is fine when you have a car. But as indicated by rising gas prices, and the fact that not every place has decent mass transit, getting places may be hard, especially if your source of income (or car) is the male who just broke his condom, most likely due to improper use.

3)The short time window of Plan B is also a contentious point. For sake of hypotheticals let us say a condom broke at night, you would have to get a perscription at best the next day (unless it was the weekend in which case it may be two days of a very short 3 day window) and then go to the pharmacist who then proceeds to tell you that he/she will not dispense it. Now presuming there are other pharmacies in your area you would have to go run and find another one, and one with an open pharmacy. While most of us are used to the convenience of 24 hour CVS' and Wal-Green's, again, not all of us have that access.

There a bajillion other good reasons to oppose such dispensation laws, but the 3 arguments mentioned above are ones that most weak willed liberals have refused to take on. And as much as I hate to promote a product made by a pharmaceutical company (the damn things should be made free), one has to make compromises I guess, in the eventual goal of reproductive freedoms.

September 1st the FDA is supposed to announce whether or not Plan B (the only EC left after Preven was discontinued) can go over the counter. It's up in the air whether or not it will, and I'm leaning on the no side considering this administrations positions (or lack thereof) on things.

It's been interesting over the past couple weeks, delving into reproductive health as an issue. I discovered a number of things, many which show that reproductive health and family planning are tenous things. First and foremost, almost all non-pill based contraception is funded by non-profit groups. The lack of money in non-male condom or pill contraceptives has basically sidelined research into alternatives for years, and the continued research is mostly funded by non-profit groups, and the sludge like pace is apparent. Microbicides, which could cut seriously into the amount of HIV prevalence is continuing at a snails pace, even if the NIH have gotten involved in funding for large scale Phase III clinical trials.

Moreover, the existence of Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics, relies mostly on the whim of Title X funding, a dubious leg to stand on as it has been whittled away due to abortion restrictions and attempts to ban Planned Parenthood (the most vocal abortion proponent of family planning clinics). As emergency contraception is being assaulted, so in the pill as we know it, as are comprehensive sex education classes, condoms, and abortion.

Alot of people I think have been asleep at the wheel, feeling safe that no one in there right mind would take away the pill or any other form of contraception. But were not talking about people in there right mind. Were talking about right wing theocrats. I'm sure the theocrats in South Carolina will say that all these problems don't happen in there state, and ignore the high amount of STD's in SC, unwanted pregnancies, and almost all cases of one of the rarest STD's in the world (who would have known?).

I think in our own way we can be agents for change though. I mean I know just from this summer talking to Kat! that intensive discussion with a person or persons can influence and change things. I'm not exactly sure if that means anything in the face of a multi-billion dollar, slick, tightly-knit theocratic right wing machine.

I wonder though what can be done with Plan B. If it becomes over the counter distributing it to rural areas may become easier because if a pharmacy doesn't stock it, maybe some sort of program can be made to get it out to people in rural situations. Only prob with that is gas and the costs of that and whatnot.

Eh must stop thinking about politics...
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Why all the yellow ribbons?

2005-08-20T02:40:00.000-04:00

As a person against the war in Iraq, I find hilarious the high number of yellow ribbons on large gas guzzling SUV. The sad thing is however, is that not that many years ago red ribbons, symbolizing the then important epidemic of HIV/AIDS, were all the rage. Now adays the same people who support a billion dollar a day war effort in Iraq, have yellow ribbons, and guzzle gas, hate the UN and other AID agencies for helping out those with the disease (amongst other many, many problems) across the world. Ignore the fact, that over a period of 20 days, enough money is spent in the war in Iraq to fulfill the optimum funding numbers to effectively treat, prevent, and fight HIV spread across the world. Instead the number is at a pathetic 6.4 billion a year, and most of that is NOT for use in the same year, necessarily (many donations from governments are for multiple years programs or generally spread out). According to UNAIDS, over 3 million people will die this year of AIDS, 4 million more will be infected, and those rates grow exponentially, not linerally. Russia's prevalence is growing out of control, as is India, and other Eastern European countries. Combine this with TB, generally poor reproductive health, the disaster of global warming, peak oil, increasing war and itchy trigger finger of the Bush administration (but not much worse than the bomb'em and leave'em philsophy of Clinton) and you have the equivalent of shit soup. Forget just about taking the streets, the whole THING needs to be taken, and through personal relationships, and through fundamental change at the ground.

[On an interesting aside Columbia, my home of sorts, is number 9 in number of AIDS cases for any city in America...its below some places like Miami and Ft. Lauderdale but not by much...ridiculous].
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Art Project for the Spring

2005-08-14T03:05:00.000-04:00

I think my big art project for the spring when I return will be simple stenciled spraypaints done on old newspapers. Maybe comment on the articles on the front page, or elsewhere. Or some sort of other general commentary on unfolding events. I'll wheatpaste them around and see if they stick (metaphorically I mean). Then maybe expand from there into larger and more provacative pieces.
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Blahty blah blah blah blah....

2005-07-13T17:43:00.000-04:00

That's the sound ringing in my head after having way too much of readin the Democratic Underground, the dubious flipside to the Republicans Free Republic site. Like its polar oppisite most of the people on there are hardcore partisans, and couldn't see the problems in their own party if shit came out of the donkeys ass. Presumably these people should be on my side of the fence, but for the most part they aren't. They lack totality and an international perspective. And while that sounds like intensely psuedo political jargon, its a valid point. They can't see the forest for the trees, and don't even talk on the international scene. It's not that everyone needs to be some sort of wunderkind of international activism, but jebus, understand that Bill Clinton did his fair share of nefarious and ridiculous foreign policiy things while in office, and did the same with domestic policies as well (workfare anyone?).

Theres also a lack of lifeway building amongst Democrats. What do I mean? Well look at Republicans, and their core evangelical base. They go to Church on sundays, they watch TBN, CBN, and listen to right wing radio, they do missionary or charity work on off days, they often live in small towns and are involved in other conservative community/civic organizations. Meanwhile Democrats complain when someone takes an "uncompromising" stance on SUV use, and whine about the need to be "inclusive" (to what? Evangelical Christians awaiting the rapture?). Then they say those "Crazy" radicals who actually practice what they preach are absurd and are a "hinderance" to "serious" political people. Ridiculous.

I think expecting reform to come from within the corrupt halls of the Democrats is ridiculous. I'm not sure exactly about the Green Party, which seems to have its own democracy issues at stake, or in fact any electoral based system (I am unsure how much proportional voting would realistically change discourse in America, with its heavy emphasis on the binary through and through, and the need for professional politicos to feed on a multiparty democracy ala Canada). I'm thinking that still things will have to be changed at the root, and not simply the periphery like many solutions seem to be in the political discourse these days. I'm interested in collective and intentional community building, and how that can be used an engine for changing the body politic itself at its core.

The weird part is how incredibly byzantine and overlapping the NGO community is, in response to the also incredibly byzantine governments and world institutions they purport to reform. It's interesting to note that the powers that be are, however, monolithic in their size, action, and plans most of the time. This is not suggest that the response to such dinosaurs should be with another dinosaur, but even the NGO's...many of whom are as slow to respond and as inane as any government bureacracy, can't even do things right in a top down, autocratic sort of a way. This is why there is a need for a flatter organization in any political situation, why any and all organizational "leaders" should be as the old maxim goes "mandatable, recallable, and responsible to the base", and why all this gobbdly gook friendly shit needs to go straight down the tubes. Were not here to be goddamn friends with industry. Were here to rock their world and bring them down. We don't want "natural" capitalism, we want nature, plain and simple. And the solutions will not be highly technocratic ones, but concise and easily implemented ones by individuals on the ground level, with or without the assholes on the top having a clue. THAT'S whats going to bring things to its knees, not hydrogen in cars, not token agreements on labor, or token agreements on aid. Honest to God change at the root, hack, hack, hacking away.
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New Project

2005-07-06T02:47:00.000-04:00

I think my new project for the rest of the summer, as my garden starts to take care of itself, and I finish up a couple silkscreen projects, is to start working out some short stories or some other type of little writing exercises in prose in order to get my creative wordsmith muscles in order. With the death of my fellow birthday mate, Hunter S. Thompson.

Also to Bob Geldof, Live 8 organizer and liberal pompous ass, who declared the anarchists on the streets in Scotland "idiots", shut your yammering pie hole. You weren't part of an important band, and the fact that you have celeb friends doesn't mean your any more powerful and important than any real person on the street. At the same time let us remember, to those on the streets, that most of us will go back to relatively decent lives in countries that are more the HQ's for world domination than the actual battlegrounds. I'm the San bushman and others in the jungles of Africa keep up the resistance, particuarly Algeria, of which I've heard good things come out of. Solidarity, either way.
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Kunstler: Racist, Not Radical

2005-07-05T02:46:00.000-04:00

The hilarity of peak oil shaman James Howard Kusntler only get more amusing. Not content to be misogynistic, he decides that those dirty towel heads need a spanking too, as per his altest rant. Let us look at the numerous historical inaccuracies here:

Why would we suppose that our notions of a civil society, based on Greco-Roman and Anglo-American tradition, would comport with one based on an even older and different Mesopotamian-Semitic culture with Mongol-Turkic-Persian overlays? After all, Iraq is the birthplace of the Code of Hamurabi...

Actually, our notions of civil society are based on the French Revolution, and the idea of represenative democracy, not anything vaguely relating to Greco-Roman ideals (Athens was a direct democracy, not a representative one). Despite the attempts of many to somehow cloak America in the vestiges of the "great Athenian Demcoracy" of yore (which in the end wasn't that great), America, short of slavery, has little in common with the polis. More over, most Hellenic philsophy and opinions fly in the face of today's Christian Evangelism. in fact, Islamic scholars were the ones who mostly maintained Aristotle logic during the Dark Age's of western europe, and it would be the Scholastics, a group of middle east thinkers, who would come to weild great influence in the middle ages till the collapse of Artistotles thinking. Moreover, Aristotle praised and valued direct experience as the basis of most everything, something decidedly not en vogue in America today.

But more funny than this is his statement about the original cause of the war (which was not spreading "demcoracy" and "Freedom"), the issue of WMD's.

Compared to these painful and convoluted assumptions, the issue of WMD looks much more straightforward, even if you grant that the Bush adminstration had made up its mind to invade earlier than 2003 -- to wit, the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found does not mean that we didn't have to look. Not finding any was always one of the possible outcomes, especially when Mr. Hussein had months to move things elsewhere. The public's refusal to understand this equation is an impressive case of obdurate stupidity, but not as dumb as our kindergarten ideas about spreading "freedom" to places where it means the right to kick our stupid American asses.

Actually, he didn't have much to move because there wasn't anything there to begin with. Obviously, for all his ruminations on "obdurate stupidity" Kunstler obviously forgot that we blew up most of his shit during the Gulf War, watched most of it be dismantled, blown up, or deconstructed from the Gulf War to 1998, and then proceeded to find nothing again when inspectors went in 2002/2003. Or maybe Kunstler is watching the same news stations Bush and other Republicans did, the one where secret Spetznatz units used fairy dust to whisk away WMD's to Syria, and massive chemical stores were somehow hiding out in movable tractor trailers (none of which have ever been found, despite the fact that tractor trailers aren't easy things to hide). But so it goes in the pedantic world of James Howard Kunstler, where the poor are corporate sychophants, humanities major are PC cops, and women and towel heads have no place in our stoic, muscular future agrarian society.

Kunstler's refusal to understand that we KNEW he had no WMD's is an impressive case of obdurate stupidity, but not as dumb as insulting a shitload of people and installing yourself as the new high priest of a none-existing dystopia, when you can't even check your damn facts.
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Unocal:The Chess Pieces Move...

2005-06-30T21:41:00.000-04:00

The Prologue to the eventual mad scramble for oil has begun, and China has moved the first piece. Unocal (known more famously by its call sign of 76) has been bidded on by Cnooc, a chinese state run oil company. Unoca, according to its website, has 649 million barrells in proven oil reserves, certainly enough to augment China's increasing reliance on the black gold. The move has made a shitstorm in Washington, where of course the answer is not "We should stop using oil!" but "We must keep it for ourselves!".

I downloaded a neat book on the larger issue of peak oil, put out by the technocrats at the Rocky Mountain Institute, called Winning the Oil Endgame. It replete with tons of suggestions about improving cars, switching to hydrogen, etc etc. It's all neat stuff, but I don't put much stock in it to save things, simply because it relies off the people who got us into this mess, to get us back out, and it completely precludes real involvement by people, except as spectator consumers (though this should not come as a surprise considering they also put out another called 'Natural Capitalism', which amounts to a supposed 'free market' solution to a problem caused, of course, by free markets).

Like many other technocratic proposals, the ones by the RMI don't really change the fundamental reason why these inequities and environmental concerns exist. And like the current Live 8 and ONE campaigns then tend to come off as basically begging at the feet of kings, an idea tha nyone should find insulting in the least.

Than again I'm not seeing much, outside of some Green Anarchy articles, that are in anyway shape or form analyzing whatever the hell is going on in the energy sector, or even proposing solutions to it. "but dude.. haven't you listened to that latest 8 track recording of crass in a basement house party?" No you fuckwad. I may not want to plenary meeting my way to a revolution, but I'm surely not going to listen to it on a goddamned cd. This is why I'm trying to learn gardening skills and getting a couple book son ecological shelter making etc, so I can actually goddamn live when this shit hits and not be sitting around whining that there are no more trains to hobo and cheap oil to make plastic cd's. I'm looking for lo tech solutions that people can implement themselves, and community oriented projects that can benefit everyone. I'm excited by some of the books put out by the guy at Oasis Design, because thats exactly what they ARE...lo tech, ecologically sound ways that aren't hard to implement by ordinary people. That's the kind of shit we need to xerox and hand out, not ridiculous tracts on the need to fucking federate the world or the latest flier for a straightedge punk vegan hardcore show. Until people can do something for themselves, or atleast have a more active part than mere spectator consumer, there will be no real solution to ecological problems.

In other news, I got the first issue of Crimethincs new mag, Rolling Thunder, an "anarchist journal for dangerous living". It's pretty sweet and filled to the brim with great artwork, good articles and analysis, good stories, and some useful and fun projects. It's certainly a shit load lot better than the mild pedantics of Clamor. Hopefully they'll be able to keep the quality level up, but I have hope that with input and contributions from others It makes me feel good for the movement in general to see quality work put out...

...and then stuff like this make me infinetly depressed. This is friggan ridiculous. All this money to turn war into a real time strategy game? Are you crazy? What are the potentials of these things being used against people in this country, if shit ever begins to fly? Satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, everything else as the Army lessens its dependence on new recruits (considering anti-recruitment efforts pick up steam). You got to be goddamned shitting me. Ridiculous. With the stuff above, and the potential for an eventual oil war showdown with China...jesus. Throw in DARPA and the CIA and FBI's various intelligence and cointelpro apparatus and you have a levithan of epic proportions.
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Murray Bookchin: Senile, Delusional

2005-06-24T20:41:00.000-04:00

(Note: The Archives menu on the right has been removed since it was messing things up in the stylesheet. Until I can fix it it'll have to remain off...it should be back in a day or so though).

I present to you a rather long quote from a rather long answer to an even longer debate. Namely a quote from Bookchin's Whither Anarchism? which was a response to the absolute shitstorm that his diatribe Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism inspired. The basic breakdown goes like this: Bookchin decries the "narcissistic" and "nilistic" efforts of many so called "lifestyle anarchists" ( a deraugatory term not unlike "lumpen" used by Leninists to describe those who could be easily bought off in the midst of revolution) who are threatening to derail the great anarchist social history (and Bookchin's crap municipal statism).

Those who wish to overthrow this vast system will require the most careful strategic judgment, the most profound theoretical understanding, and the most dedicated and persistent organized revolutionary groups to even shake the deeply entrenched bourgeois social order. They will need nothing less than a revolutionary libertarian socialist movement, a well-organized and institutionalized endeavor led by knowledgeable and resolute people who will foment mass resistance and revolution, advance a coherent program, and unite their groups in a visible and identifiable confederation.

If this sounds like something out of Lenin's theory of vanguard parties than your not the only one scared shitless by Bookchin's psuedo Marxist concepts of revolution, and moreover, his substitution for clearly authoritarian langauge with some vague anti-authoritarian terms. He substitutes movement for party, but a movement made up of "a coherent program", "led by knowledgable and resolute" peoplem and institutionalized" is, for a lack of a better word, a party or vanguard organization.

Moreover the only way the revolution is ever going to happen, by Bookchin's criteria is if somehow we have uber-men (and more than likely men) who are somehow equal parts Che, Subcomandante Marcos, Nestor Makhno, and Bookchin (in his wet dreams). This is absurd, and essentially asserts what many already accuse anarchists of supporting, ie: a utopia made up of people who are above average and who are extra-ordinary. The simple fact is not that everyone is dumb (there not) but that people aren't heavily exceptional either. They simply are. If the movement is relying on a group of uber-men, we don't have a hope in hell.

Make no mistake, the sometimes stupid and ridiculously overblown rhetoric of some people who are doing things that aren't really that revolutionary (or even mildly radical) is irritating, but then again neither are the many vestiges of "social anarchists" as they exist today. NEFAC, the Love and Rage Federation, etc, have never done a damn revolutionary thing in their existence. Most if not all of the causes they worked on are one that were already being done by liberal single issue groups or involved in corporatized union negotiations. Even their rhetoric most of the time was just the typical leftist reforms plus a caveat of saying "more needs to be done". For all the inchoate bravura and adventurism of some post left and primitivist individuals, and the tendency for inane "resistance" (the brick throwing derided so much by Bookchin and others), at least someone is DOING something. And it ignores the fact that these individuals don't just come out of the ether and do these actions. There is a support base, and no it isn't in some federation of anarcho communists or some formal structure. It's a support base rooted in what every anarchist should root their support base in... friends, confidantes, lovers, and others who give mutual aid. Probably the most organized and open to actual militant resistance are those who don't have ridiculous acronym names and four different journals of luke warm theory.

And thats the biggest problem with Bookchin and his ilk. He doesn't want a movement in any sense of the word. He wants a monolithic mass, another dinosaur to fight the already existing dinosaurs of the state, capitalism, and every thing we dislike. He wants people reporting for duty and signing up to be told, by these UBER MEN, exactly what to do. I don't want any part of HIS revolution, whatever the hell that is.

At the end of the day the best thing we can ask for is for individuals who are organized, not organized individuals, committed people, not people committed to a line, and for the eventuality that one day we will punch a massive hole in this whole big nonsense. And then we will have the power to reshape and reform our lives the way we want to, as opposed to the way others want us to, Bookchin included. I know where my heart lies.
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Why I Hate James Howard Kunstler

2005-06-21T01:54:00.000-04:00

For the record, I am not a cynic politically, despite my various rantings. And I also am not an insulting name caller, and all around authoritarian elitist, like Peak Oil shaman and prolestyzer James Howard Kunstler is.

I think peak oil is an eventuality. I also think that our current way of living is egregiously unsustainable. But I also don't go around pissing on everything I see (atleast most of the time) nor going around installing myself as the "on high" prophet vanguard of changing America's ways, in about as ridiculous a fashion as Kunstler does.

Like Thomas Friedman, who gets poked at within his various diatribes, Kunstler has little or no real stake in the reality of the system he purports to criticize. He argues with the fuel that runs the engine, and to a certain extent the model of the car, but he doesn't argue against the car itself (despite his anti-car rhetoric, Kunstlers vision seems to be mass transit + Amtrak = transportation miracle!). He decries the Depression as a disaster mostly of fictional made up numbers (a true enough point) but advocates the solution of aslightly modified, more regulated form of fictional made up numbers. He doesn't aruge that probably no one needs friggan money. You can't eat the stuff, and it makes for a dirty and poor burning fuel.

He also hates the poor. His diatribes against Wal Mart, while valid enough, puts the blame squarely on the consumer, most of whom already work 60+ hours a week to just make ends meet and who look upon Wal Mart as a godsend. The sickening and disgusting part of Wal Mart has always been that its consumers are the same ones it runs out of town and forces it out of its jobs. I highly doubt the Mexicans who are overwhelmingly abundant at the Columbia Wal-mart are somehow "selfish" idiots. What are they going to do, buy organic produce at Earth Fare for 5 bucks a carrot? No, thats not the solution.

He's also a misogynist. While I am no fan of the PC police, and have used therm "bitch slap" many-a-time, his ridiculous shot across the bow at all humanities majors (and, vaguely, all women who supposedly run them)after someone criticized him for using the term is just fucking petty. If someone criticizing him for something that amounts to semantics makes him so angry and dis-shevelled that he has to write a whole blog entry decrying American universities as full of morons, than Kunstler has some serious issues going on.

But Kunstler really doesn't have any solutions, outside of some vague pinings to STOP IT ALL ( a sentiment I echo) and somehow vaguely readjust. People mock primitivists for being crazy about returning to hunter-gather bands, but Kunstler is even more ridiculous since he promotes what is basically Authoritarianism on a city state scale (I would think him and Bookchin would have alot in common). And his contempt for ordinary working people is apparent since he figures once things start to go south, there will simply be mass violence and lynchings, unless of course, people start following HIS vanguard, whatever that is. His solution is one of basically technocratic proposals, even if its a scaling BACK instead of a ramping UP of technology that is occuring. Like Lenin before him, the workers are not smart enough to save themselves, they must be WHIPPED into it. ORDER must be restored. Kunstler is less of a journalist and more of a wanna be Moses figure with a dash of David thrown in for good measure, leading the stupid flock to the promised land and then wondering why people ge tupset when he fucks another mans wife. WHOOPS.

Unfortunatly more and more people, particuarly in the mainstream Democrat circles and enviro circles, have started buying into his "End is Nigh" sign holding. Constructive play (I loathe the word work) must be done to alleviate the situation, not standing on a street corner jeezing off while selling books and flying(!) and driving(!) around the country trying to sell a book about how everyone but James Howard Kunstler is an idiot and a sychophant of corporate America (there is a very tiny, but vocal group who proffer as much, and people blow up their importance way too much). It's his and other wanna be "Radical" pundits noxious brew of chattering class elitism and snobbery that has wasted the goddamn time of too many people already, and will continue to waste time (and trees!) of too many people in the future.
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Another example...

2005-06-19T00:02:00.000-04:00

Another example of a dubious alliance in the UN is this Peacekeeping mission: UNDOF. It is the UN peacekeeping mission that monitors the situation in the Golan Heights after the war between Israel and Syria. And it's being led by a guy from the Nepal army, an army found to have numerous human rights violations, particuarly in its current ongoing war with the Maoist Peoples Army.

Again, this is not to say that the UN is some sort of big bad new world order or a fiasco like most people accuse it of being. But it does show that at the end of the day it is what its title implies. United NATIONS. Not United People. It exists due to and serves the needs of its member states. It does not represent necessarily the people within each member state, or even "civil society" at large, though they try to imitate a desire (like most governments do) in reflecting the supposed "will of it's people".

Real criticism of the substantial harm, for instance, that developed countries do to the countries they supposedly are interested in propping up with aid, is lacking, and this is because no one is going to criticize themselves. No one says anything about the food "dumping" that big agribusinesses do to hurt small farmers in Africa and other under-developed countries. No one talks about the military aid run to various governments that eventually end up being used in human rights violations. Theres vague talk about the need to end subsidies by developed countries, but does it really matter if they stop it if the agriculture in other countries is just owned by Monsanto anyways in ten years?

This same sort of situation can be seen in the UNFPA (the UN's Population Fund). It provides every reproductive service short of abortion. But preventative care does not stop unwanted pregnancies, not all the time. Abortion and the morning after pill must be provided. But such a move would cause a firestorm politically, not only amongst the conservatives of developed countries but amongst the leadership of Islamic countries. I also must that there is also the potential for such situations to be man handeled into coercive "one child" type policies like those in China. But the option must be open.

Either way, the work continues on...
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Cancer for the cure?

2005-06-18T18:27:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been looking into the UN and its various agencies. Many of them, such as UNICEF, UNPFA, UNAIDS, and the WPF, do tons of really good work in the field providing much needed supplies for people who are basically in a horrible situation. But the more and more I look into it, the more I wonder about whether some of the people who donate to these agencies (particuarly corporations) are nothing but cancers for the cure.

Take for instance, UNICEF. One of its global corporate sponsors is H&M, a GAP-esque clothing store that purchases its good from sweatshops. While the sweatshop movement of the mid-90's forced GAP, H&M, and other stores to more closely examine their contracts, very little in the way of independent verification has been done. While many companies like GAP and H&M now publish CSR Reports (Corporate Social Responsibility Reports), they are filled with vague and oft-times unverifiable statements on the quality of the shops where people work. UNICEF evidently does not question this potential conflict of interest.

The question is, for the person who cares about international issues, is donating money to UNICEF beneficial when they do not challenge the status quo arrangements that put many children into labor? Would it be better to buy clothes from people like No Sweat Apparel (http://www.nosweatapparel.com) who purchases only Union made garments from other countries, and buy fair trade food goods made under fair wages and good conditions?

Things aren't that easy however. Most garment makers are not in Africa (the primary recipient of UNICEF aid) and supporting fair traded goods tends to be a longer term process. The effects of the increase in price are not necessarily felt immediately. Moreover, not everyone has a job in many of these countries.

As I would suggest with most things its a two pronged attack. Obviously something needs to be done to solve the problem in many countries of what are pretty dumb causes (preventable diseases, potable water, etc) at the same time making sure that being able to grow up doesn't mean just growing up to work in a sweatshop.
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On political parties...

2005-06-09T17:00:00.000-04:00

After the stunning defeat at the polls this past November, I have reacted with almost venomous rage at any scent or sign of electoral politics, calling the whole institution absurd and meaningless. How after all, could THOSE bastards win unless it was RIGGED. What followed was an intense reflection period in which I assesed my politics and went decidedly more radical, more decentralized, more diy. Months later, I am still of a very negative opinion of the whole affair, short of substantial election reforms.

This said, I am still keeping my ear to the ground to keep track of currents going on in the major parties. After the disaster that was November the Democratic party is basically in one last stand against irrelevancy, and there are pretty huge rifts between the centrist DLC types, the Deaniacs, and the progressive left who veered to the Green Party, came back to the center for 2004, got bitterly dissapointed, and now are going back to the Green's (and those who are staying sticking with Kucinich). With Dean as the party chairman now, it seems obvious that the Deaniacs have won this round, if they haven't got the numbers of elected officials in toeing their line. Whether or not this will lead to a real grassroots situation in the Democratic party is anyones guess. I still have the feeling thats its still going to be most bureacratic and wanna be "e-activists" and pithy bloggers.

Even in the Green Party, evidently there are rifts developing that may tear apart what little momentum they had. There's even a rank and file movement afoot in it, which just goes to show that even a party that espouses supposed decentralization, has its authoritarians that must be fought. The failure of the Green's to capitalize locally the momentum they had after 2000 threatens to completely ghetto-ize them it seems. Hopefully this is not the case, since they're about the only mildly left point of view out there in the electoral scene (liberal is NOT left mind you). My beefs with them aside, I really do wish them the best of luck, since at heart, we have many of the same goals.

Dean has put forth alot of money into building the capacity of the state and local parties, presumably to help bolster the turnout in 2005. Honestly, I can see Democrats doing better this fall, and maybe making some gains. But does this actually mean anything? Shit no. It's not going to stop half the crap thats going on. About the only good thing it might do is stop the bleeding, and stop harassment of those who are more liberal and left of center. But radical change? No way. The Democrats running plays are slightly modified ones from the Republican playbook, and aren't radical calls for change. I'm not seeing anyone call for radical environmental and renewable development am I? Talk about half the things left parties in Europe talk about are essentially fringe topics here. It's ridiculous. And moderates want to "moderate" more issues because Kerry, who was as about as centrist as you can get, was not "moderate" enough.

Considering some of the organizing victories in living wage ordinances, the victory of environmental and sustianable development out west, and the general positive vibe that I feel in the face of a horrendous administration, I'm not necessarily down any more about the vagaries of the previous election. After all, only 60% of the country voted. Where were the other 40%? Were they too lazy, or did they simply realize what alot of us did, that a choice between one evil and a lesser evil is not a choice at all. I think I might look more into the Green Party than I've been willing to, or atleast voting them when I have to get that dirty business done, and if I ever am crazy enough to run for anything (or tilt at wind mills) I'm sure to be flying the Green flag than the Democrats. I can TRUST those guys in a pinch, not the Deaniacs or the blogosphere pundits. Here's to taking on the windmills! Huzzah!
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Pie in the sky...

2005-06-09T05:46:00.000-04:00

"Pie in the sky" is a term often used to describe unreachable ideals. More often than not it is used to reflect upon anyone who has aspirations for change or the abolishment of the status quo. Ironically, the term was coined by legendary union organizer Joe Hill to refer to a number of people, mostly religious types, who basically "Sold pie in the sky" to those who would just sit and take the abuse heaped upon them. The term "pie in the sky" in fact, refers not to those who idealistically want to change things, but those who want you to do nothing, and somehow expect everything to "Turn out okay".

This is why anyone who uses the phrase pie in the sky to refer to one's political idealism, are not only massively full of shit, but would be more than willing to sell you out at a moments notice. Scabs at factories more often than not resented the idealism and radical politics of their striking working class brethren. They seethed at the idea of standing up for themselves, and saw in profit basically mucking around in someone elses fight. And what reward were they given? Shit wages and eventually no job. Anyone who deludes themselves into thinking that not irritating the king or kissing up is going to save you forget, that at the end of the day, the people holding capital, ARE the kings. Your existence, essentially, is one of benevolence, and no other reason. Anyone who suggests to you that CHANGING this sort of situation is pie in the sky must have their blinders on, and slavishly think that only if they work that one more hour, put in that extra effort, the benevolent dictator on top will reward them and not cut and run when the big dollar sign comes a knocking. Welcome to reality people, and no one is going to spare your ass if it means bigger profits. Welcome to the war zone.

So remember kids, pie in the sky is the one kind of pie you never want to order (and throw it in the face of anyone who tries to sell you it).

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Hobo'ing!

2005-06-05T02:41:00.000-04:00

Went to this neat little mini conference of sorts down here put on by a bunch of anti-globalization activists as well as anarchists from the Miami collective/infoshop. Went to a bad ass workshop put on by the Miami Workers Org and the Lakeworth kids on gentrification, which explained alot of ideas and stuff that could be used to talk about the issue of gentrification. Gentrification is such a hard issue to face since outside of zoning and the occasional rent control board, there is little to no control in America of distribution of land or housing. And in recent years HUD has completely given up on public housing projects, leaving many out in the cold while upscale condos get put in.

In other news, Bolivia is onfire over the issue of nationalization of gas. The global South, for years exploited by transnationals for economic gain, is starting to wake up and demand it see money from the use of its natural resources. I am not sure if nationalization is beneficial (I don't trust the state to spread the money fairly anymore than the transnationals) but its a step in the right direction. Much ink has been spilt about how if the Bolivian government renationalizes it will lose a significant amount of revenues and foreign investment development from major oil and energy companies. The mistake that is made with this is that there is the high possibility of a Venezeulan-Bolivian cooperation amongst state controlled oil enterprises to make sure that they don't get screwed. Bolivia doesn't have the technology or the "downstream" direct market to supply its gas if it gets locked out by multinationals. Venezeula (whom owns CITGO) does, however. Moreover, there have been talks of including Aregentina in the deal, which would give Bolivia, a landlocked country, access to the sea for its oil products, a move that would turn the three into a force to be reckoned with in the world energy market.

I don't know how I feel about the use of oil to prop up economies. It's effects on the environment are huge, and the massive outlay requires to transport it is ridiculously absurd. Moreover, there is no gurantee that nationalization profits would trickle down into social programs. At the same time, if the oil companies are going to be marauding into these countries, then they should definetly be halted and made to pay a fair price for the resources they are exporting. Such a situation, more than likely, would provoke a foreign crisis , leading probably to more coups, more intervention, and more hamfisted prnouncements from the Bush administration. The Bush administration of course, might as well be the Oil Administration, as its ties to the slimy black ooze are well documented, and its proverbial hand outs (in the form of Iraq and Afganistan) .

In other news, my garden is definetly sprouting up, though a NEW type of weed has sprouted all over the place that I will have to take care of tommorrow, and I have also noticed tiny holes in some of my pea plants, suggesting pests of some sort. I'm going to have to put together a batch of alcohol/water to keep it down as well as wake up early in the morning to survey the plants and document the damage thus far so I can know if I am affecting it or not. Hopefully all these tips and tricks I learn I will use in the springtime in order to help establish a larger garden.
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Silly Marxist, revolution isn't for vanguards!

2005-06-01T02:20:00.000-04:00

Being home has given me a shitload of time to read up on stuff. One of those things is the incredibly labrynthinian and utterly hilarious history of the various Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Trotskyist(Orthodox/Unorthodox) and the odd Stalinist sects that have populated America, and unfortunatly still are flunking about today. My brain has nearly exploded by the number of possible party titles that can involve different arrangements of the words "revolutionary", "worker", and "communist. Trying to keep apprised of which Internationals they were apart of, which Tendencies they affiliate with, etc etc damn near boggles the mind.

Reading about these colorful cast of characters might be seen as a waste of time, if it wasn't that their innate cultishness and just sheer ability to maginally exist while never really accomplishing anything, points out warnings to any and all who organize anything politically. And thats basically buying your own damn rhetoric way too much. Take for example, the Revolutionary Communist Party, led by Comandante Bob Avakian (a man who was and is a fugitive from the American government, and who was something of a high roller in the 60's New Left). At best it musters something like 1000 or so people. Even as an admittedly vanguardist party, this seems ridiculously out of proportion to the 300 million odd people in America. The percentage works out to basically .0000033 %. That doesn't sound like "revolutionary" to me; it just sounds pathetic. Both the Workers World Party (a Stalinist sect) and the International Socialist Organization (an "unorthodox" Trotskyist sect) have similar numbers, but yet extoll the same sort of rhetoric, as if a revolution is going to happen tommorrow. And they all sell alot of goddamned newspapers. And they have endless "cadre" meetings, and ever increasing exhortions to increase membership, sell more newspapers, get more names, and finally, sell more newspapers.

Moreover, the processed meat rate of all these organizations is probably even higher than the anarchist community, with many "Cadre" of these organizations going into debt and sacrificing YEARS of their lives to what are essentialy useless sectarian pissing matches and ponzi schemes. And this is the sad part. Thousands of potential committed activists and generally decent folk have been processed and spitted out by oppurtunistic Marxiod hacks. Imagine the Libertarian party and its intercine battles, and multiply it by the dozen or so different sects, International, and Tendencies and you have a cesspool of infighting. And most of it doesn't even make any goddamn sense. Moreover, very few of the "parties" in question have ever won a damn thing (the exception to this, and there always are, is the handful of Maoist factions, some of which are affiliated with the RCP, which are actually actively at war with their governments, such as Nepal etc). Say what you will about the tree climbing primitivists, but the window breaking that shot across the world at Seattle was a clear sign that the current order as it prevails is not goint to be tolerated, and the damage that has ensued since with SUV's and housing developments with many law and order figures pointing out the ELF and the ALF as significantly dangerous (to their pocket books that is...unlike American cruise missles, the property destruction of ELF and ALF has never hurt a human being).

And thats basically what most of these "parties" and "revolutionaries" are. All theory, and no action. Leftists of all stripes (including anarcho-leftists) complain about the distinct amount of anti-intellectualism in current activist circles. To a certain extent this is true. But what is it do all these "robust" intellectuals want us to replace it with? The great theoretical debates of yore! The petty democratic centralism inherent in every damn International and Party from Marx's day to today. All hail "theoretical unity" and "organizational discipline". Why not discipline yourself, and act along with other people who are also disciplined, as opposed to using an organization to do so? Why the need for "theoretical unity" (which is a nicer rewording of the "party" line)? But I digress. I am certain I am too "bougeroise" for many, and have a distinct taste for "adventurism" and "hedonism", as well as lacking a "solid working class analysis".

Anyways I shall soon start prelim work on my paper on permanence in relationships and its effects on ones view of politics, a paper that will be grounded in my experience this summer. Hoo!
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Projects for the spring...

2005-05-31T16:58:00.000-04:00

One of the things that irked me the most about leaving Columbia is the fact that I felt like there was alot of interesting projects and activities were going to go on. Thus while sitting around here I've been brainstorming different small projects to do upon returning to Columbia in the spring. This is what I've come up with.

1. Prison Books Benefit Zine: I was going to compile together a small benefit zine overlooking the South Carolina prison system and death row to raise money to get books to donate hopefully to a literacy program at a local minimum security/mid-level security literacy program Woman's prison. I've started compiling the various data and and stringing it together. I'll have to see how much copies will be to run off and how much I'll charge for it. I figure I can sell at least 15 or so, and if I can get a 2 dollar or so profit I can buy a couple dictionaries or other books for literacy. I've been debating whether or not the books should be political, but I've decided that since it'll probably be like pulling teeth to get the warden to even donate the basic books, I don't even want to think the idea of sending feminist literature into the place. We'll see either way...

2. Another Organic Garden: Maybe get SAGE to start up an organic garden somewhere on USC and use it as a practical way of getting people in touch with nature. The fact that SAGE now actually has a fairly large budget and the fact that I'm best friends with its former head and still influential member Laura, I can hopefully get some money as well as a plot on USC land somewhere to do it.

That's basically it. I have SHIT experience in organizing or getting anything done (in general, not just politically) and I figure I would start off small and not try to FORMENT REVOLUTION or something. I think alot of people bite off more than they can chew the first time out and I want to start small, hopefully have success, and then expand out from there. Here's to the spring!
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Summer months...

2005-05-29T17:40:00.000-04:00

I felt an update was necessary, advising people on what I'm up to.

1) Organic Garden: I started an organic garden in my backyard. I plan to update with photos once the seeds start to sprout.

2) Preparing for Japan: I plan to have a seperate blog for my (mis)adventures in japan, which is tenatively titled A Cowboy in Japan.

3. Kat! Last but certainly not least I have to mention Kat! my girl thingy who I've been with for the past couple weeks. Ya ya I don't want to get slobbery sentimental on here but its been...nice...and probably every single person at USC has found out about it by Daria's big mouth (I love you guys even if I am now from a broken home!).

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The perfect summary...

2005-05-07T04:11:00.000-04:00

this excerpt from an aim conversation is probably the best summary I can think of my year...

"haha..it was so beautiful though man...i woke up yesterday and thought the whole party was a dream...it was a crazy night..walking like a mile to find this party, than hanging out with john/andy, talking mroe to this cool girl i met the night before, coming back and saying goodbyes to lots of people..i woke up and thought it was all a dream..and for ONCE i felt the warm feeling knowing that [it] was all entirely true"
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Universal health Care...saved by weed?

2005-04-04T17:43:00.000-04:00

Healthcare is probably worse in America than any other industrialized country. While it is true that the highest parts of the spectrum are available in the US, very few, if any people, have access to such technologies on any sort of wide basis, and in fact, 40 million something Americans are uninsured, period.

That said, our neighbors to the north, in Canada probably have the most socialized healthcare in the world, atleast in primary care (dentistry, optometry are still wholly private). And while there system is a source of pride for many canadians, the sutainability of it in its current state raises a number of issues. The biggest one looming is that of perscription drugs. The cost across the board, according to a select look at Quebec's program, placed the rising costs at 58.3%.

The segment of interest to us, however, is the one of anagelisics/psychotropics which have seen an increase of 98.3 and 115% respectively. These segments are dominated by many name brand drugs and heavy narcotics, such as Vicodin, Vioox, Oxycontin, as well as maisntays such as amphetamines, morphine, and various barbituates.

However, Canada being the enlightened place that it is, also allows medical marijuana. So now to the point I'm trying to make. Rather than spendings hundreds of dollars on increasingly more potent and addictive narcotics. more and more people could be moved onto medical marijuana, possibly saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in perscription drugs costs. While it woudln't singlehandedly save the socialized healthcare system, it would give the country more money to play with in the mean time.

Now if we can only get a friggan healthcare scheme like this in America...
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Fair Trade

2005-04-02T02:11:00.000-05:00

Americans drink a shitload of coffee. In fact, so much that its a 5 billion dollar industry. Despite this however, coffee growers across the world have been wracked by the commodities market, with an ever quicker spiral to the bottom, caused by a glut of beans and the consolidation of coffee purchasers.

In step the concept of Fair Trade. Fair Trade, in its certifiable form, gurantees a floor price to farmer cooperatives, one signficantly higher than the current commodities price of coffee (1.21 for non-organic, and 1.41 for organic) which ranges anywhere from 70 cents to below, depending on fluctuations. On top of this money, co-ops are paid a community fee, guranteed by the monthly audits performed by TransFair, that goes to help assist its farmers, help bring more capital into the region, provide healthcare services, support education, and help protect against environmental destruction cause by slash and burn coffee production.

That said, fair trade coffee is still a small part of the coffee market, but is growing exponentially. While the higher price of fair trade products at the moment relegates fair trade to the specialty coffee market, that is nothing to sniff at. Specialty coffee makes up 2 billion dollars of the annual coffee market, and if that can become 100% fair trade, than you are looking at quite literally the resurrection of whole countries coffee sectors.

Further more, the fair trade concept has been expanded out to include that other large addiction, chocolate. Cocoa farms are rampant with child slave labor, horrendous wages, and large multinational firms that tend to look the other way. Unlike coffee, cocoa is a primarily African crop, and offers a hand up for the oft-struggling economies of many African countries. Hopefully the success of coffee will be replicated with cocoa.

But the most interesting segment of fair trade is the one that has been most dominated by multinationals, the big 5 one time fruit overlords of Del Monte and others, in the field of bananas. And while vertically bananas are still controlled to a very large extent by the banana 5, in the range of some 80%, the remaining small farmers are finding themselves to be assisted greatly by the introduction of fair trade which has allowed them to build a niche market that has heavily penetrated some countries in Europe (half of the market in switzerland is fair trade; the UK clocks in at 4% and the overall market share of the whole EU looks to reach 10%). This has had the effect again of stabilizing the independent farm system in many of these countries, halting the rapid environmental destruction and forced urbanization in an effort to make ends meet that has afflicted more and more of the third world. Moreover, with the additional funds mentioned above, many coffee farmers have been diversifing their crops, which has included bananas and other fruits which are now fair trade certified. So the whole situation comes full circle.

While as long as multinationals control such large segments of these commodities markets (Kraft under Maxwell House, and Proctor and Gamble under Folgers, control 56% of the coffee retail market) the whole process will not be entirely egalitarian. But if certain pockets and segments of a number of developing countries can be saved and provided for until the day when a more radical and fair distribution can be done, than so be it. Continue pouring the Fair Trade coffee.
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Hail thee old music...

2005-03-10T23:44:00.000-05:00

I have fallen absolutely in love back with The Longpigs debut album. I forgot what a monstrosity of sound it was and just how fucking amazing its production was. Richard Hawley is an amazing guitarist, and even if I don't dig his current American-centric cum Van Morrison stuff, he simply lets his guitar roar on some songs. It also makes much more sense now than it did years ago, lyrically. Take for instance the song Sally Dances...

Sally dances but she doesn't blow
Sally dances but she don't know
she won't show me how
Baby, with your big strong hands
I can feel the sun
You make me understand...

The whole song finally makes sense now. Girls in the dance club that won't go into the john and give youa blowjob. Amazing.
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And the work continues...

2005-03-10T03:23:00.000-05:00

In another organization to file under the doing miracles in the most bat shit crazy of conditions, RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Besides teachers, out reach, and community support, they also run a hospital that serves the refugee camps in Pakistan, and that services some 300-350 people a day. That said, they are in desperate financial times, and it upsets me because I KNOW that there are enough large feminist groups in America who have plenty of money to donate to a cause like this. Larger than that even, you have Oxfam and others. Meanwhile anti-feminist women groups from America are getting 10 million bucks to go supposedly "teach democracy" to Afghan women. Ridiculous.

In the campaigns to watch, Killer Coke is one of interest, as it exposes Coca-Cola's murderous attempts to stop union organizing amongst its bottling plans. 8 trade unionists have been killed in total, and hundreds more fired and threatened. This is not a new thing for the bottling industry, which uses massive bribes to secure itself water that is deprived from local towns, makes sure that unions are kept out, and in the case of Pepsi, support for every oppressive regime under the sun, from South Africa to Burma.

All this depressing stuff aside, there IS a movement that has made great strides toward its intended goal, and one that will greatly benefits hundreds of thousands of people. That is the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. More than 420 square miles of mines taken up out of the ground, 62 million mine stockpiles have been destroyed, and 150+ countries have signed onto the agreement. They still have awhile to go, particuarly in convincing the US, Russia, and China to sign on, but the fact that so much has been done in a span of 5 years is unprecedented. Just look at there progress and not be amazed. It definetly reminds you that shit CAN be done.
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2005-03-09T03:31:00.000-05:00

The Coalitions victory is a massive one when one sits down and does the numbers. The agreement is a penny per pound increase. Each bucket is used as a standard measure of 32 pounds. That means an additional 32 cents on top of every bucket, ranging from the lowest per bucket rate of 40 cents to 50 cents. Now presuming the optimal 100 buckets a day ( a figure not often reached but it will do for the calculations) and using 50 cents as the going rate, we get 50 dollars a day with the old rate and a significanty improved 82 dollars a day. Now take that and times it by 9 months, the typical season as I understand it, and you get 22386 as the new yearly income, as opposed to 13K in the old. 22K is just a smidgen above the poverty line. Now thats the most optimistic scenario (as was the previous 13K under the old rate) but even presuming only 72 cents a bucket and say 75 buckets were still looking at a little above 14. A whole entire labor markets effective buying power has been doubled by this agreement. And Taco Bell can't complain, since by estimations the increase will cost them a QUARTER of a PENNY to implement. And this is the same store that would feed America for a whole year if a ball got hit right into its logo during the World Series. So clearly they have no problem with extravagent ad measures.

I've also been reading more up on Doctors Without Borders, and I must say, they do the crazy grunt work that the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations seem to not be able to do. And I like their impartiality, as they help out anyone, no questions asked, on either side of a conflict. Reading their website however, is a trip into depression, as you hear about the dozens of civil wars that you hardly ever hear about, the millions of lives lost or displaced in futile badgering amongst rival tribes, who are often times pitted against each other over mineral resources that multinational extraction companies exploit. And somewhere within this huge mess these guys are trying their best with insane odds against them and shots flying over head. To a certain extent when I read the statistics they cite (like they treated 9,000 AIDS victims out of 41 million) I wonder if they ever feel like they're trying to stop a flood with one sandbag. I mean it took the Coalition three fucking years to a get a CENT increase.

It's something I've thought about alot, and it does almost get intensely dispiriting when you read book after book about thise proble, this struggle, this fucked up situation. And then you get your hopes up by seeing someone or a group of people stand up, only to be killed or co-opted at the zenith of their power, just when the very foundations of injustice were going to be shattered and burnt. And you're supposed to get up every day, with all your personal trials and tribulations, and, pardon the triteness, rage against the machine that stalks the world.

And then you remember that you're sitting in air conditioned glory, surrounded by all the modern amenities, with a flush spending cash account, and an almost fully paid scholarship to a college. And you realize then that you have the resources to fight the beast at its own game on its own turf. The beast lives because we feed it. And that is why we should support places online like No Sweat Shop, where all the clothes are union made, and AK Press, where the book publishing is not done under the watchful eye of a corporate media giant, but a collective. Refuse to purchase music from RIAA labels, regardless of whether or not your favorite band in on one. It's not a matter of selling out, its a matter of buying in, and making sure money we spend every day doesn't go towards propping up the bastards we strive against. Then once we have that stuff taken care of we can launch into the protests, the coalition building, the fight out in the streets, and the hearts, and the minds. But first we must purify and exorcise our own consumer demons out of us.

Until the day I light my cigarette on the burning barricades...well...the fight continues.
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Victory!

2005-03-08T17:34:00.000-05:00

It is won. Hopefully the pressure will build to institute a number of changes across the board in the agriculture industry in Florida, as well as the need for change across the whole fast food industry. Hopefully McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King will join with this movement.

Now one might say, Sean, aren't you against these guys? Don't you want to see them burn? True enough I guess. But at the same time this isn't my decision to make. The Immokalee workers represent themselves well enough, and if they think its best to work with the industry, as well as use the methods they do, who the fuck am I to argue with them? I'm no silly vanguard who sits here and says "Well you know you guys...I don't think this fits theory X of stuffy political discoure." Fuck that. If the CIW can kowtow the whole industry into paying more for its produce, and the lives of thousands fo farm workers are helped, how can I argue with those kind of results? As the non-violent Cesar Chavez said about the Chicano Militants throwing molotov cocktails "If you guys are throwing bombs I trust its because you guys feel you have too."

Well the trailer for A Scanner Darkly is up, and while it admittedly LOOKS very good, and every self-appointed technocrat is lauding Linklater's approach, the text for the trailer leaves much to be desired, and if the plot of the movie actually follows what the text says, were going to get something that doesn't even resemble the book. I can clearly see some of the scenes from the book, but the idea of "everything you do will be recorded" is patently untrue in the book, and applies more to that of Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.
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2005-03-07T21:19:00.000-05:00

Seems there might be finally an agreement between the farm workers in Immokalee and Taco Bell. That would make the Taco Bell boycott a relatively quick success considering the 8 years it took for the FLOC to get Campbell's to finally agree to settle down, as well as the 6 it took for them to get Mt. Olive Pickles and the North Carolina Growers Association (a Farm Labor Contractor) to allow a framework agreement to allow trade unionization of its workers.

In other news, though this is kind of late, the BRILLIANT and UNDERAPPRECIATED musical genius of Crispin Hunt, lead singer and main songwriter of the Longpigs has a new album out in collaboration with two other Brit producers, in a project called Mayonaise. I've been waiting for years to hear him take the strange swirling compositions of Mobile Home into the next phase.

The first singles out from The Long Pigs, and their eventual debut album The Sun Often Comes Out, showed a swirling mass of pianos, guitars, drums, bass, and organs. It was deliciously complicated production wise, and echoed The Libertines stuff before they were even out of their teens.

For Mobile Home, the same idea of a huge wall of sound still held true, though the line up instruments was changed. The bass and drums were the rhythmic underpinnings of the songs, while the guitar kept melodies roaring out, and samples, back up singers, and modern dance flourishes rounded out the cast.

From what I've heard of Mayonaise, and I am most certainly am buying the album sometime soon, is a completely atmospheric piece, that strips away all pretenses of a rock n roll sound, and goes not into the mor epalatable stylings of The Postal Service, but the great Britpop 80'sness of Alphaville and other bands like Vox etc. That whole new romantic bit.
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Solidarity!

2005-03-06T17:51:00.000-05:00

One of the most abused and neglected segment of society today is the migrant farm worker. Besides the usually baseless charge of "taking jobs from Americas", migrant workers in fact, often put themselves at considerable financial peril and personal risk to work fields for far below minimum wage, in conditions that no average white male American would accept.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is an organization working to help out the tomato farm workers of Immokalee to get decent wages and job safety. One of their current boycott's is against Taco Bell, whose overarching company, Yum Brands, buys a significant amount of tomatos from many of these farms.

Despite the many advancements of migrant farm workers in America in the last decade, two significant issues face them today. One is the issue of their being uncovered by the National Labor Relations Act, the legislation that codified and regulates union and corporate relations. No farm worker can organize or collectively bargain with any real legal backing behind them. Any union formed by workers does not have to be recognized by a farm owner, even if the election was overwhelmingly in favor of the union. Despite this, California, due to the work of Cesar Chavez and the UFW, has an Agricultural Labor Relations Board that fills the hole left by federal legislation. In the mid-west and southern states, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee has won significant victories, despite the lack of labor boards and even in hostile "right-to-work" states.

But even if farming workers were allowed to unionize, many of them couldn't anyways, as 50% of them are here illegally and without any form of working papers, even a temporary work pass. On that front work has been done with a bill called AgJOBS that would expand the availability of temporary worker programs to another half a million individuals. They would be able to initially earn a H-2 temporary work pass, and eventually after so much work, earn a Green Card. With migrant workers legal they would finally be able to speak up without fear of deportation.

However, current xenophobic anti-immigration fear has stoked up walls against such legislation, even if it has overwhelming support in the Senate, and a significant show of support in the House. With some of the hate filled zealots out there leading the charge, and spending significant sums of money to do it, its basically an uphill battle. And Bush, who promised such reform, isn't spending his so called political capital to get it through, fearing a Republican backlash that would destabilize a number of his other proposals, including his controversial Social Security privitization plan.

In general the labor movement is under significant assault, according to statistics and surveys by the ICTFU (International Congress of Trade Federation Unionists). From increasing violence across South America against labor organizers, to the many countries where only state sanctioned unions or no unions at all are recognized, and the hostile legislative environment in countries where wacking by thugs isn't cost effective. In America the AFL-CIO is on the verge of splitting over the issue of where to go now, with a labor relations act that is so stacked against unions it amazing any exist at all.

Personally I can't see how the hell they can talk about putting more raw money and numbers into organizing when labor has the equivalent of a pea shooter against corporate H-bombs.The way the Coalition I mentioned above is doing it seems to be the way to go. Boycott the bastards, turn it into something more than just an issue of wages. Because it really IS more than just wages. The whole migrant farm sector is rife with human trafficking, abuses, poor environmental and work conditions. And the asshole food processors, resteraunts, and everyone down the supply chain knows this. There fat profit margins DEPEND on it. You pay a 1.50 for a chalupa, and if a migrant worker is lucky, get gets 50 bucks for 2 TONS of tomatos.

If this AgJOBS bill gets passed however, and trust me, its no pancea for these problems, theres a hope that the huge problem of migrant worker abuse in America will be curtailed in real ways, and that tangible steps will be made to open up union representation and collective bargaining to the 2 million farm workers out there picking our food today. One can only hope.
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In Defense of Islam....

2005-02-11T03:43:00.000-05:00

One of the most interesting classes I've taken this semester has been one in Islamic Theology. And if its proven one thing is that most people who make broadsides at Islam as a religion have no idea what they're talking about.

Mind you this is not to say that Islam, particuarly in its traditionalist forms, is some sort of bastion of liberalism. It's not, for the most part, outside of recent (past 100 years or so) revival of a rational school. But its not some sort of uneducated brute religion. Hell, most of the iman's writings are just as sophisticated as Thomas Aquinas or other luminaries in Christian thought, if not more so. They are in fact far more coherent than any fluff produced by Falwell and his ilk.

I'm of the opinion that I side with the progressive Muslims who are working to turn the tide against Wahhabism. But the fact of the matter is that Wahhabists are not far removed from Evangelicals, or even harder, Christian Identity individuals, and other fringe right movements. The difference is one of scale and scope, as the Wahhabi movement is far larger than most right wing movements (though that very soon may no longer be the case if you look around you in politics these days).

Armed with this knowledge I think I can make far more serious, and cogent arguments against the literal spittle that comes out of peoples mouth when it comes to Islam. When the decisiont to drop bombs, send troops, and destory whole cultures is based off and defended by a couple of pundits who have never touched a Qur'an in their life, then I think its time someone set the record straight.
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Behold!

2005-02-08T02:17:00.000-05:00

Behold! For I have finally have looked up what the hell a key is in music, and have discovered, that there is no GENIUS process to music, but merely you must stay with in your key in order to sound moderately decent. AMAZING. Of course considering I'm surrounded by people in bands and who have dedicated their whole lives to music...well.. I feel pretty dumb. But a minor victory for me.
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A Minor Victory

2005-01-24T01:55:00.000-05:00

Today Extreme Associates, a particuarly offensive brand of pornography, won its court case against the fed's, who attempted to ban it on the basis of obscenity. If some of the stuff they do can be allowed onto tape, then the doors are wide open on everything else.

While this does not change the fact that effectively there is no First Amendment in this country (how many working class poor people do YOU see have their opinions on the media..thats right...shit NONE), atleast it means the Christian Coalition and the Parents Television Council can shut the fuck up about all the crap they try to ban and outlaw. Now if we can cause a ruckus with some actual non-exploitive art, than we'd be really trying the established order.

Libertine, till my death.
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RE:CHANGE HABITS

2005-01-21T02:55:00.000-05:00

Someone clearly forgot to send me the memo on changing habits for college. Still staying up late, still partying way too much, still juggling things till the last minute. I love it.
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It is FIN

2005-01-17T20:03:00.000-05:00

Well I finally finished Resident Evil 4....and it didn't explain a damn thing still. We still have no clue where Ada's been these 6 years since the Raccoon City incident, Wesker is mentioned but never seen, though we know he's still pulling alot of strings behind the scene. We still don't know whom he works for, though presumably according to Krauser its Umbrella, or remnants of it. Simply put it feels like there going to get another 2 or 3 games out of all the questions raised here. And considering how much better the gameplay is...thats not a bad thing.
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Resident Evil 4 is ridiculous!

2005-01-12T01:44:00.000-05:00

Went and got RE 4 today and may I say, as a person whose played alot of Resident Evil, this game is RIDICOUSLY good. It basically takes all the facets and features of the previous games, changes the camera perspective, and bam.... great new game.

In alot of ways it reminds me of Code Veronica, which I considered the most polished RE of the series, until now. CV was perfectly paced, always challenging but never overwhelmed, the moving camera helped wonders in scaring the shit out of you, and the story actually CONTINUED as opposed to merely retreading side stories on the fateful day of the out-break. The one real innovation in the series since then, that of the dual character system of RE 0 is back, albeit modified. You can't control Ashley, except when the story requires it, but you otherwise have to keep her back, help her get around (including catching her when she jumps off buildings down below), and can order her to hide.

Besides that other innovations abound, or atleast innovations for the RE series. For instance, there are cut scenes ala the QTE events in Shenmue, and definetly keeps you paying attention to the story so that you don't accidentally get wacked. Theres also merchants who sell you weapons as well as upgrades, and whom you can sell rare jewels and other things you find around. I coudl go on for paragraphs and paragraphs on all the new, neat features thrown in. If you have a Cube BUY IT NOW.
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2005-01-08T15:22:00.000-05:00

I went shopping yesterday for books with Ashley and god damn... I have a shit ton of books for some of my classes. My Islam class has like 6 books, of which I could only get 4. My Poli 101 class has 4 books, one of which unfortunatly is Lexus and the Olive Tree, that crappy tome from Thomas Friedman. Gonna have to tell my mom to ship it up. I'm still on the side trying to maintain my reading habits, already picking up a book by Alexander Berkman on anarchist theory. I eagerly await a later book in the same series (Working Classics by AK Press) thats a reprint of Bookchin's Post Scarcity Anarchism.

In other news things are getting back into the regular grind of things again, as classes start monday.
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"Radical" Celebrities

2005-01-03T14:07:00.000-05:00

I've always been mildly leery of "radical" celebrities. So when I saw Noam Chomsky's book Hegemony or Survival at Barns and Nobles I was a little leery of picking it up. Would he be another Michael Moore I wondered, more concerned with showing himself as a hero or some sort of vanguard,than actually doing substantial research.

In the end, it was a decent enough book, if not particuarly illuminating. I already knew about many of the little wars and military actions that the US government has conducted over the years. The biggest point that is made, and one I've thought myself, is the hypocrisy of the so called "enlightened" states men that conduct our foreign policy. And the point made is that our foreign policy for the past century has not, in any way, shape or form, been "enlightened". And while the point by many would be made that shit happens sometimes, and hindsight if 20/20 (a point made to me by a number of people), this is not a matter of dropping bombs in wrong places, or not having foresight. This is WILLFUL misconduct. That point can't be stressed enough.

The funding of any number of dictators and counter-revolutionary groups did not occur in some vacuum where the policymakers did not know the dubious character of those who they were associated with, or did not get feedback on what was happening on the ground. They knew, mostly through intemediaries and liasons, exactly what was happening, and they knew full well the character of the people they were dealing with, many times explicitly choosing them for the reason (Kissinger, the war criminal that he is, often made no bones about the need to employ the most savage and brutal people possible).

And even if, supposedly, the people in charge didn't know what was going on, all that shows is gross negligence on the part of atleast 8 or so administrations, whole sections of the state department, and in fact, the whole foreign policy apparatus. No wonder 9/11 slipped by. Anyone with that bad of a track record is BEGGING to be fired. People get fired for less everyday at McDonald's, for not remembering to operate the FRY MACHINE correctly. THE FRY MACHINE. Were not even talking about multiple military actions here.

I'm interested to now read Chomsky's first work, American Power and The New Manadarins, a text about the Vietnam war. However, I don't follow the blanket enthusiasm credited him. His work is more serious and scholarly than most right wing pundits, and isn't the shrillness and hysteria of the Anybody But Bush book publishers, but its still not particuarly the "slam dunk" (to borrow Tenet's words) of a criticism. While it might be years, possibly decades till we get a full look at the record of foreign policy during these years, it makes you wonder what things will be found out.
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2004-12-29T17:33:00.000-05:00

Got my copy of Recipes for Disaster in today. And on a good note, today the D.C. council passed really tough oversight legislation of cop actions over protests. Basically put, they can no longer indiscriminately arrest people, they cannot "surround" a crowd, and they can only arrest you have already received a clear, verbal warning, and also for a paper trail to be generated of eveyr arrest, citing why as well whom have been arrested. While the legislation still awaits the mayors pen signature, I'm sure its already been made plenty clear to the Washington DC Metro police that they cannot basically use the "Miami Model" of shutting down protests. Now of course, the Metro PD will not be the only force present at the Inauguration (FBI, Secret Service, National Park PD, military etc) , it shows that first amendment rights will not be trampled on.

Seems those tsunamis in Asia, the result of a massive plate shift, may have actually AFFECTED the earth's rotation. The earths rotation! That's friggan insane. Already some 20,000 are presumed dead, millions homeless, and potentially whole ISLANDS of the country of Maldives destroyed. This sort of thing will take years, if not decades, to recover from.
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Surveying the booty...

2004-12-26T17:02:00.000-05:00

iPod photo- sweet now I have music back for my various walks around campus and an excuse to show drunk photos at parties. I also can't wait to hack the thing and make it infinetly more useful. Considering how everything else I own eletronically is in some way MODIFIED for better usage. Or simply patched together with gum and matchsticks. Either or.

Freaks and Geeks: Complete Series - The best show to ever get cancelled. It never had a chance really, between its moving around in the schedule, it starting off and on again. A similar fate to My So Called Life. I'm glad to see they finally got it out on DVD.

Napoleon Dynamit-Sweet....

The Office-equal parts hilarious and just heart crushing...

Ghost in the Shell-Stand Alone Complex- The new GITS tv series takes the cake for being better than most overly dramatic cop/spy shows today (CSI, Alias, 24) and for having way better music (Yoko Kanno almost always delievers, even if she does have a very particular sound and feel to her songs).

All is all a good haul for the year...
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The sell outs and the traitors...

2004-12-23T18:16:00.000-05:00

The one thing I've found most egregiously repellant in the past couple months is, suprisingly, not the barbarity and duplicitiouness of corporations, evangelicals, and the ham fisted money grubbing politicians that represent them. No. What irritates me the most are the various traitors and sell out's who complain more about the people trying to change things than the people who are fucking up the place.

You can tell them by their smell and their quivering attitude in the face of the admittedly rough opposition. They're the one's who claim to want to be nice, play by the rules, and not do anything that might offend the great overlords. These are the people who will complain more about people protesting, than the jackasses creating the dumb policy that were protesting about. They're the ones who are arm chair quarterbacks, telling you to stop complaining while they sit on their ass and let the steamroller roll on. They're the ones who decry speaking out as petty complaining, exposing the truth as caterwauling, and deriding those powers that be as negative thinking.

Be wary of the advice these closet status quo supporters give you, for its inevitable that what they tell you to do will lead to no real change at all. And afterall, thats the point. These are the self satisfied do gooders, the ones who do token efforts, say their helping the world, and then go back to sleep. They NEED things to remain the same, because that way they can be the loyal opposition, and can babble on and on about the good their doing, when in fact, they are doing nothing at all.

So take heart when the so called liberal detractors take aim at you. It means what your doing is right.

On a non political note: I have been told that many of my remarks, and indeed much of my rhetoric, is incendiary. This of course, is not news to me. The question is whether or not I care. And the simple answer is no, I don't. Because most of the people who concern themselves so much with the wrapping paper of my arguments are the people who aren't listening to the point anyways. And this isn't even in politics. People get upset at me for comments I make just because of the way I phrase them, and they justify getting upset with me over it because of that. Do I regret sometimes the way I phrase things, because it ends up causing more trouble than good? Occasionally. But I never apologize for the point. I merely apologize for the methods. And then theres the issue of experience and age, two mutually exclusive concepts. You can be 60 and have lived in a moral and philsophical bubble your whole life. That does not mean you have experience, or in fact, know anything about the world. In fact you probably have less knwoledge than the average teenager. And pieces of papers, certificates, and positions mean nothing either, in and of themself. You analyze what the persons DONE, not the artificial titles they have acquired. May they have graduated from Harvard? True. But what was their GPA, have you read their papers from class, and was it possible they took cake classes the whole time. You don't know those things, so you shouldn't assume a man from Harvard is any smarter than a man from community college. When you say what you've done, don't rattle off a list of awards and positions held. Talk about what you've ACTUALLY done. The ideas you've formed, the plans you executed. These things MATTER. Everything else is superflous. You have a whole cadre of people who trade, basically on lofty title and vague ideas. It's what the whole celebrity CEO concept comes from. CEO's are praised for vague management speak ideas, most of which they never actually oversee implementation of. People say that someone has to be the "ideas guy" or the "visionary", but how visionary is it to want to cut expenses and sell more? There is no need for half of the redundancy and ineffciency in the world.
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Yes!

2004-12-20T20:08:00.000-05:00

For the second time in my life I have been haraunged by a pundit/columnist. This time, Tammy Bruce, a low rated third rate hack of a conservative, who spits the usual party line as it comes down. After seeing her piss on Moyers on Fox News earlier today I wrote her a nasty email, accusing her, rightly, of sucking corporate and PR cock. In hindsight I realized it was a bitter diatribe. Amazingly though she ventured to read it on air (obviously edited a little bit) and say my name on air, which I don't oppose, and why also I put a password back up on here, for a week or so, just incase some screwballs decide to find my name on the internet.

I might be pist if I didn't particuarly care what anyone else derides or says about me on some low rated conservative pundit show. Shit...even if Rush Limbaugh himself haraunged me I wouldn't give a shit. There paid shills, and I have no time for them and their pedantic talk shows. Real work needs to be done. What I work with, with my hands, and in solidarity with others, is how things are done. So keep on blabbing you Malkin's, Coulter's, and Hannity's of the world. Your shrill corporate speak has no control over me, nor do I particuarly care to be approved of in your eyes. You don't want to be fair from the get go, as indicated by your websites and book titles ("Saving america from liberalism" or "treason: how liberals sold out america"). If you expect me to play nice, you clearly walked into the wrong ballpark for this one. Cause this game is rough my friends, and no one does it better than myself when it comes to taking people on. Woo!
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DA GAME PLAN..FOR DA BEARS

2004-12-19T23:10:00.000-05:00

After this semesters better than I thought performance, and the upcoming adventure that will be this next one (solely for the California spring break...God almighty). I feel a strange sense of excitement with things upcoming, because as I have proven this semester, I have TRIED at everything, sometimes with spectacular failure, and sometimes with success. So thats good, that I can atleast say I tried at everything, and the semesters business is done and not left merely HANGING, as they say.

A couple exciting things on the plate though:

The Counter Inaugural: Hopefully I will be able to clear this with all my teachers once I touch base back in Columbia. I'm very excited to go and stand in solidarity against the "coronation" of our "president". Going to have pour some creativity into protesting however.

Finding (a) Girl(s): Shit do you think this would not yet be another goal of yet another year? You would have to be delirious not to think this wouldn't be another priority. ya ya I know... it just comes... but who the fuck ever said anything about a girlfriend? or a relationship? Or even just one? HOLY SHIT BOMB DROP.

More Parties: I figure I need a heavier schedule of parties to go to this next semester. I need to make the rounds more. Keeping up apperances and all that. Also need to stock on more mod-tastic outfits.

Redoing the Room: The rooms finally starting to shape up and once I get the bookshelf in and my new planter for indoor AIR CIRCULATION things are going to be fucking awesome.

LEARN, LOVE, LIVE
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"she wants your image
she wants your kiss
she wants to stick it inside her head and tell it like it is
you want it badly
you want it so complete
i want to feel something more cause i can't fucking breathe
i fell in love with the sweet sensation (rock n roll)
i gave my heart to a simple chord (rock n roll)
i gave my soul to a new religion (rock n roll)
whatever happened to my rock n roll?!?!"

"Don't they know that were living in the teen age?
Don't they know that were dying in the teen age?"

"why can't i do what you do to me?
those things i've done, those things i've seen
why can't i do what you do to me?
those things i've tried, so foolishly"

Another Communique...

2004-12-18T17:37:00.000-05:00

The Project for the New American Century is a relatively new think tank, though its roots extend back to the first of its kind, the American Enterprise Institute. Like the AEI, the Project for the New American Century is an advocate of the neo conservative American hegemony model of world control. Also like the AEI, most of it spolicy papers are poorly researched, shoddy, and have huge leaps in logic. Like most neo-conservative policies, faith is put into unwavering ideals and an almost techno-lust dream of control, with very little experience on the ground, or even in basic facts. It's why, despite the resoundingly dsismal war in Iraq, neo-con's still preach of elections in January (ridiculous) and of handing over control in a year, as if they haven't seen the body counts coming over CNN (but oh wait its a LIBERAL media source, as if it isn't owned by a huge conglomeration).

These of coruse are not new things that I'm talking about, or even things I haven't mentioned before. But somewhere theres a certain amount of hilarity I've realized in these think tanks. I've always maintained that the control any of these people have is illusory, but it tends to be a hard thing to accept when batons are hitting people, people are singled out and arrested, and the money flows so much into their hands. There's no doubt that the hammers that can be brought to bear are huge. For all their pedantic paper pushing, these guys are inner savages, waiting for the proper moment to put a boot on someones head. And they have the pr agencies to cover them up, the lawyers to make it legal, and the levers of government and corporations to buy out or make illegal whatever they want to. There is no doubt that these guys are the Illuminati that people joked about in conspiracy theories.But at the end of the day their idiots, for th emost part, drunk off power. Take for instance a paper I read over at th RAND corporation about Black Bloc''s. Or rather, as RAND called them, THE Black Bloc (there is in fact, no such organization...black blocs are a tactics, not a membership organization). In fact, the author corrects himself a paragraph later, clearing up the fact that black blocs are a tactic. That is however, until he suggests again, that there is some over arching black bloc organization. What I love though is the RAND's assertion that hiearchial organizations will have a hard time facing these now networked enemies. This of course is the point, and it brings me some satisfaction to see the RAND corporation admit its own method of subjugation and its inability to deal with it. There is no way that any hiearchial structure can stop a network, since the thinking instilled in a top down organization breeds cattle, lack of initiative, and a lack of on the ground response.

In fact, in RAND's breakdown of the Seattle police's response to the protests, the main highlight is the absolute lack of authority within their own structure, sparked mostly by FBI and Secret Service interference (the FBI/Secret Service suits informed police that '4, possibly 6, police officers would be dead' by the end of the event, though with no actual weaponery how protestors were supposed to do this is unknown). The cops themselves by midway through were roving paramilitary squads, lacking no contact with other squads, or even with HQ. Most of them, hearing half assed rumours of other blocked in or beat up squads, were thirsty for blood of any sort. The Fed's, who were locked mostly in the secure zone of the actual meetings, had little to no real information about what was going on outside, and feared a massive break in.

In the end, Seattle was a massive defeat for the establishment, RAND concludes. And let it be known, that unlike AEI or other bullshit think tanks, the RAND Corp is no shill, and its admission of defeat is one to be taken with a certaina mount of pride. While there is no doubt that it promotes globalization, corporate control, and foreign hegemony, it does not suffer the neo-con delusions of its brethren, and it reflected in its staff, which is not made up of bullshit pundits and "policy experts" but rather serious, well studied analysts, military men, and scientists. While their motivations and goals might be crap, their tactics, research, and opinions are well studied and well thought out. There is a reason why politicians listen to the Heritage Foundation, while army brass listen to RAND. While I still argue that there is a fundamental disconnect in their thinking due to the nature of their politics, I make no delusions about their reasoning ability. They will be a formidable brain trust in the continuing struggle against globalization and corporations.

There is no reason, however, to believe they can't be defeated, or at the least, substantially neutered. If the current balance is certainly weighed in their favor, theres no reason to believe the balance can't be shifted, or put into such a way as to create serious enclaves to resist there hegemony. I think things are shaping up well, because who would of thought they'd be trembling as much as they are now? These neo-cons who thought with the defeat of RUssia that everything was now Pax Americana. We took the authoritarian left down, and no its time to take the authoritarian right.
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It has dropped!

2004-12-16T22:35:00.000-05:00

Recipes for Disaster is now out, and I suggest anyone with a hankering to help take on the system arm themselves with a copy. Mind you, whats contained in the book (as substantial as it is) are not even the tip of the iceberg as far as direct action goes. The point is, in fact, to be inspired and come out with your own stuff. In fact I am doing some top secret research of my own into some direct action ideas, of which will hopefully bare fruit sometime.

I am also continuing work on my top secret Christmas present for my asian womb mother. Word.

Otherwise I have to take my second real estat exam on Monday, which is bleh...

Until my next communique...
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"and i'm a bad boy cause i don't even miss her...
i'm a bad boy for breaking her heart..."

Watch out...the flack is flying!

2004-12-13T23:25:00.000-05:00

Evidently now even corporations and right wing orgs are getting into the business of trying to suppress the internet, through a number of methods, of which I'll discuss here.

Comment Trolls
For the most part every website, regardless of whether its political or not, has had to deal with trolls. They've existed since the first BBS went live years ago. But, according to Martini Republic
it's highly possible that money is flowing both to bloggers and to people to comment on other blogs that are anti-war, anti imperalist policy, and anti Republican. I guess if you can hire people to sit and click on porn banner ads all day, you can certainly hire people to write inane patter on internet message boards.

But Whose Watching the Watchers?

A popular tactic of late is to go on the offensive against watchdog groups which point out the less than nice connections between various corporations, government higher ups, and pr agencies. So now their are a number of "NGO Watchdog" type groups, mostly run by ad agencies or various right wing orgs, that are supposed to keep "tabs" on various foundations and ngo's that are mildly liberal (the Ford foundation is often implicated in this, despite its connections to the CIA and various other authoriatian intiatives, as are the Canargie, Rockerfellar, and other largeesse type foundations). Of course since they're pr produced schlock, they have little substance or value to them, other than to whip up furor about supposedly out of control organizations.

Lack of Citations
One of the greatest things about the internet is hyperlinks. In fact, thats why it was INVENTED. However, for whatever reason, conservatives loathe universally to cite anything, anywhere. In fact nine times out of ten they simply paraphrase things, hardly ever getting a real quote. In fact conservative pundits set up issues such as posing a particular problem or issue, than accusing a liberal/progressive/pinko of supporting it, taking vague out of context quotes to support, and then railing against them for being snobby elites. The point of course, being that everything they say is accepted on faith, and for the most part they are. If anything though, facts, and careful documentation and citation by progressives/liberals/radicals have shown how much conservatives say absolutely ridiculous things. They can't hold up to the truth, to the facts at hand.
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Recipes for Disaster

2004-12-13T03:13:00.000-05:00

I can't wait till the 15th when Crimethincs book Recipes for Disaster comes out, detailing all the various tactics for direct action and coalition building that can be used to help people out and help fight the "system" as it were. I am surprised though, by the lack of talk about electronic stuff. While there are obviously tons of tech books out there that cover every part of the spectrum, it'd be good to see how specific techniques and applications could be used on the internet, particuarly when it comes to distribution etc. From BitTorrents to constructing open source programs and assisting open source movements, to using software to make websites and videos that compete toe to toe with major corporations, technology is infinetly useful in the hands of actvists. One idea I had while browsing through my PC Gamer was the use of various online games for closed discussions about tactics and other issues. To my knowledge, there is no way for someone to intercept the text chat code in most games, unless its based around mIRC or some VoIP technology (which I believe some might be). While technology has a tendency to be pricey, and thus out of the reach of most cash strapped activists (as well as their audience of working class individuals), there is a significant amount of cheap ancient electronics available and usable if one wipes it clean of Windows, in all of its performance hogging glory, and put in a more stable/faster OS. To me it would be a great idea in fact to try and get such boxes into the hands of those who have the most to benefit from it, the working poor. Maybe set up wireless internet connections within communities and then install wireless cards in stable Linux machines and call it a day. While most activists are fairly tech savvy, things must stay one step ahead of the curve, so that our biggest potential weapon doesn't get bamboozled like all the other forms of media. I don't think that will be the case, as evidenced by the poor attempts of many conservative orgs and whatnot to establish a decent presence on the internet (top down, authroitarian style doesn't lend itself to the internet), but you know they have tons of money to throw at it so. Until my next communique....
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How I miss these things...

2004-12-11T13:01:00.000-05:00

Somehow I missed seeing the TGS trailer for MGS3 as well, a shame by all accounts, as it is infinetly badass. I was one of the few people who really enjoyed MGS2, regardless of all the speak of you not controlling Snake , as well as the inane amount of psycho babble. In fact the only complaint I had was the one no one ever mentioned, which was the damn tiny ass size of all the areas in the game, which made things incredibly hard to navigate.

Of course this game, technically, you don't control Solid Snake, but rather the guy who he was cloned from, Big Boss (known then as Naked Snake). The game as far as I understand it from the trailer, is the back story on how Big Boss became who he was, as well as a handful of other characters from the game series, including Revolver Ocelot. It's mildly dissapointing though to hear the back story, when MGS2 dropped a bombshell at the end. It's possible, of course, that they'll say something somewhere about the Patriots, the ironically retitled Illuminati (they serve the same purpose basically....shadowy guys who dictate everything in the world). It'll give me an excuse to use my brothers PS2 either way.

In the department of absolutely useless devices, I would put the new line of video players hitting the market from the likes of Creative and Samsung. They're basically neutered latops, running an equally neutered copy of Windows. Their battery life is only twice as long as a regular laptop, they can't play DVD's, and their cost isn't that much cheaper than a laptop. There not portable enough to make up for the other inconveniences, and for the most part are useless hunks of plastic.
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Fighting for our lives...

2004-12-11T01:29:00.000-05:00

As I've gotten into a number of arguments of late over my personal political/social/economic beliefs, including people making any number of broad assertions on my intelligence and our reasonableness, I have to say that its rather sad, more so than angering. It's sad mostly because the most people can defend themselves, their actions, the system they support, is by making smartass, pithy nook and cranny assertions. The sign of any person whose losing a debate is when they start fighting it out by pulling up small niggling details left and right. The point of the small niggling details is not in fact, to prove anything on their side, but to obsfucate, and to attempt to make you look dumb when you ahve to sit there and carefully think out a response ot there tiny ass little problem.

If these arguments have proven anything, its proven the essential cruelty and subjugation of what I argue against. No one, in fact, has ever managed to deny these. Instead they obsfucate with the idea that "this is how it must be/it is natural/etc etc". This is not a reason for it to exist, and people deep down know this. They just don't want to fess up to it. And thats really the sad thing of it, is the weakness inherent in the inability of people to demand more of themselves and of the people around them. It is no doubt in my mind that the cows in society are not the lower, uneducated classes. But the idiots surrounding me in the so called "honors college". None of them have ever begged to question what they have been set up on and what the path they've have been railroaded into. And thats really something to pity.

So you know what, I continue to soldier on. I will be there at the counter inaugural next year, I will continue to educate and read up on new ways to perform direct action, and also invent some of my own, continuing my library infiltration habits (I have a couple ideas on some new things to put in books, as well as continuing the old favorite), and also exploring new ideas with fellow anarchists. Things will change, things will be made anew, and it will not be easy. But it will happen, because such is needed if this world is going to survive.
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Objectivism is crap...

2004-12-06T11:59:00.000-05:00

Oh Ayn Rand, ye have ruined more crap with your crappy books than you will ever know.

Objectivism, without lack of a more succient description, is a philosophy for those who are elitist, facisct, and all around selfish. This is not in and of itself a new thing. However, the hilarious thing is that objectivists argue all of this under the steel boot of "reason" and a presumed sense of entitlement. Tell any objectivist that they earn their wages simply by putting a boot into the face of someone else and they will cry and pout and tell you that those underneath them "should get with the program" (as if it would be LEGAL to 'get with the program'... if it was possible to dislodge the pwoerful within the system it simply wouldn't be allowed). There are of course, those who don't particuarly care about putting a boot to others heads. At the least they're philsophically altogether.

The hilarity of course, is that objectivists, by virtue of their own zero agression principle, are ripe to have their shit fucked up. Tired of them abusing land, abusing everyone else, and generally making a muck of things? Smash them. Oh they'll hit back with billy clubs, but since when has that ever stopped any of us? Down with all hierchies my friend.
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Let it begin!

2004-12-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

After two nights of vicious partying it is time to BUCKLE DOWN and kick the shit out of the three exams up next week. 1, 2, 3 motherfucker. Then back to be driven insane at home, and then back here to begin a new year. Things have only been getting icnreasingly crazy as the semester wears on, and lord can only imagine what will happen next year.
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"this bitch is so explicit
the way i break it down for you bitches is so exquisite"

"one can feel the impending sense of doom in the setting sun and the wild, furious chase to keep it on the horizon"

Info bomb!

2004-11-30T22:47:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Crimethinc, I decided to make my own little info bombs of sorts, and so I printed out a bunch of little handbill-esque things, slapped them onto 3x5's, and put them in your favorite local asshole conservative pundit book. Photos below.

The Raw Materials

The Finished Goods

My Beautiful Ho Assistant

Take That Hannity!

A job well done.

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He's going the Distance!

2004-11-28T17:19:00.000-05:00

Barring any last minute goof up's I'm guranteed a 3.1 this semester and I'll definetly hit it higher, particuarly if I manage to do decent on the Econ exam, and the Japanese exam I don't see as a problem. Academically I finally feel back on track. Next semester should be easier as I won't have Japanese, which is an enormous time sink, and I'll have two mostly essay based classes, which is always good.

As far as everything else goes, things should be better. Oh it could go much worse, but isn't that the fun part about it? The impending sense of danger? If there was no chance of failure, what sort of satisfaction in the victory would there be? Bring it!
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Random Tech Notes

2004-11-27T23:32:00.000-05:00

I think I'm finally going to banish away my use of Windows with my next computer. I'm already getting an iPod Photo this Christmas, so I figure when I get another laptop (probably at the end of this school year), I'm going to get an iBook. The new features that are going to be on the new iteration of Mac OSX are fucking nuts, and make things infinetly simpler (particuarly the Spotlight search feature, which uses meta data to find everything, something much more useful than Windows bare search feature, and useful for someone who has as many random files as I do).

The issue of Mac vs. Windows is kind of like beating a dead horse. They work essentially seamlessly, and its mostly a matter of personal preference as to which one you use (all major software comes in both flavors). Also, Mac OSX has native X11/Unix support, which means I can finally get a good version of GIMP, as well as some other Unix programs I've been wanting to use for awhile now. More to the point, I hate having to drag my mother of a laptop around everywhere I travel to, and I actually want to be able to take my laptop to class (though ethernet hookups still aren't available in many classrooms, let alone wireless). The tiny ass 12inch iBook makes that possible.

And holy shit I can't wait till Resident Evil 4 hits. My God. I just saw the trailer from TGS (how I missed it I have no idea) and it showed me a game thats going to have some serious action in it. I am particuarly excited about some glimpses of new characters heretofore unseen, as well as revealing what I hope will be playable weapons ( a crossbow? SIGN ME UP). Between that and the sniper rifle (a favorite of mine in any game) how can this NOT be quality?
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What I'm Thankful For

2004-11-24T23:36:00.000-05:00

There are a couple things I'm thankful for this year. I will list them in no particular order, except for the first one, which is inarguably the most important.

Forgiveness: This one is directed at one Libby Krah, who is arguably put up with more bullshit from myself than anyone should reasonably be expected to accomodate. Some other readers of my blog probably have seen, or personally experienced, my penchant for lashing out at people I care about. In some fucked up way, the more I care about someone the more paranoid and distrusting I am, the more worried about being sleighted, and more likely to interpret completely meaningless things to be great offenses. The other night, I even amazed myself in my absolute atrocious handling of things, and blowing things way the fuck out of proportion. While I have no way of knowing if things will ever be repaired, and I'm not even sure if she even particuarly wants to interact with me at all (a utterly justified position, all things considered), the fact that she hasn't blocked me and written me vicious diatribes of the sort I have done to her, well, maybe theres hope somewhere for my sorry ass. I've always relied somewhere on people with bigger hearts than mine to accept me for all my fucked-upness. For this, I am eternally grateful, and for our friendship before I tried to kill things, I am thankful for more than anything. Hopefully there will be an 'after'.

Now onto the other, more minor things.

Chester: Without my cat, I'd probably be alot more depressed than I already am, all things considered. Sure, he can be a little bastard sometimes, but things wouldn't be the same without him.

Chad & George: My butt buddies of room-mates, who never fail to put up with whatever revolutionary horse crap I'm brewing in my apartment, and who never comment one way or another on my bizarre behaviour. I salute you good sirs.

To The Great Roll Call: To all those abroad who keep in contact with me, and who I realize I have not had much time to stay in contact with. You are no doubt in my mind and heart, especially in these very troubled times. I salute you and wish you all well (especially my body part exploding asian womb mother).

To Liquor and Cigarettes: For those harried nights of fun and frivolity, and even to those bottomed out moments when things are at their worst. While my drinking has made me say things I probably shouldn't have, in the end, as is the case in my philsophy, things are always best left said, for something productive comes out of everything, even if it IS fucked up for a little while.

And thats really all I can think of at the moment. Theres a bunch of other things that I'm grateful for, but I can't quite articulate them at the moment. I hope everyone has a nice thanksgiving out there.
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How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

2004-11-24T16:58:00.000-05:00

"and its you when i look into the mirror
and its you when i don't pick up the phone
sometimes you can't make it on your own
i know that we don't talk
i'm sick of it all"

Some ass I remember had the audacity to name his book 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'. This should probably be applied to u2's latest album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

It's an amazingly straight forward album, not buried under ironic lyrics or manchester techno stylings, or even the classicist floruishes of All That You Can't Leave Behind. It aims straight for the heartstrings essentially, and even when the band over-reaches (and is there ever a u2 album that DOESN'T?) it still stirs something deep down. When the Edges guitars crash into a crescendo during 'Sometimes you can't make it on your own", its not particuarly out of left field, but you can't help but feel the impending sense of loneliness, the grand sense of alientation, the kind of zeitgeist that Radiohead stole from u2's late 80's earnestness and turned into a career, while u2 was busy exploiring the far more cynical side of the world. This sense of alienation is decidedly futuristic and almost post apocalyptic in its sound. Achtung Baby was modern, but How to Dismantle is blade runner-esque.

Thats not to say that this is a particuarly positive album. It is sad and lonely, in a back alley sort of way. It's the spiritual continuation of 'Running to Stand Still', of bottoming out and raising oneself up. While u2's 90's ouevre celebrated the hedonist perspective, and with a detached sense of irony viewed love, sex, and the world, reveling in the enjoyment of all that is wrong. All That You Can't Leave Behind was decidedly positive and upbeat, if recognizing problems. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, like its name suggests, is that absolute failure is sitting right in front of you, and the chances are high, but there is a small sliver of hope to make it out.

I'm not sure if its the best work they've ever produced, or even its most consistent (the tracklisting is front loaded with three knock out songs, and then the strange neo future reggae of 'Love and Peace or Else'). And sometimes Bono's lyrics leave something to be desires ('I gave you all that you wanted except for what you wanted' huh?), and the use of some europop flourishes almost date it.

But over all this is a fine album, and it shows that they have a willingness to continue reinventing themselves. I'm interested to see how the tour will unfold, particuarly on the staging. I have a sense that its going to be on a epic scale, and not the stripped down affair that Elevation was.

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"i've had enough of romantic love, i give it up... for a miracle drug"

This is what its like to see a train wreck in slo-mo

2004-11-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

Our only response was to keep on going and fuck everything. Pile misery upon misery, heap it up on a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile, then squirt it into a stinking purulent vein and do it all over again. Keep on going: getting up, going out, robbing, stealing, fucking people over, propelling ourselves with longing towards the day it would all go wrong.

Somewhere I feel a little sick as I write this in another stab at staying up all night. My chest feels fucking diseased, short of breath, a closed throat, all probably due to the prodigious smoking of the past day or so. More to the point, my heart feels fucking dejected, and I am this close to just ramming my hand down my throat and forcing myself to vomit, anything basically, to cleanse this dirty feeling inside me. Take a razor to my flesh and bleed it out.

If I had any alcohol left I'd be pished, any drugs, loaded beyond belief. I feel an enemy amongst my own room-mates, truth be told, and I don't like the sensation of being a stranger in my own house, afraid of coming out of my room worrying if someone who may dislike me (which seems to be an opinion spreading wider these days) may be sitting on my couch. The only thing keeping me tethered is the fact that I have done right before, if not in this particular situation, than somewhere, anywhere, with anyone else before.

I don't want to be home, per se, but I do want to be out of here, anywhere.
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"so give me all your poison
and give me all your pills
and give me all your hopeless hearts that make me ill
you're running after something that you'll never kill
if this is what you want then fire at will!"
::cock, click, shot::

"i've taken so much medicine to kill
i know theres something wrong
cause this night just drags on and on
the clock still says he won't be long
till all your hard earned moneys gone
the dust, the sin, is what they sell
the flashing lights, the ringing bells
a wish as far as i can tell
in this dried up wishing well"

"i stay up late night
to take apart what i said, to make it sound all alright
wait, take up my time, standing in line
this is a call
it might be a call
and the world is alright for one night
taking up your time, don't sell me no line
and it depends, it depends, and it comes back again
believing is hard, believing is art"

The Danger of Gated Communities

2004-11-22T21:34:00.000-05:00

One of the unfortunate by products of this election is most liberals (the pansies that they are) saying there going to go home, board up there states, from red state intrusion. While it is true that we must shore up the homebases, the revolution was not meant for one geopolitical segment, or one certain accent, or those who happen to went to some flouted liberal college.

The mistake people make is that the Republicans or conservatives own the breadbasket of America. For Christ sakes, Kansas was home to radical anarcho syndicalists at the beginning of the century. They CAN be won back.

The grip corporations hold on the world is very tenous. It's why they go to such far-reaching and expensive methods to defeat peoples voices. They know what could happen. They saw it in the Haymarket Revolts, the anarchist revolution in Spain, and most recently in the WTO protests. If people got up, and BELIEVED, the whole damn system would come tumbling down. All the billion dollars tanks and defense systems can't defend against the voices and will of people. Huge media conglomerates cannot suppress the truth. It IS all possible if you believe in it. And I believe.

Some people believe in random acts of niceness. I believe in random acts of activism. Re-use those styrofoam cups, use real silverware over plastic, sticker or flyer those crapp college bulletin boards with informative things that can liberate minds, and most importantly, be concious of where your money goes with every purchase. Sometimes you can't avoid giving money to bastard companies. Unfortunatly the system is rigged that badly. But it doesn't mean you have to like it, or more importantly, that you HAVE to do it. Reject consumerism. Share things. Make your own stuff when possible.
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Maybe start off smaller...

2004-11-22T18:10:00.000-05:00

After reading of some of the failures of infoshops, in some other areas where the anarchist movement is arguably much, much stronger, I'm thinking it'll probably be best to just start a reading group or club around here. Some way to get the message out to like minded people, and show that there is SOMETHING out there for us, with the massively well organized College Republicans on campus (who, just like their party, embezzelled a bunch of money evidently). Basically the fraternities and the College Republicans basically wack each other off around here so.

Except of course, that I'm not even going to bother with trying to do all the paper work. Why would an anarchist club REQUIRE paperwork... we don't need to be recognized...shit.
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Resistance!

2004-11-22T15:38:00.000-05:00

"extreme times that told me, that help me down every night
i didn't have much to say, i didn't give up the light
i closed my eyes, and closed myself, and closed my world
and never opened up to anything that could get me at all
i had to close down everything, i had to close down my mind
too many things took of me, too much could make me blind
i seen so much in so many places, so many heartaches, so many faces
so many dirty things, you couldn't even believe...
oh baby, oh baby, then it fell apart
oh baby, oh baby, like it always does"

Wow, u2 pulled a stones and played on a flatbed truck throughout New York. Man I love when they do shit like this...from the stopping of traffic in Rattle and Hum, to playing on top of the convenience store for the 'where streets have no name' video. I can't wait to hear the new album on tuesday.

I've got alot of work to accomplish this break actually. My christmas shopping needs to get done, as well as making some stuff for it (SECRETIVE WAH).

And considering theres going to be a parade of people beating down on me in the near future, which I particuarly don't care about. I have my people, both here and abroad. And they know both my flaws and my good qualities, and they manage to accept me. It's at times like these that the great roll call assures me I'm not completely fubar...
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"This tooth is rotten, yank it out!
Your words are cancer in my mouth!
This captains ship, is going down, going down!"

A retort...

2004-11-22T01:56:00.000-05:00

whoops...

"i am waiting for something to go wrong
i am waiting for familiar resolve
i am waiting for another repeat
another diet fed by crippling defeat
and i am waiting for that sense of relief
i am waiting for you to flee the scene
as if you held in your hand the smoking gun
and on the floor lay the one you said you loved."

"i had tender feelings that you made hard
but its your heart not mine that is scarred
so when i go home i'll be happy to go
you're just somebody i used to know
...
so when you can be sure that you're in control
you're just somebody i used to know
...
i know you don't think you did me wrong
and i can't stay this mad for long
keeping ahold of what you just let go
you're just somebody i used to know"

"all the times, that we were close
i remember these things the most
i see all my dreams come tumbling down
i can't be happy without you round
so alone i keep the wolves at bay...
and theres only one thing i can say
you didn't stand by me, not at all
you must explain why this must be"

"if i go there will be trouble
and if i stay it will be double
so come on let me know...
this indecisions bugging me
if you don't want me set me free
exactly whom i supposed to be?
don't you even know what clothes fit me?
so come on let me know
should i collect or should i blow..."

"if you wanna try, if you wanna try, theres no worse you could do
(i know you lie, i know you lie, i'm still in love with you!)
can't take me anywhere, i'd take you anywhere
oh you can't stand me now...
(no you can't stand me now)
have we enough to keep it together?
or do we just keep on pretending
and hope our luck is never ending
you tried to pull the wool, i wasn't feeling too clever
and you take all that you lended
until you needed mending
you can't stand me now"

"well i no longer hear the music!
when the lights go out, love grows cold in the shades of doubt
this strange fate in my mind is all too clear!
music when the lights come on, the girl i thought i knew is gone
with her my heart has disappeared...
no i no longer hear the music..."

"vindicated!
i am selfish
i am wrong
i am right
i swear i'm right
swear i knew it all along
i am flawed but i am cleaning up so well
i am seeing me now the things you swore you saw yourself
so let me slip away! so let slip against the current..."

"a moment of silence please for those who never get the chance
they show up to the party but they're never asked to dance
the losers the liars the bastards the thieves
the cynicists, the pessimists and those that don't believe in nothing

i never met a loser that i didn't see eye to eye with, i declare
i stare into your eyes
but you look right past me into the air
what's it like to stand in your shoes?
to have never felt the belt of somebody's abuse?
i take the bottle and i tip it to all my heroes that have passed
alas, you have left us but your stories they will last
uninspired by the recruiting call
independent we stand
independ we fall"

"just another john you gyped
another sucker stiffed
walk on role, in the script
to your long, long grift
love that had me in your grip
was just a long, long grift"

bitch please

Big Audio Dynamite!

2004-11-22T01:05:00.000-05:00

I utterly forgot that I had picked up a greatest hits collection of mick jones post clash band Big Audio Dynamite at the wusc vinyl fair. Despite the dated sound, owing mostly to the overuse of the then new digital synths and everything else, the songs are classic Jones by any estimation, underneath it all. The guitar just punching out and in when its necessary, a dancable beat (people never quite realized that the Clash were insanely danceable)

In fact one song, Free, reminds me of my favorite clash song, lost in the supermarket, which perfectly showed how you can convey loneliness and alienation without being whiny and annoying, or relying on power chords. It suffers, as the rest of the cd, by the dated-ness of the production, and in fact I would enjoy to hear a more modern take production on the songs. Substitute the drum machines for real drums, the dubious 80's distortion with some modern bruising gain, and real arrangements as opposed to samples. A great discovery, by all estimations, considering how the night has gone.
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(ab)Using Frequent Flier Programs

2004-11-21T17:47:00.000-05:00

On a lark awhile ago during the summer I decided that I might as well sign up for a frequent flier card with Delta, since I was going to use them for going up Boston. Generally I didn't expect I'd ever actually get to use the points, considering I (at the time anyways) rarely traveled. But now its looking more and more like I might be able to rack up a huge number of points on this thing, between flying to California for spring break, and also a bevy of other programs where you can get a couple miles for every dollar purchased. Now I'm going to sign up for a bevy of these things, since I figure, what the hell, these damn things might net me free stuff on stuff I have to purchase anyways.
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Crimethinc...

2004-11-20T04:39:00.000-05:00

Ah the shittiness of people... push away and move on, onwards and forwards. Fuck off!

As I was walking back from the Nic tonight after seeing the Ramones documentary, someone has scrawled "Lies!" across the newpaper vending machine of The State. It warmed my heart to know that theres another member of Crimethinc in Columbia. Solidarity to my unknown brother/sister!
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Agitprop!

2004-11-18T04:13:00.000-05:00

After looking at this, I am reminded exactly why the right will never fully win in its attempts to beat us down. When it comes to sheer guerilla tactics, you can't be the left, or paticuarly anarchists. Being agitprop is the way they LIVE. Their whole lives are a statement, so is there any doubt that they happen to best at doing it?

I am propelling myself further and further into living the life of an activist. Propelling myself further and further out of the reaches of mainstream society maybe, but its no here no there. I still function within the world, and by virtue of that, I am affect my piece of real estate around me. I CHANGE people, things, events, lives. I am zeitgeist of a free moving, loosely knit revolution that will change the world.
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Take back the party? Take back the streets!

2004-11-17T20:10:00.000-05:00

After watching this documentary Outfoxed, it is my assesment that the most powerful tool we as activists have against the powers that be is themselves. The most devestating thing in the whole movie is not the talking heads, or even the memos, but the clips of Fox itself, which are so utterly ridiculous one would laugh if it wasn't real.

Now mind you, the idea of video as a weapon is neither new, and not entirely our own. The fact that Fox is success is indicative enough that the right knows how to market persuasively using film. The biggest and best PR agencies in the world, engaged in green washing campaigns, know exactly how to trigger certain emotions and get on our good side.

But video, when raw, can show the sort of brutality that the mainstream media very rarely reports on. If its from Iraq, to protests at the WTO, to frank discussions of policy not seen on the crap pundit shows, video is outright damning. Then again, the right seem teflon coated at times.

The only weakness, essentially, to the conservative movement, is its greatest advantage over the left. Namely money. While smaller contributions have become more important to the right (paticuarly in the Conservative CLub for Growth), and there is no doubt the great mid-level contributions that assist the Republican cause, a great deal of heavy lifting is done by large family foundations, through which grants are made to what are basically money losing enterprises.

No one infact, buys the New York Post, or even National Review or American Spectator. And anyone who buys those magazines for their cover price (they amount to 30 pages of double spaced text) DESERVES to be fleeced. But they provide a good set of talking points for the echo chamber. But how do they keep alive without breaking a profit? Massive subsidization by these large family donors.

The unfortunate thing is that most of these family fortunes are through companies whose products we can't avoid using. Koch industries, for example, America's largest privately held energy company. Short of going off the grid, there is no way to combat these people through boycotting. We can, however, cut heavily into their margins by cutting down our own consumption and encouraging others to do the same. Every watt saved, every gallon of gas avoided, keeps another couple dollars out of their hands.

While many of these foundations are nearing the end of their shelf lives (most notably the Olin foundation, which is set to close its doors in 2005) there is little reason to believe that other prominent funders from other industries won't endow large foundations to push conservative causes. More than likely however, those fortunes will come from more easily "de-funded" industries, though thats no gurantee.

We must not delude ourselves into thinking we can ever match dollar for dollar conservative think tanks, even with George Soros financial millions (and arguably, why would we want them?). However, with a decent donor base, and hardwork, something the conservative side lacks, we can poke a severe hole through the whole movement. Already thousands have realized what I came to conclusion months ago; we must take our money out of the hands of those who work against us and use it to build the alternate infrastructure outside of their grubby paws. Food co-ops, independent media, everything local. A systematic, long term exodus will "defund" the right. When it can no longer afford itself swank DC offices, and fund money losing mouth pieces, that is when the conservative movement will lose its greatest base of support.
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Anarcho-Coffee Shop

2004-11-15T16:04:00.000-05:00

I've been really excited in the past few days over this idea that my friend Laura had about putting together a general hang out place/coffee shop for leftists in the Columbia area. It'd be like a combination library, hang out, performance space. It'd be feeling a distinct void in the area for something out and out liberal (while presumably most coffee shop dezinens are, we want something explicit).

Already I'm hatching ideas in my head about things that could be done, like offering free wireless internet, having a take and give back library of anarchist and leftist books, among other things. I would be really, really psyched to contribute as much time as it would take to get such a place up and running. Once this academic hell week is over I'm definetly going to sit down this weekend and look into all the forms and other stuff necessary to get a place up and running in South Carolina.
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Viva!

2004-11-12T01:58:00.000-05:00

Though the whirling dervishes of the conservative echo chamber have already decided that "the left is dead", we here on the ground know better. Alot of set backs have been seen across America in the past 20 years as we've seen the country, and indeed, fall more and more right as the weak kneed socialism and progressives sold our souls to a well organized, well financed corporatist movement, fed shock troops from the evangelical churches.

But if old, sad bastards like Cal Thomas and David Horowitz think that the radical left is dead (or in fact stagnant when Horowitz himself was a leftist), they've got some fucking news to deal with. While we may lack ownership of the main media outlets, and not be flush with speaking engagement money and cushy white paper conferences, we do have numbers, and more importantly, creativity on our side.

I can think of more creatvity in one leftist revolutionary than in half of the graphic design crews of the major media networks. While, admittedly there is a tendency to be hung up on old imagery (paticuarly of the Soviet/Communist variety, and dominated by reds and blacks) there is something incredibly original about the way that time and time again, people have given the finger to major news organizations and corporations. While much has been written/said about FOX News bias, why hasn't more been done to make sure our voice is heard whenever they open their mouths to swallow cock? Every single news reporter on there should be picketed and protested at every speaking engagement and book signing, every call in show flooded with leftist calls, and there morning show should have a background of banners of people trying to get there message on the air.

More to the point the harangues that those doofs launch at us are amazingly laughable. Most of them must be under the impression there still fighting the soviet union. The left as it is today, is amazingly diverse, and for the most part, has dropped the authoritarian style of the previous left. We learned from our mistakes. It's high time they learn from theirs.
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Righteous!

2004-11-09T16:19:00.000-05:00

Ha... another A for a paper I did the day before. It was, however, a really good paper.

And sweet... I got my ashcan comic books from Erika Moen. I so hope my friend Oluchi can introduce me to her when I'm out in Pitzer ::giggles like a school girl:: I'm such a comic's nerd.

Seem's Bigelow Aerospace (the vanity project of the guy who owns Budget Hotels USA) is offering 50 million to the team that can produce a vehicle that goes up 250 miles up (the X Prize went up only 60 miles, barely enough to break the atmosphere) and orbit the earth twice. This is an admittedly much more impressive feat than the X Prize, which while exciting, was not an example of a project that can legitamately hookup to an orbital station and more of a touristy adventure (one of the reasons why Richard Branson has gotten behind it with his Virgin Galactic idea). Seems like though I might actually see my ultimate dream of going out to space sometime before I die.
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Revolution!

2004-11-07T22:44:00.000-05:00

After being mildly disturbed by everytime that I clean that I have to use chemical products I've decided to go and get some bio-degradable/eco-friendly cleaning products. That and order some compact flurorescent lightbulbs to replace the iradescent one in my lamp. It'll cut down on alot of the energy and un-necessary heat in the place.

But these are small, almost insignificant things though. But small insignificant things can be bounced, spread, meme'ed across a country, turned into a movement. If everyone starts using CFL's, and iradescents become nothing but a by gone obseletion, can you imagine the amount of energy that could be saved? If people stopped using Clorox, and instead was using biodegradable products, the amount of pollution stopped? It only takes a match to start a forest fire.

Or atleast I'd like to think...n

I am more and more getting stridently out there when it comes to leftist politics, as well as racial, cultural, and sexual issues. This election has borne this out even more. There's absolutely no need to be moderate when these pig fuckers are running as extreme right as they are. I'm tired of capitulating. It's time we get up and do something for fucking once.
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Manifest!

2004-11-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

The irony of apartment living is its arguably more sociable than living in a dorm.

There's something reflexive when you must share an open space with another person that you immediately must up illusionary boundaries between your space and their's, that because your 'forced' to share all your space and time with this person, that you must have more 'alone' time and do things more by yourself.

When you have your own room, however, you feel no obligation to being alone. You know your space, you know that you have plenty of alone time, and consequently you seem to hang out more with your flatmates than you would with your room mate.

I've noticed that this year, since I arguably am far more social this year than I was last year, living in a "dorm". Odd.

I've been mildly antisocial this week, but anyone who knows me probably knows why. You know thats what they do to me.
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so tell me nothing matters less or more
say "whatever we think actions are
we'll never know what anything is for
if near is just as far away as far"
and I'm permitted one act i can save
i choose to sit next here to you and wave
the weakerthans manifest

2004-11-05T03:33:00.000-05:00

In an example of blinding stupidity I've decided to have one last cigarette for the night, meaning I have to throw open my window, and let the freezing fucking cold into my room. Damn addiction and need/desire/lucky charm of writing while smoking.

What the fuck is it with Rocky Horror and meeting girls? It's a goddamn converging point I tell you.

Sprung to action to console Libby tonight, an odd event, considering how I've consistently double standered her and basically been a horrible bastard. I think people like me in spite of myself sometimes. Or maybe I'm just as great as I believe, and I harp to much on my minor flaws. Ya that sounds about right.

I don't even have anything really to write here...bleh.. off to bed...
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The march of progress continues on...

2004-11-04T15:06:00.000-05:00

Though the election results have been universally dissapointing, theres no reason to get utterly depressed. We're still here after all and the fight continues on.

In a move of utter oddness, Montana has a Democratic Governor and a Democratic State Senate, and an evenly split House, meaning effectively, that Montana is utterly bipartisan. This is important I think, because Montana is one of many western states that has seen its natural resources bought up and raped by transnational mineral companies that care little about reinvesting in the state. I've always wondered why some of these states haven't adopted a situation similar to Alaska, which considers its natural resources a public resource and uses the money to leverage government programs.

Otherwise school chugs on, as it barrels to the end of the quarter. I have so much goddamned laundry its ludicrous. I'm so lazy so I hardly ever do it as regularly as I should, and I also certainly don't iron it with any sort of speed. Once I'm plopped down in my chair in front of my laptop its like my body fucking conforms to the seat and I can't get up and actually do anything.... laziest son of a bitch I swear.

And face book is like the best for finding random cool people...like...sweet...

As I sit here smoking I must say at this moment in time I am pleased....
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2004-11-02T15:45:00.000-05:00

Did well on my Japanese Kanji make up quiz yesterday, and then turned around and beat the shit out of my ACCT Exam. Hopefully that means I can actually achieve my ideal of a 3.5, and actually prove out my end of the bargain on going to California.

Today will either be a great day or a really shitty one. Damn politics...

Got two more books on the experience of minorities in America, Asian American Dreams, and Muslim's Place in the American Public Square. I tend not to affiliate with my own minority, but to a large degree I have had to deal with a minor level of antagonism on the part of people around me, mostly due to the fact that my class (upper middle) somehow completely nullifies the fact that I am a minority.

It's not an overtly racist thing, but it ticks me off subtly because theres a strange sense of jealousy from some of my friends, who are white, at the idea that a kid from a half immigrant family is better off then them, whose family have roots in this country for generations. My dad busted his ass for the place he's in, and so have I in order to get where I am at. I don't take for granted my privilages, and that informs my progressive politics, which are concerned with the lack of equity in the world around me, and the need for an even playing field.

Hopefully Kerry will be voted in and a major victory for GBLT Americans will be won. That is the new frontier of the civil rights mvoement, sexual orientation. That combined with my drug reform ideals, are the spear vanguard of a new form of American social progressivism, to let people live how they feel happy. One day my friends, it'll all be like a goddamned Ben-a-Tal commercial...
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That Great and Fabulous Burn

2004-10-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

Well it seems there IS a foundation for promoting comic books similar to the NEH/NEA. The Xeric foundation, founded by the largesse of the guy behind TMNT. It gives out grants to comic book creators who will self publish, and one of its past beneficiaries was Derek Kim, a perennial favorite of mine, for his collection of comics, which has since been picked up by Top Shelf Productions. It's taken almost a 100 years for film and TV to build up the sort of organs of production they have, and its sad to me that comic books, which have been around just as long, have suffered from popular disapproval and malignment as not worthy of being called art. Film and pop culture criticism has only recently grabbed a foothold in universities, so I'm sure it'll take many more years before comic books gets its own due. My order of Erika Moen ashcan books is on its way, so I'll be sure to enjoy those once they hit my mail box.

After that, if I do well on my ACCT exam, I'll treat myself to a copy of Blankets. Ah nothing like self rewarding...
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Rhiad and the Bedouins

2004-10-30T22:37:00.000-04:00

I've determined the next area of the world I want to explore after Asia is the Middle East, specifically Morocco. The whole idea of Casablanca, a weird mix between the West and the Middle East, of tiny cars, fez's, hooka tobacco, and alcohol is very appealing to me. It's got this flair to me that makes me just want to pack up some stuff, cash out my bank account, and buy a plane ticket to Morocco. Something both safe on the surface, and yet amazingly dangerous and unseamy underneath. You know how much I get a kick out of stuff like that.

Speaking of which, I think the lady in white will pay me a visit sometime soon...

But in the meantime I have exams to kill, and quizzes to beat the shit out of... as well as a paper to knock out of the ballpark.

And rocky horror tommorrow....my God.
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2004-10-28T02:12:00.000-04:00

Only U2 could have it's own iPod, star in a bunch of commercials, and still maintain credibility and relevency. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if this album and tour weren't the biggest things U2 has ever seen, a spectacular feet by any estimation when you consider the success of All That You Can't Leave Behind and the Elevation tour.

There's a sense of savviness in all of this marketing that you have to admire. It reminds me when they annoucned there Pop mart tour at a K-Mart store, partially out of irony, partially out of seriousness. Ironically, that tour didn't pan out that well, with them barely breaking even, and the album only getting lukewarm reviews and sales.

Much in the same bind they were in when Rattle & Hum came out and flopped they disappeared off the face of the earth and went again to work on reinventing themselves. Then they came ripping out with All That You Can't Leave Behind. U2 Mach III puts to shame not only bands that are coming out currently, but it literally lambasts the old fogies still making the rock circut now off half hearted new material and greatest hits packages.

In fact I made this argument with my room mates the other day, with the hilarious defense of Aerosmith as still being relevent. I like Aerosmith, but the idea that there still relevent is ludicrous. Are they able to achieve chart height and single success that most of there peers don't? Yes. But are they zeitgeist the size of U2? Not by any stretch of the imagination. There still following the same blueprint on singles (the rock song, the ballad) that they've used with all there 90's and on albums. There live show is standard fare, and when they tour they tour essentially playing there greatest hits and whatever theres latest single. The fact that they had to co-headline with Kiss, the perennial rock n roll coasters is evidence of there lack of relevency. IF Steven Tyler's daughter wasn't icnredibly attractive and a succesful actress, I'm doubtful he would still be as much of a celebrity as he is.

U2 meanwhile, still dominates the charts like no business, there Elevation tour was the most successful tour for that year, and if they really wanted to switch back to a stadium tour they'd be about the only band able to do it, save the Rolling Stones. In fact I hope that there next tour is a stadium tour, because they put on a hell of a show as indicated by Zoo TV and Pop-Mart. How much more ludicrous can they take the stadgium tour too? Considering some of the ideas that had to be rejected in the case of Zoo TV and Pop Mart, God only knows (on Zoo TV they wanted an inflatable pissing baby floating around and on Pop Mart, mobile disco dance floors that people would dance on while they were playing). Either way, I am most definetly going to see them live on this next tour, whatever route they go.
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2004-10-27T19:09:00.000-04:00

The guys over at Penny Arcade last year started a charity project called "Child's Play" which is basically a charity that collects toys and videogames for childrens hospitals across the country. It's ulterior purpose of sorts, is to counter the sensationalistic negative portrayal of gamers in the press. We're not violent and sick minded losers basically is the point.

I wish the comic book industry (which is admittedly far smaller) would do something similar, considering I think even more than gamers, we get far more shit. Maybe even some sort of patterned after the National Endowment for the Humanities that attempts to get graphic novels into more and more libraries and tries to not only change perceptions of comic books, but also change perceptions of people in general. Comic books, or more specifically the comic books I myself read, are some of the mot socially relevent and culturally promoting pieces of literature I've read period.

From Clowe's books about alienation, to Crumb's pieces on debauchery and counter culture hedonism, to O'Malley's tales of teenage angst across the border, theres something inherently vital to comics to me. Some comic books have had a very profound influence on my thinking and the way I act, and to me its a shame that most people will never in there life once pick up a graphic novel. The influx of manga into America is both encouraging and discouraging, since I'm not seeing much spill over of interest into American indie comics, and though I find that Manga has definetly opened up the minds and eyes of many kids to the very different culture of Japan, a great thing by all estimations, I wonder if there not neglecting the home base here.

It's why I think a NEH grant styled organization would be great for the promotion of comic books as an artistic medium. It could start out small, simply giving out maybe starter grants for individual libraries to start to build up there collections. It'd go a long way to legitimizing comic books as an artistic voice in America, and hopefully make it alot harder for people to try and snub comics out of existence via obscenity charges. In comparison to other countries, the media has won itself a huge and vast freedom to essentially do whatever the hell it wants without fear of government funding being suspended, government crack downs, or attempts to censor/self label. We just have to get to the point where comic books are amongst the respected art forms. Till then we have the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund to go to bat for the comic book industry when necessary.
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Girls, Girls, Girls...

2004-10-27T02:54:00.000-04:00

I think for the next piece of art on my walls I think I'm going to get one of the limited edition Suicide Girls prints, because I want to keep a constant motif around my bed of stylized renditions of women. My Patrick Nagel print is very much the 80's, japanese wood block print influenced style, and I think it'll mesh well with the busier and more modern pop work on the Suicide Girls poster.

I'm thinking that the I will put on that wall near my bed basically 3 posters, including the SG one. I'm not sure what style I want to go towards on the next two prints, though I'm thinking something more explicit (while yes the SG one has nudity, it is not pornographic in any truely hardcore sense). Possibly a photograph rather than an art piece, since there really is no truely good erotica (its domianted mostly by fanart esque type people). I'm thinking of getting the cover of Pulp's This is Hardcore (which is a wonderful album cover as is the tray liner) blown up and then have that as the second one. The third I don't know.

Obviously I don't have the money to do my grand vision of a giant porn screen comprised of 9 tv's. To me that would be the ultimate expression of eroticism in this day and age. It would be a bastion of both degradation and intimacy, of consumerism and the personal. It most certainly would mean something. Sounds crazy, and most people do find that idea (amongst many others) as paticuarly absurd. To me its a commentary, and a paticuarly poignant one.
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2004-10-26T03:56:00.000-04:00

Well I didn't exactly kick the shit out of my econ exam but it was 10 point gain on the uncurved score of my last exam (unfortuantly she didn't give a curve this time so I merely gained by two points). Either way, that combined with my two A's on my homeworks means I lean towards getting a B. All I have to do is keep up the work, do an 80 or above on the next exam (not unrealistic considering I came and the B will be secured.

The way I've worked it is that I'm more or less guranteed a 3.0 this semester, a considerable improvement over my piss poor performance last semester. And I definetly think I can do much better than that if I improve my Japanese grade to atleast a C+ and get B's in Acct and Econ (both realistic). In that case I can definetly get the intended goal of 3.5 and seal my expedition out to California.
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2004-10-23T21:58:00.000-04:00

Like holy crap. Bryan Lee O'Malley, the guy behind Lost at Sea and Scott Pilgrim, is selling like watercolors for 25 bucks a pop of any one character you want. I'm so going to order myself one of David Wheldon. I need some more art in which to hang around my room seeing as how barren it is and whatnot.

I'm also thinking of a poster or something from Nathan Fox, who does these horribly egregious violent/pornographic drawings. Great stuff all around.
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2004-10-23T14:19:00.000-04:00

Another exciting party night that ended in its usual display of me telling someone to go fuck themselves and that they suck. Like clockwork.

Drinking I think exacerbates my bipolarness sometimes, and the fact that tiny little desires and wants just come and roost and wait till I get pished for them to come out. I'm quite blunt up front you know, that I have issues with rejection, that I don't deal well with being frustrated, paticuarly when I feel things work so well.

It's the grandest of irony that I lash out at those whom I best get along with. But the fact that I get along so well just pumps up my When Harry Met Sally syndrome of being so unsatisfied with things not going further, of things stopping. My life has been filled, on any number of fronts, with people unwilling, weak, or just not ready to do something. I am not content to just be a friend, I am not content to sit on the sidelines of life, I am not content to see so much shit going on in the world and just stand idly by and just let it go. Fuck no.

For better or for worst I have almost always made the plunge. I do it because theres too much shit already I regret not doing, and I'm not letting that list get any longer. Choices I've made, things I've done, the heartache and fuck ups I've caused may come back to haunt me later but thats OKAY. I can deal with them. I just can't deal when I'm ready to throw down and others aren't willing. Or when others are willing to throw down with others but not me.
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I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go
so come on Davie sing me something that I know
I want to always feel like part of this was mine
I want to fall in love tonight
Jimmy Eat World Praise Chorus

If its fight or flight they'll just choose to throw down...
Sage Francis Runaways

The Dangerous Flirtation of Drug Policy Reform... And Who Wants to be an Illinois Republican?

2004-10-21T01:58:00.000-04:00

There is a strain amongst drug policy reformers, almost by nature caused by the federal drug war bureacracy, that threatens to send the whole movement into the willing hands of corpratist libertarians, and into the realms of complete and utter political pariahness.

In recent months overtures have been increasingly made from drug policy reform groups to the ever shrinking minority of social libertarians within the Republican party. Besides the fact that social libertarians undoubtly make up very little of elected Republican represenatives and Senators, and only a minor fragment of its base in comparison to the Christian Right, time after time drug policy reform groups have run ads, outreach, and promoted social libertarian Republicans.

This will not work.

Mixing drug policy reform, an idea firmly rooted in the issue of racial inequality and racial profiling, with the right wing militia bent of most libertarians is selling our souls to a group of people who have little or no chance of getting anything politically done. Gutting the federal government in order to end the drug war is equivalent to killing someone to stop the growth of a tumor. More to the point, the flirtation with libertarian and Republican politics ignores the fact that the two biggest sufferers of the drug war, blacks and latinos, are no where represented amongst the right wing except as puppets and window dressing. We MUST seek out minority voices in order to change the debate of drugs to one of a public health issue, not a criminal one. Siding with the increasingly weak social libertarians in the Republican party is useless, and not one I think that will bare fruit for the drug policy reform movement.

Despite the premonitions of some in the drug reform movement that the drug war won't stop until the Republicans stop it, the drug war won't stop until we actually juke politics to liberal/progressive causes, and not indulge in these fantasies of libertarian right winged-ness. Death to the drug war will come with the death of the GOP.

Speaking of the death of the GOP, who here feels a big of a pang at the troubles of the Illinois Republican Party? Besides being the home of the Daley Democratic machine for 50 odd years, now the few gains the GOP made there have been completely wittled away. It's Senators are now both Democrats, it rules the state legislature, the Governor's mansion, and though its House members lean 10 to 9 Republicans, msotly due to redistricting, one has to wonder how long they have till there blown out of the water?

It also mustn't feel too good that the Dem's new Senator, Barack Obama, is the rising star of politics, the sort that the GOP hasn't been able to breed in quite some time (unless you count Rick Sanatorum, quissential Republican asshole). If we take back the Senate he will be most certainly given ripe choices of Committes and bred to essentially become eventual President material in a couple decades. Admittedly we must not make a clarion call yet for the GOP in any state, for if you can manage to survive the fallout of a President resigning in disgrace, you can survive just about anything. There is no doubt in my mind in the next 20 years for a serious shift in powers again, possibly leading to a death of a party, and in the vacuum another one taking its place.
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Karmically Sound

2004-10-19T11:29:00.000-04:00

Thus proving out that, in the end everything works out, I got another A in English on my second essay. I also did really well on my Econ homework assignment. Tommorrow I'll sit down with Baba sensei and hash out a way for me to get a grasp of Japanese and pass the class. And I just earned myself another A I think on my presentation today.

I have also become endlessly amused by facebook. I love this shit. Social networking at its best.

Let it flow.
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Mixed Reviews

2004-10-18T17:00:00.000-04:00

Well I feel mentally retarded after being the lowest scorer on my mid term in my Japanese class. Luckily Baba sensei is giving me the chance to make up a big portion of the points and redeeming my grade so I can atleast get a C in there. I felt so mentally defecient though. God.

In an incident on the polar oppisite of the spectrum my English teacher again surprised me by giving me an A on my presentation last time in class. I don't know if he gave it to everyone else in the group or just to my specific performance, since I did much better than my group mates. Hopefully he'll surprise me again tommorrow with a good grade on my second essay. Seems I actually might get an A in that class, thus boosting my GPA a shitload from the doldrums I have the fear it will be.

I also got the Intro to Islam course for next semester, so I'm pleased with that. Got an econ exam this week that hopefully I'll kill. Been a rough day...
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No more games... I'm gonna change what you call rage
Tear this motherfucking roof off like two dogs caged
I was playing in the beginning the mood all changed
...
Success is my only motherfucking option, failures not
Momma love ya but this trailers got to go
I cannot grow old in Salem's Lot
So here I go, it's my shot, feet fail me not
This may be the only opportunity I got
So here it goes
You better lose yourself
In the music, the moment, you own it
You better never let it go.
You only get one shot
Do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a life time yo!
Eminem

Boating and Starry Nights...

2004-10-18T01:10:00.000-04:00

Well I must say that the foray to George's lakehouse was quite enjoyable. Probably the closest I've come to nature in a long time, which seems to be a syndrome of people of liberal yuppie stripe, to extol environmentalism and to have never experienced nature. Go figure? I can tell you one thing though, the pitch blackness of the night and the starry sky makes you think alot and makes you feel the vastness of the world around you and how inconsequential your meaningless shit is when there are whole solar systems living and dying in front of your eyes, a billion miles away.

I did, however, get potentially addicted to this English Breakfast tea. I made atleast like 7 or 8 cups of it in a two day span. No wonder Britain enslaved a whole sub continent in order to make sure there access to it was safe. This stuff is like crack. Whoo.

There seemed to be tenseness at the lake house though, but I think it was just me misinterpreting being ignored. I sometimes wonder whether I am self fulfilling when it comes to my proclamations or I just really have this bad of luck. But what else is new for the second rate everything? There is no doubt however, as to who the cat loves the most. Take that leeches and drainers of my blood, emotions, and time.

I think I might ask that girl out...or to come hang out..or something... don't know yet. We'll see.

And in the best news I've heard yet it seems there will be a reunion between Pete Doherty and Carl Barat, the two leads from the Libertines, meaning that the good ol duo have not yet completely seperated. Maybe Pete will rejoin the band? Who knows but this is more promising than the news a couple weeks ago of a reunion basically never happening... carry on you crazy British bastards....
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You'll never make me leave
I wear this on my sleeve
You want to follow something
Give me a better cause to lead
Just give me what I need
Give me a reason to believe
So give me all your poison
And give me all your pills
And give me all your hopeless hearts that make me ill
Your running after something that you'll never kill
If this is what you want then fire at will!
My Chemical Romance Thanks for the Venom
Pull the trigger and let me go...

We'll crucify the insincere tonight (to-night)
We'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight (to-night)
We'll find a way to offer up the night (to-night)
The indescribable moments of your life (to-night)
The impossible is possible tonight (to-night)
Believe in me as I believed in you
Tonight, tonight, to-night...tonight...tonight
Smashing Pumpkins Tonight, Tonight
You won't believe in me like I believe in you will you?