[Thoughts on the day of action at Berkeley, November 20th, 2009 - Ed.]
Wow. What a day! Andy Stern and I were scrambled at five a.m. by a phone call that Wheeler Hall had been occupied and we were the first media on campus. We watched the supporters outside the occupied hall grow from a handful to a couple of thousand, sitting through a rainstorm at picket lines, determined not to let the police drag the occupiers away to jail. Self-organized groups of people, students and others, raced around dragging heavy ceramic planters to blockade doorways, while others posted themselves around the Alameda County sheriff’s buses parked nearby waiting to ferry arrestees to Santa Rita.
And above all, the crowd did not back down. Numerous videos on the internet attest to this. Faced with the possibility of a large-scale riot the cops were forced to stand down and release the occupiers with only misdemeanor charges. The occupiers had given a face to people’s anger, and before the students at UC went home for the holidays to figure out where they were going to come up with another few thousand dollars of fees, they were ready to vent at the authorities. I’m just glad we were all there to help them. Thanks to all who came out, great work, see you at the next one.
This proves yet again that the naysayers who claim that one must first build the movement and then push the boundaries are wrong: under the right circumstances, escalation of tactics actually gets people involved, and does indeed help build a movement. It isn’t the alpha and omega of political organizing, but direct actions sure can bring people together and when people get together they can move mountains. Or at least block police trucks.
Brandon Jourdan and I made a short film about that day in a very short time, he having been inside Wheeler Hall with the student militants and myself outside with the supporters. We may continue to edit and add footage but the current version gives a taste of the events.
So the BBC has conducted a poll and has concluded that Free Market Capitalism is not a good idea.
“Free Market Flawed, Says Survey” is the title of the article. It’s a “Special Report.” Apparently the anniversary of the 1989 collapse of the Eastern European socialist governments has caused the BBC to inquire if those same people might be unhappy to now be living in countries that are controlled by a grotesque fusion of criminal organizations and former secret police.
I haven’t read any of the ruminations by the world’s conservative (and liberal!) pundits yet, but I will venture a guess as to what a lot of them will say when posed with the obvious question, “With the advent of free market capitalism, why did Eastern Europe not transform into a delightful suburban paradise, as the West promised?”
“They just weren’t ready for capitalism”, the columnists will tell us, blaming the victim as usual, as if any of us on earth were prepared for a society that comes up with a brilliant idea like burying pollution in order to the help the environment.
But the important point is: if everyone, including the BBC, agrees that the free market is flawed, then why are we allowing its proponents to continue to run the planet? They’ve proven time and time again that they will make nothing except misery and disaster, so why, for crying out loud, are we allowing them to remain in power?
Note: The above photo was taken by the excellent James Natchwey during the brutal Chechnya War, which was waged by the post-1989 democratically elected, free-market government of Russia. I’m sure glad they got rid of communism over there. Things really appear to have improved.
Hello everyone and welcome to today’s installment of Best And Worst Latinos At The Moment. These accolades are not given annually, bi-annually, monthly, twice a fortnight, or daily. I simply award them whenever I feel like it, beginning today.
Let’s get started!
Saving the best for last, the Worst Latino At The Moment is hands down Paul Rodriguez. You may remember him as AKA Pablo, or else the guy who gave the condescending portrayal of a Puerto Rican hot dog vendor in that lame 1980’s bike messenger movie Quicksilver.
Anyways Rodriguez, who for the past decade or so has been host of El Show De Paul Rodriguez that gave my late abuelita so many laughs, has recently seen fit to appear alongside that neo-conservative, immigrant-bashing proto-fascist television personality Sean Hannity.
Rodriguez plays Sancho Panza to Hannity’s Don Quijote in spinning a depressingly simplistic right-wing message: that California’s Central Valley water problems are due to radical environmentalists in the Obama administration. It’s “fish versus people” to hear Rodriguez and Hannity tell it, as the government sends water to replenish the habitat of the Delta Smelt, an tiny endangered fish that lives in the Sacramento River delta, while letting farmers’ fields go fallow.
The water debate is very complicated, and of course much more complex than a nitwit like Sean Hannity cares to address, but my point here is that Rodriguez is using his media clout to thump the drums for Big Agriculture and help the Republicans win over California Latinos. He claims to simply want to help out Latino farmers and workers in the Valley but if he really meant it he would do his homework and acknowledge that California’s water problems did not begin with recent legislation, they are the product of decades of industrialized agriculture that will eventually turn our “bread basket” into a salinated desert if there isn’t a dramatic reversal of our entire way of allocating water and valuing food production. Lending voice to facile slogans like “fish versus people” and blaming environmentalists, as Rodriguez is doing, is not only failing to understand a whit of what is happening in the Central Valley but even worse is exacerbating the problem by refusing to deal head-on with the truth and by extension with any real solutions. This is an example of shallow celebrity politics at its most disgusting and destructive.
If anyone is reading this who lives in Hollywood, kindly dump a drink on Paul Rodriguez’s head if you run into him at a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce party or something. Then again, no one who reads this blog would ever be invited to such a party anyways.
And if anyone out there wants to read a brilliant book about the politics and history of food production, industrialized agriculture, and the wars over water in California, they should read Richard Walker’s excellent The Conquest Of Bread.
In contrast to Rodriguez, The Best Latino At The Moment is undoubtedly Daisy, an animated Raza cat from the political cartoon program The Pinky Show. Here’s Daisy on immigration:
However, while I think Daisy is Right On in his views expressed above, I have to share some criticism with the vato. I appreciate his analysis that no inhabitant of North America aside from Native Americans has any ground to stand on when declaring anyone else “illegal”, but I think that the immigration debate is more than a moral question. It is more of a straight economic question, because the fact is that the U.S. economy as it stands today depends very heavily upon underpaid, undocumented labor. The benefits to employers go way beyond the lower wages: undocumented workers do not organize themselves for fear of reprisals, they do not demand benefits, they can be fired without fear of bringing a legal grievance against the employers….the list goes on. It is not simply a case of less pay – the workers are required to have less of a sense of entitlement as well. Ask yourself: would an white unemployed miner from Montana, with a history of unionism and an expectation of fair wages and job security, be willing to pick tomatoes in Selma, California, his hands soaking in pesticides and his boss able to fire him at the drop of a hat? I doubt it.
In other words, the economy of the Unites States need undocumented immigrants, and it absolutely serves the ends of the profit-makers for said workers to enjoy as little rights as possible. That is why I strongly believe that the nativists, xenophobes, and border militias will never succeed in stopping people from risking death and injury to cross into the U.S. to work for whatever people will pay them, as it will be more than they can earn at home. And the masters of power in the U.S.: the heads of industry and agriculture, the restauranteers and construction magnates, all of them would be flat out of business without all the people who make the dangerous crossing over land or sea to be exploited here in the U.S.
In any case, bravo to Daisy and Pinky and everyone who makes The Pinky Show, keep up the good work y’all, and can someone please find out if these folks are really based out of Baker, California? The “Gateway To Death Valley”?
Vic Blue is a photojournalist based out of Stockton, California but his work extends to El Salvador where he documented the lives of imprisoned gang members from the Mara Salvatrucha. For those who don’t know the whole story I will telegraph it: the U.S. funded a bloody counter-insurgency war in that country during the 1980’s, forcing thousands of refugees to seek refuge in the United States. Their children grew up in poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles and other cities and learned U.S. street gang culture and organizatio, and so when they were “repatriated” back to El Salvador they brought the gangster life with them. It’s one of the most bizarre cases of “blowback” I’ve ever heard of and further fallout from the U.S.’s awful 1980’s Central American foreign policy.
And for those readers who don’t speak Spanish, what the young man pictured above has decided to write on his chest for the rest of his life is “I don’t trust anyone much less BITCHES!” Below are police preparing to raid a gang safe house, masked so that they themselves won’t be killed later in retaliation.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and grassroots conservative groups are using digital organizing tools as much as anyone else. A network-of-networks has sprung up and the minds behind it are very well funded.
Read the whole article here, and be sure to get to the part where it explains the source of the funding.
Today’s sobering snapshot of the global recession is a fleet of some 500 cargo ships chained together east of Singapore. Empty cargo ships. They have no destination and no one to pay to fill them with goods.
They’re sitting idly, part of the wave of capitalist overproduction currently crashing down, worldwide. This photo is part of a very good article which is well worth reading.
In honor of the Lap Dogs…sorry I meant Blue Dog Democrats…sabatoging what little was of value in The Health Care Plan, I present this musical short reminding us all that we’re still ranked Number Thirty-Seven in health care in the world. Thanks, Charlie Stenholm!
And lest we forget, 54% of the money donated to The Blue Dogs’ political action committee comes from the energy, financial services, and yes, health care industries. Go figure.
….but they just keep inspiring books, articles, dissertations….and movies.
“The Baader Meinhof Complex”, a film about The Red Army Faction, has hit the theaters in the U.S.A. All reports from my friends are positive. I will see it as soon as I can and post my own thoughts.
That’s the title of Christopher Anderson’s new set of photos about daily life in Caracas. I don’t agree with all of his politics but his photos are nice, and they remind me how pleased I am that one can send work like this around the world so easily these days.
In Iraq, that is. Now on top of decades of war and occupation Iraqis are facing an environmental catastrophe, brought on by gross mismanagement and the utter failure of 20th-century industrial agriculture. The country that supposedly invented agriculture, back in the day, is now importing food to feed its populace. Not a very convincing sign. This century looks like it’s gonna be a downright barrel of monkeys…
Posted by dmz2008 
Posted by dmz2008 
Posted by dmz2008 
