I love modern anarchist texts. They're crazy and obscure. At first you don't understand what your reading but within a matter of minutes everything seems to fall into place.
One group of writers that I especially enjoy is the Critical Art Ensemble. I first read "Electronic Civil Disobedience" and was so pleased with it that I hunted down an electronic copy of another one their books, "The Electronic Disturbance" and actually printed and binded the whole thing.
Here are a few quotes and notes, divided into sections of interest:
I. Against Power "The French revolutions from 1789 to 1968 never stemmed the obscene tide of the commodity (they seem to have helped pave the way), while the Russian and Cuban revolutions merely replaced the commodity with the totalizing anachronism of the bureaucracy".
Quite true. Traditional revolutions, as noted by another anarchist text that I am quite fond of, simply changed power from one set of hands to another. In fact, most political struggles are simply a fight over who wields the power. Business or government? Federal governments or states? But rarely do they question power in general.
II. Against Centralization "In the Persian Wars, Herodotus describes a feared people known as the Scythians... With no fixed cities or territories, this "wandering horde" could never really be located.. Consequently, they could never be put on the defensive and conquered... they were always present and poised for attach even when absent.... power was not a matter of spatial occupation for the Scythians."
Entirely decentralized and sporadic forces are always necessary, I believe, especially during moments of a revolution. The Spanish resistance during the Iberian War with France, for example, was a random conglomeration of guerrillas, militiamen, and common citizens opposing French occupation. The French army often complained of the impossibility of striking opposition forces for they were nowhere and everywhere at once. There was no flag to lower, no land to conquer, no king to shoot, and no generals to jail. Sporadic rebellion and opposition is much more efficient than the planned revolutions of Blanquism and Lenin. Not only are they more democratic, but they are less subjected to the bureaucratic and hierarchal power structure of traditional organization.
III. Occupation "In the US itself, the genocide of Native Americans was well underway, justified in part by the belief that since the native tribes did not own the land, all territories were open, and once occupied (invested with sedentary value), they could be "defended". Occupation theory has been more bitter than heroic."
"Typically, the retreat is to the most culturally negating rural areas, or to deterritorialized urban neighborhoods. The basic principal is to achieve autonomy by hiding from social authority. As in band societies whose culture cannot be touched because it cannot be found, freedom is enhanced for those participating in the project."
I would say that that is one of the reasons why shanties and rural areas have always fascinated me so much. They are far from the grasps of the centralized power structure, and thus allow its member a larger degree of freedom and autonomy from the techno-structure. This autonomy in thought and lifestyle is often traded in for the cheap thrills of city lights, sugar coated entertainment, and consumer goods.
"Wherever an economic frontier is opening, so is McDonalds'. Travel where you might, that same hamburger and coke are waiting."
IV. Temptations "In most cases sedentary populations submit to the obscenity of spectacle, and contently pay the tribute demanded, in the form of labor, material, and profit... into the role of its service workers - into caretakers of the cyberelite."
"The promise of safety and familiarity lures hordes of the unsuspecting into privatized public spaces such as malls."
"In line with the feudal tradition of the fortress mentality, the bunker guarantees safety and familiarity in exchange for the relinquishment of individual sovereignty."
"...the economy of desire..."
"...mass consumption necessitates self consumption, just for the fun of it. Just for the fun of it auto-cannibalism is the material signifier of excess consumption, just for the fun of it."
"Consumption is concerned with the internalization of objects, just for the fun of it... We are dos in love with our own vomit."
V. Against Work "The belief that the key to resistance is to have an organized body of workers stop production... what is called a union is no more than a labor bureaucracy... All should quit work... in the end it did little damage to the global machine..."
True. The "labor struggle" has it wrong. I know I sound too much like Bob Black when I say this, but instead of struggling for the stability and depth of their labor, they should be fighting against the concept of labor in general. Would it not be nice if instead of fighting technology or global economics in the name of saving jobs, they fought the centralized power structures that so jealously hoard the same technology that can liberate man from the shackles of the 40 hour week?
Just stumbled upon the work of Daniel Dociu from a friend's blog. Fascinating artwork, I must say. It reminds me of the shanties, slums, and barriadas of the future.
I don't consider myself that much of a "rock guy". So if your not a "rock guy" neither but you dig the occasional Red Hot Chilli Peppers then you'd probably like these cats. (Not that they sound anything like the Chilli Peppers, though.)
The two greatest bossa nova albums my virgin ears have ever heard. And I've heard quite plenty. Interestingly enough, neither of them are Brazilian. Willie Bobo (Quebec's percussionist) and Tito Puente are Puerto Rico's adored Nuyorican percussionists. Yea!
Ok, so Marcia Gay Harden is the hottest 48 year old actor ever. I just finished watching The Mist and couldn't stop thinning about how hot she is for a grandma'.
I dig zombie flicks. I mean, I really really dig them. Other apocalyptic movies are also well received.
I don't know. There's just something about a few struggling survivors camping out in a basement or shopping mall that attracts me. With nothing but scarce supplies, innovation, an outside threat, and fear, characters become more of the threat than the zombies themselves. There's also always a moment where a character is forced to kill somebody who he once knew, slightly hesitating before slamming the axe down on their face. Zombie movies, I feel, are "realer" than those prime time reality shows.
Sometimes I wonder how I'd deal in such a situation. "No! Your totally doing it wrong dude!" I'll find myself screaming to the screen. "Can't you just accept the fact that chances rule out your wife's survival? Don't go back for your family, dude, just run!" I always think I'd be the first dude to shoot a buddy who just got bit by a zombie. "Sorry man, I gotta' do it" ::bam::
And when your in the final scene, surrounded by zombies with no chance of survival? Save one bullet for yourself, my friend. No glory in going out with a bang in a zombie flick. There's just too many of them to gloriously blow yourself up with a gas tank. Plus if it doesn't work, your pretty much fucked.
But seriously. I think I'd fare pretty well in an apocalyptic zombie attack. First of all, I live in a remotely rural area, so my neighborhood would probably be one of the last ones to "convert". Upon the zombie siege, I'd grab a couple anarchist cookbooks from my bookshelf, my night vision goggles and binoculars (thanks, Dad), a water bottle, a machete from the tool shed, and I'd simply just run into the mountains. Other supplies I can pick from remote, rural grocery stores that have been abandoned.
No clumsy zombie is going to be able to chase me in the hilly jungle. Also, I know enough about the local plant life to know what I can eat (plantains, yautia, and �ame galore). After a few weeks of bathing in the river and sleeping in a hammock strung up 30 feet into the trees, I would scope out portions of the surrounding jungle that border urbanized areas. If I can find a vehicle to ram into the local police station, then I'd stock up on conventional weapons and supplies and head back into the mountains.
Fuckers aren't getting me. No dude with a broken leg is gonna slow my ass down, neither.
I'm sure that if I run into another survivor around this time, that they're probably pretty efficient and creative. I'd propose building a makeshift jungle supplies depot with bamboo and palm leaves where we can start bringing the injured and defenseless.
I haven't really thought about what I would do if they were fast zombies like in 28 Days Later or I Am Legend...
YES, as argued in the classroom test by Curtis Crawford. As a minority myself I must say that I believe that affirmative action is counter productive. Not only, in theory, does it perpetuate discrimination (now against non-Blacks), but, as Crawford notes, has "developed into programs conferring special treatment based on race". Racial preference, be it for White or Black employees, is wrong no matter how one looks at it. Knowing that one has that extra "cushion" provided by Affirmative Action could cause one to be lax during their competitive process of employment searching.
Affirmative Action laws are an intrusive mechanism used by the State to obligate private enterprise and public agencies to degrade the employee's overall qualifications as secondary. "It's not fair," my brother-and-law told me after applying for a law enforcement position. "I performed much better than a fellow Black applicant in the qualification runs, but he was picked because the standards for Blacks were lowered in order to fill up a government-imposed quota". I do not feel so comfortable knowing that my police officer, doctor, or trust fund accountant was chosen because of his race and not his credentials. This special treatment "has nothing to do with the applicant's ability or need".
It is true that if one were to scrap Affirmative Action that they would see an under-representation of Black and minorities. Widespread racial preference is a thing of the past and most of this under-representation could be attributed to education. It's a truth that poverty can perpetuate itself by limiting options the higher education of its affected families. One report shows that two thirds of families earning $25,000 have youth who apply for college, while the rate for high income families is at 91%. But if education is the problem, then should we not be pushing for universal education - where Blacks can attend any university that they please without worrying about financial constraints - instead of overlooking the issue? In fact, the education income gap is large than that between Whites and Blacks. A high school graduate will earn only 57% of the income of a college graduate while a high school drop out earns only 42% of a college graduate's income. A high school drop out earns only 19% of the salary of a person with a graduate's degree. A Black family, on the other hand, earns 58% of the income of a White family.
Statistics also show that only 34% of management positions are held by women. Members of other races such as Indians, Arabs, and Native Americans can also make claims to unequal opportunities. The elderly, disabled, and quite possibly even the gay and lesbian community could also make claims for Affirmative Action rights. If all of the above groups were to be given the same Affirmative Action benefits as Blacks, labor regulations would be a quilt of complicated safety nets. The results would be an unfavorable business environment and a continuation of racial divisions.
Many employers or public entities have simplified the process of racial quotas in order to avoid such a scene. Some school districts, for example, simply classify their students as either "Black" or "White" in an effort to simplify their completion of government anti-segregation quotas. I recall during my high school years, teachers on the first day of class going the roll call, with each student responding with their name and race. In one instance, a Latino friend of mine was labeled as "Black" while his sister was labeled as "White", in apparent ignorance towards the diversity in skin shades present in the Latino people. Ironically, Affirmative Action regulations applied to my friend but not his sister.
The Federal Government has enacted the Fair Housing Act with much success. This law prevents housing providers to discriminate against persons for whatever reason. Such actions seem much more efficient, business-friendly, efficient, and fair than Affirmative Action laws. Imagine if landlords were obligated to rent out their apartments to clients according to their race, instead of their ability to pay rent. Beefing up the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's role and facilitating the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) in a similar fashion is a much more viable route current Affirmative Action initiatives.
Ok, ok, so I had this crazy dream. It was actually a commercial.
The setting is on the streets of New York, or some other gray city setting. A young street hustler played by Mos Def is slanging CDs from a roofed bus stop. He holds a stack of CDs in one hand and a poster for the album in another. The poster features a number of reggae-like symbols, including a lion, drawings of people with dreds, and the Ethiopian flag. He stands next to a boom box which is playing the album. The music is a thick reggae with a sharp soul beat over it. (I memorized some of the melodies with the intention to try to model beats after them, but I must have forgotten them when I went back to sleep). The music was great. A thick ragga bass line, a hip drum beat, and the "wakka wakka" characteristic of reggae music. The music sounded like it was from the 1970s.
And older man walks by. He wore a black cap with a red star on it. It was obvious by his attire that he was a Black nationalist in his days. Quite possibly even a Black Panther. "Hook me up with one of your CDs, little man" he says. "What year is this from?" "2008" says Mos Def. The old man's face was surprised as the scene faded out.
Man. That music was so sweet. I wish that album really existed so I could buy it, or something. Damn mind games.
I have bad days all the time. It doesn't really make me feel any different than when I have good days. I guess you can say that though I acknowledge that everything seems to be going wrong, nothing gets done, or I have more work than what my allotted time permits me to accomplishing, none of this really makes me *feel* any different. I think I do a good job at separating myself from the "bad". "I'm" fine, even though the day can be shitty. I mean; you can feel totally dandy even though everything else around you is shot to hell, right? Why not?
Today was one of those days. A pretty bad day. But my mind and spirit is intact. And boy, is this Chet Baker CD pretty good.
Work was nothing but dilemma after dilemma. "We have a problem!" an employee would tell me as they barge into my office every 10 minutes. "So and so doesn't want to sign a document." "We have no more funds in that account." "So and so said this and that behind my back." "The world is ending." Bla bla bla. ("Crisis management" is something that I slap onto my resume, cause I'm just so used to disarming bomb after bomb.) I can stare an employee with an emotionless blank face as they tell me that shit's going to hit the fan. It's alright. Problems are there to resolve, right? ("Trouble shooting" is something else that I include on my resume's "skills" section.) I mean, that's what I'm good at. Sometimes I'm even looking for problems to fix. I won't - on the other hand - let my superiors know that there is a crisis until I have a solution planned out for it. It's worked out so far. I mean; I hate when people come to me with crisis but no solution.
Well, today was nothing but all of the above. Those gram crackers that I found laying on an employee's desk were pretty good, though.
Anyways; after a long day of saving the world, I notice that it's pouring rain as I'm leaving my office building. "Whatever," I thought. "It's been so long since I've really wet myself in the rain that it probably feels good. Anyways, I'm going to shower as soon as I get home, so no loss."
So I make my way to my car, soaking wet and notice a flat tire. I weigh my options: drive a quarter mile to the nearest gas station or change the tire in the rain. I opt for the first option.
While homeboy was changing my tire, I munched on a few mangoes that an uncle of mine gave to me when we passed each other on the street. I would peal them with my teeth and bite into them as if I was some sort of spider monkey. I didn't have anywhere to wipe my hand so I would just clean them off in my pockets. I ate maybe five of those little bastards as I pondered what my real life super powers would be. I identified the following:
Immunity to bug bites; they never bite me, really
The ability to change the tire with the snap of a finger; when I feel like it
An enhanced memory address; a computer term I stole, referring to my super human ability to remember things like instrument solo placements in a song I heard five years ago or the location of a specific CD stuffed into the middle of a large binder.
A sexual super power that I will not mention for the sake of web ethics.
I think one has no option but to think about stuff like this after 10 hours of office politics (and real politics, in my case). Looking around my environment I noticed the following:
It's a banana stalk hanging from a shelf of tires. I tried to take it without anybody noticing it but I had the flash on. Nobody seemed to care, though. I suppose that they were hung out to "ripen up" and are casually picked by the workers whenever they are yellow enough. Who needs health care and over time laws when you have free bananas!?
My buddy Dave is a very dark-skinned African American.
My daughter doesn't necessarily live in a part of Florida where they are too many folks like Dave so I'm supposing she hasn't had the chance to see too many folks "like" Dave. Despite such, she visits Columbus, Georgia and her native Puerto Rico enough to be comfortable around people no matter their skin color. (Which I think it quite an accomplishment, considering the fact that she lives in a pretty upscale - for Puerto Rico standards - part of Florida.) I know that contact with such groups in the U.S. is always under the condition where they are the majority. The psychological aspect where everybody is the "minority" can be quite eye opening for children learning about what a "minority" actually is.
During one of my visits to Georgia with Amaia, she took up a liking for Dave. While she would shun other friends she would be more than happy to allow Dave to hold her or walk with her whenever we went out to public places. "Bye Dave!" she'd scream whenever he'd be leaving.
After a fun week in Georgia with Dave and crew about two years ago, Amaia joined Crystal and I for a weekend in my brother's house Atlanta, Georgia. My brother's neighborhood is composed of nothing but African Americans (in the half a dozen times I've been there I've only seen two non-Blacks; one of whom was a Latino and the other an Indian store clerk). Shortly after arriving to my brother's neighborhood, I pulled into a gas station to fill up my tank. "Look!" my daughter screams with an expression of joy. "IT'S DAVE!" she belts as she points her finger at a random Black guy who was filling up his car right next to mine.
I couldn't stop chuckling to myself for the next hour or so.
"Daddy!" she tells me during a recent visit to Florida. "I like people with darker skin!"
I was rummaging through some recent findings and noted that Chet Baker in the above record sleeve looks like Jim Carrey. Luigi over there on the right looks kinda' funny as well.
