Monday, October 04, 2010

Mystical Visions and Cosmic Vibrations

Review of I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague: My Life in the Bush Era of Ghosts by Adam Engel (The Oliver Arts & Open Press, 267 pages, 2010).

Adam Engel’s essays on America in the early part of this century broke a barrier. His body of work was written in a voice that could smash through the walls of American empire and assault its supporting armies, academies and institutions, ownership systems and power support bases.

I essentially stole the above paragraph from comments Beat poet Michael McClure made after hearing Allen Ginsberg give a reading of Howl in San Francisco in the middle of the last century. For me, McClure’s observations also could have been made about the writings of Engel 50 years later. Engel’s prose has a familiar rhythm, similar to the poetry of Ginsberg.

I don’t know if Ginsberg wrote many essays on current events or the American psyche. I do know Ginsberg wrote poetry about a host of diseases afflicting American society. And if Ginsberg had lived into his late seventies and if he had taken a break from his poetry to write essays, his prose about America in the era of George W. Bush would have resembled the work of Adam Engel, whose essays are poetic in a Ginsbergian way. But don’t go looking for any formal rhyme and meter in Engel’s essays. Instead, you’ll find the same chaos and unconventional verse that marked Ginsberg’s work for most of his career.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 10/04.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

East Germany on the Susquehanna: Pennsylvania Monitors Anti-Drilling 'Extremists'

An incredible story is emerging in Pennsylvania about state officials working in cahoots with energy companies exploring for natural gas in the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale formation. ProPublica and local newspapers in the state are doing excellent work reporting on how Pennsylvania’s Office of Homeland Security has been tracking anti-gas drilling groups and their meetings.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Sept. 16 that State Homeland Security Director James Powers Jr., in a memo leaked to the news media, portrayed a $125,000 anti-terrorism contract with an entity called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Resources (ITRR) as “helping Marcellus Shale gas companies learn about the actions of environmental activists who oppose deep underground drilling for gas.”

Powers told the Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot News that he has been including anti-gas drilling activist information in his triweekly intelligence briefings for about a month because there have been “five to 10” incidents of vandalism around the state related to the natural gas industry, which is one of the sectors he is charged with monitoring. The briefings are sent to local law enforcement and the owners and operators of “critical infrastructure.”

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Comments (0) | Posted on 09/16.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Death of Pat Tillman: 'Fog of War' or 'Lust to Fight'?

Here are 12 things I learned from watching The Tillman Story:

1. The men on Pat Tillman’s maternal side of the family apparently admire the U.S. military and have a history of volunteering or willingly accepting orders to serve in the military. Pat’s mother often spoke fondly of the U.S. military and the wars in which the men in her family participated while her children were growing up.

2. Pat “thought going into Afghanistan was the right thing to do.” – Pat’s mother, Mary “Dannie” Tillman

3. Pat willingly returned to Afghanistan in April 2004 for a second “tour of duty” in order to continue participating in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (the U.S. Army would have been willing to honorably discharge Tillman after his first “tour.”) He wanted to fulfill his three-year commitment to the Army, even though he thought the U.S. war on Iraq (not Afghanistan) was “so fucking illegal.” – fellow U.S. Army Ranger Russell Baer

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Comments (0) | Posted on 09/14.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Subversive Attraction

Review of American Subversive by David Goodwillie (Scribner, 309 pages, 2010).

David Goodwillie’s American Subversive is a study in trust—earning it and detecting it. One of the main characters is skilled at identifying who among her friends and colleagues is trustworthy. The other main character is an amateur who fails miserably at gauging who among his supposed inner circle can be trusted.

The book is about an early 30-something New Yorker who manages a celebrity and media blog. The website aims to be clever and irreverent but is utterly irrelevant in its contributions to making the world a better place. The blogger, Aidan, goes to nightly parties in Manhattan, reporting what he finds and learns the next morning on his blog. He lives an insignificant life. There is no redeeming value in his day-to-day existence. The relationship with his equally hollow girlfriend is crumbling.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 08/29.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Dave Zirin on a Sports Fans' Bill of Rights

Dave Zirin on ‘Bad Sports’ at Politics and Prose Bookstore from Press Action on Vimeo.

Dave Zirin, the great sportswriter and two-time winner of Press Action’s Sportswriter of the Year award, spoke yesterday at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., about his new book, Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love. It’s hard to believe this was the first time we met in person, given we both live in the D.C. area. And, shame on me: I forgot to bring a plaque or certificate in honor of his sportswriter of the year awards.

After his talk, Dave urged me to see the new Pat Tillman documentary, even though I offered some unkind comments on Dave’s FB page about Tillman’s decision to join the military and participate in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I told Dave I’d make a point to see the documentary based on his strong recommendation.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 08/17.

As Radical As Reality: An Interview with Mickey Z.

By Frank Joseph Smecker

Mickey Z is a self-educated writer, activist and lecturer living in New York City. He is the author of nearly ten books, and is probably the only person on the planet to have appeared in both a karate flick with Billy “Tae Bo” Blanks and a political book with Howard Zinn. Aware of today’s mounting environmental, economical and social problems, problems some would say are manifestations of a collapse-in-progress of the traditional institutions, paradigms and behaviors of an unsustainable establishment we’ve known our entire lives, Z channels said awareness into his work, inspiring his readers to do the same. “When exactly does all this goddamned awareness translate into productive action and tangible change?” Z asks. “We’re aware of global warming and its causes, factory farms, war crimes, environmental degradation, political corruption, fixed elections, the health care crisis… We know about it all,” he says. “We talk about it. We write about it. We complain about it. We hold meetings, talks, seminars, and classes about it. We march about it. We make signs about it. Nothing changes.”

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Comments (0) | Posted on 08/17.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Animal Liberation and the Threat of a Good Example

Review of Muzzling A Movement: The Effects of Anti-Terrorism Law, Money & Politics on Animal Activism by Dara Lovitz (Lantern Books, 174 pages, 2010).

You have the right to free
speech as long as you’re not
dumb enough to actually try it.

The Clash, “Know Your Rights”

The animal liberation movement is feeling the sting of its own success. Corporations and their guardians in government got annoyed when animal advocates started making waves in the 1990s that touched the bottom line of the animal exploitation industry.

Annoyance evolved into anger in the decade that followed. The government’s preoccupation with the animal liberation movement became a full-fledged crackdown. To its credit, the movement hasn’t gone into hibernation. The government’s unconditional support for the animal exploitation industry may in fact spawn a more determined yet shrewd animal liberation movement.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 07/25.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Self Defense for Radicals: Collective Soul + Activist Heart

By Mickey Z.

In his book, Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats, author Gwynne Dyer presents a series of scenarios that could potentially play out (soon) as climate change advances, e.g. several million dying in cyclones and floods in Bangladesh, the US building a mined fence to stop “climate refugees” from the South, tens of millions of Chinese dead in droughts…and then things get truly catastrophic.

Such so-called “gloom and doom” is often greeted with either denial or mockery but staring dead-on into the reality we’ve all helped create is the first step in the following outline for personal, intellectual, and global self-defense.

1. Accept our role

* We’re not victims (remember: victims are helpless) but we are volunteers. Due to our compliance and/or silence and/or inaction, we’ve played a role in bringing our culture to the brink of social, economic, and environmental collapse.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 07/14.

Monday, June 14, 2010

When Will Direct Action Blossom?

By Mickey Z.

Anais Nin sez: “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

I think of her words when I consider this question: How much more are we willing to tolerate before we take direct action? For those of you scoring at home, here is just a small taste of what we’re already enduring without any serious fuss:

§ Epidemics of preventable diseases: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.

§ Poisoning of our air, water, and food (including breast milk)

§ Global warming, climate change, disappearing honeybees, destruction of the rain forest, topsoil depletion, ocean acidification, overfishing, etc.

§ One-third of Americans are uninsured or underinsured in terms of health care

§ More than half of the world’s top 100 economies are not nations; they’re corporations

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Comments (0) | Posted on 06/14.

No Accident: BP, Murder and the Gulf of Mexico

By Derrick Jensen

The murder of the Gulf of Mexico by BP shouldn’t surprise us. It is precisely what industrial capitalism does. Years ago I wrote of the catastrophe in Bhopal: when you intentionally fabricate bulk industrial chemicals, many of which are toxic, it should not qualify as an accident when some of these chemicals kill people. Likewise, the spill in the Gulf should not be considered an accident. There are 10,000 oil spills per year. Oil has devastated the Amazon. It has devastated the Niger Delta. It has devastated the Gulf of Mexico.

Likewise, after the catastrophe at Bhopal, it was discovered that there was no antidote for the poison. One advocate for the victims noted sensibly: “No one should be allowed to make poisons for which there is no antidote.” The same is true for the other destructive activities of this culture.

And corporations will not voluntarily rein themselves in. Limited liability corporations exist in order to limit liability. Their function is to privatize profits and to externalize costs.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 06/14.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

The Truth about Immigration

By Mickey Z.

Everything negative you’ve heard about immigration is true. In fact, all the election cycle talk about lazy parasites pouring over borders to leech off another nation’s resources doesn’t go far enough in explaining the gravity of this ongoing crisis. Scream it from the mountaintops (or at least on your blog): Immigrants are destroying any and all hope of for planetary survival. Illegal aliens are Public Enemy #1. Foreigners are terrorists.

If you don’t believe me, just ask any sweatshop worker in, say, Vietnam...

The perfidious colonizers I refer to, of course, are the insatiable transnational corporations setting up camp all across the Third World. Whether it be Nike, The Gap, Wal-Mart, or any other taxpayer-subsidized bloodsucker, these crafty illegal aliens can’t be stopped by constructing a mere wall. They travel with impunity...on the wings of government subvention and cunning, relentless propaganda. Thanks to decades of conditioning, even the victims of these soulless migrants will voluntarily pay for the right to wear a shirt bearing their corporate logo.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 05/18.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Rigged for Ecological Failure

Review of Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers (Scribner, 272 pages, 2010).

“There’s this idea that you can just switch from fossil fuels to renewables. But you can’t because there’s not enough of a supply from renewables. That means we simply must consume less.” – Bill Dunster, architect and designer of Beddington Zero Energy Development, a housing development in London

In her new book, Green Gone Wrong, journalist and author Heather Rogers examines the forces that are thwarting the adoption of saner environmental policies. Rogers takes the reader on a journey into a world where auto makers have avoided and undermined greener technologies. Another chapter explains how unfavorable government policies and factory farms are the prime reasons the people who produce more ecologically benign food will likely go extinct. She also highlights an abomination hatched by global leaders and the environmental establishment: carbon offsets.

Green Gone Wrong isn’t all about the environmental mischief of governments, corporations and non-governmental organizations. As part of her research, Rogers visited the rare place—Freiburg, Germany—where good sense appears to be holding its own against the social forces that preach constant growth and ever-increasing consumption, which by their very nature are unsustainable.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 05/03.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Imagine If Our President Wasn't a Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Author and historian William Blum spoke May 1, 2010, on U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, as well as Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Obama simultaneously waging five wars: in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Blum participated in the “Forum on U.S. Policy in Latin America: Economics, Human Rights, and Media Complicity” at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington in Arlington, Va.

Other panelists included moderator Ramon Daubon, principal of the Esquel Group; Mario Lopez-Garelli, staff attorney for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an independent organ of the Organization of American States; and Kevin Young, contributor to Media Accuracy on Latin America, an arm of the North American Congress on Latin America and a graduate student at State University of New York at Stony Brook.

William Blum from Press Action on Vimeo.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 05/02.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Make Everyday An Earth Day … and Fight Like Hell

By Frank Joseph Smecker

Forty times now, Earth Day has come and gone. Four decades of enviro-stewarding celebration and still a damn mess, this dominant culture has marched closer to planetary collapse ever so stridently over the last 40 years. This year, E-Day was rung in with an oil platform off the coast of New Orleans, ablaze like a birthday candle out of control, oil sloshing into the Gulf; a diffused chemical rainbow displacing the pelagic blue of the Atlantic waters. This is far from irony—a malefic boner (no, not that kind silly) ascribed to the inherent destructiveness of the dominant culture and its insanely irrational operating instructions.

Over all these years, the voracity of civilization’s appetite has remained insatiate, devouring cultures of people; animal species aplenty; densely contiguous forests; ancient coral reefs; entire oceans; ranges of mountains; masses of majestic glaciers; systems of rivers, brooks, streams and other watershed; hundreds of feet of topsoil; earthworm populations… the list is long and expanding.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 04/26.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Tiger Woods Is Back: 4 Lessons for Activists

By Mickey Z.

If we were to follow the cues of the corporate media, we’d focus on the multi-millionaire in Nike gear strolling across pesticide-laden grass more than, say, New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation ruling that the “obsolete cooling system at the Indian Point nuclear power plant violates the federal Clean Water Act by polluting the river with heated water and needlessly killing vast numbers of fish.”

But what if we were to spend a minute or two examining the Tiger spectacle? What might we, as activists, learn? To follow, are 4 possible lessons:

1. Sexism
I have a thought experiment for you: How many female celebrities could have their lack of self-control and sexual habits exposed for public consumption and yet somehow end up welcomed back with open arms? Maybe we should ask Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears?

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Comments (0) | Posted on 04/07.

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