The Grace of Inactivity

These past few weeks have seen me in limbo between Bellingham and Seattle as we scrambled to complete our video in daily marathon editing sessions. The video finally debuted on September 4th as Present In All That We Do (from the Baldwin quote about history). We have other prospective showings lined up in the coming months, but nothing to justify my lingering days in Bellingham extending any longer.

–

Now I am in Seattle’s University District. Whereas Bellingham was a place whose history I could begin to understand, and maybe even began to grasp my own place in that history, given its small size as a city, I’m left floundering here, not knowing where to begin.

My father swears he once lived only a block or so away from where I do now, but he either can’t remember what his building looked like, or it has been torn down. Whether the building still stands or not, I think my father’s memory says something about this area: a young person’s presence here is fleeting, transient, leaving behind nothing to remember one by, and one leaves with nothing to remember about the place itself.

This is a place of impermanence, and so I’m thinking it will be a good introduction to the metropolis: no need for the knowledge of my neighborhood here. Instead I can concern myself with my new surroundings - find a job, get political. For now I’m left with nothing do but job hunt and generally laze, which explains the origins of this blog post, and the title too.

–

I have also been reading.

A roundabout connection to the above: George Woodcock, author of Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, once taught at the University of Washington (so says the back of the book; his Wikipedia entry says nothing about it). His book appeared in 1962, and the era permeated throughout Woodcock’s book, both in the style it is written and in its general pessimism about the prospects of anarchism in general. The book is generally concerned with what happened in anarchism’s history, not why, and given its breadth - basically all the European countries are covered - perhaps that’s all a book like this can do. Woodcock was an English professor, and it shows - he seems to dedicate an entire chapter to Leo Tolstoy simply because he was a novelist, and Woodcock is always interjecting little asides about the literary quality of the anarchists’ writings.

Overall it was an interesting read, but nothing I would ever recommend to someone looking for an introduction to anarchism - his subjects are all one hundred years or so in the past, and he remains centered completely on the anarchist men of Europe. Perhaps the only new insight I take away from it is the historical failure of anarchists to organize as anarchists. The success of anarchism, in my eyes, demands participation in larger social movements, those not organized around an idea but a practice. Groups of anarchists are important to me, but only as a circle (a circle A!) to share ideas and insights, which we then carry into our struggles elsewhere.

I also recently completed Benevolent Assimiliation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 by Stuart Creighton Miller. Anna and I have plans to visit the Philippines in the next few years, so I’ve been looking to learn more about the history of the archipelago. I learned next to nothing about the Philippines in this book, though I learned a great deal about the early history of American imperialism overseas - often despite Miller’s soft-pedaling, moderate liberalism. The book is inordinately concerned with the debates, scandals and squabbles amongst the powerful - mostly US politicians and generals - during the early years of the US occupation of the country.

I generally couldn’t care less about the powerful, but several short - too short - passages in this book make the invaluable connection between US conquest of the North American continent, and imperialism overseas. A great many of the men sent to pacify Filipino revolutionaries had also been deeply involved in US campaigns against Native Americans, including the Wounded Knee massacre. The tactics of concentration camps, rape, and wholesale murder of Filipinos had been tried and tested on the American frontier.

One point that Miller does have the courage to make: the collective memory of the US is one of amnesia and eternal innocence, an innocence that insists we are always doing these things to help people. The justifications have always remained the same: bringing civilization and democracy to ungrateful savages. After reading a book like this, the historical trail leading from the US frontier, to the Philippines, to Vietnam, and eventually to Iraq become undeniable.

“…another person’s pain, a man’s physical prowess and prospects coming up hard against a padded, but no less cement, wall.”

Nearly 3 years since I originally wrote it, my rambling essay On the DL: Power, Politics and Sport has gone public in Habits of Waste: a Quarterly Review of Pop Culture, an 0n-line cultural crit journal on the brink of becoming a blog. Read it to discover what Ken Griffey, Jr., the Nazis, Theodor Adorno, the Superbowl, the Zapatistas, George W. Bush, and Michel Foucault all have in common - the answers may (or may not) surprise you! Great thanks to HoW co-editor Jeff Purdue for providing me with the outlet.

—

Nearly two months since I’ve lasted posted something here, though I’ve posted several reviews and an interview elsewhere. What I feel I’m lacking here is that magic that gives all blogs their individual character - their blog-a-rhythms - an animating spirit that carries itself through each and every post. So two little posts on two small blogs have significance for me - Tram talking quality control, Scott calling it quits - asking, what is it all for, this blogging? For me, answers are still forthcoming.

100 years of labor, migration, violence…

The following is the current abstract for a project that is demanding a great deal of my attention these days (sometimes I fear more than I’m able to give?). My partner on the film is my good friend Ian Morgan, who is completing the project for his senior project at Fairhaven College.

We are sponsored in part by the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force and Community to Community Development. We also submitted this to a conference concerned with similar riots that took place in Vancouver less than a week after events in Bellingham, but have yet to hear back.

If anyone is interested in taking a look at the research we’ve been doing for the film, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll email you.

“History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.” – James Baldwin

In 1907, more than two-hundred East Indian workers in Bellingham, WA were attacked by a mob of white workers. The white rioters broke into the East Indians’ houses and workplaces, stole and destroyed their valuables, and threatened and beat the East Indians until they were forcibly expelled from the city. In the course of one night, an entire community was driven from the town – in the approving words of a local paper, “wiped off the map.” One hundred years later, 2007, hostility towards non-white immigrants in Bellingham continues. Raids and detentions by government immigration agents are ongoing; so are surveillance and harassment from both government agents and groups like the Minute Men. How have the events of 1907 shaped Bellingham as we know it in 2007? What has changed and what remains the same?

We propose a documentary film, presently untitled, centering on Bellingham in 1907, that explores the history of immigration and racial tensions in the Pacific Northwest – history, in Baldwin’s sense, the past as it lives on in the present. Accounts of Belligham’s past, illustrated with photographs and texts, will provide a starting point for a discussion of Bellingham today. Through interviews with local activists working for immigrant rights and immigrants themselves, we will paint a portrait of immigration at present and the possibilities of the future.

The film (or, more accurately, video) is being proposed by Andrew Hedden and Ian Morgan, two college-educated white males hoping to put our access to university resources and our interest in film to use in the greater discussion about immigrant rights in the United States. The film will be completed and debut in Bellingham, WA on September 5th, the 100th anniversary of the Bellingham riots. One version of the film will be roughly forty-five minutes in length, hopefully ideal for community education and discussion, though a longer version may also be produced.

Conspiracies of 9/11: Left To The Right

I sat down to write about 9/11 conspiracies and came up with this rambling essay about 9/11; what happens when sentiments on the Right and Left converge; the Three Way Fight; and why Leftists, revolutionaries, anarchists, whatever, can’t afford to ally with the Right. What’s immediately obvious to me is that I write about political things in a very different way then I do about my personal life, or art, or history. Maybe someday I’ll learn to integrate those things together in my writing…

This dude Alex Jones has a documentary about U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 attacks called TerrorStorm. It’ll probably give you an idea of what I think about 9/11 conspiracy theories when I say “TerrorStorm” sounds to me like a freakin’ ride at 6 Flags, not an any coherent political theory. For a long time, that’s been my general attitude about the 9/11 conspiracy stuff (or the “9/11 Truth Movement,” if you’re feeling generous): that it’s worth a laugh and disdain from a distance, but little else.

Well, my consideration of the matter has gotten a little deeper as of late, thanks to an interesting back and forth with a friend of mine over e-mail about this 9/11 Truth business. He’s a smart guy and an anarchist buddy, and we go way, way back, and I’ve got to say, I was a little surprised he was so into it. Essentially, he believes 9/11 Truth is a strategic opportunity for radicals that can’t be passed up. I heard him out on the issue a little and now its got me thinking.

Quickly I realized my dismissive attitude towards the 9/11 Truth Movement had nothing to do with 9/11 whatsoever. I have no clue what happened on 9/11 - maybe a few uninformed doubts here or there - and I’m left wandering why it really matters that I know. My friend argues that were 9/11 truth revealed (assuming government complicity), it 1) would sow disillusionment with the State, and 2) prevent the government from committing similar acts.

I’m all for sowing disillusionment with the State, but I’m still not sold on the importance of organizing around 9/11 truth. One reason is that the 9/11 theories are still just that - theories, meaning they’re not concrete enough to organize people together in the same ways that the facts of daily oppression (shitty work places, sexual assault and violence, prisons, etc.) are wholly concrete and simply proved through the experiences of every life. To paraphrase Ward Churchill, there’s no need to speak truth to power because power knows what its doing. Better to organize with oppressed people - build power - than over-emphasize the shady machinations of the powerful.

Another, more important reason, is that I don’t see those most effected by the Statist aftershocks of 9/11 (immigrants and people of color in particular) taking part in the “9/11 Truth Movement.” I’m not sure it really matters, in the long run, to folks on the ground whether Bush/the government/whoever was complicit in 9/11. Just as Malcolm X wasn’t leading the call to unearth the truth of the JFK assassination after it happened.

History gets shit on in Port Townsend, WA

Literally. Look at all the bird doody on this historical marker.

This marker can be found on the Northwest (?) side of Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA.

It reads: “CHINESE GARDENS. The Chinese comprised 20% of Port Townsend’s population. Here they operated truck gardens to sell produce door to door in town from double-decked wagons. Late 1890’s Early 1900’s.”

But nothing about why fewer Chinese live in Port Townsend today than one hundred years ago; nothing about the legacies of racist and exclusionary legislation, or how Fort Worden was a training ground for imperialist armies.

Perhaps history is getting shit on in more ways than one.

Free speech for some, repression for others at Western Washington University

I’m no longer a student at Western Washington University - I’m alumni, oh boy - but for some its just another Spring quarter, which brings with it another day spent avoiding the ignorant, anti-Black, anti-Semitic eyesore that is the Genocide Awareness Project (or if you please, “the GAP”). The GAP is an anti-choice amalgam of righteous Christian rage, enlarged photos of lynched Black men, concentration camps, bloody fetuses, and any and all other offensive equations that could possibly guilt a young woman into a trauma-induced stance against abortion.

I could rail on, but the argument is better left to my more articulate friend Ariel Wetzel, who has written an editorial opposing the GAP for The AS Review, a WWU student paper. Each year Western opens up Red Square for the GAP, citing free speech law. She points out that the GAP can ruin an entire day on campus, complete with police protection, protective fencing, the works, but a single person of color with leaflets - SDS member Karim Ahmath - is the one worthy of ‘disorderly conduct.’

Another extended commentary on the situation, an open letter, has been written by a friend of mine who wishes for the time being to remain anonymous. You’ll find it below. It touches on the GAP but focuses more on Karim Ahmath’s case, spelling out the racist and politically repressive implications of such an incident for WWU. It also describes in detail some of the events that have occurred since Karim’s initial arrest, further revealing the biased nature of WWU’s “free speech” practices.

Dear students of Western Washington University,

Let’s take some time to reflect on this place in which we engage in higher education. Bellingham, a nice-sized, liberally progressive, friendly town is home to the equally progressive Western Washington University: our beloved liberal arts school that prides itself on its commitment to creating a welcoming, diverse campus community.

Racial profiling, a concept that is dismissed as a fabricated, conspiracy-theory by those that have the utmost faith in our law enforcement authorities, is for many white people, like me, a phrase only associated with the New York City and Los Angeles police departments of over twenty years ago. However, allow me to recount to you some disturbing recent events.

Please read on below.

Marker, again

The Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico call their gatherings to build international solidarity “Intergalactic.” For some reason, I like to think this playful allusion to the other-wordly would tickle the fancy of French film essayist and man of the world, Chris Marker. Perhaps it’s my ability to imagine this about Marker that makes me so partial to his films. Here are some further thoughts about Marker I had tucked away, forgotten, and neglected to revive for the May 1st Lucid Screening feature.

Marker’s spent a lifetime devoted to politics of the left, but his reputation - in the US anyway - seems to be solely among film buffs, not revolutionaries. He’s known as the purveyor of the film essay, a style of film making that brings together the documentation of History (see Grin without a Cat), or of everyday life (see his travel films) , or of everyday life as History (Le Joli Mai, or, again, the travel films), with a strong narrative commentary spoken over the images.

Spoken narration has a bad reputation amongst politically committed, anti-authoritarian filmmakers. It’s often derided as the “Voice of God,” dictating the meaning of an image and preventing the viewer from interpreting the situation themselves. Marker’s films demonstrate that this needn’t be an iron rule. The Voice of Marker never approaches dictatorship because it always remains his voice. Even his less personal commentary plies the viewer with poetry, with parable - recalling in my mind the words of Walt Whitman: “I project the history of the future.”

Film is a medium of History. In Marker’s work, this is not only the case because film captures the past. Marker mines images of the past for signs of the future. The history of the future that Marker projects is always a refraction, as through a prism, of the past. “After so many stories of men who had lost their memory, here is the story of one who has lost forgetting, and who—through some peculiarity of his nature—instead of drawing pride from the fact and scorning mankind of the past and its shadows, turned to it first with curiosity and then with compassion.”

Here is that story, in part, as commentary from Sans Soleil.

In San Francisco I made the pilgrimage of a film I had seen nineteen times. In Iceland I laid the first stone of an imaginary film. That summer I had met three children on a road and a volcano had come out of the sea. The American astronauts came to train before flying off to the moon, in this corner of Earth that resembles it. I saw it immediately as a setting for science fiction: the landscape of another planet. Or rather no, let it be the landscape of our own planet for someone who comes from elsewhere, from very far away. I imagine him moving slowly, heavily, about the volcanic soil that sticks to the soles. All of a sudden he stumbles, and the next step it’s a year later. He’s walking on a small path near the Dutch border along a sea bird sanctuary.

That’s for a start. Now why this cut in time, this connection of memories? That’s just it, he can’t understand. He hasn’t come from another planet he comes from our future, four thousand and one: the time when the human brain has reached the era of full employment. Everything works to perfection, all that we allow to slumber, including memory. Logical consequence: total recall is memory anesthetized. After so many stories of men who had lost their memory, here is the story of one who has lost forgetting, and who—through some peculiarity of his nature—instead of drawing pride from the fact and scorning mankind of the past and its shadows, turned to it first with curiosity and then with compassion. In the world he comes from, to call forth a vision, to be moved by a portrait, to tremble at the sound of music, can only be signs of a long and painful pre-history. He wants to understand. He feels these infirmities of time like an injustice, and he reacts to that injustice like Ché Guevara, like the youth of the sixties, with indignation. He is a Third Worlder of time. The idea that unhappiness had existed in his planet’s past is as unbearable to him as to them the existence of poverty in their present.

Art that fights back

For over two years now, I’ve been writing with anarchist prisoner Harold H. Thompson. He’s not just an anarchist - really though, who’s just an anarchist??-  but also a writer, a jailhouse lawyer, and a painter.

A few months back, his friend and supporter Josh put on an art auction of his work at the Dry River Collective space in Tucson, AZ. The benefits of the auction went to help pay Harold’s legal fees as he sues the Tennessee Department of Corrections for medical neglect (stemming from incidents you can read about here).

Of his paintings, here are a few of my favorites. Visit the Dry River site for more.

The last two are entitled “Bill” and “Hillary.”

May Day!

Comrade Sean Burke (Bellingham SDS) getting pumped before Tuesday’s May 1st Immigrant Rights Solidarity March, organized by Community to Community Development.

This is actually a really bad photo to illustrate an inspiring march full of over several hundred Latino immigrants and their allies, but its the only photo I managed to get before we all started moving. I spent most of the day videotaping for a documentary film I’m helping to produce (more on that someday).

For better pictures of the day, check out Not in My County (pics look like they might be down at the moment).

There’s some godawful corporate press here that reports the day to be “uneventful” because nobody tussled with the MinuteKlan knuckleheads. Also, at the height of the march, there were twice the number reported in the headline.

For reports on May 1st marches across the country, check out Indymedia’s coverage, or deleteTheBorder.org. In Los Angeles, the LAPD assaulted the crowd with rubber bullets and tear gas; more on that here.

—

I spent the night before the march working hard on a Chris Marker feature for Lucid Screening. I was up ridiculously late, and have this regretful “morning after” feeling about the reviews I did. I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing lately, and feel it tends to be both verbose and repetitive. For writings done in the wee hours of the morning, the Marker bits are all right, but something is telling me I need to work on my shit.

—

And for those that might be wondering, Karim Ahmath’s day in court lasted mere minutes. His lawyer requested the trial be postponed until July, and the request was approved. Meanwhile, organizing continues at Western Washington Univeristy to hold the campus police accountable.

Angela Davis 4.16.07

This Monday, April 16th, Professor Angela Davis addressed Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA on the topic of the Prison Industrial Complex (P.I.C.). Like always, Davis was most adept at drawing connections: she began the night by recognizing the Virginia Tech tragedy, whilst noting the fear-based demands for increased insecurity that are already being made. Following from the definition outlined in her excellent primer Are Prisons Obsolete?, she defined the P.I.C. as the proposition that the proliferation of prisons in the United States is not linked to crime, but rather social and economic factors. In turn, she touched on everything from the numbers of blacks and latinos in prison, to the workings of the global economy, to how the treatment of transgender prisoners reveals prisons as gendering processes.

I really do hope to touch on this topic in a future post, particularly since the Washington State legislature will likely pass a prison reform bill soon. In the meantime, I’ll post the syllabus for the class I taught last year that is based around the above-mentioned book by Professor Davis. Let me know what you think!

The Prison Industrial Complex & Beyond
(Fairhaven College, Fall 2006)