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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.”

My So-called Zines

“I actually published my thesis on zines and how zines can serve as kind of a way to radicalize kids from communities of privilege–you know, like young, white, middle-class kids thinking about race, class and gender issues.” So says Jason Kucsma, co-founder of the now defunct Clamor magazine. Without having read Kucsma’s thesis, I immediately know what he’s talking about - zines radicalized me in a lot of ways, particularly the act of making them myself.

I didn’t do a thesis on zines, but they played a big part in my extra-curricular undergraduate activities. When I was still a student, I found that the access to resources - internet access, software, printing privileges - conspired perfectly for making zines. I know I’m not the only one: I even know of one person (who shall remain nameless!) whose zine-making several years before I started school was partly responsible for the university’s student printing paper quota. S/he’d stay up all night printing them off - and that’s exactly what I did too (for academic purposes, of course!).

Here are a few highlights from my zine-making days - all of which I recently donated to the fantastic Zinelibrary.net, an on-line database out of Olympia, WA. Click on the titles to be directed to where you can download them.

Breaking the MANacles: An Anti-Patriarchy Reader by various authors

I compiled this anthology together as a final project for a class on Anarcha-Feminism taught by the estimable Toby Smith at Fairhaven College in Spring 2004. It focuses mainly on how patriarchy manifests itself (usually unconsciously) within activist circles, primarily from those of us socialized as men. The articles are mostly centered around debates in anarchist circles that proliferated in the early years of the anti-globalization movement, including works by Dan Spalding, Chris Crass, Traci Harris, and the Rock Bloc Collective. None of the articles are perfect, but that’s sort of the point - the zine is supposed to be an entry into discussions about patriarchy, not the final say on it. I hope you find the illustrations as funny as I do.

Looking for Color in the Anti-War Movement by Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez

This an anti-war sequel to the seminal essay Martinez wrote following the WTO protests, “Where Was the Color in Seattle?“ It’s divided into two parts, the first addressed to white people and their historic ignorance of the imperialism in their own backyard; and the second addressed to folks of color concerning anti-war work. I made this into a zine when I worked at Western Washington University’s Peace Resource Center (now the Social Issues Resource Center), and I think we tried to use it in a discussion group that never came together.

Definitely one of the best articles I’ve read about the anti-war movement, along with Kenyon Farrow’s “Not Showing Up.” Martinez’s essay was written a few years ago, and definitely demands to be re-read against all the momentum the anti-war movement has been building in the past few months. Perhaps the topic for a future blog post if I can get my act together…

The Student Movement of 1968 by George Katsiaficas

My first zine I ever completed at school. As a college freshman, I was absolutely obsessed with the student movements of the Sixties, especially in images. I poured every book I could get my hands on that had pictures of the era. After reading Katsiaficas’ excellent primer on the era, The Imagination of the New Left, I decided to put together a zine matching his chapter on international student movements with my favorite pictures. Per my preoccupations at the time, this resulted in lots of militant street scenes.

Naomi Jaffe on the Weather Underground

As my studies of the Sixties era matured, I became more and more enamored with the story of the Weather Undergound Organization. I don’t necessarily care for their tactics, but more with their ability to grow over the years in a way that mirrors my own feelings on their era: from romanticizing street confrontations (e.g. the Days of Rage) towards much more strategic discussions about white anti-racism and solidarity. This trajectory is captured beautifully by Dan Berger’s Outlaws of America, but it’s also summarized by former WUO member Naomi Jaffe in this small statement written after the release of the Weather Underground film by Sam Green and Bill (for the record, a film I really don’t care for). I made this zine (more like a pamphlet, really) to be passed out a screening of the film and presentation on the WUO that I did in Summer 2005 (which didn’t go all that well).

All The Anarchy That’s Fit To Print

Youssef Ishaghpour: To you words are enemies.

Jean-Luc Godard: No, only when they’re taken as orders, or thoughtless, or used malevolently as weapons.

- Cinema: the archaelogy of film and the memory of a century, p. 103.

Theory and practice. The word and the deed. “Writers don’t know what they’re talking about, men of action can’t express themselves. Look at Mao,” says a man in Jean-Luc Godard’s film Notre Musique.

What about women of action? Unfortunately, that’s Godard for you. As for Mao, well, I’m of a different generation - and temperament - than Godard, so Mao isn’t my frame of reference. But I’m just as fascinated with the separation between theory and practice, reflection and action. Godard has always been concerned with how words limit what we can express, and I think this is why he puts so much hope in the power of the image to communicate the uncertainties of life.

Like Jean-Luc Godard, I have a love/hate relationship with words. Part of what makes radical politics so exciting is its ability to think of the world in new ways - to employ theory. But theory, given that its mostly communicated through writing, also runs the danger of tripping over words. While some people guard their ideologies like a fortress - quick to denounce so-and-so as “not an Anarchist!” for instance - others are so hesitant they refuse to adopt any words to describe themselves, and may even go as far as to reject “theory” completely.

As I see it, neither approach is very useful. Ideologues’ allegiance to labels overlooks how struggle occurs independent of vocabulary: people can revolt without raising a flag. But if we refuse to engage with theory, we risk allowing the vocabulary of others’ to set the terms.

There’s got to be a happy medium that puts the written word to use without over-committing to ideology. This is why I love reading periodicals - monthlies, quarterlies, annuals, you name it. The periodical’s task, as I see it, is to bridge theory and practice; it’s frequent appearance allows quick response to events, both describing and theorizing. Unlike a book, a periodical never aspires to have the last word on a subject. Instead, it usually has the first word.

By this criteria, my favorite publication these days is Left Turn magazine. At its best, it is a forum for radical organizers’ to reflect on their work and to put it into the larger context of the organizing people are doing elsewhere, both in North America and globally. It strays away from ideological terms - like “socialist,” “marxist,” “anarchist” - and sticks to broader, more descriptive (but no less social movement-based) words like “anti-capitalist,” “anti-imperialist,” “anti-racist,” “radical feminist.” Left Turn is quartlerly, so it has a commitment to keep pace with events as they happen.

Another favorite is Perspectives on Anarchist Theory. Obviously, it comes from a particular ideological tradition - it’s the journal of the Institute of Anarchist Studies, an organization that funds radical writers with an interest in all things anarchist. But its my belief, anyway, that something sets anarchism apart from other political theories. Because anarchism throughout its history has been so action-oriented - stressing the deed over the word - its theories have a greater amount of openness. When anarchist theory is applied to a present day situation, what results aren’t rigid formulas, but important, probing insights.

Perspectives has been around for quite awhile, and has gone through a lot of changes. It used to be a newsletter, then it was a magazine, now its a full-on 100-page paperback journal. It’s still dealing with growing pains - lots of pixelated, unclear images and more spelling errors than you’d find in an academic publication - but its new format is really promising. Each issue has a theme, allowing for a close and thorough look at a hot topic. The current issue is on “Borders and Migration,” and includes everything from etymologies of the words border and region, to thoughtful reports on anti-border organizing, to book reviews, interviews, and poetry. It’s also very international in scope, with maps of European detention centers and an analysis of Canadian immigration policies followed shortly after by an interview with a Bolivian anarcha-feminist.

This themed approach will be especially fruitful if Perspectives keeps its focus on current events and maintains such stylistically diverse content. One of the problems that’s befallen the publication in the past has been an overly academic bearing. I can’t think of too many specifics without the issues in front of me, but I can recall being uncomfortable with the prevalence of “professional” scholars in previous issues. It was my problem too, I suppose, since I contributed a book review that discussed in part my experiences as an undergraduate - and which I completed for college credit! The university isn’t inherently bad, but like all institutions it brings with it a certain vocabulary that’s insular, if not outright confusing.

As I see it, the vocabulary radicals use has to balance between references to the concepts of our traditions, and the more open - if more compromised - language of everyday life. For anarchism, I think this means engaging with the world as it is, participating in social movements rather than forsaking them for our own organizations. I don’t actually think there are many - if any - anarchists who want to shut off the rest of the world and resign , but our theory and practice can often have that effect. The best anarchist theory - and the best periodicals - can offer is honest and useful reflection on daily life and the struggles to change it for the better. The worst of it retreats into comfortable words and analysis that appeases a desire to critique this world, but has no commitment to making that critique transparent to others.

Illustrating both sides of the coin, in my opinion, is the latest issue of Fifth Estate, an anarchist magazine. It’s been published for over thirty years (quarterly, I believe), but my knowledge of the magazine only really begins with the current issue, having thrown down the $3 for it at my local newsstand essentially on a whim. On the cover of this issue of Fifth Estate is the image of a plane flying over a city; it’s an appropriate image, in my experience, because several articles in the magazine flew right over my head.

Several articles made very valuable arguments, but left me behind, as they seemed to address countercultures I didn’t even know existed (especially David Meester’s “Letter from Appalachia,” and to a lesser extent, Cookie Orlando’s “Gender Trouble at Burning Man). The most confusing of the lot, however, were two highly theoretical articles full of references to Guy Debord and Gilles Deleuze. If you haven’t any idea who Guy and Gilles are, well, I’m afraid you’re already left behind. The first piece, by Will Weikart, argues that radicals stop thinking dialectically, and start thinking in “immanence;” the other, by Jack Bratch, has some thoughts about the State and activism coded, in Bratch’s words, in a “Nietzschean/Debordian strategic evaluation.” Not the sort of easy reading you’d expect from a newsstand periodcal, I’m fine with that. It’s the relevance of the work that I find myself struggling to comprehend.

Despite my confusion, I’m really glad I picked this issue up, because it had two of the best pieces of anarchist analysis I’ve read in a long time. The first, “Anarchism and Disability” by Mitzi Waltz, explores practical ways to cope with the complex social dimensions of disabilities, both mental and physical. Waltz is a professional scholar, but you wouldn’t know it from reading her article, which reminded me of the best of Colin Ward’s writing in its accessibility and practicality. The other article I enjoyed was “Solidarity, Immigration, and Border Regimes,” by Onto, which discussed the author’s experiences as an anarchist struggling against murderous border policies in solidarity with those most affected by those policies, immigrant workers. Like Waltz’s article, it was wholly committed to engaging the world with anarchist principles.

I can’t finish up a blog post - of all things! - about print publications without acknowledging the fact that print publications are really struggling in the face of the internet to stay in operation - and to stay relevant. I think the journal route that Perspectives on Anarchist Theory is taking will probably prove most fruitful - a journal is published less frequently, and thus can be more in-depth than a magazine weighing reporting and analysis, like Left Turn or Fifth Estate. As much as I love magazines, up-to-date radical reporting - by the written word, anyways - is quickly becoming the domain of the internet. A lot of the most exciting writing and analysis is happening at the websites to the left - too many great things to mention now. Too many great things to mention - lets hope it stays that way!