Anarchoblogs in English

Last Saturday September 15th I went to an anti-war protest in Washington D.C. I went with a group of people from the Common Ground Collective, based out of New Orleans. I was assigned the task of writing about the event.The organizers of the event (the…

Continue reading at The Implicit & Experiential Rantings of a Person …

OK, so, the title here is not exactly accurate. This is something which is spray-painted on the levee near where I am living now. These actual qualities come & go, but it would do me a lot of good if I had them on a more consistent basis. So, maybe…

Continue reading at The Implicit & Experiential Rantings of a Person …

After a long hiatus due to school, work, and personal affairs, I have finally set aside some time to post another post.

UF Student Tasered in Kerry Forum

An interesting development played out Monday night at the University of Florida. Former presidential candidate John Kerry was holding a "town hall" meeting and during the question and answer session, a student questioned Kerry about his connections with George W. Bush and the Skull and Bones Society.
The long-winded young man ran over his allotted time, and police restrained the man and began to escort him away from the microphone. He resisted, and was tased.
Here is MSNBC's article about the event: Student Tasered at Kerry Forum

Here are some youtube videos of the incident: Student Tasered at Kerry Forum

I'll spare you any further synopsis of the aforementioned event, although I do have a few concerns. What was he doing that prompted police to forcibly remove him from the microphone and escort him out? I doubt it was the simple fact that he was running over his allotted time. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who reads the article and watches the video that if he had been singing Kerry's praises, then they would have been happy to allow him more time. However, he was asking Kerry pointed questions that he was not prepared, nor wanted, to answer. Precautions are routinely made to screen people entering these "open forums" so that this type of thing doesn't happen. When it does, there are always personnel ready to apprehend and silence those who wish to ask candidates questions they don't want to answer, or are unable to answer. It is common knowledge today that politics is largely image-based, your substance doesn't matter too much, as long as you can make enough promises and choose the right language to express them.

In short, the police involved used excessive force. They had roughly six officers involved in the scuffle, and when they tased him they had him on the ground. He even said that he was willing to walk out if they let him up.

This illustrates a larger trend in law enforcement. When tasers were introduced to law enforcement, officers were pleased. Many police officers claimed that it would allow another step in the escalation of force before a firearm is used. In other words, it would allow an officer to force compliance without shooting the suspect.

This didn't happen. It simply created another group of people that are tased instead of being taken into custody with non-lethal force. Instead of using dialogue to stabilize a situation, officers are too ready to whip out the taser and shock a person into submission and cuff 'em.

They shouldn't have apprehended him in the first place. He was doing nothing wrong, except for arguing against the speaker.


Blackwater USA Banned from Iraq

Blackwater USA, a private security firm (read as, "mercenary company"), had their license revoked Monday, as the Iraqi government cited an incident that resulted in the deaths of 8 civilians and wounded 13.

Here is the article on CNN's website: Blackwater USA Banned From Iraq

This war is by far the most privatized conflict in modern history. Some claimed that in the past America resembled ancient Rome, citing Pax Americana as a parallel to Pax Romana. Now, it seems as though America is taking after Carthage's example: hiring mercenaries to fight it's wars. Recruitment numbers are very low for most of the branches, and absolutely unacceptable for the Army and Marines, the branches who need more personnel than any others. In order to keep forces up, the DoD hires private military companies to patrol neighborhoods, protect objectives, and escort convoys. Some of these companies are not held to the same legal or disciplinary standards as the US armed forces are. This sets a dangerous scenario, where these soldiers-for-hire shoot indiscriminately and wound and kill civilians with reckless abandon. This might seem like an exaggeration, except for the important fact that this is not the first time Blackwater USA has has problems with the Iraqi government, or rather vice-versa.

It's hard to recruit soldiers for the armed forces, when there is all certainty that they will be deployed to Iraq to fight a war that has almost no popular support, and which was begun under false pretenses.

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.