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I I iiie 7 • February/March 2001
EDITORS This issue of CLAMOR marks our one year anniver- len Angel • Jason Kucsma sary, and we are both a bit overwhelmed. When we set out
to create CLAMOR, we had this nebulous idea of what we PROOFREADERS Tony Cavallario. Hal Mixson. Gate wanted and had a difficult time explaming our concept to
O'Brien. Scott Puckett, Kristen Schmidt. people. One year later, we think it is safe to say that a MikeWendling good number of you have picked up on the idea that CLAMOR
is by, for and about all of us. It is sometimes confusing in LAYOUT & DESIGN Jen Angel • Jason Kucsma its diversity and elusive in identifying one common ideol-
ogy. It's a lot like the real world. COVER PHOTO
Location: Jos. Nigeria As we go to press today, Time-Warner final- Photographer; Gate O'Brien and AOL ize a merger that makes a media outlet like CLAMOR all ADVERTISING the more important-a magazine that provides a thorn in rates and deadlines available upon the side of media monopolies. We are witnessing the ever request, please call 419-353-7035 greaterconsolidation of mainstream media right before our
PRINTING: eyes. The control of media, and its link to democracy, is an Dartmouth Printing Go., Hanover. NH 1 issue at the heart of independent media, and one of the P: 603-643-2220 /F: 603-643-5408 foremost media critics. Ben Bagdikian, wrote the seminal
WEB DESIGN: work on this topic, The Media Monopoly. Though the first Derek Hogue edition of this book debuted many years ago, the concepts
today are increasingly relevant, which is why we've decided MISC ILLUSTRATIONS: to feature an interview with Ben in this issue. Nate Powell, Shawn Granton,
Defiler "J As you've come to expect from CLAMOR, this issue CLAMOR is a bi-monthly magazine. also includes personal testimonies from people about what Single copies are $4 ppd and 6 issue their lives are like and the issues they are facing. We have subscriptions are $18 ppd in the US
(Outside of the US single issues are $6 an interview with Alano Baez of the band Ricanstruction. and 6-issue subscription is $25 in US who talks about the Puerto Rican struggle for liberation Funds). Checks may be made payable to and independence, culturally and politically, as well as Hal Become The Media. Hixson's experience travelling to Nigeria with a strong sense BACK ISSUES are available for the standard single copy rate. of self-awareness that informs an essay asking us to re-
consider exactly how international debt affects developing DISTRIBUTION: countries. We also continue to celebrate culture and diver- Clamor is distributed to stores and distributors by Big Top Newsstand sity by featuring interviews with bicyclists in Oregon and Services, 2729 Mission Street Suite 201, Florida, as well thoughts on sexuality, communal living, San Francisco, CA 94110-3131 and masturbation, and working in prisoners. [email protected]
Clamor is also available through these We hope that this will be the first of many anniversa- fine distribution outlets: AK Press, ries, and we want to thank friends and supporters near Armadillo, Gordon & Gotch, Ingram, and far who make this magazine possible. Please remem- Lumberjack, Media Solutions. Milligan, bers that our contributors are our readers, and we invite Newborn, RPM, Small Changes,
Stickfigure, Tower, Tree of Knowledge. you to share your experiences and ideas with us. and Ubiquity.
Thanks for reading.
ClAMOK Mituint it published %n limes a year iDec/lan. f^/V^, i„„v.., i.!"'lul, Aut/Sep. Oct/Nov). 02000 m the 'I Media Incwporaled. PO Boi \22i Bo» ;n2. leleptKxie 419 353/035 Poslm.i^ipr Vt.a idiliMS chanjes loClanxx Majajine. PO Boi 1725 Bmlini Gieen OH 43407
Periodical-. w.t.iBf' wrl.n,' it Bo*iinp dji^n OH A Loud And Continued Uproar Of Many Human Voices • Number Seven • February/March 2001
[economics]
Seeds of Poverty and Forests of Wealth 9
Hal Hixson
Some Thoughts About Fish and Bananas 13
Andrew McLeod
The Poor Who Are With Us 14
Charlotte Green Honigman-Smith
[media]
[people] The Media: And Then There Were Six 40
The Lives Behind The Statistics 16 David Barsamian with Ben Bagdikian
Sarah Dan forth Radio Daze: FolkScene and LA's KPFK 44
The Call For Executive Clemency ot Leonard Peltier 19 Michael Amitm
Greg Fuchs Re/Education 46
Night of Power 20 Art Middleton Mumia Abu-Jamal and Ryan James Hollywood and the Big Business of Propping Up Nation-States 47
Wading For Nothmg 24 Marshall Beggs
Emily Heiple and Nate Powell
Was Abraham Lincoln a Racist? 27 Ron Sakolsky [politics] Can You Trust Your Doctor? 50
Gavin Phillips [sexuality & relationships] Ricanstruction: The Politics of Music 55 Pair of Tits, The Big Nurse A Richard Gilman-Opalsky with Alano Baez and the Balance of Power 32 The Political and the Sacred 60 Jane Graham Yael Grauer with Starhawk
I'd Rather Masturbate Copulate Than 35 Deschooling the University 64 Charisma Lee Sun frog
Working on Sexuality in Community Living 36
Bob Banner [places] Satan and the West Memphis Three 68
Sean Carswell
Biting the Hand that Fed Me 72
Guilty Expat
[culture] Words as Weapons 78
Greg Fuchs and jZapatasos!
More People On Bikes 82
John Gerken with The Bike Club in Portland. Oregon
Biking Florida 86
Travis Fristoe
Ida & Low 90
Mike Taylor please address any correspondence to [email protected] or via USPS at PO Box 1225 Bowlmg Green, OH 43402
Clamor, Clamor, was excellent, especially the review. They guy's a good writer although the section he
...As for feedback on the latest issue I'm still I first want to say how truly pleased I am to disliked the most is the one I thought was the
very much hlovsn away each time. The overall have been published in your magazine. I ga\ e best. It answers why people do what they do,
quality and diversity of the writers and stories my parents a copy of the issue for Christmas even when it's not in their own best interest.
is a major plus. I'm partial to the economics and there was just a little more respect w hen There's a screwed up section in the Q&A.
and politics but usually read most everything. they saw me in a "real" magazine. So thank though. At the top right of p. 41, his answer
The piece in this issue by Scott L. Indrisek was you for all the work you have been doing to continues in ital right after my question w ith-
excellent ("We Have The Facts And We're Vot- amplifiy our voices. I sent out little postcards out a break so it's hard to realize they're sepa-
ing Undecided: Progress And Poverty In An to a bunch of friends telling them to go hunt rate. Then the next section starts without a
American College Town" DecOO/JanOl ). He down this fabulous magazine, not just because question. Did I screw that up or did you? We're
sounds as if where he's at in his \\ riting is where 1 had an article in it, but because it is the only probably going to print it in the FE and I want
1 aspire to be in the future, 1 plan on getting in magazine 1 have been stimulated, inspired, to make sure where the error is. Thanks.
touch with him soon. The continuation of Bob genuinely and deeply excited by in years.
Helms's Philly anarchist history is exhaustive Talk to you,
(Anarchists In Medicine and Phannacy: Phila- Libby Peter Werbe delphia 1SX9-193()" DecOO JanOl). A few the Pacific Northwest Detroit, MI
friends and myself actually got to go on the exact
tour he speaks of in this story and I was floored.
This guy is a very valuable asset to the anar- Clamor, Clamor, chist community who I'm sure will go on to
write some amazing books in the future. But 1 started reading CLAMOR recently cover to In the fifth issue, I was amazed by the things really with the exception of the Star wars/WTO cover, and I've been pleased with your maga- Martin of Los Crudos (Where Do We Go From piece (I've Got A Bad Feeling About This" zine. I'm impressed with the vastness of sub- Here?" OcfNov 00) had to say about DIY;
DecOO JanOl ) that I always knew was coming 1 ject matter and written voices. Usually there truly inspiring. The talent that most of
enjoyed everything. You folks are providing a is just one or two articles in a magazine that clamor's contributors displav has been a
great resource to so many and everyone contin- interest me, or it's more a visual experience great source of motiv ation for myself It helps
ues to talk about CLAMOR on my travels. (i.e. photography or illustrations). With to find meaning in reading, studying and writ- CLAMOR I'm excited to read one article right ing which has been hard for me to find in the
Greg Wells into the next and so-on. Last weekend 1 sent past. Thanks for all the worthwhile infomia-
Richmond. VA away for a subscription and I haven't sub- tion you have given me through CLAMOR.
scribed to a magazine since I was in high
school (Thrasher!). .\ mighty fine magazine. Carpe Diem. Clamor(ous) Comrades, Keep on rockin'. Johan \'an dcr .'Xuwera Mechelen, Belgium Thank you for sending me an issue of your Steeb Russell
magazine. I loved it. 1 love the concept: be- Bellinuham. WA Clamor.
come the media!. Reminds us that change is
possible when we act; w hen we choose to par- Let me just say that I have been extremely
ticipate in the democratic process, thus Iwcoinc Hi Jason and Jen. impressed w ith CLAMOR thus far. CLAMOR
the media, become the political leaders of this is a welcome addition to the newsstands. I
countrv'. hcconic the makers of history. As lley, Congrats on the new issue. As usual, it don't know if you all ever saw UP. which
Cesar I-. Chavez put it, "Si se puede!" It can looks and reads great. Glad to see Sunfrog in was put out by folks in Chicago and had a happen! there—loved his Idapalooza piece ("Folked I ip similar high-quality look to it. but CLAStOR
In Tennessee" DecOO JanOl ). I've been to some seems to really be picking up where they left
Mario A. Rocha of their gatherings and they're a hoot. The Viet- olT. Hope the new year brings v ou much suc-
Soledad, CA nam spread ("Spitting Image" DecOO JanOl) cess. Mv sub is in the mail (reallv). and I A Few Notes on Advertising
As CLAMOR gmm and more attention is being paid to the people that participate
in malting CMMOffwhat it is (both readers and contributors), it is likelythat advertisers
will begin approaching us with "propositions we can't retuse." Atter all, a magazine
pops up out of nowhere and gets hundreds of subscriptions and sells thousands of
copies on the newsstand in its first year? Savvy marketers will, no doubt, want to get
involved in what we have going on. Because of this, we wanted to outline our stance
on advertising in CLAMOR so you all know where we stand on things.
Of course we'd rather print a magazine without any ads. And while there are
magazines out there that do forego advertising and subsist on grants and donations
made accessible by their non-profit status, CLAMOR is not in that camp right now.
We have to rely on subscribers, advertising and newsstand sales to keep this magazine
afloat. Two of these elements are invisible to you as you read CLAMOR, but the would be very interested in contributing con- advertising is definitely right there in plain sight. We do try to make sure our advertisers tent, especially on issues of race (since that offer something that will interest our readers. However, we do not want people to is what 1 mostly address in my work), if you misconstrue our placement of an ad as an editorial endorsement of the products, are interested. services or ideas offered by a given advertiser. And while we actively seek out
independent businesses to advertise in CLAMOR, the budgets of many of these Take care businesses is so small that they often can't take a chance on what they see as an Tim Wise "unknown" magazine like CLAMOR. What we're left with is a choice between allowmg Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE) a corporate advertiser to invest money in advertising in CLAMOR and paying for CLAMOR with fewer ads, or printing a lot of small ads for rates that hardly pay for themselves. Nashville. Tennessee Don't worry, you won't find ads for smokes, booze or cars in CLAMOR, but we're not in [email protected] a financial position to refuse an ad from a corporate advertiser right now. Hell, all
this talk could be moot considering the content of CLAMOR automatically turns off a
lot of advertisers. We can hear it now, "We at Globex would love to advertise in CLAMOR, Clamor, but all this talk about how capitalism isn't working isn't really good for business.
Could you tone it down a bit?" I got my mom to buy CLAMOR today so now
she's on the bandwagon. She needs a little HOW CAN YOU HELP? clamor in her life anyway. also-I enjoyed Talk to people who run businesses or work in organizations or on projects that the cop/crowd article, all too familiar with you think are really worthwhile and who would benefit reaching a readership of cop techniques after N30 and the one year insightful, pro-active, free-thinking individuals. Let them know about CLAMOR anniversary (we thought we lost andrew to magazine as a possible place for them to reach a lot of great people. Or drop us a line the king county jail that night but he to tell us who we should contact and we'll send them sample copies with our extremely resurfaced at about 1 am). reasonable advertising rates. Thanks
Thcmba Lewis Portland, OR
Corrections:
In a piece reflecting on the protests at the DNC in
Los Angeles in the DccOO JanOl issue, the title "Anticipations and Preparations: A Weekend Journal from LA Protests at the DNC" should have read "Journal of a Green Homet: Tales and Thoughts on Organizing at the DNC"
Contact information for Beth Bamett (author of "The
City Life of Fake Meat." DecOO/JanOl ) and Eric Zass ("Media Alliance versus the National Association of Broadcasters," DecOO'JanOl) was accidentally omitted from the contributor pages. They can be reached via CLAMOR. clamor contributors
Michael Amitin (p 44) is a tree-lance writer tor magazines and newspapers, witti recent ar- Guilty Expat [p. 72) would like to hear from anybody who has spent anytime in Bahrain or has comment s ticles published in New Times LA., and Wildlife Conservation. An honorary member of the sore on the article, contact via: [email protected] optimists club. Michael's amuse mints include thrashing about on an open-tuned cuatro (a ten string guitar Irom Puerto Rico) and flat-back mandolin He can be be harangued at Emily Heiplelp 24) is a Little Rock. Arkansas native who is currently residing in Edinburgh. Scotland aspace@ix netcom.com or 12437 Trail Four, Kaget Canyon. CA 91342 She writes fiction and juggles work as a grassroots community organizer in Little Rock and as an educator
for the Mothers in Prison. Children in Crisis program for several prisons in the state She is currently
Bob Banner (p. 36) is a writer and student of Buddhism. Sufism and transpersonal psycholo-. putting the finishing touches on her next book Playing Too Rough in Sunday's Shoes, and plotting a gies He has written In Search of Conspiracy. /I Novel. Fucking The Pillow & other Real Stories from return to graduate school someday sooner or later, once she (inishes romping across the fertile European the Sexual Battlefield. Waking Up & other Essays about Life on the Fringe and has edited Men hills. She IS also a cast member of the Arkansas based sketch comedy show Fun and Games. She can be
Waking Up: An Anthology of Vitally Important Writings. He has also been writing a book to be contacted at [email protected], or 5522 Stonewall Rd, Little Rock AR 72225 called Waking Up? A Perilous and Joyous Journey in Community Living about his experiences in psychospiritual communities for seven years He has written lor Loving More. UFO fVlagazine. New Hal Hixson (p 9) is a student, musician and writer with a strong interest in African affairs He is
Dimensions. Adbusters. New Age Journal. Perceptions. Sacred Fire. Critique Women's Press, and currently living and working in Columbus. Ohio and is anticipating entering graduate school in the near others. He can be reached at 805-773-8560 or at 357 Castaic. Shell Beach. CA 93449 or email future He can be reached at [email protected] [email protected]
Ryan James (p 20) is a journalist and activist from Toronto For six years, he created the comic book
David Barsamian (p. 40) operates Alternative Radio, a weekly one-hour public affairs program series One-Way Glass Currently he s working on a 230-page comic book biography on US political pris- that IS offered free to all public radio stations in the U.S.. Canada. Europe. South Africa. Australia oner Mumia Abu-Jamal. and the MOVE organization His CWWOff contribution is adapted from writings and on Radio for Peace International (short wave). He can be reached at PO Box 551. Boulder. CO by Mumia Abu-Jamal It's an excerpt from the biography, which is set to be finished within a year. In the
80306, (800) 444.1977. [email protected] or www, alternativeradio.org. meatime. Ryan James can be reached at Shock to the System. RPO Spadina West. PO Box 67527 Toronto
ON M5T 3B8, Canada; or at tO:[email protected].
Marstiall Beggs (p. 47) is a 25 year old student finishing his BA in English (w/ Political Science minor) and is planning on becoming a teacher. He has become deeply interested m politics A lot of people like to tell Charisma Lee ip 35) that she's weird Although shed like everyone else to think recently, particularly regarding global issues and anarchism. In the past he has been involved in otherwise, it s rather true She drinks insane amounts of rootbeer. and often says she's moving to exotic construction, tree-planting and the lumber industry. While he votes as far left as possible, he locales like New Jersey Send pez dispensers and Star Wars toys to: PO Box 480692. Denver CO 80248 thinks representative democracy is. largely, a sham Real change can only occur by influencing people's minds, and this is a task he hopes to achieve through writing. He dedicates this pursuit Andrew McLeod (p 13) lives in Olympia. Washington, where he is trying to wean himself of his bad
to his father, who first taught him the value of challenging illegitimate authority. He can be dietary habit of if-l-can't-see-it-it-isn't-there " freeganism. He has a particular weakness for maple reached at [email protected] or at Box 552. Gold River BC. Canada VOP IGO bars. Scold him for his hypocrisy at [email protected].
Sean Carswell (p 68) is the author of the novel Drinks For The Little Guyani publisher of the Art t^iddletanip 46) lives in lawrence MA where he makes vague comments about complex things and zine Talk Story He spends wayy too much time reading left wing literature and watching movies wanders around a lot. To share ideas, ask questions, get a zme. or hangout if you're passing through he checks out Irom the library. You can reach him at [email protected]. [email protected] or PO Box please write- [email protected].
320504. Cocoa Beach. FL 32932.
Gate O'Brien (p 9) is a photographer and writer living in Charleston. South Carolina She spent five
Sarah Danforth (p, 16) lives in New Orleans and is still trying to figure it all out. She is of her formative years in Jos. Nigeria and is looking forward to a life dedicated to humanitarian aid in currently looking for the appropriate hammer to smash the system. She can be reached at Africa She can be reached at [email protected] [email protected].
Richard Gilman Opalsky ip 55) studies philosophy at one school, while teaching philosophy at an-
Travis fristoe (p. 86) doesn't know what to do with his life But you can still communicate via other school "I like to play musical activism' with my comrades, counting down to putsch And I spend
PO Box 13077. Gainesville. FL 32604-1077 for zines ($3ppd). a comic ($1) or a plain oF letter. my time with Robyn (human). Spartacus (small, squishy. orange cat) and Ramona Africa (chubby squirmy,
caramel cat) Struggling to transform thought into action " E-mail to [email protected]
Greg Fuchs (p 78) works with the New York City Independent Media Center He exhibited photography at OUMBA in Fall 2000 and had work in A New American Landscape at Bushwick Gavin Phillips(p. 50) has travelled extensively in his mid-20's. He has an eclectic, insatiable curiosity
Studios in 1999, He is the author of Came Like It tVi?n/(B,D Books. Washington. DC 1999) and and constantly questions accepted wisdom. He loves writing, books, movies, comedy (he does stand-up).
Uma Ternura (Canvas and Companhia. Portugal. 1998), teaching, tennis and most of all. he does not take himself too seriously It all comes down to passion and
humor He can be reached care of CWWO/?
John Gerken (p. 44) is hobo-erotic, smells like freight trains and bike chains. He is currently involved with putting together the DIYBookmtU Tree of Knowledge Distributions as well as various Nate Powell [p 24) lives and flutters around various towns in the Little Rock. Arkansas area He's a projects concerning handmade maps, which you should make and send to him. He can be reached self-publisher who does many many titles, including the current series Walkie Talkie He sulks down the care of Tree of Knowledge at PO Box 25 1 766, Little Rock. AR 72225 city streets after a scarring three years at School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he got a stinky
bachelor's degree in cartooning and a bucketful of bitterness to soil his fuzzy visage. He moonlights from
Jane Graham (nee Shag Stamp) (p. 32). aka Minx Grill, is a writer, performer, zme maker and time to time as an art program director for the local Association for Retarded Citizens, as a cast member voyeur from the north of England relocated to Copenhagen. Denmark, who hopes to get no. 9 of on the experimental sketch comedy show Fun and Games (www tunandgamescomedyshow com), as a
Shag Stamp out sometime this year... Amongst many other writing projects. Contactable at part of several regional musical outfits, and greatly enioys traversing thousands of miles to hug near- minx|[email protected]. strangers. He can be reached at [email protected]. or 7205 Geronimo. North Little Rock AR 72116
Shawn Granton (p 68) |ust recently moved to the San Francisco area, deciding to give up the benefits of practical living in his home state of Connecticut for the out-of-control rents of the ailecia ruscin (p 13) is an amencan studies grad student at the university of kansas in lawrence
Golden Gate. So far. he has managed to avoid living in a cardboard box in the park, but |ust she writes a personal zme called alabama grrri ani keeps busy doing radical community organizing barely. You can help Shawn avoid that predicament by sending him a dollar tor his self-pub- she IS available to do photography work for small zines ailecia@hotmail com lished comic TEN FOOT RULE ot two dollars for the MODERN INDUSTRY anthology. He can be reached at 110 Pacific Ave #296. San Francisco. CA 941 1 1 or [email protected] Or better Ron Sakolskyip 27) has co-edited three books Gone to Croatan Origins of North Amencan Dmp Out yet. don't send him any money, the bastard probably deserves destitution. Culture (with James Koehnhne) Sounding Off!: Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution (with Fred
Ho), and Semng The Airwaves A Free Radio Handbook (with Stephen Ouniler) Most recently, he has
Yael Grauer (p. 60) is a compulsive writer, and puts out a zme called Starlight when she feels written a lengthy introduction to Vachel Lindsay's Utopian visionary novel. The Golden Book of Springfield like it She s also an environmental and social activist, and facilitates workshops on counter- Soon to be published is an anthology of US Surrealist writings which he has edited under the title of military recruiting, and on overcoming sexism (and other forms of oppression) in various political Surrealist Subversion As a professor on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Springfield, he currently movements She likes cooking, riding her bike, travelling, hugging trees and looking for the teaches such courses as "Anarchy and Social Change," "Zine Culture." "Alternative Radio." "The Utopian laeries She sleeps sometimes, too You can reach her at Shimer College. PO Box 500. Waukegan. Imagination," and "Music and Resitance.' He can be reached care of CLAMOR
IL 60079: yael@do|o tao ca or [email protected]; http.//www.tao ca/-yael
Sunfrog ip 64) is a writer, activist, lather, collage-ist dreamer, anarcho-communeist He started
in Charlotte Green Honigman-Smith (p 1 4) is a writer and activist living In San Francisco. Her leaching writing because it seemed like more fun than the other part time |obs he d held since settling writing has appeared in a weird assortment of publications ranging from Jewish Currents to rural Tennessee m 1996 He pubhshes his own zme Black Sun and his recent book is Utopian Prospects.
Alice and she is currently working on a book about the future of Jewish lemimsm For more Communal Proiects. Contact him at sunliogi@hotmail com information on her multiple projects, check out www geocities com/yiddlshemaydl
Mike Taylor (p 90) oftefl takes on too much responsibility, yet when granted "tree" time, paces about.
making grumbling noises and grinding his teeth He can be reached care of CLAMOR Seeds of Poverty and Forests of Wealth A Light Analysis of International Wealth Inequities by Hal Hixson photos by Gate O'Brien
...and in his determination of what he needs he must be gov- erned to a great extent by the gravity of the needs of others. m Thomas Merton - New Seeds of Contemplation
What do we need? How do we determine what are our basic needs and what are luxuries? Once we do this on a personal level, how can we transfer these decisions to a national or even an international level? How can we ensure that the basic needs of every person on earth are met?
CO / o
o not only condemn the proliferation of po\ erty but also the acceptance and glorification of
gluttony. This idea is. of course, central to any
criticism of abundant opulence, but the w ay in which Merton phrases the thought cuts right to the center of greed and leaves us to justify
our rapacity in the eyes of the great equalizer. And so. from these collective "seeds of con- templation." gathered ov er many months, grew
the following discussion and all its subsequent conclusions.
Basics of Distribution Inequities
It seems logical that if we want to look at the distribution of wealth in the world, we should begin by looking at the extreme ends
to the spectrum. Of course, at the top of the
heap is America, a country that has an economy
that is growing at a faster rate than any other
time in its history. In fact, in the past twenty
years, the w ealth ofAmerica grew from S7 tril-
Obviously, these questions are hypotheti- of missionary doctors through the narrow lion to S32 trillion, a rate that exceeded fed- cal, since it would take the participation of a streets of "Blind Town." a subsection of a city eral expenditures by 400 percent (Reich, It's high percentage of the population of the world that is a virtual sea of hunger and want. Here, the Year 2000 Economy, 2000). before any real redistribution of resources first-hand. I saw the realities that people in This is a staggering statistic, but when you would take place. The goal of wealth redistri- de\ eloping nations face in the shadow of the consider that not only is .America the richest bution seems e\ en more far-fetched when \vc unprecedented success of global capitalism. country on earth, but its internal distribution consider the tight grasp with which wealthy And as I sat through the 1 6-hour plane ride of wealth is wildly disproportionate, you be- powers hold on to their fortunes. And when from the heat of West Africa to the crisp chill gin to appreciate the conclusion that it is truly we add that the gap between the rich and the of Midwest America, the di\ide between the a tiny few w ho control the majoritv of the poor of the world is growing at an exponential richest and the poorest of the world's popula- w orld's wealth. To illustrate this disparity fur- rate, the potential for change seems drastically tions took rigid fonn in my mind. ther, consider that the richest 20 percent of out of reach. The second source of motivation w as a Americans have incomes that have risen twice
This article seeks to illustrate the \ast- National Public Radio commentan, thai aired as fast as those of the middle 20 percent while ncss of this global wealth gap and, through the around July 4. 2()()(). The commentator. Rob- the av erage annual income of the poorest 20 use of various economic indicators, show that ert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and percent has actually dropped from SI 0.000 in there really are only a few who sit atop a moun- editor of r/K'^H!cn(Y/;; Prospect, sought to let 1997 to its current level of S8.800 (Reich. It's tain of money at the expense of a sufTering a gust of air out of the bulbous red-white-and the Year 2000 Economv. 2000). As the rich- majority. This inequality will be further ex- blue economic balloon that is the United States est members of the richest country on earth plored through an analysis of the factors that by pointing out that though it has become the are getting richer faster, the poorest members encircle and contribute to it, such as the mas- richest and most powerful nation on earth, of the richest nation on earth are getting poorer. sive debts burdening developing nations and America's altruistic impulses are most cer- Now. if you throw the rest of the world into the increasing reluctance of the West to respond tainly waning: "Independence Da\ is a great the equation, the distance between the top (the to emergencies in the developing world. Spe- occasion to celebrate our nation's greatness, richest 20 percent of .Americans) and the bot- cific consideration will be given to the eco- but if we think that we're really independent tom (the poorest of the developing world) is nomic relationship between the United States of the rest of the world and won't suffer the nearly too great to fathom. and Sub-Saharan Africa, a dichotomy that long-term effects of global po\erty. we're not In relation to the rest of the world. clearly expresses the magnitude of the gap. nearly as great or as smart as we think we are" America is the economic superpower. With
Through these various observations, a picture (Reich, U.S. Gives, 2()()()). As fireworks its population comprising only five percent of of the economic inequity in the world will cracked and millions of fiags fiew. I once again the world total, America produces 27 percent hopefully emerge and, with it, some possible thought abt>ut the enonnous economic gulf that of the world's total economic output (Reich. steps toward its remedy. separates .America from the rest of the world. I S. dives. 2000). This leaves 73 percent of
The third and most direct impetus for the the wealth to be divided among the remaining
I oiinJutions construction of this analysis was a single sen- 9.S percent of the world's population and of
II is alw ays interesting to note the origins tence, a portion of w hich pro\ ides the open- course, this is not distributed evenly. In fact, of an argument and the Ibundaluins on which ing quotation for this piece. The> are the the share delegated to the poor of the world is it stands. The seeds that grew into this article words of Thomas Merton. monk. acti\ ist and slow Iv dw nulling. In the past decade per capita came from several sources, all olwhich moved poet, and they speak to the central theme of income has dropped in SO nations, and 20 per- my thoughts toward the desire to write an this article — indeed, they speak to a funda- cent of the world's population live in degrad- anaKsis of the ciirreni inlernalional economic mental mandate of life, a principle that should ing poverty, each member of this bracket strug-
milieu. I he initial inspiraiioncaineas I milleii inform an\ action, liul Merlon's words do not gling to survive on less than SI per day my way through a mass of African children, simply demand a compassion for other people (Hekele, 1999). And as this substantial popu- their small hands grabbing mine as a multi- They instead require that we take others' needs lation of the world is plunged further into pov - tude of tiny heads bobbed along. In .lanuary into account when we determine how much erty, the West continues to turn its back. In
2()()(). I \\as in Jos. Nigeria, being led b\ a team we ourselves need. So. in turn, these words the past ten v ears the pro["Kiilion of w ealth spent [economics] :
by the West on humanitarian aid has gone dowTi crepancies in funding persist. by 30 percent (Oxfam. 2000). Specifically, the Depths of Disparit}-: Causes Five Ways Vat Structural Adjustment Programs U.S. falls ne.xt to last among twenty-one in- It is ev ident from the brief summation Contribute to Hunger and Food dustrialized nations in per capita aid. giving abov e that the international wealth gap is quite Insecunty only S29 per year per American to poor na- vast, and the prospects for its diminishment tions (Reich. U.S. Gives. 2000). So not only are slim. What then are the steps that would SAPs favor exports over domestic produc-
is the wealth divide widening, but the amount be necessary to halt this expanding cavity? tion (so countries can earn foreign ex- of money that rich countries are willing to gi\ e Some such steps are already underway, but are change to pay off tiieir deiits). Farmers wtM traditionally produced fbod for tfie to compensate is rapidly decreasing. struggling to adv ance. One of the most promi- domestic marlcet are encouraged to pro- Another prominent indication of the nent of these is the campaign to end the crip- duce crops for export West's unwillingness to face the problem of pling foreign debt that prevents governments
international inequalities is its growing reluc- in the developing world from attempting to They often remove subsidies and price tance to tend to emergencies in the develop- allev iate poverty. .Activist organizations such supports for small farmers. This also re- ing world. A review issued by the World as Jubilee 2000 are working to reduce debt sults In a decreased production of basic Health Organization in July 2000 reports that through grass-roots organizing and lobbv ing. foodstuffs. nearly a quarter of its appeals to international .As will be discussed later, it is through such They often remove price controls on ba- donors to support life-saving health programs activist movements that the beginnings of debt sic foodstuffs, an action wliich maltes nee, for victims of war. population displacement reduction are emerging. Though some beans, maize or cooking oil more expen- and natural disaster yielded zero response. progress has been made, the people of poor shre. Overall, the WHO has suffered major losses countries continue to bear the burden of re-
in support recently that affect its ability to pro- paying enormous debts and in turn, sacrifice They often contribute to rising unemploy- ment and falling real wages, making it vide adequate health care in the developing monies that are desperately needed for basic more difficult for families to feed them- world. The WHO -has received only a frac- human needs. Not only are these debts a monu- sehres. tion (less than 27 percent) of the funds that it mental drain on the peoples of developing na- requested through the United Nations Consoli- tions, but in some cases they are an even more They often require reducing of rescinding dated .Appeals Process (C.'\P). the process by unjust burden, in that they are the result of protectionist tariffs. Local markets are which the UN gathers humanitarian aid funds loans that were incurred by corrupt govern- tiien flooded with imports which under- from donor countries and distributes these ment officials (Jubilee 2000 USA. Develop- cut domestk: agriculture and industry. funds to organizations (WHO. 2000). To give ing Country Debt). These enormous debts perspective to this statistic, consider that for trap countries in an endless cycle of payment Source: MMee 2000 USA "Dewlopiog Comtiy Debts Creates Hunger and Powertf' 2001 the total amount requested from the CAP and pov erty. and without debt reduction coun- '.t2000usaMS by all organizations is S2.26 billion — the price tries like these will have to continue to divert of two jet fighters (Mountain. 2000). large portions of their already scarce resources
Not only is total response dwindling, away from health care, education and food but levels of response vary with respect to security toward servicing interest payments dire economic situation that now exists in the
geographical region. For instance, in a brief- (Jubilee 2000 USA. The Debt Burden) . To developing world and thus, should shoulder
ing issued by Oxfam. statistics indicate that elucidate this point and to draw connections some responsibilitv for its remedy. For in- the monetary response of the West to the to my central focus on poverty in Africa, con- stance, in the 1980's the World Bank intro- crisis in the former Yugoslavia was far sider the following facts: duced its Structural Adjustment Programs greater than to any of the comparable .'\fri- (S.APs). policies that were intended to steer can crises. In the height of emergency, the -For even, dollar received in aid in 1996. Af- Third World economies toward laissez faire
former Yugoslavia garnered crisis funds rica paid out S 1 .3 1 in debt service. capitalist development. S.APs were meant to equivalent to $207.29 per person while Si- accomplish this through public sector waste erra Leone, the Democratic Republic of -The International Monetary Fund (IMF) re- elimination and the minimization of govern-
Congo and .Angola, all countries with rag- ceived S600 million more in debt payments ment influence in the development process
ing civil wars, received only S 1 6. S8.40 and from Africa in 1 997 than it returned in loans. (Badru. 1998). But in the two decades since S47.98 per capita respectively (Oxfam. their initiation, these policies have come un-
2000). In addition to these regional dispari- -In .Africa, governments are now transferring der increasing criticism. Of course, these criti- ties, organizations also suffer from inequi- four times more to international creditors than cisms are fed by the fact that SAPs have far ties related to the type of work that they do. they spend on basic education and health (Ju- from reached their goal of poverty reduction For example, the World Food Program re- bilee 2000 USA, Developing Country Debt). through the development of capitalistic enter- ceived 48.6 percent of its required CAP prise. In fact, as we hav e seen abov e. exactly
funds while the WHO received only 22.7 Indeed, the heavy weight placed on poor coun- the reverse is true. percent. This shows an increasing trend to- tries bv bilateral loans and multilateral lend- Though the general decline of develop- ward support of food-related programs o\ er ing organizations makes it v irtually impossible ing world economies is an indication of the
non-food assistance. This is troubling be- for them to escape from the depths of poverty failure of World Bank and IMF policies, there cause non-food assistance, including health, and hence, based partially on this disadvan- are many more specific signs of the ways in education and sustainable livelihood tage, the great wealth divide continues to which S.APs have contributed to economic projects, are essential to building peaceful deepen. depression in developing nations. For ex- and self-enhancing societies. Although .Although the responsibility for the pay- ample. SAPs continually favor export-increas- emergency food aid is vitally important, re- ment of these debilitating loans lies on the ing projects over domestic production, a prac-
luctance to fund non-food assistance only governments of poor nations, a closer look at tice that directly contributes to food insecu-
contributes to future difficulties. Thus, even the policies of institutions such as the World rity in developing countries. This promotion
within the small amount of money that is Bank and the IMF show that these organiza- of export over import is maintained in order to
contributed toward humanitarian aid. dis- tions have contributed to the formation of the ensure that dev eloping nations will be able to [economics] ainll their interest payments. In addition, SAPs often remo\ e subsidies and price con- trols, policies that allow fanners to produce for local markets (Badru. 1 998). Hence, SAPs contribute to poverty and hunger within de- veloping countries by continually enacting di- rccti\es that urge a population to earn income instead of feeding itself.
Possible Cures: Impediments and Successes
"I culled loiii^ agofor the cancellation of the crippling debt we have had to hearfor so long... There are others who have joined their voices in this campaign. There is something called Jubilee 2000. We ask our friends who have stood by us in the dark days of oppres- sion and injustice. This is the new moral cru- sade to have the debt canceledfollowing the biblical principle of .hibilee. Basically this principle says everything belongs to God: all debts and mortgages must be canceled in the Jubilee Year to give the debtors a chance to " make a new beginning. cellation of the debts of developing nations, Saharan Africa as a center of "forgotten emer-
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Speech to the but when we consider that the total debt, both gencies." Out of this ma.ss of striking statistics
General Assembly of the All Africa Confer- bilateral and multilateral, owed by poor coun- grow s a lens through w hich the vv orld economy
ence of Churches. October 1997 tries is over $2 trillion, this allocation seems seems fundamentally skewed in favor of a
like a drop in the bucket. But the significance vvealthv minority. And as we recall the initial
The logical resolution to the debt crisis of this step should not be solely relegated to seeds from which this lens grew, we should re- would be for wealthy nations to reduce the numbers; in fact, its impact may ha\e more to member the w ords of Thomas Merton and seek debts of developing nations. So, why then, is do w ith raising the profile of the issue. The to always "be gov emed to a great extent by the the progress toward this goal moving so passage of HR 481 1 opens the door for more gravity of the needs of others." ^ slowly? Part of the answer lies in the reluc- substantial legislation. In fact, in the same tance of the U.S. to provide adequate foreign session in uhich HR 4811 was passed, the aid. America plays an important role in two House voted to reinstate S44 million in funds major arenas of foreign debt, those debts in- to fight AIDS in Africa that had previously curred through bilateral loans and those ac- been cut from the budget (Driscoll-Shaw, quired through multilateral lending institu- 2000). So although it may only be a first step, tions. The U.S. is the lending nation in a num- HR 481 1 is indeed a mo\e in the right direc- ber of bilateral loans to developing countries tion and an initial action toward meaningful References and could set an encouraging precedent by re- Third World debt reduction. ducing the payments on these loans. ,'\merica Badru. P. 1998. Inlcrnaiioiml Banking and Rural Develop is also a major shareholder in multilateral lend- Conclusions mcnl Tlie World Bank in Suh-Saharan .Africa. Hants: Ashgalc. ing institutions such as the World Bank and The goal of the Jubilee 2000 campaign Bckclc. Frchiwol "Wanted: a just, humane world. "Africa the IMI- but continues to show reluctance in is. in its own words, is to be "part of a world- Recover, 12 99 p. 3
Driscoll-Shaw. Dan. "What is the Meaning of the Vote for its commitment to the contribution of substan- wide movement to cancel the crushing debt of l^ebt Relief in the IS House of Representatives'.'"' tial funds for the impoverished countries before the Mil- reduction of debt owed to New Jubilee :0()0 USA.www j:(M)Ousa org these institutions. This is a particularly con- lennium" (Jubilee 2000 USA). Now, as this .lubilee 2000 L'S.V. "The Debt Burden on Impoverished
Countries: An Overview." \vvvvv.j2(H)0usa ori;' tentious position for the U.S., since it has also deadline moves further into the past, it is clear Jubilee 20(K) USA. "Debt Relief The US Role " continually encouraged multilateral institu- that the goal is far from reached. What then w vv vv . j 2000usa . org tions to reduce the payments on these debts do we conclude about the state of the vv orld Jubilee 2000 US.\. "Developing Countrv Debt Creates Hunger and Poverlv " vvvvvv.j20lK)usa.org (Jubilee 2000 USA, Debt Relict). Thus, in economy at the beginning of the new millen- Jubilee 2000 US.\. "Breakthrough m the House of Repre this regard, America is talking out of both sides nium? It is clear from the above arguments sentatives!" vvvvvv )2(X)0us3 org Merton. fhomas 1972. \c\\ Seed.-i Contemplation. New of Its mouth, crv'ing out for debt reduction that vast economic inequalities exist interna- ot York: New Directions. while holding that to tionally, that the initiatives cuiTcntly be- back funds would help and Mountain. Ross "Mid-Tcmi Review of the Consolidated " make this gt)al possible. ing undertaken are a far cr\ from what is Appeals United Nations (in"ice for the Civrdma tion of llunianilanan .MTairs. 7 2h 00 Although criticisms of the West, and needed to remedy these imbalances. The rela- www rchefvveb inl .America specifically, arc well founded, there tionship between the U.S. and Africa was used Oxfam. 2000. ".An Fnd to Forgotten F.mcrgcncies?" have been some significanl gains made re- as a particularly dramatic indicator of a vari- www oxfam.org Reich. Robert "It's the ^'ear 20(K) F.conomy. Stupid." The cently with regard to Ihird World debt reduc- ety of mcquiiics. fu>m (he general gulf that \iiHiu\in Pmspeel. I .' 00: p 64 tion. One such gain was the U.S. House of exists between rich and developing nations to Reich. Robed "U.S. Gives. But Only a Little." Public Rthlio Inlernalional's Miirkelplace. 1 6 00. Representatives' approval of a foreign aid the increasing reluctance of Western powers fulu. Desmond "Speech to the (ieneral ,\ssembly of the
bill ( 4S 1 ) fis- to allocate humanitarian aid. Special attention spending HR 1 that increa.scd the Ml Africa Conference of Churches." Oclolier 1997 cal 2001 funding for debt relief from S69.4 was also paid to the way in which allocated www )20 chemical spill. Al each step of this elaborate process, every technological implement must be manu- factured and shipped to wherever it is put to use. So the resources used in those produc- tion processes must also be taken into account. Obviously when I eat a banana I don't feel crushing personal guilt over the parking lot that was built for the factory that produced the barrels in which fertilizer was shipped. But I do recognize that I have contributed to the system that created that parking lot. And as far as organic bananas go, they have much the same effect as their conven- tional counterparts, except for the use of bio- cides. Similar land-use, packaging, and trans- port issues applv. In addition to the physical consequences of global agribusiness, we must also look at the social cost of our purchases. In many coun- tries, such as the Phillipines, there is rampant malnutrition while the nation is a major ex- porter of food to wealthy countries. And po- litical repression is needed to prevent hungry workers from solving their problem in the most obvious way. I used to think that a pure and righteous diet was possible, but now it is clear to me that there are only shades of gray. But while ev erything appears to be a gray area, this does Some Thouchts About nothing to lighten the shade of such atrocities as factory farming. Fish and Bananas Factory fanning is atrocious, and I do not by Andrew McLeod believe that it is sustainable to hunt or fish, but that is not the point: it is probably impos- sible to live sustainably without growing nearly all of one's own food. But even though a and bananas to market is not a pretty process. still strive for. I was a vegan for much of decade, — perfection is impossible, we can often pretty militant about it. lIovve\cr. when First, the land on which the bananas it eating as locally and organically as possible. I moved to Alaska a few years ago. 1 started or any other crops — grow must be cleared So in some cases, when not much plant life is occasionally eating wild meat. I never would for planting. This destroys habitat and creates growing nearby, eating animals may be con- have anticipated this twist before it happened, related problems such as air pollution and soil sistent with a minimum-impact diet. and. at first glance, it may appear to be a moral erosion. In addition, fuel is burned to run the The complex global economy has al- compromise. However. I see it as a continua- machinery used in preparing the fields. lowed us to become detached from what we tion of my ethic of doing as little hann as pos- Then the real fun begins with copious eat; and as a result, it has become easy to ig- sible to the earth and its inhabitants. amounts of pesticides and herbicides — which, nore the consequences of what we consume. What is frequently overlooked when people as the Latin sutTix implies, kill stuff Such In our society, with its highly developed divi- choose their food is that meat is not the only chemical inputs also require resources and sion of labor, it is not reasonable to expect food with blood on it. When calculating the pollution to create and transport them to the everyone to consume only food that they grew, environmental cost of commercially-produced fields. And after their deadly work is done, hunted or gathered themselves. food, one must factor in the industries required they do not v anisli. but wash into streams and Whatever one believes about the future, to produce that food. So eating a banana im- linger on the plants, often causing health prob- the present contains less abundance of non- ported from the tropics may be responsible for lems for workers in the fields, nearby residents, human life than did the past, and a portion of more death and destruction than eating the and anything living downstream. this is due to humans eating everything else. same amount of meat. Before the fruit is ripe, it is harvested, We are putting ourselves at risk along with the While it may first seem ob\ ious that kill- packaged and shipped. Resources and habitat rest of the planet's inhabitants. ing and eating an animal results in more death must also be consumed in order to create the However, when we han est our own food, than eating an equivalent amount of vegeta- vehicles, roads, storage places, processing fa- we are confronted with the fact that our sur- tion, it is really not quite so clear-cut. In a cilities and packaging materials with which the vival comes at others' expense. We become cold climate such as most of North America, a produce is moved to the market (which also more in touch with nature and its limited abil- diet that includes wild game may ha\ e less en- must be built using large amounts of re- ity to support human populations. Reverence vironmental impact than a vegetarian one high sources). And while all those shipments of and gratitude may be gained along with nutri- in exotic and processed foods. food are being moved such great distances, tion, as we feel our connection to the fragile propellers, For example, getting those innocent-looking critters inev itably get in the way of web of life, if [economics] The Poor Who Are With Us by Charlotte Green Honigman-Smith So it's a bleak winter night, and I'm stand- temper. What I really want to do is stick my ing in line at the grocery store behind a young nose in and demand to know if it's really go- Chinese woman who's been shopping u ith her ing to bankrupt the federal government to buy son. who is maybe eight. this u oman and her kids a box of iron-forti- She has a half-dozen big jars of apple fied cereal with cinnamon on it. I want to juice in her cart, and four two-gallon jugs of shove a dollar across the counter and yell milk. There's some block cheese, and dried "Here! Let them eat cinnamon already!" pinto beans, and some other odds and ends, I do nothing. 1 pretend that 1 don't see including two family-size boxes of Frool anything happening, or hear the checkout clerk Loops. I've seen her here before, aiwavs get- explaining that she has to bu\ the plain cereal. ting enough milk and apple juice for a small Noticing that this is going on will only shame army, or at least a big family. It always draws this woman and her family, not whoever at my eye, since it seems like a weird combina- WIC decided that sugar and cinnamon on tion of foods for an Asian woman to buy. I've breakfast cereal was too good for the children always wondered, is it for the little boys of the anemic poor. daycare center? Does she volunteer at a shel- The w oman sighs, picks up her boxes, and ter? Is her husband a white gu\ w ho drinks returns to the cereal aisle for the second time. milk with his bacon and eggs? I'm still idly Her son, bored, protests at this. "Mommy-ah!" wondering all this when I realize that the clerk he calls, and she calls back to him reassur- lias been stalled in ringing up her groceries ingly. She returns w ith two boxes of plain com by the fact that Froot Loops, (who knew'.'), Chex, and puts them dow n on the counter w ith can't be bought on WIC. a gesture of finality. She gives the clerk a long WIC". Milk and juice. Cheese and dried look, and he nods and rings up her purchases. beans. This food, I suddenly realize, is prob- She counts out her money in dollar bills, col- ably nothing this woman would choose on her lects her child and her groceries, and marches own. but it's appro\ cd iron- and calcium-rich out into the night, probably to sprinkle granu- food that the federal aid program for Women. lated sugar on com Chex for the next two Infants and Children will pennit her to buy. weeks. I'm suddenly deeply angry, and baHled. Surely Iron-fortified cereal and cinnamon- WIC covers fish, dark green \ egetablcs, some- sugar— these arc a child's equi\ alent of bread thing beside this middle-American diet? What and roses. I'm still angry as I take my own the hell is this'.' groceries out to the bus slop. I want to li\c in While I'm thinking this, she examines a a kinder world than this one. I want to give laminated card showing appropriate WIC that kid and his mother Froot Loops and fresh foods with the checkout clerk, and takes the produce. Iroot Loops back to their shelf She comes I can't. 1 can't do any of that. But 1 can back with cinnamon-sugar Life. This, it turns remember what I saw. and 1 can admire that out, is also a problem. Life cereal is on the woman, for trying to get her kid a little cinna- appro\ed WIC list, but it has to be plain ce- mon and sugar, and for that look she ga\ e the real, not the fancy stuH with cinnamon. clerk al the end. 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SEND $1.00 (U.S. FUNDS) FOR A CATALOG. •WWW.ALTERNATIVETENTACLES.COWI* ^:,OQ-,.;^9 * \. iZMSK2S2& >>k>^ o /X^c hTc AGO' y o vTn AVAILABLE FEBRUARY TWO THOUSAND ONE DAN BITNEY JOHN MCENTIRE JEFF PARKER JOHN HERNDON DOUGLAS MCCOMBS ALSO AVAILABLE BY TORTOISE FROM THRILL JOCKEY THRILL-01 3 TORTOISE THRILL-025 MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE THRILL-050 TNT THRILLJOCKE^ RDS PO BOX WV^.'ft^1??L?ji^C 'Oc^OM NOW ACCEPTS CREDIT CARDS 1 . \\ . 4 1IE UVES UHINI IHE SIAIlSnCS: woRKiNe vnniN tie prison indusiriu compux lYSKRANDANFORTH ILLUSTMTI0NSBYJ0IIN6ERKEN Sometimes I wonder if I could the wall to watch the procession. The first five I have learned the various methods of home do this in my sleep. 94 West from men walk through the cell gate and metal de- tattoos. Ann Arbor to Jackson, with pastures and tectors, hands chained together at the wrist. I More importantly, I have seen the injus- ponds and billboards that haven't don't know any of them, though some seem tices that arise out of the U.S. justice system, changed in the two years that I have been to recognize me. I try to make eye contact and I have witnessed the remarkable human doing this drive. and smile, giving a small nod of hello. spirit that can overcome these injustices. I Today, while headed to prison for the After the first five men are loaded into a have begun to understand a little more about first time in three months, 1 scan the billboards van, the next five men walk through the gates. oppression, exhilaration and perseverance. I as reminders of things that have not changed. Instantly I recognize the shifting stride of one have become tough and strong, and I have It is a simple security, like organizing the cup- of my friends in the art workshop, a 32-year- also discovered the part of me that weeps and board shelves so that coffee cups are always old African-.A.merican Muslim names Jones- sobs. Doing prison work is navigating through in the same place. As long as the Whitetail El. He sees me, and I watch his eyes light up a world of paradoxes, and no sooner does it Deer Museum still beckons, and the Lloyd in surprise, then switch to sadness. I try to lift you up than it pulls you apart. Bridges Travelland is still open, then I will remain calm and passive, as I slide over to I started writing this piece in an attempt still be allowed access inside the prison. where he is standing. "Jones-El, where are to articulate the stories and experiences that I 1 I 94 West to Exit 4 1 , then right on Pamall they taking you?" w hisper. "Up to Kinross, have had while behind prison walls. I am Road. Buildings and barbed wire line both in the Upper Peninsula." he answers, looking choosing not to focus on the politics and sta- sides of the road. I pass Cotton Facility first, away. tistics of injustice that surround the prison- then Pamall Correctional Facility. At the first We are both thinking the things left un- industrial complex. These are becoming more right 1 make another right, and then drive past said; that Kinross Correctional Facility is and more well-known, and I don't need to re- Cooper Street Prison and the state police known to be a tough and dangerous place, that mind people of the startling facts and figures building. I pass the Level 4 Prison that used he will be 12 hours from his family in De- (if you want information, either see the list to be the largest prison in the world, and then troit, that there are no arts, theatre, or even of sources at the end of this article or give 1 arrive at Charles Fgeler Correctional Facil- college education classes up there. And me a cup of coffee and I'll rant for an hour). ity, where I will be returning to my art work- though Jones-El has done nothing to necessi- This piece of writing came out of my need to shop. tate a transfer, we are both realizing that these tell the stories of the people behind the num- 1 open the car door, and wince at the 30 seconds are the last that we'll have to- bers and graphs. sound of rifle shots. There is a ritle range gether. Through my work, 1 ha\c learned that across the street from the prison. Sometimes He shuffles away into a van, and 1 am there aren't just two million people in U.S. 1 see the ruddy-faced men as they leave after left leaning up against the white concrete wall, prisons right now. There are two million pistol practice; they look to the prison as if it digging my nails into the palms of my hand mothers, fathers, artists, writers, electricians, gives them a mental image when they pull to create a physical pain that u ill cut sharper woodworkers, geniuses and revolutionaries the trigger. than the tear I feel inside.. I kick my heel that are being ostracized and abandoned. Before 1 leave the car, 1 check to make against the prison wall, though 1 do it lightly There are two million members of our com- sure that 1 am wearing a bra, loose clothing, so as not to draw suspicion. I want to kick munity that arc missing. This is a part of the and no make-up. In the rcarview mirror. I see that wall so hard. I want to kick and smash fight against the prison-industrial complex a pale white cross glinting in the sun. I turn all of these walls until they crumble into the that we need to start recognizing. If we want my head to see the headmarkcrs of the prison ground. 1 started two years ago, facilitating a to start talking seriously about actual com- cemetery, a small piece of earth filled with theatre workshop with male juvenile sex of- munity development and participatory gov- puny wooden crosses that are shadowed by fenders at a detention center in Adrian, Michi- ernment interactions, we need to think about two large watchtowcrs. The plaque that faces gan. Since then, I have been in\ol\cd with the voices that arc being prevented from be- the road refers to it as a "resting place for creative writing workshops for both males and ing heard. early settlers." A large part of the cellblock females at various juvenile detention centers, I think that it is up to us, as activists, faces this burial site for prisoners with no fam- I have worked at a Level 4 prison doing the- artists, as people who speak about equality ily to claim them. atre for over a year, and I have helped with and ending oppression, to consider the prison- I feel myself becoming harder, tougher, an art workshop at Egelcr for a year and a industrial complex as our most important as I walk to- half battle. We want community, and yet we can ward the not even build that until our communities are building. EGELER PRISON LOOKS LIKE MOST INSTITUTIONAL Work- complete again, until we insist that we want From the ARCHITECTURE FROM THE 1970S; IT COULD BE A ing in our brothers and sisters released from these outside. SUBURBAN HIGH SCHOOL OR AN OFFICE BUILDING. prisons holding cells. E g c I e r and ju- THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THE LAYERS OF FENCING. prison looks V e n i I e THE PEOPLE INSIDE THE GUARDTOWERS, THE DESOLATION. like most in- deten- It catches me hard sometimes, com- stitutional tion cen- pletely unaware. I remember practicing a dif- architecture ters has ficult scene in my theatre workshop with from the 1970s; it could be a suburban high becoiTie the most meaningful part of each Twinkle, a transgendered African-American school or an office building. The only differ- week. Within my prison workshops, I have who was supposed to be playing a racist ence is the layers of fencing, the guardtowers, had intelligent conversations and hilarious grandmother. His hilarity, his poignancy, his the desolation. moments, have had openness and candor with wonderful personality overwhelmed me, and I enter the building and am suddenly a level of trust that is rare in other parts of I found myself looking at fury at the walls amidst a crowded scene. They are moving my life. I have learned random and practical holding us in. Why is a person this amazing some prisoners to another facility, and the things; 1 am becoming knowledgeable about person locked up? Why is he put in a situa- front room is crowded with foot lockers and the Nation of Islam. I can make a saw out of tion where he is continually raped, abused and toe-tapping, anxious guards. 1 sidle up against two pencils, dental fioss, and toothpaste, and put in solitary confinement? Wc need people like him working with us on the outside. beliefs of how the world should work. They tually beat his wife. I am aware that one of When I started working in prisons. I become forgotten relics, forced into viewing my role models and best friends is in prison thought that the people were completely dis- the outside world as it goes by on their televi- on second-degree murder charges. And yet, I connected iVom me. I knew no one in prison, sion sets without them. They are forgotten by do not enter prison to focus on the charge no one from my town had ever been sent to us. for the most part. against him, or against anyone else. 1 go there prison that 1 knew of. This didn't bother me; The people that fill our prisons are too to create, to work with vibrant, artistic people at that tmic 1 thmk that 1 attributed some kind important to be forgotten. There is a \ itality whose \oices are not acknow Icdged by the I ol'glamour to working with this strange and laruer communitv. A CRITICAL LOOK AT PRISONS SHOWS THAT THEY EXIST AS MIRRORS TO OUR SOCIETY S PROS LEMS, DISTORTER REFLECTIOHS OF THE THINGS THAT WE DOHl WAHT TO FACE. WE LOCK UP ISSUES OF POVERTY AND RACISM, TRY TO FORGET THAT THE PEOPLE INSIDE ARE SIMILAR TO US. dilfcrcnt population. and power w ithin these cages that needs to be And then 1 met David. 1 Ic attended Com- part of our community-building. This isn't sim- PRISON AS PUNISHMENT munity High School, the same high school as ply an injustice to them for being unfairly cap- 1 had spent the whole afternoon begging many of my friends from Ann Arbor. He used tured and caged for the government's profit, friends for the use of a car to get to my theatre to organize anti-nuclear bomb concerts at the but this is an injustice to all of us. We are be- workshop, and my mind was focused on the park and worked at the fancy guitar store in ing robbed of some of our most powerful, cre- trials and tribulations of the automobile. .As town. .And i talked with Scum-Dog, who had ati\e, and enigmatic voices. We need to take an opening acti\ it\. I asked the men w hat kind I anarchy tattoos and used to do graffiti with them back. of car they would be they would be driving if some of the same people from Detroit that 1 they could be in a car at that moment. There had photographed a few years back. And once. BUT... ISN'T IT DANGEROUS? were responses of Range Ro\ers and BMWs. when I was attending a performance of "One When 1 tell people that I work in pris- foreign cars and pickup trucks. "Louis." 1 asked Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" at Sing-Sing? ons, their first comment is usually something when 1 noticed his silence, "what kind of car Prison in New York, a man stopped me on my like "isn't that work dangerous" or "you must would you drive?" "I don't know," he said way out. "I ley, did you say that you were from be brave to do that." There is nothing dan- "I've never driven a car before." "Really?" I Ann Arbor?" "Yeah, 1 go to the University of gerous about teaching art in prisons, nor do 1 pressed. "Yeah, I've been here since I was 15. Michigan." "Hey, I graduated from there, too." need to be brave to work on theatre with 12 and I ne\ ergot my dri\ers license to nothing." The media teaches us that prisoners are adult men. he said, his face stifTening as he shifted in his not part of our lives, that they arc uneducated, 1 can recall the disparaging comments chair. toughened criminals who ha\ e alw ays existed from family members when I started doing Louis was .^5 now. and the silence grew on the outskirts of society. In some ways, this this work. "Don't you understand that these for a moment as 1 realized all of the things that is true, although not in the way that it is por- people have done horrible things?" they he had missed in the outside world in the past trayed in the movies and magazines. Histori- would say to me w hen 1 tried to share a good 20 years. The list w birred in my head as I imag- cally, the U.S. go\ernment has imprisoned story from a workshop. Actually. 1 understand ined being unaware of CDs. the Internet, cell people of color, the poor, and the mentally dis- that the reason that people are in prison has phones. .'\TM machines, and other ob\ious abled in an attempt to keep them away from less to do with the crimes that they have com- parts of our lives that he isn't aware of. the rest of the public. And so anyone with mitted and more to do with their racial and Prisons punish people by removing them money usually can hire themselves a decent economic status. Still, 1 do work w ith people from society. b\ taking them away from an\- lawyer that will keep them out of prison, un- v\ ho ha\ e been charged as murderers and rap- thing that is comforting or familiar in their like iny friend Larry who was sentenced with ists, as well as with drug dealers, burglars, lives. It is the classic idea of isolation as repri- 5 years for buying alcohol for minors. The po- and arsonists. It is hard to understand that mand, the idea that freedom is our most pre- lice and the courts unfairly prosecute people these people are more than these labels. It is cious privilege and any transgression against of color, so that when 1 attended a punk rock difficult to reconcile the brutal and horrific societN "s moral codes results in a banishment show at prison my llesh gleamed u hite in the acts that some people ha\c committed, and from that society. It is a time-out period, it is audience of black and brown faces. There arc still hold to in\ belief that prisons are not an being put in the comer, it is being grounded often racial, religious, and economic dilTcr- appropriate or just punishment. for the w eekend. it is than ences between myself and the men that 1 work 1 ha\e to think about it in this way. that Hxcept. of course, much more w ith, but they aren't characteristics that should we ha\e all done horrible things in our li\es. that. Prisons are o\ ercrow ded cages that thriv c keep us separated. It is impi)rtant to acknowl- that 1 do not work in pri.sons to cast judgment, on \iolence and intimidation. They become edge these di (Terences, but not to use them as that each person is made up of more than the holding pens without any sense of hunianit\. exist a di\iding tool. The people 1 ha\e met who worst thing that the> ha\e e\er done, that a places where rape. bnitalitN. and drugs are incarcerated ha\ e the same basic emotions, series of complex situations and inequalities as the nomi. Prisoners are taught to tmst no to ideas, and beliefs that 1 can find ain w here else ha\ c led them to be where they are now. I am one. to not de\elop any close attachments, in the world. not saying that it is easy, though. I ha\ e caught put on their guard and keep all of their emo- And yet the fact of their imprisonment myself staring into the eyes of one of my tions inside. In 19% Bill Clinton cut all fund- and isolation does not allow us lo know any- friends who is in prison iin domestic abuse ing for education in prisons, and Michigan in thing about their emotions or ideas, nor does charges, wondering what could turn his particular ha.s denied ci\il rights protection to It allow them a chance to work \'or their own gentleness into such a rage that he would ac- [people] ^wimimiTiriiH^iJuiiJ!, and save 25% off the cover price! Please send my subscription to: address Sign up now to show your (optional) r _i i J J i J- email support for independent media and receive six issues of CLAMOR for just $18! yt^jjjjg o new subscription Orenewal O Payment enclosed OBill me later To order by email: [email protected] Please allow 6-8 weeks tor your first issue NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IF MAILED IN THE UNITED STATES BUSINESS REPLY MAIL FIRST-CLASS MAIL PERMIT NO 25 BOWLING GREEN POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE BECOME THE MEDIA PO BOX 1225 BOWLING GREEN OH 43402-9991 l.l..l..ll„l..lll I.ll.l..l.l..l.l.....lil.l..l .Ji F* • *':• J'* ^-.^ ^HBWsm -.C '.j rm^ .::> *N.1 their prisoners. And after many years of exist- the sale of drugs on the streets, we imprison THE CALL FOR ! ing in an environment such as this, they are both users and dealers. Prisons point out that CLEMENCY OF LEONARD PELTIER released back to sur\ive on their own in soci- in this country, people don't have the same op- It is unlikely that President Bush would grant ety. portunities. They prove that instead of level- Leonard Peltier executive clemency. "Bush's record Louis once admitted his fear of the out- ing the playing fields, with prisons we capi- number of capital punishments as Governor of Texas side world to our workshop. "I am going to talize on them. suggests that clemency would not be one of his key express get paroled in a year," he said. "It's been 20 It is easy for me to this fer\ency concerns," commented Jennifer Harbury, legal advisor vears, and I am afraid to live with all these for Peltier. In 1 991 , Judge Gerald Heaney of the Eighth Cir- cuit Court of Appeals recommended clemency for Peltier. Executive clemency is the constitutional power given exclusively to the President of the United States which allows him, following a criminal conviction or ju- venile adjudication, to grant a pardon or commutation of sentence. On Election Day 2000 former President Clinton made the possibility of freedom for Leonard Peltier more tangible than anytime during the last quarter century. President Clinton called into radio stations around the country as a last minute tactic to drum up support for things that I don't know about." and vehemence about prisons, not only be- then presidential-candidate Al Gore. He called WBAI, in York City, part of the Pacifica Network, The existence of prisons as isolation tanks cause I have learned the facts that make this 99.5 FM New and stumbled upon an impromptu interview with Amy does a much greater disservice to our present system so unjust, but because this fight is no Goodman, host of Democracy Now! President Clinton society than it does to help or protect us. We've longer about just the abstract facts or treatises responded that he would consider Peltier's clemency lost family members and intelligent thinkers, on the systems of oppression. This is about petition. and our community as a whole is weakened people that I know, about men who've im- Last summer President Clinton was the first Presi- by our refusal to face the problems that create pacted my life in real ways. I'm trying to stick dent to visit Pine Ridge since Calvin Coolidge. This sig- contemporary the basis for criminal behavior. up for my friends here. I'm asking people to nals empathy of Native Americans few presidents have shown. It was also another way which A critical look at prisons shows that they help me. President Clinton tried to secure his place in history. exist as mirrors to our society's problems, dis- There are so many things that can be done Peltier, a Native American and member of the reflections the things that don't to fight the prison-industrial complex. Start torted of we Amencan Indian Movement (AIM), is currently serving want to face. We lock up issues of poverty and writing to prisoners. Find out about the dif- two life sentences for the murders of FBI agents Jack racism, try to forget that the people inside are ferent prisons in your area, and make inquir- Coler and Ronald Williams on June 26, 1 975 at Pine Ridge, North Dakota. The agents went to the Pine Ridge similar to us. We push away all the elements ies to the warden about volunteering there. Reservation to inquire about the theft of a pair of cow- that are undesirable to the mainstream, and we Teach English or History, work with theater, boy boots. The men were searching for Jimmy Eagle, pretend that they don't exist. Instead of work- art, dance, maybe yoga. Organize within your who allegedly took them from a drinking buddy during ing to eradicate issues of homelessness in New group of friends, and plan nights when you a brawl. York, the homeless are put in jail. Instead of watch prison documentaries and discuss the Eagle's trail led the agents to the Jumping Bull the Oglala Peltier alleg- addressing the economic complexities behind content of these mo\ ies. Throw benefit shows property at community. was edly mistaken for Eagle. A shoot-out erupted. Peltier to raise money for prison libraries. Stop shop- LOUIS WAS 3S NOW. AND THE SILENCE admits to returning gunfire in self-defense that day ping at Victoria's Secret and Eddie Bauer, stop yet denies murdering the two agents. GREW FOR A MOMENT AS I REALIZED buying plane tickets from TWA and comput- Harbury, says, "Leonard has been denied a new ALL OF THE THINGS THAT HE HAD ers from IBM (they all use prison labor). Boy- trial despite overwhelming evidence of FBI misconduct, MISSED IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN THE cott AT&T, MCI, and Sprint because of their the use of false testimonies, and the concealment of a ballistics test reflecting his innocence." PAST 20 YEARS. unfair policies of charging prisoners 6 times "He's also long overdue for parole especially in the normal light of his remarkable human rights achievements and amount for col- his failing health." He suffers from diabetes, a heart lect calls. Dem- condition, near blindness in one eye, and hypertension. onstrate and hold Yet he's been denied because he will not confess to a rallies that edu- crime he does not admit to committing. In 1 985, U.S. Prosecutor Lynn Crooks said no cate the public evidence existed against Peltier. Her admission led to about the in- additional trial requests between 1 991 and 1 994, which the equalities of were also denied. Meanwhile, all Peltier's requests for U.S. justice sys- parole have been denied. He will not be eligible for pa- tem. role again until 2008. As of December 24, 1 999 President Clinton has There is so granted only 74 pardons and 1 6 commutations. Less much to we need than 4% of the total number requested and far less to to up. do wake than any other President, even President Reagan educate, and granted almost 1 5% of those requested. tight. It is all nec- Yet, because this case may reflect federal mis- essary. Fight pris- behavior and is just one stop in a long history of bad relations between Washington, D.C. and Native Ameri- ons, get involved, cans it may never be resolved. John Trudell, poet and don't forget former spokesperson for AIM, claims, "Leonard is be- parts about the of ing kept in prison because the FBI is responsible for our world that we the killing of its own agents." have been taught -Greg Fuchs to ignore, -a- [people] Night of Power words by Mumia Abu-Jamal j)\ illustrations by Ryan James heart illustration by John Geriien C3 [people] Uh'LL,UH,rlND^OU R PHP16E TWO UNlfORM, J^Mf^L^ ro LIKE TO pNTRCT W VOUR BLOCK SEP^GEF^NT OF UJILL TWE OF THBT.. THt CO^AMoMU)et^LTH Of ?lNNSU\lftNlft H^lS SIGNED H0^?^ MV FWIL^'. A CWE Oim UJRRRI^NT T0DftV,tFf6CTI\;E FOR M WEEK OF RUCAJST 13, H'^S. 1 HWE ^TTJ^CHED ft CON Cf Tl€ WAWftNT. THE DEPRWMWT of COWCTIOMS Hft^ SET THE Df^TE OF THURSD^^S*, ^aa^sT :7, !'^5 to cfi?>f^w out this mi?^ rt the sti^te COftRECTlOMftL INSTITUTION fiT oOCKVlEU). RN^ aUESTlONS? 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I FELT IT Surging through everw pore, nwure's pouuer ?REV:^1L£D OVER THE MP\N-W\f^O£, ^ND I FELT THf^T NIGHT THhT I UIOULO PREUPWL pL ^ / J^-J\.J|="j i-'ui} -linirj^ House, K^)^ . / ^— ^ \ o_ Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner and journalist who has been on Pennsylvania's death row since 1982. Convicted of the killing of a police officer in a trial marked I by corruption, intimidation of witnesses, and supressed evidence; Jamal has remained outspoken and active despite years behind bars. An international support rs> movement is demanding a fair trial and freedom for Jamal. Write to Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI Greene, 1040 E Roy Furman Hwy, Waynesburg, PA 15370, USA. "^ [people] "There he is." found a way to flee from the anti-glory of post- hair kicks a rock off of the sidewalk and into "Who?" teenage fallout. In the crowd of people a poet the street. He breathes the last moments of "That guy that walks everywhere." sighs with relief because, finally, she has noth- daytime into his lungs. His eyes readjust as "Oh you mean Nike Air Homeless." ing to say. The faithless congregation mourns the darkness encapsulates that late summer Laugh. with belief in nothing but the present, and it's dusk. The most humbling five minutes of the "That's what Terese calls him, 1 think it's hard without life everlasting. Why, why did day pass, light is exchanged for darkness in a pretty funny." that God who they trusted and feared, why fury of lightning bug brigades. As he crosses "Say when did she get out of jail?" did he take another romantic, driven hard with the Third Street Bridge he notices a giri sitting "Three er a month ago, yesterday." pessimism, from their world? on her bike, balancing with one leg on the metal "How's it been? I mean, is she adjusting rails that overlook the train tracks a hundred OK?" "This funeral is kind of weirding me out. feet below. The smoke from her cigarette re- "What to being on the outside or to being He would have never wanted it so religious. minds him of someone he once knew. He a mother? He didn't go to church." coughs so that she knows he's approaching. "Both 1 guess." "Yeah, but haven't you noticed, when The girl swings her head around in sur- "Well she's too scared to laugh when the someone dies like this, or whenever anyone prise. She hadn't realized how dark it had lights are out, too serious to smile when they're really dies the only way to justify it is by reli- gotten. Another day comes to an end and she on. I can't get her to eat meat anymore and gious means or by God? It's just more com- tries to remember what she's accomplished. she calls JJ "your' child." forting for everyone to believe that he's hap- The blanket of nightfall makes it difficult for Silence. pier than the rest of us who are still down her to see the figure approaching. Purple vi- "Damn how can she really be Terese here." sion replaces the missing light particles en- " when she's not cookin' that BBQ chicken? Oh Yeah, it's when death is unwarranted abling her to recognize the infamous home- with that spicy sauce she makes. Maybe they and erratic that we all forget that "this was less man walking toward her. A sweat breaks hav e her trapped in some dank dungeon in the what God wanted' bullshit. If God placed a out on her brow. She's always wanted to say bottom of the prison and this isjust an imposter, bulldozer in the middle of a pitch dark high- something to him. ask him what his name is, a phony look alike." way and coordinated everything so that this wave in recognition. But every time he's near "One could only wish." 24-year-old boy, and I mean that in the best she gets scared and feels the pressure of cru- They both quickly notice the radio as it sense, with a guitar and a whole bunch of high cial moments. She fumbles in her pocket for loses its FM connection. Something deep in- school friends on his mind ran directly into it something to give him-not money or charity, side the car sounds like an old man crying un- while strapped into a fuckin" death toy Toyota, just an explanation or a vague introduction. All derwater; they both know it's the carburetor then every religious institution would fall that she has is a letter she was planning on but keep quiet nevertheless. Hushed in fear apart at the seams." mailing to her best friend. that the other might want to chime in with the "But then we'd all have to go through It had taken an entire week of re-word- solution, silenced in a way that only maternal life with no conception of Heaven and things ing and ripping up to get things right, but fi- men can be. would be just a little more dismal and hope- nally she is ready to send it to her. Unlike her The homeless man who li\ cs on his own less than they already are." feelings, the words aren't complicated. As she two feet walks across the road at the comer of "I can't believe we're talking about this tried to write it she couldn't shake a certain Markham and Fair Park. All day long with right now." Nietzsche quote from her mmd, "That which one thought in his mind, he masters something can be put into words is already dead in our beyond the blind comforts of consumption. In The crowd began to diminish with the hearts." She doesn't want to rationalize and the purgatorial heat of this Arkansas July he last light of day. Two of the deceased's best over-analyze this feeling in her stomach but will never reach Heaven, or maybe he has friends sit on the lawn watching cars full of she has to; the letter is the last step, or maybe passed on through that place. Slipped by as red-eyed people turn on their ignitions and the first. the dirty shadow of European descent, dirtied sigh with the relief that this afternoon has fi- As the man walks past her she looks down with the stagnant experience of going nowhere. nally come to an end. They read as the at the envelope and without a second to pon- He's nothing like that homeless vet on the bike crowd's lips utter with exhaust that Ameri- der or wonder she plunges it into his hands. at McDonald's or the dark men that stand out- can obsession over putting things in the past He doesn't even look up at her; he takes the side of the shelter on Second Street. Anyone and getting on top of life again. letter and continues walking. in town will tell you that. "Everyone just wants to cry a little, She calls after him, "It's not to you, but The light turns green and the men resume mourn for a bit. then forget all of this and re- it's my heart." Did that sound really artificial their conversation with a topic a million miles gain their faith in the force and themselves as and cheesy she wonders? "Ummm, 1 mean, from what's on their minds, evasive and numb fragile super humans." it's too important for me to keep anyway. You they sidetrack in a way that only men can do. "1 can't believe he's gone. His body is can mail it if you want." What have I done, The bearded man who wears off his toes to in the ground when a week ago it was asleep she thinks. Now she's never going to know keep from having his bed of plastic and brush on my couch-and 1 know he wanted to be cre- how I feel. "Fuck Carrie," she says aloud to overturned makes his way up Markham. mated." herself, "the girl lives down the damn street Downtown Little Rock isjust over the hill. He "Man I wanted to fucking punch that from you, you see her everyday. What's so puts on a broken pair of transistor headphones priest when he cut our song off halfway." hard about ail this?" as he passes by a church. "Like that's not proper for his deliver- He starts to open the letter then shoves it Outside of the church a group of about ance to Heaven; man fuck that." into his back pocket. Maybe he'll send it or 200 people stomp in place on the green grass. "We can't ever let this town forget him." maybe he'll use it to fuel a fire later on. He They are mostly young and wearing black They both wonder when the last time thinks about just leaving it there, hidden away clothing. it On such a hot day is obvious that was that they'd said I love you to anyone. A on his person where it will stick to his skin someone's life has been taken-taken rather natural thought when someone falls off un- like papier mache and he'll forget about it un- than lost, for blood is still spilling on a dusty expectedly. til the words bleed. Just one moment after dusk highway where, with death, that boy finally The homeless man covered in dirt and turns the sky and his skin the same color, dark- [people] •less collapses onto the city. With the sun out waiting, wading toward death. 1 just wanna of range, the moon begins to cool everything find the ladder out of the ocean. The .salt stings down. Bodies and engines slow to a .speeding my pores and there's no shadows to mock and crawl, giving up the chase instigated by today's people just stop noticing everything else but monolithic heat index. A car passes and some- their aching muscles, torn from efforts to one yells at the walking man, "Take a bath merely stay alive. But they're doing it so well. motherfucker." He doesn't feel dirty; he can't And I can't be part of it. And I can't kid my- tell the grime on his skin from the asphalt on self with productivity and inflation rates. Shit the streets from the Coke machine in the polar the whole mess is scattered, far far beyond my bear cage at the zoo, from the empty pockets reach." that steal his identity as an American (and we The longer he goes the more dramatic it just keep calling him the walking man). becomes. The man is skilled at talking to him- Further down the street the ruins of an self; he sounds good. The homeless man has old pizza place lay buried; an elegy to urban stopped right behind him to listen for a few flight usurps the old sign that still hangs above minutes. The look on his face is one of pity. the doorway. Across the street a man sits on a The man on the bus bench talks like a writer, bus bench all alone. His head rests in the palms someone who redefines irony and narcissism of his delicate hands. The way he fidgets and over and over again. Someone who watches stares insists that something doesn't fit right. himself as romantically as he does the people The homeless man stops to cross the street. A around him. His own mind is another country police car slows down as it passes through what and sometimes the voices are foreign and he looks like a possible situation; the asymmetry transcribes them. His wife will probably leave between this triangle of human disturbance is him soon. Somewhere in the back of his mind invisible to the man on the bus bench. In fact he knows this, and it makes him happy. His he is unaware of most everythmg around him. house will become a coffin and will probably 1 Ic sinks in the quicksand of his own thoughts be repossessed in a few years. When he was as the cop car disappears over the hill. eight he died for 16 seconds at his friend While waiting for the bus the man real- Steve's pool party. izes that he doesn't understand himself but not The homeless man has never been dead, in the existential sense. He just walked away not even in a metaphorical sense. He's never from his fifth job this year. He made it a month really known anyone that's died and he's never and a half at this one. His wife and his son been sick either. The girl on the bridge, her moved out of Memphis w ith him so that he mother shot her father four years ago. He w as could start fresh. Yesterday was his 30"' birth- an asshole, but he never touched a sip of alco- day and payday so he took them out to dinner, hol in his life. He did have a good job though. Italian food, to celebrate. Now he has to crawl One he hated inside but could ne\er let go. back home and tell them something that he The pension plans of course. The two guys in can't even explain to himself He mulls over the car both work OK jobs. One w ill soon the v\ords in his head: become an environmental lawyer, but he'll "Honey, Lanie, I can't work, I cannot do never change anything. His paycheck will be It. I'm not la/y; look at my manuscripts. It's enough to feed one thousand hungry faces. just that I'm not a slave or a willful amputee. He'll start to really like grilled salmon and this My morals eat away at me when I punch the particular white wine from Italy. The other clock; my balls sting and my hair starts to fall man's wife was just released from jail. She out — I know it does." He tugs at the thin black will ne\er be the same. She will realize more fur on his crown as he continues talking to him- and more everyday how unfamiliar and inhu- self out loud. "I drink coffee in the morning man the world really is. 0\er and o\er she and beer all night and in between all I really will forget to hug her son. see is a paycheck. Do you recognize those The boy w ho the funeral was for hit a bull- words honey? Old song lyrics that I used to dozer that was 1\ ing in the middle of the high- swear by. I just never thought it would come way. A car in front of him sw cr\ ed and missed to this." it. There weren't any skid marks at the scene He was no longer talking to her. but you can still sec the charred asphalt where "And if 1 really don't support this money- the car exploded. His dad sells cars and the hungry C'alvinist work ethic then why am I man on the park bench will write about how giving up so much of my time and all of my ironic that is. The homeless man w hose name energy to some computer screen that I happen I don't know, he'll keep walking. Soon he'll to understand, fueling the lire that's burning notice the smell of fall and the leaves will be- me at the stake'.' (ioddanimil. we're all just gin to fade into that beautiful stage before bobbing at the surface, like dead bodies. My death. One day he will send that letter. He'll mouth and nose are barely over the waterline. walk across the entire city to reach the post Sail water in a dark dirty sea keeps pouring in office and maybe the girl on the bike and her my mouth and swelling up my dry lungs when friend will fall in love. ^ I try to yell or even talk. And here we are all drowning, not thinking thai we're wading. [people] i Was Abraham Lincoln a Racist? A Review of Lerone Bennett Jr.'s. Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's Dream by Ron Sakolsky "/ will say then that I am not. nor ever have to an expunging of the historical record of any been in favor of bringing about in any way unpleasant facts about their hero (and meal the social and political equality of the white ticket), the African-American community has and black races [applause]— that I am not always taken it inore seriously. For years, the nor ever have been in favor of making voters Bennett article has had a lively word-of-mouth or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them underground circulation in black America. In to hold office, nor to intermany with white 1976, African-American novelist Ishmael people: and I will say in addition to this that Reed, in his novel. Flight to Canada, obviously there is a physical difference between the white used the article as the basis for his hilarious and black races which I believe will forever send-up of American racism with Lincoln Jorbid the two races living together on terms mockingly featured as one of its central char- of social and political equalit}: And inasmuch acters. as they cannot so live, while they do remain Bennett's previous book. Before The together there must be the position of supe- Mayflower, is a respected text in African- rior and inferior and I as much as any other American history. Yet even today, just as was man am in favor of having the superior posi- the case when the original article appeared, " tion assigned to the white race. assorted historians and freelance writers have Abraham Lincoln, Charleston, Illinois, rushed to the front lines to attack Forced Into 1858 Glory and defend the mythical Lincoln. Many of these "drive-by" reviews are quick to point Forced Into Glory was originally con- out that Bennett's book inappropriately and ceived back in 1968, when Lerone Bennett Jr. unfairly applies Twentieth Century ideas on wrote the Ebony article, "Was Abe Lincoln A race to Lincoln's Civil War America. The ar- White Supremacist?" While that article has gument is that Lincoln was a man of his time largely been ignored by the Establishment co- and what seems like racism today was based terie of Lincoln scholars dedicated as they are upon the widely accepted, if less enlightened. ^«3 [people] iiiiderstanding of racial issues that was preva- voted to extend the reach of the Fugiti\e Slave whose goal was not to immediately emanci- lent among white people in the Nineteenth Law to Washington. DC within sight of Capi- pate the slaves, but to keep slavery in tact un- is at to Century. However. Bennett pains point tol Hill itself For such unswerving support of til Lincoln could mobilize support for his real out the dangerous fallacy of this logic. He says, the Fugitive Slave Law, Wendell Phillips went plan which called for gradual emancipation "1 ha\ e compared Lincoln here not with Twen- so far as to call Lincoln a "slave hound." Back with handsome compensation to the tieth Century leaders but with the white men in Illinois. Lincoln had previously as a state slavemasters and an indefinite period of ap- and women of his own time, and I have sug- legislator voted for a racially discriminatory prenticeship (the terms of which would be con- gested that one of the reasons we are in trouble electoral system and Black Laws and Codes trolled by the slaveholders) before full free- racially in this country is that we ha\e system- which encouraged racist violence and were dom w as to be granted. Moreover, such a half- atically downplayed and suppressed the white among the harshest in the country. Partly hearted emancipation scheme was to be com- men and women who, unlike Lincoln, really thanks to Lincoln, as historian Robert P. bined with more serious plans for deponing believed in the Declaration of Independence." Howard has put it, Illinois was "almost a slave the former slaves to another country in Africa Who were these men and women? In his state." Yet while Lincoln's actions vis a vis or the Caribbean so that the divisive race issue dedication to "the real emancipators v^hoforced the Fugitive Slave Law led to the capture of w ould no longer plague fraternal relations be- Lincoln into glory." Bennett includes not only untold numbers of slaves and free blacks as- tween Americans of European descent. Abo- militant African-American abolitionists and sumed to be escaped slaves, other white litionist, hell, Lincoln wasn't even an integra- rebels like Springfield fami- tionist. So much for liberal illusions... Frederick Dou- lies secretly took Why then did Lincoln issue the Emanci- Unable to find any precedent, (Lincoln) glas, Harriet fugitives from pation Proclamation at all? As Bennett con- Tubman, Nat exclaimed angrily: I will be damned if slavery to Chi- vincingly argues, the real impetus was the Sec- Turner and So- I don't feel almost sorry for being cago in wagons ond Confiscation Act of July 17, 1 862-the /-ea/ journer Truth, but elected when the niggers is the first loaded with sacks Emancipation Proclamation. This Act signed such Americans of grain to con- into law six months before the signing of the thing I have to attend to. of European de- tinue their jour- Emancipation Proclamation, provided for im- scent as fiery ney on the Under- mediate confiscation of the slaveowners' hu- abolitionists John Brown and Wendell Phillips ground Railroad to eventual freedom in man "property" and granted freedom outright as well as Radical Republicans such as Charles Canada. Yet at the time when the slavery ques- to those formerly defined as chattel. It also Sumner and Thaddeus Ste\ens. As to politi- tion was the most burning moral issue facing defined the leading figures among the South- cians from Lincoln's home state, he singles out the nation, Lincoln was not only not an aboli- em secessionists as traitors and demanded rec- Trumbull, who, unlike Lincoln, op- Lyman tionist , but he contemptuously derided aboli- onciliation with justice. So when on Septem- posed the pre-Civil War Fugitive Slave Act by tionism itself ber 22. 1862. exactly one day before the ef- which escaped sla\ es were hunted dov\ n in the How can we have forgotten the names of fective date of the Confiscation .Act. Lincoln, North, and who was a supporter of the Confis- the courageous stationmasters on the Under- as Chief Executive, signed the Preliminary cation Acts, which called for an immediate end ground Railroad, and, adding insult to injury, Emancipation Proclamation, it, as intended, to slavery without compensation to the continue to refer to Lincoln, who openly de- effectively nullified that much more radical slaveholders, in addition to Trumbull, Bennett spised the abolitionists, as "The Great Eman- Congressional .Act. says Illinois can be proud of its first abolition- cipator"? After all, as Bennett so ably demon- In fact, as Lincoln often pointed out to ist State Representative Owen Lovejoy, and his strates, the Emancipation Proclamation was not quell the fears of his Southern brethren, the brother Elijah Lovejoy, whose abolitionist what it seemed. Even Lincoln's Secretary of Emancipation Proclamation was a war docu- printing press was thrown into the Mississippi State William Henr>' Seward sarcastically said ment w hich had limited legality and scope and Ri\erand his life taken by an angry white mob of the Presidential proclamation, "We show our would be inoperative after the war was over. in Alton. sympathy with the slaves by emancipating the Beyond its wartime nature, it had many legal Part of the historical mirage floating slaves where we cannot reach them and hold- loopholes which would hav e engendered a cen- around Lincoln is that he grew increasingly less ing them in bondage where we can set them tur\ of litigation. LegalK speaking, as Bennett racist and more in favor of racial equality over free." Lincoln's proclamation, in and of itself notes, it took the Thirteenth .Xmendment rati- time. Not so, says Bennett. According to an did not acHially free a single sla\ e in the Con- fied by the states to consolidate the legal free- eyewitness account by Henry Villard, with the federacy and studiously excluded all slaves doms that the public mistakenly associates with country on the verge of Civil War, a folksy Lin- w ithin territory occupied by the Union Army. the Emancipation Proclamation. That amend- coln, who was fresh from his victory in the Lincoln carefulK crafted a "solution" to the ment was authored not bv Lincoln, but b> the presidential campaign of 1 860, "told a story of slavery issue that would not be otTensive to less well known Radical Republicans who the Kentucky Justice of the Peace whose first his (white) Southern brothers. It was formu- forced Lincoln into glory. case was a criminal prosecution for the abuse lated not in the overriding interest of the ag- Beyond the Confiscation .Acts, the Radi- of slaves. Unable to find any precedent, he grieved slaves, but had as its primar\' goal the cal Republicans in the .'^7th Congress also re- exclaimed angrily: I will be damned ill don't preservation of the Union. Once again folks: V ised the militarv code by which Lincoln had feel almost sorry for being elected when the "Honest" Abe "freed" slaves in Confederate called upon Union soldiers to return slaves to niggers is the first thing I have to attend to." territory where his proclamation held no legal slav eovvners. and passed the controv ersial act Not only did Lincoln use the word "nigger" authority and left them in slaver\ in Union- which freed all slaves who chose to enlist in countless times, but he was a frequenter of held lerritop. where he could have freed them. the L'nion Amiy. These Congressional actions minstrel show s and specialized in telling nigger Moreov er, the Emancipation Proclamation w as ultimately contributed to the defeat of the jokes ad nauseam to his political intimates and specifically designed so as not to apply to the slavocracy. Lincoln, on the other hand, feared cronies. Border States w here the extension of slav cry a black insurrection more than the prolonga- ,\s to tor his support lor the fugitive Slave had been a hotly contested issue for years. tion of slav cp. or even the prospect of militarv Law. he had no qualms about slave hunters kid- As Bennett notes, it seems from the ev i- defeat. He bent over backwards so as not to napping escaped sla\es right on the streets of dence of the historical record that the limanci- offend the slavocracy, and sleadfastiv refused his adopted hometown of Springfield, and even pation Proclamation was, in reality, a ploy to ami the slaves as he did other Union sol- [people] . diers until late in the war. As a result, many always talking, even as president, of his 'duty' serv ed the interests of rich w hite men-indus- Northern troops felt his actions endangered to whiteness, accepted it. The different choices trialists up North and slaveholders in the South. their lives and impeded the war effort, and Il- Brown. Phillips and Lincoln made enable us Many of Springfield's wealthiest families linois Governor Richard Yates even urged him to say that w hiteness has many ways of being were, of course, descended from the Kentucky in a public letter to let black people fight on white, and that to choose to be a white man is slaveholders with whom the young Mr. Lin- the side of the Union. to choose to be a particular kind ofwhite man." coln opportunistically hoped to curry favor. Lincoln's war policy was clearly to win While the historical circumstances of gender Even the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates the war without touching sla\ ery. His goal was and race relations are different today, the ethi- abounded in racist remarks and w ere not about to restore the old Union, and he refused to take cal choices remain the same. w hether to abolish slavery, but merely w hether the high ground by embarking on an inspira- What kind of white man was Lincoln? white supremacy would be best served by ex- tional crusade against slavery which would As a politician, he was often the Great E\ ader cluding slavery from the territories or allow- have no doubt buoyed the sagging spirits of rather than the Great Emancipator. Bennett ing slav eowners to bring their slav es with them the Union army by giving them a just cause describes him as anywhere they for which to fight. As Bennett sees it, instead a "fence sitter" chose. During Lincoln pulled himself up by his boot- of taking the opportunity to emphasize the goal and a "trimmer" the Lincoln- of the war as being the completion of the un- who. while he straps and early on joined the Whig Douglas De- finished American revolution that had been might say that Party. In choosing the party of con- bates, when stalled by slavery, Lincoln cautiously sought slavery was servatism and aristocracy, he repudi- Douglas proudly a return to the previous status quo. wrong in the ab- proclaimed that ated not only poor blacks, slave and Accordingly, during the war. when stract, almost al- he was against free, but the very class of poor whites "troublesome" anti-sia\cry generals freed ways repudiated intermarriage, slaves in Missouri, Georgia. Florida. Louisi- these statements from which he had himself arisen. Lincoln replied ana and South Carolina, Lincoln ordered that by his actions. about himself they be re-enslaved. And when at the close of Even his old law that it was w rong the war he approved the creation of "Jim partner William Hendon called him "a walk- to suggest that he was in fav or of "niggers and Crow" governments in occupied states, he was ing contradiction." Bom in a Kentucky log white people marr>'ing together." Lincoln was perfectly willing to deny the ballot and the cabin as a poor white Southerner, Lincoln horrified by miscegenation. In Springfield in other rights of citizenship to African Ameri- pulled himself up by his bootstraps and early 1857, he revealingly said, "There is a natural cans just as he had done in his tenure at the on joined the Whig Partv. In choosing the disgust in the minds of nearly all w hite people, state legislature in Illinois, even though many party of conservatism and aristocracy, he re- to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation had joined the Union Army (albeit serving at pudiated not only poor blacks, slave and free, of the white and black races." Not surpris- less than the wages of white soldiers. Bennett but the very class of poor whites from which ingly, his ultimate plan for separating the two adds, a policy from u hich Lincoln refused to he had himself races w as de- budge). arisen. He portation of Wendell Phillips assessed Lincoln with fought in the the black succinct directness. "We think he docs not Black Hawk race. merit the name of liberator." Black abolition- Wars which 1 n ist and fonner slave Frederick Douglas, often ended in forced fact, on the assumed by historians to be Lincoln's devoted removal, mas- issue of race advisor on slavery issues, was even more un- sive realloca- Lincoln kind in his scathing criticism of Lincoln's "in- tions and was could be consistencies, his pride of race and blood, his part and parcel amazingly contempt for Negroes and his canting hypoc- of the policy of callous. risy... In his interests, in his associations, in genocide to- Speaking in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he ward Native Worcester, was a white man. He was preeminently the Americans. He Massachu- white man's President, entirely devoted to the favored puni- setts in Sep- welfare of white men." tive Black tember of Building on Douglas" statement, Bennett Laws in the 1848. he contends that Lincoln constructed his white- "free" state of made a ness as the centerpiece of his being and his Illinois and op- shocking im- politics. Lincoln was no race traitor, far from erated on the promptu ref- it. in Bennett's thinking, white people have assumptions of erence to choices when it comes to race issues. the Supreme martyred Illi- "Whether a White person bom into the group Court's 1857 nois aboli- accepts the group imperative or rejects it or Dred Scott De- tionist Elijah puts it in braclcets, he or she must take a stand cision which L o V e j o y on it, especially in a situation where whiteness .said that black people had no legal rights that saying to his New England audience. "I have is oppressing non-v\hiteness or where white- white people w ere bound to respect. He sup- heard you have abolitionists here. We have a ness is struggling non-\ iolently and violently ported chattel slavery where it existed, op- few in Illinois and we shot one the other day." to keep white superior and Non-white subor- posed only to its extension, and had no prob- Back at the time of Lovejoy's murder in .Alton. dinate. John Brown and Wendell Phillips re- lem with wage slavery. Illinois. Lincoln had said nothing to condemn jected the white vow in the name of the hu- While Lincoln talked with a forked the crime. Instead, he matter-of-factly noted, man vow. pro\ ing among t)tiier things, that one tongue about gov eminent of the people, by "In light of the Southem origin of most of them, rvj as doesn't have to be white. Lincoln who was the people and for the people, he resolutely the attitude o\' the tov\ nspeople on abolition [people] was a natural [italics mine] one." Later in The Negro has earned land, education, rights. dice makes it impossible to do justice to the 1858, he spoke glowingly in Alton in favor of Before we leave him we ought to leave him Negro." The chances for democracy in his lifelong dream for the new Western terri- on his own soil, in his own house, with the America were seriously jeopardized long ago tories in which they would become a white right to the ballot, and the school-house within by the fatal compromise between slavery and Utopia devoid of black people. It was this rac- reach." freedom that legally made each enslaved .Af- ist Utopia that, as Bennett points out, Lincoln Unlike Lincoln's defense of Southern rican 3/5 of a human being, and the possibility characteristically described as "the last, best apartheid, Charles Sumner proposed a post- of attaining social justice has been negated hope of the world." Essentially Lincoln be- war civil rights bill that would have banned even further by the subsequent denial of and lieved that white freedom necessitated black segregation in schools, churches, cemeteries, refusal to address issues of institutionalized bondage. As he once said, "We could never public conveyances and places of public ac- racism on the part of politicians like Lincoln get our constitution unless we permitted them commodation. Instead of Sumner's visionary and his ilk who have always limited their ac- to remain in slavery" [italics mine]. plan, we got the disastrous Reconstruction tions to apologies and platitudes. Now, of course, there are those who will plans of Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Be- Perhaps now, with such hindsight as say that Lincoln lied and pretended to be a rac- yond the sanctioning of "Jim Crow," in 1 862, Bennett otTers us, v\e as a diverse people can ist just to get elected, but such an apologist Lincoln established an unofficial black emi- embrace, not Lincoln, but those brav e individu- stance is even more incriminating than the gration division within the Department of In- als and inspiring movements of the past of original accusation in that it is evidence of the terior that would facilitate his racist dream of which we can truly be proud. Let's push the crudest demagoguery. In stark contrast to Lin- America as a White Eden through the banish- poseurs otT their pedestals. This is no time for coln, the Chicago candidate for the U.S. Sen- ment of black people and Indians. Any hu- illusions, i^ ate who defeated Lincoln's Senate candidacy manism he had was twisted by white su- in 1 855. Lyman Trumbull, courageously trav- premacy into what Bennett terms a deeply eled the circuit in Southern Illinois delivering flawed "racist humanism." uncompromising talks against slavery often at While Lincoln has gone down in history the risk of personal violence. The fact that he as God's gift to African Americans, the true won the election is evidence that in reality Lin- white allies of the former slaves were those coln was more backward than his fellow who Bennett refers to as the "radical humani- liiinoisians in his thinking on racial matters. tarians," such as Brown, Stevens. Phillips and Much to the dismay of the Springfield- Sumner, whose humanism was not poisoned based Lincoln industry, ranging from scholars by their racism. Typically, instead of being to tourism boosters, Lincoln was a disgrace seen as anti-racist heroes worthy of our emu- until the very end of his life. As Bennett so lation and respect for having the courage of ably documents, there is no evidence that Lin- their convictions, the latter are recorded in his- coln changed and that he was moving in the tory as humorless ideologues and zealots. But direction of equality at the time of his death. what if we turned consensus history upside In fact, on the last full day of his life, he de- dow n and looked at it from the bottom-up? In fended the new ly formed "Jim Crow" Louisi- response to Lincoln's favored deportation Popular ana government at a cabinet meeting. In com- scheme, black spokespeople repeatedly parison. Radical Republicans, like Thaddeus claimed as much of a right as Abraham Lin- Education Stevens, proposed a policy of "40 acres and a coln to decide to live in America. And if the\ s mule." While Stevens is often \ ilified for de- were illiterate or their reading skills were mini- for a manding the meting out of punishment for mal, just look at Lincoln's own parents whose Southern war criines, he had no malice toward white skin privilege guaranteed thein citizen- Free Society poor Southern whites. He only focused his ship though they were poor and unschooled. wrath on the minority of slave-owning aristo- Some wags in the African American commu- Tlie Instinire for crats. As he saw it. the plantation system must nity even suggested that the easiest way to Social Ecology's be destroyed and land redistribution for all solve the predicament of race relations in the education programs, undertaken, not as charity but as justice. U.S. would be to remove the real problem drawing from the In his immortal anti prophetic words, white people. best of philosophical S!e\ens said, "To free blacks w ithout land, to But, you might ask, w hat about Lincoln's and revolurionarv' trust them to the tender mercies of their former crowning glory, the Gettysburg Address? The rradirions, provide interdisciplinary masters and to the protection of state legisla- democracy of which he spoke at (iettysburg an radical social change. tion, without gi\ing them any voice in mak- that was supposedly conceived by Lincoln's tramework to guide The ISE has year-round st\idy options, ing the laws, is simply to turn them over to the forefathers w hen they framed ihc Constitution from a B.A. degree in affiliation with torture of their enemies. To turn them loose was in reality choked in the wximb b\ white Burlington College to intensive summer unaided and unprotected is wholesale murder" supreinacy. But didn't Lincoln say that "a programs, and much more. Contact us In a similar \ein. Stevens' abolitionist coun- house divided against itself cannot stand'".' In tor a catalog or visit our ^lebsitc. terpart. Wendell Phillips, put the betrayal en- fact what Lincoln envisioned here, after a gendered by discriminatory "Jim Crow" laws Union victory in the war. was an all-white na- into personal terms, 'That man made the South tion with the fomier slaves deported so that a paradise, and when it was done, he shoul- the white brotherhood could once again live Institute for dered his musket with us and sa\ed it to the in hamiony. As Wendell Phillips put it, '"Mr Social Ecology nation. Look at him! Ihe gratitude of repub- Lincoln is anti-slaver>. He doesn't believe in 1 1 18 M.iplc 1 iill, Fl.iiniicld, V\ 05667 lics! Disenfranchised, naked, homeless, poor, a nation half-slave and half-free. But he is a (802)4';4-84^^ / i.<;e('J>sover,net we give him back to the while man who hates coloni/ationist. and he doesn't believe in a www.soclal-ecology.org him, to dictate the terms of his existence!... nation half black and half v\ lute I lence preju- [people] n AIN'T A BEER BEUY. ITS A FUEl TANK FOR A momiOHARY SEX-MACHINE. HOWARD ZINN NOAM CHOMSKY HOWARD ZINN NOAM CHOMSKY Heioe^ dJid iV'dftyri 2 CU -.ef Propagdndd and Control of the Public Mind 2 CO set Stones Hollywood Never Tells CO C«jse Studiei in Hypocrisy. U.S. Foreign Policy 2 Cd set Howafd Zinn lakes us back a rentury to a newly indus- What do Chumbawamba. 6dd Religion. Rage Against What sort of view of our history do we get from The U.S. prides Itself as the defender of democrdcy sni trialized America, the time of robber barons & tycoons, the Machine and Propagandhi all have in common^ Hollywood movies? Why are some stories told and oth tKacon of human rights, and U.S. foreign policy finds of dramatic and often vkoleni labor strutjgles like They've all featured Noam Chomsky's work on thetr ers not.' In this informal talk given at the laos film fes- jiiStifKatlon In promoting the universal values of free- Haymarket & Homestead His focus is on the organizers albums. Word. tival. ?inn turns his attention to Hollywood, the stories dom and equality. Noam Chomsky shows us how to and agitators in the worker and immigianl communi- it tells and the ones it doesn't. He tells of the stories of peek behind the curtain to see what Is really at work ties: Nicola Sacco and BartoJomeo Vanzetti, anarchists Chomsky is one of the great resistance figures of this warv from the point of view of disillusioned deserters, behind the human rights rhetoric. And he separates whose arrest, conviction and execution on trumped-up era, In this, perhaps hn most cogent lecture to dale, he of the differences between 'All Quiet on the Western cleanly the real motives of the ongoing assault on Iraq murder charges produced storms of protest around the provides an introduction to and synthesis of his key front" and "Saving Private RyanTof railroad strikes and from various high-minded eKplanatlons offered by world; and Emma Goldman, feminist, anarchist, propa thinking on the media, propai^anda and its' pivotal role the Haymarket Affair, Eugene Debs and the real story of politicians and the corporate media. gandist eirtr,)ordi(iaire for free love Jnd atjainsi cipit^l m the relentless riass struggle being waged daily. Helen Keller, socialist and anti-war agitator A spell ist exploitation, for direct action and against oppres Double CD mayhem from the mac daddy of daddy binding and provocative talk by America's most Noam Chomsky's ability to illuminate politics clearly sion. macs. beloved historian. and simply coupled with his honesty, humor and encyclopedic knowledge have made him the leading commentator on politics in our lime Rock hard. Ride free. This is a work-place detriocracy. CD's are $12 u.s. funds ppd, Double CD sets are $15 us. funds ppd, G7 Welcoming Committee Records/ Box 27006/ 360 Main Street Concourse/ Winnipeg, Mb/ R3C 413/ Canada www.g7welcomingcommittee.com info(i)g7welcomin9committee.com WARNING: THIS BOOK WIL NOT SAVE YOUR UFE! "There is a refreshing quahty (o a book that offers the same amount of information to both io iS. ^ the serious reader and casual Ufi browser— it is the type of book you'd thumb through in the store and actually decide to buy (or steal) . . . Less a novel than an exploded manifesto, Days of Days of War^ War, Nights of Love might be just Nights of Love: what we need . . . the book's Cnmethink for Beginners vehement insistence that living $8ppd (or add $3 for priority mail) is more important than art This elaborately illustrated 292 page book cannot be accurately described carries the argument beyond the in a short advertising blurb trying typical debate. . . Topics range to convince you to buy it. If you from anarchy to hierarchy, work need more information go to to sex, alienation to liberation iS crimethinc.com/days and technology, but every page burns with a passion for a freer Harbinger.3 Free (donations of stamps and/or cash life. . . Towards the end of the are appreciated if you are able) journey the personal 16 oversize pages of revolutionary testimonials working about not propaganda, your ticket to a world and the closing art pieces free of charge. become an aria* of voices urging you to close the book and live. Send cash to: Glorious even for the most Crimethlnc. Far East Cell cynical reader, what more can PO Box 1963 I we ask from a book?" Olympia WA 98507-1963 -Clamor Magazine *6 (dec/jan) If you are interested in obtaining these items in quantity, or joyfully live outside of the U$A, BCrlfnefthlncT* please get in touch, [email protected] *l. A solo vocal piece with instrunicnral accompaniment, as in an opera. 2 ,\n air; a melody. A Pair of Tits, Tiie Big Nurse and tiie Balance of Power The Representation of Women in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Jane Graham I was working away from home and wanted some reading matter to take w ith me, and as I'd run out of books of my own to read. 1 began looking through other people's collec- tions for ones to borrow. Noticing an old paper- back copy of Ken Kesey's One Flew 0\er The Cuckoo s .\'est. 1 thought to myself, now here's a book that 1 ought to read. A book regarded as a modem classic, that c\ cr\ one seemed to ha\ e a high opinion of And 1 couldn't e\en recall having seen the movie all the way through. So that's what I took to read. On a I()-da\ dancing contract in deepest Gemian\. On these contracts, away from home and from intelligent con\ crsation. dancing for 7+ hours e\ er\ night, group accommodation pro\ ided, I read insatia- bly, like I'm popping \ itamins. because it's the only thing that keeps me sane, that makes me feel like I'm still an understanding, thinking be- ing and not an automated doll. 27'^ So there 1 u as. shortK before my birth- da\ and in the mindset of a stripper and dnnks hostess girl, reading a no\el which I imagine now a set te.xt for high school exam papers. And ma\be if I'd read it as a feisty adolescent, an- gp, at the u orld and at the s\ stem. 1 w ould ha\ e applauded its sentiments w ithout a hint of criti- cism. I would have cried to myself >es. that's how it is. the Combine, the system, labelling us into sane and insane, crushing our self expres- sion, making us all nito scared little rabbits. Bui I wasn't reading it with a head full of youthful angst rather one dosed w ith w orking cynicism and mucli against what 1 wanted to feel - I wiiitiiil to agree w ith it all I wasn't too sure if I liked what Kesey was tr>ing to sa>. Beneath all lliat sw inging sixties, libertarian vibe, there I was an undercurrent which disturbed mc. I actuall) t" o w n d m \ - self relating more and more with the arch en- When the Big Nurse is first introduced, it us, but rather than one used by men to disarm emy of the tale, the cog in the wheel of the Com- is with a physical description: Her face is women, it is a tool which can be used by every- bine, the Big Nurse. smooth, calculated, andprecision-made, like an one. 1 have always been an anti-authoritarian, expensive baby doll, skin like flesh-coloured I have a perfomiance act 1 do. It's a strip disobedient kind of gal. But I was reading this enamel, blend ofwhite and cream and baby blue show, but I like to think that it's more than that; book after nights of troublesome men and con- eyes, small nose, pink little nostrils-eveiything by deconstructing the medium of striptease, by stant sexual objectification. I had been, I could working together except the colour on her lips using comedy and an autobiographical narra- see, employing strategies similar to those of the and fingernails, and the size of her bosom. A tive I attempt to bring the discussion on prosti- Big Nurse to defend myself against the psycho- mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, tution, pornography and the objectification of logical, and occasionally physical, assaults of putting those big, womanly breasts on what women in general out into the open at the same the men. Without conflict, I had been trying to would of otherwise been a perfect work, and time as giving them some light relief I call rise above this kind of mild harassment, in the you can see how bitter she is about it. myself Minx Grill and part of my act, the part form of words and body language, with a quiet The Big Nurse's tits are mentioned a lot. people seem to really focus on, is where 1 choose dignity. They, and the colour a man from the audience and bring him onto Women. of I hove always been an anti-authoritarian, of her lips, are inte- the stage, where I sit him down and tie his hands course, have disobedient kind of gal. But 1 was reading gral to the creation behind his back, and proceed to straddle him, been employ- this boolc after nights of troublesome men of her character. first backwards (groping his crotch and cover- ing and per- and constant sexual objectification. I had Why did Kesey give ing his pants in shaving foam) then forwards fecting these been, I could see, employing strategies her those big tits? (topless, 1 push my tits, covered in aforemen- strategies for similar to those of the Big Nurse to de- One would assume tioned shaving foam, in his face, thus covering centuries using fend myself against the psychological, and from this excerpt to it entirely). My tits, like those of the Big Nurse patience and occasionally physical, assaults of the men. give her an anomaly, are. through some chance of fate, big and thus condescension, something everyone perfect for antics such as these. not to mention else (why! It's only natural ) would love, but she 1 always pick on a man. Sometimes this is those looks, as has spent a lifetime trying to ignore. hard when it's a feminist gathering and I end up their tools, .The As for McMurphy; This guy is redheaded searching out the lone 2 or 3 men hiding at the fine art of cut- with long red sideburns and a tangle of curls back. (No. 1 don't plan it beforehand; almost ting men down out from under his cap, been needing cut a long always, I've never met them before. In fact, I without losing lime, and he s broad as Papa was tall, broad feel more comfortable if I haven't). Why not a face. Breakiiii^ acra.'is the /aw and shoulders and chest, a broad woman? Because it's better with a guy, they're their halls, as white devilish grin, and he's hard in a different just more amusing to see humiliated . . . but also, McMurphy in way from Papa kind of the way a baseball is more seriously, because for a woman this isn't Kesey's novel hard under the scuffed leather. A .seam runs so much about being embarrassed or humili- succinctly puts across his no.se and (me cheekbone where .some- ated so much as violated. I've never had a man it. body laid him a good one in a fight, and the seriously complain about this being done to him. Here in the strip club environment, the re- stitches arc still in the seam. He stands there But when someone reversed the situation on me, lationships between men and women are polar- waiting, and when nobody makes a move to say 1 felt incredibly uncomfortable. It reminded me ized, condensed to bare essentials and stereo- anything to him he commences to laugh. No- instantly of situations where I have been the typed, almost symbolic behaviour. In here. body can tell exactly why he laughs: there's object of assault, situations which have been there's no messing about, no pretending that nothing funny going on. But it 's not the way that very frightening. And just about every woman, what's on the agenda has nothing to do with Public Relation laughs, it 's free and loud and it if she has not actually been attacked at some sex. or indeed money. This makes it easier to comes out of his wide grinning mouth and time or other, has been in situations where she study those strategies cither gender use against spreads in rings bigger and bigger till it .V lap- felt she might be. And being in that situation of each other, even if everything is employed in ping against the walls over the ward. Not like apparent helplessness, another body grabbing an exaggerated, extreme way. thatfat Public Relation laugh. This sounds real. you, just brings those memories back. 1 have a friend who works with homeless I realize all ofa sudden it 's the first laugh I 've It's more fiin to choose a guy who'll re- people, drug addicts, street people, the most des- heard in years. ally bring a challenge. For one, I don't really perate prostitutes. She really has to think about A lot is being said here. Firstly, McMuiphy like it when they're too shy and uncomfortable, how she dresses for a shift. For her own protec- is not like the other inmates - they are cowed, projecting that nervousness onto me. No, I look tion, she has to clearly define her role in the nervous, unsure of how to act toward women, for a particularly macho guy, one who's been environment as a role of authority; despite a defeated and afraid to leave the familiar con- shooting his mouth ofiFall through my dialogue, warm, friendly, egalitarian personality, she has fines of the ward. He. however, is big. strong, maybe. A guy like McMurphy. At punk shows, to appear distant and non-sexual. She sleeps in ready and even wanting to fight, a gambling just prizing the bottle of beer from out of his the same place as everyone else, though with a man with a voracious sexual appetite. He re- hand, the cigarette from his mouth, removing locked door to her room, and she must make it minds them of that outside world they'd for- his leather jacket or his cap usually shrinks him clear to potential clients she isn't doing busi- gotten, he even brings in the man smell ofdust down quite dramatically. And then, without ness herself She has to make a clear differen- and dirt from the open fields, and sweat, and screaming or shouting, with the simple use of tiation. work. And he laughs, laughter which in their shaving foam and my body, I get my own back. One Flew Over The Ciiekoo s Nest de- defeated state they'd forgotten even existed. And I usually manage to shut them up, at least scribes the male inmates of a mental institution There is no denying the power of laugh- for a short while. And - 1 have to say my chains mied over by a Miss Ratched. otherwise known ter. Don't think for a minute 1 am suggesting are pretty easy to break free of even for some- as the Big Nurse, who though at first sight sug- some humourless feminist regime where we all one who's no Houdini - they never do anything gests a kind of matronly, mothedy love, is ac- go around in sexless boiler-suits, scowling at but sit there meekly while the act is going on. tually the authority figure who keeps them all each other. Far from it. 1 am suggesting that It was actually a woman who told me af- in their place. laughter is the most powerful tool available to ter one show that she was unhappy with that part, that I was abusing my position of power. ing in my head with Kesey as author not to do Interesting, because the men neNerteii me that. that; how, I thought, could such a thing occur in Perhaps I am, because it is my role as performer a book that so many people I respect hold in \\ hich enables me to do it so simply; in ansvv er high regard? It was a little like the impending [o the oft-asked question. "Jane, how can you horror which unfolds when a group of people do that? How do you have the nerve?" Because you previously beliexed to be of like mind as once I'd done it a couple of times, I knew that 1 yourself gel caught up in some sort of mass hys- could. Once I have the wig on, and the make- teria which you alone can see through. But the up, and the high heeled boots and the en\ iron- act instead, though one of physical \ iolence and ment of the stage which makes anything I de- exposing her breasts (was that really neces- sire possible, 1 can do that. It's my show and sary?), does not. to my relief, single out her it's a great feeling. womanhood. The Big Nurse, according to the narrative, Not only v\ ould I argue that the Big Nurse keeps control o\ er the inmates of her ward with- gets a bad rap. but that all women do. \\\ the out any \ isual show of pov\ er or violence. How other female characters are incidental; the two does she do it? According to the most articulate good-time girls, also referred to as whores, who inmate, Harding, it is by insinuation. She doesn't are portrayed as pleasant enough airheads with accuse. She merely needs to insinuate, insinu- no other purpose in life other than partying and ate anything, don't you see? swinging; the sexually repressed. Catholic nurse I understand what Kesey is trying to sug- with the cross around her neck and the large gest; that you can keep people in their place, in birthmark; Mr. Harding's wife (what do we a place of abject abdication, with very subtle, know about her really apart from the fact she scarcely perceptible ways. What 1 object to is has big tits?) and the two mothers mentioned. the notion that matronly women in a state of Chief Bromden's and Billy's, bullies who are sexual denial enforce these kind of structures; I indirectly blamed, if not actually for their son's don't object to the notion of joy of living, the breakdowns but for perpetuating their states of strength of a spirit which refuses to die. But why helplessness. Billy's mother especially denies docs this manifest itself in se.xual harassment? her son's maturity because she is refusing to Could Kesey have imagined a Big Nurse who accept her own age. went home, took otTher uniform and had a good And then there is the Big Nurse; a con- old shag herself.' Of course, the Big Nurse, Miss stant reminder of sex, with her red lips and for- - Ratched, is unmarried. She is the stereotyped midable bosom, as much as she tries to hide it spinster, so locked into her role she appears the Big Nurse, working for the Combine, sym- unable either to give or to receive love. bol of the matriarchy. Because, as Harding .says 1 have to remember that One Flew Over not long into the book. We are victims ofci ma- The Cuckoo s Nesi is a book written in the "dOs, triarchy here, a sentiment which, though uttered m the Zeitgeist of the lime and before the femi- by a character and not the author. I feci at least nist consciousness of the early 1970s. The civil in part retlects Kesey 's own. rights movement then was one where women I respect and agree w ith many of the is- kept to the background, where women's rights sues raised by this no\el about mental health wasn't an issue given much thought. As I see it, and society's attitudes towards it. But I don't the basic premise here is that fishing, simple understand this lofty regard in which it is held, country li\ ing and partying with good-time gals uncriticizable. untouchable. But you can't say restore a man's healthy ego. A good, unrepressed that, argued my brother, it s one of the most im- (heterosexual) fuck will sort anyone out. portant hooks ol Our time. I just want to argue Perhaps, put simply. One Flew Over The that maybe it's about time we heard the case of Cuckoo s Nest is a man's book. Not an anti-femi- the Big Nurse, and why she employed the strat- nist, or a pro-feminist book, but one having noth- egies she did. ing to do with feminism. Maybe that's a good 1 feel e\cn more disturbed by this under- thing. It's often been suggested that men need current because of the anti-authoritarian stance their space as much as women, without them of the book and the way it is re\ ered by people turning into places where men talk about femi- w hose views 1 respect; 1 feel it is more impor- nism. And tlshing. hunting, etc., have always tant to discuss it because 1 see parallels in the been about male space. \et I'm not quite sure punk and anarchist scene and the way women w hat Kesey would do with a guy who preferred there are held and accepted. Kesey 's book par- ballet to fishing, for whom the lo\e of a good allels the civil rights movements of the times, honest hooker would not help. w hich. groundbreaking as the\ may ha\ e been At the end. I really thought McMuiphy was in other wa\ s. ignored the issues of women. going to reap his re\enge on the Big Nurse by Anti-authoritarian organi/ations e\ en toda> still raping her. I came to this conclusion because as ha\ e a long way to go before they fully accept 1 saw it. the stniggle for power between them ain thing other than the basic heterosexual male, had centred on his sexuality, on his \ irility ver- and the right of e\er\ other sector of societs to sus her motherly sterility, his satin boxer shorts the power of laughter, if and her tits ... to overcome her that way v\ as inexcusable to me, and as 1 read it, I was plead- [sexuality & relationships] ) sarv. I no longer want to fuck someone or "have" I'd Rather Masturbate Than Copulate someone fuck me so that I can feel beautiful. It hasn't worked so far. but that's probably only . -or- Why I Don't Want To Get Any because I never loved, or even remotely liked, most of the people I have slept with. In any case, intercourse, whether it is a penis or a fist being thrust into my \ agina. now has a low rank on m\ list of sexual activities. Moreover, masturbation it is a relatively safe way of liberating sexual tensions. It is an acceptable release in times when I lack a partner (^r when I just want to enjoy my body by myself. That is. without the complications of being in- volved in a sexual encounter w ith another. 1 get lots of crushes on v arious people, but dev elop a few into full-Hedged mini-obsessions. The pes- simist that I am. I am inclined to think that, as much as I pine for them, none of the people I like romantically will ever return the feeling. Thus. I back off. and pass the crushes off as "un- attainable." However, when I touch myself. I'm ! not rejected. In turn. I don't feel depressed, and I'm not scared. Masturbating makes me feel happy: it's one of the only times when I'm hon- est with my feelings. You see. masturbation is my primarv' sex lite: my sexual ba.se. so to speak. It is unfortu- nate that mainstream society still deems it too racy a topic to discuss, much less an activity in which to participate. Despite the desire for pri- vacy being both reasonable and understandable, it differs a lot from secrecy. While the by Charisma Lee quite former is the need to experience something with- out outsider interference, the latter comes from a preconceived notion that w hat one is doing is I was about II or 12 when 1 ^lr^t "plaved course as well as self-stimulation. V\c discov- immoral and distasteful. Saving that womyn (Jou n there." as m\ Filipina mother al\va\ s says. ered that my best lover (so far) is myself. OnK I The first few experiments were wholly obvious have been able to completely please myself, shouldn't masturbate is like saying that we shouldn't cry when we're upset or hurt, or that and indiscreet: I'd masturbate in the living room, mainly because I have learned w hat turns me on we should hold in anger and our other emotions. on the floor or on the couch, w ith a sheet o\er and what turns me off: I know what I like and More people need to realize that masturbation is me. to conceal m\ sexual acti\ ities. Like any- what I don't. In some cases. I may not know in- indeed a nomial and natural activ ity: it shouldn't one was fooled, though. M\ family, for sure, stantly, but I am capable of figuring out what be treated as an embanassing secret. .Although it knew I wasn't plaving vsith m\ Barbies. How- w(irks best for m_\ bodv and me. That's part of is w idelv condemned, it is universally practiced ever, wc never formalh discussed masturbation, the learning process. .And. w ith the know ledge 1 at the same time. Because not evervone likes to even to this day, as it has/is always dismissed gain from my self-exploration. I can share it v\ ith be touched in the same ways or places, no one with a nervous laugh, followed by a change of my partner if I choose to do so. topics. Only on one occasion has my mother Other advantages include reduced cramp- can teach you the best way to touch yourself, or addressed self-stimulation and myself in the same ing and positive effects on the immune system. for that matter, w hether or not you should do so in the first place. Regardless of the criticism and conversation, but that was when I was 13 and Masturbation also helps strengthen fiat-out lies, masturbation is a cause for celebra- she wanted to know if I was still doing it. Aside Pubococcv geus ( PC i muscles. This is especiall\ from that particular event, masturbation still true in womv n w here strong PC muscles are prac- tion because it is a beautiful and important part ever)' life. (I proves to be too radical a subject for adult con- tically the sole factor in whether labor is easy of wimmin's think I'm gonna go right versation with my supposedly liberal family. It and fast or long and difficult. Ladies masturbat- celebrate now). ^ would be safe to assume that parent-child com- ing regularly w ith multiple orgasms can develop munication in sexual matters has been hindered strong/er PC muscles and should ha\e easier la- by parental inhibitions or by various bor. (The ease in which wdmsn orgasm during intergenerational. and in my case, cross-cultural. masturbation counters the stereotype [that v\e are Siii^iiested Reading anxieties. Nevertheless. 1 still touch myself. Not slowly without aroused and irregularly orgasm] Cunt (Inga Muscio) everv' day. mind v ou. but when I feel the need to. tail). In contrast, the most obvious of all physi- For Yourself - The FultlJiment of Female Sexuality I've found it to be very fulfilling and gratifying: cal gains from masturbating is the fact that one (Lonnie Gertrude Balbach) sometimes I can't even stop. cannot get pregnant. Sex Information. Mav I Help You? (Isadora Alman) Admit it.. Masturbation is fun. In addition to knowing and respecting my The Playbook for Women About Sex (Joanie Blank Yes. of course, certain people, situations, body and its needs. I ha\e also experienced cer- The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria", the Vibra- and things will (and do) arouse me. .Still, it is not tain emotional and psychological benefits. .Still, tor, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Rachel P. in me to just go out and fuck e\er> one/thing that there are really onl\ two that stick out in m\ mind makes me homy. (New Jerse>ans and/or scooter right now (although they are deeply correlated, Maines) • Women as Revolutionary Agents of owners are the exception). I don't believe I would and can be \ ievved as one). For example, though Change (Shere Hite) be satisfied or content with myself as a person. I still feel it would be nice to "have" a signifi- That's just the way I am. one can say. but others cant other, the thought of actually being in an I'm sure there are lots of other fantastic books out might disagree. While I do enjoy sexual inter- exclusive (sexual) relationship is now unneces- there: check out your local library. They're funl [sexuality & relationships] forking on Sexuality in Community Living... by Bob Banner About twenty years ago I re- I had sex with his member sitting among people who wife (she seduced elected to be guided by a teacher, in me) which I en- that circle of men and women (ages 22-30). all joyed for various of us dressed quite elegantly after having just reasons and then I showered due to finishing a most energetic game was to have sex vv ith ol'\ olleyball. We sat in newly purchased couches a former Catht)lic and sofas in a renovated 6-bcdroom Victorian nun who was much house with impeccably cleaned surroundings. Wc older than 1. 1 didn't like were living in a small town in Northern Califor- it but was willing to go nia. through the ordeal in order to The group was a fourth w ay/Sufi-like gath- learn and "grow." A woman ering of like minded people who came together named Cecilia, whom 1 had no because of Walter, a dedicated teacher of radical sexual interest in at all. had the assignment self-transformation and "the Work." One pecu- to seduce me and because t)f that we became lov- heterosexual, former lesbians and gay individu- liar feature of this work, study group or loosely ers for more than a year (after we both left the als had their specific assignments to seduce and knit "community" of sorts was our working on group for reasons that go beyond the scope of have sex w ith members of the opposite gender our sexuality. Of course we gravitated to Walter this article). Because I was willing to suspend so that they could "nomialize" their sex styles. to work on transforming ourselves, changing my beliefs about sexual attraction 1 allowed my- This was back in the 70s where the lesbian and ourselves from ncurt)tic obsessed consumers of self to be receptive to Cecelia's natural sexual gay mov ement was not v erv strong. banal commodities and popular belief systems energy, even though it was not wrapped in a pack- to mature, responsible, individuated human be- age that complemented my youthful judgmental Just fiv e years ago 1 found myself again sit- nigs. Many such groups gathered in the 70s mind. ting among people w ho came together because around a specific indi\ idual or representative of After the many meetings we had in that of a particular charismatic teacher, who drew us certain Iraditions but not many of them had large immaculately cleaned li\ ing room, w hether to him for similar purposes waking up, be- "working on our sexuality" as part of their it was a meeting to discuss Wilhelm Reich's The coming clear of our psycho-emotional agenda. Sexual Revolution or study Robert Omstein's On conditionings so we could liv e more passionate, We w ere given assignments from Walter to; The Nature of Conseiousness or watch studv full-bodied and full-blooded lives. Most of the de\ clop our lust, learn how to give excellent fella- camcorder tapes from our earlier \ olleyball. bas- w ork in this community, w hich had bases houses tio (explicit detailed instructions for the women), ketball or badminton games or discuss our w ork in California, England, Iceland. .Australia and decondition our beliefs about who made the grade money situation - we would mill around after- Gemiany, as well as British Columbia, was to of being "sexually attractive." understand our wards and llnd a partner to sleep w ith; to work awaken emotionallv and spiritualK b\ getting liiilgmenis about body types... among all the other on our sexuality, our "lust," our deconditioning... in touch w ith our fears, our deep griev ing from types of assignments that were relegated io self- If Sarah had already made plans to be with childhood wounds, our repressed rage from w hat transfomiation, i.e., developing careers, being George, then I'd ask Gertie. Of course, some happened to us. our rigid sexual poslurings that more creative and eiricient w ith one's time, learn- women and men were many of us psvchicallv ing to neutralize our negative emotional re- more in demand while absorbed from western In I re- sponses, exercising, developing teamship, learn- others needed assign- one particular meeting, religions. ing survival skills, studying the political and eco- ments from Walter to member, as we all sat on cush- This particular nomic situation of the time... learning to stretch push through \ arious re- ions in a circle on the carpeted ci>mmunit\ emphasi/ed our limits. sistances, patterns, scxualitv because o\' its floor, I was asked by the teacher As for sex, I was conditioned somchovv to blocks or religious in- deep revelations of our to come out in the middle and he attracted to sleek young women who had eyes doctrinations. This was ci>re neuroses and pain. show everyone how I made love of romance, madness, danger and innocence. So indeed radical since we It became in- m\ particular assignments were to make lo\e were tackling some o\' to my newest lover. crediblv v ulnerable to "do with women I did not have any "conditioned the most treasured ele- work on our sexual itv" charge" with. The idea being to not only decon- ments of western civili- with a group of people dition myself from certain preconceived judg- zation compulsive monogamy, possessiveness. w hose compassion could bo high or low depend- ments but also to de\ elop an intimacy w iihm our jealousy, sexual alienation. We could have sex ing on the particular mood of the teacher or the cloisteretl sanctuary of 1 2 people and o\k teacher. with anybodv we wanted as long as it was mu- mind iif the group. I suallv there w as much com- We trusted Waller I tnisted him to the poinl tual and in a setting where the gri>undvvork was passion for the persons w ho had the courage to of going along with the a.ssignments. At one point one of transfomiation. Since the foundation was go into the middle of the circle and start "work- [sexuality & relationships] ing," whether it was premature ejaculation, de- quick responses from our penises rather than necting" us somehow, either by masturbating pendence on mother issue, performance anxiety, from our hearts that became grist for our sexual with erotica or romance novels or food or over- pleasing energy, withholding orgasmic impulses, healing. And because all this was daily shared in work, anything to keep us distracted from some "needing a man" complex, murderous feelings the individual houses as well as in the larger com- of our basic needs, those primal animal, tribal of jealousy, just wanting to "fuck," possessive- munity, it created a very healthy ground for us needs of touch, warmth and social intimacy that ness, attraction to violent pornography, being men to relate to each other., talking, sharing, cry- got terribly sacrificed along the way. psychically possessed by one's mother or father ing, wrestling, acting out our jealousies, reveal- One thing that many of us felt after having or rapist who didn't want to leave the bedroom... ing more and more of who we were and who we had such regular contact of touch (whether it was It was much easier and quite milder to get into were not. We were there to heal the emotional being massaged, experience of the gerbil piles various psycho-emotional difficulties in commu- and spiritual vacuity of the 20th century and we or siiTiply interacting with persons in genuinely nity living such as problems living with Anne knew instinctively that our relationship to sex and deeply felt ways — or all the above) was Marie or hating the writing assignments, or could was at the core of not only our own healing but that that incessant demand for sex, for release Harold make the necessary money so his chil- healing the planet as well. (whether imagined or real), dissipated... lost its dren could go to gymnastics (or whatever)... but We were not "making love" all the time, overwhelming importance and control. It's not when it came to revealing, exposing, and unveil- not like in the previous experiment mentioned that it went away. By no means! It's just that when ing our sexual stuff in front of the community... above. It was more of a serial monogamy [even some of our "primal" needs got met we became it was terrify ingly HOT! though the teacher/guide had up to four lovers freer to move on, to go deeper... So when we did In one particular meeting, I remember, as simultaneously, three who lived in the same engage sexually with a lover we could go deeper we all sat on cushions in a circle on the carpeted household; and there was an experiment for the into areas that had been inaccessible before. For floor, I was a.sked by the teacher to come out in men [o have more than one lover before I ar- example, if one is not getting touched, massaged the middle and show everyone how I made love rived. I learned from many people that it was a or having some basic primal needs being met, to my newest lover. I was extremely reluctant. dismal failure.] and it depended on our need, our sex may become the place for many of those Who is this jerk anyway?! But because of an ac- phase of "development." and availability of po- needs to becotne satisfied. That puts a lot of un- cumulation of fear, trust, desire to reveal more tential lovers. But more than that, it took cour- necessary pressure on "having" sex, where it re- of my sexual difficulties and a bit of my willing- age to start making love because we knew that. ally doesn't belong. It puts immense pressure on ness to show-off my sexual prowess I surren- once you started, all guaranteeing the sur- dered and began to move and act with the invis- your stuff would be vival of that place When two people are in their core, be- ible partner .^fterwards. the guide asked the rest out in the open. And. where your needs are ing both potently ahve and vulnerable, of the group what their intuitive and einotional even if you had 3-6 se- being met. It's no that rawness and openness (both emo- bodily response to what they had seen as they rial monogamous rela- wonder why people watched my moveinents. Some said I looked very tionships within the tionally and physically) can make for start losing their natu- lonely. ("Well, of course stupid!" 1 screamed in- lifetime of the coin- some very beautiful, exciting, unpre- ral wildness and start temally, "I'm moving by myself!") Others said I munity, your stuff dictable and passionate lovemaking. to deceive and keep was simply perfonning and there didn't seem to would coine up again secrets from each be any intimacy or vulnerability emanating froin and again. Whether other out of fear of my "being." I got defensive initially but knew your stuff was fear of intimacy, addiction to por- abandonment or fear of losing that place, that they were right. I felt so naked, so utterly dam- nography or fear of entering those mysterious sanctuary where some of those primal needs are aged that somehow I needed a tribe, a commu- psychic and spiritual realms... it was just that... being met. Having sex with so many hidden nity of real intimate friends to share everything your stuff. And it was very revealing and can be agendas and secrets and repressed feelings hang- so 1 could become healed. Why couldn't all this very healing! How many people change partners ing out on the bedroom's walls makes for some stutT(the secrets, the acting outs, the shame, the thinking that they will find someone who will rather boring and dangerous love making. On the abusive rampages... ) be worked on already'.' What be so ditlerent than the one before. In the com- other hand, when two people are in their core, happened to our culture, to our modem day cul- munity, they were all there... all your lovers, the being both potently alive and vulnerable, that ture that people had to go through all this pain jealous ones, the ones who hated you, the ones rawness and openness (both emotionally and and suffering in order to heal? In any event, the who adored you, the people you wanted to avoid physically) can make for some very beautiful, vulnerability became so dominant that I could at all costs... all there... all the sexual energy, pos- exciting, unpredictable and passionate no longer hold back the tears and suddenly broke sessive energy, jealous energy, crazy inad energy lovemaking. down in the center of that room. Fortunately, all swirling together inaking for a very bizarre For example, in the community, telling the other people in the room shared in my grieving, radical experiment in living. truth ranked very high. People's bullshit detec- giving not only validity to my present feelings Another feature of the community that was tors and their intuitions were deeply valued and but in knowing that they also have deep wounds very healing for a number of us was the freedom constantly being developed. Because of this I around their sexuality. These wounds, shared and space to touch each other. Not only was couldn't help but let go of the various strategies wounds, soon became our bonds (and later they massage and body work an integral part of the I had used to seduce women. Any falseness stuck became our bondage; but that's another story). community in our healing process but we would out like an erection at a choir rehearsal. So, one One of the main attributes of the work on frequently and spontaneously move into "gerbil time when I was with my lover, Darlene, who our sexual healing was our willingness to be piles" — small groups of people laying on the had been in the community longer than I and who vulnerable but not mush balls, potent but not floor or on a bed, or on couches with heads on had much more experience than I in all this "truth cocky. We were always in search for the deeper torsos, legs atop of legs, faces in someone's telling business" — I found myself becoming truth (behind the apparent reality) and sex was belly... you get the picture. The piles could last quite uncomfortable in shedding the pretenses the place where one could hide one's deeper truth from ten minutes to an hour depending. They and opening to feelings I had never allowed a and paradoxically it was often the place where were very nourishing — a surrendering to a tribe woman to see (assuming that if they saw and felt deep trust and deep bonds of intimacy could be of people who needed simple touch who were my vulnerabilities and real feelings — whatever created and developed. For many of the men, it open to receiving healing energies rather than they might be — they'd be out of that bedroom was either our pcrfonnance obsession, our judg- perpetually living in a physically isolated envi- but fast, as fast as a gazelle running away from a mental minds, our lack of being vulnerable, our ronment full of mental fantasies deludedly "con- stalking tiger). These woinen (in the community) [sexuality & relationships] encouraged us men to be open and honest with making often times stretched out from their bed- most challenging personal work... being chal- our feelings (whether they were feelings of mis- rooms and actually could befell. People felt given lenged by your mate of sexually perfonning as trust, anger, grief, uncontrollable ecstasy, orgi- to... the energy was not sucked away into an in- an automaton in order to compensate for his or astic hooting and howling... whatever). In fact, sular two-some but blossomed out. When lo\ ers her unspoken insecurities; or suddenly your part- it actually turned them on, which kept surprising simply loved their lovers and remained connected ner radically transforms into their mother (via us \er>- frequently, especially at those critical with the others — and were making love while psychic possession or inv asion) and w ants to "cut times v\ hen ue thought "they're never going to they were already happy and not doing it to get your fucking balls oft"... or countless other mini- — lo\e me now after ha\ ing just revealed all this someplace or something then their loving tragedies which often times demanded other dark shit!" presence exuded people enter into the scene so things could 'c So. on one par- outward... the en- worked out. resolved, understood, healed... Slowly and mysteriously they all gave way ergy was so strong ticular night as 1 was to the deeper feelings and I found myself sucking Darlene's at times you could So. looking back on it today, there were breasts, suddenlv wailing and grieving like a newborn infant taste it coming out many advantages in these radical experimental of the walls. methodologies to assist us in our sexual from out of now here sucking Darlene's breast of primal healing. SallieTisdale, in Like in any endeavor, especially in the transfor- I w as no longer per- nurturance. I suckled as I cried and cried fonning and seeing her recent book mative psychologies department, they are ram- as I suckled until I had an erection that to- her with my usual called Talk Dirty- To pant w ith paradoxes. One person's healing is an- tally perplexed my "mind." grasping porno im- Me: An Inlimale other person's nightmare and v ice versa. age of romanticized Pliilosophy of Sex Because of circumstances that are too writes that to in this particular desire. Suddenly a deep heaving of my chest grew she had lengthy discuss essay, both alw ays been entranced by the communal homes communities terminated. Mistrust, feelings of open with much grief of what 1 had done with of certain Native American tribes... "imagining acute betrayal and feelings of grief loss, women in the past all the turning away from deep and main people bedding dow n together, their odors as well as relief, w ere experienced. As far as our my taith. all the peculiar strategies to please them mingling, bodies entwined in sleep... hearing sexuality is concerned, many of the former mem- so I could keep them... Slowly and mysteriously vaguely the distant, whispered sounds of plea- bers are totally relieved that no one is watching they all gave way to the deeper feelings and 1 sure politely muted... found myself wailing and griexing like a new- and excitement But sueh over them; no communitv' member cult member born infant sucking Darlene's breast of primal scenes seem very far away. Here I am, in the or friend will come knocking on their door in patriarchal, materialistic, sex-drenched, sex-pho- the middle of the night w hen the\ hear sounds nurturance. I suckled as I cried and cried as 1 bic West and w ho hav e I become, here?" First of crying, anger or abuse and demand that you suckled until I had an erection that totally per- ofT, it's terribly sad that with her all research and w ork on your stuff. Most are either coupled or plexed my "mind." I actually thought initially searching, she never came close to anvlhing like liv ing alone. Some of our deep bonds hav e re- that I had truly lost it. that I had finally become she had dreamed of I feel vcr\' fortunate to have mained regardless of the various betravals that that per\ ert w ho I had alw ays intiinatcd 1 was in come pretty close to that tribal intimacv that some ensued. have even opted for some simple my darkest moments. But not so. My heart Some opened and my penis spontaneously responded. Americans dreain of returning to or of discover- indiscriminate fucking to overcome the inces- ing for themselves. But 1 don't want to get too sant to "go deeper" for the sake of self- "I" was no longer in control. Neither fantasies demand nor wild stimulations from outside were neces- romantic about all this. We have far too much transformation or spiritual ambition. Now. if they things in tribal deeper." thev're probablv refemng to sary to maintain that erection. Spontaneous romance about how were com- say "go I think it gives a out so don't the penis thrusting to the cer\ ix type of going movements, rawness of both heart and lust munities. us way we to at to that sw irled together to give our bodies a pleasure hav e work ways re-create sense of deeper. erful here now. are wondering if it's po.ssible that that w cnt way beyond mediocrity and safety. We pow community and Some It takes work. It takes work on we've been seeking all these altemative ways to hail cnlcivd a /one of unknow ingness that was much much to let the indiv idualistic av oid the inev liable settling dow n to the delightlUll) terrifying. oneself go of obsessive actualK tendencies in modem man and w oman. Most ev- marital convention. But some have been mar- erything in us. our modernity, our delusions, our ried and some are v er) capable of lov ing more .'\nother feaUire of making love in the com- denials and distractions and compulsions and ad- than one person. be fooling them- munity that blcv\ my mind was that as the tribe Some may dictions militate against what real communitv is selves and some are truh working on maintain- c\ol\ed into a more telepathic, empathic, inti- all about. Often we would succumb to bouts of ing their integritv and honestv while keeping mate organism because of the increase in depen- murderousjealousies or indulge in the sexual per- alive the vvildness. V\hen Stephen Levine [co- dency on each other for support in \ arious ways wallow in ith Lev ine of Emhraeini; The (money, emotional, travel, insurance, work, formance crap or sleepily sensation author w Ondrea forget were with. those things Beloved] was asked if monogamy was essential sexual, spiritual camaraderie, therapeutic.) and and w ho we When occurred w ere expected to break out of the for a "conscious relationship" to work (where a growing compassion for each other due to learn- we trappings for help relationship as a path toward spiritual ing more about each person's core neuroses and "cult of two" and ask from using people in the house or the yoga], his answer was. "Absolutely. \\ ithout ihcir iiulnKhial struggles to work saneK with other community. Can you imagine such a radical act. let alone radical exception.. .If someone tells us that they want to ihem... we went deeper in ways that were totally idea'.' Can you imagine your mother calling up be in a conscious relationship and not be mo- unknow n to us. When people made lov e it w asn't best friend's husband and hav ing them both nogamous, we just sav good luck." m an igloo of separation, cut otV from your friends her come ov er to help v our mother deal w ith a v eiy There are no single answers, no righteous li\ing down the hallway. One actually felt like stickv and highly emotional fight around vour judgments declaring that one w av is the nght w av you were making love to the entire communit> mother's husband's ineess;int and habitual sexual for all that presupposes so much knotted in- (iranted. we all read The Kin a/ A la and other dilTiciiltv (w hatev er it is)? In the community there security in order to push and demand and dictate books that emphasi/ed the beauiv of tribal liv- w as a grow ing agreement, albeit a reluctant one. w hat V ou think is best onto others. Tolerance and ing and truly working together for the common that we would interfere if we saw, heard, sen.sed compassion of ditVerent stvles. difterent tastes, good; but nothing prepared us to experience these felt if "something was otV." and difterent modes of sexual behavior, as well particular feelings. or There were many many times when lovers as people's decisions, choices, procliv itics, lack When pei>ple stayed raw and w ild and open who had gone to bed anticipating a wondrous of decisions, addictions are necessarv in a mod- oo in iheir Une-making and remained ei>nnecled event would later be in the midst of some of their global 21 si centurv soeietv. with others in the particular houses, their lo\e- em if [sexuality & relationships] Defending NIMAL Sketches the philosophical positions Tool for the Job espoused by those who wont to abolish animal exploitation, retorm it, or nnaintain the status quo. 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' HE Media: And Then There Were Six David Barsamian Interviews Author and Media Critic BEN BAGDIKIAN On The Roles of Big Business, Government and Individuals IN Shaping Our Media and Democracy Ben Uagdikian is one oftlic most re- spected critics of the media. 1 le is the know anvone whose phone bill or cable bill has winner ofahnost e\ei7 lop prize in as much of the share of the market as possible. gone down. 99 percent of our cities that have American joiimaMsm, inckidinu tiie \\ helher you run a chocolate store or w helher cable hav e a monopoly in their community. We Pulitzer. His career as a reporter and you run General Motors. As one side succeeds, have seen the consolidation of telephone com- editor spans inore than 50 years. He they have enonnous adv antagcs, more money, panies and cable companies. That legislation has is the former Dean of the Graduate economies of scale and they begin to use their accelerated this at an enormous speed. School of Journalism at the Univer- powers against smaller companies. There is sity of California at Berkeley. His something in particular about media corpora- But wity are you putting the onus on the Repub- is in degree with sup- memoir is Double I "isioii. His classic tions that not so true such a licans? Clinton and Gore were enthusiastic book The Medici Monopoly is now in other large corporations. Media power is politi- porters of the Telecommunications Act. its sixth edition. Interviewed by cal power. The mass media stand between the They were. I think they were caught up in the David Barsamian. Berkeley. Califor- political leaders of the countrv and the people idea that now the political future is in minimiz- nia. May 15. 2000. w ho V ote for them or don't v ote for them. They ing gov eminent and getting the regulatory agen- must be filtered through the mass media. So the cies out of the way. The major media reported The sixth edition rV The Media Mo- mass media have political power That power this with great glee when there were hearings nopo\yjust eanie out. In 19H3. in the and its impact upon government in praetieallv held on IRS abuses. Congress said. OK. we'll first edition, there were 50 major cor- immobilizing antitnist action on media merg- cut the IRS budget and thev will make fewer porations that you identified that ers did surprise me. audits of taxpayers. What we have today, factu- dominated mast of the media. Second ally analyzed, is that there arc fewer audits of edition, down to 29. Third edition. Does that account for the permissiveness as you the V er\ rich and increased audits of the middle down to 23. Then there were 14. Then describe it? class. The IRS reports that they are collecting safe there were ten. Now there are si.\. Did less than they did before. The rich feel from you expect this kind offapid accel- That plus the end of the Cold War The collapse hav ing their questionable deductions audited. eration of concentration of the Sov iet Union encouraged those who are The Democrats decided that > ou can't tight this for no gov emment interv ention in the eeonomv' kind of trend and therefore we will coopt the to say. centralized planning in the Soviet conservatives and beat them. And that's what I did know that concentration lends Sec, produced failure and therefore w hat we they did. Clinton preempted the Congress. He to make for more concentration. I had Union assumed. ha\ ing been a Washington must have is no government intervention. The greatly fmstrated them. I'm afraid we now have correspondent and a journalist for epitome of that w as the 1 994 Congress. They one partv w itli two w ings. one more conserva- many years, and seeing antitrust ac- came in with the idea that they were going to tive and one less conservative. They behave in the get out town. They remarkably similar ways. tions during the 1 950s and 1 960s. that trash gov eminent and of there would have been inter\ention did their best to trash the government, which by the Department of Justice and meant regulator}, agencies and so forth. Once Let's go hack to I9S3. when ycni identijied 50 other interested agencies like the ITC they were there thev decided thev would not major corporations as dominating the media and ihe KCC. What has happened has get out of town. They were all for tenn limits in the U.S. What was the product like.' Was it been the opposite. They ha\ e become before. Once they got in they thought tenn lim- significantly diffeivnt from today? extremcK permissi\e about mergers its was a bad idea now that they were there. and takeovers that in the past would What has happened has been that historic ev cuts \ou hav e to a'cognize that at the s;une time these have invited certain antitrust inter- have given the media companies such power things w ere happening among the media, there vention. The free market religion, and that they passed the 1996 Telecommunications were other great trends in our society. For ex- into education, it's almost a fonn of theology in the ,'\ct. That was done in a most bald exercise of ample, more people went higher journalists. Thev got a little minds of corporations, became en- corporate pow er that I can remember 1 he Re- and that included trenched with the ascendancy of publicans had a private meeting with the lead- bit more sophisticated. The public itself became sophisticated. 1994 Congress alened Reagan in the early 19X0s. It held of ers of the telecommunications induslr>. Accord- more The Latinos, as to w ho the course that if you leave things to busi- ing to the Wall Street Journal, they said, in ef- many people, especially ness. the\ will aulomalically produce fect, to the leaders of the industr>. What do vou enemv w as. The new members ofCongress and to get them out of the the good society. There is no such want from Congress'.' The industrv told them, the conservatives wanled Regulation is thing as a real free market, nor has and the Congress gave it to them. It was a di- way. .MTmnative action is bad. that at there ever been during the histiirv of sastrous act. The public was told bv the news killing industrv. None of the data show has changed. Tlie ratio industriali/alion. .\ free market media that this would increase competition and all. The pow er of industr> bills, taxes paid bv coiporations and indi- means thai business is free to do any- low er your phone and cable fhe competi- between people will be after vour V iduals. if vou conipaa' in I ^>50 and now. is stun- thing It wants. In the nature of com- tion will mean more propor- petition, every business wants to hav e business and therefore vou'll pav less I dim't ning. Taxpayers pa> manv times more tionally than corporations do. whereas the re- Take the Brown and Williamson tobacco case. gap between the veiy rich and the un-rich is verse was true forty years ago. All ofthese things The movie The Insider showed that the pro- getting greater. Those data are not made big happened quietly. They did not get much treat- posed merger of Westinghouse and CBS meant stories. They appear and then they disappear ment in the major media. If it was reported at that 60 Minutes was forced to cancel an anti- But the people get restless and now they're all, it was reported as a rather arcane business tobacco program not for lack of substance but getting cynical. There's a sign of public anger story. The public knew something was happen- because it would have soured the deal. In an- and cynicism. ing that made them less secure in their jobs, other movie, Erin Brockovich, Pacific Gas and made them fail when they tried to get wage in- Electric, a very powerful utility denies poison- While you were preparing the sixth edition there creases. Only now is it becoming clear to many ing a community in California. PG&E is ex- were t^vo major media mergers. Viacom took workers that they were being exploited by the posed. The public goes to those movies be- over CBS and AOL announced its takeover of corporate system and by government. There cause they're interesting. There is a group of Time Warner How did that affect what you were were massive lavofTs ol pails ol our uidustrv to low -wage countries, AOL BOUGHT Time Warner, the biggest media company in and then factories in those countries doing shameful things to their workers. All of these THE WORLD, BECAUSE THEY NEEDED SOMETHING CALLED things are now becoming evident to a large num- CONTENT, AS THOUGH IT WERE SOMETHING YOU BUY OFF THE ber of people, and some of them are becoming SHELF OF THE SUPERMARKET. politically active. So I think that we are going to sec changes in the dynamics ol'our politics, not rapid, not overnight, but it's grow ing. I had to tell the publisher. I can't avoid adding some good films. The print media, seen by AOL. We had to do something about it. They But again. In terms of John or Jane O. Piihlic. perhaps a more educated and inlluential part did insert a line saying. Wherever there is a ref- how have the media changed since 1983'.' For of the public, are nervous about losing read- erence to Time Warner, it should be read as example, are you saying tliat the product was ers. But that change has been very slow. There AOL-Time Warner. That was emblematic of better then tfuin it is now'/' are still things that, if they appear at all, only how the argument that there really isn't a big It was dilTcrcnt. appear in very obscure ways. Those people problem with monopoly, because look at all the who are not specialists can't wonn out the four- new channels we've got. We have the Internet /// what ways'.'' paragraph story in the back pages that tells and that's liberation of the individual. AOL them. Something's happening here that might bought Time Warner, the biggest media com- Now the major media arc more careful in ways affect me. All they know is that they either get pany in the world, because they needed some- they repress stories. Occasionally it comes out. laid off or they have lost their job security. The thing called "content." as though it were some- . itiing you buy off the shclfof the supermarket. GE OWNS NBC AND ALL OF NBC'S VARIOUS I'd like some content, please. Content is pro- SUBCOMPANIES. GE ALSO IS A MAJOR PRODUCER grams and stars. Where do these celebrities come from? When you have, as these si.x big- OF NUCLEAR REACTORS. WE HAVE YET TO SEE A companies dominant position gest media do. a DOCUMENTARY ON NBC ON THE PROBLEMS in every single medium, newspapers, maga- OF zines, books, radio, television, cinema, videos, NUCLEAR WASTE. you use one part of your media empire to create a celebrity or an iilea in the other parts of it. You have a TV program and you put the star on the cover of your national magazine. That per- There's no question about that. Democracy de- son becomes an instant celebrity. They then star There's no question that newspaper so-called. . pends on an informed consent by the voters. If in one of your movies. If you are Disney, you penetration, that is. percentage of the households you know nothing relevant about the candi- put into the cute mov ies a new kind of tlutTv' in the countrv' it sells papers to. has been going dates, if you know ver\' little about their back- character. Disney has more than 1,400 stores down for twenty years. One reason is that com- ground, if you know very little about what the around the world that sell nothing but memora- peting papers have begun to disappear. 99% of implications are of the policies they espouse. bilia from Cinderella to Mickey Mouse. It's a our cities have a monopoly paper. That's one you're voting blindly. Unless you have citi- major part of the Disney empire. Take for ex- reason circulation is going down. There's no zens infomied about the things that affect the ample The Lion King. If you go into a Disney question that the daily newspaper industr>' is central parts of their lives, they are either vot- store, you can buy a doll or trinket or a painted influenced by these other media. But w hen these ing blindly, or, as we are seeing, they're say- art scene from the movie for $2,500. There you other media are owned by the same companies ing. We're not going to vote. That's why there get the tail wagging the dog. You can sec a use- that own the newspaper, and new spapers now, is more and more enthusiasm for Ralph ful sale in one part of these huge corporations according to Standard & Poor's, make more Nader's idea of having a line on everv ballot. by changing the content of the media in another than 20" o profit a year, there are entrepreneurs None Of The Above. That's a message saying. part of the same corporation. GE owns NBC who would weep with gratitude to have half that Major parties, you'd better give us something and all of NBC various subcompanies. GE also profit. It's now up to 25% and 30% for metro- more appetizing or we're going to say. A po.x is a major producer of nuclear reactors. We have politan papers. Broadcast stations, however, on all your houses. yet to see a dt)cumentary on NBC on the prob- make between .30" d and 60" o profit a year. If lems of nuclear waste. What happens then is you can say, newspapers are something we Let's talk about books. Coincidentally. we're another thing, self-censorship by the people who shouldn't pay too much attention to in our in- sitting in your den surrounded by many books. work for them. They know it"s not going to get vestment, that's because in broadcasting we can One of the si.x major media monopolies is the emphasis. There is an occasional exception, and make more and the future of the Intemet will German-based Bertelsmann. You say. "Its " it's startling. Time, for example, had an excel- make more. So there's that factor. But there's power in the marketplace is unmatched. There lent issue several months ago by two of the best another factor, too. If you study the growth of is some interesting information about investigative reporters in the countrv' on corpo- communications through the centuries of inven- Bertelsmann 's Nazi connection. rate welfare. tion, there's something called technological euphoria. There's a marvelous new invention. 1 Bertelsmann, located in a rather remote town Thai would he Donahl Harllelt ami James recently read again the history of the telegraph in Gemiany, didn't seem to behave like most Steele. and the telephone. It's amazing. You have state- corporations. They were rather retiring in the ments by impe)rtant people, saying. This will v\ av thev w orked but thev quiet Iv became v er> Eomierly with the /'hlladelphia /ni/tiirer. The not only transfonn the vsorld. it will make for a powerful and big. Since they are an old com- fight in Congress on welfare for the poor was a better, more peaceful, morejust world. Remem- pany, preceding the Nazi era. the question is, couple of years earlier. That's when the public ber that in the 1 960s when telev ision became a Wliat happened to them during the Nazi era? needed tiiat infomiation. fhat's when they had universal household appliance. Marshal They said in their companv publications that to find out that there was something like S125- McCluhan referred to the "global v illage." w ith they sutTered during the Nazi era. Thev had SI50 billion in corporate welfare. The problem implications that this would produce peace on tried to stay out of the w hole Nazi culture. That was corporate welfare. It wasn't the poor person earth. It didn't. That's the technological eupho- was the standard line. Then a Gennan scholar. who lives in the ghetto. There are problems w ith ria that a new invention, because it works, will Hcrsch Fischler. looked into this more care- that. It takes time and money and rebuilding be successful and that because it is so ingenious, I'ullv. I Ic found out that, to his surprise. Bertels- neighborhoods and putting good schools in and it will make the world a better place. Alfred mann during the Hitler regime published pam- doing something about the basic source of this. Nobel found out. He invented a stable explo- phlets for the Brownshirts. manuals for the But that's when the report on corporate welfare sive, dynamite. When he realized that it was Cierman army that justified expansion into was needed. So that nine, whicii tliii this to its usetui in w ars and w ould kill more people more Poland and Czechoslovakia, and that the offi- credit, nevertheless, did it when it was no longer etTiciently than anv thing else, he established the cial history was wrong. But he couldn't get it going to influence the legislation liiai w as relatetl Nobel Peace Prize. We still have the Nobel published in Germany. Bertelsmann, who ow n to it. That's the problem. When people need in- Peace Prize, but we hav e more destnictiv e wars a great deal of the media in Gemianv. is so fomiation on key issues, if thev get it at all, they than ever The technological euphoria has al- powerful that even papers they didn't own get it after that decision has been made. ways produced this feeling that if it vsorks. if didn't want to tangle w ith them. He had to get it's clever and if you have a big company that It published in Switzerland and in The Saturn .Sieve Case is the CEO ofAOL lie lolJ C oiiraJ kni>w s how to make lots of it, it's going to make in the U.S. That's how it got out. Then Blaek. the Caiuula-hu.sed newwpaper magiiale the world a better place. Bertelsmann announced. We will establish a lluil "the newspaper business was somewhere ci>mmiltee to kn>k more closelv into the his- between beleaguered and dying. " What do you Chomsky. MeChesney and others make an ur- tory of these things. They did not denv think of that eomment in light o/ reports that gent eonneelion between media and demoe- Kisehler's research, that in fact they had pro- print eintdation is stagnant and deelining.' raey. duced pamphlets for the Nazis. [media] These changes that we 've been talking about nel noncommercial public broadcasting system. tified war. I think we really did have to stop have not gone unnoticed, even by the New York That was killed, but it was publicly proposed. Hitler. But subsequent wars, Korea, Vietnam Times. In an editorial last year, they said, "the There ha\ e been similar proposals but it doesn't and elsewhere, were all made to sound like if new media environment has touched off a chunk- get anyw here because of the power of the me- one domino falls, freedom will be lost all over ing debate amongjournalists aboutprofessional dia to control information. How many citizens the world. It w as a fatal idea. It made the words " standards. What is that churning debate realize that this dish they get to receive TV pro- have reverse meanings. Orwell's insights sud- about? grams works only because they paid taxes to denly made you understand how it is possible create that technology? Look at all the fortunes to make murder sound like charity. I hear from these journalists all the time. What's that are being made on the Internet. We paid to happening at many papers, including some of give corporations this little gadget. We made a Talk about some ofthe venerable figures in radi- our most prestigious ones, is that the business big mistake not to say. We taxpayers created cal .American journalism. Let's start with side of the paper has begun to dictate the news. this for you and we're going to take a little bit George Seldes. The emblematic event was the L.A. Times, one of that every year and we're going to use it to of the most influential papers in the country. It create noncommercial media that will be open When I was a young reporter I came across his brought in Mark Wilies. who had run General and diverse. We haven't done it. The reverse is weekly newsletter //!/flc?. I became interested Mills, a cereal company. He changed the edi- happening. The public is learning more. Part of in Seldes because In fact reported on w hat was tors of each section of the paper. The nev\s and it is cynical, part of it is angr): We're going to happening in the world and interpreting it in editorial section used to be edited by a journal- see changes, but they are unpredictable because ways that the mainstream media were not. I read ist editor. He appointed co-editors, one a jour- when you get a cynical public sometimes the the books he wrote after he had been a distin- nalist and one from the business department. man on horseback, the Napoleons, begin to look guished foreign correspondent. Reading Seldes Together they would select the news. He didn't like the answer to the problem. We have to be grounded me in how to look at the world in a increase the circulation significantly. He didn't sure we let people know you can use democratic way diflFerent from the official view. It was not increase the profits. But he had the stock price procedures to change this, but you have to be that you simply rejected it all, but get the best go up two-and-a-half times. At that point it be- active and speak up. You have to support those infonnation you can and be skeptical that the came very profitable for the stockholders at political movements that serve your interests whole story is simply in governmental an- Times Mirror, the owner of the L.A. Times, to and not those of the corporations. Corporations nouncements. Today when I see government have a merger with a big company. The Chi- already have all the power and the money that officials on TV, I say to my wife. They aren't cago Tribune Company has now bought the L.A. they need. going to say anything. They can't say anything. Times. Wilies' goal was not to improve the pa- They are going to say sweet nothings. They are per As a matter of fact, he demoralized its statT. Geoige Orwell is most noted for his novels 1 984 policy people. They make public statements that But it was to improve the stock value of the and Animal Farm. He also wrote a number of don't reveal much and that permit them to go paper and then merge. It is a case in which all important essays. One is called "Politics and any which way. So you read someone like " the consequences for the ordinarv' person arc the English Language. Seldes, who reported what was actually hap- bad and the consequences for those v\ ith power pening, and then you saw the rather bland or are good. That's part of that great shift. That's That was one of the most innucntial essays I've sometimes misleading statements of politicians one reason why we have these wide gaps not ever read. It let me see clearly what happened and business leaders and you developed a base just in income, but in job security and opportu- when the context of an event w as framed by of knowledge which wasn't simply rejecting it nity. It is a tragedy that has to be reversed by the media and that words had ditTerent mean- all but simply saying. There's infonnation that activists. Ralph Nader's campaign is going to ings. True, you might wipe out a village in Nica- this person isn't giving. So I subscribed to his bring up liiese important issues. People will hear ragua or Guatemala and that would be a victory newsletter. It was always very compact. He had him and say. That's right. That's what I've been for the freedom of people fighting for demo- spirit and verve. Then another person whom I worried about, but 1 couldn't put it in words. cratic rights. When you find out what really came to know and became good friends w ith happened, like Pinochet in Chile and similar was I.F. Stone. He was a fonnative influence To go back to what you describe as the FCC dictators elsewhere, you find that these weren't on me as a young reporter. His I.F. Stone's and other regulatoiy agencies having all but a victory for freedom. This was a terrible hu- Weekly was a valuable source of information. retired from protecting the public from exces- man tragedy committed in the name of a dicta- He took government documents, that proved sive private power and exorbitant prices, vou tor. Murder did indeed begin to sound like char- that w hat officials were saying was either just see an irony in there because the Internet and ity and good works and therefore Orwell's say- the opposite or in total ignorance of what was the satellites were almost completely developed ing that murder can be made to sound like some- in those records. From Stone I again learned, a hy public money thing very sweet and wonderful, when I read very important lesson, both in values and as a They were. The taxpayers paid for those satel- that 1 realized that it makes a big difl'erence cre- reporter, do your homework on a subj^ ct and lites that Rupert Murdoch uses to cover Europe ating in the mind of the reader the context for only then can you really report the meaning of and part of the U.S. It was all done with tax- these acts. You want good to succeed against what is said publicly. Later in his life Stone payer money. When the satellites were put up. evil. So you have to characterize the enemy al- learned ancient Greek and wrote a book on there were proposals that a noncommercial sys- ways as evil. I think we have had evil enemies. Socrates. tem would be developed in the U.S. by taking a Hitler was evil. My generation is the one who very small percentage of the commercial use of thinks of World War II as the only morally jus- To get hack to Seldes, one ofhis books was Lords those satellite channels to finance a multichan- of the Press. -^ CD CT That was a very important book. He had a sense s; '— What's happening at many papers is of drama and passion vv hen he wrote, but he also had information and a point of view that S" that the business side of the paper was quite different from the conv entional wis- o dom. The books about publishers were all kind «- "^ has begun to dictate the news. of a histoi-y of the saints. You got a biography [media] about any big publisher and it was what a wonderful person he was. Scldes and Stone were people who said. They ha\ e t'cet of clay. Thc\ ha\ e power. You began to understand what happens in the con- centration of power. It changes not just individuals, although it certainly does iliat. but it changes the nature ofwhat they do. People who sit on the top of power p> ramids see the world from a very dif- ferent point of view than those who are dow n at the bottom. /// Double Vision \oi( vvnVc. "InchiUlluHiil I hated the divided perspectives in my faniilv life. But lunv. with the hixiiiy of " hioking hack. I would not chain^e them. I call the book Double Vision because I think we all see things in more than one way. It's a good reminder to journalists that when they talk about objective jour- nalism, tiiere's nothing objective about it if you're thinking of scientific objectiv- ity, like adding up some figures and ev- ery t)nc that's competent ends up w ith the same answer. No two human beings look at a scene and have exactly the same re- action. Each person needs to know him- Say it ain't ,so Joanne. and hokey-choky control being dished out to self or herself, to have some sense of Public Radio, that alternative Mecca en- the sonic Volunteers of America. where they came from and what shaped trenched at the left end of the dial, hijacked by Unclouded in the swirling spate of cur- them so that when the look upon a scene, ghosts perfumed in Hearst spirit? rent controversies, is the debacle that has be- they're conscious of what the lens is In a rash of imposter sightings of late, fallen the award winning Pacifica and NPR !" through which they look. Then they try folks coast to coast have noticed NPR and Paci- show "Democracy Now to look at it from the lens of somebody tlca donning the cloak and dagger of maver- Host Amy Goodman has been issued the else. You have both the objective \ ievv. ick radio, while favorite and venerated shows standard shorter-leash stripes, and told in no " you see the obvious things that arc mea- fade into the ether compliments of a new crop uncertain terms to "submit content for review surable and recordable, and then there are of latch key management kids getting their ears before airing. the impressions that sneak into your sub- and loins wet in i\y league board rooms far In addition to winning the prestigious conscious, that come from your own life from the community heartbeat. George Polk Aw ard for its piece, "Drilling and experience, w hich you have forgotten, but Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Military Dic- w hich condition a kind of emotional feel- Unburdened by the constraints of spon- tatorship", "Democracy Now!" has garnered ing which tells your senses what to pav sorship. Public Radio gemiinated in the after- awards for its coverage of the Mumia Abu- attention to. 1 use a crude example with math of WWII. With a voice graced in the .lamal case, and its story: "Massacre: The Story students. A roofer looks at a house and pleasures of presenting alternative perspec- of East Timor." says. I think those shingles should be re- tives, and off- the- beaten-path arts, it be- In another slippery tower, Pacifica 's flag- placed. A painter looks at the house and came... a welcomed rain in a desert ofjabber. ship KPFA in Berkeley, played host to a crotch- says. The south side of that house needs Inheriting the cosmic fodder of shows the ety band of rcnt-a-cops who the station hired another coat of paint, riiey're looking at likes of Charlie McCarthy and lidgar Bergen, and placed inside the studio to escort a popu- ihc same house, but they have a difTcrent (the irascible ventriloquist mimicking the lar programmer off the air for discussing the reaction because they come from dilTer- dummy boss), that lambasting lefty Walter problem of centralization and control of pro- - cnt angles. 1 think that's the same for e\ \\ inchcll, and Woody (iuthrie's Hooverville. gram content. cry human being, including journalists. NPR ascended like the sweet smoke of Blue- Seventeen dark davs later, the weary sta- air. Lot)k at every scene, if grass singing over distant hills. .\ sacred un- tion awoke, and went back on Some stafT- touchable haven. ers were allowed to return, others sent pack- For information about obtainin\i cassette It was Dick (iregory talking Mississippi ing. copies or transcripts of this or other pro- iuingcr, Donald Sutherland doing Nixon at his Since, the infection has spread through- _ firams. plea.se contact: Waterloo..errgate. Valde/. East Timor, NWA, out the Pacifica galaxy, and by golly, even "2 David Barsamian Alternative Radio and Rage. struck the City of Angels, where is told an in- e diabolical tale the beheading of a P.O. Box 55 1 . Boulder. CO 80306 .Mas. Communitv Radio R.I.P? timately of ;f (800) 444-1977 • arto orci.com .30-year labor of lo\ e. ° www.altemativeradio.org A way out west, a groundswell of protest 2 '^2000 is gaining fire, as hoards of listeners, musi- It was in 1%*). as the dust of Altamont cians and programmers alike, rise up to this was settling, when Ro7 and Howard Lamian new brew o\' "compassionate conserxalion." hauled a makeshiH vet state-of the-art studio down to public radio station KPFK in Los right interests to KPFK regardless of the me- Pie" for the West Coast crowd. Pete Seeger, Angeles. With engineer Peter Cutler in tow, dium, and supposedly indemnify the station Arlo, Hoyt Axton, and Joan Baez came in they turned L.A. on to roots music, and to the against liability suits from the artists. early on." Lannan said. best musicians pouring in from burgs, hollers, "We sign our own agreement with the Over, 1500 musicians came through and towns across the map. As FM radio high- artists on our CD's, where we assume liability FolkScene including: Mary Black, Randy tailed for greener S pastures, the Larmans" pro- when they agree to release their songs". Newman, Utah Philips, Rosalie Sorrels, gram. FolkScene, ser\'ed up without-a-net live Howard Larman chimes in. "All the artists Maria Muldaur, and Canadian legend Stan radio, where perfomiers stood naked before a were so responsive and cool about it. Tom Rogers. very unforgiving mic. Waits saying he didn't give a fuck, sent back "The Lannans played stutT you just The whimsical FolkScene became the his contract no questions asked." didn't hear anywhere else. I remember driv- epicenter of an entire community, who tuned "The "work for hire" enables Schubb to ing around tuning in one Sunday night and in ever>' Sunday night for a three-hour fix of own the copyrights of our life's work. He'd hearing Roy Bookbinder."" Peter Case said. intimate, often soul-baring perfomiances. '"In like to have total artistic control over the mu- "I'd listened to the Lannans in the a city not exactly known for its roots or sense sic, and make the deal with the record com- early 70s when I was a fry cook, and they of community, this show was quite a feat," pany, which is fine except he's not a music had Kate Wolf on. When 1 was finally on singer-songwriter Peter Case commented. person." Roz Lamian said. the show some years later, it was like: Man! The wide-open show c\ olvcd into an in- 1 ain't listening to it, I'm on it! The Lannans valuable live \ehicle for some of the finest In the wake of the program's quick dis- stamp of approval son of validated my ca- ragamuffins tolling L.A.'s byways. appearing act, listeners' passions have fiared. reer." Dave Alvin said. Tom Waits came in and sang "Heart Of FolkScene alumni such as Peter Case, Dave "For the hour you were on their show, Saturday Night" when he was fresh off park- Alvin, .lackson Browne. Jennifer Wames, and they treated you like you were the king of ing 1975 cars on Sunset. Lucinda Williams Katy Moffat rallied recently to raise funds for the world. They gave you a free fonun to used three cuts recorded on FolkScene as the the their lawyer. tell your story, and believe me the Lannans cornerstone of her crown jewel "Passionate "Long running radio shows are the life- knew their stuff. They exposed my solo Kisses." blood and roots of the city. "We can't keep stuff to a whole new audience who may not The merry ride fioatcd along just fine, cutting our history, cutting our roots. It's the have known my work with the Blasters. until five years ago. when Professor Fate in- tree biting the fruit." Peter Case said. In the 90's. Iris Dement, Kelly Joe tervened and transfonned the station's blood Roz and Howard's passion for the music Phelps. Dar Williams. Patty Larkin, and from sweet rose to Chromium 6. was unbelievable. They were committed to Greg Brown, pulled in adding their prodi- something more than a paycheck. As Captain gious entries to the vast, growing archive KPFK came up with a dandy of a general Beefiieart once said "love o\ er gold." of sparkling clear recordings. manager named Mark Schubb. who presented "People don't go into folk music to get a self-authored "Y2K Compliant Agreement" rich, and believe me the Lannans were the "This music's not a sepia tone re- to the station's programmers and volunteers epitome of independence, they weren't about minder of a bygone era. More musicians replete with an ultimatum to sign or go pack- promotion, they couldn't be bought or sold" are playing folk stuff than anytime in the ing. As the legion's ran for their bic ball points, Case stated. last 40 years." Alvin said. "Learned musi- the Larmans ran for the hills. No blow or blow up dolls from gold chain cians choose this genre. It hasn't been a Seeing "Y2K" as a ruse concocted to gain Harry coming in the station's back door pimpin three chord, capo, Tom Dooley thing for artistic control over FolkScene, The Lannans his promo? quite awhile." believe;' the 'agreement" was a trump card With Alvin's "Barn Burning" fore- Schubb dealt after seeing their two ace A voice of independence, FolkScene was closed in favor of that smoldering camp- "FolkScene Collection" CD's released with- full of dirt-under-the-nails tales from muddy fire fave "Kumbaya".(and vintage Hanson), out his name as executive hotshot. river country. Celtic jigs to French valses. where will the next crop of busking story- The Collection's are part of a rich legacy Tunes ringing out from .Appalachian hilltops tellers find a launching pad of this caliber'.' of archives accumulated over the Larmans" 30- and Cajun swamps. Clear-eyed soul adminis- For now. FolkScene fans can tune into year tenure. Schubb maintained he sanctioned tered by descendants of road buskers and self- Internet radio (the Santa Cruz-based station them while turning a blind eye to the station styled minstrels who had something to say wwvv.KPIG.com). where the Lannans have policy of not allowing programmers to release about the coiporate hit parade, and bands that found a new, if temporaiy home. material for commercial gain, but cannot do knew the names of front desk clerks at every "FolkScene has been one of the last so in the future. blue-light motel coast to coast. [places] to hear folk and roots music lo- "If releasing the two CD's went against "The thing about our program we like is cally," observes Dave Alvin. "This is a trag- station policy, why did Schubb give us a green that we have no boundaries, we play whatever edy born of the market-driven state of light for their release, and why did he allow us we like. We always treated the studio like our things. We've come to expect this sort of to use the CD's as a calling card for fiind drives, living room, and we all did it for the love of thing in the corporate world — but hey, this then go and cash checks generated by them?"" the music." Roz Larman said. is public radio!" -^ Howard Larman said. "We started taping shows at home, and For additional information: Though monetary gain seems to play sec- when we first got the show we interspersed • "Public Radio: In Depth. . or Head in the Sand?" ond fiddle to control in the dispute, there are those interviews with records from Folkways by Ed .Ayres in World Watch. December 2000. signs its voice isn't completely buried in the and Rounder. "Howard Larman said. • Los Angeles Times Calendar Section's of Oct fray. "In a digital world, these broadcasts are "We were out recording live events all 21.andOct. 27, 2000 • infinitely reusable."" Schubb said. over town for the marathon fund drives we had Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: Rachel C'ocn, Communications coordinator "As of now, none have us are in retire- in those days, and that led to bring in guests to • Media Alliance of San Francisco ment territory with the proceeds of the two play live on the show." •Roz and Howard Lannan iii www.folkscenc.com CD's." Larman said. "We did Don McClean live at the f'holo above taken frnin a FolkScene benefit 11/ The Agreement would a.ssign all copy- Tropicana Motel as he premiered "American JK'OO in Los Angeles a( the Troubadour. RE/ EDUCATION "There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create... Time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecision's... a hundred visions and revisions, before taking of toast and tea. " —T.S. Eliot. I met a man in Washington DC who asked for $.50 to help pay for a heart transplant. According to him, "it's a miracle I still alive, man, my heart's the size of a deflated balloon. You talkin' to a corpse." I didn't quite see how the $.50 would help out in the grand picture of things, and I was not skeptical enough to disbelieve the man's story, so I just listened attentively. In the background were the sounds of a city in action; the ugly rumble of old taxi's and their drivers swearing on the speak- ers, the slush of feet on gravel, the horn player with his hat on the grass with spare change scattered everywhere. The sun was out, I was in a black sweatshirt, the man had on a maroon jacket. I thought about him when I rode the T back home and if his heart transplant went alright. The T is louder and more obtrusive here, its harder to talk to a man with a heart the size of a deflated balloon when the person next to you is yelling in your ear or across the middle of the train. I miss that. I met a woman in a convenience store who sat next to me while I was on a break from work. I nodded in a polite fashi Colombia is a virtual gold mine for American business. This re- people."' source-rich country is being primed for the unfettered exploitation that The demands from the ELN (National Liberation Army ) are shared Republicrats like to describe with code v\ords like "emerging democ- by the larger and better know n FARC-EP (Revolutionai^ Anned Forces racy" or "developing industrial nation." But Colombia's most valu- of Colombia—People's Arniy). While both groups have deep histori- able commodity is not the gold or even the oil being pilfered from the cal roots, neither group are guerrillas today by choice, as their most ground. Cheap labour and lax-to-noncxistent en\ ironmental regula- recent efforts to enter the political process (which, like American's own tions are what really make foreign capitalists drool. Wages of two "democracy," is dominated by two nearly identical parties represent- dollars an hour' are often more than enough to compel peasants to help ing moneyed interests) as the Patriotic Union (UP), were crushed. the American cat burglar to the car with their own belongings. While ThroiighoLU the eighties, UP party members and candidates were tar- the American economy virtually depends upon this process, their vic- geted for political v iolence. including "the rapid assassination of about tims—as the now poorest country in the wx)rld. Haiti, can attest —do 3,0()(J activists, including presidential candidates, mayors, and legisla- not fare nearly so well. tors" . Needless to say, the guen'illas quickly learned exactly what In many cases, American corporate imperialism is met with kind of democracy the United States favors for its client states and considerable opposition from the local population. This is v\hy it is \()wed not to repeat their mistake. Naturally, this has been somewhat usually neccssaiy for \ iolent client regimes to be installed in these areas. of an obstacle for peace talks. Men like Suharto and Pinochet top the list of murderers pro\ ided v\ ith While U.S. ally. Colombian President Andres Pastrana waxes so- ample funding for "internal security," another code uord for "war on phistic about his efforts to achieve peace, his army works with para- the population."- This method is effective, except when these pel killers military mercenaries to slaughter his people. "An estimated 78 percent pull loo hard on their American leashes, as in the cases of Noreiga and of Cok)mbia's reported human rights abuses last year"' have been com- Hussein; the U.S. tolerates only economically viable atrocities. The mitted by paramilitary death squads, that "continue to operate with the Colombian puppet government, on the other hand, has long been an support, acquiescence and at times with coordination of the [govern- obedient client, becoming both the "leading recipient of U.S. military ment] security forces."** The remaining 22 percent of abuses are di- aid in Latin America and... also compilfing] the worst human rights vided between the Colombian army itself the guerillas, and other record, in conformity with a well-established correlation."' With groups. Just as in East Timor—in which American (and Canadian) President Clinton's recent announcement of a 1.3 billion dollar "aid" sLipport has enabled its Indonesian allies to massacre more than 200.000 package, both categories are expected to increase proportionately. people (approximately one-third of the population) over the last 25 While the Americans have appealed to the "war on dnigs" to justify years—U.S. "aid" has consisted primarily of training in warfare and this (largely) military aid. its scarcely hidden agenda is to crush the torture, and supplying weapons to the leading murderers which, as pre- guerrilla resistance movement. A rebel victory —along with the viously mentioned, only naturally results in a directly proportionate subsequent nationalization of resources, democratic reforms, rise in the killings. introduction of labour rights and environmental regulations they Given the reality of the situation in Colombia, it is necessary for propose— is what the United States dreads the most, since it would the United States to play up the drug story to the full; no atrocities are have a disastrous effect on the profitable multinational looting that ever committed—by any nation—without first feigning noble intent. continues today. This is nothing new. Confrontation of the very same By slandering the guerillas it is hoped that the aid sent to destroy them "threats" to American business in Cuba and Nicaragua was justified by can be justified, while attention is drawn away from the real culprits. appealing to the menace of international communism. With the end of the Cold War. however, the ludicrous notion of a liny Latin American The Story Hollywood Tells country threatening the security of the world's greatest superpower is a considerably tougher sell. Proof oj Life plays the "narco-guerrilla" lie for all it is worth. In The demons in this drug war are the dreaded ""narco-guerrillas.' a fact, the lies in this movie are so vulgar and transparent that someone useful concept as a cover for counterinsurgeney. but one that has been felt it would be a sensible precaufion to give all the major players in the sharply crilici/ed on factual grounds."^ Further light can be shed on story new names! Along with the Colombia/Telaeca name change, the the on real motivation behind America's dirty drug war when examin- red, yellow and blue Colombian flag becomes the red, yellow and black ing the point of view of the guerrillas themselves—which are men- flag of Telacca; the red and black insignia of the ELN becomes the red tioned in the mainstream press about as often as the human rights record and black insignia of the "ELT"; Occidental Oil becomes "Octonal Oil." of the paramilitary/government association. Early in the movie. Crowe introduces the audience to the dreaded The guerrillas—mostly displaced and broken peasants— realize "ELT," suggesting that any political agenda they once had has long that their "country has become a privileged place for exploitation by deteriorated and been replaced by drugs and corruption. Later scenes the multinationals, who take everything, leaving fthem] with nothing depict guen-illas working and defending their "cocaine factories." While [media] L1 *) ihe average North American might not know the difference, anyone living in Colombia, would see this as ludicrous. F-Acn Pastrana himself admits Essential Media \v hat IS common knt)\\ ledge regarding the guerrillas: "there is no e\ idence at the moment that [iheyj arc drug tratTickers. They do charge the "narcos" a toll. But the FARC have always said they are interested in eradicating Howard Zinn "Stories Hollywood Never Tells" illegal crops."" No reference to the paramilitary groups is made in the film. In Telacca. One of the most prominent, engaging and radical the guerrillas are the ones committing senseless acts of violence on the professors around today. Howard Zinn, took a recent civilian population; the guerrillas are the ones who torture their hostages, opportunity to speak at the Taos Talking Film Festival in fhe contrast between reality and fiction is. perhaps, best shown by the 1999 to talk about the stories that he thinks Hollywood reactions of fonner prisoners. In Telacca. we are presented with a badly has purposely left out of public eye. He suggests that the worn and staning Italian who. upon his rescue, hollers, "They are ani- stories that Hollywood tells actually serve more to present mals! Animals! Look what they have done to me!" while pointing to a an institutional, establishment-endorsed version of reality missing ear. In Colombia, kidnapped corporate executive Frank Skee "lik- that doesn't exactly do much to acknow ledge the nch ened his trip through the jungle to ecotourism. an experience that under history of people working, acting, playing, and doing on different circumstances 'could probably be marketed.'"'" their own temis. In this captivating lecture, Zinn weaves Of course, this film is only the latest in a steady fiovv of corporate the stories of American history that he thinks should be media intended to whitewash Clinton's blood money in the eyes of the included in Hollywood's repertoire. Of course, HoIIy^v•ood public. Some of the most one-sided reports \ ilifying the guerrillas' struggle won't be jumping to make films that are sympathetic to ha\ c come from Time Warner (CNN. Times), the parent company of Castle farmers .striking back against government taxation, or child Rock Entertainment—the manufacturers of our "narco-guerrilla" fiick! textile workers marching to Teddy Roosevelt's summer Of course, patriotism only stretches as far as the dollar bill; just like Occi- home in Oyster Bay. or the Columbus colonization of dental Oil. the big media firms have a personal stake in Plan Colombia as Native Arawak tribes. well. Time Warner AOL sees Colombia as "a key link in the mega- This CD was produced company's plans to rope all of South America's rising internet community and introduced by David il'r ililfiilin into its cybernetic empire"" , in which, as board member Eduardo Hauser Barsamian of Alternative ffTVaWm suggested, "the growth opportunity is enormous."'- AOL cofounder. James Radio. Kimsey has e\ en gone so far as to journey "dow n to meet guerrilla leaders -jason kucsma and open their eyes to the miracles of capitalism."" It's doubtful that he made much of an impression. As for or those of us who are already prop- CD SI 5 from Alternative 1 NfvfP •(..; erly indoctrinated in greed and exploitation, we have the luxury to close Tentacles Records. PO i^^^^^^onit Au unrnta utox m cm ««;» our eyes to its ghastly human costs between handfuls of buttered popcorn. Box 419092, San 11 * * » Proof oj Life is only an eggshell in Ihe compost heap of lies and pro- Francisco, CA 94 14 ^ Pr paganda covering what, for many, are their only windows to the world. It www.altemativetentaclcs.com is vital that we think for ourselves when Keanu Reeves shows us that being a scab is a good and humourous thing that makes the girls dig you, or u hen IVIatthew McConaughey acts out a re\ isionist drama about v\ hich Media Reader Jan/Feb/Mar 2001 country reully cracked the enigma code. It is true, more so now than e\ er. that—as Orwell so aptly put it—we have "sunk to a depth at which the This is the third installment in a project that I was really restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." Unfortu- excited to see when it debuted. Media Reader is a fi-ee nately, in a culture where our first duty is to scramble for profit, things just newsprint magazine of sorts that combines feature-length don't seem to turn out that way. i^ articles, interviews, insightful reviews, and creative and legible design to create an alternative reader that should definitely come out more than four times a year. This ' Darren Fonda, "(juerrilla Capitalism." Harpers Magazine Feb. 2000. 60. issue features excerpts from Jello Biafra's speaking ^ Noam Chomsky What Uncle Sam Reully Wants . Odonian Press 1993. engagements in Philadelphia, the dirt behind what went ' Noam Chomsky "The Colombia Plan." Z Magazine April 2000. down w ith one of the most promising (if not contradictory Ibid. revolutionary "businesses," (Unamerican Activities) National Liberation Arm\ Homepage. Available at: http: 'www. w cb.net/eln/ index.htm coverage of protests in Prague and an interv iew w ith a ' Chomsky, ibid. doctor on the state of public health. The review section is 'Fonda. 61. amazing because it not * Amnesty International. "Trade Action Report" 1999. A\ailablc ai: Imp:// only critiques the music www.amnesty.org'ailib intcam'tunion'1999/colombia.htm but also applies a rubric ' Rueters. July 29, 2000. "Colombia's Pastrana Plays Down FARC Drug Links." to the aesthetics of the '"Ibid. Harpers. 61. package's presentation, " Justin Raimondo. "Caligula in Colombia —A Legacy of Shame" August 7. 2000: -jason kucsma available al http:/wvvw.antiwarcom jiistin jOS()700.liiml ' Juan Carlos Perez. Paulo ,\maral. ".AOL Fomis Joint \cnuire in I aim ,\mcrica." Media Reader is free international Datadroup Dec. 1.'^. I99S. (send postage) by " Patrick Symmes. "Miraculous Fishing." Harpers Magazine Dec 2000. 63 some writing Media Reader, PO Box W 1544. Chicago, I 60664-1544 w w'w.mediareader.oru [media] *fn a poinfeJ rtspo/Stto dreary ' exercises in acadfenic raiserabifisra.f ^ Stjnfrog uraes ws to instead POLITICS choose tt>e Jaqic patK to ntopia. Tht. hook itseff ist» jtifeifant welcorae itilDIO to liis/Ba!^onay4*fci»e8t." ^. linusic ipiiMin IziHES ^ -^ UPERSPHERE.COM ow to avoid monoculture Over 500 free independent concerts and interviews from established and emerging bands. Streaming cinema from the filmakers who never want to get to Hollywood. (Jfopian Frospccfs, Sharp witted, contemporary editorials Communal Projects: and reviews of underground films Visionary E^periraenta in zines, media & music. ft m Literature everyday Life Street-level political commentary and video features from the business end by Andy Sunfrog Smith of a cop's baton. Send $12 (includes postage) to: 1467 Pumpkin Hollow Road Uberty, TN 37095 [email protected] FLYERS.F OSTERS. I L L U S T R M T I O N. P R l-N T I N G S. UJEE. OTHER. UP SO DESIGN IS HERE FOR OU ^ ^an D a D D ODD D O D a D D D D n ", D D L ct 'aDF)!uilJII.L BE BCTTEn D mo Can_You DoccB^ Western Medicine/ Big Money, and The Cancer Racket Ji by Gavin Phillips By the time you have finished read- see if they were affected by it. ing this article. 1 1 Americans will After experimenting for thousands of have died from cancer. This year, about hours. Rife discovered what he called the 1.2 million Americans will be diagnosed with Mortal Oscillatory Rate of the cancer mi- ''Everyone should cancer and some 560,000 will die from it. crobe—simply, the exact frequency that killed know that most cancer These rates have doubled in less than 40 years. it. Rife successfully cured cancer in over 400 In 1971 President Nixon declared the fa- experimental animals before testing was ready research is largely a mous "war on cancer" Thirty years and some for humans. 30 billion research dollars later we are still Dr Millbank Johnson, a close friend of fraud..." being prescribed the same three failing treat- Rife, set up the Special Medical Research - Linus Pauling, Ph.D. (1901- ments: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation Committee to w itness what transpired at this 1 994), two-time Nobel Prize treatment. Why? first clinic. In the summer of 1934, 16 temii- winner nally ill cancer patients were gi\ en three min- utes of the frequency e\ cry day. Three Case Studies They soon learned that this was loo much because the human body needed more time to My answer begins with a synopsis of three dispose of the dead toxins. They were given alternative treatments that have been sup- three minutes every third day. Fourteen of the pressed for decades by orthodox medicine. supposedly temiinally ill patients were clear First. 1 must stress that none of these treatments of cancer and healthy when the clinic closed is a guaranteed cancer cure. Some work better after three months. The other tw o patients w ere with one person than another, depending on pronounced cured one month after the clinic the type of cancer. A vitally important role is closed. There were \ery minimal, if any, short- one of a strict nutritional diet. term side effects. Rife wrote in 1953: "Sixteen cases were Royal Raymond Rife treated at the clinic for many types of malig- nancy. After three months, 1 4 of these so-called The first stor\ is about the Rife radm fre- hopeless cases were signed off as clinically quency machine. Royal Ra\nioiul Rife was cured by the stalTof fi\e medical doctors and born 1888. in lilkhorn. Nebraska. Rife's pas- Dr. .\l\in (i. Foord, M.D., pathologist for the sions were microscopes, microbiology and group." electronics. In 1937 Rife and some colleagues estab- Rite's genius in building incredibly com- lished a company called Beam Ray. They plex light microscopes is an undisputed fact. manufactured 14 frequency Instniments. Dr Roy built five in total. The largest and most .lames Couche, who was present at the clinic, powerful was his "Universal Microscope," used one of Rife"s machines with great suc- made w ilh just over 5.200 parts. Electron mi- cess for 22 \ ears. croscopes today are more powerful but thcN The most ptiw crftil man in medicine at this 00 kill the minute organisms Rife was attempting time was Dr Morris Fishbcin. lie was chief o to see. You have to be able to see them alive in editor of the .Xmerican Medical .Associations order to identify them and. more importantly, (AMA) Journal. Fishbcin had failed anatomy identify what kills them. and never treated a patient in his life. Mis only It took Rife about 12 \ears. between 1920- motivations were monev and power He de- 1 9.^2, to isolate the cancer microbe. I le named cided w hich dnigs were to be sold to the public will- it the BX vims. Rife began subjecting the can- based solely on the drug manufacturer's cer microbe to dilTereni radio frequencies to ingness to pay the advertising rates that he set. [politics] Fishbein heard about Rife's frequency ma- Hunza. effectiveness. But they were not interested in chine and wanted to buy a share. The oiTer was In the 1970s, the FDA mounted a wide- further testing of this natural product. The min- refused. He then offered Phil Hoyland, an in- spread and erroneous media campaign alleg- utes read, "Sloan-Kettering is not enthusiastic vestor, legal assistance to enable him to steal ing that amygdalin is toxic and dangerous be- about studying amygdalin [Laetrile] but would the company from Rife and the other investors. cause it contains cyanide. Yes, it does, in like to study CN (cyanide)-releasing drugs." The trial of 1 939 put an end to any proper minute quantities. If you eat the seeds from a Sloan-Kettering wanted a man-made, scientific investigation of the Frequency In- hundred apples in a day you risk serious side "patentable" chemical to mimic the qualities strument. This was a lawsuit brought by effects, possibly death. If you eat enonnous found in amygdalin, because that is where the Hoyland, funded by Fishbein, to try and steal amounts of anything you run serious health money was. If a very effective cancer treat- the company and the Frequency Instrument risks. Aspirin is 20 times more to.xic than the ment or cure was found in the lowly apricot from Rife and the other investors.The trial was same amount of amygdalin. seed, it would spell economic disaster for the the undoing of Rife. Not used to being sav- Orthodox medicine says that Laetrile (a cancer industry. agely attacked in tipen court, he crumbled un- concentrated fomi of amygdalin de\ eloped by der the pressure. Although Rife won the case, Dr. Krebs) was thoroughly tested and found The Hoxsey Remedies he turned to alcohol and became an alcoholic. to be worthless. The longest and most famous Fishbein used his pervasive power within Laetrile tests ever perfonned ran for nearly five Harry Hoxsey, bom 1 90 1 , was an ex-coal the AMA to thwart further investigation of years at .\merica's most prestigious cancer re- miner with an eishth tirade education. From Rife's work. Dr. Millbank Johnson died in search center, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering the 1920s to the 1950s, Harry Hoxsey and his 1944. In 1 950 Rifcjoined up with John Crane, Cancer Center in New York. At the conclu- natural remedies would wage the fiercest battle an electrical engineer. They worked together sion of the trials, on June 15, 1977, they re- with conventional medicine this country has for 1 years building more advanced frequency leased a press statement declaring, "...Laetrile ever seen. The remedies were handed down machines. But in I960 the AMA closed them was found to possess neither pre\ entative, nor by Harry's great grandfather, John Hoxsey. down. Crane was imprisoned for three years tumor-rcgressent, nor anti-metastatic. nor cura- John, a veterinarian, had observed a horse he and a month, even though 14 patients testified tive anticancer activity." owned heal itself of cancer by eating certain as to the effectiveness of the machine. Rife died So that is it then, right? It does not get herbs in his pasture, and he used the herbs to in 1971. more adamant than that. We can close the book heal other animals. on Laetrile. Unfortunately for the otTicials at Over the years other natural products Amygdalin/Laetrile Sloan-Kettering there was an unforeseen prob- were added and the remedy was tried on hu- lem. When a journalist asked Dr. Kanematsu mans. The Hoxsey treatment comprised two In 1952 Dr. Ernst Krebs from San Fran- Sugiura, "Do you stick by your belief that La- components—an herbal tonic that cleansed the cisco advanced the theory that cancer is a de- etrile stops the spread of cancer?" he replied. body and boosted the immune system, and an ficiency disease, similar to scurvy or pellagra. "I stick." extemal paste for tumors outside the body. His theory was that the cause of the disease Those two words were a major embar- Harry opened his first clinic in Dallas in was the lack of an essential food compound in rassment to the accumulated demigods on the 1924. By 1950 he had the largest privately- modem man's diet. He identified it as part of dais. The reason being is that Dr. Kanematsu owned cancer clinic in America, represented the nitriloside family, which is found in over Sugiura was the preeminent cancer researcher in 17 states. Although thousands of cancer 1,200 ediule plants. Nitriloside, generally re- in America, probably the world, at this time. patients swore that Hoxsey had cured them of ferred to as amygdalin, is especially prevalent Nobody had ever questioned Sugiura's data in cancer, Harry was branded a quack and a char- in the seeds of apricots, blackthom cherries, 60 years of cancer research. Sugiura was asked latan by the medical community. nectarines, peaches, apples and others. why Sloan-Kettering was against Laetrile. Dallas District Attorney AI Templeton The best way for Krebs to prove his "Why are they so much against it?" Sugiura detested Hoxsey and arrested him an unprec- theory would be to have thousands of people answered, "I don't know. Maybe the medical edented 1 00 times in two years. Hoxsey would eat a diet very high in amygdalin and monitor profession doesn't like it because they are bail himself out within a day or two because them—an enomiously costly exercise to say making too much money." Templeton could never persuade any of Harry's the least. Fortunately for Krebs. the experiment Sugiura had to be proven wrong. But patients to testify against him. Templeton had already been carried out. other researchers had obtained similar positive vowed to put Hoxsey away for good, until his Nestled between West Pakistan, India and results. Dr. Lloyd Schloen, a biochemist at own brother secretly used the Hoxsey therapy. China, is the tiny kingdom of Hunza. The Sloan-Kettering, included proteolytic enzymes His cancer disappeared and Templeton gave people of Hunza consume 200 times more in his injections and reported 100% cure rate Hoxsey the credit. In a startling about face, amygdalin in their diet than the average Ameri- among his albino mice. This data had to be Al Templeton became Hoxsey 's lawyer and can. buried. Sloan-Kettering then changed the pro- one of his greatest advocates. Visiting medical teams found them can- tocols of the tests and amounts of Laetrile to In 1939 Esquire magazine writer James cer free. In 1 973 Prince Mohammed Khan, son make certain that they failed. Not surprisingly Wakefield Burke was asked to write a piece of the Mirof Hiinza, told Charles Hillingerof they failed, and that is what they reported. on Hoxsey and expose him as a quack. James the LA Times the average age of his people is recalls, "I came to Texas, I expected to stay about 85. More importantly, they live vigor- Sloan-Kettering's motives were clearly about a day, get my information, and leave. I ous and mentally alert lives up until a few days revealed in the minutes of a meeting that top became fascinated. I stayed for six weeks, ev- before they die. officials held on July 2, 1974. The discussions ery day Harry would pick me up, bring me to Only in recent years have the first few were private and candid. The fact that numer- the clinic." James continues, "...He would put Hunza cancer cases been reported. That is due ous Sloan-Kettering otTicials were convinced his ami around these old men and woman, say, to a narrow road being carved in the mountain of the etYectiveness of amygdalin is obvious; 'Dad, them doctors been cutting you up, I ain't and food from the "civilized" world reaching they just were not sure as to the degree of its gonna let them sons-o-bitches kill you...' He'd [politics] treat them and they'd uet better and begin to Mainstream Medicine live against localized tumors, a small percent- gel well." vs. Alternative Treatments age of cancer patients. If the cancer has spread James wrote an article entitled. "The to other parts of the body, it is far less success- Quack That Cured Cancer." but r.squire did So, what does mainstream medicine say ful. If during surgery only one cancer cell re- not publish it. The late Mildred Nelson treated about alternati\ c cancer treatments in general? enters the blood stream, cancer can start again. people with the Ho.xsey method for some 50 The Pavlovian response is a rather supercil- How many times have cancer suflerers heard years, even though initially she also thought ious, "They rely on anecdotal ev idence w hich the words, "we got it all, " only to fmd a few Hoxsey was a fraud. Mildred's mother. Delia, is not scienlitlc." Scientists attempt to sweep months later that it has returned? had contracted uterine cancer and orthodox all patient tcstinH)ny, \erillcd by a doctor or Chemotherapy drugs were deri\ed from medicine had gi\en up on her. Mildred's not, into the realms of myth and legend. They the mustard gas experiments during World War mother and father wanted to try the Hoxsey tell us that in order to test the efficacy of a II. They were hea\ily promoted in the early treatment. She recalls trying to talk them out cancer treatmenl it must be subjected to the iy5()s by Cornelius Rhoads, head of the then of It. "They didn't budge. So 1 thought, well. rigor of countless double-blind studies, clini- new ly formed Sloan-Kettering Center for Can- Ill go down there and see what's going on. cal trials and peer re\ iew groups. In theory cer Research. Chemotherapy is toxic, causes then I can get them out of it. I called Harry this sounds line, but in practice se\eral tlaws cancer and wrecks the immune system. Can- and asked him if he still needed a nurse. 'I sure become apparent. In 50 years of cancer re- cer patients often die from opportunistic in- do. be here in the mominu' ...Bv the end of a search and umpteen experiments, no headway fections or from the druiis themsehes due to year 1 began to realize, gee this dt)cs help, mum has been made in finding an effective treat- their high toxicity. Chemotherapv has had had gotten better and to this da\ is ali\c and ment or cure for the deadliest cancers. At the good results w ith a few rare cancers, about fiv e sassy as can be." same time, the incidence of cancer is continu- percent of cancer patients yearly. But accord- Mildred Nelson and James Burke had ally on the rise. ing to author Ralph Moss, the drugs w ere given done something the National Cancer Institute Another point is that these supposed ex- to at least 7()().()00 people in 1991 alone. has never done; investigate Hoxsey and his acting scientific drug trials are in fact nothing It is alamiing to note that very few doc- treatments first hand. They found him to be a of the sort. Clinical oncologists have an obvi- tors would take their own medicine if they caring and effective healer who v\as not prof- ous V ested interest in producing positiv e results contracted cancer. In one survey of 1 18 doc- iling from cancer patients. Harry had sworn from cancer drug trials. There are cases of out- tors. 79 responded. Fifty-eight (73 percent) on his father's deathbed that everyone would right fraud, as you will see in the Tamoxifen said they would nev er take anv chemotherapy have access to the remedy, regardless of his or trials. There is also intentional and unintentional due to its high toxicity and inetTectiveness. her ability to pay. .As Hairy said, "I don't ha\e bias such as not following the protocols of the The pharmaceutical companies are making a to do this kind of work: I've got more oil wells experiment, burying negative results, patient fortune though. Chemotherap) drug sales w ere than a lot of men who call themselves big selection and statistical interpretation. 3.1 billion in 1989. By 1995 they had almost producers. ..Any man that would trafTic on sick, There is another factor here that has far tripled to 8.6 billion. Predicted sales in 1999 d\ing. or the blind caused from cancer is the more to do with human nature than science. were 13.7 billion. worst scoundrel on earth." By trying to exclude first person testimonv, The final option, radiation treatment, has Still, the Hoxsey treatmenl does not scientists try to control the path to truth. Only similar side elTects to chemotherapy. Once work lor everybody. Ironically, Hoxsey him- they have access to more exacting truths again, it has proven etTective in a few rare can- self contracted prostate cancer, but had to re- through their complex procedures and mounds cers, but is given to hundreds of thousands. sort to surger\ when his remedies did not of statistics. In realilv. scientists have not copy- There is a multi-billion dollar investment in work. righted truth. They are fallible men and w oman radiation equipment throughout America's It was not long before the infamous Mor- who have fallen for some age-old human pit- hospitals and enomious profits to be made bv ns Fishbein of the .AMA heard about the falls, extreme arrogance and the crav ing for using it. I k)xsey treatment and w anted to buy sole rights more power. I will take the word of a relative .•\nother grubbv secret of the cancer es- 10 it, with some t)ther ,'\M.'\ doctors. Hoxsey or friend who has cancer and no ax to grind tablishment IS their definition of the word would only agree if it stated in the contract over these scientists with all their personnel cured. According to them you are cured if you that everyone would have access to the treat- and jiolilical interests to serve. remain cancer- free for five years. If the can- ments, not just a wealthy few. Fishbein refused cer returns in six or eight v ears, then that be- and so began a 25-year media hatlle between comes a new case to be cured all ov er again. Fishbein and Hoxsey. The Establishment This brings about the absurd situation of I he mudslinging culmmaleii m a law suit some people being cured two or three times in hiought by Hoxsey against Fishbein. Much Now I turn mv attention \o the cancer es- a 20-year period. The fact is of course ihai ihev to everyone's ama/ement, Hoxsey won the tablishment. I he agencies involved are the were never cured at all. just sent into length) the ca.sc. tvcn so, in the late 1 95()s the FDA closed National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Ameri- remissions. But it is a con\ enient w a\ for down all of Hoxsey 's clinics. Mildred Nelson can Cancer Society (ACS), the Federal Drug cancer establishment to artificiallv inflate their lot)k the treatment to I ijuana, Mexico in \^Mt}. .'\dministration (FDA) and the American success rates. Mildreil treated thousands of patients w iih can- Medical .Association (.WIX). I'hese agencies I ( Insliliite cer until her death in I W^M her sister has taken have a long historv of endemic corruption and he National aiicer over). Bv all accounts. Mildred was one of conflict of interest with the phariiKiceutical the finest, most compassionate caregivers you iiulustry, 1 will begin with the cancer The NCI was established in 1937 and was are ever likely to find. V\ hile thousands state establishment's three primarv treatments: sur- suppi>sed to find a cancer cure or efVective that Mildred cured them of cancer and with gery, chemotherapv and radiation treatment. treatment. In 60 \ears there have been some medical records to prove it, the National Can- Surgei"y has been around for centuries and small successes with rarer cancers and some U1 cer Institute turns a blind eve is the most successful. Surgery is most elTec- technological advances. But for most cancer [politics] patients, the chances of surviving have not clmical trials it had a success rate of prevent- motes a cancer therapy that runs against their changed since the 1950s. ing cancer in 45 percent of the woman who substantial prejudices and profits." It would be great if the NCI was even half took part. But two smaller trials of Tamo.xifen Samuel Epstein writes about the ACS's as good at controlling cancer as their public in England and Italy showed no preventative Committee on Unproven Methods of Cancer relations department is at pronouncing its im- benefit. Tamoxifen may just delay the onset Management, "Periodically, the committee minent demise. Over the years there have been of breast cancer updates its statements on 'unproven dozens of headline-smashing "miracle" drugs The NCI hardly mentions the fact that methods' . . .Once a clinician or oncologist be- that invariably failed to perform anywhere Tamoxifen is a known carcinogen. It increases comes associated with 'unproven methods,' he close to the hyperbole. the risk of uterine cancer for woman under 50 or she is blackballed by the cancer establish- In the mid- i 960s. Dr. Lawrence Burton by two times and woman over 50 by four times, ment. Funding for the accused 'quack' be- produced a very promising treatment called as well as other serious side effects. Yet this comes inaccessible, followed by systematic Immuno-Augmentativc Therapy. The treat- drug is approved for cancer prevention in harassment." ment boosted the patient's immune system. He healthy woman. What happens to the hundreds of millions moved the treatment to the Bahamas in 1977. After the embarrassing Tamoxifen epi- of dollars the ACS collects every year? In Sep- Burton claimed the NCI tried to steal his for- sode, NCI director Samuel Broder resigned in tember 1 990, a study by Dr James T. Bennett mula and then take credit for it. 1995. He took a position at Ivax. Inc, a com- of George Mason University concluded, "The Dr John Beaty sent 20 advanced cancer pany producing chemotherapy drugs. His sal- American Cancer Society.. .had a fund balance In 1971 President Nixon de- patients to ary is approximately of S426.2 million in 1988. and it held net in- Burton's clinic. clared the famous "'war on twice what he was vestments (after depreciation) in land, build- Ten experienced earning at the NCL ings and equipment of $69 million. That same cancer." Thirty years and tumor regression. Another little year, the ACS spent only $89.2 million, or 26 According to some 30 billion research dol- know n fact is liiat percent of its budget on medical research." Beaty, "All ten many drugs devel- The ACS is famous for making highly ex- lars later we are still being owe their survival oped by the NCI, at aggerated and misleading statements. On March to Dr. Burton's prescribed the same three fail- taxpayer expense, 15,1 987, the ACS ofTiciaily announced. "Caught treatment..." ing treatments: surgery, che- are then handed over early enough, breast cancer has cure rates ap- In 1985 the to pharmaceutical proaching 100 percent." There is no such thing newspapers car- motherapy and radiation companies who reap as a cure for breast cancer, only survival rates. ried the story that treatment. Why? the massive profits. A As Dr. Dean Burk said, "They (ACS) lie like Burton's treat- good example of this scoundrels." ment had become is the anti-cancer The ACS and NCI have been intertwined infected with the AIDS virus. The clinic was drug Taxol thai u as approved in 1 992. The NCI since the 1950s. About half of the ACS board closed down. Shortly afterwards it was re- had spent a fortune on clinical trials and de- is comprised of oncologists, radiologists, cli- vealed that a top NCI official had spread lies veloping the drugs' manufacturing process. nicians and others with a vested interest in tra- which were published in the AMA journal and They then gave exclusive rights to Bristol- ditional cancer research. Key ACS and NCI in the press in order to close the clinic. In 1 987 Myers Squibb who charge us S4.87 per milli- officials often sit on each other's committees. Dr Vincent DeVita, head of NCI from 1980- gram, 20 times what it costs to make. ACS board members and their colleagues re- 1 988, recommended to 1 3,000 cancer special- ceive grants from one or both institutions. This ists in North America to give chemotherapy The .American Cancer Society old-boys network maintains the status quo and and surgery to all woman with breast cancer, guarantees that the vast majority of funding regardless of whether it had spread. DeVita was Formed in 1913, the ACS was reorga- stays within orthodox medicine. a chemotherapy specialist. Dr Alan Levin of nized in 1944. The new leadership comprised the University of California put the argument of Albert Lasker, an advertising tycoon, and The Food and Drug Administration against DeVita bluntly, "Most cancer patients Elmer Bobst, president of two daig companies. in this coLintry die of Chemotherapy." Lasker" w ife, Mary, ran the ACS for 30- some In 1970 former FDA commissioner Dn In 1 988 DeVita left NCI for a $400,000 a years. Mary was only interested in research- Herbert Ley said, "The thing that bugs me is year position with Sloan-Kettering in New ing profit-motivated, "patentable" dmgs. that the people think the FDA is protecting York as physician-in-chief of the cancer re- The big payoff for Mary came in Decem- them. It isn't. What the FDA is doing and what search area. ber 1 97 1 . when President Nixon signed into law the public thinks it is doing are as different as A major scandal rocked the NCI in 1994 the "war on cancer." During the decade of the night and day." In 1974, II FDA scientists when the Chicago Tribune broke the story of 1 970s, Mary Lasker and prominent private can- testified in the Senate "...that they were ha- large-scale fraud in the Tamoxifen drug trials. cer research hospitals such as Memorial Sloan- rassed by agency officials... Whenever they Dr Bernard Fisher was in charge of the tax- Kettering ruled the national cancer program. recommended against approval of marketing payer-funded National Surgical Adjuvant The ACS has a committee to identify any some new drug." Breast and Bowel Project of NCI (about 68 doctor prescribing treatments that are not en- The FDA's generic drug scandal hit the million dollars). Fisher used data he knew to dorsed. For years, the ACS's Committee on news in 1989. Several FDA reviewers were be fraudulent in an article published in the New Unproven Methods ofCancer Management and accepting bribes from some drug companies England Journal of Medicine. Samuel Broder, the AMA's Committee on Quackery (disbanded to speed their drugs through the process and director of the NCI, was also informed about 1 974) collaborated in persecuting anyone threat- derail those submitted by competing compa- the fraud but remained silent. ening the status quo. According to journalist nies. According to a Tufts University study Tamoxifen received enormous media ex- Ruth Roscnbaum, they "fomi a network of vigi- released in 1990, it now takes 12 years and posure thanks to the NCI. They stated thai in lantes prepared to pounce on anyone who pro- costs 231 million dollars to research, test and [polltics] obtain approval for a new daig. Because of on drugs testified before Congress and said that BOOKS. the FDA's glacially slow and inept bureau- the AMA was "...A captive of and beholden to the The Cancer Cure That Worked: Fifty cracy, many potentially useful drugs cannot be pharmaceutical industry." In 1987 the AMA was Years of Suppression brought to market due to the excessive cost found guilty of conspiring for 20 years to destroy By Barrv Lynes and time involved. the profession of chiropractitioners. A battle being fought now epitomizes The Healing Of Cancer: The Cures, the Cover-ups and the Solution Now ! how far the FDA will go in order to protect By Barry Lynes drug companies profits. For over a year, Jim The War On Cancer and Donna Navarro have fought the FDA for World Without Cancer: The Story of the right to give their five-year-old son, Tho- The supposed war on cancer is little more Vitamin B!7 By G. Edward GrifTin mas, an aitcmati\ e treatment. Thomas suffers than a grand illusion conjured up by the cancer with Medulloblastoma, a type of malignant establishment's propaganda gurus. The formula is The Cancer Industry: The Classic Expose' brain cancer. After surgery, chemotherapy was eons old. Repeatedly chisel your message into on the Cancer Establishment recommended. Jim and Donna asked what the people's psyches, "cancer breakthrough;" scien- By Ralph W. Moss. Ph.D. side efl'ects were. .Fluid on the middle car, hear- tists say they are "turning the tide on cancer." We Questioning Chemotherapy ing loss, memory loss, hyperthyroidism, spi- become unwitting human satellites, bouncing the By Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. nal growth deficit... the list went on. Worse, deception from one person to another. permanent retardation. Jim and Donna re- There never was a determined, no-holds- The Politics of Cancer Rev isited By Samuel Epstein M.D. ARTICLES searched their son's cancer for thousands of barred war on cancer. There is a fanatical and hate- Life Extension Magazine May 1999 hours. They found Dr. Burzynski's treatment filled vv ar being waged against the few courageous http: www.lef.org magazine mag99. (antineoplastons) in Houston, that has had doctors and innovative healers w ho prescribe natu- may99-cover.html some very good success with this type of brain ral treatinents. There is a war of protectionism. •TAMOXIFEN FOR HEALTHY cancer, with minimal short-term side effects. Protecting the status quo, protecting the grant WOMEN," National Women's Health The FDA has been persecuting money trough, and abov e all, protecting the phar- Network [iurzynski for over 15 years. They refuse to maceutical cartel's monopoly. http:www.ourbodiesourseIves.org/ iamoxife.htm allow Burz.ysnki to treat Thomas until he has There have been dozens of very encourag- undergone chemotherapy and radiation treat- ing cancer treatments in the last 70 years—the Rife CNN Interactive: "British. Italian studies ment. Jim and Donna have pleaded with the frequency machine. Laetrile. Hoxsey. find no proof drug prevents breast IDA commissioner Jane I lenncy. her superior Antineoplastons. Coley's Toxins. Hydrazine Sul- cancer." July 9. 1998 hitp: www.cnn.com Donna Shalala, and several politicians, all to fate. Krebiozen, Immuno-Augmentative Therapy. HEALTH/9807/09 britain. breast. cancer/ no avail. The FDA would rather see Thomas Dr. Max Gerson's Diet, to name a few. They all Navarro dead than take the medicine of his par- have two things in common. The people advocat- ents" choice. ing the therapy are branded charlatans or quacks CNN Interactive: "FDA panel approves The FDA's motives are explicitly clear. and the treatment is denounced as worthless by potentially powerful breast cancer drug" Prominent FDA officials protect the pharma- scientists who have been selling us out for gen- http: www.cnn.com HEALTH/9809/02 ceutical companies' profit margins and are later erations. breast.cancer.drug.02 rewarded with lucrative positions within those A radical change in cancer research is needed. same companies. As liurzysnki says, "The past Natural, nutritional and other innovative ap- "Scientific Genius Dies; Saw Work commissioner of the FDA—now he is an offi- proaches should be studied and made available to Discredited" The Daily California. cial of one of the large pharmaceutical com- cancer patients immediately. Most importantly, we Wednesday, August 11. 1971 panies, with a salary of $2 million a year." must have medical freedom of choice. For us to If the FDA allou Thomas Navarro access achiev c those changes, we hav e to ov ercome a far The Smithsonian Report 1944 to Burzynski's treatment they open the door tougher opponent than cancer. A battle royal http: www.rife.de inscope mscope6.htm to other people demanding the same option. against the $110 billion a year cancer industr\'. "Racketeering in Medicine-The Very soon people will want the right to choose Ultimately, our greatest enemy is apathv. To suc- Suppression of Allcmatives." James P. any alternative treatment. That is a road the ceed, we will need people w illing to step up to the C arter. M.D.. Dr PH. IDA definitely does not want to go down. plate and speak out. undeterred by being labeled " Robert Higgs, Reason politically incorrect people with plenty of good \n FD.A Fable. Maga/incOci 1944 I he American Medical Association old-fashioned guts, character and an iron will to will see it through until the job is done. We pre- ".Mtemative Medicine and the War on The AMA is responsible for licensing of vail. It's inevitable. Because when good people Cancer." Peter Barry Chow ka all physicians in America. They play an im- put their minds to .something, the mightiest walls DOCUMENTARY portant role in suppressing alternative treat- of oppression can and will be shattered. ments by networking w ith the AC'S and FDA "Ho\sev-How Healing Becomes a in identifying and punishing doctors that step Crime." out of line. W 1 BSITES: Since Morris Fishbcin's day, the AMA has This oriUlc is in no way meant to he a siihstiiiiW for nu'Jical can' (» attention. Always check with relied on revenue received from drug manu- f>n>/cssional liltp w w w c.iiiccrbiistcrs com a qualified health can- pwvider for all health care con- facturers vsho advertise in their various medi- ' cerns. For more information please visit Gavin Phillips cal journals. http://naluraIhcaI(hlinc.com website: wn'w.fieocities. com/freeeSO/ or refer to the list On February 6, I97.V two lormcr chair- of resources in< liulcti with this article hup w w w .ralphmoss.com men and one vice chair of the AMA's council [politics] Alano Baez a.k.a Not4ProDhet 4 iift!Miaii«tiK THE POLITICS OF MUSIC I It Towards the middle of November. CLAMOR view. They sent me Rlcanstniction's. two CDs scure or mystify' Ricanstruction 's overtly po- asked me if I would be interested in doing an and some interviews that they had previously litical content'/ interview with New York-based band, done. I realized that the issues this band ad- Ricanstniction. My initial response was not the dresses are as urgent as they are neglected. So Ricanstruction: We've never tried to obscure most promising. I explained that I would only 1 undertook the interview with the hope that il or mystify where we're coming from. We don't be interested in such a project if the band is would turn out like any good article for define ourselves as an "in your face political heavy on the content. If not, the band would CLAMOR— giving voice to an band" in accordance with the shitstem's Ameri- really need to be extraordinarily experimen- underrepresented struggle. can Heritage Dictionary, just as we also refiise tal. 1 told them that I had no desire to discuss to accept the slavemaster's definition of us as rilTage and personal trifles for the entertain- This interview was conducted over e-mail be- "slaves'. As Marcus Garvey said, "it's now ment of some band's fans; but that I was open tween November 20 and November 29 with necessary to see ourselves through our own to reading the lyrics, listening to the CDs, and Alano Baez a.k.a Not4Prophet, vocalist from bifocals." And what we see very clearly is that giving it a try. 1 had never done a band inter- Ricanstruction. -Richard Oilman Opalsky we have always had someone else's politics in view before, and most I had read were hardly OUR face. Our 500 plus year colonial condi- worth the whole press run of a magazine. 1 CLAMOR: One very charaeteristic thing tion is someone else's politics in our face. Our usually find them to be self-indulgent or aimed about Ricanstruction is the /act that the band imperialization is their politics. Our enslave- " to please the folks who have the band's record claims to be "Anti-politically political. and ment is their emancipation. Our color is their and are looking to buy a new one. With all to be generally leety about "messing with poli- capitalism. The genocide we sui^vived, the pov- " those disheartening words. 1 was unsure if tics. .4t the same time, voii speak mostly about erty and homelessness we endure, the racism CLAMOR would still consider me the person issues that are overtly political. Why not Just we face, the ghettoization and starvation and for the job. They responded by being even "Jess up 'about being an 'In-your-face 'politi- sterilization; the drugs we sell or the food we more convinced that I was a fit for this inter- cal band'.' Why even bother with tiying to ob- steal, and the bombs they drop, are all some- [politics] one else's politics. We're just artists who paint providing little more than jobs as waiters, shunned by the real independentistas because on ualls and play guitars, and talk about the maids, and prostitutes for Puerto Ricans. Cur- it has chosen to engage in US sanctioned poli- w orld we know. We have neither the privilege rently, one third of the Puerto Rican nation lives tics as a means of gaining independence for nor the power to perceive ourseKes as some in exile outside of Puerto Rico in order to sur- Puerto Rico. If we even mention the fact that "in your face" political punx who are gonna V ive. But those in the Diaspora are met with Puerto Ricans don't have the right lo vote, it's save us from ourselves. The fact is we're just the same ills that plague the nationless nation merely to put our colonial condition in a per- iryna sa\e ourselves. Right now, after every- of Puerto Rico. Back in the day, the Puerto spective that might be more understandable to thing has been taken away from us, the only Rican revolutionary Pedro Albizu Campos those vv ho refuse to accept that, in this day and thing that we have in our possession, is the said, referring to Puerto Rico's colonial rela- age. the US still owns a colony. In terms of ability to react and the necessity to resist. Ours tionship with the US, that the US wants "the whether or not any real change can come out is a life of self-defense against someone else's bird cage without the bird." This has proven of the ballot box. the fact that less than half politics. We defend ourselves, and we resist, to be true. the eligible voting population of the United and some of us even attempt to disrupt or de- States bothers to participate, is a clear indica- stroy these "politricks." What may be politics At the time ofthis interview, there is an explo- tion that in the US itself the people don't be- for you is resistance for us. We're not on some sive 'media scandal ' surrounding the Bush, lieve that any real change can come through (self) righteous crusade. The fact is that Gore presidential election. The US. the so- this process. I think whether we're talking Babylon's politics are killing US. called greatest democratic power. ' cannot about those who are abused by this shitstem's even manage to count its votes. I used to tell politics and are in the ghettos somewhere sim- Can you give us a briefeducation of what the people that the popular choice in a presiden- ply trying to sun ive; or those who feel out- Puerto Rico Liberation Movement is? Also, tial election is always overruled by the choice side of this system's politics and are out in the couldyou tell us what is at stakefor the people ofthe Electoral College. I tried to explain that streets demonstrating and agitating for change; of Puerto Rico in the context of this struggle there have already been three elections in US or those who think this system's not all it for liberation ? history where the candidate chosen by the should be and are on the campuses trying to people differed from the one chosen by the move people towards alternative parties; or What's at stake for Puerto Ricans is their very Electoral College. In those three cases the those who hate the system and are throwing existence. Puerto Rico's colonial condition people 's choice ofpresident lost the election, stones through the windows of Nike- We are " means the destruction of the land, the decima- because "direct democracy was already writ- all gaining a clearer understanding ev ery day tion of the culture, and the death of the Puerto ten out of the constitution as an impossibility. of w hat this shitstem is all about. Just like there Rican people. Puerto Rico was invaded by the Many of the folks I would tell this to would arc a lot of folks who didn't know what the United States in 189S during the Spanish either be perplexed by the news, or they would Electoral College is. there are also a lot of American war and since that time Puerto flatly reject it as a lie. As you know, both Gore people who are anarchist and don't know it Ricans ha\ e endured, resisted and sur\ ived the and Bush have decidedly regressive, right-wing yet. exploitation, injustice and dov\npression that agendas and agree on foreign policy, capitol goes hand in hand with the process of colo- punishment, and militaiy development— And First of all. I have a pretty high idea ofanar- nialism and imperialism. Puerto Ricans were Gore is NOT. as many people don 't even real- chism, and lam not sure what you mean when given, without their request. US citizenship in ize, for abortion (he rejected a bill which would you say. "there are a lot of people who are " 1916 -just in time to be sent to fight in world have provided some federal funding to poor anarchist and don if know it yet. .Anarchism war I in disproportionate numbers. Since then, women seeking an abortion and he supports has always struck me as an extraordinarily they have been cannon fodder in every war, stricter parent-notification laws— both of conscious and self-aware philosophy. Do you 'conflict" or invasion that the US has engaged which mean that he is only for a woman s right really think that people can be anarchist and in. Meanwhile, these "US citizens" who have to choose if she has a disposable income and unconscious ofthe fact that they are'.' Secondly, an inalienable right to be killed, don't have the is over IH!). As to environmentalism. he would it seems to me that the Puerto Rican Libera- right to vote in US presidential elections, or to rather drill for oil in Colombia, on the lands tion .Movement has almost no visibility in the politically decide their own fate. Any decisions of indigenous people who survive off of thai US. and that it is even in the margins of radi- of consequence, from who will rule their coun- land, than in .Alaska where our own precious cal .American communities. Since the US is the lr\, to whether or not Puerto Ricans ha\e a sceneiy is deemed more valuable. It seems that colonizer of Puerto Rico, much of the work "right" to be independent, is decided by the the only good thing thai could come from this towards this cause must take place here, in the US congress. Puerto Rican land has also been media scandal ' would be an education about heart ofthe colonizing force. Blacklisted fmm seized by the US government to be used for our lack of real democracy. People may he the mainstream media, what kind of activity tourism, and as military installations \\ here war forced to learn the math ofhow elections run. can we take up here in the L S to stivngthen games are ctinducted. bombs are dropped, and and how they fail to represent the interests of the cause of Puerto Rican Liberation.' Latin American dictators are trained. The can- the people. What is the response ofthe excluded cer and suicide rates in Puerto Rico arc some Puerto Rican citizens who arefoned to watch Answering your second question first, the of the highest in the "US," as are drug addic- this oligarchic circus without being given a Puerto Rican Liberation Movement is not on tion and unemplo\nient; and the po\erl\ level vote'.' Do vou think that any real change can the margins of the radical Puerto Rican com- ' is the highest in the US. Radiation experimen- come from the ballot box munit) in the US; it's on our minds ev cry sec- tation and contamination have been conducted ond of every day. Wc feel it and we knov\ it and inflicted on political prisoners, and steril- The Puerto Rican Liberation Movement has This is our realitv. We also fulK understand ization campaigns lia\e been carried out on always had a prcttv hcalthv and clear v levv of that the "mainstream" North .Vnierican media Puerto Rican women w ithout their know ledge. US politricks. It's the policv of the inovemeni will never publicize or glorifv the rcalitv of Most of Puerto Rico is owned by US business- not to engage in any activity where the US Puerto Ricos colonial condition and liberation men who make huge profits olT Puerto Ricans government is involved, because to do so struggle. After all. we're not some "far oft" who are captive consumers for US goods. And would be to legilimi/e the illegal occupation issue in some "far oft" land; vv e're not a colonv the US owned tourism trade rakes in billions and coloni/atmn iif Puerto Rico. I ven the "le- of the "evil" Chinese, or the ""bad"" commu- of tax free dollars for US businessmen, while gitimate" Puerto Rican Independence party is nists. We are. as .lose Marti said, "in the en- [politics] trails of the monster, and our weapon is David's sling." But just like David the punk we rely on other means to get our message across. The underground, politically minded media is an important collaborator in helping put the mes- sage of this struggle out to the masses. After all, isn't that the purpose of periodicals like CLAMOR? But at the same time, those in the Puerto Rican Liberation Movement carry no illusions that ours is a glamour issue that the "liberators-come-lately" will embrace and rally behind. But of course. non-Puerto Rican ac- tivists and sympathizers are more than wel- come to take to the streets in the struggle to free Puerto Rico. It's as simple as that. After all, when we look at the righteous struggles against the WTO, the Republicrats. the fight to free and conscrv e the land, the battle against racism, se.xism, the AIDS crisis, injustice, ex- ploitation, capitalism, imperialism- all roads lead back to the oldest colony in the world. But in the meantime we will continue to oc- cupy US military bombing zones, squat US government-owned land, demonstrate, agitate, disobey, seize the statue of liberty, seize minds, seize the time, be the lly on the elephant's ass and maybe one day, turn this whole shitstem on its fucking head. As far as the question of anarchism is concerned. I can't speak for high- minded philosophers, high brow mtellectuals. or higher education high rollers either, but when you get past all the obstacles of ideol- ogy, the borders of doctrine, and the passports of protocol, then anarchy becomes action. So when you're dealing with people who can barely read, but are feeding, clothing and shel- tering each other and creating autonomous zones that exist outside of the shitstem, then you're dealing with action. When you're deal- ing with iblks who don't know the difference between Bakunin and bombs but are, through resistance and existence, slowly chipping away at the machine and attempting to create a world v\ ithout masters or slaves, presidents or pau- pers, leaders or liars, corporations or corpses, then you're dealing with action. But you know, the fact is, we don't have to call it anarchism, or communism, or socialism, or even terror- ism. Fuck "isms" and schisms, because after all is said, and said again, we just gotta do v\hat we gotta do. Franco s fascist army in Spain. / suppose a as the Armed Forces for National Liberation question that eveiy activist (or any person con- (FALN), and the Puerto Rican Peoples Amiy- It is an inlercsling phenomenon (although en- cerned with radical social change) is forced Macheteros (EPB), to engender a revolution- tirely predictable) that the US media has cov- to face at some point is how much progress ary consciousness in the people. Or, as Bob ered the East Tibetan struggle only because it can be caused through peaceful, nonviolent Marley put it, to help us "emancipate ourselves is a struggle against China, and not against actions? Could you explain what role, if any. from mental slavery." But it should always be the US. With the Puerto Rican Liberation forceful or violent action could play in the fur- remembered that we're up against the most Movement, since it is a struggle that directly thering of the Puerto Rican cause? powerful, treacherous and violent empire in addresses US imperialism and colonization, the history of mankind, so the impact of these there will be no large-scale attention here. The Puerto Rican liberation struggle has uti- tactics on the slavemaster are not always so While we do have things like punk and lized both non-violent action, as we're cur- clear to the eye. 1 think that history has shown CLAMOR, we also have things in the not-so- rently seeing in the struggle to remove the US us that we need both non-violent struggle and distant past, like when revolutionaiy peoples military from Puerto Rican land, and revolu- revolutionary violence if we're going to free from all over the world assembled armed mi- tionary violence, as we've seen in the actions ourselves. But it should be understood that this litias in 1936 to fight against the rise of of Puerto Rican clandestine armed units such violence, or revolutionarv violence, is a nec- [politics] cssary rcaclion on the part of the sla\ e to llie sent, DIY. and dirt under its fingemails. If punx even have their hearts in the words that the (Jownpressive \ iolence he has been subjeeted "rule" is still one of "White male Domination," vocalist is singing... theyjust want to rock, ami to at the hands of the sla\emaster. As Fanon then punk needs us more than ue need punk. to not be bothered by the i.ssues. I don l want said, "eolonialism is buiU on systcmie struc- But really, race, just like gentrification. is a to ask y(Hi to speak for them, hut inasmuch as tural violence which eventually triggers a vio- construct that came about for no good purpose. this is a Ricanstruction inteniew, you already lent reaction." But. as Fanon also pointed out. The trick isn't to be categori/cd. the key is to are. Where are they, and how do thev interact that \ iolent reaction can also serve as a cathar- confound categorization, create new terms for with Ricanstruction s anti-political politics? sis because it "can dissolve the inferiority com- freedom, and ricanstruct perceptions. Your plex of the colonized ... which has been in- head may be free, and your record collection Well. I can't speak for other bands or other scribed on the body during a lifetime of \ io- may be alphabetized, but when you go into people as to w hy they do what they do. nor do Icni oppression." your neighborhood reca sto'. there are still all I consider myself to be an authority on w hat is sorts of categories and sub-categories. "romantic crap" and what is not. But when " People in so-icillcil "developing eoiintries all Ricanstruction wasn't fonned to fit into any Ricanstruction came to be, we were just four a round the globe have been kicking and particular constituency. We grew up listening Puerto Ricans from the same inner-city ghetto, screciniing ciboiil the disiislrous effecls of WTO. to music, plain and simple, and ne\er catego- who knew w hat it w as to beg. borrow, and steal World Bank and IMFpolicies for over the past rized it. From So-called punk, to so-called to surv ive. and w ho believ ed v er\' strongly in 20 years. Yet none oj these organizations even salsa, to so-called reggae, funk, jazz, mambo. the freedom of our homeland. Puerto Rico. flinched until grassroots activity in the West- ska. boogaloo. bomba y plena, hip-hop, be bop. We'd been part of the squatters movement, we ern World flared up during the past three years. folk and folklorico. We were and are open to it wrote on private property, smoked the holy Now. they are suddenly changing iheir rheto- all. We never cared u hether Jimi 1 lendrix was sacrament, been harassed or brutalized bv the ric to address the issues raised by protestors rock or soul, or Bad Brains was hardcore or pigs, had shit jobs or were unemployed or "un- in .'imerica. Prague. Germany and France. reggae, or whether Coltrane was jazz or even employable," and broke the occasional win- Still, it is doubtful that we could get anything punk. Just like we never called ourselves a dow. We'd all read "The Autobiography of better than rhetorical changes from these pi- political band, but instead simply made music Malcolm X." "The Wretched of the Earth." lots of the global economy. Do you think that about our lives, which others called political. "The Boliv ian Diaries." "The Art of War." and the solidarity ofpeople who are supposed to We've played so-called hip-hop shows for "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed." and we all be the beneficiaries of this exploitation with Mumia and Leonard Peltier, so-called punk wanted freedom for Mumia and the rest of the the people in the movements of the directly shows for the Zapatistas and the squatting Black liberationists. and Leonard Peltier, and "downpressed" is required to get the kind of movement, meringue block parties for the the rest of the Indian Nations. We'd all been radical change we need? homeless and hurricane \ ictims. and we might beaten dovv n. but not out, by racism, and we even play jazz clubs for the hell of it. if the all knew that slavery was still in effect. We The only thing the privileged can do is divest cover wasn't so high. We"\ c done show s w here made music as an outlet for our anger, our suf- ihemseKes of their pri\ ilcge. The only thing a "anarcho-punx" arc slammin" w ith "Santeros", fering, our deferred dreams, and our dashed racist can do is become a race traitor. The only and hardcore "hip-hop heads" arc ragin' w it' ideas; but also for our joy, pride, and lov e, and thing the slavemaster can do is stop being a "rastas". This to us feels like the start of real to set ourselves free- if only for that moment. sla\ cmaster But the slave has .still gotta break re\olution. Yeah, we realize that we gotta unify We made music because to us it sounded like his own chains. if we're gonna make change, but still, after all revolution, and yes. we occasionally made is played, and played again, we also know that music simply to rock. When we started mak- This leads me to a question about each of us still has our own chains to break; ing music, we didn't have to ask each other if Ricanstruction's music. In various interviews whether they be the chains of slavery and we were dancing to the same drummer. We with Ricanstruction, you ve talked quite a bit downpression. domination and privilege, or knew we were. When we started writing, we about punk. Also, you talk a little bit about race and racism. It's not an easy thing, but I didn't have to ask each other if we spoke the various other forms of music such as .Afro- think that if we can do away with concepts of same language. We did. We nev er gav e much Carihhean music and salsa. Your musical in- w hat is "Black" and what is "White." and in- thought to interviews and who would do "em. terests are rather diverse, yet punk is amongst stead look at w hat is re\ olutionary and w hat is and we never considered ourselves to be the most white, male-dominated music scenes not. wc might aclualK be well on our wa\ to spokespersons for anything in particular When that one could ever find. Of course, there are writing the soundtrack for that revolution we we did do interviews it was because we were numerous exceptions to this, but they are still all talkin' about. .After all. when the revolu- approached by a cool "zine like Profane Ex- exceptions to a pretty shameful rule. If tion comes, it will sound like everything istence or Jersey Beat. Many of these "zines Riianstruc tion is about the kind of resistance you've ever heard and nothing you've ever tended to approach me because I w as perceiv ed wc ve been discussing, then whv form a band heard. as the voice of Ricanstruction since I was the thai fits within the punk communilv and gains "throat .Anyway, somewhere along the line. most of its support from a punk constituency'.' / was wondering about the other members of 1 got elected, without any Electoral College, The people who need to be mobilized the most. Ricanstruction. livery interview I ve seen with to the position of "Minister of Infomiation." bv your own account, make up the smallest Ricanstruction has ultimately been an inter- or as I'm i>therwise known. "Not for Prophet population in the hardcore;punk community. view with one member- you. Some bands like of Rage for the Ricanstruction anti-.Army." Why not infiltrate a scene that could better to say that each member .speaks through his Although I personally don't care much for mobilize marginalized peoples '.' or her instrument and that is how their voice doing interviews. I still think thev 're useful C(mies into the band. I have always found that when vou can discuss issues thai might inspire We never believed in being a part of any to he a romantic load of crap... The idea that others, w hether those issues are "•political" or that rea- "scene." but we don't necessarily mind vs hen they don 'l have any other words to convey or personal, artistic or anarchistic. For we're referred to as "pun.x" because it tends to anything to say about the hand and what it son. I've continued to do them. Anyway, that's come trom a perception of our attiluilc and represents. Too often, the other band members the way it is. and at this point in time, who- to politics, or should I sa\ anti-polilics'.'.\nil punk end up being reduced to a back-up hand for ever don't like it. shouldn't reallv bother has a rich and piell\ inipicssi\ c hisior\ i>l ills- one person.. In the worst situatiow^. thev don t talk to us at all. But. \ou know. I think this is [politics] kind of a stupid question- so perhaps I'm not jectives. Basically, you get the music and the an injbrmed resistance, why not use your re- the best person for the job. lyrics, and admittedly amazing cover art. Hav- leases to share more of what you have to of- ing grown up around punk. I 'm sure you 've fer? Hopefully, you won if jind my last couple of seen some elaborate packaging for music. questions as "stupid" as the last one. I was Revolutionary musicfrom Crass to Submission Our simple songs are not a manual or a mani- just trying to understand a little bit more about Hold has done its best to give us as much as it festo, nor are they intended to be, and we're Ricanstruction. I know that the band is notjust can for the sake of 'Its Movement '. Surely, you not a "shining path" or the "Puerto Rican you. and you 've explained that you all came know that you could have given us more con- Peoples Army." We are, to the best of our abil- together on the grounds ofcommon interest, a tent to accompany your music and lyrics... As ity and within the context of a "punk" (contra) common sense ofpurpose and common expe- it is. we don 't have any ofyour elaboration on band, reporting and reflecting on the nature of rience. I think you 'II agree that all these things the lyrics or detailed commentary on the society, ourselves in this society, and the na- have a lot to do with the foundation of a move- present issues at hand in the Puerto Rican Lib- ture of the human soul and its resistance to ment, and so I DO think it s important. But eration Movement. I don 't bring this up to make Babylon. But we know that we are not some moving on- you used to do .spoken word per- a cosmetic point about 'packaging': kind of "leader-liberator-lyricists" with all the formances before Ricanstruction. Could you Ricanstruction clearly has a hell ofa lot more answers on how to get free, and it would be explain some ofthe benefits and shortcomings to say than thousands ofother supposedlv po- presumptuous for us to define the struggle, or of spoken word as compared with litical bands, and the lyrics (by themselves) the path, or the "ideology" of revolution for Ricanstruction? For the .sake of building re- don 't even give us what we can get in a short others. As Che Guevara said, "there is no such sistance through education and provocation, interview. . . Not everyone is going to get to read things as a liberator; the people will liberate how does spoken word compare to playing the interviews. My question is- for the sake of themselves." So it's no longer about follow- music? I've found that both forms of expression can be effective tools for provocation and educa- tion. People come to art for different reasons, and they come to "political" art from diffcreni avenues. So what will move and motiv ate them will depend on where their heads are at the time. Some like the more intimate, and often more personal, soul searching of spoken word, while others prefer the catharsis of a kind of full on sonic sabotage. I've had people say they couldn't get into Ricanstruction because they couldn't hear the lyrics but others wanted, or needed, the power and release of the music and didn't really give a shit what I was saying. Which is not to say that one is any more "po- litically" nunded than the other: it's just the different ways of gettin' your rcvolutionarv groove on. For inc. personally. I like the power of this thing that some call "punk rock." To me it sounds like liberation. And I prefer the band fomiat because it allows me to interact with my brothers in a way that I wasn't w hen I was the lone "poet" on a bare stage. I found that I needed that artistic and collective inter- action, and that through our music each one of us was collecti\ely speaking \olumes. Which may be why I couldn't quite get with your question about where the other members of Ricanstruction's heads were. But in terms of the movement and the struggle, it really is big- ger than hip-hop, or punk, or spoken word, or all the other genres and styles and categories. You can bang on an oil can or bang on the doors of the WTO. or scream on the stage or scream on the (wall) streets, or play a guitar or play war (games), or make entertainment, or make the necessary tools to tear down the walls of Jericho. The key is to do something. Revisiting your full-length CD, Liberation Day, there is something that I just can 't ignore... It barely comes close to adequately represent- ing the depth and vision ofyour political ob- Lpolitic^j ing the "leader," or the organization, or the pamphlet, or the program, or the booklet, or the bible, or the "man" with the answers and the plan. We've been in the organization and we've read the pamphlet and the booklet and the bible, and seen the program, and followed the "man" and the plan, and all our leaders were false, and all our ieons were crueified. and the only real answer we got was to look to our- selves. Yes, read everything, hear everything, see e\erything, do everything, be everything, take from e\er\thing and everyone, find the sources, be your own source and, as Amiri Baraka said "leave the bitter rotten white parts alone." What people need is to have their imaginations challenged, and their heads freed. There's a great deal to be gained from allow- ing people to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions, and make their own decisions, and decide their own way to libera- tion day. We belie\e that as people arri\ c at an individual consciousness it will become a kind of collective consciousness, and at that point, who feels it know s it. What did LKJ* say: "Do we need another Moses to take we across the sea, and say gwam**, walk cross, we now free, we now free, as we enter the 2 1 st century. Are we long past that era, that there stage, and it's each and every one that has to rise now to meet the dawning of a different age." ^ *LKJ is Linton Kwesi Johnson- a conscious duh poet from England, by way ofJamaica. ** "Guam " means "go on " in Jamaican pa- tois. For more injormalion ahoiil Ricanslriiclion. check out their neh site at www.ricanstnjction.net. Starhawk is a social and en\ ironmental activ- ist, and has been embracing nonviolent ci\il disobedience in \arious political struggles (in- cluding those against nuclear weapons, corpo- rate rule and the destruction of old growth for- ests) for many years. She's also a radical Witch and the author of many prominent books, in- cluding The Spiral Dance: .A Rebirth of the .indent Religion of the Great Goddess: Divam- The Political and ing the Dark: Magic. Se.x. and Politics: and Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power .Author- ity and .\fysteiT. When not travelling around gi\ ing lectures and workshops, Starhaw k works the Sacred: with Reclaiming, an organization otTering classes, public rituals and training in the God- dess tradition. Yi\d Clrauer was finally able to A Conversation with catch up with her in November 2000. Didvou get involved with activism he/on' you Starhawk were a Pagan, or was it the other way anmnd? 1 guess 1 got involved with activism even be- 1 in by Yael Grauer fore was a Pagan, because I was involved high school in actions against the Vietnam War. .*<. The first time I got anested was when I was I for handing out balloons that said; Peace on [politics] Earth, Stop the War in Vietnam. We had an That was something that came to me in a ritual, or damaged. You can get sentenced to jail. But active anti-war group and students" rights group. in a V ision. Inanna, the ancient Sumerian god- it's tremendously powerful to do it anyway and It wasn't until a couple of years later when I dess of love and the erotic said to me. these not let fear stop you, and then you can find was in college that I discovered Paganism. people are my holy martyrs. Our culture tells other subtle ways in your life in which you're us that if you get a disease because you're not doing what you want to do, in which fear You 've been involved with a lot oj political is- sexual, you're bad, and she was saying no, is a power used to stop us. If we stop letting it sues that many Pagan communities have em- you're good, that's holy; it's my form of wor- get in the way of your actions, we have a pow- braced. Why do you think that IVitches are ship. If people get hurt doing it we should erful lever to move the system. more politicallv involved than most other reli- honor their sexual freedom and their willing- gions (except Unitarians and Quakers)? ness to take risks. Can you say a little about the myth of the .American dream? I think it helps if you ha\e a spiritual tradition How do you reconcile being Jewish and being that says the earth is sacred and we ha\ e to be a Witch? American culture has been very individual-ori- invoked with it and take care of this earth and ented. There's a lot less of a sense of collec- the Goddess is involved with each one of us. For me. Judaism is the religion of my ances- tive action and process as other cultures. It's Every ecosystem on earth is under assault; tors, and I'm very bonded to it in that it's my kind of deliberately presented that if you're every indigenous community is either suffer- roots. There arc old Pagan roots that are simi- not successful, it's your own fault, you're not ing or in a tooth-and-nail stniggle for their land. lar to Judaism in terms of connection to the as smart, not working as hard, you're lazy or So that helps people understand the importance land and following the seasons and cycles. incompetent. But the truth is that most people of doing something and not just standing back What I practice myself, spiritually, is my di- w ho are economically successful come froin and letting the earth be crucified. rect connection to nature in the Goddess tradi- some base of priv ilege to begin with. There's tion. If 1 was 10 years younger I probably some room on the edges to move around, just A lot oJ Witches say that the mundane and the would've ended up as a rabbi instead of a enough to keep people believing that every- mystical are inextricably bound. Do you think Witch, but in my formativ e years there weren't one can be president, everyone can rise to the that even activists who call themselves athe- any womyn rabbis. It was unheard of There top if they work hard enough. Every once in a ists are engaging in a form of spirituality'.'' were no womvn in charge of anything except while you get a Bill Clinton, who was poor, maybe Hadassah or teaching in 1 Icbrcw school, but really you usually get a Gore or a Bush, By my definition of spirituality and the sacred. and by the time there were 1 w as already used w ho are both competing for the Oval Ot^ce I think they are. The word sacred is related to to stripping off all my clothes and jumping and both come from privileged financial back- the same root as sacrifice. That's what makes naked into the ocean at Winter Solstice. There grounds. In order to have a system where ev- what they are doing sacred. If you are willing used to be a Wiccan-Jewish congregation here eryone can be president, where everyone can to make a sacrifice for something, to take a that did beautiful traditions and rituals. They live a deep and abundant life, we need to stand or risk yourself, then you are acting in a did High Holy Day services, and we called in change the social structure. Because there are sacred way even if you don't consider your- .Asherah. and v\ e drummed and sang. a lot of people. The odds are really stacked self spiritual. against them and a lot of people believe that When you're out there in the streets and Can you change your anger to will? everyone can improve their situation and rise in the forests, putting yourselves on the line above it. People like to believe that so they because you care about something more deeply One of the things we really need to learn how won't feel hopeless, but it's not really like that than your o\\ n comfort or profit. ..that's the real to do is to change our anger to vsill. because yet. definition of spirituality. there'll be a lot of anger when you really start looking at things, and a lot of grief, despair, In The Spiral Dance, you wrote "political We ve heard that you 've had people contact helplessness. Stir in a bunch of abject fear and awareness can become a tyranny of its own, you from jails because they want to practice terror, and you can have interesting mix. You not least because it locks us into the i.^sues and Wicca in there and are not allowed unless can write a Greek tragedy! Or you can bum perspectives of a particular time. " Can you there s someone in charge. out and scream at your friends, or you can go say more on that? from action to action to action until you col- Reclaiming has had people contact us from jail. lapse from exhaustion. Or you can see anger I think that there is an aspect to political activ- and we've had people go in to teach rituals. as energy, as life force energy, because it is. ism that involves an incredible sense of ur- You can have a priest or a rabbi come into jails, it's your life rising up and saying, "we're un- gency, people thinking, "1 absolutely know and they're supposed to provide you with reli- der attack here" and telling you to do soine- what is right." And spirituality advocates that gious services. It depends on the chaplain's thing. fight, flee, take action. But you need to people step back, reflect, and approach the judgment whether groups like Reclaiming can learn how to contain it. so you can sleep some- world with a sense of mystery - that maybe come in. We have people who are otTicially times, so you can kick back and relax. .\i\d they don't always know exactly what is right. ordained who do that. Prisoners who are in- then anger becomes a tremendous source of 1 think this is a good quality to bring into ac- terested can write to Reclaiming if they're in creativity, and what we need to keep us think- tivism, to look at some of the deeper issues an area where we have a group, or if we know ing about what we can do to keep changing that way. Also in political activism there's al- a group in their area who can provide some- the system. ways an issue or a fad of the moment, and you one. We'll also send copies of our magazine can't always tell which ones are going to be to prisoners. .And the fear. .you've said that where there's long-lasting struggles and which will be things fear there 's power that don't hold up. You can undermine the You wrote about .IIDS victims as sacred mar- depth and complexity of what you do spiritu- tyrs, especially those who caught the disease in a sense when you do a direct action you're ally when you are not connected to what you through intercourse, as those who die in ser- confronting some of your greatest fears. do on a deeper level. I think it's important to vice of the erotic Goddess. Does that view have There's an absolute mass of power of the state think outside the lines and be a sort of heretic, an historical basis? and the police. You can get physically banned whether that's a spiritual or political heretic. [politics] The more you lock yourseltinto a line, the less people should keep investing .so much eneig}' someone who feels that rage would want to politically smart we get. in them or focus on more local actions. smash McDonalds or even fight the police. But I also think that as soon as you pick up that You ve been arrested several dozen times for I think we need both. I think we need to lake rock you buy into what the system is telling us nonviolent civil disobedience. Do you think some of our energy and bring it back to our - that violence is the only true means of power, it's necessary at this point in time to f^et ar- home communities and organize locally. But and believing this closes you off from your rested, in order to help facilitate systemic big mass direct action carries an energy with imagination. We want the people at change? it, a power that unites people that's harder to McDonalds walking out and joining us, be- do locally. Last year was insane, with Seattle, cause they have the same slake we do. The I think It's necessary at this point in time for DC, the RNC, the DNC, Prague, one after an- workers are poor and disenfranchised and don't people to take some great personal risks. 1 other Though it's not always the same people have a lot of options. Instead of smashing think it's necessary at this point in time in doing the same actions, there are people w ith McDonalds, how do we close down order for people to defend their freedoms to some kind of sense of involvement with the McDonalds - really transform the system so sometimes risk losing your freedom for a whole and there were hundreds of other things that it doesn't even exist anymore? And for time. 1 don't think getting arrested is the point going on at the same time. People have to find that we need a mass movement that is bigger of doing actions. It's not the goal, though it's some sense of personal priority, so you can and broader than anything we hav e now. We sometimes a consequence. And when it is a keep your sanity and not bum out. When 1 get need to look more widely at what our actions consequence, I think it's very powerful. overwhelmed just by reading the e-mail an- are and speak more directly to people who There's nothing like a few days in jail to help nouncements about actions before 1 even get don't already think like us. If you put on a you understand the inner workings of the sys- to them, I know I need to ha\e a sense of pri- mask at an action and hide your face, how can tem, because all of the layers that exist to ority of what I want to get involved with. you communicate? How can people know who make the system look good and helpful arc you are and trust you? I'm not saying you stripped away. And the times I have been //) Dreaming the Dark lo;/ wrote that you de- should never cover your face, but you need to arrested, when I get out it's almost harder than fined violence as the imposition of power-over, know clearly what your goal is. In some cir- being in, because that awareness doesn't go that a manager who imposes a speed-up on a cumstances, maybe your greater goal is shut- away. You come back to systems that are line can be inflicting ting down a meet- supposed to be benign, but are really oppres- violence, even though ing but other times sive. smiling and soft-spoken, it may be building and that a Dine womyn a broad-based You write about power over (domination and who points a rifle at a community action. control/, power from within (creative power government official who .'\nd we need to and ability) and power with (in/luence). Can is tlying to force her off think about who you explain these in terms of nonviolent civil her land is resisting vio- we want to be join- disobedience? lence. There s kind ofa ing us in facing po- movement-wide debate lice lines or chang- When you're doing nonviolent civil disobedi- right now about what ing the system. ence, you need to be in touch with your per- exactly violence is and What kind ofcom- sonal power, to realize it may not look like it whether or not it s nec- munication are we but I actually have a choice in this situation. essary. They want you to think that they have all the money and all the power and there's nothing I think it's a complex you can do about it, but you can. You can put debate about violence your bodies ui the way, you can get in the way versus nonviolence. In of their functions, you can make them pay at- some way the greatest violence on the planet tention to you and your concerns. And that is imposed by smiling men who ne\ er pick up comes from power from within as well as the guns. ne\ er punch someone or kick someone, collective power of working together. When but they punch buttons and ha\ e conversations you express your concerns and anger in a cre- that afTect people in w ays they never see that ative way, then you can do amazing things, lead to children dying and people starving. 1 and shift that "power-over." Power-o\er de- think the debate about \ iolencc and non\ io- pends on consent, or at least compliance of lence is not all that illuminating since people other people. You see this in prison. A lot of seem to take one moral position and argue it, what keeps that system working is fear; a lot whether they're saying, "violence is bad. don't of the people in jail comply because of fear. do it" or "we need to use any means neces- And the people w ho make the rules are not the sary, and if you say we shouldn't \ou"re being ones actually enibrcing them. It's left to oth- divisive." I think we need to look at non\ io- having with them? ers, cops, prison guards, people who are also lencc in a different way. It's not about making I saw the anti-v\ ar movement in the '60s. exploited because they're gi\en this small lc\el yourself look better: it's about mobilizing these that was bigger and broader and deeper than of power. Mul it's within a system that doesn't great resources tiiat we ha\ e coming from inir the one we have now. that shut down every really benefit ihcmseKes or their class. We iinagmation and creativ ity. We deal w iih a great campus in the L'.S. .Xnd I also saw it evapo- need to challenge this power structure on ev- anK)uiit of rage, and we have to do something rate, out of frustration, because it didn't seem ery single level. about it. 1 have to do something about it so I like we were having an impact at the time. won't run around the house screaming and When we look back at it. it's obv lous we were s biij breaking things. It's an overwhelmingly un- hav ing an impact. But at the time, it didn't seem [politics] that frustration, but without the base to sup- Nonviolence is very much about working the It struck me as some of the same things that port that. So we spent a lot of energy yelling energy of a situation; violence is an energetic happen. ..in initiation, you're stripped bare, and and arguing about which group was politically pattern that people (banksters, police, etc.) are it's the same going into actions. I take off the correct or pure. And groups got more militant familiar with. Control and power-over are necklace I always wear and leave it behind and more isolated and smaller and less effec- what they know. Nonviolence is interrupting because if I'm arrested I don't want anything tive, and eventually a lot of them self-de- that power, doing something unexpected. Yam to happen to it. It's similar to Inanna's story structed. [a tactic used in DC] was very effective in where there's seven gates to the underworld keeping the police away, because it's not in and in each gate something else is taken off. There s a lot of that going on now; there 's a lot their frame of reference or reality. Barricades That's what happened to us in Seattle. In one ofpeople who are heavily involved in political they know how to deal with. There is an atti- area, they took our packs and that was one activism hut stick mostly to their own groups tude in jail that can get you beat up or singled layer, having all of our stuff taken away, and and don if really interact with the people they out because they'll think you're an instigator. then we're put in a holding cell, and then they believe they 're helping. that you're going to get everybody all riled up remove our shoelaces, and then our clothes and start a riot. To be effective and organize and we're put into the same uniform jail It's easy to hang out with people who think in jail, don't put out that energy. You have to clothes. It really seems like an initiatory pro- the way you do. They're supportive, and you not be so obvious, to be more low key. have a cess, if need to do that if your thinking is different than different tone and body language and then you most people's. But it's also important to real- can be in there and be an instigator and orga- ize that other people are people too. and you nize and give people legal information and get need to be in communication with them; you consensus and they'll nc\ cr notice. 1 think this RECLAIMING'S website is can leam a tremendous amount from that com- is an aspect of magic, of changing conscious- www.Reclaiming.org. Their mailing address munication. ness at will. is P.O. Bo.x 14404. SF CA 94114. Photos on facing page by Elizabeth Gorelik. You speak ofnonviolent political actions as Can you describe how you viewed the an energy working, of magic through con- protests in Seattle as similar to an ini- nection. Can you explain that? tiation? Essential Politics Howard Zinn 'Heroes and Julia Butterfly Hill Martyrs" Julia Butterfly Hill spent two In the first issue of CLAMOR, we years living in a tree in the included an interview with famed California Redwoods. Her radical historian, Howard Zinn. In the name stirs contempt by some film GOOD WILL HUNTING, the (loggers, some activists) and simple mention that someone should endearing love by others learn what really happened in US (loggers [see the video], some History by reading Howard Zinn's "A activists). On October 27, she People's History of the United States" spoke at Bates College in boosted sales of the book by hundreds of thousands. Chances are, you Maine about her experience know who Howard Zinn is. Yeah, he's probably the coolest radical living in Luna (the tree she sat professor around today. Armed with a wit that strikes sharp and a in) and captivated the audience political perspective that encompasses racial-, class-, and sex-based with well over an hour and a issues. Zinn can weave a historical narrative that manages to turn the halfofseamless narratives. For whatever your political stance lecture into an active moment of engaging storytelling. This double- is on Julia and her action, she is an amazing storyteller and CD release tells relevant stories about Emma Goldman and the manages to mesmerize with tales of how she got involved. persecution of her character, lifestyle and political allegiance that speaks what she did in the middle of the tree sit and how she feeis volumes to us today. The same is true for the retelling of the events now that it is over and she has moved on to other things. surrounding the execution of Italian immigrant anarchists Sacco and This tape would be a great fund-raising tool for environmental Vanzetti. Howard Zinn believes firmly in digging around in history organizations and other activists. She is as inspiring as she not so we can become lost in what used to be, but so that we can leam is entertaining. valuable lessons, apply them to the present and envision a world the -jason kucsma way it could and should be. These two CD's will inspire and enrage you. Both of which are vital signs that you are alive and conscious of $ II for audiotape (speech only) and $20 for videotape ( speech what is going on around you. plus Q &A) to Radio Free Maine / PO Box 2705 / Augusta. -jason kucsma ME 04338 Double CD $ 1 5 from Alternative Tentacles Records, PO Box 4 1 9092. San Francisco, CA 94141-9092. www.altemativetentacles.com [politics] DESCHOOUNG THE UNIV^^SIJY Why do radical thinkers and activists feci compelled to u ork conversation, challenging topics, and stimulating debates." In the in the field of education? Aftc" years of floating between volun- structure of the classroom community and in the process of learn- tary unemployment, free-lance writing, and a variety of mundane ing, the real deschooling of the university transpires. Deschooling McJobs, I found myself in graduate school, embarking on a path negates and subverts the rhetorical edifice of academic conformity towards a career as a teacher. Now. I work part time teaching writ- while simultaneously unleashing the individual and communal ing, literature, and feminism. As a radical educator. I know I'm in power of free expression, inquiry, and problem solving. good company. Paulo Freirc, Ira Shor. Bell Hooks, Paul Goodman, In an ideal world, education and liberation would v irtually be Ivan Illich, A.S. Neill. and Leo Tolstoy comprise a partial list of synonyms. Unfortunately, when authoritarian schooling confines some of my favorite pedagogical "mentors" and revolutionary the adventure of learning, the institutional distortion of education thinkers who have addressed the issue and participated in the work threatens the possibility of intellectual growth and creative free- of teaching and learning. Many people correctly believe that the dom. Thus, schooling itself becomes synonymous with oppression. fundamentally dysfunctional nature of our alienated society has As a concept and a movement, deschooling emerges to reclaim its roots in institutions like school and the nuclear family, and and redefine education outside of an antidemocratic, establishment thus, thev argue that long lasting social change must begin by context. transforming (or abolishing) those traditional sites of oppression In his engaging and energizing book Deschooling Socien: Ivan to forge spaces for emancipation. Illich makes transparent the distinction between school as limiting As an anarchist, my role as college professor at a public uni- place and education as liberatory process (In fact, this 1970 trea- versity seems steeped in contradiction. As an anarchist, I do not tise may mark the first use of the term deschooling, thus com- believe in the necessity of the State, but the State helps pay my mencing the contemporary use of this critical idea and its subse- bills, As an anarchist, I reject arbitrary authority in all its guises quent movement). Of numerous important points, a few stand out but have been hired to enact and reinforce a rigidly authoritarian as the most lucid of Illieh's attacks on schooling and his lively relationship model. The educational system depends on the mythi- proposals to construct alternatives. cal mentor-and-apprcnticc or (sadly more true) tyrant-and-slavc Illieh's "phenomenology of school" shows that the primary dynamic that historically exists between teachers and students. purposes of the educational establishment are to ( I ) segregate chil- As an anti-authoritarian activist, one of my first tasks is to dren and young people from the rest of the society. (2) provide either confront or make peace with these ethical inconsistencies. jobs for teachers and administrators, and (3) domesticate the au- As for the former, I still see the State as my enemy. As a tempo- tonomy, integrity, and vision of students. rary, part-time, underpaid, and uninsured adjunct faculty, I feel no Even the most inspired and open-minded educators oflen find false allegiance to my boss, the State. Only through an adjunct themselves cornered by their own authority. Instead of encourag- union and collective bargaining could a tentative peace be gained ing free learning, teachers must enforce facile obedience. Instead with the class that employs and takes advantage of my time and of acting as inventor, mediator, or thinker, the teacher must suc- intelligence. Currently, no such union exists in my "right-to-work" cumb to the ritualized roles of cop. preacher, and therapist. state of Tennessee — recently ranked as 45th in the nation for higher For Illich. reforming the existing edifice can hardly compare education —and 1 could make more money and hav c superior ben- w ith the potential of a revolutionary deschooling. Rather than tear- efits as a low-level manager at Wal-Mart. ing down old schools only to build new ones. Illich rejects the At school, my true loyalty is to my students, and here. 1 make notion that radical reform is even possible. Instead, he constructs peace with the second ambivalence by subverting and abolishing an educational vision for "a society which does not now exist" my own authority in the classroom to the even as he implies that a revolution- greatest extent possible. In this gesture. ary subversion of commodified learn- I see the college class as a democratic Even the most inspired and open- ing might in itself lead to the creation learning collective and myself as mere of a new society with difierent eco- minded educators often find them- facilitator. With the lessons I've learned nomic and political priorities. His vi- about direct democracy, shared power, selves cornered by their own author- sion of "learning webs" avoids bureau- and cooperative work from radical ac- cracy and builds networks for real ity. Instead of encouraging free learn- tivism and communal liv ing. I try to in- learning. W ith an immediate, nonpro- ing, facile corporate and apply these ideals and teachers must enforce obe- fessional, and horizontal emphasis, practices in teaching. So far. this has dience. Instead of acting as inventor, people who want to learn could have been the most rewarding and empow er- means to find others with whom to mediator, orthinker, the teacher must ing aspect of my job for me and for share skills, gain access to educational my students. After completing a fresh- succumb to the ritualized roles of cop, tools, co-create engaged inquiry, and man composition class, one of my stu- pursue specific vocational interests. preacher, and therapist. dents retleeted. "From the very begin- In the years since Illich penned his ning, we understood that the pri)fessi>r visionary critique three decades ago. held iu> greater power than the students. It wasn't a class where the widest embrace of deschooling ideals has come from parents the teacher told us what we "should" have learned. We were able and children, prov iding alternatives to the public schools from kin- to work with each other very eiriciently in a relaxed env ironment dergarten through high school. As the high school becomes in- and turned a class that could potentially be boring, monotonous. creasingly standardized and militarized, many teenagers lake back Iiieless. and mundane into an atmosphere filled with intellectual their time and learn on their ow n. In fact, manv of the most radical [politics] and fascinating projects in education occur in the unregimented fact, so-called tenured radicals have been bought and fully assimi- lives of deschooied teenagers, with several people inspired by dy- lated into the very structures that they had once hoped to revolu- namic texts liice the Teenage Liberation Handbook and the anthol- tionize. In an increasingly tight and tough marketceespecially in ogy Deschooling Our Lives. Rather than get swallowed by the English, history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, cultural stud- mouth of a metal detector, caged by the claws of an enclosed cur- ies, etc.£emany professors cling quite dearly to their middle-income riculum, chewed up by a generic dress code, and digested by the salaries and the status that their positions provide. Thus, the books police state of anti-drug hysteria, deschooied teens create a con- that a teacher asks his students to read may ostensibly be radical, text for learning based on their own desires. but his classroom structure probably is not. In other words, it's en- For adults, the best examples of deschooling occur outside tirely possible to mix radical content with a reactionary process. any formal framework and resemble the "learning webs" suggested Deschooling the university should be more concerned with the poli- by Illich. Real communities forming study groups, debate societ- tics of /;oir we teach rather than with what we teach. ies, workshops, and salons are examples of deschooling; also, vir- Some primary features of a deschooied college classroom might tual communities like chatrooms and listservs can occasionally include: shared power in class discussions including dialogue that become forums for deschooling. This concept only influences the lets the teacher listen instead of lead; a mutual learning contract of academy from the margins. Today, online and correspondence study shared expectations entered into between teacher and student at the programs incorporate some deschooling ideals in a depoliticized beginning of the semester; a fiexible and negotiable grading sys- fashion, but on the whole, the higher educational empire remains tem or no grading system at all; the co-creation of assignments that as militarized, standardized, and mechanized as ever. draw as much from a student's desires and experiences as from a Lately, we've seen a lot of holier-than-thou hubbub about teacher's expertise; the end of boring chalk-and-talk monotone lec- school and its problems from pundits on the left and the right. The tures; direct discussion of preconceptions and assumptions about common middle-of-the-road assumptions about college suggest a race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and politics with a breeding ground secular subversion and a training camp for left- libertarian respect for all position with an eye for how these issues wing activism. In the last twenty years, the movements for a more infiuence a classroom dynamic; and finally, the transformation of multicultural, feminist, and "politically correct" curriculum have the student from passive consumer into active participant. inspired the racist and heterosexist defenders of the "Western in- Until we abolish school as wc know it and replace it with real tellectual tradition" to sling insults, invoke fear, and predict the learning for people of all ages in all contexts, some radicals will end of civilization itself. While the required reading lists for first- attend college or work in the educational .system. Armed with ideas year humanities" classes may have changed dramatically, the pri- and disamiing of authority, we might subtly subvert the university- mary purpose, process, and structure of the university has not. In as-information-factory with the politics of deschooling. if seen a zine like this. US$3 ppd send well-hidden cash to: extreme 0)0 Conformity c/o Larry Nocella ^4-1 406 Main St. #3C Collegeville, PA 19426 USA [email protected]:) www.geocities.coni/ xconformity/ *VV«1,V1,V1 » . the 3rd Annual. UntergrounU Publishing Conference One weekend. Hundreds of people. Thousands of projects. Infinite Inspiration. Discussions, presentations, and ^"" workshops by and for people who create and participate in the world of alternative media. UPCON2001 is a conference for Zinesters, Activists, Comic Artists, Hackers, Low Power FM Broadcasters, Librarians, Web Designers, Filmmakers, Musicians, Artists, Academics, Street Theorists, Readers and Writers. In other words, YOU! © $4 each for more information: via the following sites 216 South Church St Bowling Green, OH 43402 ground: email: [email protected] CLAMOR or visit www.clamormagazine.org PO Box 1225 Bowling Green. OH 43402 space: www.clamormagazine.org visit our website for sample essays and contents from each issue. out 2/6/01 ! MUST ALL— 18 song CD of rarities, b-sides and vinyl only tracks. NiraiNI NEW m TIMH IINE VM Benefiting Charity: The Tooth Fairy Project out 2/6/01 The Weakerthans Enhanced CD single from the "Left and Leaving" Ip/cd (Sub City). Contains Watermark, two live tracks and the Watermark Video. -^ Benefiting Charity: Art City WATERMARK EP out 2/6/01 Atom and His Package / Har Mar Superstar New Hopeless Artist Atom and His Package and Kill Rock Stars' R&B Sensation Har Mar Superstar on a Shopping Spree. Benefiting Charity: Philadelphia Direct Action Group (PDAG) HOKLESS SAMPLER 7" Ik^SUB CITY(^ order online at www.subcity.net Shopping Spree Bringing basement culture to your mailbox. the finest selection of independent music available, period. 8571 I ligucra St. / Los Angeles, CA 90232 / www.SaulGoodMan.com fan@saulgo()dman.com / (310) 839-8200 ^^The True Story of a Modern Witch Hunt: Intolerance and Injustice in Arkansas 1 by Sean Carswell Satan is in the news again. He burst out of the setting sun and into West Memphis, Arkan- sas with an entourage of witches, a bizarre ritual that left three children dead, and lots of loud rock and roll. The small town responded with all the requisite hyste- ria. A witch hunt ensued. Three more victims were bund, tried in a court of law, found to be witches, and sentenced to life imprisonment. One of the witches was sentenced to death. Then, some- thing strange happened. Voices of reason started to call out from the woods. One \ oice made a documen- tary. One started a web page. One re- leased a compilation CD that in- cluded the \oices of Tom Waits and John Doe. That third voice w as Eddie Spaghetti, the lead singer of the Supersuckers. 1 managed to speak with him recently. I asked him who this Satan was and what he had to do with rock and roll. "Satan is a cartoon character." Eddie told me. "Satan is the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus or anything ike that. He's just a guy who repre- sents the underground aspects of life. To me. you know. Satan drives a cool hot rod. Satan has all the drugs and all the chicks and all the stufTin life that is rock and roll. "I don't think there's anythmg inherently evil about all that stuff. There's a lot of evil in the world. There's no doubt about that. But real c evil lies in other places. It lies in rac- ism and in people treating other ^ people poorly. I don't see how these J things connect." * 1, too. have trouble seeing how these things connect, but they all connected in West Memphis. Arkan- sas. Let me explain. That night, they broke into an abandoned Misskelley's confession was certainly P •rf'E ^ol^irolir HooA H/LIS house to take shelter for the night. They were questionable for a number of reasons. First, JEI^6 arrested within an hour. This led to Echols' pictures of the interrogation room show a fateful meeting with junior probation officer baseball bat in the corner. Second, Pulitzer Three eight-year-old boys (Christopher Jerry Driver. "Even when I first met Driver," Prize-winning expert on false confessions. Byers, Steve Branch, and Michael Moore) Echols told Leveritt, "he was on this satanic Dr. Richard Ofshe, was so convinced that disappeared sometime after school but be- trip. He started asking me questions about Misskelley's confession was coerced by the fore dinnertime on the afternoon of May 5, Satan once, so I started trying to explain to police that Ofshe agreed to testify even 1993. The following afternoon, the three him [paganism]." Echols explained that though he would have to do so at his own boys were found dead in a creek in a wooded witches and Wicca were old words for pa- expense. Dr. Ofshe did in fact, testify in the area known as the Robin Hood Hills. The gans, and he explained his ideas about earth, original trial that the confession was coerced, bodies were so mutilated and the murder of air, water, fire, and karma. Driver, a devout though a large part of his testimony was the boys so brutal that the West Memphis southern Baptist, took this explanation as an stricken from the record. Finally, Police Department concluded that it could admission of Satanism. Misskelley's lawyer, Dan Stidham, outlined only be an act of Satan or his followers. A After that conversation. Driver began seven major inconsistencies between junior probation officer who happened to be approaching Echols whenever something un- Misskelley's confession and the actual on the scene suggested that he knew of a kid explained happened in the area. According crime. Among those inconsistencies. who was Satanic. Since the West Memphis to screenvvTiter Burk Sauls, w ho helped cre- Misskelley misjudged the time of death by Police Department had no experience han- ate a Web site on the case, "When a piece of twelve hours; he claimed that Echols had dling a murder case of this magnitude, and guidance equipment disappeared from a train strangled one of the boys, though none of since they had already negligently destroyed that had passed through West Memphis. the victims showed any signs of strangula- a great deal of the crime scene c\ idence. they Damien was questioned even though the tion: he claimed that the boys had been decided to focus their investigation on this train didn't even slow down when it passed raped, though the Medical Examiner's report alleged devil worshipper. through the small truck stop town. When a showed no trauma to the anuses of the vic- girl was killed 100 miles away, Damien was tims; and Misskelley claimed that the boys, questioned." So when three young boys were who'd been found hog-tied, were tied with brutally murdered. Driver drove the police a rope w hen they had. in fact, been tied with *lt>E W'+^hes to Echols" front door. a shoestring. Recent evidence suggests that Misskelley also misjudged the place where The devil worshipper in question is a the murders occurred. young man named Damien tchols. Echols didn't fit into the typical West Memphis mold. He spent a lot of time alone, a lot of time reading books by authors like Stephen The initial investigation into the mur- King and Anne Rice. He listened to a lot of der of the boys left the West Memphis po- 'fe r."a»' heavy motai. bands like Mctallica and Slayer. lice with nothing, so they switched tactics In his early teens, he began to question the and introduced Vicky Hutcheson into the Nonetheless, a wave of hysteria sur- spirituality of his father's fire-and-brimstone picture. Hutcheson was in trouble already for rounded both trials. Misskelley's confession church. He converted to Catholicism, and writing bad checks. Perhaps to make this quickly condemned him to life plus forty while studying Catholic history, he became trouble go away or perhaps chasing the years in prison. Echols and Baldwin, who so impressed w ith Father Damien, the nine- S30,000 reward offered by the police, were tried together, caused more of a stir. teenth century priest who cared for the lep- Hutcheson met w ith Echols and tried to elicit West Memphis locals, petrified by exagger- ers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, that a confession. When this didn't work, she sent ated stories about a Satanic cult in their back- Echols took on the priest's first name her son to the police station claiming that woods, came forward with corroborativ e tes- (Echols' original first name was Michael). he had been with the three boys on the night timonies. Two local girls, 1 2 and 1 5, claimed Eventually, Echols' spiritual beliefs that they were murdered. He claimed that to have been in the stands of a softball game drifted away from Catholicism and more to- he'd managed to escape, and he knew who when they overheard Echols confess to the wards paganism. Echols defines paganism the murderers were. Hutcheson's son even- murders (though both girls confused the as a "worship of nature-earth, air, water, fire: tually pointed the finger at Echols, but his chronology of the events). Michael Carson, all the elements." He further explained his stories were too far-fetched for the West a fellow juvenile detention center inmate of beliefs to Arkansas Times journalist Mara Memphis Police Department. Jason Baldwin, claimed that Baldwin con- Leveritt, saying, "I may not agree with ev- Finally. Hutcheson sent Jessie Misskelley, a fessed the murders to Carson. Carson's coun- erything the pagans teach, but what I believe 17-ycar-old boy with an IQ of 72, to give an selor from the juvenile detention center im- is logical. Wc all have to come from some- eyewitness account. Twelve hours after mediately disputed Carson's testimony, but where. And certain things, like karma, can walking into the West Memphis Police Sta- the counselor wasn't allowed to testify, lest be proven. We know scientifically that ev- tion, Misskelley had confessed to the mur- he break counselor-patient confidentiality. ery action has an equal and opposite reac- ders and implicated both Echols and Echols' Prosecutor John Fogleman then turned tion. What is that but karma?" sixteen-year-old friend, Jason Baldwin. up the Satanic heat. He offered as evidence In the spring of 1992, Echols' Thus, the West Memphis Three were born. Baldwin's collection of black heavy metal girlfriend's parents threw her out of their The confession became the crux of the t-shirts, Echols' books on Wicca and Dru- house. She and Echols decided to run away. prosecution's argument. ids, and his Stephen King and Anne Rice col- lection. He stated, essentially, that it's okay dence produced at the initial trials. Though fiimsy evidence. to wear black, read books on Paganism, and that evidence itself should be enough to call Turvey unearthed a final interesting listen to heavy metal, but when you do all into question the guilt of Misskelley. Baldwin, piece of evidence. He noticed that wounds three, there's "no soul there." To corrobo- and Echols, there is even further evidence to originally believed to be caused by a serrated rate this, Fogleman called to the stand Dr. suggest a reasonable doubt. First, on the night knife were actually bite marks. This opin- Dale Griffis. who received a doctorate when the murders occurred, police were ion was confirmed by forensic odontologist through tour years of mail correspondence called to investigate an apparently deranged Dr. Thomas David. Dr. David went on to courses given by Columbia Pacific Univer- man who had walked into a Bojangles Res- confirm that the bite marks did not match sity. Dr. GrifTis has made a career on being taurant muddy and bleeding. Officer Regina bite impressions by Misskelley. Baldwin, or an expert witness in adolescent Satanic ac- Meek investigated by driving up to the drive- Echols. While this should certainly raise a tivities. testified that the killings He were in window, asking if everything was all right, reasonable doubt to the guilt of the West consistent with Satanic rituals for several then driving off. Twenty-four hours later, de- Memphis Three, during a Rule 37 hearing reasons. For example, three kids were killed tective Bryn Ridge returned to the Bojangles (a hearing where an appeal is made or new and three is a significant number in Pagan and took blood scrapings from the walls, but evidence is introduced). Arkansas Judge religions, the children were eight years old decided that it was irrelevant to the murder Da\ id Burnett (the same judge who presided and the number eight has pagan significance, of the three boys, and lost the blood scrapings. over the original trial) dismissed the evi- and the murders occurred on the first full Second, the Ontario Conference on Religious dence, claiming that he didn't think the moon after a Pagan holiday. This evidence Tolerance responded to Dr. (Jriffis' claims of marks were bite marks. He later said that was enough for a jury of twelve to condemn a Satanic ritual by pointing out that, though "he'd never even heard of odontology be- Baldwin (who was still a minor at the time) the number three is significant in Christian- fore." to life without parole and to condemn Echols ity (the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Ghost), the to death by lethal injection. number three and the number eight have no Of course, Echols and Baldwin appealed significance in Paganism. Also, there is no it^E yp/CES 0^ RE3SC?r. the conviction. The appeal was denied. Ac- Pagan holiday on the Fifth of May. and cording to Robert H. Dudley, Supreme Court Satanists do not hold rituals on a full or new Finally, the voices of reason started to Justice of the State of Arkansas, it is not the moon. Most significantly, they pointed out appear. Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce job of the court to "exclude every reasonable that "no evidence has been found that any Sinofsky brought all the inconsistencies of hypothesis." Instead, it is the appellate court's children have been ritually murdered in the the trial to light in Paradise Lost: The Child "responsibility to detenninc whether. the Jury past century in the United States by the fol- Murders a I Robin Hood Hills. HBO has could have reached its conclusion without re- lowers of any religion." given the film a lot of airtime. and it has had sorting to speculation or conjecture." In other The most convincing new evidence its effects. According to Eddie Spaghetti. words, judging guilt beyond a reasonable came from Brent Turvey. Turvey is an expe- "Everybody who sees the film, the first thing doubt isn't the job of the Supreme Court. They rienced forensic scientist and criminal they think about is, what can I do?" need only to decide if the jury could have pos- profiler. Defense attorney Dan Stidham was Photographer Grove Pashley, screen- sibly been right. Under these rigid standards, unable to secure Turvey 's services before the writer Burk Sauls, and art director Kathy they ruled that the crime could have conceiv- original trial, but Turvey has since agreed Bakken asked themselves what they could ably been committed by Echols and Baldwin. to review the evidence on a pro bono basis. do, and decided to put together the West Among their evidence, they found clothing After reviewing autopsy reports, police re- Memphis Three web site wwv\.wm3.org. The fibers on the body of one of the victims that ports, eyewitness accounts, the crime scene site consists of a case synopsis, trial tran- were microscopically similar to fibers found video, photographs, and all the other scripts, statements from the lawyers, exami- on Jason Baldwin's mother's housecoat, and, autopsy available forensic evidence, Turvey came to nations of the evidence, police reports, state- of course. Dr. (iriffis' testimony supplied suf- conclusion very difterent from that of the ments by the v ictims" parents, polygraph ficient motive. Beyond that, they could place tests, further informa- Echols near the scene of the crime because West Memphis Medical Examiner. Based on updates, and links to the witnesses had testified to seeing Echols and the nature of the injuries and the placement tion. On March 20, 2000, Yahoo picked site the then. his girlfriend. Domini Teer, at a truck stop of the wounds, Turvey attributes the attacks as their pick of week. Since near the Robin Hood Hills after 9:30. Accord- to a fit of rage associated with child abuse, the site is reporting four to eight thousand ing to Justice Dudley. "The witnesses testi- not a Satanic ritual. Tur\cy went on to de- hits a day. fied that Echols had on a dark-colored shirt velop an in-depth cnmiiial profile of the mur- Trey Parker of South Park, himself a and that his clothes were dirty." And though derer. The profile came chillingly close to creator of a cartoon Satan and the victim of witnesses passmg in a car were able to notice describing \ictim Christt)pher Byers' step- purilan values (the Motion Picture .Associa- dirt on a black shirt at nighttime. Justice father. John Mark Byers. John Mark Byers tion of America threatened to give the South Dudley also concluded, "other evidence es- was also found to be in possession of a knife Park movie an NC-17 rating if they didn't tablished that Domini leer might be confused that held traces of both he and his son's take out the line "If 1 had a nickel for every with Baldvvm as botii had long hair and were blood, he has been in and out of jail and time God fucked me in the ass. I could buy of slight build." mental institutions both before and after the some tropical cream for my ass"), was seen Jessie Misskelley's 1995 appeal was de- murders, and was .seen beating his other son. wearing a West Memphis Three t-shirt on _ nicd on equally damning evidence. Ryan, in Ihe middle of Ihe street on the night Access Hollywood. He also shouted "Free of the murders. the West Memphis Three" while receiving While I would be hesitant to convict an award at the MTV Video Awards. Most ^v^dprtfE MEW J*)hn Mark Byers or the strange man from recently, musicians like Rocket from the Bojangles on such fiimsy evidence, surely a Crypt. L7, the Supersuckers. Joe Strummer. The appeals haven't run out yet. though. jury should be hesilani loconxici Misskelles'. and the Murder Cilv De\ ils have put out the first Ihe appeals were based solely on evi- Baldwin, and I chols on the same level of "Free the West Memphis fhree" compila- [places] tion. All of the proceeds from it will go to condemning a man to death with no physi- terms. Oregon has declared the anarchy sym- Misskelley, Baldwin, and Echols "when they cal evidence, then certainly he'd have no bol (an A with a circle around it) as a "gang get out ofjail," Spaghetti says. "We designed scruples about freeing that same man if pub- symbol." America now has 25 percent of the it that way specifically because we want to lic opinion demanded it. world's prisoners, and the highest prison send out a message that we population per capita of really believe that they're any country ever, with going to get out." the exception of the former Soviet Union and apartheid-era South Af- EH/r, fl (^1/4- 9 rica. There are now three thousand people on death Damien Echols told row, and, according to Salon.com that he takes The Justice Project some comfort in knowing ( www.theJusticeProjectoig), that he'll get out of jail. there has been a "serious, "This may sound kind of reversible error found in morbid," Echols told re- nearly seven out of ten porter Stephen Lemons, "but capital cases in [a] 23 I'm on death row. So at least year period." There are 1 know that one way or an- over 7,400 minors in other I will get out. Either adult prisons, and the I'll walk out or they'll carry number has risen consis- me out." Ideally, Echols will tently over the past 15 walk out. years (more than dou- The first step in helping bling since 1983). So, the West Memphis Three again, in our rush to be There are over 7,400 minors in adult prisons, and the gain their freedom is to un- lough on crime and ex- derstand that the American number has risen consistently overthe past 15years. ecute our criminals, are criminal justice system has we supporting a trend In our rush to be tough on crime and execute our crimi- more to do with politics than that allows police and it does with justice. Take, for nals, are we supporting a trend that allows police prosecutors to incarcer- example, prosecutor John ate people simply be- and prosecutors to incarcerate people simply because Fogleman. Three years after cause they are different, convicting Misskelley, they are ditferent, poor, and powerless? poor, and powerless? Is Echols, and Baldwin, this the connection be- Fogleman told Phoenix New tween Satan, the under- Times reporter M. V. Moorehead, "There was ground aspects of life, and the real evil in a remarkable lack of physical evidence people treating each other poorly? ^ against anybody." Fogleman, of course, *I^E \fjpn.^ C)vfSjJE 0-? Sources: knew this at the time of the trial. He also r knew that he was in the middle of a whirl- vvwvv.wni.Vorg, specifically Burk Sauls synopsis, wind of hysteria. If he didn't gain a convic- At first, it's hard to believe that some- trial transcripts from the 1996 Arkansas Supreme tion, his career would suffer. So he used the thing like this could happen in modern times. Court Appeal for Baldwin and Echols and the 1 995 hysteria to his advantage and prosecuted It's scary. When 1 think that Echols and ASC appeal for Misskelley, Dan Stidham's syn- Misskelley, Baldwin, and Echols not for Baldwin were convicted for being into such opsis, Ed Mallet's appeal information, and vari- others not quoted directly murder but for committing the crime of be- mainstream bands as Metallica and such ous ing different. He may have strung up three mainstream authors as Stephen King, it www.crimclibrary.com/classics/westmemphis/ young were very likely guilty, the men who not makes me scared to think about what 2.htm but his career benefited. Fogleman is now a police could find in my apartment, in Circuit Court judge for Crittenden County, anyone's home. If Anne Rice is evidence of Saion.com and he's in a solid position to run for an even the Occult, then does Nabokov's Lolita be- www.witchvox.com/cases/wm3_l.htnil (reprint of higher public office. Judge David Burnett come evidence of pedophilia? And what Mara Leveritt's Arkansas Times article) may have unjustly barred legitimate evi- about the NOFX album with the song "Mur- dence—evidence that may have prevented a der the Government"? Is that proof of ter- Phoenix New Times, 1 1/14/96, M.V. Moorehead's conviction — from being presented in court, rorism? "If allowed to go far enough," Jello review of Paradise Lost but he kept his job and his high standing in Biafra argues on the Free the West Memphis phone interview with Eddie Spaghetti, 10/9/00 his community. And the people of West Three comp, "this could happen to anyone. It Memphis may very well have captured the could happen to me. It could happen to you." www.TheJusticeProject.org/ wrong witches, but they can rest knowing But is this trend continuing? that someone was punished for the horrible Last year, California passed Proposition U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Sta- deaths of those three boys. But also under- 2 1 , which basically made it easier to try chil- tistics stand that politics go both ways. If a man dren as adults, made it a crime to be in a gang, www.midsouthjustice.org/ like John Fogleman has no scruples about and defined gang by some very loose, vague [places] Biting ttie Hand Tnat Fed IVIe Growing Up a British Expatriate in Balirain Hisloiy Lesson At the age of llfteen I remember finally starting to pay attention at school. I was attend- ing a British sehool in tlic Persian Arabian Gulf state of Bahrain, and we were studying the Civil Rights Movement of i95()s and 6()s in the United States. We were reading about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and non-violent pcaeeful protests. However, it was the two min- utes that the teaeher dedicated to the figure of Malcolm X utilizing descriptions such as "hate monger," "separatist," "racist," and "extremist" that caught my attention. I immediately bor- row ed Malcolm .X"s autobiography from a friend's father and it became the fastest book I had read up to that point. Upon finishing the book. I fell smug know ing that my teacher was wrong in his description of Malcolm X; things were not so straightforward and Malcolm went through various ideological changes. More importantly, I learned not to blindly accept what I was taught in school. I was convinced that I was now able to think for myself. So I carried on my own independent study into African American culture and histon. (an interest that is still with me today) thinking 1 was experiencing a political awakening. However, while I was busy trying to make sense of the atrocities committed against Ameiicans of Afri- can origin and other minorities throughout the history of the United States. I remained ignorant of Bahraini culture. I was blissfully unaware of crimes against humanity that were being commuted e\er\day under my nose, on the sunny, palm tree-dense islands. 1 never stopped to ponder the state of democracy or ci\ il liberties in Bahrain. I never stopped to consider the huge disparity between the rich and the poor. 1 ne\cr stopped to consider the implications of being an expatriate in such a culture. And as a British teenager, it was not in my interest to do so. Tlioiisinuls oj years of liislorv cramnieil into a few meager puniiintpbs Bahrain is an archipelago of 33 islands tucked aw a\ in a corner of the Arabian Gulf, w ith Saudi Arabia to the West and Qatar to the south. In the 146()s a Danish archaeologist became com inced that {Bahrain was the site of the ancient civili/ation o\' Dilmun (3{)()() BC). which lasted for two thousand years. After years of excavation of many of (lie thousands of buna! mounds b\ an international crew of archaeologists, it is now w idely accepted tliat Bahrain was indeed the center of Dilmuii (which at various times in historv covered a large area throughout the Gull' and I astern Saudi Arabia), Considering its geographical location, it was and still is exceptionally fertile and green due to the freshwater springs that bubble up from beneath the land and sea (the name Bah-rain, means "two seas" referring to the salt water sea and the fresh water springs that lie •5 beneath it). The islands are in a key position for trade between the East and Middle East. As more and more traders passed through, Dilmun and later Bahrain became known for its abundance in pearls and the skilled di\ CIS that hai\ ested them. Until the diseov er\ of oil. ( in 1 432 Bahrain w as the first Gulf nation to discox er oil center The "Old Souk" - Manama, and the first to reap its benefits) pearls contributed significantly to the wealth of islands. upper right: House in Sehia: lower has I low e\ er, location, fertile land, fresh w ater and wealth also ensured that throughout its hisior> Bahrain right: "khoeji furnishing" - one of been sub|ccl to coiH|uest and occupation by a variety ofi>utsidc peoples. Up until 1471. Bahrain had been at one the several businesses targetted. lime been occupieii bv the Babylonians, the Persians, the (iieeks. the Omanis. the J'oilugucse and the British [places] by a guilty expat Bahrain is often cited as a shining example, within the Middle East, of a relatively peaceful, hamio- nious and liberal country. For the most part, the people of Bahrain (Shi'a, Sunni and others) en- joy adequate education, health care and housing. In general. Bahrainis are very proud of their heri- tage, their culture and even their royal family. Local Bahrainis also pride themselves that so many foreigners from around the world come to Bahrain to make a better life for themselves. However, this only helps conceal the Empire. Many Bahrainis will argue that Bahrain is still under oeeupation roots of a very desperate problem. A visitor to the island only has to by people who do not belong there. walk into a Shi'a village to see people living in wooden shacks and The eurrent rulers of Eiahrain arri\ed on the islands during the mid- v\ alking around barefoot. Many others can be seen begging in the capital cighteenth century. The Al-Khalit"as are descendants of a powerful no- city of Manama. There are also several hidden "shanty" towns that madic tribe from mainland Arabia. They are not nati\e to the islands. have been barricaded from the view of the main roads, scattered around The indigenous people of Bahrain, often referred to as Bahamahs, are of several locations. Persian descent. Furthermore, the Al-Khalifas and the ruling class are The majority of the wealth goes to the Sunni who make up an predominately Sunni Muslims, whereas the native Bahrainis are Shi'a estimated 20-30 percent of the population. The Shi'a experience many Muslims. These ethnic and religious ditlerences are at the core but not difficulties trying to make their way up the employment ladder. Jobs necessarily the reason for the ongoing tensions in the country. The Brit- with infiuence and managerial positions are much more likely to go to ish ensured the nile of the Al-Khalifas throughout their own occupation, a Sunni. Human Rights Watch states that between the years 1981 and until Bahrain gained independence in 1971 . For three years Bahrain had 1991. 15,800 of 74.200 new jobs in the economy were filled by expa- a National Assembly, a constitution (drawn up with the aid of Britain) triates, and that unemployment amongst young men in Shi'a commu- and a system that resembled some form of democracy until it was gradu- nities was twice that of the official 1 994/95 rate of 1 5 percent ("Bahrain: ally broken up and dissolved and political parties were outlawed. Yet, Routine Abuse. Routine Denial. Civil Rights and the Political Crisis in the British and Americans continue to help advise and manage all as- Bahrain" June 1997. Human Rights Watch - www.hrw.org). pects of the government, security and military. The "Public Security" is made up of largely Pakistani expatriates. Expatriates from Britain, other European countries, the United States, iVIiy the Shi 'a arc uprising. Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are employed to do skilled and technical work. Menial labor and domestic servants are Presently, Bahrain has a majority Shi'a working class population (the imported from the Asian subcontinent, the Philippines, and other Asian majority still made up of native Bahamahs) but is still governed and countries. Many biased expatriates argue that Bahrainis are not yet ruledbytheminority Sunni Muslim families, in particular the Al-Khalifa trained or educated well enough to occupy skilled jobs and are unpre- royal family. Human Rights organizations, the British go\ ernment, and pared to w ork for such a low wage as the people from countries such as the US government are all in agreement, to some degree, over the cur- India. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or the Philippines who occupy menial rent absence of democracy, basic freedoms and civil/human rights. Yet, positions. They also agree that Bahrain enjoys a 90 percent literacy rate (includ- Obviously, there are exceptions to the roles that people from vari- ing women) and that there are very few poor. It has to be said that ous backgrounds are forced to assume. For instance, Indian and other [places] people from the Asian sub-continent do occupy high paying si extreme measures to ensure their dominance in the region. Thev It IS dilTicult to know where to begin with a description of the op- will continue to pretend to crush one oppressive regime while pression tliat tiic Shi'a villagers face from day to day. Since the plight of supporting another, if it is within the interest of oil. arms trade occupied Palestine has tlared into bloodshed yet again and has nn)bi- or control ov er a strategic location. lized the Arab world, I will begin there. Obviously, the working class, The war also provided Bahraini dissidents an opportunity village-dwelling native Bahrainis feel very passionately for the Palestin- to renew their campaign for reforms and the re-installment of ians and arc capable of tremendous displays of support for the Palestin- the constitution. In part they were inspired by Kuwaitis who ian cause. The authorities are well av\ are of this and have organized sev- took the opportunilv of the re-building of their country lo make eral "legal" rallies in solidarity with Palestine. While this seems hami- some positiv e (albeit meager) changes towards a more open and less, people were positioned within the crowd waving pictures of the democratic society. They were also aware that Bahrain was now Amir and Prime Minister and protesters were encouraged or "persuaded" on the international stage and perhaps somebodv' would listen to chant pro Al-Khalifa slogans. Furthemiore. when the people decided to their cause. to organize their own rally outside the American Embassy to protest the Of recent. Bahrain has found its way back into the media obvious pro-Israeli position of the United States, they were met with spotlight again. The first event inv olved a US marine who helped rubber bullets and tear gas. At the time of writing, the US Embassy and an Al Khalifa princess escape to his country so he could marry the American high school hav e both remained closed as the US authori- her. This was a fascinating story about two people who never ties have announced a "Delta" state of emergency in Bahrain. should have had any interaction according to the structure of The reason for the double standard is because most rallies in society in Bahrain. Most mainstream media reported it as a ro- Bahrain are a call for democracy and justice. They are pleas for the re- mantic story where love sees no cultural barriers and triumphs installation of the Bahraini constitution and the release of hundreds of over everything. Yet. even the briefest report on the incident had to political prisoners. Most dissidents are not even calling for the Al- question why she had such ditTiculty escaping and what this suggests Khalifas to step down, they are just asking for more of a say in the about the position of women in Bahrain. So while the story did little to running of their country and an end to the fear of being a working class highlight the pro-democracy cause, it did give the outside world a chance Shi'a. to ponder over the ditTiculties many Bahrainis might be facing. The This is the country where I grew up. from the age of nine to eigh- plight of Muslim women transcends all class lines and div isions and is teen. The same place in which people are exiled for hav ing the w rong an issue that has also been highlighted, lo some extent, during the re- political beliefs; where teenagers are held in captiv ity for spray-paint- cent uprisings. For example, sev eral professional Bahraini w omen pe- ing anti-government graffiti. Where prisoners are held without charge titioned the government for better representation and basic rights, only or trial for months, if not years. This is where there are regular allega- to be threatened with the loss if their jobs if they did not withdraw the tions that thousands of people are regularly tortured in remote prisons. petition. where prisoners are whipped and beaten or have their fingernails pulled A few months later the USS Cole was on its way back lo Bahrain out to make them confess to having anti-government opinions. If that afier refueling in Yemen, when it was the target of an alleged suicide fails then electric shock torture may be u.sed to force them to give up attack, presumably lo protest US backing of the Israelis. All US mili- the required information all liie while British security officers watch tary, diplomats, officials and citizens were soon pul on red alert. Con- over the atrocity. sequenllv. when the Bahraini people pul on iheir own unauthorized display of Palestinian solidarity outside the American Embassy, the IVhere the hell is thai then? embassy was shut down and barricaded. The American school was Representations of Bahrain in the outside world closed and expatriates from most western countries were issued warn- ings from their own embassies concerning the polenlial threat of ter- People from outside the Arab world gel to hear verv little about rorist attacks. \\ hile this was another opportunity for the Shi'a and Bahrain. Since many people have such difficulty finding Bahrain on a other dissidents to make their voice heard, the situation probably did map. it is not surprising that they know very little about the politics and more to promote anti-.Arab senlinienls. The conllict in Israel. Palestine culture ol'ihe island. Yet. this ignorance is also two sided. My interest and ihe occupied lerrilories has unfortunalelv polarized people and it and understanding of Bahraini culture and politics was not reallv sparked seems many people in the West have difficulty in sympathizing with until I started to look back on events I witnessed and examine them .Arabs. This might be a result of the fear of being labeled an anti-Semite along side current representations of the country. or because of the media's biased representation of Ihe contlicl. Or it One event that I leiul lo look back on frei|uentlv is an eveni thai mighl simply be a result of the long liadilion of misunderstanding and I:asl. put the Persian ( iuli. including Bahrain, on the map. 1 hat was, i>f course, even fear of , Arabs and other peoples of the Middle the (iulf War The war highlighted several Lssucs concerning Bahrain. Americans will lum out in the thousands to show support for Ti- [places] elp us spread the word! send a eift subscription -*- ^-^ to a friend for Onlvonly $ 1 51 that's six issues of clamor at over 25% off the cover price! lease send a gift subscription to: My address iS: address address — email (optional) email (optional) O Hcyl Sign me up for one year for $15 too while you're at it! O Payment enclosed OBill me later C1202 )rder by email: info@clamorma gazine.org jase allow 6-8 weeks for your first issue. Outside of the US, receive one subscription tor $25, or two subscriptions for $42. NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IF MAILED IN THE UNITED STATES BUSINESS REPLY MAIL FIRST-CLASS MAIL PERMIT NO 25 BOWLING GREEN POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE BECOME THE MEDIA PO BOX 1225 'h BOWLING GREEN OH 43402-9991 i.i..i..ii.,i..iii I.II.I..I.I..I.I.....III.I..I .i*. ", <•] L «, V -'k >*; <^'. 1 *;'; V •v.i« " This is not to say there is no interaction with the local cornmunities. Many Bahrainis attend Ameri- can and British schools and people are free to mix and socialize as they please. However, this is usually between "well to do" Bahrainis who can afford to go to such schools. Expatriates can usually feel safe to walk into a village to enjoy cheap but tasty food and enjoy conversation with the local people. Likewise many westerners enjoy good work and social rela- tions with Bahrainis of all sects, ethnic origins and economic levels. On the surface, Bahrain appears to be an idyllic place to grow up or raise a family while earning a substantial and tax-free salary. Those in power thrive on the well being and comfort of the Americans and Brits. If they are happy, they are less likely to question the things. Less likely to jeopar- dize their temporary but comfortable (often luxuri- ous) life-style. During my first few years in Bahrain, I remember there was limited interaction with local Bahrainis from the nearby village. We did not speak each other's languages very well but we shared some common interests in riding BMX bikes and breakdancing. We did learn to swear at each other in the appropriate language and even developed some fomi of friendship but it did not last long. It could have been that as we became teenagers our interests changed to the point that there w as no longer any common ground. \'et. looking back it seems that during the late 80s and early 90s. the expatriate and local communities became increasingly segre- bctans sufTering gated. under Chinese New western-style shopping centers were springing up. Cable and satellite tele\ ision were introduced. People became obsessed with fancy I) e e u p a t i o n . Roek stars cars and new technology. The pager and mobile phone became a part throw concerts. of wealthy expatriate and privileged Bahrain culture long before it did Bumper stickers elsewhere. McDonald's inevitably found its way to Bahrain—now there from Portland. are at least four on the main island. Miller. MTV. VH 1 . Some relatives Maine to Portland, Oregon scream out "Free Tibet." The government back home still asked w hether there was running water or not. or whether even pretends to confront the Chinese on their human rights record we rode camels to school but we probably lived with more technology before signing trade agreements. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands and luxury than they did. If you avoided the villages, Bahrain began to of people suffer needlessly under bombing raids and inhumane sanc- resemble any western city with its billboards and chain stores. Coca- tions aguinst Iraq. Palestinian children who throw rocks are being shot Cola, Dairy Queen, ,IC Penny, British Home Stores, Heineken, at by a US-funded military. The Kurdish people are fleeing to the hills Marlboro. Most of which was out of reach to all but the wealthier and being beaten and raped in Turkish and Iraqi prisons. And hundreds Bahrainis and expatriates. You could go from air-conditioned house to of men. women and children are being harassed, detained w ithout charge air-conditioned car to air-conditionedjob/school to air-conditioned club and tortured in Bahraini prisons, while British security advisors watch and back home again and barely acknowledge the existence of village- over it all. dvsclling Bahrainis. There was no longer any need for interaction with working class Bahrainis. "While filih ciiul easy living Expatriates ami the plight of the people of Bahrain Western expatriates enjoy a lifestyle far removed from that of their home countries. It is a life on a sunny palm tree covered desert island. During the niid-90s. the unrest in Bahrain became a potential threat Of sports clubs and nightclubs. Of friends of multitudinous nationali- to the comfortable existence of western expatriates. Stories had circu- ties. Of sailing and diving amongst coral reefs. Of llshing and watch- lated for years about how 20 years earlier, a white person could not ing extraordinary Middle Eastern sunsets. Of wandering in the Zouk dri\ e through a \ illagc without having their car attacked, but most people to buy cheap gold and electronics. Of living in enclosed "compounds" felt Bahrain was becoining more "civilized." Therefore, most people with swimming pools, tennis courts and squash courts. Gated commu- chose to ignore the rallies, protests, graffiti and odd explosions in the nities guarded by ex-guerkas. night. Very few stopped to really consider why Bahrainis were taking There was e\en a beach called the "Sheikh's beach." where the such actions. Then mid-night explosions began to occur more frequently current Amir's father. Sheikh Isa, had a beach house. The rules were and the graffiti began to make its way out of the villages and onto simple: No Arabs, no Indians (or any people from the Asian sub-conti- compound walls where the "expats" lived. nent), and no cameras. This was a beautiful white sand beach with free Most people chose to condemn these actions, again without con- drinks for predominately white westerners. In theory, people of color, sidering why they were taking place. There is often the feel of a neo- such as African Americans, were allowed in. but they would often ha\ c colonialist mentality that propagates distrust for local people during to prove their nationality. I remember on several occasions having to times of tension. Put simply, expatriates know very well that their jobs smuggle in Arab and non-white friends of mine in the back of the car. are secured by the regime that dissidents are rising up against. No mat- This beach was closed when Sheikh Isa died and his son took over. ter how pro-democratic or outraged by lack of civil and human rights [places] enlightened expats may be, they are always going to find it difficult to about the treatment of dissidents in Bahrain, repeatedly insists that these identify with forces that ultimately want them out of the country. This people are Islamic fundamentalist terrorists (a military wing of is not to say that Bahrainis are xenophobic, they just w ant more au- Hizbollah-Bahrain). The olTicial take on the tensions in the country is tonomy. Therefore, until foreign vvt)rkers ha\e made enough money to that it is a direct result of the infiuence of Iran and the Iranian revolu- return comfortably back to their own home countries they will con- tion. This view posits that there is no abuse of human rights in Bahrain tinue to fear a Bahraini uprising. and that terrorists construct rumors to aid their cause, which is to replace the Bahraini government with a pro-Iranian regime. Such As a result ofrisiiiii Wiisions mid acts an opinion certainly helped deter sympathy for Bahraini dissidents ofviolence in the Middle East since the and covers up some of the issues they are trying to tackle. first part ofOctober 2000, the Depart- However, groups such as the Bahrain Freedom Movement (BFM) ment of State is extremely concerned and the Popular Front (PF) for the Liberation of Bahrain and the about the possibility for violent actions National Liberation Front (NLF) are made up of Bahrainis from against United States citizens and in- div erse sectors of society w ho are not necessarily Shi'a fundamen- terests throughout the region. US Sate talists. Furthemiore, they are not necessarily calling for anything Department October 2000 that radical, nor are they calling for the over- upper-. Anti- throw of the Al-Khalifa regime. While there government graffiti is little doubt that there is an pro-Iranian Is- on a shop front, If'ho am I to comment orjudge? lamic fundamentalist element to the opposi- often painted over tion forces, most Bahrainis are simply calling by morning, lower: In December 1 W4. 1 was visiting for the re-instatement of a democratic assem- Same as above, Bahrain during a lime that the uprising but on a house bly and the constitution that the British helped had found renewed energy and enthu- wall near the draw up for Bahrain's independence. Thev siasm. I had heard several stories about village of Budaiya. want the freedom to call for reforms without protests and riots in the villages, ex- fear of losing their jobs or being harassed. ploding gas canisters, roads blockaded with burning tires They want the leeway to petition the govern- and isolated attacks on workers from the Asian sub-conti- ment for development in areas such as the nent and several western expatriates. I had no way of de- treatment of women and the judicial system. termining the authenticity of these stories as rumors spread They want an end to the arrests, detaining and around the island like wild fire. However. I could not ig- torture of anybody suspected of being critical nore the abundance of anti-government Al-Khalifa. pro- of the current regime. democracy slogans spray-painted all over the villages and It should be mentioned that there have been the huge barbed wire topped compound walls where expa- several horrific incidents that have been used triates reside. Some of these slogans had been painted over by some opposition forces to highlight their by security forces but more would appear E\ en \\ hen the security forces cause. For instance, a group of Bangladeshi workers were burned alive attempted to paint over the slogans it was obvious they were trying to and a restaurant that British people were known to frequent was at- hide something. tacked. While it is easy to condemn such tactics, it does highlight the My brother, a friend, and I decided to drive around the island one desperation of the people involved. While v iolence and killing should afternoon to have a look at all the graffiti. We were leaving the city nev er be encouraged it is hard to lecture people w ho hav e sutVered and center when we saw see several helicopters ho\ ering over a particular seen friend and relativ es suffer continual abuse of the same scale bv area. There were also columns of black smoke rising from the area. We the authorities. Furthemiore, the largelv peaceful movement does not decided to investigate and drove over to what we determined was the condone such attacks. Shi'a \ illage of .lidhafs. There was a heav y police presence on the roads In discussions with friends who have lived in Bahrain, there is often surroundnig the v illage, so we drove in through the narrow back alleys. debate ov er w helher the Bahraini opposition groups are anv better than As we got deeper into the village, we could see hundreds of people the regime that they are trying to refomi or allegedly ov erthrow. While waving black fiags and chanting in the face of the heavily armed secu- I am not arguing for a pro-Iranian regime or an Islamic rev olution. it is rity who were marching towards them. A thick black smoke was in the not up to us to decide. Even if Bahraini dissidents are calling for revo- air from the burning tires that are popular to set on fire during protests. lution (which it appears thev are not), it is up to them. .As people who The security forces were unlike any 1 had seen before in Bahrain. The> grew up as expatriate children living a privileged (in comparison to were dressed in all black combat gear with riot helmets and shields. many Bahrainis) lifestyle, it is up to us to consider the implications of We tried to drive closer to get a better look when we came across one what are presence in Bahrain implies. In fact, wc should consider that of the security/policemen. He motioned wildly for us to turn around our parents, bv their verv presence hindered steps towards egalitarian- but there were several cars behind us and it was difl'icult to turn in the ism. That w hile we were taught about freedom and democracv and the confined area. Then the tear gas began to fiy. We were tiA ing to turn the struggles to attain it throughout history in school, people liv ing right car around when a tear gas canister was shot through the air towards us next to us were still fighting for those basic rights and many of us werc and landcil about 50 feet away. Unfortunatelv, we could not turn the air obliv ious to this desperate struggle. It is time that these double stan- -condilioning off before some of it leaked into the car. On our way out dards were realized and crushed, if of the \ illage I attempted to take a few pictures with my friend's cam- era but panicked as the security forces furiously directed us out of the More infomiation at: scene. On the way home we stopped by the sight of the aftermath of www.vob.org (Bahrain Freedom Movement) another protest and found a burnt Hag. I can say that at that point, 1 www.hrw.org (Human Rights Watch) knew I had u itnessed something exceptional and it was my responsi- www.statc.gov www globalhuamn. rights Whrp index. html bility not to ignore what I had seen. HIsewhere the island was peaceful (Official US opinion) and calm as usual. The people in the city center of Manama had no clue w WW gulf-daily-news. com ( Inglish "new spaper") . what was happening just a couple of miles awav. wvvwwelcome.to bhro (Bahrain Human Rights Organization) 1^. I he Bahraini government, when i.|uestioned h\ outside parties wvvw.amnesty.org [places] brand BS 2000 new, THE o record ZINE YEARBOOK ^ Is now accepting nominations for Volume V: excerpts from zines printed in 2000. Read anything good in a zine last year? Tell us about it. All nominations due by in stores March 31, 2001. Book available starting June 2001. For complete couari/ guidelines or more information f 6, 2m please contact: wwii\grandroyalcom The Zine Yearbook /PO Box 1225 Bowling Green OH 43402/ [email protected] Previous editions still available. Tired of bitching and whining at the -^...s»v- ^ world? want a new kind of activism that is positive, Alternative Radio hopeful and Programs lcaturin<» Amiri Baraka, Noam Chomsk\. Anncia Da>is, Barbara inspiring? Ehrenri'ich, Ralph Nader. Michael Parent!. Cornel >\est. Nandana Shiva. Howard - - Learn about going beyond Zinn. and many others. environmentalism and enter into the new realm For livestream webcasts: of ecological sustainability, restoration, and radical www.alternativeradio.org lifestyle transformations. See Where to Hear AR Read how local people are solving global problems. Read how one publication is networking and connecting For a free catalogue: sustainability activists throughout the central coast of 800-444-1977 California... and beyond.... [email protected] $ 1 for 6 issues; $3 for a sample issue. Click to www.hopedance.org or email [email protected] or mail AR Box 551 Boulder, CO 80306 to HopeDance Magazine, FOB 1 5609. San Luis Obispo, CA 93406. Words asiA n^nnnn James De La Vega. James De La Vega teamed up with jZapatasos! to raise awareness Subeomandante Mareos in New York City about tine continu- ing Zapatista struggle in Chiapas, Mexico. By extension their street the- and iJapatasosI ater announced the pubHcation of Our Word Is Our Weapon Selected Writ- ing of Suhcomundante Marcos (Seven Stories Press, 2000). Juana Ponce De Leon, editor of Marcos' collection, introduced De La Vega to Rebecca Ramirez, performance art- ist and director of jZapatasos! On New Year's Eve, 1993, the Mexican state of Chiapas entered the international consciousness when the Zapatista guerrilla army seized con- trol of the colonial city of San Cristbal de las Casas as well as five towns in the surrounding Chiapas highlands. They declared the rebellion a re- sponse to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and called for freedom of all indigenous peoples. Before this day they were invis- ible like most indigenous peoples in the modern world. Their goal has been to collectively reverse 500 years of colonization and de facto genocide by demanding independence. Marcos, the spokesperson and strategist for the Zapatistas, also is invisible. He has gone masked and unknown since the uprising in Chiapas began January 1, 1994. His power lies in his invisibility. The mask worn by all Zapatistas chal- iiiords and photos by Greg Fuchs lenges and critiques the crass indi- vidualism and strong patriarchal power, often represented by the face of the father, a nation's leader, are both hallmarks of Western capitalism. James De La Vega too is invis- ible. Everybody on the Lower East Side has read his writing on the side- walks but few people have actually seen him. You may walk over a sen- tence or enigmatic phrase written in chalk, for example,. "Capitalism Breeds Dishonest Men -Marcos," but you won't see who wrote it. Which is not unlike any writer really. How many people would recognize even John Grisham on a New York City sidewalk? Yet, Dc La Vega's stealth is vital to his survival unlike Grisham's. Many gratrui writers and taggers run the risk of tines or e\ en arrest. Reverend Billy, another downtown per- formance artist and Minister ofthe Church of Not Shopping, in the .lones Diner asked. "You know that guy? Does De La Vega live in the neighborhood? I never see that guy. How do you know he"s not me?" Several times during November 2000 the jZapatasos!. arri\cd on various highly iral- ficked public spots in New York City dressed as Zapatistas, wearing ski masks or red ban- dannas and military-green shirts. They marched, carrying pens as long as rifles through Astor Place, the New York Stock Ex- change. Spanish Harlem, Union Square Park, and the West 4th Street Subway platfbmi. .At each location they would stop to perform a script that Ramirez" w rote inspired by Marcos" writing. The first performance, actually a re- hearsal, may have been the most successful. The jZapatasos!, met De La Vega at Union Square. They didn"t have the script so they marched around L'nion Square South silently while De La Vega threw-up a drawing in mask- ing tape of Subcomandante Marcos. While De La Vega laid down the tape the jZapatasos!. marched around him. Monica Fianis. an officer with the city park services, provided an un- planned dramatic ending. She showed up lowed by a Union Square sanitation worker threatening to fine or arrest everyone invoK ed and pulled-up the tape draw ing. True to his nature, but unfortunately for all, De La Vega missed the three other jZapatasos!. performances I attended. The best of which was held in the lower Manhattan fi- nancial district. The jZapatasos!, marched sol- emnly around the New \ork Slock Ivxchange, the epicenter of Western capitalism: the belly ofthe beast. Near the entrance ofthe Exchange the jZapatasos! performed for the hundreds of hastily passing traders, brokers, security guards, and tourists. ^ iuuituiej jZapatasos! jZapatasos! iZapatasos! jZapatasos! Mexico/ Mejico Blue oceans, brown skin, white skin, and blue skies, colorful dollars and shiny pesos. Tiie oh so beautifijl land that pictures and commercials show. .\.AH! (rest) The ocean waves that sound, near the cruise ships and golden sun. .Vmerica/ Corporate America Those same waves are crashing here, like bare feet on asphalt. The trued sound of people running to arrive in America. Barefoot in the land where dreams come true. People lea\ e there ou n country (stomping) .\ country \\ ithout education. No jobs, no money, no food. The Politics of Mexico Mexico has been controlled by the PRl for the last 75 years. F'olitical Party PRl has taken ultimate control. PRIs work in giant palaces that are built to reel in members of high society to work .As undercover officials acting as they are working for the people of Mexico. Men shout on podiums. "We want to save Mexcico!" Working for the system. Working for the System. Working for the system .And pocketing S Mexico's second to last president became a millionaire for the so-called job of 'Sa\ ing the Mexicanos!" ""Oh no. I am not a millionaire." Meanwhile Chiapas, the third largest producer of agriculture continues receiving nothing for the endless efforts of labor Here ui this part of Mexico. 34% of inhabitants are illiterate 65° o have not completed their primary education. State dwellings lack electricity, drainage, sanitary services. 22% of the working population receives no income (4X) Nearly 40°-;) receives less than S2.00 a day Per day The Mexican Palace of Otilcials becomes large while these #'s increase. The Palace is growing in money, money, money a feui uiords from the While the people are growing fatter, fatter, and fatter Mexico's Politicians have become undercover robbers 'thieves smugglers/and criminals. i/apatasosL.. Nobody can stop them. Nobody can see it because there, nobody sees. Why Don't Things change? Politicians take advantage of the ignorance caused by the illiteracy that they helped create. The government specifically knows that poor people don"! know the real situation. The population believes what politicians tell. Government officials running for oflice hand out gum and candy to voters. IChiclet. Chiclet, si votan para el presidcnte de PRl; The people accept this garbage because of their ignorance. The lack awareness. The lack of education, the lack of S to buy a newspaper Who will change if!" The Zapatista movement The Zapatista movement is a peaceful ctYoil by armed people. Article 39 of the political constitution of the United Mexican States declares that people have the right to change the government. Yet corruption has not allowed any chang: Te llevo a la cracel/ 1 will take you to jail Te pago cinco mil pesos, vete! I will pay you 5000 pesos, now go! Te mato!' I will kill you! The government fears the Mexican people That is why you see so many soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, and police, police everywhere you turn. Zapatistas are fighting for a democratic change in the government of Mexico. Zapatistas are fighting for liberty and justice for the majority. Zapatistas and their current leader, Subcomandante Marco will continue to fight. They will one day attain freedom, democracy, and justice. Tierra y libertad-Viva Zapata. [culture] y More People On Bikes! CLAMOR talks with foms from The Bike Club in Portland, Oregon Do you despair at the idea of tak- essarily any answers offered. I think the per- ing on hooks in a clear space, w hat should hap- ing your bike to a shop, paying too spective that is illuminated is an important one. pen next just kind of presented itself much for something you could prob- It seems like the communities that 1 con- ably figure out how to do if you had sider myself a part of all ha\e a few common Heather: 1 think there were a lot of realU the chance, access to tools, and a threads running through their collectixe con- diftleult times when we said. "W hat the fuck space to do so that wasn't intimidat- sciousness these days; gardens, bicycles, are we doing?" There were a lot of conver- ing? sustainability and autonomy, just to name a sations every week asking w hat exactly are The Bike CItih is a bike workshop and bi- few. It's not all brand new, but I feel like there we trying to create here.' We knew that we cycle lending library in the basement of a has been an upsurge in the last few years of wanted to work on bikes, we knew that wc house in NH Portland. Every Sunday they open amazing projects along these lines. wanted to learn how to work on bikes and it up and ha\ e a day where anyone is welcome The Bike Chih is one of those projects. we knew that we w anted people to come do to come and use tools, books and get a little Heather, Mike. Pete and Raki were inter\ iewed it w iih us. help fixing up their bike. It's a project that in- for CLAMOR by John Gerken spires the hell out ut nie and is part of a larger Pete: Basically what is the purpose of this trend that includes the Bike Cluiivh in Phila- space and what is the purpose of us fixing up delphia, the bicycle lending library and free- A iiooil phiee lo suirt might he just talkiiiii these bikes, and once we have them fixed up shop in Oakland, as well as the Nellow Hike cihoiii how this eanie lo he. what are we going to do with them' We detl- Project. nitelv threw around a lot of ideas and the one to The Bike Cliih is an example of how lo 1 leather: I think The Bike Chih came to be o\ er that seemed to make the most sense was take an idea that you have and do it. It can be a Scrabble game in the rain, probably about a have a lending library. It made sense to me that simple. I think that this sort of casual di- month after Mike moved out here from Phila- just because there are so many travelers com- rect action also tits into larger trends within delphia. I'd been li\ing here at 19'" Street for ing through Portland, and people get bikes sto- various communities right now towards direct a few months and Mike was looking for stutT len, peoples bikes break down ... also, if we grassroots acti\ ity. That grassroots energy and to get in\i)l\ed with and I was wanting to iio create a space w here people can just come and those ideas are getting more and more people something w ith this space that we have in the work on iheir bikes and have access to bi>oks into the streets and base to be realized in our basement. It's a pretty ama/mg space and there about how to fix bikes, and hopefullv have ac- e\eryday lives, and projects like this are one was just a huge mountain of bikes that were cess to tools and parts, people can be sort ol way of doing that. knotted up together and weren't running. Pete self-sufllcient without having to pay bike it. This interv iew addresses how to lake your and I had been talking about it for a long time shops to do idea, ha\e fun and sec that it carries out your too; we mostly just wanted lo get ihe bikes ideals of community interaction and positise running and then clear out the space to see w hat Heather: fhat was actually where a lot of my I a bike for a change. It explores the learning process that we could do with it. So Mike and I prob.ibK desire came from. hadn't had bike happens in the course of taking something like cleaned the basement for at least two months. while, but all of a sudden I was riding mv this on. It also touches on how to make your .\nd then, once that happened everywhere and I realized that how it was run- project sustainable, a problem that can be a ning was important to me. I was taking more to do that by tremendous hurdle. .And while there aren't nec- Mike: I think once we had the bikes all hang- of an interest in learning how [culture] myself. But it was really hard to get people to Mike: We've had amazing donations. Heather: Sometimes there are no bikes to lend show me how to do it without being overbear- out. sometimes all the bikes are in. ing, to give me guidance without taking over And that's how vou've gotten most o/ your and being pushy. I was insecure because I stuff? Mike: Summer's been a little crazy that way. didn't know what I was doing. I think a lot of the last few weeks all the bikes are out. More people are like that, they \v ant to know how to Mike: Yes. than anything I think people use it as shop work on their bikes but it"s hard when you space. I think a majority of people that come don't really know where to begin and you feel Heather: It's always easy to get bikes donated. by do so to work on their bikes. like you should know. 1 wanted to create a There are bikes everywhere, and that's the space where I felt comfortable to fuck up as other force behind this project is that we were So what s the system that you 've got now? And much as 1 wanted to, or as much as I ended up seeing bikes trashed on the street everywhere. is it working well? fuckmg up. And where other people felt com- fortable doing that too. Pete: Or in people's basements. Mike: We've got a chalkboard which lists all the library bikes and we've got a notebook so That 's one thing I think you have done. It s not Heather: We just started by getting in the van. you can sign your name and phone number, an intimidating environment to come do some- or Mike saying "I found a pile of bikes on the sign up on the board so when people come in thing that vou might not know how to do at side of the road and I picked them up." But they can see right away what's available. '^ all. parts and tools and the stands and stuff should have been more difficult to acquire than they Heather: We ask for a fiv e dollar deposit that's Mike: It's pretty cool because none of us re- realh were. refundable if the bike comes back w ithin a ally knew \\ hat we were doing. And obviously week and if it comes back in the same shape. we're still learning. It's a cool thing when Mike: \Ve"\e had a few good fundraisers, one The system works pretty well. people come in with something and they say, rummage sale and a one-year anni\ ersary pot- "1 don't know how to fix this." And we're like, luck raffle show. That might he a cool requirement. Jive dollars "Yeah, we don't know how to fix that either." plus an hour ofcoming in andjust working on And then v\e bust out the books, and we just Heather: .And that was a breakthrough because some hike. pool together and make it happen. Which is the \ard sale was so much work. So it was re- pretty much the coolest thing in the world as ally awesome to realize that really all we had Pete: Ideally, you try to convey that to people. far as I'm concerned. to do was throw a party to raise some money. But it's a question of how much effort do we Give away some beer and ask for donations want to put in to making sure that people come Heather; That's been one of the most incred- for it. and do their time? We just do this for fun, and ible things to learn is that it's just so much we want to provide a serv ice for people. It's easier to tackle something you knovs noth- So someone that just walks in here, shows up really hard to enforce that, to call up people ing about vv ith somebody who knows as little here on Sunday, what do they gel? What 's vv ho are maybe in tow n for a month and don't as you do. Just ha\ ing someone there to plug available? really have a phone number that's steady, to through it v\ ith you. it's amazing w hat people try to track them down and say. "Hey you can learn if they just go at it together. Heather: It depends on what they're looking haven't come every Sunday to give an hour for. worth of work." And uhen we started we didn't ha\e tools. There was a period of time where there were Mike: Somewhere around fifteen bikes are al- Mike: One thing we figured out too is the little bike angels shovsing up. like we'd go ways in the library, give or take a few. De- people that are going to donate time are going down in the shop and there would be a stand pending on how many we have, those are av ail- to donate time regardless of whether they are there. able. borrowing a bike or not. I think we've found -^ > jA- ni^^ bIb^^»-5- "^^S^S w.w i'.*i» • • •/ ' t^^^11 m^ fmr^\ ^z*WtL JO KWk T^M^m^ M^ [culture] il works out a lot better for us it" we don't give of it's on us to make ourselves more acces- to open it up and involve more people of dif- it too much attention, because it's pretty much sible, somehow. At least in my experience, any ferent backgrounds? out of our hands. When we first started out we groups that I've gone to check out at a meet- Mike: 1 think with that too it will be another were trying to be pretty hardcore about that ing or something, it's pretty weird to go in there thing that will happen slowly. I mean, we can't exchange, if someone uould borrow a bike to and all these people ha\ e been hanging out for handle more than the punk kids and the neigh- put some time in. But then that just took up weeks and weeks. It's intimidating even if it's borhood kids right now. But once we get to a too much energy. And it works itself out. It's the nicest people in the world. point where there's more people, hopefully been a continual learning process for how to we'll be able to broaden the scope a little. make it work smoothly and make it a positive Heather: And we've learned that it really is experience for all involved. most important to make sure that it's consis- I think the other thing too is that we all have a tently fun for us. Really if we wanted to make bunch of other stufTthat goes on in our lives Heather: it's difficult to require that people it more sustainable and make it more organized too. This is my every Sunday. I love it. but come help out because everybody has differ- and make it more of a cooperati\ e. it would that's all I can really give to it. So that's lim- ent levels of experience. It almost takes more take more effort on our parts. It would take ited to a degree too because we all do have time for us to show people how to work on more than a Sunday. It would take planning other stuff going on. things. This project is great for people who re- meetings and things like that, and the bottom ally are truly motivated to learn how to work line is pretty much we ha\e Sundays to offer. / wanted to ask that, what compromises vou on bikes. could foresee in making this more of an insti- Mike: The fact that v\c'\ e been doing it a year tution. And I can hear that pretty clearly in But it s not like afree hike shop, you can tjust and a half is pretty wild to me. just because what you 're saying ahout it as something fun. come here and get stufffixed. we didn't really have a real clear agenda. That's and il extends beyond that in a lot of really pretty young as far as anything's really con- positive ways, hut at the core ofii il sjusl some- Heather: Yeah, there was a lot of confusion. A cerned and I feel like it has continually gotten thing you wanted to do that is fun. lot of people at the beginning would bring their better. So I'm pretty confident it will grow into bikes by and wanted us to work on them. Now w hate\ er it's going to become, but I'm not sure Pete: Its hard to remember that we should re- I think we've just gotten into the habit of say- exactly when or what form. But it will hap- ally trv to reach out to people or whatever. I ing, "We're not a bike shop, we provide a pen. This compared to even six months ago is feel like I'm opening up my house, it's a re- space, wc can chime in if you need a little bit quite a big difference, I think. It's just a pretty source that is here, we have all kinds of tools of help." The idea is that people should come slow pace, which is cool. I'm not in a hurry. and parts and books and some knowledge, and ready to take on their own projects. sometimes I am feeling that I just want to help Heather: It's also limiting to be doing some- somebody get their bike running great. But on Mike: And given that. I'd say a fair amount of thing like this out of a home. other days. I just can't. And I don't want that our time is spent working w ith other people. pressure of having this commitment to the We don't just say, '"Stay away!" We definitely That was actually one of my questions is how community to do that. But I think it's great if work with people on stuff. that is, to have that he a part ofyour own per- it is helping the community. That's obviously sonal space. part of it but the underlying thing for me is Do you think there mif^ht soon he an effort to that I'm learning something and that it's fun. make this more ofan organized thing? Pete: It's interesting just because you get kids coming over, like you get off of work and Mike: 1 think that as far as it being fun and Pete: If the interest was there we would ha\e there's a kid showing up at your door on a then the positive things that come of it. it's all it like that. It is pretty organized, but the fact Thursday night saying, "Fix my bike! My tire's kind of the .same deal. It's fun to me because is it seems pretty farfetched to have it become fiat!" It's almost kind of surreal, I've just been of the neighborhood kids that come by, and an institution. lifting lumber all day and then there's some because I can show someone how to do some- rude ten year-old at the back door looking for thing or learn how to do something from some- That 's what I was getting at. the difference he- something because he heard that this house is body. That's v\hv it's fun; it's not separate. I tween this and something that would he con- a bike shop. But again, if we wanted this to have fun through the whole process of it. Ev- sidered more oj an institution. become an institution, wc could find a space ery step of it is pretty enjoyable even if it's to do that. kind of terrible. The struggles are kind of fun Mike: I think either way it's a tough thing for as well, in a weird sort of way, because it's a a person to just come and fee! comfortable Heather: It sometimes poses challenges to have learning process. joining up with something that already exists. it out of a home but I like that aspect of it. I We're all good friends here, and that's got to like that we open up our backward. I think it's Pete: There are definitely times where Sun- be a weird thing. That's where I feel like some good for the community to open up our back- day comes around and I'm exhausted alreadv yard and be there every from a crazy weekend, and then it's hectic here week doing something fun and I just totally abandon the project I started and productive. in the morning because I'm helping people out and I get frustrated. But then I usual I v come So do you get a lot of away from it thinking. "Well. I learned a bet- people Irom this neighhor- ter way to deal with voung kids, or I learned liood coming hy'.' how to teach somebodv how to do this, or I learned a better w ay to do this for myself." \Iike: Mostly kids, young kids. Mike: There are plenty of times w here ai 1 1 :}0 Sundav morning. Bike Club is the last thing still i leather: That was one i.y\' in the world that I feel like doing. But I'll our major debates at the come, and I'll get started and I'll get into it hegmnmg too; do we really and I 11 leave and be reallv glad that I came. \\ ant to do this project just for punk kids or do we w ant .So what is vour dream scenario for this'.' [culture] Mike: I don't think we're too far. Eighteen Heather: We've kind of just stepped back and ridership in the United States is so low right bikes in a bike library, that's pretty cool, but been enjoying what we're doing now. We've now. like kids just don't ride bikes that much this summer's been a real shining example that stopped making an effort to make it bigger than anymore. It's not considered cool to ride your that's nov\here near enough. it really is. But. as with any project, the more bike to school. At some point that's going to people you have involved, the more ideas you turn around, and if we're here to help a kid Heather: It's hard to have a dream bigger than have, the less work everyone has to do. The out and get a bike going, and make the bike this, when we started cleaning out the base- more fulfilled people are, the more people can look cool, then that is kind of setting an ex- ment and v\e have membership cards now! bring their own skills and add that. And right ample. We're not telling them. "Biking's re- now. we have enough stuff where we could ally cool, you should ride your bike more!" Raki: When I tell people about this, like 1 told get somebody started with their own Bike Club my dad and he was like, "I wish I had that!" on the other side of town. We could donate Heather: "Hey ten-year-old, do you know how I'm just totally impressed and it's just amaz- twenty bikes right now to somebody else's your bicycle riding is affecting the environ- ing to me with where it's at. And it's cool that basement, and we could throw them a party ment?" it's so grassroots and there's no shit, like if it and get them some money. So that's a neat idea, was a shop. It's just hanging out, there's no too, getting people to start their own spaces Pete: Yeah. the\ ask us why we're doing this, bureaucracy. like this so that we're not so overloaded and they think it's a shop and they ask how much so that people can experience the joy of start- things cost. "Well, it doesn't cost anything, but Pete: My dream is that people who get some- ing a project from the bottom up. it would be good if you could learn to do this thing out of this resource will just respect it for yourself so that next time you don't have and make some sort of an attempt to give some- And that addresses the whole idea of if you to ask us." It's not like we lecture people, thing back to it. I guess you just kind of have ever feel like you should get a space, and with "You'll be a better person for knowing this!" to come to the conclusion that even if you're that become more of an institution. It could It's just that this is what we know, and it's not dealing with people in just spread out later- some exclusive thing. It's easy stuff and it your own community, i i ally instead, to differ- would be cool if kids knew how to do it. ^'"^ '^ "Pen Ti like anything else, there ^ ?'*^ ent houses. , , Sundays noon to five p.m. are some good people Heather: It's just really empowering to learn ^^ jg,/^^^ ^^^^^^ and some bad people. 5205 NE 19" Mike: I hat would be how a machine works, for anyone. To learn And some are willing to great. "I don't think how to do something on your own is so em- give back and some we can help you here, powering, even if it's the smallest thing. aren't. but you can go down to The Bike Club on / think that 's what 's really great about the ap- Heather: That's some- ?>X"' in Southeast and 1 proach ol it not being a co-op shop. It's not thing we've had to learn think they'll have like the lu o Bike, here 's the implications of too. is how to feel com- w hat you're looking 1)1 Y club. It's just, here's the stuff and you've fortable expressing that for." That vv ould be in- got to do it. While that may put some people to people vv hen we get let credible. That would off, it 's like you said, it 's veiy empowering too. down. My dream is that be the ideal. And I think a lot ofpeople, without even real- it will always be existing izing it, can absorb that attitude. Like they'll with or without us. That When we were first bring a friend and show them. look, you just more people will get in- talking about this pick it up and do it. volved. It would be nice Pete, you were talking to know that there were about how it also Pete: That's why we don't have signs that say. enough people involved came out of a commit- Ride a Bike, it's better for the environment and that it would be sustain- ment or passion for all this kind of stuff. It's just obvious. Maybe able. I've got a lot of alternative transpor- we don't promote that enough, but it's just that ideas for how to build tation. this is something we believe in. if you want to something like that, but know why, you can ask us, but it hasn't been like we talked aboLit earlier. I don't know if Pete: Absolutelv. Bikes are certainly my pas- like we're trying to push an environmental we really have the tune or the energy to work sion, one of them anyway. And I guess the po- agenda. towards that. litical side of it we haven't really touched on, but obviously it's fun for us to get bikes work- Heather: Honestly, I would much rather work I feci like I sec thai with a lot ul projccls. ing because the idea is that we're doing some- on a bike on Sunday than protest something even u hen ihcy 're iiol necessarily rooted in thing that is enhancing the community. outside of some building. just having fun. like Food Not Bombs or some- thing^, where there are only three people do- Heather: 1 think everything we're doing is po- .And nuivbe that gets through to people more, ing a ton of the work and when they can ) litical, ev en if we don't say it. L:\ erything. from on some levels. make it. or when they 're burnt out after do- opening up the house and being out in the com- ing it lor two years, it's going to end. Even munity where people see us, getting people on Heather: It's been really hard to put on paper though there are so many people around who bikes which is just so important. just what we're doing. Maybe someday we'll are supportive, and they show up but maybe sit down and try to write out or verbalize why they don 't feel- included or inclined to keep Pete: I did an apprenticeship at a shop because we're doing it. It's just so implicit for all of going. With projects I I that are really grassroots thought maybe I v\ anted to w ork on bikes for us, think, i^ I think it 's a really hard thing to negotiate a living. That was a strange experience, and that, figuring out how to make that accessible I'm not sure if that's something I do want to and sustainable and flexible and actual I v still do or not. But 1 know that I do want to work contact The Bike Club continue when the few people whose passion on bikes regardless of whether I'm getting paid C/0 Heather Petoii and motivation made it happen decide that, for it or not. because basically 1 hate cars. PO Bo.x 1902 for one reason or another thev can 'i make it That's a big part of it. I feel like there's got to Portland, OR 97207 GO anvinore. be a turnaround at some point because bike (503) 2S2-9048 ask for Pete. [culture] Sivaiiali r^manaia a^acn 1 ;5jacksonville OrmondB«ach •jPiyloMi Beach I've been riding bike my around '•^NcMT SmynM B«»ch since I was a kid, but it's only in the past few years that I've noticed that all my friends have been tak- ingtheseamazingtrips usingjust their bicycles and sense of adven- ture. Like the bicycle, the beauty lies in its simplicity. You peda You go. So, in hopes of inspiring ^^?p- sJ future autonomous fun, here are ^r 8 interviews with people who've ^''•' taken off on their bikes. pou Interviews by Travis Fristoe Name: Dan Caccdon Afie: 24 Profession: bike mechanic Where'd you go? Gainesville to St. Augustine. For my birthday. 48 hrs. or so (at least that's wTenches, a mappi what I intended to do). It's a short arm & leg wami- ride. 85 miles roughly one-way. ers; 10 or 20 I just thought it'd be great to ride bucks; but oh those \Nould you do it again? to the coast. Like it'd be a fan- "balance" bars. uizh. Sure. 1 do it a lot if I get the chance. Throw tastic journey. caution and preparation to the w ind. Why not?! How fast (miles per I would carry good tubes next time. What kind of bike did you lake? day?) My road racing bike. Like I say, it was only a Well, i left at .^pm the first day VN hy'd you do it? short ride. I could go into details about the because 1 had to work for a while. .Xnd I Like 1 say, it was a trek to the ocean. .And bike itself, but I'll spare you. Let's just say rolled back into tow n at 3pm the next day. 1 70 realK I feel my best while pedaling. Just the small, light and fast. miles in 24 hours. God, it was brutal. I got 4 mechanic repetition of my legs; it let,s my mind hours sleep on some dumpstered cardboard and just go and my thinking gets as mechanical as Provisions? a towel I stole otT a condo porch. And then m\ moxement. .\nd for the self-sulTicienc> "2 Let's see. Mv friends donated cases of some back on the bike of iiuman-pow ered transport. E gross chocolate "health bar" so I had about 1 ^ of those. Beyond that: 2 water bottles, one for Trouble with other traffic? .\d% ice to those wanting to take a bike trip? o straight water, one for some sort of juice; plus None. I praised close-lo-the-shoulder-riding (iO! Trust \ our bike. Relax. \our bike is the TO one of those water-holding backpacks which truckers for the tail wuids. I'm serious. By best invention l\'l-R. No matter \our pace. " held about 70 o/. of water; a couple of lubes nule 1 40 or so I w as needing all the help I could Never mind fanc\ stutT Just keep everx thing oo (one bad. that sucked); tire irons; alien get. in good shape. Get to know \our bike well. [culture] I Same: Yvette Koch Age: 23 Would you do it again? Profession: Women's Health In a second! But now, knowing the work it Care / Abortion Counselor takes, I'd probably be a much bigger whiner about getting started. It is a strain to my neck, Where'd you go? back & crotch to be on a bike for so long. From Gainesville to the coast of Florida (St. Augustine), then to Why'd you do it? Brunswick. Georgia & the hostel in the Why not? I wanted to go to Nicaragua but woods there. Then back home. couldn't afford it. So given the few travel options in the U.S. that don't completely What kind of bike did you take? rely on spending money everyday, riding A road bike that 1 put together after my your bike is not only punk but completely TEAM FUJI got stolen. ItwasaMIYATA self-propelled. Tra\el slot / gut is not a three ten that my friend Dan helped me question. build a week before 1 left. How fast (miles per day?) Advice to those w anting to take a bike trip? Provisions? Between 70-80 miles a dav. Make sure you know some elementary bike The works, sort of Stolen trail mix & dried mechanic rules. Don't try to sleep on the St. fruit to stockpile the vegan revolution; a bor- Trouble with other traffic? Augustine beach when your body is deliriously rowed tent that barely stayed up and then w as Jackson\ille. Florida hates bike tratTic. Ev- exhausted! Leave early every morning so you used only once; bike lights that 1 forgot to take eryone looked at me like 1 was a space alien in can ride for a few hours on sleep fuel. Take a out at night; and one change of clothes (from my helmet & 1 ended up unwittingly riding few hours to eat toast, read, write, and re-en- bike to civilized punk! ). over a bridge that had a one-foot-wide raised ergize with coffee; then finish off the day riding shoulder. It took o\er 20 minutes for me to until sunset in the worst Florida heat. It's walk over when I got too piss-scared to ride amazina. Same: Don Fitzpatrick Age: 29 TO m Profession: teacher (middle school) Provisions? l^kB I took w ater. peanut butter, bread, (!o/Mt'//'»s Where'd you go? #42, a bike pump, an mncr tube & some highways were white lines ending at the I rode my bike from Gainesville to Tampa extra clothes. Preparation was not very concrete's edge, but all the tratTic slowed and back over a Spring Break about 4 years complete. I was of the mind that if I thought down and went well around me. One truck ago. I used small roads, mostly 2 lanes. I about it too much, I might just lame out and scared me with its rush of sound and air. went through several cool small towns. 1 ate drive home. Also, 1 wasn't putting myself in One lady locked her door when I pulled up peanut butter sandwiches in a gazebo harm's way. Help was at most 1.5 hours next to her. outside a town hall. Women crossed the away. street to sec what I was up to. They offered Would you do it again? fruit & tea. 1 stopped in lots of cool places How fast (miles per day?) 1 w ill definitely do it again. I want to ride & to drink, read & eat. I pushed my bike I averaged about 10 mph. It took me maybe camp & see more small towns. through highway shrubs and peed behind 12 hours to finish the ride. I took lots of trees. I sat under shade trees and pondered breaks. I was tired, but also Cometbus was Why'd you do it? the regular business of my life. I wandered so good that I kept wanting to stop and read. I did the ride because the Jeff Zenick zines along a railroad track in Wildwood and My butt started hurting after a few hours. I are so good. Destined for the Eternal Minor thought about how much faster the train was rode the last 3 hours without letting my butt Leagues ($1 to PO Box 877 / Tallahasse, FL going compared to nic. touch the seat. I wasn't wearing bike shorts 32302) and the rest are all about having fun and the bike seat was the one it came with. riding around the towns near your town. He What kind of bike did you take? My hands also hurt a lot. I'd shake them a camps, draws & hangs out. That was my I rode a big. blue GIANT mountain bike that bunch to try to keep them fresh. I had one initial motivator. Also, Monica had done the I'd had since 1989. It had a green Publix recurring thought: gloves'. ride and said it was fun. milk crate on the back. I love the bike because I had it when I moved to Trouble with other traffic? Advice to those wanting to take a bike Gainesville. I fell in love with Gainesville I had no trouble w ith other traffic. Ocala trip? and probably myself on the seat of this bike. was a bit sketchy because the side of the Wear padded shorts. After about 4 hours, It was nice and significant to ride it back to road and the curb were the same thing. The my butt hun so bad 1 couldn't sit down. the home of my parents. traffic was pretty close to me. Some of the Wear sunscreen. [culture] Saiiic: Carlssa Benjamin Ho» fast (miles per day?) Af{e: 25 \\c started slou. about 30-50 miles day. Then Profession: massajje therapist / instructor about 60-70 and the longest day was 97 miles. Av- and student. eraging about 10 miles hour, but that included all our rests, breaks & hills with heavy, heavy bikes. \\ here'd >ou go? Trouble \>ith other trafnc? Ea.st Coast- Virginia to S. Maine. Then we Not really. Almost got hit once or t\\ ice but that was took a ferry (the Scotia Prince) to Nova because I fell in front of oncoming cars. A heavily- Scotia & rode south shore & up through weighted bike & new SPD-clip-less pedals aflected Halifax and north to Pictua where we fer- my ability to maintain balance. At least initially it ried to Prince I-dward Island & rode there did. also. 1600 miles. Would >ou do it again? What kind of bike did you take? Oh my God, yes! But I'm more interested in touriiiii TRIIK mountain bike w ith touring style tires 800 scries. One guy in a Newothcr countries or the West Coast where bike touring is more comnidri ^'ork bike shop actually laugiicd at our bikes, asking us. "Do you know thatbecause it"s great to talk w ith other cyclists. you"re riding entry ie\ei bikes?" Yeah, so what? You can take anything. \N hy"d you do it? Provisions? I don't have a car and wanted to tra\el. A woman friend of mine had I do recommend upgrading components on an old bike. 1 had 2 rear pan-mentioned she went cross-countrv on a bike so it just made sense, nicrs, a handle bag & a sleeping bag. We carried one tent between us. Advice to those wanting to take a bike trip? Just go. Make it happen. Don't let people discourage you. When we told people what we were doing they thought it was nuts.- "Two girls, "S'ahie: davidhayes.com ahme on hikes - CamuUi'.' H'Ihii'" They didn't get it & weren't too Afic: 37 supportive. Don't listen. It's amazing & easier & more fun than one Profession: soon to be unknown might expect. Everyone was great. We honestly did not really have any bad experiences. VVhere'd you go? Gainesville FL to Cedar Key FL. (But don't get nie started... 2 weeks in California bike/ train in 1980; ! month CA & OR 1981: 2 momhs!; CA. NV. UT, AZ in 1982). W hat kind of hike did you take? Scliw inn I /caw Piifi ' 1 -speed coaster brake cruiser with basket. Roll (partner in crime) = .\ame: Mike Ta> lor borrowed mountain bike. .4};e: 24 Profession: post-intellectual... Pro\isions? uh, post-intellectual Water bottles, sleeping bags, tent & cash. Se- vere backfire: summer plus Gulfside Florida \\ here'd you go? equals 6,000,000 mosquitoes at 5 pm. Either We cycled first to St. Augustine, get in teeny tent and stay there from 5 pm to which is on the east coast of sunrise or get motel. Motel gotten. Florida. then north to Brunsw ick. (ieorgia. How fast (miles per da\?) 50 something. What kind of hike did >ou take? Trouble »ith other traffic? A (rigged) SPIXTALI/.l D Only near garbage dump cV: rampaging reek- "Hard Rock", which is mar- ing garbage trucks. keletl as a hybrid (mountain- II street), but is basicalK a moun- r a Would you do it again? tain bike frame. (miles Hell yeecali 1 mind a (iator skeleton. per day?) I'roxisions? We aver- aged about 17 miles per Why'd you do it? loo many... Ysctte carried a hour A few times we kept it around 22, when I it as 1 5. The first da> . 1 her rear rack. carried w w ere tired around IJmm. . tend to get an idea and Just go w ith tent on e w it. saddle bags (they ha\e bike we did about 80 miles, which is more than we names which I can't remember) meant to. .Xn eas\ da\ was 40 miles. 60 was A(h ice to those \>anling to lake a hike trip? full of CLIF bars, dried food. a reasonable gi>al. Get a good map and travel the back roads. I Iiuii. rain gear, bike tools, flash- think on my 80's trips we a\eraged 70 miles a light, extra spokes, multi-tools, Trouble with other traffic? day (that's to lOOM. and we figured SIO a plastic taqi to ci>\ er the tent, sun- Once, on a bridge in downtown .lackson\ille. >'\ that route: we wanted day (20 ////7-years ago). I hate to say it this screen, spare bike tubes. etie We kind of got stuck on oo onl> way wav but. JUST DO IT. had a helmet, I had a baseball to \ isit friends, and it turned out the [culture] Name: Monica Reedy Just what you'd expect - the occasional bottle was thrown (none of Age: 23 them hit me; I don't thmk they were trying) and the occasional in- Profession: punk rocker sult shouted. U.S. 301 has some pretty deserted stretches and I think the assholes were just bored. VVhere'd you go? Gainesville to Tampii. mostly using U.S. 301, Would you do it again? Absolutely. I should have already. What kind of bike did you take? " It was a SCHWINN "Frantic - just your basic hybrid, pretty unremark- Why'd you do it? able in every way but functional. Um...whv not? Provisions? .Advice to those wanting to take a bike trip? Tire levers, a spare tube, a patch kit. a map, 5 Cliff Bars and 2 bottles of 2 things- sunscreen and mace. I used a lot of sunscreen on my face water, which I refilled about every 3 hours. Oh yeah, and sunscreen. and arms but not my legs, for some stupid reason, and I spent the How fast (miles per day?) next two weeks pulling sheets of skin off the tops of my legs. The I'm not sure exactly. It took me about 13 hours and I think Gainesville mace is for dogs - one chased me for a while outside of Dade City. and Tampa are about 1 30 miles apart. By that point I was so exhausted it was outnmning me. I think it Trouble with other traffic? stopped because I was too easy to catch. Name K Burja Age: 11 Professio but 1 think about 50- E n g I i s 60 miles a day. teacher Graduate Trouble with other student traffic? No. Cycling in the Neth- WTiered erlands is ideal in so > o u many ways. Not the least go? of which being that bike (Sum- trails criss-cross the entire m e r country and bicycles ha\e 1999) I went on a their own separate traffic 5-day bike trip across the lanes alongside all roads. Netherlands with my friend to cross the St. .lohns River besides Interstate Theun. We rode from the Would you do it again? 95 was a fine choice of dangerous suspension Hague (which is on the West Absolutely. bridges with no shoulders, lane changes, and Coast) to Maastricht (which is littered with glass. One of the scariest mo- in the southeast corner be- V\ hy'd you do it? ments of my life. tween Belgium & Germany). Theun & I had been planning a bike trip for awhile, and ever since I'd lived in the Nether- Would you do it again? What kind of bike did you lands I'd wanted to cycle from one end to the 1 will do it again, but better take? other. 1 don't remember— it was VN'hy'd you do it? Theun's brother's mountain .Advice to those wanting to take a bike trip? We couldn't get the time or money to fly to bike. Nothing fancy but it rode 1. Train a little. Don't hop on a bike and Nicaragua and we needed a vacation. Bikes great. expect to ride for days. Do some rides are the immediate option, the polar opposite beforehand. of virtual space. And we are the punks. Provisions? 2. Use a good seat. Honestly, one of the life- Let's see: we brought a 2-per- savers. Advice to those wanting to take a bike trip? son tent, sleeping bags, mats, 3. Cycling coinputer: a must for keeping Train. Learn to fix the stutT that could go a stove, cooking gear, rain gear track of distance, average speed, etc. wrong. Do your stretches religiously. Wear & some easily transported 4. Sun block, water. Cliff bars / Luna bars. gloves so your hands don't go numb. Drink food (dry soup, etc.). lots of water; eat small meals often. Plan your route & have a rough idea of where you want How fast (miles per day?) to sleep. If I do a Florida trip again, I'm tak- Everything v\as in kilometers ing bug repellant. so I don't remember exactly. [Despite what you read in the interviews above, not everyone in Gainesville rides around their hikes all day in the ho! sun eating peanut huller and health hars. What a wonderful world it would he, though, if they did. 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Nobody can see it becac Why Don't Things changb^^H. ^^^w^^^^^^^^m^^^^^^.'- Politicians take advantage of the ignorance caused by the illiteracy that they hejped create, fhe government specifically knows that poor people don't know the real situation^; . - ' ^ f the New York Stock Exchange. k Til