My inaugural gown was worth a dozen seals

Among the innumerably hideous recollections i have over many years of following Exxon's attempts to dodge financial responsibility for the Valdez oil spill was the company's proposition that each seal caught in the crude was worth exactly $1000. Presumably that would be the assessed value before fur and lungs were coated in hydrocarbons, and maybe 20 years ago, Exxon thought they were being overly generous, since nowadays Chinese wholesalers offer seal coats for as little as $85. Then again, Exxon may have been flaunting their arrogance, as it appears that black seal fur is quite a bit more expensive. Who knows? It's all pretty despicable, so much so that i shouldn't even be embarrassing myself by making such lame, inane jokes about it.

We see the same mentality in US health insurance companies, telling people their kids' survival is not worth the expense, or that a middle finger is of greater value than a ring finger (which may actually be true, considering appropriate responses to corporate mandates in just about any rapacious industry). If Michael Obama had bought her inaugural gown on eBay, she would have had enough money left over to stock the Jefferson Memorial pond with a large family of seals... according to Exxon's calculations, which in the end are as offensive and ridiculous as dumping a wild marine animal into an urban pool or spending $20.000 on a dress. Probably though, the First Lady put style first and felt cost wasn't an issue; or, that since one can't put a monetary figure onto what/how Americans would feel seeing her look absolutely regal that night, the figure presented in cooperation with the dress was essentially priceless, ergo whatever was spent is irrelevant.

The issue of valuation has always dogged me. Aside from - or perhaps in spite of - the obvious relationship between production costs and asking prices, determining the intrinsic value of something is relative, at best and impossible, at worst. With consumer goods, it's easier to look at this than when dealing with something like a mountain gorilla. For example, if i were to buy a fancy color printer, it would be a simple matter of keeping track of how much money i save at Copy Central and how much more income i'd be able to explicitly derive from the sale of whatever propoganda, cards, etc. i printed myself, until the point where money saved + income generated = purchase price of the printer. That's very straightforward. When i look at my teaching fees, setting the value is much trickier, because i've really no idea how much one lesson is intrinsically worth on its own merit. Hence, i have to rely on what the market will bear and hope my prospective students find a rationale for accepting the fees i request. Some do, some don't - when i get a high fee, i put more energy into that class, but i'm not convinced this actually produces more value, in the basic, albeit elusive, sense of the term. The mountain gorillas? You spend a day bushwacking after them in the jungle and then tell me how much money you would've accepted in exchange for that experience. As poor as i am financially, i cannot give you a figure for which i would willingly have foregone that adventure and its concomitant stash of gaia-esque insight.

Raj Patel has come out with a new book which looks at this very important and compelling question, The Value of Nothing, and i'm sure it will be worth reading if, like me, you sometimes find yourself overwhelmed by all the distortions of value in which we mall-walled urbanites, especially, are adrift. There's no telling how long it will be before Patel's book is available (in English) in Hungarian bookstores, but maybe after seeing this video, one of my 5 readers - surely none of whom live in Hungary - will feel inspired to give the book a whirl and then you can tell me about it.

The Weather Underground

Started writing this piece a week ago but couldn’t finish before taking off for a long weekend. Afterwards, it seemed outdated and ready for the ever-expanding ‘incomplete ideas’ folder (as opposed to the circular file which would’ve claimed it back in the days of pens and typewriters). Then i saw this video and this story. Enthusiasm instantly rekindled: if the reactionary right is Seig Heiling itself towards revolt by machete, the left might as well talk about whether reasons for not using violence against the state also pertain when it comes to protecting people from the totally unapologetic, violent wing-nuts whom Sarah Palin and FOX are apparently unleashing for prime time insurrection. Listening to these people, one wonders if a McCain-Palin victory next week will calm them down or embolden them into a frenzy. If Obama wins, i think the answer to this dilemma is fairly obvious. As i mentioned last week, i’m down with Diddy under the covers; friends back home are already warning me to expect long-term guests if these people take over the government (which they will inevitably succeed in destroying; curses on anyone who makes W look moderate). Others i know may well be contemplating various levels of community self-defense, particularly if they’ve had any experience dealing with wild-eyed Israeli settlers.

So, the ironic aspect of the whole Bill Ayers business is that it’s actually not a bad time for people to be thinking about the Weather Underground. Naturally, neither Palin, McCain, nor any of their sheep utter the name of Ayer’s group in the ‘domestic terrorist lover’ attacks against Obama. Bring up the Weathermen and the next thing you know, liberals may start talking about Timothy McVeigh and the dangers posed by “patriotic” militia movements. Ok, that seems unlikely; McCain’s has had to deflect Qs about his relationship with G. Gordon Liddy, Grand Master of Patriots Extemperaneous, but the republicans don’t like putting things in context because they rarely know anything about history. However, i also think that liberals, broadly speaking, do not want to have a showdown over insurrectionist politics with people who’ve got NRA tattooed on their biceps and/or spend their weekends casting Satan out of the kids’ playground. As a northerner and northern Californian, i’ve always felt the fundamentalist militia volk were stuck in the shadows, safely removed from the functional majority; now it seems like they’re burrowing out of the leaf litter. On the campaign trail, MoveOn.org type groups are probably right to minimize the role of Ayers in Obama’s political background (somehow i've ended up on all their email lists); however, the Weathermen were not the Klan, they were and still are on my side of the aisle and i’m happy to be inspired to write about them especially in the context of this election and its possible outcomes.

The Weather Underground are one of the few groups in America who actually tried to carry out an armed insurrection. NB: with much less volatile weaponry than is available nowadays. They never came close to the scale of death and destruction in Oklahoma City (1995), for example. Neither secessionists nor racists, they had an analysis that concluded the system of power had to be dismantled and if that required violence… well arguably, there shouldn’t be an ‘if’ in that sentence. During that period, there was so much domestic and really extreme international violence being committed by the US govt that in most any other country, armed opposition would have been considered obvious. (It certainly seemed obvious to the Vietnamese.) In any event, they were worlds away from inciting hate crimes, e.g. the assassination of an afro-american politician, and never believed that they were on a mission from any god. Some activists from that period have maintained that the decision to use violence discredited the nonviolent civilly disobedient anti-war movement and distracted from its goal of stopping the war in Southeast Asia. i’m not going to argue that point either way (would Martin have succeeded without Malcolm? would SDS have controlled the streets without Days of Rage?). What is true is that they did not target individuals in a random way, and after 3 of their own members were killed while working with explosives in a NYC flat, they tried to take measures to ensure that facilities but not people were present at their targets. The FBI were after them, they disappeared for years. Marge Piercy’s VIDA is loosely based on one of their members (Kathy Boudin?) and is a great tale of how hard it was to live outside the law and still be honest, even with oneself.

It’s my view that because the Weathermen (and women) were white kids from mostly elite colleges, e.g. Harvard and Columbia, individually they make an easy target now. What if the FOX-feeding right were to start carrying on about Obama’s ties to former Black Panthers? i think we can agree that they would have dug themselves a very deep hole on that one, being infinitely incapable of dealing with the historical facts of racist violence in a public forum, nor the case for self-defense by those still being gun downed by police who think that being African is a crime. One of the key, threatening things the Weather Underground did was forge political ties with the Panthers; their “War Against America” statement followed the assassination of Fred Hampton, Chairman of Chicago’s Black Panther organization. White revolutionaries crossing the color line at that level was more than even a lot of the anti-war left at the time could cope with, so the last thing anyone wants to discuss on the republicrat stage now are revolutionary movements that have the potential to inspire (especially young people) to engage in heroic fantasies of interracial self-defense. McCain , of course, is happy to talk about supporting the brave troops who are protecting democracy, so long as the discussion doesn’t involve any IVAW vets.

Two great documentaries have been made about the Weather Underground, quite stylistically different. In Emilé D’Antonio’s film, Underground, it’s really clear that the subjects are in hiding and the urgency (or at least awareness) of that permeates nearly every scene. The director-outlaw dynamic is brilliant. More recently (2002), some younger filmmakers who were looking back at a time they, themselves, didn’t directly experience released The Weather Underground as a retrospective documentary, interviewing members of the group in their current locales, including prison. Both films are worth checking out. D’Antonio’s team were subpoenaed by the FBI for information about the Weatherman, and one of the producers, Mary Lampson, had this to say about the group. “The strength of a movement can be judged in part by the government’s reaction to it. Their response to this film has been swift and harsh. They do not want to allow the U.S. people a chance to react to the ideas expressed in this film.” And what ideas is she referring to? ''We felt that doing nothing in a period of repressive violence was itself a form of violence. That's really the part I think is hardest for people to understand.''

Hard then, hard now. Who wants to see political violence rip through the streets of Chicago, NYC, LA again? Only those who would provoke it, i’d like to believe. Thinking today about the Weathermen, we have to ask if “doing nothing” still means not using fire to fight firepower, or could it now just entail staying home doing Sudoku puzzles with the iPod phones securely blocking out all non-self-selected sound? i don’t think the level of violence in our world today has maxed out – for most people – yet we can recognize the correlation between poverty and violence. The Weather Underground’s tactics may not have achieved much more than getting them on the Most Wanted list, but the group’s commitment to supporting their allies, circumventing the racial Other, are certainly worth thinking about today. Describing Bill Ayers as a terrorist has face-value impact on the minds of those who otherwise would never have known he existed, but describing him as a revolutionary? – entirely different because it leads us to ask how today’s revolutionary might, or should, be defined. That, to me, is the more compelling question now, and the Weatherman are an excellent reference point for anyone wanting to have that discussion.

Wrapping up or rounding out this rant, i offer the second half of an interview Jane Fonda did recently with Al-Jazeera. Her observations about being used as a Leftist demon are pertinent as they are interesting. Needless to say, her commitment to being hopeful also, for me, makes her a true maverick (since assigning that label to someone seems to matter in this pre-election week).

Back to the Banality of Evil

Frightened, intellectually overwhelmed white people have a long, long history of taking hate crime scapegoatism to an extreme. The way this behavior pattern is being reinvigorated right now in the US hardly pushes the envelope of that paradigm. That is to say, it wreaks of all the standard-bearing traits that characterize fascist social movements; to credit it with breaking new ground gives credit where credit is not at all due. Those of us living on the other side of the pond may be completely out of touch with what's really happening in the US, but we don't want to see america devolve into pointless, reactionary choas - in some ways, perhaps moreso than those inside the country: there's something about seeing your native land collapse from afar that is just so painful. i'm not being narcissistic here, am i? Where i'm from provided the framework i still use to filter a great deal of my experience, tho i've got a lot of other reference points to choose from. We live through and sort out so many lies in the course of a lifetime; at some point, you get down on your knees and beg that your most basic visions of what's possible don't get tossed onto the pile of fantasies whose time was never meant to be. i also don't want to see the W Dick gang walk away from their long, long litany of crimes unscathed, and if Sarah and Todd Palin start roaming the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania, that's exactly what will happen. Guaranteed.

i've been reading an anthropologically focused, historical book about Gypsies in Europe, Bury Me Standing, whose penultimate chapter is entitled "The Devouring" and chronicles the experience of Gypsies during the Third Reich (the name is a direct translation of the roma word for their holocaust, porriamos). Going through the chronology of anti-roma propoganda, legislation, rounding up and deportation - leading to eventual death for 10's of thousands - one cannot help but see the hate coming from McCain-Palin and their flock of encephalitic sheep as being conducive for a home-grown american version of the same: against arabs and muslims certainly, against other groups of terrorist-loving, baby-killing haters of america probably (one assumes someone in her crowd's got their crosshairs set on Hillary). These people are dangerous, driven by that strange mix of fear and hate that causes them to become totally unhinged in the name of god and country. True Volk.

The reason i bring up the Roma here is because as i've gone through this book, reading of slavery and laws that render the mere fact of BEING a gypsy a criminal act punishable by hanging, the parallels to african-american history are everywhere, and everywhere stark. Partly in the experience of the Roma, but moreso in the mindset of the prejudiced. It leaves me with a nauseated feeling: there are no limits to what an angry mob of fascists will destroy, and there is a subset of armed americans who still see afro-americans the way most europeans still see roma. It seems naive to embrace the belief that really bad things can't happen again. i've seen right wing Israelis attack Palestinians and felt the vibe of a maniacal group bonding experience... it ain't pretty... the ties between fanatical christian right and fanatical zionist settlers make obvious sense. These people are very serious about being 21st century assholes, and while i'm willing to stand up to them rather than run, part of me also wants to crawl under the covers with Diddy. 'Have they raptured yet? Is it safe to come out?'

Check out the latest from Brave New Films and tell me that these people who are so often eager to invoke the memory of Ronny the Raygun aren't going much, much further to encourage hate and fear than RR ever did against the evil soviet empire. i voted in 1980 and don't recall anyone at a Reagan rally calling for the murder of Carter or members of NYC's russian community. If McCain were to win this election - and maybe even if he doesn't - rural american has all the potential of a crusade in the making. How ironic indeed that at the same time as these volk are gearing up to show their racist patriotism, the bushies have succeeded in violating the law again, putting army units on the streets. Surely this presents a conundrum to the reactionary wingnuts with 'I love the NRA' tattooed across their biceps? Well, i'm happy to let the Toad Palin's of rural american fight it out with the infantry, except that's not what the world needs right now even though one could argue that it may well be what america needs to jump the track and, ultimately, find a new and more humane direction. The most famous road in North America is Highway 66 - not 666, which is the bottomed out route the followers of hate are hopefully about to blow a gasket on.

A Day in the Life

Vladimir Voinovitch, who penned the brilliant satire, Moskva 2042, as well as the Svejk knock off yet classic in its own right, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, has long been a great favorite of mine. (Feeling bad you forgot my birthday? Send me another book by VV and all will be forgiven.) In my limited universe of Russian writers, Chonkin could probably not have been written had Alexander Solzhenitzyn not first offered up the story of Ivan Denisovich more than a decade prior - how could anyone dare to satirize the insanity of the soviet system before first having a thorough slog through its dark, gulag-muzzled side? In my late teens and early 20s, poured through all the Solzhenitzyn i could find - no minor task (referring here to the reading, not the finding) - an education in the mentalities of the coerced and the coercers, the nature of totalitarianism, blahblahblah in sum they had a strong effect on me simultaneous to being enmeshed in a world of collectivist ideals. So we're sorry to see the writer pass on, but we remember him for his passion and the skill to use it in ways that unquestionably benefitted both the world of literature and the thinkers of freedom. My vodka glass goes belly up in a toast to the greatest of Russia's literary bulldogs.

How creepy to also read today that Berlusconi is putting soldiers on the streets of Rome. The creepiness is not only in the shades of tyranny this implies, but because part of the PM's stated rationale is to protect the Italians from those nasty, no-good immigrants, apparently creeping onto Italy's shores with godzilla-like intentions. Actually, right now the stated problem is not so much those coming by sea, but the overland-travelling Roma, (seen far and wide as the scourge of Europe - yes, still) in spite of thousands of these Roma holding Italian citizenship. The Minister of Defense "dismissed claims that the soldiers would scare tourists or residents, saying the troops could help address citizens' concerns about security." Personally, i don't think tourists are all that likely to ask soldiers with machine guns whether a particular gelaterria presents a clear and present danger, but maybe i'm too jilted when it comes to interacting with so-called security forces. The rounding up of "undesirables" and creation of fear among minority populations - including political minorities - under any circumstance, is one of the things Solzhenitzyn explored in excruciating detail. The message always seemed clear enough to me: it is the shades of grey that put the T into state tyranny.

When Berlucsoni indicated that other cities were also going to have soldiers decorating their sidewalks, a Sicilian mayor asked, "Have we all gone mad?" Evidently his town hasn't had a murder since the 1960's, which is noteworthy given that island's history. Wanna bet that with soldiers on the streets and the carbinieri free to do other interesting things, this bit of statistical reverie might soon be broken? i've yet to attend a demonstration where the rioting wasn't started by the cops, and i can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would believe that expanding the reach of the il-Duce death eaters now with military backup, would bring Italians more peace, or peace of mind. Ok, at least he isn't hiring Blackwater to do the job.... Alas, another day in the life of 21st century Europe. In yet other uplifting news, we're told that nearly half the world's primates are facing extinction. Do we think the fascists are in the soon-to-be-extinct or the not-yet-pegged-for-extinction half? What role does free will play in extinction, anyway?