>John Zerzan lives in Eugene, Oregon. He is an author, speaker, and the host of AnarchyRadio. I have only recent discovered Zerzan, but I like a lot of where he is coming from.
Here is a lecture from Binghamton University on April 2, 2008.
* Grabbed from Essential Dissent. Discovered by way of Jesus Radicals.
>Did Canada just promise to dramatically reduce its greenhouse gases and pay their climate debt? It looks like it:
Uganda responds:
Will the real Canada please stand up:
Oops, its the Yes Men being, well, the Yes men.
I feel rather sorry for Uganda, but not for Canada.
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This morning I did something new for me. I attended an environmental rally.
Now don’t get me wrong, this was a little affair, just a few people for a few minutes. But it was good. After it was over I walked away glad that I had attended. The purpose of the rally was to highlight the number 350 as it relates to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The big deal about 350 is that it is the critical number for CO2 in terms of parts per million in our atmosphere. 350 ppm is the upper limit that scientists have determined is safe for life on the planet. Presently the number is near 390 and rising. The goal is to bring it down to at least 350, or lower. 350 is also the name of a non-profit (350.org) started by Bill McKibben. This was a 350.org event.
I had my wife’s Flip camera with me and took a few shots. Here’s the gang doing their thing:
What was great for me, in a very small way, was just to have gone to such an event. I often tend to not do things I want to do merely because of unfamiliarity. Now that I have gone I hope to feel more freedom to attend future events and possibly get more involved in local/global issues. For the time being, however, I am happy to just try to apply good principles of living to my life, and read, think, and write about these things.
>I am reading the book Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World by Rex Weyler, and thoroughly enjoying it. I have to say the more I learn about Greenpeace the more I like them. And like so many other things in my life, I think I know something until I start reading about it, then I realize what I assumed turns out to be different from the truth, or at least a skewed facsimile.
Also, I recently came across this video of a Greenpeace direct action campaign in England. I would encourage anyone to take the time to view it.
Not only do I like their spirit, but there is something fundamentally human about what they did. As a parent I look to the future for my children and I wonder what kind of world will they live in, and will that world be one where greed, power, and selfishness prevail, or will it be a world where the basic needs of human life take precedence over corporate profits? It’s easy to get sappy, and I can’t say I’m an expert on either global warming or pollution, but I have to say one thing my MBA taught me is that you cannot trust any publicly traded corporation to willingly diminish it potential profits for the sake of my wellbeing, your wellbeing, or the wellbeing of my children and yours.
>We glorify the protests of the past. We have seen (or remember) the civil rights marches, the sit-ins and other actions. We remember the anti-war movement. We remember May 1968 and other important dates. But where are we today? Remember the huge global anti-war protests just prior to the invasion of Iraq. Or the mass protests at the Republican convention. Remember the police crackdown on the protesters? It was like clockwork, surgical, carefully crafted like extraordinary rendition. But it also got violent at times – the anti-riot police were the ones who typically led with the violence. And recently we saw the same thing at the G20 protests in Pittsburgh. But, like the protests of the romantic past, we once again wonder at the role of the police and the individual choices of each officer.
Check out this video and ask yourself what is really going on.
Now read this excerpt from a news report on National Public Radio regarding the G20 summit and, specifically, the protests outside the summit.
ROBERT SIEGEL (host): And have the protests been going on throughout the entire city?
SCOTT DETROW (on scene reporter): They have. After the tear gas, the march broke into many small groups. It stayed out of downtown, from what we can tell. Police are responding by breaking up these clumps of protesters. I saw one after the tear gas was fired. They were peacefully marching down the street and police officers swarmed the block from all directions. They got out of the car and they just pushed the protesters into side streets, and that’s what they’ve been doing. There have been arrests here and there, we’re hearing from other news outlets. But that seems to only be happening when marchers are directly confronting police officers. For the most part, police are just trying to show a presence and trying to get these marchers to break up on their own.
I find both the video clip and the NPR report fascinating, not because they are anything special, but because they say a lot about the structures of power that we have come to view as normal. But should they be normal? Consider the situation: A group of representatives from the richest and most powerful nations on earth come together to discuss the future for all of us. But the the G20 has been around for some time already and the world is in trouble with widening gaps between rich and poor, increasing corporate control over such basic things as water rights, food distribution, farmer’s crops, and of course the economy. In fact, it could be said the recent bailouts of large companies around the world represent a kind of coup d’état. It may just be that the current economic crisis (and the steps to remedy it with tax dollars) is evidence of the increasing loss of real power on the part of the government (a government of the people) over the economic/big business sector.
Consider this exchange from Michael Moore’s Capitalism a Love Story:
MICHAEL MOORE: We’re here to get the money back for the American People. Do you think it’s too harsh to call what has happened here a coup d’état? A financial coup d’état?
MARCY KAPTUR (Representative from Ohio): That’s, no. Because I think that’s what’s happened. Um, a financial coup d’état?
MICHAEL MOORE: Yeah.
MARCY KAPTUR: I could agree with that. I could agree with that. Because the people here really aren’t in charge. Wall Street is in charge.
Given our democratic ideals the situation looks grim. One could easily see the recent election as a kind of sham (as are most elections but especially this one), a game those in power managed in order to help all of us feel like we participated in their power play. Maybe democracy as it’s been sold to us is a way to tie us up with mythological fairly tales so that the powerful few remain in power. So why would not people peacefully (or even angrily) march down the streets where the G20 is being held to protest? And why wouldn’t those marchers see the police as something like turncoats?
And this brings me to more questions: Why do police (working class men and women apparently there to uphold basic freedoms of speech, especially when it is most needed) seem to automatically view protesters and demonstrators as enemies and radical provocateurs? Are they trained to think that way? Or is it something closer to social influence and group think? Why, when anti-riot forces come out in overwhelming force, they end up being the group most prone to violence? Could it be something like the old adage, ‘to the man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail?’
Why does our society accept as normal such activities as the use of tear gas, batons, knocking people to the ground, tasers and rubber bullets, and now anti-riot siren devices, by police against weaponless, non-violent protesters? What is the psychology?
I won’t pretend to have the answers to these questions. However, when I see the way the police in this country deal with protesters I cannot help but be reminded of some very famous sociological studies, horrific events, and historic observations. My point here is not to equate actions so much as highlighting the way the human mind works in various situations.
I have come to believe the actions of police toward protesters reflects aspects of all these sociological and psychological characteristics found in the list above – though to a substantially lesser degree in some cases. But there is one other factor that possibly plays to largest role, that of hegemony.
Now hegemony is a good college level word for why people acquiesce, and even embrace, the power structures that control, and even sometimes enslave, them. If you did not study the word in college you may remember when Hugo Chavez touted the book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky when he spoke at the U.N.
Chavez aside, the concept of hegemony, first proposed by Antonio Gramsci as a way of trying to understand why the working classes did not rise up against their oppressors as the Marxists predicted, is a way to understand how the powerful persuade the less powerful to adopt the values of the ruling class. We live in a country that denies the existence of class structures in terms of power. We speak of middle class or working class merely as sympathetic terms used by politicians to manipulate votes. We do not accept the concept of a ruling class, but maybe we should.
In the videos on this page look at the faces of the police (the ones not wearing Darth Vader masks). There is a lot of anger in their eyes. I wonder if the anger comes from an internal struggle. I can only hope. I imagine the police feel a tension between the hierarchies of power they have come to believe must be protected (of which they are sworn to uphold) and their deeply internal sense of humanity and their belief in democracy (an understanding of which was probably formed in grade school like it was for most of us). They are caught in the clash of values, but they are a group operating with broad impunity and supported by the social dynamic of being able to hide within the apparent pawnship of their job. So they continue to manhandle, arrest, and attack the protesters. But their anger gives them away. They are alienated from the power they protect, and suppressing the very voices that are pointing out that alienation. That would make just about anyone angry.
Consider this video of another protest. If not for the police intervention it would almost be humorous.
I cannot imagine a less threatening protest. In fact I find it almost comical. Why then the overwhelming police force? Are they afraid of another Battle in Seattle? Clearly this is an example of those in power acting out of fear, but what do they fear? In fact, the whole thing has a kind of choreographed arc that not only speaks of a profound lack of imagination on both sides, but indicates the protest may be as much a product of hegemony as the police presence.
What do we do with all this? First, we should not romanticize the past. The efforts of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the past were often heroic, but they were also brutal and scary at times. People were seriously hurt and some died. Many went to prison. And we should know that external actions come from what is inside, but also know that one’s external actions affects one’s soul. The police who give in to the psychosis of power, abuse other humans, act out of anger, and stand in the way of freedoms that are not given by governments but only taken away, those police are damaging their own souls. And they are human just like me – frail, prone to delusion, living in a powerful culture, needed to be loved, and wanting to do what is right. We should not feel sorry for them, but we should empathize.
The fact is many of the above sociological/psychological concerns raised about police action can apply to the protesters. At times it appears some of the protesters are seeking to recreate a May ’68 kind of experience for their own pleasure. I wonder how many made the effort to reach out to the police in the days or weeks prior to their marches. I wonder how many pre-judged the police as irredeemable, in part because it is both the easier route and less romantic than manning the barricades. This is one reason that, while I support the protesters in general, I think the predictable protests outside every G20, G7, World Bank, etc., meeting may be as much a symbol of failure as righteous anger. We need more than theater, we need transformation.
Finally, we are all in this thing called life together, whether we want to admit that or not. It’s easy to march, easy to crack skulls, and very easy to write blog posts, and it’s difficult to love, forbear, and forgive.
Protesters outside the G20 in Pittsburgh
demanding fundamental change.
Consider these quotes:
“The great and chief end…of men’s uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.”
~ John Locke, 1689“But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property.”
~ Adam Smith, 1776“Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor.”
~ Adam Smith, 1776
Pittsburgh police, defending the rich
from the poor at the G20.
If you didn’t know who wrote these words you might think they were from the pen of Karl Marx. Interesting. More substantive than economic systems and their ideologies (and their debates) is the concentration of power and its supporting hegemonies. In other words its all about who inherits the earth and how they keep it. Little do they know…
“Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. ”
~ Jesus, c. 30
The gentle, or meek, have a different relationship to property and wealth than those who climb over others to make the world their own. It is not that they do not want the world, it is that they recognize having the world for their own is not worth being the kind of person who has no interest in loving others as their primary motivation. To love the world is to give up loving people. It is not a good trade – no matter how free the market. Gaining the world is not worth a lousy character, and no amount of economic ideology can convince otherwise.
Mr. Obama hamming at the G20.
Questions of character are always personal, but what about our institutions of power? We live in a world that places a kind of sacred halo around the idea of private property. We know that the Declaration of Independence almost contained the phrase “life, liberty and the protection of property.” I don’t want anyone to take my home away from me, but I have to think that the ownership of property and all its attendant rights (real or perceived) only gets understood as sacred in a world that has turned its back on truth. The irony is not merely that to gain the whole world is to lose one’s soul, but also to gain one’s soul is to gain the world.
There is that old adage that all governments lie. It is just as true that governments, first and foremost, exist to protect the haves and the things they own. Only secondarily, and usually through great struggle, are benefits secured for the have-nots.
I stand, in spirit, with the protesters who call for change and accountability from our governments and the captains of industry. I stand against the obvious seeking of power and influence for selfish ends. I stand against clearcutting forests and mountain top removal mining, and against the pollution of our air and water, and against insurance companies managing our healthcare, and subsidies to weapons manufacturers and to farmers of vast genetically modified monocultures. And I stand against the use of violence to solve problems, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The list can go on and on.) On the other hand, I cannot demand that those in power give up the world, as it were, so that I might have it instead. Though my power and influence is small, I am not morally superior than they. Rather, they must give up the world because it does not belong to them.
>Consider this post to be like one of those emails with a subject line something like “Fwd: Fdw: Fdw: YOU MUST SEE THIS.” You know the one you think you are going to delete but then end up reading and then are glad you did.
I offer a slight warning: If you are an American – meaning a citizen of the U.S.A. (as I am) and not the many millions of others living in the Americas – don’t be put off by the fact that the video comes from the Socialism 2009 conference. I say this not merely because you shouldn’t be afraid (a tendency in this country) of political/economic ideologies that are both more democratically minded as well as more committed to social justice & equality than our own current system, but because John Pilger is one of the finest journalists in the world today and has been for many years. His take on Obama, American exceptionalism, propaganda, and current trends is wonderful and, I think, hits the nail of the head.
It is difficult for me to listen to Pilger because he describes exactly what I knew I was going to get when I voted for Obama. I voted with my pragmatist’s hat on, voting against McCain and excited to see change. But I knew in my heart I would not see real change. I knew all that was fundamentally wrong with our current military industrial system, our socioeconomic structures, and our hierarchies of power within and without the borders of this country would remain the same and probably reinforced. That is what we have in Obama, a better politician and president than we have had the previous eight years, but also the same. On the other hand I love hearing Pilger say what needs to be said and to do so in a way U.S. journalists rarely can.
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42 million people died as a result of war in the 20th century. 42 million. And that’s only military deaths.*
War is evidence of something else. That something else has everything to do with what was in the heart of Cain as he slew his brother. That thing that war is, that indivisible characteristic, is the deeply felt need to use violence, even murder, as a means to achieve ends – certain or uncertain. War is the violent extension of the human heart’s corruption – a corruption that produces pride, envy, condemnation, selfishness, self loathing, and a host of other sins. Intrinsic to that characteristic is the justification of war. Possibly to oversimplify, violence and its justification is war.
As a Christ follower I cannot support war. Nor can I fully support any government that uses violence to achieve its ends, even if those ends may somehow benefit me. And I cannot celebrate with that government and participate in it nationalistic liturgies in glorifying the deaths of those who died carrying out such violence. But I can remind myself of how much people have suffered under the brutal hand of war. And I can still be amazed at the personal sacrifices so many individual soldiers have made.** I wrote about this last year.
A survey of history shows the human tendency to make war. Not only that, but to glory in war. Not only that, but to love war – and then be shocked at its brutality. When God points to Jesus on the cross and says that’s my attitude toward sin (just to throw in a little Christian theology here) it’s as if humankind said alright we’ll do that – and then set about to recreate that bloody crucifixion and kill and torture as many people as possible. When Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these you do to me, humanity seems to have largely shrugged its shoulders and gone on to other things – like justifying war and creating war heroes.
There is nothing good about war. Even victory is a tragedy. In deeply profound and unavoidable ways all wars throughout all of history have been grave failures. War is truly good for nothing.
Of course we are always looking for ways to find nobility in war making. We have our war heroes and give them medals, even if we often refuse to look directly at what they did to get those honors, and then go on to ignore many of their long lasting war-related troubles (physical, mental, spiritual). But there is no nobility in war. When we celebrate such “holidays” as memorial day (formerly known as decoration day) we must keep in mind the tragic nature of those days. Memorial day is not a day of celebration but of grieving. If you take the time to remember the fallen this memorial day, if you put out a flag as we do, do so not to praise but to weep.
We know blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, But also, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Let us stop praising war and the war makers and start being people of peace.
* The number is much higher, closer to 200 million, if we consider any deaths by mass unpleasantness including genocide, tyranny, civilian deaths in war, and man made famines – all of which can be considered war.
** I have always been someone drawn to war and its stories. I love good war movies and novels. As a child I was fascinated with the machines of war. If a fighter jet flies overhead I cannot help but stare in awe. I also have relatives who fought in wars and relatives who are currently in the military. To not praise war and to not celebrate those who wage war is an unnatural act for me, but it is and act I am obligated to make.
pilgrimakimbo 