Part of the America at a Crossroads documentary series aired on PBS earlier this year, Operation Homecoming is a unique approach at representing the war. Taking writings from soldiers deployed in Iraq, the producers of Operation Homecoming created a series of visual vignettes, attempting to create a wide variety of visual approaches to the writings and the subject matter. The visual styles range from animation, cinema verite, re-enactments, and CGI graphics.

The videos are terrifying, moving, heartbreaking.  Nonfiction personal narratives from soldiers in Iraq about their experiences there, set to video.   http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/iraq/operation/

Greetings,

I have just discovered your music, and am liking it very much. I am not a great fan of typical hip-hop, but your music is something different. I also agree with the majority of your political views. However, I have a question, something that has been bothering me for a while:

You speak of abolishing governments and living as anarchists (an admirable ambition), but I wonder how you intend to accomplish this? Do you support a violent revolution? If so, how can you reconcile the inevitable killing of innocents that would occur with your anti-war lyrics? If you see another way, then I would like to hear it - the only thing that is stopping me from becoming directly involved in anarchist activism myself is my opposition to violence and my inability to see a feasible method by which the system could be implemented peacefully.

Best wishes for 2009 (a.k.a. 1984 :P),
S

S,

Thanks for the email, I’m glad you enjoy the music.  as for the ‘how’ of revolution, well that’s the big unresolved question now isn’t it?  anarchism is a big tent and includes everyone from devout pacifists (the tolstoy / gandhi -inspired anarcho-pacifists who believe that if enough people absolutely refuse to participate in violence the state would crumble) to insurrectionists who’d like to light the world on fire and hope something better rises from the ashes (personally I don’t know that it’s even accurate to describe Insurectionists as Anarchists, they have much more in common ideologically with political Nihilism then with Anarchism.  It’s a fuzzy line but there is a line there).   Anarchosyndicalists believe that the switch can be best achieved by building autonomous working class organizations (primarily labor unions but other orgs as well) capable of fighting for workers rights and power in the short term and supplanting and abolishing capitalism in a massive general strike, followed by the takeover of  the means of production by the working class, as organized through anarchist labor unions.  sort of an economic coup.  mutualists think that the best way to make the change is to create directly democratic community owned credit unions and collective businesses that can work together to supplant capitalism by out-competing it in the arena of the marketplace.

honestly, I don’t know that any of those strategies can do it, but i’m inclined to think the transition will probably involve elements of all of them and more besides that no one has thought of yet.

that’s the thing about anarchism, there are no garauntees.  it’s not like marxism that claims our future has already been written and the transition to a post-capitalist society is an inevitable byproduct of development.  instead it offers a set of tools that people who want a better world can use to try to build that world.  mutual aid.  solidarity.  democracy.  consensus.   direct action.  local control.  personal freedom.  if the tools are useful then by all means use them, the labels are unimportant.  what really matters is the principles.    we make the path by walking it - the means are the ends.   So I can’t claim to know which path  is ultimately the best, that’s not my place.

So I guess the short version is that if violence apalls you and you want to build a peaceful world then don’t walk a path that entails violence.  there are many very strict pacifists who are anarchists - in fact I would argue that one cannot truly be a pacifist without being an anarchist because capitalism and the state both rely on violence and coercion in order to function.  rejecting violence - really rejecting violence - means rejecting the legitimacy of all organizations that employ violence.  Amon Hennessey used to make that argument and it’s one I’ve found very convincing over the years.

As for me, I’m not a pacifist any more because I believe there are times when violence in self defense is the only viable option.  I oppose capitalist wars because they are wars for the benefit of capitalists at the expense of everyone else.  But I don’t personally see anything inherently wrong with (for instance) putting the people responsible for the bloodbath in Iraq on trial for crimes against humanity and applying the death penalty when they’re found guilty.    other people may well disagree and I respect their right to walk their own paths.   In any case, I don’t see offensive warfare as a viable means of creating an anarchist society, I think we create that alternative society -and that can happen through any or all of the means described above - and then defend it against those who would drown it in blood.  but we don’t kill innocents.  If we did we would cease to be Anarchists.

I hope my response is helpful, best wishes for the new year.
lynx

“Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America

Many people are thinking about it. This book shows how it’s done.

Whether you find the government oppressive, the economy on a devastating course, or if you simply want adventure, you’re not alone. Over 300,000 Americans emigrate each year.”

From everything i’ve read, it’s practically impossible for a working class American to immigrate to Europe legally, which is why i haven’t already done it.  Still, just the fact that this book exists makes me happy.

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn’s home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers..

I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.  Read the full story over at feministe.us.

my response to the $700 bank bailout and the pending $35 billion (yes, 35, they raised it by $10 billion over the last week) bailout for the car companies. the finished version is gonna be on our next album but i didn’t want to wait a year to put it out for ya’ll so here it is. hella raw, recorded in 1 take, live in my living room.

If you’re as pissed as I am that banks that finance the rape of our planet and carmakers that produce gas-guzzling tanks that pollute our air and have outsourced most of their best paying jobs to other countries get billions in corporate welfare while the rest of us go broke, maybe it’s time we organize and DO SOMETHING about it.

www.workersolidarity.org
www.protest.net
www.iww.org

and, of course, www.beltainesfire.com for more music.

Struggling Lower-Class Still Unsure How Best To Fuck Selves With Vote
from The Onion, Oct. 30, 2008

WASHINGTON—As election day nears, millions of the nation’s poorest voters have reportedly yet to settle on the most profound and enduring way to completely fuck themselves over when they head to the polls this year.

“On the one hand, I’m pretty sure Barack Obama will undermine my best interests by maintaining the same centrist, pro-corporate policies of previous Democratic administrations,” said Jim Estey, 34, a recently laid-off assembly-line worker. “Conversely, I agree with McCain and Palin on abortion, which might just balance out the fact that they’ll further marginalize people like me by supporting deregulation and slashing social programs. So it’s pretty much a toss-up at this point.”

Though such behavior appears to directly undermine their own well-being, lower-income voters have historically supported candidates determined to screw them six ways to Sunday, including Bill Clinton, who incarcerated them in record numbers and cut the welfare benefits many depended on for day-to-day sustenance, and George W. Bush, who widened the gap between them and the rich and sent thousands of them to die in Iraq. This year’s election is reportedly unique in that the nation’s poor must not only weigh how deeply and painfully their chosen candidate will penetrate their rectums, but must also consider unforeseen outside circumstances—such as economic collapse and terrorism—that might allow the next president to bend them over and brutally rape them in ways they never thought possible.

The latest polls indicate that a majority of lower-class citizens might choose not to vote at all Nov. 4, preferring instead to leave the details of how they get fucked to the moneyed classes.

And that pretty much sums it up as far as I’m concerned.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Now stop and think to yourself how your average American would feel if a hostile foreign power that we had never once attacked or done any harm too (remember, Iraq didn’t have a damn thing to do with the destruction of the WTC) invaded the USA, occupied our country for 8 years, and murdered a million people.  Now take into account how tiny Iraq’s population was to start with and realize that 1 million people is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/6th of their total population.   Think about that for a second.  1 in 6 Iraqi’s have been killed in a war ostensibly launched to eliminate an oppressive (US backed) dictator and his (nonexistant) WMD’s and “liberate” them.

Now that’s some kind of liberation.

Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.

ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414 adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as opposed to natural cause.

Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not our responsibility—is ill conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2006 (Censored 2006, #2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of deaths for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 percent were attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that if a low pro rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused by US forces, a total of approximately 80 percent of Iraqi deaths are directly US perpetrated.

Even with the lower confirmed figures, by the end of 2006, an average of 5,000 Iraqis had been killed every month by US forces since the beginning of the occupation. However, the rate of fatalities in 2006 was twice as high as the overall average, meaning that the American average in 2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or over 300 Iraqis every day. With the surge that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher.

Check out the full story at ProjectCensored.

The first vid is a great segment on the Colbert Report on the passage of Prop 8 and all the media spin about it - and especially the media spin re: the 70% of black folks who overwhelmingly voted for Obama and had no problem voting for “Seperate but Equal” for gay folks (proof positive that being subjected to bigotry and oppression doesn’t prevent people from inflicting it on others).   I think Dan Savage sums it up well in the vid when he says that the people who are hardest hit by that statistic are LGBT people of color.  That’s a good point and a huge point that needs to be made.

I know black folks aren’t a homogeneous group and any statement made about Black people as a whole is going to be inaccurate - just as any statement about white people would be.   But I would like to see athiests, agnostics, secularists, and religious people  who are pro-gay rights stand up more to the negative influences of the black church on issues like this.  yes, religion can have positive effects in poor and impoverished communities because of the way it encourages social cohesion - just look at how closely Irish folks have clung to the catholic church over the centuries, despite how little the church has ever done for us in return!  But the fact is that doing good with one hand doesn’t excuse doing evil with the other, and the influence of christianity in 2008 is overwhelmingly negative.    Like Sickle-cell anemia that provided black americans’ african ancestors resistance to maleria, the black church has provided some tangible benefits to an oppressed community.  But that doesn’t change the fact that religious bigotry is a disease, and the sooner we get over that disease the better.

I’d also appreciate it if folks on the left stopped giving people - and especially performers who market themselves as leaders in social movements - a free pass on being anti-gay just because they’ve got dark skin.  Why does eminem get shit for calling someone a fag but mos def and immortal technique don’t?  If anything, mos and tech should be held to a HIGHER standard because they represent themselves as revolutionaries while Em is just another corporate pop star.

And, of course, I know I’m a white guy writing on this issue.  I’ll probably get criticized for sticking my neck out at all.  but bigotry is bigotry and it’s always wrong and I’ll always speak out against it, no matter who the perpetrator is.  I think i’ve spent enough years working on these issues that ya’ll should know where I stand when it comes to the ongoing systematic racism perpetrated against communities of color.

I should also point out that black folks weren’t the only ones who voted for Prop 8, there’s plenty of work to do in white communities too.  Last week I told my mother that I think she’s a bigot for supporting this bill and that she and my father have deeply dissapointed me by going along with all the propaganda from their church.  She didn’t appreciate that but I had to say it and she needed to hear it whether she wanted to or not.  So I’m not asking anyone to do something I’m not doing myself.  Talk to your family members, neighbors, (hell even your pastors/preists/ministers if you’re religious)  who’ve let their religions blind them to what’s wrong.  Stand up to them.  Don’t let them claim that they have the right to their beliefs and that critizing those beliefs is off-limits!  The right to belief ends at the point where that belief compels them to infringe on other peoples rights.

This is one of a very few issues where there is absolutely no gray area, no moral ambiguity.  Denying a minority due process before the law because of the dictates of someone elses religion is just plain wrong.  It’s the kind of thing that typifies Islamist societies like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan (both under the taliban and under the new american-backed puppet regime).  It has no place in California.  None.

I’m gonna leave ya’ll with another video, this one by Keith Olbermann who gets in touch with his inner hippy and makes an impassioned plea for people to embrace Love.  And ya know, dude is right.  Sometimes it really is just that simple.

Such is the fate of an Anarchist among Liberals.

Seriously though, I know this is a big day for a lot of folks who’ve put time and energy into getting dude elected, and in particular - as even McCain acknowledged - it’s a big day for black folks in America.  For over 200 years black folks have watched white Presidents completely ignore their issues and support policies that hurt them.  Now, thanks to Obamas historic win, poor and working class black folks get to have their issues and their needs ignored by a person with the same color skin as them.  That’s an honor that poor and working class white folks have enjoyed in isolation for far too long.  It’s only fair to spread the joy around a bit.

Ya’ll may accuse me of cynicism.  And you’d be right.  I’m eternally optimistic about the power of ordinary people of all colors to come together and organize and build at the grassroots level to solve our problems ourselves and eternally cynical about the never ending line of politicians who promise us that if we abandon our own independent movements and instead pour our time, money, hearts, and souls into their electoral bids they’ll deliver pie in the sky.  And why shouldn’t I be?  Bill Clinton got elected on a platform of “Change” and he turned around and gutted social safety nets, maintained murderous sanctions on Iraq for 8 years, did less then nothing to make healthcare affordable and accessible to working class people, supported death squads and mass murder around the globe, and allowed the rich to keep getting richer.  Bush replaced him, also on a platform of “Change” and did all the same things only more so - as David Rovics put it a few months into his first term “Things are a lot like they were before, only a bit sped up”.  Now Obama’s been elected, also on a platform of “Change”  (it’s the slogan that keeps on giving!) and - forgive me for being skeptical here - but I can’t help expecting more of the same.

Am I the only one who notices a trend here?  Really?

Maybe some good will come of it though.  Maybe with a young black man as President all the folks who go on and on about how the problem is that America is run by “old white men” will realize that their age and their color aren’t the things that really define the people who run the global Capitalist system.  It’s their wealth.  It’s Class.  It’s always been Class.  Racism is very real - of course - but at root Racism has never been more or less then a tool to divide the working class and get us to fight each other instead of our common enemies.  The economic elites who run this country are more then happy to put black and brown faces in high places if doing so will allow them to maintain their own control, as the Bush administration proved by appointing Gonzales, Rice, and Powell.  This is just the next step in that same process.

The people who pull the strings, the men behind the curtains, have taken a gamble here.  They’ve put a black puppet out on stage instead of a white one for the first time ever in the hope that doing so will get all the folks who are pissed off and cynical and disenfranchised to buy back into the system and start believing in the puppetshow once again.  Obama’s acceptance speech was a call for exactly that - for all us who’ve been outraged at the sadistic brutality of Bush & Co. and by the Democrats utter failure to even pretend to oppose that brutality to buy back in and  take Obama’s ascension as proof that the system does work after all.  Like the New Deal, which he referenced in his acceptance speech, this is a ploy by the ruling class to get the rest of us to  buy back into the system.  Back then the capitalists tried and failed to crush Radical movements by force before finally allowing Roosevelt to throw the working class a few crumbs, buy off the majority, and then crush the remainder of the resistance.  This time they haven’t even offered us crumbs, just the opportunity to have a different colored puppet whose strings are pulled by all the same corporate interests.

I’m not buying it.  Not even for a second.

So go on, celebrate & enjoy yourselves.  And when ya’ll finally realize that it’s not the color of a mans skin but the contents of his bank account that determine where his interests really are I’ll see ya in the streets.  Maybe then we can get this revolution back on track and finally win this thing.  Just don’t take too long, the planet can’t stand many more years of Capitalism and we’ve got a lot of work left to do before we can put any real viable alternative into practice.