My demands for a more perfect democracy

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET has been slammed by press and independent bloggers for not having cohesive demands, as if the rising unrest could be assuaged by a singular fix.  When people ask me what this protest is about, I have a difficult time tidying it up  into a single sentence.  I usually start out with, "The government bailout of the banks using public funds is a start," and then I go on to talk about economic inequalities, rising cost of tuition, lack of lucrative (and enjoyable) employment, money in policies.  I tend to stop before I discuss the outsourcing of labor, the volatile trade of currencies, the undermining of civil liberties in other countries, the unjust wars in which we are engaged, or the negative effect in a global envirnment because by then you can tell that they don't want to think about it too much.  But I cannot completely blame them; it is a lot to think about.  And this is a quite the undertaking that conscious citizens are trying to confront in a long battle to restore civil liberties, equality, and social--nay, global--tranquility.  So the protesters have forgone the notion of a single goal, evocative of beautiful anarchy.

After my sister's birthday on October 6th, I, too, will join the protesters at Wall Street.  I'm quite excited, but I have a lot of preparing to do beforehand.  Yesterday I began studying civics and taking notes; I checked out several books (children's books, at that) from the library on national, state, and local government.  It was the 7th grade and 1999 when I had civics class, and I don't remember too much because I thought that the subject was boring.  I know now that I am in desperate need of a refresher course.  I've also been researching what it means to be a fascist: having recently finished The End of America by Naomi Wolf (and having watched the corresponding DVD maybe 5 times throughout these past couple of weeks; I tell everybody that I can about her book), I felt so enraged in myself in that I had been ignorant for so long about how fragile democracy is, and how we as Americans have used "democracy" as both a shield and a blinding mechanism.  Now I am riled up enough to fight to take democracy back.  The more that I research, the more that I write, the more that I speak, the freer I feel, the more empowered I feel, the more that the goal becomes clear.

I am so angry that the adults to which I and my generation had entrusted our well-being completely allowed George W. Bush to strip away so many of our liberties.  It saddens me even more when I think about the beautiful promise inherit in late-1999 at the Battle in Seattle, a momentum that was completely squandered and reversed with the Bush administration.  It is the hope that Occupy Wall Street will bring back this momentum and sustain it into a revolutionary crescendo of cacophanous freedom and beauty.  I believe with great conviction that something wonderful has begun in the tenacity of the Wall Street protesters.  In my own state, Occupy Denver began this week, and in a few hours Occupy Colorado Springs begins.  But my sights are on Wall Street because this is where the tangible battle is; Wall Street is both a concrete and symbolic reality.  No one can tell when the winds will officially turn; it could be years from now, it could be after my death.  But I know that the flames of revolution have caught spark as the occupations throughout the US and abroad have been ignited by the imignations of individuals wishing to express their solidarity.

If the revolution happened tomorrow, I know exactly what I'd demand.  It's not a singular demand, but a list, though incomplete at the moment: 

The People's Anti-Corportion Bill

• Politicians both current and running must disclose all corporate donations to their campaigns on their websites.
• State elected officials will not cajole businesses of other states to their state by offering tax breaks.
• A corporation--having legal personhood--must be accountable to the People in the American court system--both state and national--as would a human being, its CEOs being liable for due punishment.
• Betting upon the success or failure of a market is gambling and therefore illegal with public funds.
• The government will no longer give public funds to private institutions in the form of bailouts.
• Governments must disclose all non-profits applying for federal, state, or local grants.
• All banks having received recent bailouts must pay back their loans with interest to the People by 2015, or risk seizure of private assests by the national government.
• The Federal Reserve--being a private institution--will no longer be granted permission by the national, state, or local governments to print national currency.
• Public taxes collected by the IRS will no longer support the Federal Reserve, as it is a private institution.
• Banks will no longer sell their debts to other banks--they are as accountable as People in the American court system.
• College tuition increases must correlate only with national inflation; student fee increases must first be proposed and voted upon by the students.

That is for the near future.  Other statutes that I am would like to see instated:

The People's Anti-Manipulation Bill

• Commercials for cosmetics, fragrances, body altering devices, weight-loss supplements, and weight-loss programs will only air on the television after 10pm in any area's given time-zone.
• Blatant product placement (more than 2 visible images or verbal mentions intended for endorsement) are banned from television shows and movies.
• Corporate logos and soda vending machines are to be removed from public schools.
• Blantant hate-speech conveyed through the media will be liable as slander upon the People.  (*I admit that this issue would be very difficult to try.  Then again, perhaps not with an argument well-crafted by a critical thinker.)

The People's Restoration of Civil Liberties Bill

• The elimination of militant foreign presence--the complete removal of American military personel on duty in foreign lands.
• From hereon, The Department of Homeland Security will no longer conduct business.
• From hereon, the IMF will no longer indenture other nations.  The IMF will no longer conduct business and would cease to exist.
• Abuses of preisthood are accountable to the People as a global entity, liable for due punishment by the courts representive of the victim.  (This would be an issue for the UN.)
• The immediate legalization of marijuana and cocaine nationally; states will be granted the option to opt-out.  (*The bloodshed terrorizing Mexico is executed by the drug cartels; 50% of the world's demand for Mexican-grown cocaine comes from the US.  The US has more prisons and inmates than any other developed country with the vast majority of the inmates being people of color.  From a fiscal stand-point, imprisoning people costs more tax dollars than if the people whom needed treatment got treatment.) 

Kitty Sit-In

Cats peacefully protest their hunger by sitting on and around the bed until their sleeping owner agrees to their demands of waking up and feeding them.

Fox News attempts to attract young viewers with late-night "coverage" on #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

Fox News attempts to trend upon the creative methods of popular entertainment programs such as The Daily Show and Colbert Report on its late-night program Red Eye this week, methods in which shows send out correspondents to playfully jostle its subjects in ways that, while entertaining, challenge ideas and perspectives of both viewers and interviewees, a method that Fox News, well, ultimately fails.

This particular Red Eye program began with host Andy Levy speaking in rhymed verse perverse assumptions and exaggerations of the people protesting.  The host then introduced its "smelliest correspondent" personality Bill Schulz dressed in attire straight out of a Rolling Stones photographic essay on Woodstock, and whom had prior to airtime ascended upon Zuccotti Park, holding signs and shouting asinine things in mock protest such as "I like toast, bagels suck!  Yay toast!  Boo bagels!" and "Bring back 'Growing Pains'!"  Immediately following the segment, Fox then segued into the formulaic obligatory opinions panel consisting of Levy, Schulz, the obligatorily hot white woman, and a younger white man and a middle-aged black man to “diversify” their opinions.  Missing both the point of satire and the plight of their subjects entirely (as usual), the Fox program succeeds in nothing more (as usual) than loud-mouthed media bullying.  The purpose of satire is to elevate thought through very intelligent comedy that can sometimes be offensive; Schulz was more obnoxious than witty.  Furthermore, Red Eye’s “diverse” opinion panel is such a contrived concept, and the majority of the panelists have no desire to be intellectually elevated or to elevate their viewers—they are comfortably settled into their overt disdain for their subjects.  The complaint of young people that they are not listened to is founded, Fox News being proof.

Fox also fails its outreach because American youths flat out don't watch Fox.  If you ask a young college kid (and it’s not long ago that I myself was one), Fox is for old people, and people who never fully developed past the ego phase psychologically in childhood, and "Don't Tread On Me" baseball-cap wearers whom believe that America's saviors are Gold and Silver, and people who don't think for themselves or challenge ideas, so they make fun of people who do.  In a time-honored tradition of old curmudgeons mocking the youth instead of making sincere efforts to understand them, Fox News delivers to its ageing and waning demographic, which brings me to my third reason of why Fox News fails to attract young viewers: Fox News is disingenuous and cruel, a business model that is increasingly becoming unpopular and obsolete in a population of global citizens.

This segment is just another example of how Fox News embarrasses the American people and debases the profession of journalism, a profession whose duty is to investigate social events and report critically, not to impose their uncouth opinions, ill-informed assumptions, and biased values upon them.

Watch part of the segment here.  I could not find a video on YouTube that includes the discussion afterwards; I will update the link if I do.

Legalization of Marijuana in Colorado--is this happening?

Last night while waiting for The Daily Show to begin, my mother and sister and I were sitting idlely around the television flipping between channels.  I then witnessed something that I had to confirm with my company out loud because I could not believe that it was real.

The scene was a coffee shop; a woman, perhaps in her forties, held a mug in one hand and gesticulated with the other:  "It's not that I like it--personally--but it's time for a conversation about legalizing marijuana."

"What?  Is this happening?" I kept asking.  "Is this real?"

"Yup," my sister confirmed.

It is real: commercials airing for the legalization of marijuana in the state of Colorado, funded by the Citizens of Responsible Legalization.  The issue to legalize marijuana is scheduled to be on the ballot this November.  The issue has appeared on the Colorado ballot before, and did not pass by a slim margin.

I should tell you something about the city in which I reside, to account for my shock.  Colorado is this bizarre dichotomy.  On one side of the spectrum, you have super conservative groups based here: Colorado Springs alone is home to 3 military bases, the Air Force Academy, Focus on the Family, New Life Church; we're this hub (and shelter) for religious fundamentalism (very near to my home is a street that my siblings and I grew up calling Church Street because one intersection is flanked by 3 churches; go down the street and there is another).  A Christian writer's guilde is based here in the Springs, as well.  The seeds of fundamentalism are scattered throughout the state, but the nexus is here, in my town. 

On the other side of the spectrum, there is this a plucky, indepedent streak, especially observed in people up the Pass and in mountainous areas that harkens back to tough-skinned settlers and miners that account to no one but themselves and their beautiful surroundings, surroundings that deeply resonated with folk singer John Denver, whom penned our state song; it's these people who devoutly foster alternative lifestyles. 

And somewhere in the midst of all this culture clash, you get the sense of refined society (like in Downtown Colorado Springs and much of Denver), cultured "progressives" whom value the arts and education and are receptive to the plight of immigrants' children.  There is a strong sense of genuine intelluctualism around research college Colorado State University, in Fort Collins. 

This area surprises me all of the time.  So I'm still a little stupified that this commercial would get airplay here, but I believe that it's time is due; my mother teaches at a high school, and I used to work with teens at a library, and so if you hang out around teens, you will know exactly how this generation feels about marijuana.  In my lifetime, if not this year, Colorado will see the legalization of marijuana.

And now for your viewing pleasure (or perhaps cultural nostalgia), follow the link to John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High," the state song of Colorado.

Helplessness Blues

This past week Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues came in for me at the library; I was 50-something on the holds list when I placed the hold some months ago.  As the first verse of the first track rolled and undulated from my stereo’s speakers, I was immediately struck; right away I saw my reflection in the lyrics, as if Robin Pecknold was holding up a mirror to my own thoughts. 

“So now I am older than my mother and father when they had their daughter; now what does that say about me?  Oh how could I dream of such a selfless and true love?  Could I wash my hands of just looking out for me?”  The lyrics are self-critical, but it’s not wholly our faults.

The track reminded me of a book that I read sometime this spring I called Not Quite Adults by Richard Stettersten, Ph.D and Barbara E. Ray.  As a study in sociology, the book essentially discusses how, due to economic and social changes (but especially economic shifts), this generation is slower to undertake what are traditionally adult developments: moving out, starting careers, going to college, buying a home, getting married, starting families.  Traditionally, these things were all accomplished in the early to mid-twenties; these stages are now accomplished a decade late.  And here I am in the shadow of my 25^th birthday, and to me, these things are a lot to expect of a person, especially in this time of rampant uncertainty and defeat.  Life experiences cost more money than they once did and everyday labor earns less money than before.  My rationale is this: I did not ask to be born of a world that comes with a price tag; how could I bring a child into this world?  And I've always felt (even as a child, I recall) that there's got to be more to life than following what was traditionally expected of me.

I applaud the book’s unpretentiousness, and I am thankful that a member of an older generation has granted some legitimacy to the culture of my generation when so often my generation (and the generation after me) is the butt of jokes and resigned to both obscurity or absurdity (see those new Toyota Venza commercials?).  They call for more resilient and diverse industries that would employ people across the spectrum, an issue that I whole-heartedly support.  Ultimately, however, very near the end, I put down the book in frustration.  The dual-authorship produces not an inter-disciplinary study but a schizophrenic child, one just as idle as my own generation.  Despite discussing that economically careers are less diverse, plentiful, and lucrative as they once were and that a significant number of students drop out of college and graduate school because they are not ready (because of social immaturity, or academic unpreparedness, or financial strains, or a number of other reasons), the book kept pushing the need for students to pursue college and graduate school.  How is this going to placate our situation when it is clear that people feel burnt out and hopeless to compete for the small, homogenous pool of information/technology jobs?  The book discusses the ill-fated trend in which parents will take out mortgages to send their children to college, particularly ivy league schools, then turns 180 degrees to state that ivy leaguers truly have the best chances at landing into stable, high-paying jobs and propagates: “the time is now to invest; college debt is good debt.”  College, college, college, they kept pushing college.

I am weary of this advice.  Having laid out thousands of dollars in debt for a college education of which I am still weighing its lucrative usefulness, what rings more true and lucid to me is “Bedouin Dress”: “The borrower’s debt is the only regret of my youth.”

I feel slightly dooped; I vacillate between feeling angy and confused.  My misery finds company in Helplessness Blues.

Long Thought

I read an article where the contributor encouraged one to have long thought.  Here is a day of long thought.

Tuesday the 20^th of September

2:15pm—I woke up in the early afternoon to the shrill cries of a bulldozer and the persistent pecking of a jackhammer thrusting its nose into concrete.  I looked to my book shelf to my left and surveyed my books.  Could it be that I have too many?  I pulled a small but thick book of photographs and thumbing through it landed upon the photographs that caught my intrigue.  I remember that Madame Yvonde is one of my favorite featured artists (although I did not remember that her name is Madame Yvonde)—she appears last in the book.

I came across a picture taken in Afghanistan in 1986; in the foreground the shadow of two pairs of legs dangling from the nose of a tank; in the background, walls of crumbling brick that used to be houses.  In another photograph, one from the 1950s, were two water fountains against a wall.  Above the left fountain (which appeared to be refridgerated) was a sign that read “Whites.”  From this fountain stemmed a copper pipe that flowered into a shallow copper dish to the right; above this read a sign “Colored;” the blurred face of a  man was rising from it.

I felt very sad.

I put this book away and again surveyed my collection of books.  Yes, too many books, but which to give away?  My eyes landed upon Fitgerald’s Paradise Lost; the jackhammer was again pecking at the pavement outside the windows, so I felt very compelled to read this book that heralded an age of youthful confusion and excitement (much like my time).

I sat down to write down to write about what I just felt when I noticed my brother’s cat, Oliver, up on the window sill, gnawing on the threads of what was a spider’s web.  He then got his left front paw stuck in the screen.  He panicked.  Afraid that he was going to hurt himself, I got up from my chair, and just then his claws freed.  He jumped down and ran from the room, quite horrified.

The sun is now beginning to recede from the basement where I sit; I must begin to read soon.

3:28 pm—Is it self-inflicted isolation to read as much as I do?  Perhaps my excessive indulgence into literature is another facet of consumption, for I have yet to give anything back as of recent for the knowledge that I have consumed.  To perform music as I once did is to give back, but sitting here and ruminating does nothing to enhance human thought if my thoughts are not put to paper and given to the world.

3:39 pm—On a rainy afternoon last week I planted the seed of scattered words and phrases into the pages of my Catcher, the blueprint, the skeleton of a manifesto.  It remains to be written, steeping in my brain.  Wake up.  Is there something written of the scattered mind besides the need to medicate?

11:00 pm—I become aware of the abandon of my nightly dreams, which just months ago I recorded with diligence and wonder.

Wednesday the 21^st of September

1:57 am—Looking at my vast collection of books, I recognize why I am attached to certain things.  Every object has a purpose; when they (the objects) go unused and unread, their purpose is not being utilized and appreciated.  It is with guilt that these items have not lived their purposes under my care that I continue to possess them, thinking foolishly, “One day I will read this, one day I will wear this . . . “

1:30 pm—“It takes a whole village to raise a child.”

The German word for school is kindergarten, kinder meaning “children” and garten meaning “garden” . . . hence, a place for growing children.  If we treated children as apple seeds, gave them foundations for their roots to grab firmly, then they would grow fruit with which to nourish others.

There where times in my life when I felt not like a tree, but just its flower: a means of presentation and seduction, a means of production (this is of course when I followed what tradition expected of me); how purposeless I felt then.  But, truly, for most of my life, I’ve felt happily as a weed.  Weeds are much more useful than as they are lauded to be.

"They're infected with rage!"

Rage is spreading . . .

Althought the initial Day of Rage is scheduled to take place in October in DC, cities throughout the US have adopted the moniker for a day of solidarity with the Wall Street occupiers.  The US Day of Rage (September 17th) which began with #OCCUPYWALLSTREET has spread up the Pacific Coast to Los Angeles and up through Portland and Seattle.  Austin, TX is also hosting a Day of Rage protest.  Madison, WI, will occupy Capitol Square until the 19th.  The rage is spreading faster than zombies can run because in a digital world, information is instantaneous . . .

Meanwhile Algeria has organized an occupation, and Amsterdam launched a whole day and night of Yes We Camp!  And did I mention that Lisbon, Athens, Santander, and Israel are all packing up and marching?

This is incredible that an American movement can resonate throughout the world!  This goes to show how much the world pays attention to the US; if we could create radical change, the rest of humanity would follow.  It also shows that despite our floundering economy (and it's awful that money is equated with influence) we as Americans are still leaders, which makes complete sense since we are the country that ushered in the globalized economy.  We made a huge mess; now let's clean it up with rage!  The nonviolent, creative kind!

Localization of Food Report from Transition Colorado

Brian Fritz from Transition Manitou emailed this report to me, which was recently released at the Boulder EAT LOCAL! week.

Here is the press release:

For Immediate Release

Contact: Michael Brownlee, Localization Partners LLC, tel 303.494.1521, michael@transitioncolorado.org
Steven Hoffman, Compass Natural Marketing, tel 303.807.1042, steve@compassnatural.com

 Boulder County Localization Study Shows 25% Local Food Shift Could Create 31,000 New Jobs in Colorado

 Increased food localization could add 1,700 new jobs in Boulder County, 24,000 in the Front Range and 31,000 in the state of Colorado. The effect of a 25% shift in food localization could produce $137 million in annual gross domestic product (GDP) for Boulder County, $1.6 billion for the Front Range, and $2.2 billion for the State of Colorado, says the author of a new research study funded by Transition Colorado and Boulder County.
 Boulder, Colorado (September 7, 2011) – Boulder County could achieve a 25% shift towards food localization that would create a 14% increase in job growth and an additional $12 million in annual tax revenues, says economist and food system expert Michael Shuman. 

 Shuman presented his initial findings on September 1 in Boulder as part of EAT LOCAL! Week, an event produced by Transition Colorado to raise awareness of local food issues. Shuman’s Food Localization Study, funded by Transition Colorado and Boulder County, focuses on the potential economic impact that increased self-reliance in a local food economy would have on Boulder County, the Northern Colorado Front Range and the state of Colorado. The study revealed that although the food industry accounted for only 5% of the economy in Boulder County, 13 counties in the Front Range, and for the entire state of Colorado, the impact on GDP would be significant. Potential to Add $2.2 Billion to the Colorado Economy
In achieving 25% food localization, Boulder County’s GDP would increase annually by $137 million, $1.6 billion for the Front Range region and $2.2 billion for all of Colorado, according to the study. In a downturned economy these numbers could create the growth that government leaders have been searching for and citizens desperately need, said Shuman. 

 “Our goal at Transition Colorado is to provide Colorado counties with the tools they need to create resilient, self-reliant local food economies. The initial phase of this study has shown us that a 25% shift toward food localization creates jobs and tax revenue, and moves us toward a more sovereign, secure food system,” said Michael Brownlee, co-founder of the nonprofit Transition Colorado. His organization is coordinating the second phase of the study, the development of a comprehensive strategic plan to actually achieve an average of 25% food localization in Boulder County by 2020.

 Shuman and Brownlee agree that becoming self-reliant in food means meeting consumer demand for food products locally. The goal is to source raw materials, commodities and finished goods as locally as possible—first from within the county, then regionally and throughout the state. It also means buying these products from locally owned businesses. This keeps the circle of money in the community, which increases fiscal health. “Localization is not about spending more money on food but building community wealth through local sourcing,” said Shuman.

 Shuman has become known as an authority on how to build local economies. He is the Director of Research and Economic Development at the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). He holds an A.B. with distinction in economics and international relations from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. Shuman has authored three books on his subject matter, and has completed several local food studies in communities across the United States and the world. Regardless of the assignment, Shuman’s goal to promote community-based development is clear. His mantra: “Live Local, Think Global.”
 “According to US Department of Agriculture data, Colorado citizens spend $12 billion per year on food, 97% of which is imported from outside the state,” said Michael Brownlee. Shuman regards these trade imbalances as food “leakages” which could also be viewed as opportunities to expand existing businesses or to establish new businesses that would contribute to a diversified local food system. This in turn creates growth, including jobs, by meeting an already existing demand, Shuman said.

 Another factor behind food localization that many Boulderites might find interesting is the potential effect on food prices. As local production increases, prices for locally produced food—which is usually of higher quality—will become subject to greater competition, allowing the market to largely dictate price. At the same time there are other benefits including a reduction in distribution costs and the resulting carbon footprint. Other major benefits include rural development, public health and a potential halo over Boulder’s global image, according to Shuman.

 How to Finance the Local Food Shift: As vibrant as the “buy local” sentiment is in Boulder County, Shuman believes there are ample resources to pursue these opportunities and diversify the local economy. Boulder, the Front Range and Colorado can create a secure and sovereign food system that will mitigate the local impacts of the global food crisis, he said. 

 According to Shuman’s calculations, Boulder County residents currently have $34 billion in short-term and long-term savings. The shift to a 25% localized food system would require an estimated $126 million in capital investments—equal to just .5% of long-term savings or 1.7% of the short-term savings, he projected. This largely means asking community members to minimally reduce their investments in Fortune 500 businesses and directing these funds instead into local food and farming enterprises. A 1% Fund for Local Food could be developed to raise the funds and help people initiate self-directed IRAs, another growing financial trend, Shuman suggested.

 About Transition Colorado: Transition Colorado is a nonprofit 501c3 organization committed to fostering self-reliance among local communities in Colorado and beyond. Transition Colorado is the producer of the annual EAT LOCAL! Week, held this year in Boulder on August 27 – September 4, 2011, to educate the community and celebrate and promote the development of local food economies. The organization has recently launched Localization Partners LLC as a for-profit company seeking to catalyze investment in local food and farming enterprises through joint ventures and small-scale investments. For more information visit http://www.transitioncolorado.org/ or contact Michael Brownlee, tel 303.494.1521, michael@transitioncolorado.org.
 

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET

As 2010 waned, Canadian-based magazine Adbusters initiated a slew of campaigns for 2011 and beyond.  One of them falls on my birthday, September 17th.

http://www.occupywallstreet.org/

What are Canadians doing in Wall Street?  Well, the idea of Occupy Wall Street is for Americans (the attendence goal is 20,000; 5,000 have confirmed) to peacefully occupy the financial district of New York by setting up tents and kitchens (and bathrooms, I presume) in protest from September 17th at 2:00pm until December 24th st 5:00pm.  I am on the fence about whether or not I will go, personally.  In these hard times, I feel a special responsibility to my family, a duty that I have never felt before; on the otherhand, if this is something that will truly change the course that has caused widespread poverty, globalization, over-consumption, and sensationalism, then, dammit, I want to be a part of it!

I am curious to see how this campaign unfolds in America.  I feel like Americans are not pissed off enough to demand reform collectively as a nation, that we don't feel that enough is at stake, unlike in Greece and Spain where it is estimated that 40% of young people are unemployed.  Also, Americans tend to be complacent.  But I hope that this campaign proves me wrong; I feel that once a movement has gained momentum, it cannot be stopped.  Does this campaign have want it takes to become a movement?

Noami Wolf describes in her talk "Fake Activism" (link!) that a movement takes mass protests in order to be effective and necessitates the implementation of civilly illegal acts such as marching in the streets (this distrupts business) and marching without a permit; violence is not needed (and should not be used), but dissent is.  The need for a permit to protest at all is one construct that contributes to what Noami Wolf calls fake activism.  She states that, based on her research, there are systematic barriers in laws to dissaude Americans from having genuine protests.

There are #OCCUPY events scheduled in San Francisco, Madrid, Toronto, London, and a slew of other major cities throughout the world.  For the US, what I think would be very effective is an Occupy DC, right on the steps of the White House.  That would disrupt business-as-usual, surely.  But then again, maybe not, since it appears that Congress can't do its job anyway.

The Take (La Toma)

While in Portland, OR, I met Mike, a Canadian.  We have since kept in touch, and a few days ago, he emailed this link to me:

The Take (La Toma)

The Take is a Canadian produced documentary following a trend that is occurring in Argentina that has the workers taking over the factories that closed and laid them off.  On Youtube (the link above), the documentary is broken up into 9 segments.  After the first segement, a link for the second segment should automatically pop up in the "play" window; if not, then the links will be listed off to the right.  Don't let the cheesey poster dissuade you; it's incredibly empowering--please watch it.

Just read: Havana Real by Yoani Sanchez

An hour or so ago, I finished Havana Real by Yoani Sanchez (translation by M.J. Porter), an active account of how a Cuban woman was able to grant the people of Cuba a voice through the medium of virtual blogging.  At the inception of her blog, internet access was available in Cuba yet granted only to the foreign tourists in hotels; to gain access to the internet, Sanchez would disguise herself as a tourist, sometimes donning a wig and speaking a mixture of English and German.  Part catharsis, part call-to-arms, part ode to the technology that granted her a voice to speak in a totalitarian society, this blog turned book provided to me a glimpse of Cuba that I had heard about, in infamy, but which I wasn't able to "see" until I read her account.

I stumbled upon this book (published merely months ago) while searching through the library's catalog; I felt that I needed to get as many viewpoints on Cuba as I could, since I was not alive during the Bay of Pigs and I was too young to remember the fall of the Soviet Union.  To my embarrassment, the only piece of news that I can remember regarding Cuba was when Eli Gonzales was found, at the age of 6, on a raft off of the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, and then the years long battle of which conutry had the right to host him.  I remember once my parents watching a news segment on the poverty in Cuba, and I was too young to understand the situation at the time; the image that I can recall most vividly is of a boy in dirty clothes and sandels, chasing a soccer ball in a dusty road, with a delapidated buildings in the background, and trash strewn in their yards.

My interest piqued in Cuba when, through Transitions Manitou, I saw a documentary about the ingenuity of its people; after the Soviet Union fell following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union pulled out all of its annual funds from Cuba.  The people of Cuba were left to pick up the pieces on their own and somehow find a way to survive.  The documentary showcased the plucky spirit of its creative people whom turned empty buildings into aprtments, made buses out of old Soviet trailer trucks, and turned empty plots of land into flourishing organic gardens that would feed schools and whole communities.  They created community Universities and hospitals and came up with alternative ways of job training and trade, such as sending nurses to other Latin American countries to work in exchange for medicines and equipment for Cuban hospitals.

These are the stories of an oppournity-seizing people which I hoped that I would find in Havana Real.  I found something else entirely.

Sanchez's account was that of a people, not empowered but their creativity but of a people still defeated by an oppressive lack of freedoms, the freedom of voice, the freedom of choice, and most astonishing to me, the freedom to buy enough nutritious food.  Sanchez's is an account of how Soviet sponsorship birthed Generation Y; how Raul Castro promised a glass of milk with every breakfast, a promise that was later cut from the recaps and the official printed transcripts; how the people still used ration cards; how the government added peas to coffee to make it last longer; how people became fanatical upon hearing gossip of a shipment of a product; how obtaining nutritious meals was impossible due to two currencies with unfair exchange rates; how every first grader, since her own grade school years, graduates to become a Pioneer; all of these things were both fascianting and illuminating.  Towards the middle of the book I felt slightly exhausted by the metaphors for the motifs of struggle and freedom, but I had to remind myself of the possibly that she (and the other Cubans whom she inspired to begin blogging) could be a person who could by feeling empowerment for the first time; that must have been very exciting for her and fellow Cubans.  Here's me, an American with a college education, who did not starve as a child, who was not taught ideology in primary school, who looked at her account critically and found the book wanting of concrete evidence of some of her accounts and accusations.  But looking at pictures of her starved skeleton of a frame, could she have had the time and resources to do journalist research?  I ask not rhetorically, but in all seriousness.

I was also puzzled as to why, as oppressive as she shows the Castro regime to be, the Cuban government has not imprisoned her.  However, Sanchez reveals that machismo is rampant in Cuba, so perhaps the government does not view her as too much of a threat as she is a woman.  Furthermore, Sanchez is the recipient of numerous international and European awards for her blog; imprisonment from the Cuban government could inflame reactions from foreign nations.  Alas, I am speculating.

As a production critique, there are some accounts that I did not understand.  For instance Yoani had a friend whom starved himself to death in prison, and there wasn't a whole lot of detail on his account.  There were Spanish words and bits of Cuban culture that I could not contextualize.  There are notes and endnotes throughout the book; it would have been helpful to have notes in instances such as these.

But going back to the content, I thought afterwards for a long time, trying to digest what I saw in contrast to what I read.  I do feel that both the documentary and Sanchez are true in their experiences.  The documentary showcased the univesral human spirit that allows us to see opportunities through nothing, to seize their lives and experiment.  Sanchez represents a demographic of people that--for reasons that social scientists struggle to figure out--continue to fall prey to top-down paradigms.  Hers is a people that is still underrepesented, still impoverished, still defeated.  The best example of this collective defeat was in a blog entry accounting the time that Sanchez and a friend were pulled into a van from a populated street and beaten in broad daylight; she called out for help, but no one came.

But what both mediums show when put side by side is a dichotomy inherit in any social structure, a dichtomoy of enterprising individuals that find a way to live comfortably and improvished victims that despite their efforts continue to struggle, who survive by illegal activities.  Though less extreme and with less (adequate) media coverage, we, too, have this dichotomy in the United States.  Through my studies, I am beginning to surmise that this dichotomy exists in every nation, developed or developing.  But what differentiates Cuba's dichotomy to that of the US or another developed country is the magnitude of Cuba's poverty and lack of collective human rights as Yoani Sanchez reveals.

What is exciting about Yoani's experience is that she represents a trend of peoples who utilize technology and the internet as a way to solidify and mobilize their causes; paradoxically, as Adbusters toted in their 2009 Virtual World/Natural World issue, the internet is the "ultimate anarchy."  I wonder why the people of Cuba haven't revolted yet.

Yoani Sanchez has penned and published a slew of books; Cuba Libre, in particular, I am interesting in reading.

Further reading:

• http://www.vocescubanas.com/ (the website that Yoani helped to initiate of blogs written by Cubans and translated into English, French, German, Polish, and other languages by volunteers throughout the world)
•  www.desdecuba.com/generationy (the English version of Yoani's blog)