Tag Archives: history

On the Road

24 Hours in Amsterdam has not allowed me to prepare a podcast. Mostly it involves unpacking, repacking, cleaning, and preparing my equipment for the 24C3 in Berlin.

If you have not yet seen the documentation video from last years Chaos Communication Congress, here is the link.  I say a few lines in it, as do some nice folks that I know.

Some people might wonder what I say about the Bhutto assasination, sorry to disappoint but I don’t have much to say.  They knew full well the risks they took and I commend her and her people for facing death so bravely.  I’m not a huge Bhutto admirer, but the way she has carried herself in the face of so much pressure and hatred, I commend her and regret that this has happened. Unfortunately they will once again re-write history and hijack a tragedy by making this an excuse to dedicate more money for their crusade entitled “the war on terrorism”.

Homeless America

On my way down the street in one of Washington DC’s hippest neighborhoods, I look at all the houses and the people, in search of what I can say about this place at this point in history.  I ride the metro here and there, out to the lovely suburbs, and I wonder if this region represents the United States in a small scale.  Some friends and I walk into a local liquor store to buy a bottle of wine, and we have a brief exchange with various homeless people out front, and step over the passed out man on the floor of the shop before paying the cashier through a bullet proof glass window.  Yet we walk down the street and see beautiful homes, people walk their dogs and say hi to you sometimes.  Behind the cast-iron bars on the windows and doors, there are families, college kids, artists, and people of all walks of life.

Does DC teach us something about what the United States is all about? Or is it an anomaly of a city that doesn’t even have a state?

One thing deserving of more attention, in this city and beyond, is the amount of people living on the streets.  The Los Angeles Homeless Coalition says that 3.5 million Americans will be homeless in a given year.  3.5 million.  On the streets. In a shelter only in the rarest of cases.  They also say 1 in every 5 suffer from a severe mental illness, no where is that more apparent then in our nations capital. Much like the shelters that are nonexistent or inadequate, so too are the public mental health institutions, places where people can go to get treatment and off the streets.  People in DC tell me about them. They have names for them “stabby dancer” for the guy who would dance around and occasionally stab people with a pen knife.  “Blanket guy” for the man wrapped in a blanket who you see on your way down the street each morning.  They notice them, yet in many ways, these people are not at all noticed.  Ignored and deemed invisible by their community and by their government… both of which seem to hope they’ll simply disappear.

Older and As Critical As Ever

Today I am 28 years old. Before I get into the topic on my mind, big thanks to all those who took the time on facebook or here or in email.. to wish me well. Made me feel very special, I appreciate that. But nevermind me and age.

In discussions, both online and off, people often want to place one another in a little box – to summarize the person’s beliefs in one or two words. You’ve heard them all, they sometimes appear in blog comments “you leftists…. you neoconservatives… you christians.. you scientologists.. you commies” etc. These types of labels are an effort not to see someone as complex as they probably are or to simply write off whatever they have to say due to some predetermined belief system. Obviously I seek to advocate the idea that people are more complex, even if the tagline at the top of this blog uses some adjectives, I am both some of that and none of that.

This comes to mind as I listen to more and more analyses of the referendum in Venezuela a few weeks ago. For those not keeping score, president Chavez and his supporters in government put forward a proposal that would give him some greater powers and supposedly allow him to stay president long past the normal term limit. The proposal included several other measures, which the president has called necessary in order to carry out a socialist revolution. Actually I don’t even know if that is completely true as all I read lately are analyses and I’ve never seen with my own eyes, these documents.. but Ill accept that this is what they are essentially about as I have listened to a few Chavez speeches on the topic. The proposal was put to referendum, where citizens could vote if they were for or against it.

The verdict was NO. Citizens voted down this measure, and various media and leaders throughout the world have pointed to this as a great defeat or Chavez (who many of them hate with a passion) or as a victory for democracy in Venezuela.

Much like one of the correspondents on a recent edition of Uprising (the podcast), despite my frequent admiration or support of Chavez’s words and actions, in this case I’m with all those people who were against the measure. I’m a firm believer, with plenty of history in every part of the world to support the idea, that power corrupts. And while I do believe its necessary to stand up to bullies, whether they are in Moscow or in Washington DC (where Im headed in the morning), I also believe that no human should be given divine and unlimited powers. This proposal sounded like too much power and an invitation for corruption and injustice on a mass scale.

I listened attentively to Chavez’s reaction following the vote. I wondered if he would call the No voters terrorists, using that now cliché strategy. But he didn’t. He sucked it up and conceded defeat. Which is encouraging to me. He is certainly no Gandhi, and this may not be the last troubling measure he puts forward, but I’m glad to see he can admit when he has lost something, and I hope that everyone understands that whether you’re considered a “leftist” or a “conservative”, ideas and values are not that simple and cannot be summarized so easily.

A cycle? Or an explosion?

I often listen to my own podcast. Might sound strange, but one of my rituals, besides losing most of my nights sleep preparing a podcast, is to listen to it the next day as I ride my bike through town. I listen to try and hear what others might hear; an idea or an experience that teaches me something, gives me a new idea or leads to deeper questions.

Lately I’ve noticed a common thread; through all the podcasts about work, income, quality of life, and history. That common thread is the question of whether or not things are happening as part of a cycle or have we reached some kind of major confrontation.

I’m referring to the strikes but I’m also referring to the inequality in the world. I’ve read the reports, looked at the statistics, and listened to individuals tell their stories and their evaluations about this moment in history. The strikes around the world, pitting people struggling to make a living against companies or governments who also struggle to do what they think is necessary for the future. Pension cuts, job cuts, contract negotiations collapsing, governments against workers, corporations against workers, public opinion against strikers, the conflicts and alliances go on and on.

Of course I’m too young to make some bold statement that this is some unique moment in history. Whenever I ask more experienced people they give me a mix of reactions, that these things happen in cycles and this is just the return of old stuggles as old as time itself.

In a recent interview for a forthcoming podcast, I asked a very excellent journalist who covers labor, if he thinks we’ve reached some climax in the struggle to make ends-meat. He didn’t see it as a climax, yet he did talk about what a huge boom of interest there is for his work now more than ever before. More and more individuals want to know about their rights as working people, and have a clear idea of their wages and benefits and they’re using the internet to find out about these issues.

Still I’m left wondering… is this truly a unique moment in history? Is this more of the same or the return of some age-old cycle?

BioFuel and Food

The topic of biofuels is not always my favorite to talk about. It is complex, it is a very grey area when it comes to benefits versus drawbacks.

Yet overall as someone who supports social justice, sustainability, human rights, and cleaning up the mess we have made of the world, I welcome the era of biofuels that we seem to be at the beginning of.

Among the great points of the big debate is the issue of world hunger and the price of food. As many of you will know by now, there is a great deal of speculation and already some evidence that food prices will go up because so much food is being turned into fuel. Many critics say, this is the problem if we make the global focus bio fuels.

The initial issue I have with this argument is the idea that world hunger will worsen and that food prices will increase. It is a fact that IF the leaders of the world wanted to, there is enough food in the world to feed everyone. But when you introduce the politics and economics of food production, that food never reaches the hungry. So this is already a problem no matter what we’re using to fuel vehicles.

Then comes the issue of rising food prices, a much tougher one for me get into since I’m neither a farmer nor can I see the future in terms of prices. I do however believe that governments could cooperate to make sure prices would not get out of control. Again it requires that they WANT TO solve the problem, and based on history it is clear that ending hunger is NOT the priority of world leaders.

Of course there’s alot more to it and I hope to build on this discussion through both writing and podcasts. For now I want to recommend the latest edition of The State We’re In; specifically a conversation they have with a Brazilian farmer that, for me, is very interesting and informative.

Drowning Torture

Waterboarding is one of those words that is pushed on the public in order to distract or mislead people from thinking about the actual crime it involves.

On the latest edition of On The Media, they did a fantastic job of exploring the manipulation of this word and what it means. At one point, a high-up military official comes on and says that actually the name waterboarding is incorrect, the real name should be Drowning Torture, because that is what it is. Later in the program some people argue about the semantics of what drowning is and can you drown if you don’t die, but nevermind that. The point that was made should render all following arguements moot… stop calling it Waterboarding.. if someone uses the term Waterboarding when talking about what United States soldiers are doing to prisoners, correct them – IT IS drowning torture… and it always has been.

After World War II, in 1947, the United States actually convicted a Japanese soldier of “Waterboarding”.. Drowning Torture. He was sentenced to 15 years hard labor.

More than 50 years later… it is about time that the individuals responsible for ordering and carrying out Drowning Torture get sentenced to some hard labor of their own.