Politics:
Eat The State |
Washington Free Press |
Clamor Magazine
Author and activist
Michael Parenti defines the Left as “those individuals, organizations, and
governments that oppose the privileged interests of wealthy propertied
classes while advocating egalitarian redistributive policies and a common
development beneficial to the general populace.” My political sympathies
are aligned with Parenti’s and I believe the most pressing concerns of
America’s increasingly impoverished working class are ignored by both
major parties and invisible in mainstream political discourse. I write
with the hope of exposing these issues to a wider audience and with the
hope that this increased awareness will lead to political action.
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Eat The State is a completely
volunteer publication based in Seattle, Washington that describes
itself as "a forum for anti-authoritarian political opinion,
research and humor. |
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Volume 10,
#18:
May 11, 2006
Chew
Swallow Digest
"The public version of the news event is never really what
happened," the late Hunter S. Thompson asserted during a radio
interview shortly after the September 11 attacks. For the duration
of their 80-minute documentary, "Loose Change (2nd Edition),"
filmmakers Dylan Avery and Korey Rowe provide substantial evidence
to back Thompson's claim, dismantling the widespread government
account that the country was attacked by Middle Eastern terrorists
and arguing instead that the American government orchestrated the
attacks themselves.
Never mind that several Pentagon officials canceled their September
11 flights, or that Condi Rice called SF Mayor Willie Brown and told
him not to fly, or that "put options" trading on United, American
Airlines and Boeing skyrocketed in the week before the attack. All
of these facts are a matter of the public record if somewhat
underreported. The filmmakers' case is built upon five more
startling points.
(for entire article click here)
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The Washington Free Press
is a small,
Seattle-based newspaper dealing with progressive politics and
social/cultural issues neglected by the mainstream press. I
proofread stories, make regular writing contributions, and
occasionally help distribute the paper. In return, I’m given almost
total journalistic freedom. The paper’s groundbreaking content has
routinely made Project Censored’s yearly list of stories
under-reported by the American media.
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Issue #83:
Opinion
A
Violent & Hopeless Course
Seattle shooting ought to trigger questions about American foreign
policy opinion by Joel Hanson Aboard bus 28 in downtown Seattle, I
noticed the memorial bouquets, signs, and candles covering the
entrance of the Jewish Federation offices on 3rd Avenue had been
abruptly removed, and with them the horrible memory of Naveed Afzal
Haq's July 28 shooting spree that killed one woman and injured five
others.
Who made this decision? I wondered with a trace of irritation, and
why was it made? Had some anonymous bureaucrat decided that the
period of grieving was officially over or was the decision made for
purely cosmetic reasons? I thought the move premature, a deliberate
attempt to bury the attack's uglier, but largely unexplored,
meanings before they tarnished the official version of the event.
For those who missed the story, at approximately 4pm on July 28, a
self-described "Muslim-American" man disgruntled by American foreign
policy in the Middle East, specifically with regard to the
Israel/Hezbollah conflict, walked into the offices of the Jewish
Federation and shot six employees, killing Pamela Waechter, the
group's 58-year-old campaign director. During the rampage, a
37-year-old pregnant woman named Dayna Klein was hit in the arm but
crawled to the phone and called 911 despite threats from the gunman.
Eventually, she handed the phone to Haq who spoke with the 911
operator before surrendering to police minutes later.
(for entire article click here)
For a New York Times article about the motivations
lone gunmen - click here.
For the journal entry
that was the basis for this article - click here.
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Issue #79:
Inside Syria
For now it's safe, but the Hariri assassination looms
My roommate
Romain and I were grocery shopping when we heard the news of the
latest suicide bombings. The blaring volume of an Arabic news report
drew our attention up to the fuzzy screen of a TV perched like a
gargoyle in a corner of the tiny cement-walled store. "Three
simultaneous hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan," Romain read the
Arabic ticker tape off the screen and then translated into English.
"At least 18 people dead, and 120 injured"--numbers that would
increase as more bodies were unearthed from the rubble later that
evening.
We left the store--and the chaotic images of Amman--behind and
climbed four blocks of steep cobblestone streets back to our
apartment, silenced by the effort. At 11pm, the streets were
beginning to empty and most shops were already closed for the
evening. We ascended the sidewalk stairs in darkness interrupted
periodically by the headlights of a passing car or the occasional
squares of fluorescent light cast onto the dusty road from small
stores all peddling identical products.
"Amman is a three-hour drive from Damascus," Romain reminded me as
we sat in our apartment minutes later, tuned to EuroNews for
additional information. But we both agreed the proximity of the
attack in no way compromises our relative safety in nearby
Damascus--even if it will cause our families and friends needless
worry.
(for entire article click here)
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Issue #75:
Good Ideas from Other Countries
'Naked Streets' in
Holland
How would you react if you found yourself driving down a street with
no signs or painted lines? Would you maintain your speed but panic
as you swerved around pedestrians and bikers indiscriminately
crossing the road or would you slow down and pay closer attention to
the people around you? The urban planners who intend to strip
Exhibition Road in London are banking on the latter based on similar
road-stripping experiments conducted in cities in Holland and
Denmark. "The lack of signage, curbs and signals actually encourages
drivers to self-regulate their actions and be more cautious," says
Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an urban design specialist quoted recently in
an article from Cox News Service. Statistics from urban planners in
Wiltshire confirm Hamilton-Baillie’s assertions. Speeds dropped five
percent and accident rates dropped 35 percent after removing the
center white line on several roads.
(for entire article click here)
Citywide Wi-Fi
By the summer of 2006, according to a report from Reuters, the city
of Philadelphia will be the first American metropolis to offer
citywide internet access for only $16-20 per month--roughly half the
price currently charged by the telecom monopolies. Estimated project
cost: $15 million to set up antennas on streetlight poles throughout
the city's 135-square-mile area. Of course, not everyone is happy
with the developments, including some city lawmakers who believe the
government is neither equipped nor has the money to offer such
services to its citizens and should let Verizon Communications or
Comcast Corporation bid on the project first.
The city of Minneapolis is considering its own citywide Wi-Fi
project with the costs, construction, ownership, and operation of
the system awarded to the business with the most attractive bid.
Philadelphia mayor John Street, also quoted in the Reuters report,
disagrees with this approach: "People want to be connected and we
think it is our obligation to provide that kind of access."
If the citywide Wi-Fi system is profitable, look for two overlapping
outcomes: 1) other cities will circumvent the telecom giants and
offer their own internet services to the general public 2) and more
people will again realize local governments can sometimes offer
basic services more cheaply and efficiently than private enterprise
can.
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Issue #74
Be Your Own Power
Company
Despite an almost total media blackout in the American press, the
Kyoto Protocol quietly went into effect on February 16. The
approximately 140 nations that ratified the treaty will now take
steps to limit their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990
levels--measures most climate experts agree are an insufficient
means of stabilizing the earth's atmosphere.
Nevertheless, the Bush
Administration refuses to implement these modest changes. They claim
the scientific arguments are spurious despite overwhelming evidence
to the contrary and, more importantly, that such emissions
reductions would be bad for big business.
(for entire article click here)
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Issue #66
Abysmal Amtrak Rail
Security
Two years after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration
civil-liberties busting attempts to protect the American populace
from future terrorist attacks have thus far neglected one
legitimately vulnerable transportation network: the Amtrak Rail
System.
One month after the 9/11 attacks, Senator Dick Durbin proposed a
$4.5-billion bill to improve Amtrak security--a sum that was
whittled down to $1.8 billion by the Senate Commerce Committee but
approved on October 17, 2001. Then, a year later, Senator Tom Caper
authored a $1.2-billion amendment to a homeland security bill in an
effort to secure more money for Amtrak security concerns. Caper
specifically earmarked $375 million to bolster security at all train
stations, bridges, tunnels, tracks, and rail yards of the Amtrak
system. After initial approval by the Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee, the amendment was dropped in a later version of the bill.
(for entire article click here)
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Issue #63
My Japanese Protest
Shibuya: a trendy shopping area of Tokyo. March 22. I've just
stepped off the subway into a cement square with my six-foot,
seven-inch Canadian friend Laurier and his Japanese girlfriend.
We're surrounded by giant office buildings and shopping malls and
massive television sets that feed our short attention spans with a
steady diet of music videos and fashion models. The streets are
packed with straight-faced shoppers and weary businessmen and women
on their way home after another ten-hour workday. There is a
noticeable autumnal chill in the air. The women walk beneath a
garish, Vegas-like kaleidoscope of neon lights as though they're on
their own private, fashion-show runway, showing off their expensive
leather shoulder bags and tightly laced boots. And in the middle of
this consumerist mecca, a drum circle of war protesters and sign
carriers gather to voice their opposition to Bush's illegal and
unilateral three-day-old invasion of Iraq.
(for entire article click here)
If you're interested in
the journal entry on which this article was based, please visit
Joel's May 1,
2003 Japanese journal entry.
Create Your Own Tax Cut
opinion
The dust has yet to settle on the American military's illegal
invasion of Iraq and already George Bush is engaging in a diplomatic
offensive regarding Syria, accusing Iraq's northwestern neighbor of
harboring Iraqi leaders and stocking chemical weapons. Are Bush's
accusations nothing more than tough talk in the aftermath of an easy
military victory or do they signal phase two of the Project of the
New American Century--Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's
not-so-secret plan to establish worldwide economic dominance via
military means?
(for entire article click here) |
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Issue #60
Polls Build Public
Support for War
Christopher Hitchens
wrote, in his book Letters to a Young Contrarian, that the
underlying purpose of polls is to influence rather than reflect
public opinion. The reason? Large corporations conduct polls as an
effective--albeit expensive--form of market research, aimed at
pushing their products instead of measuring opinions. As Hitchens
explains, "the point is not to interpret the world but to change it.
A tendency to favor one product over another is not something to be
passively discovered and observed but to be nurtured, encouraged,
and exploited."
I've thought of
Hitchens' assertion frequently in the last few months, every time
I've encountered a poll about the Bush administration's imminent war
against Iraq. The polling questions, as most people who've read or
participated in a poll know, are formulated to give the appearance
of objective, scientific validity to what are actually slanted
questions designed
to elicit particular responses--in the present case, to serve the
Bush administration's crude sales pitch pushing the "product" of war
in Iraq over the "product" of peace. Bush, of course, has been
assisted in his efforts by the Office of Global Communications, an
organization utilizing $200 million of taxpayer money to mobilize
American and international
support for a war in Iraq. Opinion polls are one of their marketing
strategies. (for entire article click here)
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Issue #50
How to Run for City
Council
In the last issue of the Washington Free Press, I briefly outlined
one method by which the Green Party and other third parties could
increase their participation in state and local elections
nationwide—by creating a website dedicated to providing all of the
information necessary to run for public office. While making such
information more accessible won’t by itself increase candidate
participation or successful third party campaigns, it will give
potential candidates and the parties that support them a better
opportunity to strategize their campaigns according to the minutia
of requirements and deadlines implemented by local bureaucracies
like the King County Records and Elections Division, where I
obtained most of the information for this article. (for entire article click here)
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Issue #49
Greens on the Rebound
It's been a short time since America's highly contested presidential
election exposed the structural flaws in the electoral system and
two-party monopoly, but popular publications like the New York Times
and Time magazine are directing larger amounts of energy to
discrediting the valuable message of the Green Party's progressive
campaign. While it will take far more than a barrage of articles
from the mainstream press to undermine the concerns of three million
Green Party voters, ultimately, the negative and misleading exposure
could hinder efforts to build a larger political consensus for the
2004 campaign and potentially divide the current party along
artificial lines.
(for entire article click here)
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Issue #48:
Interview
Local Green Makes
Serious Progress
Candidate Joe Szwaja
Challenging Congressional incumbents for political office has become
increasingly difficult for third party candidates due to several
factors that have eroded the democratic process: the corporate
financing of elections, distorted or incomplete media coverage, and
the lack of an open public forum where candidates can freely discuss
issues. Consequently, those seeking election via grassroots
campaigns must devise creative means of spreading their message and
content themselves with small gains and long-term goals.
Nevertheless, despite wholesale public indifference, Green Party
candidate for the House of Representatives (the 7th District of
Seattle and Vashon Island), Joe Szwaja, garnered 20 percent of the
vote in his attempt to unseat Democratic incumbent Jim McDermott.
Szwaja and the Green Party believe his burgeoning support is the
beginning of a long-lasting citizen movement both locally and
nationally to regain control of the political process. Because
future Green Party success depends on increased citizen
participation, my questions to Joe Szwaja focused on the Green
Party's future and how concerned individuals can stay connected to
the movement.
(for entire interview click here)
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Issue #47: Opinion
It's Time to
Vote Green
"We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration
of wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both." -- Supreme
Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1941)
Whether Brandeis was commenting on the political climate of his time
or predicting the future, his words have never been more meaningful
as the 2000 presidential election approaches. The interests of the
Democratic and Republican parties have merged as a handful of giant
corporations fund their campaigns, and, sadly, the voting public has
either become increasingly resigned to its narrow presidential
"choice" or is turning away from the political process altogether.
Record numbers of eligible voters avoided the ballot box in 1996-- a
majority of them under the age of 35-- and that number will likely
increase in the November election.
(for entire article click here)
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 The winner of a 2004
Utne Reader Independent Press Award,
Clamor Magazine's
mission is to provide a media outlet that reflects the reality of
alternative politics and culture in a format that is accessible to
people from a variety of backgrounds. Clamor exists to fill the
voids left by mainstream media. It recognizes and celebrates the
fact that each of us can and should participate in media, politics
and culture. It publishes writing and art that exemplifies the value
we place on autonomy, creativity, exploration, and cooperation.
Clamor is an advocate of progressive social change through active
creation of political and cultural alternatives.
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My story, "Overheard
in a Youth Hostel," appears on the back page of Issue 22 and was
published by Clamor while I was living in Fukuchiyama, Japan. Jason
Kucsma, co-editor, gave me the opportunity to read the piece on the
literary stage at Seattle's Bumbershoot Music Festival in August,
2003 -- my first, and only, public reading. |
Overheard in a
Youth Hostel
Toji-an Guesthouse/3am/Kyoto/April 29
The sheets of my bunk bed are a twisted mess at my feet. I think
I've been rolling around on this mattress for at least two hours,
clinging to my tiny pillow like a life jacket, unable to let go of
it and drown pleasantly in the warm waters of sound sleep. The long,
narrow room lined with two-tiered bunks could be the sleeping
quarters of a ship, my fellow travelers undisturbed by the chorus of
drunken voices in the next room. Outside the rice-paper-screened
window, a fellow insomniac is breaking up a large block of ice with
a metal pick, slowly and methodically, the way you might stab a
juicy watermelon in the summer heat just to hear the sound of the
knife.
(for entire article) |
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