Americas (South & North)

Hello from Alberta. I'm here giving a few talks with En Camino, a collective I belong to that works principally on Colombia solidarity. I have a series of talks that I've given in over the past few months that might be worth writing out and posting, I may do that as a series here.

Alberta is an interesting place, a very different part of Canada, and one that anyone who is concerned about Canada and what it is doing should study and understand. The city I am in, Calgary, and its University, created and supplies the intellectual basis for the regime that is currently in power in Canada. The ideas and policies, the networks and organizations, are developed here. The deals are made here. The money was made here. And so on. It is certainly something I've been thinking about and have been meaning to study more carefully.

When on the road I do things I don't normally do, like read magazines (my reading is generally from books or online), and I picked up a copy of Harper's on the road from Edmonton to Calgary.

Two articles caught my interest. The first, by Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, on counterinsurgency, and the other by freelance writer Steve Featherstone, on "the coming robot army".

The counterinsurgency article was more interesting, so I'll deal with it second. Featherstone's piece on robots describes in scary detail the operation of the next generation of remote-control military equipment.

Watched "Children of Men" tonight. For those who don't know, it's one of those British dystopia movies - I think 28 Days Later and V for Vendetta fall into the category. It's set in 2027, in a kind of business-as-usual bleak scenario, with an ongoing insurgency and an authoritarian government, but with the twist that no babies have been born in 18-some years. When a girl is found to be pregnant and is in the hands of the resistance, the protagonist has to try to get her to safety from the various groups that would do her harm or use her. I thought it was okay.

Too early to know, but not too early to suspect foul play for Ecuador's new Defense Minister for a left government that was planning a different relationship between Ecuador's military and the United States, whose helicopter crashed very close to the US Manta Air Force Base, which the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa promised to close upon coming to power. Remember Guadalupe Larriva, and may her death, whether it was an accidental tragedy or a planned atrocity, hasten the removal of the air force base from that country.

I'm reproducing here a communique from my friend Pablo Leal, who is in Oaxaca now and has been based there for about three years - at least... I worked closely with him for a few years starting in early 2001, but I am glad that the movements in Mexico have been able to benefit from his commitment and his insights. The point of this introduction isn't to praise Pablo but to provide a preface that you're hearing the words of someone who is both informed and committted.

México, December 6, 2006

Dear friends and compañeros,

Now, I can't honestly say that "Borat" was the worst movie ever because, well, I didn't get through the entire movie. By the 40th intolerable minute of it, I walked out.

Let me say up front - I am no prude. And while I am sensitive to racism and sexism in pop culture, I am not so sensitive that I can't enjoy it. I enjoyed the South Park movie and laughed very, very hard through many of the songs. I thought 'Team America: World Police' was funny, including the final monologue. I think Eminem is talented.

I have been meaning to put together some resources and a little timeline on Oaxaca, mainly so that I could sort out what is happening for myself. In the meantime though, I would send you all to the NarcoNews, friends who have been doing great work for many many years.

I wanted to say a few more things about Suzette Haden Elgin's system for 'verbal self-defense'. The central idea she presents is that we can use language to create an abusive environment, or we can use language to create a non-abusive environment. Where the 'self-defense' comes in is when you're in a situation with someone who is being abusive - there are some ways to feed the abuse or escalate it, and other ways to basically deprive it of oxygen.

Elgin has made an overview handout here.

One of the things that has kept me from blogging as often over the past months has been an increasing involvement in behind-the-curtain work at ZNet. One of the more interesting aspects of this work has been the project exploring the possibility of converting ZNet to free software (some of you will note the hedging-of-bets character of the previous sentence).

I got a note in the mail with the following question - before the strike started:

In NYC there almost was a transit strike. The city government went to court to impose large fines on the union if it did a strike.

There are good reasons to protect the whole city from the harmful effects of a strike of workers that do essential jobs. However, simply prohibiting the strike solves that problem in a way that hurts only the workers. So I have an idea for offering the workers an alternative way to strike.

The idea is a money strike.

When workers declare a money strike, they work unpaid, but the employer has to pay twice their wages to the Red Cross. Thus, both sides feel the pain.

To create this option would require laws, but it might be possible to win public support for these laws in a place like New York. What I don't know is whether this would do any good, or whether changing some details could make it workable. Do you know people to ask?

So I asked some friends - a labor researcher, a union activist, and a NYC journalist, what they thought. Because their answers were so interesting, I asked if I could share them with you. They said yes, so they are below. It goes without saying that I wish the workers well and hope they win a total victory.

[I figured that discussing the idea of donating to Red Cross, as opposed to other organizations, would be irrelevant.]

A review of a seemingly little-known science fiction film called 'Serenity'. Serenity is the creation of Joss Whedon, who is also the creator of the TV shows 'Buffy' and 'Angel'. I didn't follow either show, but occasionally tuning in, I found the dialogue and plot lines to be good.

So when a friend of mine bought the DVDs to the precursor of the 'Serenity' film, which was a TV series called 'Firefly', and loaned them to me, I was interested enough to give them a try. I ended up watching 14 episodes in about 3 days.