Tue, 31 Oct 2006
Brad Will, A Close Friend of Mine Was Murdered By The Mexican Government
The day before Brad boarded a plane from New York to Mexico we sat in a room
together preparing his laptop computer for travel. He was enthuiastic about
covering this struggle of a people in a desperate situation, which he said
needed coverage because "the millitary police are camped outside of town."
Brad was one of the first friends I met when I moved to New York in the spring
of 2001. I discovered the Indymedia center on 29th street and showed up for a
meeting. Brad was there whenever I was. He showed me around Indymedia and
around the city. He was part of exactly what I was looking for. A community
outside of society that created their own. Squatters, infoshops, bikes, zines,
newspapers, radio stations, documentaries, bands, artists. He lived his
commitment every moment I was with him. I didn't understand it at first but the
more I lived with him, the more it became real. Shortly after the introduction
to his world, I knew I couldn't settle for anything less.
He gave me the courage to stand in the front lines of my first street protest.
He gave me the courage to get on a bike and ride through city streets
celebrating nothing more than the fact that we can do it. He showed me the
gardens built from nothing on the Lower East Side.
I'll miss you forever. You were too young. The last time I saw you I could tell
you had grown into a person truly original and your life was just beginning.
Here's the back
story, which I'd rather not get into cause it's hard enough writing this.
posted at: 11:47 | path:
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Sat, 19 Feb 2005
Revolutionary Movements -- Part Two
I'm am
not an island
February 1987: The MRTA occupies seven radio stations in Lima and reads a communique against the increasing militarization of the society .
Same website as the one above.
Disturbingly so.
As I write this, I think this transcript of the Internet and it's most popular
search engine,
Google shows a pretty odd
picture of what the phrase "revolutionary movement" means. But let's go down
the list of Google's hits:
The
third hit is an article by
David Graeber.
Someone who I've been acompanied with as we were cordoned off by police and
told to leave for nothing but walking in the streets during a protest in
Washington DC, only 19 days after September 11th 2001. At my suggestion,
he
ordered pizza.
posted at: 03:02 | path:
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Sat, 08 May 2004
Bus to Ohio.
It's really late. Not really from the perspective of when I usually go to sleep but this bus ride seems far different than all the others. Too bad I don't have a camera because this trip to the midwest is going to be a whole lot different, I can fucking feel it. It kicked off yesterday, actually, when I saw a screening of a documentary called
Off To War about a National Guard regiment in Arkansas that got shipped to Iraq to
defend freedom. The families were so, so, so very devastated about losing their husbands, fathers and sons (there were no women in this particular regiment) which made up for their lack of perspective on why
The War is a bad idea and unknowingly investigated that topic just by speaking honestly about their family members going away for what could very likely be forever.
So this sets the tone for the new era of America. Four years later. Working
class midwesterners are getting family members coming home in body bags, the
president is ignoring them (he hasn't attended any of the hundreds of dead
soldier's funerals) and a bunch of mothers, daughters and teenage sons who are
pissed off their dad or brother died for no reason (no to mention the fat
wallets of oil families). I read a
Vice
Magazine Don'ts submission of a plump redneck looking guy with a shirt on that said "Hasta La Vista Bin Laden" with a drawing of a anthropomorphized dog standing in front of an American flag eating a hot dog bun with a fretting turban'd brown man inside. Then I go into this TA truck stop in some dark spot in PA and go pee. To my glee, I find bathroom graffiti asking us to "fuck sand niggers" and claiming "alah sucks."
Is any of this that surprising? Well yes. Two years ago I went to the midwest and it was mostly
I'm Proud To Be An American playing in the truck stop snack store and an abundance of American flags on interstate overpasses. This time it's war. The patriotic, patient and dutiful sentiment has long but worn off and it's time for some good old racism, hate and religious intolerance. Fuck yeah! That'll help the Arkansas convoys in Iraq that are driving American trucks from WWII that just broke down and now they are getting ambushed with Kalishnakovs and rocket propelled grenades. Go team! Good thing I play video games enough to know exactly what a Kalishnakov looks like so I can spot one when an angry Jihadi takes a stroll into my subway stop next week.
Then I open up the New York Post and flip past the front page news of Jennifer Aniston guiltily kissing her unmemorable former cast member from
Friends, I find a tiny article in the middle reporting on a Republican representative who foresees a national draft being called to fill the absence of troops in Iraq. Politely mentioning this may have something to do with them either dying or other "coalition" forces pulling out when they realized they don't have a fucking chance. Go team!
I can't believe among all of the amazing things that have happened to me in the last four years I will always remember this era as "the years of heavy drinking and hopelessness." It seems the industries that are doing well now involve vice, political dissent, petroleum (go figure) and getting the fuck out of America (if that is an industry, although I hear "entertainment" is doing pretty good too...ummm can anyone pronounce UFA correctly for a free tour of the Reichstag?)
So there's a chance I'm could get drafted. It's entirely un-funny. I don't know what to do. Canada? Lame (although Montreal sounds really cool these days, but that's all Frenchy n'shit). Iceland? Sounded good when I was a scrub. It's cold there. Germany? Damn, furious German women are hot in Fasbinder's movies but that's not exactly a good reason to go to a country. Spain? Perhaps, they're all Socialist now and they just pulled out of Iraq so they get Cojones Grandes points, and Spanish women are hot and the Basques blow shit up like al-Qaida. Scandinavia? They make really fucking intense depressing movies, have a stable society and created the best computer operating system in existence. But it's fucking cold and dark so I'd probably just get all h4x0r death metal and lose touch with all my friends.
Nope, America I will stay. Clawing at the ground and biting the feet of whatever armed forces fuck face who is trying to drag me into his convoy. They will lose if they ask me to join them.
posted at: 00:00 | path:
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Fri, 16 Apr 2004
America's army is a first person shooter 3D video game created by the
American Army to recruit young volunteers.
The game claims to acentuate the
organizational elements and teamwork of being in the Army and downplays the
reality of the deadly situation of the soliders in Iraq, or any war zone at that. In order to convery
both sides, I would like to see a more specific version of America's Army
released with the title Operation Iraqi Freedom, where the user can choose to
participate in a massive online game as a American solider, Iraqi militant or
innocent civilian. This will put the players in a more realistic environment
where they have to make decision like wether killing a civilian is acceptable,
which is an area of the war that was almost completely neglected in
non-military publicity.
Subversive video games are a contradiction as far as I can see. While amazing and engrossing and well made, most video games represent a condensed version of mainstream society, with all of it's biggotry and intollerance. I see this as a purely financial decision. It's in the best interest of the game makers to appeal to the widest audience possible. And more often than not the individuals funding the game want to make as much money as possible, and I assume taking an overtly critical viewpoint on any subject relating to nationalism would alienate lots of people.
So I would be curious if the non-profit model could apply to subversive video game design. The production would have to be on par with for profit commercial games. All too often when video games are used as an artistic medium with a message beyond entertainment, the quality of the game suffers. So the non-profit woule have a budget and production plan but there wouldn't be a profit motive so the content can be more free.
posted at: 00:00 | path:
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