Walking the Talk

There are times in social struggle when we should be focused on the external world--the wars, the crashing economy, and the violence of the systems that oppress us. But in order to be truly effective, we must model the values we aspire to promote and in the case of organizations, we must demonstrate that the values and actions we encourage others to take are indeed what we believe in. Our actions must model the outcomes we crave. Organizations that seek to create democracy and participation have an obligation to self-structure democratically. The Left has been plagued by individuals who fail to believe that people should truly determine the conditions of their own lives outside of oppressive hierarchies. As a result, millions have been murdered in cold blood to defend hypocritical tyrants. To avoid such bloodshed, to truly win, we must work on ourselves--a daunting task indeed!

The Military Comes Home...

According to the Army Times, the 3rd Infantry Division's 1rst Brigade Combat Team has left Iraq and is being relocated to Peterson Airforce Base here in Colorado for homeland defense efforts. They are being stationed here to prevent civil unrest. With the crashing economy, the dying environment, and failed bi-partisan policies, the military is beginning to see the people of this country as a threat and is mobilizing the army to stop us from engaging in our inalienable right and constitutional right supported by the spirit of the Declaration of Independence to overthrow this failing government. Alas. It is the government who is bringing the war home.

San Luis Valley

Late last week I took a couple days of comp time. Friday, Hillary and I headed down to the San Luis Valley. We climbed around Great Sand Dunes National Park, drove through the valley dividing the Sangre de Cristos and the San Juan Mountains, and experienced the untold beauty of that harsh, wild land. We stopped at a sanctuary for alligators, a small tilapia farm where they used ex-pet gators to eat their dead fish. We relaxed at Valley View Hot Springs in small pools of warm water looking out over the valley at sunset. We drove through the incredible landscape in a car I rented back here in Denver and soaked up the natural beauty of this state. As the earth teeters on collapse, its incredible to take the time to look at places that have not been radically destroyed by suburbanization, industrial economies, and the violence of human beings. Funny, we needed to use a car to do it.

Nuclear Power: Obama and McCain Creep Me Out

Remember Chernobyl???

What the hell is wrong with these creeped out, freaked out, late-capitalist politicians dragging our country and our world into environmental and economic collapse?

Why do we have two candidates who are for energy that will leave us ecologically destroyed?

Presidential Debate?

Our country is pathetic. We help the rich, screw the poor, and have candidates whose policies appear nearly identical. What is it other than stupid faith that compels me to vote for Obama? This debate, this year, this country is sick with greed and pandering.

Let Wall Street weep.

I want a reasonable political debate without nuclear power, bombing Afghanistan, phony environmentalism, and a race towards death taking the priority.

Documenting the Sublime

For the past week I have been documenting my life as often as possible, the people I love, their images, their possessions, our lives together. I am working to piece together daily video diaries that show whatever beauty I find. Our economy is in decline, our government is corrupt, and I can think of no better protest against the grim violence of capitalism than to document those things I find beautiful, connected, and inspirational. I want to document the sublime in the every day, all the possibility we represent.

For The Dying American Empire

Goodbye Capitalism. Goodbye USA!

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas








Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Melancholy Renewal

Last night after picking Jessi up from the airport, I talked late into the night with Emily, my old friend, sometimes sweetheart, and sometimes collaborator about everything from her experiences squatting in Barcelona to the ethics of remaining in cities verses going to rural areas and learning practical skills. Both of us tend to be fairly argumentative, particularly when it comes to intersections of art and activism. Nonetheless, speaking with her felt good. She is an old friend who knows me at my best and my worst and challenges me in both states to higher levels of action, creation, and thought. It is wonderful to have her in my life.

It is wonderful to have so many people in my life.

Its strange to have so many friends in so many different places, people I love and people that love me too. While we are all working on amazing projects and learning new things from new people, I often wish I could have a slightly simpler existence where the people I loved were together and our experiences were shared. I imagine a party where all the people I love come together and enjoy each other late into the night.

I am settling back into Denver after an incredible weekend shooting interviews at Critical Resistance 10. My heart aches with the absence of missing friends, lovers lost and lovers found. Autumn feels strong this year. So many projects, so many acts of love withering as the first days of fall chill. The highs of a relationship, an 8 year project, production around two political conventions all ending in late August-early September have made the past few weeks a trying month. But as night comes on earlier and the moon blazes sharply in the sky, I feel connected to the earth, its return to the dirt. I feel ready for the renewal that comes in completion and loss and eager to see what grows through the winter and the spring.

I have spoken at length to my friends about our collective desire to find room for creative projects, art, culture, and experimentation. The fall and winter will be good for this.

CR10 and Me!

I'm super excited about heading out to Oakland with bad-ass producer Malia Bruker to shoot interviews with the incredible activists who will be attending Critical Resistance 10. I am happy Free Speech TV will be dedicating resources to this important prison abolition conference that his been going on for the past 10 years!

Lots of love to Denver!

Capitalists Burn Wall Street Down!

I enjoy watching rich people cry as their stocks implode and all the money they've been stealing, all the money they've been pretending they could lend disappears into the ether.

The United States is a government whose wealth is founded in genocide, white supremacy, and barbaric capitalism. Watching the ruling class fret gives me great pleasure. I hope to see the day when their empire falls and the rest of the world rises to the occasion.

Let it be known that millions of people deserve retribution for the crimes of the United States ruling class. Every act of injustice committed by the greedy only ensures another bullet in their murderous heads.

Let the stock markets burn and liberated people build the world we want to see!

Afghan-Americans Protest US Bombings

My friend and colleague Fatima Mojadiddy just completed this short video about a protest at the Federal Building in Los Angeles where Afghan-Americans gathered to demand the U.S. stop bombing Afghanistan.

As we continue slogging through the depressing policy nuances of the electoral cycle, its critical to remember that Obama supports an escalation of troops in Afghanistan. What he perceives as "the right war" is an excuse to kill the poorest of the poor--Afghan civilians struggling after decades of violence, war, and poverty.

Woody Allen Made My Heart Squishy!

My heart is swooning with amorphous, delicious, crushy heartache after seeing Woody Allen's incredibly beautiful exploration of love: Vicky, Christina, Barcelona! Rarely does a movie capture so many of love's dilemmas so well.

Sex, Drugs, and Environmental Destruction

Between having cocaine delivered to the office and oral sex with subordinates, the over-partied leadership of the Department of the Interior has taken the U.S. government's impulse to fuck up to a whole new level. These creeps who brag about protecting our natural resources have been taking bribes, doing drugs, and having sex with big oil reps. In the meantime, our environment gets screwed.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I think its just creepy that the Department of the Interior would have any desire to do it with people who work at Chevron, Shell, and other nasty energy companies. I can imagine a lot of kinky fantasies, but sleeping with those slimy creeps takes the cake.

This is why any day of the week I'd prefer to do it with the black-clad, sweaty arm-pit lovers in the Earth and Animal Liberation Fronts than entertain the idea that electoral politics in this corrupt capitalist system will every be more than an orgy of ecological destruction lubricated by big oil. Unfortunately, all these eco-types are stuck fighting this corrupt system and can't just sit around doin' it. Somebody has to protect the "interior" and the tasteless, powder-noses in the government sure as shit won't.

Defenders of Equality Vs. Postmodern Nazis: Jessie Vs. Jessica--Colorado Decides

On Colorado Decides, Colorado Progressive Coalition's Jessie Ulibarri boldly defended equal opportunities for people of color and women in Colorado while debating Jessica Corry, someone I intuit from her creepy, right-wing appropriation of civil rights lingo is little more than a sophisticated, post-modern Nazi happy to destroy opportunities for women and people of color using a well crafted but patently false "civil rights" rhetoric. Jessica works for an organization called The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative which is working tirelessly to sponsor Amendment 46, the so-called "Civil Rights Amendment" which is working to roll-back equal opportunity hiring and higher education enrollment.

Ward Connerly, the initiatives key out-of-state funder, has enthusiastically welcomed the Ku Klux Klan's endorsement of past initiatives. Connerly perceives the KKK as an organization capable of logic and reason rather than hate. When the key funder of your organization/initiative is willing to accept the support of an organization guilty of a century of genocidal racism, lynchings, and pro-fascist, nationalist posturing to defend a so-called "libertarian" and so-called "civil rights" act, the true complicity between Corry, Connerly and white supremacy is obvious.

When will "American" "Libertarians" get it in their head that being complicit with fascist organizations, right wing policies, and globally destructive economic agendas will in no way help the cause of "liberty." Having appropriated libertarian rhetoric, these pomo fascists working tirelessly to destroy equal opportunities have had the audacity to steal "civil rights" discourse. Shame on them for bolstering white supremacy while degrading the spirit of justice.

Appropriations of civil rights and feminist rhetoric designed to attack the equal opportunities of women and communities of color must be criticized. Those who perpetrate legislative violence against communities of color and women and who thereby find alliances with the KKK and other fascists must be confronted as participants in the broader networks they associate with, networks bolstered by the support of hate groups and violent, racist extremists.

Experiments Beyond the Brutality

Washing the pepper spray from my clothes and waking up regularly to startling dreams of riot cops, ex-lovers, and frenzied television production, I can't help but feel a bit depressed.

While the DNC was happening, significantly fewer cops plagued the neighborhood I live in, an impoverished community on the North East side of Denver. Now that protest has stopped, the neighborhood has filled up with cops again. Virtually no sustainable links between organizing against the police brutality against protesters and organizing against the regular violence in this neighborhood was created. While white subcultures flourished in both Denver and St. Paul, strong links were not made between anti-convention activism and the ongoing, life-or-death struggles faced by people of color. While these struggles were addressed rhetorically, and organizations such as Recreate 68 did attempt to make connections, the protests remained largely white.

I wonder if the enormous infrastructure set up by white subcultures to facilitate protest will ever have a real impact on the daily lives of poor people. I fear it will be used to simply facilitate cathartic protests that release the pressure in this steam-cooker of late capitalism; protests that create demonstrations of antagonism; protesters that fail to build sustainable alternatives; protests that falsely excuse people of privilege from their complicity in the violence of oppression.

Perhaps to scream out in the streets, to smash windows, to destroy cop cars, to fight the police, and directly, physically confront the perpetrators of violence is not enough. After 9/11, a broken window hardly garners media attention. After millions have been assaulted, falsely imprisoned, brutalized, and degraded by the police, a few blows at a line of riot cops hardly challenges the system. Perhaps the level of sophistication, military strategy, and organization needed to militantly confront global capitalism and the state in the streets exceeds our current capacity.

The old question I would like to re-pose is what forms of creation and destruction will most effectively eliminate relationships of oppression and most directly lead to global liberation, conditions for joy and possibility. If the answer to this is found in the shattering of Macy's windows, hand me a rock. If the answer to this is found in tactics of greater aggression, let's arm ourselves. If the answer to this is found in building strong community ties, networking diverse localities, and creating alternative economies, let's get to work. Sadly, we don't know which of these solutions will work outside of practice. Armed struggle may be a death trap. Window-breaking may be futile. Community organizing may never work. Unless we try, informed by history, we will never find out.

Kudos to those who struggled in Denver and St. Paul. Kudos to all who work regularly for liberation at home, while traveling, at convergences, and in isolation. Kudos to those who risk it all and dare to experiment.

So much to be done. So many experiments to be had!

Once again, Gramsci's dictum comes to mind: Pessimism of the intellect. Optimism of the will.

Back from Saint Paul: Anarchists Be Proud!

I returned from St. Paul to Denver at 9 AM this morning, exhausted but victorious in helping produce 16 hours of Crashing the Party, Free Speech TV's coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Convention Protests. From creating a live daily update of the legal situation in St. Paul and Minneapolis from I-Witness Video, a heroic group of video activists who put themselves directly on the front line to document police violence against demonstrators to programming daily shorts by Submedia, Mobile Broadcast News, Rochester Indymedia, and others, I have seen the bravery, courage, relentless pursuit of excellence, joy and desire for liberation in organizations and individuals from throughout the country. Many of us learned new skills, found better ways of working together, criticized and responded to criticisms in order to move our work forward. Despite an enormous amount of state violence including house raids, physical attacks, pepper spray, arrest, tear gas, concusion grenades, and other weapons, poor people, anarchists, anti-war activists and others worked together to challenge the violence of the two party system. As we reflect on what worked and what is not working in U.S. anarchist protest movements, we must keep in mind that tens of thousands organized successfully, built infrastructure that will last well beyond the protests, and fought boldly for justice, equality, liberty, and peace.

The strength of our networks, the boldness and persistence of our actions, our love of humanity, the earth, and possibility demonstrates that we are capable of building the world we want to see. The tools we have. Lets do it.

Anarchists Win the Day

Protestors from New York to San Francisco are hailing this afternoon’s actions at Funk the War and Reclaim the Streets an inspirational success. After marching through the streets in an un-permitted breakaway snake march, Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians have revitalized feelings of pride and possibility in protest in the streets.

The breakaway snake march lasted approximately two-and-a-half hours. Demonstrators and police had three tense stand-offs. After police demanded protesters disperse, they did. And then they reconvened and continued the occupation of public space, several times.

Approximately 20 demonstrators surrounded by police escaped into a multi-story parking lot, ran up the building, and chanted enthusiastically from the roof to the delight of the crowds below.

The classic Whose Streets Our Streets chant gained real meaning for the protesters as they reclaimed the parking lot, the streets, and a sense of possibility that hints at the transforming power of a public in rage at the war and fueled with a tremendous sense of joy and liberation.

Reports indicate that the police acted violently, shooting some sort of weaponry into the crowd and arresting a protesting youth. Police used horses to attack demonstrators.

Despite police violence, the victory in the streets was had by these non-permitted demonstrators who proved that public explosions of joy and liberation are still possible indeed.

Politics Beyond Self-Consumption

Unable to legitimately attack the people destroying the world, various stripes of Leftists devour each other regularly. Metaphoric bloodlust haunts people from various parts of the political spectrum. Pacifists consume militants. Militants consume each other. The ruling class maintains its power.

Most frustrating to me is the inability of ideologues to accept a political strategy of addition. The word and is the only word I'm aware of that can keep us moving forward. Pacifism and militant struggle and lifestyle shifts and organizing and direct action and rhetorical strategy, and etc... and etc... and etc...

Sadly, people prefer to take the either or, the dialectical, the contradictory and play it out on the irrelevant level of Left-bickering. Either pacifism or nothing. Either radicalism or nothing. Either direct action or nothing.

These binding either-or attitudes destroy possibility, create fissures and feed into strategies of capitalism, state-ism, and oppression.

Impossibly irrelevant, the contemporary Left must stop nibbling on its own flesh and focus its rage towards the targets that deserve it. Our common hatred of oppression and our common love of liberation can help us rise above auto-cannibalism and direct our energy towards building the world we want to see and destroying the people and tools of oppression. Let's eat the fruits of revolution, not our own guts.

"I'm a Lover Not a Fighter."

Yes. I actually uttered this cliche in an interview for Colorado Matters about the work of Unconventional Denver.

Otto; Or, Up With Dead People

It's been a dreamy Denver weekend filled with lots of love, pleasure, and beautiful people behaving beautifully. My heart thumps warmly. Just what I needed before Democrats invade D-town, the police state bashes pretty people protesting, and pundits pontificate on the possibilities and failures of the 2 party system. Just what I needed before old friends come to town to protest, celebrate anarchic possibilities, joy, and liberation and strike out at the violence of dominant U.S. Politics.

All this being said, tonight, I went with Bart and Stephen to watch Bruce LaBruce's new melancholic gay zombie flick. Otto; Or, Up With Dead People My friend Keith Garcia at the Denver Film Society programmed the picture in his larger Zombie movie series. While I love LaBruce's other films, I think Otto may very well be the sweetest, most painful, and most compelling. Ah, the beauty of a good flick!

Udall Enthusiasts Outside My Window

I'm looking out my window at work and see a number of white folks in white tee-shirts screaming and holding signs that say "Udall. They are pumping the swaggering signs like enthusiastic masturbaters. Presumably they think they represent something politically intriguing. Unfortunately, their signs fail to indicate what they stand for other than "UDALL."

Udall.

This is precisely what's wrong with U.S. politics. Its grounded in enthusiastic representation without content.

"Fire Fighters for Udall" just rode up. Their shirts are yellow. They appear, from my vantage point, to be all white. In Five Points, Denver's historic black neighborhood, dozens of white enthusiasts with white signs and a big white truck with no messaging other than "Udall" seems no more meaningful than a white piece of paper with nothing on it other than Udall.

Another white man appears with another sign with another name. U.S. political process is an embarrassing farce. For me, I prefer content to screaming enthusiasts with words like Udall.

All we have in the U.S. is empty branding, corporate candidates, and a zombie like public that occasionally gets involved

Hittin' My 30s and Lovin' Ya'll

I am in the last week of my 20s. 4 days to be precise. Thursday at 6 in the morning I will be 30 years old, will have completed my first feature film (I still have 3 days), and will have just returned from 2 weeks of travel in San Francisco and New York that were awe inspiring, productive, and incredibly rewarding.

So rather than my usual political rants and projects to feature, I want to put a shout out to all the incredible people whom I love and who have inspired me! Thanks for keeping me kicking for 3 decades and counting!

I always hoped the revolution would come when I was in my twenties. Well, liberation doesn't appear to be around the corner--rather preparation for untold economic and ecological destruction seems necessary. So for this reason, my 30s will be a time of health, joy, liberation, possibility, and skill learning so that when the shit hits the fan, I'll be ready to rumble with a good attitude.

Here's to possibility, getting older, and finding more amazing, romantic, loving people to accompany us through the struggles of our days!

Joy and Liberation! Pleasure, Revolt, Despair! Love, Autonomy, Possibility! Here come the 30s. Goodbye 20s.

Yum!

San Francisco Graffiti makes me hungry!

1-2-3 Community Space and the Bed-Stuy Block Party

Last night I visited my friends Dara and Josh in Bed-Stuy. They took me to a block party put on by the 1-2-3 Community Space, a New York-based anarchist collective. Of all the anti-authoritarian events I've been to, this was one of the best. First of all, neighborhood folks came out in full force. Hip-Hoppers, spoken work artists, various automobile clubs, and anarchists wandered around listening to music and enjoying the warm evening. What I loved about the event was that it was not so judgemental, anarchistically more holy than thou that folks came out without worrying about acting right, being punk enough, or being overwhelmed by white cultural presumptions. The event was intergenerational, joyful, and revolutionary in its inclusiveness, pleasure, and cultural integration.

Monster U.S. -- Leave Iran Alone!

According to the New York Times The Bush Administration continues swaggering about defending Israel from an attack by Iran--the provocation--weapons testing. Now, call me batty, but I think the U.S. has a substantial history of weapons testing, and not just in the desert but on civilian populations. Having tested 1063 nuclear bombs, we have a long history of ecological devastation and military bravado in tests that far exceed Iran's handful. As the only country to drop a nuclear bomb on civilians, as a country with a military budget 96.8 times larger than Iran's and still incapable of fighting the Iraqi Resistance, the United States needs to look in the mirror before talking about other countries threatening the world.

A few U.S. Military facts from Global Issues:

* US military spending accounts for 48 percent, or almost half, of the world’s total military spending
* US military spending is more than the next 46 highest spending countries in the world combined
* US military spending is 5.8 times more than China, 10.2 times more than Russia, and 98.6 times more than Iran.
* US military spending is almost 55 times the spending on the six “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) whose spending amounts to around $13 billion, maximum. (Tabulated data does not include four of the six, as the data only lists nations that have spent over 1 billion in the year, so their budget is assumed to be $1 billion each)
* US spending is more than the combined spending of the next 45 countries.
* The United States and its strongest allies (the NATO countries, Japan, South Korea and Australia) spend $1.1 trillion on their militaries combined, representing 72 percent of the world’s total.
* The six potential “enemies,” Russia, and China together account for about $205 billion or 29% of the US military budget.

Clearly, if one wants to look for today's totalitarian regime, the United States is the obvious culprit. Please, let's keep the U.S. hands off Iran.

Obama Vote Forgives Corporate Crime

According to the New York Times, Senator Obama voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a bill that expands the U.S. government's surveillance abilities and gives legal immunities to phone companies who broke the law and assisted the National Security Agency's post 9/11 wiretapping program. Supporting a law that sets a precedent giving corporations the right to violate constitutional rights, Obama demonstrated his commitment to an authoritarian state, corporate-state complicity, and an inability to stand up to corporate and government power. While John McCain failed to vote, as he was busy schmoozing on the campaign trail, he has been an outspoken supporter of the bill. Both leading candidates want to appease corporate criminals and government criminals alike. This alone is a reason to reject our criminal state and the two capitalist parties that lead it.

When I am asked why I am not an unconditional supporter of Obama, his Free Market rhetoric, vote for wiretapping, and vote for the War in Iraq all demonstrate a commitment to corporations over human liberties and lives. Such commitments fail to attract me.

Queer Anti-Displacement Coalition

Regarding the city of San Francisco and many other spaces that are friendly for wealthy, white gay folks, gentrification continues to be a major issue. As I was walking up the street I came across a sign for the Queer Anti-Displacement Coalition that is doing work to stop the eradication of queer cultures that fall outside Gavin Newsome's marriage paradigm. I look forward to finding out more about their work!

Patriotism: A Cruel Form of Terror

Many cynical people who think national borders are a mythological joke still resort to patriotic swaggering on the Fourth of July to demonstrate their commitment to their country. Tonight I will be joining friends to watch the city of San Francisco blow up fire works evoking countless bombs that have been dropped on people throughout the world. The bright lights and loud noises, the smoke and the crowds will ultimately remind me of the loud noises of crowd control devices and will probably make me cringe. I will think of these countries:

Afghanistan 1998, 2001-present Bosnia 1994, 1995 Cambodia 1969-70 China 1945-46, 1950-53 Congo 1964 Cuba 1959-1961 El Salvador 1980s Korea 1950-53 Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-69

Indonesia 1958 Laos 1964-73 Grenada 1983 Iraq 1991-present Iran 1987 Kuwait 1991 Lebanon 1983, 1984 Libya 1986 Nicaragua 1980s

Pakistan 2003, 2006 Panama 1989 Peru 1965 Somalia 1993, 2008 Sudan 1998 Vietnam 1961-73 Yemen 2002 Yugoslavia 1999

all bombed since World War II.

I will think of the 50 gunshots fired by the New York Police department at Sean Bell. I will think of the millions of people murdered by U.S. Imperialism.

The flickering lights, the screaming crowds, the throngs of patriots will remind me of every time the United States has used explosives and guns to murder and terrorize people around the world. What the U.S. calls Independence day is a day when hundreds of thousands of fireworks resurrect the despicable pride of patriots. Karmic retribution, what Chalmers Johnson refers to as Blowback, threatens the future of this country. Terrorism against the United States occurs because we have waged terror against billions throughout the world.

Stacy and Craig are Married!

Well, the wedding was a tear jerker. It took place in the City Hall in San Francisco where a number of other people were getting married--two older lesbians wearing matching white suits and carrying pink carnations, two hot young gay boys, and Stacy who dressed exquisitely in a remarkably gender queer, Marlena Dietrich-like pin-stripped suit with an adorable hat, a wallet chain, and a handkerchief. Craig, a tall, bear of a man, wore a white sports jacket, a hot black v-neck sweater, and looked absolutely stunning. At tonights dinner, Stacy wore a high-femme sequin dress and Craig had a Hugh Hefner-esque jacket! The food was outstanding. Hillary and I ate 4 types of mushrooms including chanterelles. My pinot noir was outstandingly smoky!

If you can't tell, Hillary and I being are spoiled like crazy at this wedding. I love it!

San Francisco Wedding

Having been gone from Denver for over a day and leaving some of the pre-DNC chaos behind has been good. I've reconnected with old friends and have eaten some amazing vegan food. I am in San Francisco to go to a wedding, which is something, I must admit, I rarely am willing to do. My friend Stacy is amazing, so of course, I am here.

While I'm thinking about marriage, a few years ago I signed onto something called the Beyond Marriage campaign which was an alternative framing to marriage issues that I found to be more inclusive than the mainstream "gay marriage" framework If you've not checked it out, you should.

Fortunately, I have every bit of faith that my friend Stacy and her partner Craig are amazing and if this is what floats their boat, well, all the Best Wishes in the world. Hillary and I are off to get some lunch before we head to the court--an institution I haven't been in since either I or friends have been arrested--and today we will enjoy the ceremony of state approved love.

In the Bay--Saw Just Seeds

I'm taking a quick trip to San Francisco. I was just at Modern Times bookstore, looked up on the wall and saw Just Seeds posters for sale. It warmed my heart a bit. If you're looking for some culturally radical amazing posters to do some radical decorating with, you should check out Just Seeds. I've loved Josh MacPhee's Peoples History Project for years but now that the project has expanded even more amazing radical prints are available.

The Homeless Go to the Zoo

With the Democratic National Convention coming to town, city planners and police have had to wrangle with questions about the fate of the homeless during late August. Many rumors have spread that homeless people will be removed during the DNC. People have reported incidents of increased police harassment. None have seemed to create a workable plan.

According to the opening line of Allison Sherry's Power to the Street People During the DNC featured in todays Denver Post:

Denver police Cmdr. Deborah Dilley has a message to the 3,900 homeless people who live in the city: You can stay where you are between Aug. 25 and 28.

Dilley is attempting to reverse rumors that police will be shipping people out of the city to remote suburbs. The idea that homeless people could be swept indicates the violent power the state has over the public imagination.

The article goes on to state:

One man has loaned five flat-screen televisions for shelters so the homeless can watch the action live on cable television. An advocate is pushing for vouchers to movies, museums and the Denver Zoo so the population can enjoy the city's cultural scene for free. There are plans for a voter-registration drive. One of the city's ministries will run bingo games at night.

What homeless people should have is not a free trip to the zoo, bingo, a picture show, or a museum. The homeless should have direct line of communication to the centers of power within the Democratic Party. Of course, the DNC, committed to bolstering the security of the middle class has little room for poor people.

Dilley goes on to say:

"We have never hid the homeless in the past, and we won't hide them now," said Dilley, who works in District 6, which includes downtown. "This is going to be a traumatic time for . . . them."

Of course it will be traumatic as 56,000 people come to be wined and dined by corporate power while poor people suffer, starve, and die from a lack of basic social services the world over.

Dilley does remind us that homeless people will be targeted for typical homeless behavior.

The article goes on to state:

While Dilley is adamant that it will be business as usual, she emphasized that some activities typically engaged in by the homeless are still illegal, and people could be cited.

In the city's "Business Improvement District" — which roughly spans Speer Boulevard to 20th Street and Wynkoop to Grant streets — it is illegal to sit or lie on the ground during the daytime.

Panhandling is legal, but there are almost a dozen restrictions, including asking for money too close to a restaurant or a bar, a bus stop, or an automated teller machine.

So no, homelessness will not be illegal during the convention--rather, sitting or lying down will continue to be a crime. Asking for help near a restaurant, bar, bus stop or ATM will continue to be a punishable offense. Dilley is defending the City of Denver's doublespeak by stating that on the one hand, homelessness is not a crime, but rather, homeless behaviors are crimes.

Will the city's homeless population buy these ludicrous laws, take free trips to watch monkeys and lions, avoid sitting or sleeping in certain areas, and spend long days and nights in shelters that are forced to be open? Or will the city's homeless population be amongst those people in the streets who've had enough of the spectacle of electoral politics in a capitalist oligarchy.

Time will tell.


Couch Potato Revolution

Patriotism and the Prison of Dissent

On the same day that Barack Obama begins his nationalistic patriotism tour in Independence, Missouri, the authorities-that-be announced that protesters will be fenced in by chain-length
or chicken-wire during the Democratic National Convention. While the Democratic presidential candidate wags on about a love of country and the importance of sacrifice to the nation-state, the Federal Court approves the creation of "Free Speech Zones," or the sectioning off of areas where Freedom of Speech can be granted within a metal cage.

What Obama, the Federal Government, the City of Denver, Secret Service, and Homeland Security are forgetting is that to demonstrate a commitment to the best of "American" ideals, basic constitutional rights must be protected by any means necessary. Rather than addressing the ever-increasing totalitarianism of the United States Police State, Obama glibly blabs patriotic pap as police continue harassing communities of color, queer people, poor people, and people who dare criticize the corporate state this country has become.

The cage protesters will be confined in will be a visual reminder of the 2 million plus people incarcerated in the United States, the legacy of slavery that U.S. corporations continue to profit from, the Japanese Internment Camps, and the incarceration of queer people.

When Obama yaks about patriotism, it is imperative to remember what pro-Americanism supports--genocide masked by the right to life, slavery masked by the right to liberty, and the planned poverty, sickness, and misery of millions masked by the right to the pursuit of happiness.

American patriotism is the naturalization of racism and in claiming this project of white supremacy, Obama's claims of patriotism become a tool for white power.

U.S. is Like Communism Without the Health Care

When Denver's finest goof in a uniform, Lt. Tony Lopez told the Denver Post that "We aren't living in a communist state," I'm sure he didn't think that anybody was stupid enough in the U.S. to think that we had health care, livable wages, workable strategies to end homelessness, support of the arts, education, culture and fair labor practices. Nope. Tony was referring to government surveillance--which, according to the same article, we have plenty of--at ridiculous rates. Tony--we aren't living in a communist state--we're living in a fascist state!

In our government's growing trends towards totalitarianism, in Colorado 181 so-called Terrorism Liaison Officers have been trained to determine that people like you and me are terrorists for suspicious activities such as:

Birdwatchers beware! Binocular and camera use are very suspicious.
Geeks watch out--measuring things, baking diagrams, very suspicious.
Don't get lost or confused and double back or drive evasively.
Taking notes--with no working public education system--obvious terroristic.
SUV drivers--fuel purchases--suspect.
Buying uniforms for BDSM? Shame on you.
Parked your car too long--clearly a menace!

These Terrorism Liaison Officers are law enforcement officers, paramedics, workers for Xcel energy, and the railroads. They span the public and private sector. What policies of accountability do they have in place?

According to the article, federal authorities currently define "suspicious activity" as "Observed behavior that may be indicative of intelligence-gathering or pre-operational planning related to terrorism, criminal, or other illicit intention."

In the past, people with dangerous opinions like "people who are destroying the earth are bad" were considered terrorists. Now, bad drivers are.

Lt. Tony Lopez--before you and your ilk drive us into immobility where leaving the house is considered suspicious, terroristic behavior, quit your job and join the millions of people struggling for a better world. Being a cop in an era when taking notes is considered terroristic is like being a totalitarian communist throwing artists into Gulags--except that in the U.S. we don't get any of the benefits of an egalitarian totalitarian society.

Unions: Queer Them or Let Them Die

I just read on an anarchist newswire a reportback from the Class Struggle Anarchist Conference.

From the report-back:
Organizers from the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC), Workers Solidarity Alliance, Industrial Workers of the World, Solidarity & Defense, Capital Terminus Collective, Amanecer, Class Action Alliance, Michigan-Minnesota Group, Anti-Racist Action, the (now defunct) Love and Rage Anarchist Federation, and even a former member of the Mujeres Libres of the Spanish CNT attended. We discussed organizing experiences in the community, workplace, and various social movements with a focus on the role of race and gender within the movement.

This sounds like it was probably an incredible event with great organizations represented. Outside of Love and Rage, which the writer mentions is defunct, the other anarcho-communist organizations sound so caught up in the burdensome jargon of white, male labor organizing that I wonder where the possibility lies.

Don't get me wrong. I can get as teary-eyed as the next Wob when I hear a searing rendition of Solidarity Forever. Sab the cat makes me chuckle too. That being said, there is something unbearably tiresome, white, patriarchal, and heterocentric about the rhetoric of the labor movement. Perhaps this is why, according to The Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 12.1% of the U.S. workforce belongs to a union.

Of those 12%, dare I speculate most are reform minded and content with the Capitalist system? In that case, there are likely more LGBTQ people in the United States than there are revolutionary minded trade-unionists.

Perhaps the time for queering the union movement is now. Since queerish icons like Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna took over the popular imaginary in the 80s, the fact of the matter is If its not queer, its not here, so get over it.



So perhaps the time has come for Sab and Felix the cat to start doin'-it, for Solidarity Forever to be sung from the bubbling tubs of bathhouses, for queer organizers like Emma Goldman and Baynard Ruskin to be celebrated far and wide for the queerness, and for the trade union movement to stop acting so gosh-darned butch.

If trade-union anarchists want to play Joe Worker, they should save it for play parties. Oversized, white, straight male workers are anachronisms. The oppressed work force is radically diverse in gender, race, and documentation status. As the icons of immigrant labor have been swept under the rug for the domination of white men in the labor movement, Joe Worker's image must be swept away if Class Struggle is to mean anything more than a postmodern nod of the head to the late 19th early 20th century.

Fire Witch Rising

For you Denverites looking for some salty, witty feminist analysis of contemporary Denver politics check out Fire Witch Rising. Fire Witch, perhaps someone I know, hopefully someone I will know, was kind enough to cross-post "The Fist of A Ghost." Her tag-line Come At Me With Crapitalist White Male Supremacy And I'll Burn You cracked me up. One of my favorite articles is entitled "Chestbeating Quaker Bigot Barks: 'Not in My Town,'" about Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's posturing to keep Denver "safe from gangs." Happy to see their are more blog bullets flying at the city of Denver than state bullets hitting citizens, I regretfully acknowledge we have a long summer ahead. With the DNC coming, helicopters flying over the city, homeless people being harassed by cops, and fascists attacking undocumented workers, I am glad to know that the radical political, cultural, and social life of Denver will be holding Hickenlooper, the Denver Police Department, and the Democratic and Republican political parties accountable for their nonsense policies, their violence against civic life, and their grotesque exploitation of resources on militarizing our city for the upcoming convention.

Radical Collective Art in Troy New York

My friend Bettina Escauriza just send me a link to a blog about radical, collective projects that have taken place in Troy New York over the past few years. Projects like the Victorian Stroll (talk about nostalgia:)), Magnet Project, Threshholds and more. Bettina is now working as a key organizer for Critical Resistance 10, the 10th anniversary of the amazing prison abolition conference. Check 'em out!

On the Rise

Its an exciting time to be alive, to be in social movements, to engage in the dialog and to partake in the action.

Thousands of grassroots, community based organizations have taken power from the state and into their own hands. While fights for broader media access continue, more people are producing their own stories, news, and art than ever before. Siphoning off the waste of our over-producing society, millions have begun to live off our society's waste. Squatters movements, space reclamation, community gardening, organic agriculture, and sexual liberation have all exploded into wildly creative directions and have become less the property of a handful of "leaders" than a groundswell of the multiplicity, the millions of people working to create a revolutionary world.

Multiracial organizing, brown-black-red unity, intersections of environmentalism, disability, and race, animal rights and human rights, community health initiatives, preparation for radical shifts in economies and environments spell out a new direction for social movements where people care for each other. Today, the strength of our movements is that we are making things work beautifully, positively, and intersectionally and soon will trump the old model of swaggering, finger-pointing statists attempting to grab power over rather than share power between.

While we have untold environmental, cultural, political, and social challenges, we have planted the seeds of liberation and are watching them break apart the concrete of late capitalism, bring alienated communities into dialog and mutual support, and flower into possibility, joy, and liberation.

DNC Protests and 3 Favorite Old Queers!

Since many seem to find my grumpiness towards the 60s white counter-culture a rejection of all white elders, I thought it might be a good idea to tell you about two of my favorite historical white people who were in Chicago during May of 68. Both exemplify some of my favorite trends in Gay White Culture--both have been formative in my own political development.



1) Jean Genet. This French homosexual was chosen by both the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Black Panther Party to help document and advocate for their struggles. While in Chicago during the DNC in 1968 he admired the crotches of cops. As a person who admires Palestinian, black, and sexual liberation and simultaneously gets off on the crotches of cops, I must say, Genet is something of a hero. For those of you who haven't seen Fredrique Moffet's wonderful video Jean Genet in Chicago, you should check it out!

2) Alan Ginsberg. When I was in high school, I blared taped recordings of Ginsberg reading his poetry. As a young man, I particularly enjoyed his passages about his sexual love of young men. His homages to Whitman, his descriptions of drugs, sex, and open political discontent with the United States spoke loudly to my adolescent mind. Despite the repressive comments of rigid gay and Christian straight teachers who told me bisexuality didn't exist and that eventually all people must choose between two neatly defined genders, Ginsberg helped me get through their lies and eventually discover sexual liberation through his open discussions of sex.



In Denver 2008, a strong possibility exists that the protests at the Democratic National Convention will be filled with the sort of sex radicalism, lyricism, and power-fucking exemplified by Genet and Ginsberg. I also imagine that the protests can be rich in race, gender, ability, generational, and sexual analysis. I imagine that white queers in Denver can demonstrate solidarity with black and Palestinian liberation, the struggles of people of color around the world whose liberation movements inspired sexual liberation. I envision Denver's queer community connecting its own struggles against violence with the violence going on in Iraq, Palestine, and throughout the world.



In the memory of another 60s icon, Sylvia Rivera, who spent her life fighting for queer liberation and youth liberation in poor communities of color, I imagine the protests against the DNC can be joyful, fierce, intergenerational, and integrate the broad variety of issues and interests that impact oppressed communities worldwide.

Pink and Black Block at New York City's Pride

Well, it sounds like the Radical Homosexual Agenda is going to be sponsoring a pink and black block at this year's New York City Pride! How I wish I could be there in full black and pink glory with my queer sissies and bro bros protesting the corporate takeover of the legacies of our glorious sexual revolutions! Good to see some queers out there protesting the human rights abuses some gay-friendly companies engage in. If you're in New York, check it out. RHA will be near the leather folk (damn, how I really wish I was there) and will be making a big, rowdy scene!

The Fist of a Ghost: White Nostalgia and the DNC Protests

Political nostalgia signifies the death knell of the white Left. Denver has been overcome with it. First it was the slogan "recreate 68" which has received dozens of varying and historically intriguing critiques. Even so, the folks in Recreate 68 made compelling cases for the evocation of that complicated year referring to Paris, May of 68 and a spirit of revolution. While I don't share their analysis, they've made a concerted effort to defend their title and largely I bought their line.

Perhaps, that is, until it excused an even more nostalgic project.

A new ghost of the sixties has arrived--Come Up to Denver---a website and video based on Crosby, Stills and Nash's song Come To Chicago. I am not sure why people believe that youth culture can be revived via nostalgia for the 60s white counter-culture, a subculture fraught with racism, patriarchy, hierarchical leadership, and other systems and structures rejected by the best of contemporary activism.

Let me say it once and for all : I think evoking the sixties as an inspiration to today's youth is a bad idea.

When I saw the video Come Up to Denver for the first time I couldn't decide whether I should laugh or cry. Sometimes the only response to cliché is cliché.

Unlike Denver, the people in the video are largely, if not entirely white. The musicians are wallowing in an earnest glorification of musty music. The music video contracts grim shots of left-over, white hippies in Denver with Civil Rights era masses protesting in full force. In desperation, the contemporary outmoded hippies cling to a few uninspired, hand-scrawled signs.

The image conveyed by so-called activists is pathetic. It fails to capture the truly inspirational actions going on throughout town--productive projects like The Derailer Bicycle Collective, INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence, Food Not Bombs, Cafe Cultural, Cafe Nuba, Sisters of Color United For Education, Art in Motion, Transform Columbus Day and Denver Open Media.

A misused image of Abu Ghraib and an illustration of a black man tied to a chair accompany the badly sung song. These two still images are two of the few photographic references to the struggles of people of color. Static, frozen icons, bodies of color become symbolic objects for the misguided benevolent white activists to giddily, happily try to demonstrate on behalf of. The paternalistic objectification and inability to include moving images of people of color betrays the resurgence of 60s style racism, a wolf hiding in hairy, white skin.

What's stranger than what is shown is that the video erases inspirational contemporary histories--the recent May 1st immigration marches in Denver where tens of thousands protested corrupt immigration policy, the hundreds of thousands in the streets who protested the Republican National Convention and the millions around the world who protested the war.

The video fails to address local issues of race--police brutality, housing foreclosures, mass incarceration of people of color, failures of the education, health, and social service sector alike. By erasing activists of color and the issues communities of color face, the video traffics in a white supremacist, white cultural narcissism even the two-party system has moved beyond with its problematic tokenism of Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell.

Rarely do I use my blog to criticize people trying to do good things. In this case, my sincere belief is that without a harsh critique of the video's erasure of people of color, glorification of outmoded, anachronistic, failed 60s movements, and inability to appeal to all but a handful of nostalgic, white, aging hippies unaware of white supremacy, many far from Denver might assume that this video represents what the protest movements at the Democratic National Convention will be all about.

Fortunately, this assumption can be dead wrong.

With fierce actions promoting immigrant rights, combating the prison industrial complex, racist military recruiting strategies, the white gentrification of communities of color, and environmental racism, the protests at this years conventions have the opportunity to be a new jumping off point in anti-authoritarian organizing where the much neglected issues of race finally come to the surface as the anachronistic white Left withers into oblivion.

6.26.08. COME UP TO DENVER AND RECREATE 68 ARE TWO ENTIRELY DISTINCT PROJECTS. RECREATE 68 DID NOT PRODUCE THE VIDEO COME UP TO DENVER.

What to Do?

Denver's activist community organizing against the DNC has been gnawing on the issue of self-defense vs. Ghandian non-violence since Recreate 68 began organizing. Both sides of this debate seem misguided in a city that lacks almost all resistance of either type. To advocate for non-violence ala Civil Rights, King encouraged people to be in the streets for months on end, not a few days a year. To advocate for self-defense, the Black Panthers had something worth defending, community based programs that met peoples basic needs. Sadly, uncouched in substantive movements putting consistent pressure on politicians or creative, community based direct action, these debates appear to be parodies of the past, something like Civil War Reenactments for the Left.

Of course, the impulse to create community based projects has been assimilated into what INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence has named "The Non-Profit Industrial complex" and the push towards reform minded politics has shifted from the Grassroots to gargantuan, professional activist organizations. Because these groups are accountable to the scrutiny of the government through tax laws, the likelihood of them actually organizing revolution through either reform-minded protest or direct action is low.

As the media conceals the actual effects of U.S. corporate and government behavior, the death, ecological destruction, suffering, and illness, we are left with a question about how to best act. Should we give our money to professional activist groups and give up the notion of the grassroots? Should we go to the handful of protests each year sponsored by these gigantic, unaccountable groups? Should we reject the non-profit world or throw our weight behind it? Should we organize community based programs without the aid of the state, foundations, and ruling class money? Should we enter the grassroots conversations about violence vs. nonviolence? There is much to figure our through practice.

Surviving Post-Industrial Collapse

If those who believe that the collapse of civilization is coming are right, and heaven only knows that while I'd love to rain on their parade they may very well be right, we're all going to need some serious survival skills to keep our fabulous lives on course. Aric McBay has put together In the Wake: A Collective Manual-in-progress for Outliving Civilization! From composting toilets to post-civilization condoms, Aric has some practical, fabulous ideas. But learn while you can--these ideas are all online! Aric is also the author of Peak Oil Survival: A Guide to Life After Grid Crash.

The Politics of Creativity and The Politics of Destruction

These days it seems like everybody wants to build something--this is an impulse that is entirely revolutionary, exciting, and captivating. From community gardening projects, independent media centers, no-waste food distribution programs like Food Not Bombs, thousands of active independent arts projects, community health collectives, culture centers, alternative economies, cooperative agriculture, and bicycle collectives. Building things is good. It helps us create a livable world.

While these projects are vital to environmental and economic sustainability, the pleasures of living, and the growth of community, I am concerned that many have so thoroughly renounced a politics of negation, of the ability to say "no," of the necessity of creative, life-affirming direct action that tears down institutions of oppression in spectacular and useful ways that they have bunkered down in a metaphoric nuclear shelter before the metaphoric buttons have been pushed and given up the right to defend ourselves against the violence of this brutal system. They take for granted that the apocalyptic destruction of the earth and its people is an inevitable outcome of our system. Such cynicism often sneaks into movements in the trojan horses of pacifism and performed positivity and denies the possibility of destroying that which is killing us.

Can horizontal networks of trans-local, productive, communities stop wars? Can localized organizing end occupations? Perhaps, if relationships become strong enough to resist the violence of mass marketing, so-called "social networking" data-mining, and the bombardment of propaganda in the public and private spheres. But I hesitate to fully believe that we can renounce mass demonstrations, forceful actions of negation, the physical destruction of the machinery of capitalism that threatens the land, air, the water, and our survival. To steal an old I.W.W. cliche, we can build a new system in the shell of the old; however, we cannot deny that the beast of oppression still thrives in its shell and that the beast must be destroyed.

Together I want us to garden, eat delicious meals, create spectacular community support systems, culture, art, healing practices, and media that satisfies our desires in a sustainable way.

Still, from my vantage point, pitting politics of negation and destruction against these beautiful local creative initiatives is unwise. We need a diversified arsenal to attack the system and a diversified culture of productivity to sustain ourselves and build stronger networks. If we entertain a false opposition between these modes of survival, both self-defense and the destruction of the machinery of capitalism and additionally self-preservation and the creation of a better way of living, we will either be destroyed by the system or kill ourselves.

Happily, this is not necessary. We can continue to renounce, protest, negate, and dismantle systems of violence while experiencing joy, liberation, health, vitality, and community.

Life is Queer!

What a weekend! My roomie just got back from Allied Media Conference which sounded amazing. I spent the day at a coalition meeting of folks organizing for the Democratic National Convention. This morning Hillary and I went to the pride parade which gets more corporate, more electoral, and less queer every year. Before that, we attended an early morning brunch with the Colorado Anti-Violence Program. Last night we paid too much damn money to dance at Tracks, had a beer at the Wrangler, and Bart and I went to a summer solstice celebration with the Radical Faeries. So much is going on--so much fraught with possibility and problematics. Also I read an incredible critique of convention organizing by Cindy Milstein.
My desire is that in all the creativity, the organizing, the relationships developed, the critiques formed and either dismissed or acted upon, that we are beginning to see a growth of possibility, networked social movements that can last long beyond the Democratic National Convention, the fall of the United States, and the generations that will follow our own. Whatever else, Happy Pride. Life sure is queer.

Colorado Indymedia Prepares for DNC Coverage

Saturday, June 14th more than 20 media activists gathered together at the Five Points Media Center in the offices of Free Speech TV to learn how to be the media. Colorado Indymedia conducted the training in the hopes that grassroots activists could begin to document their own stories and struggles during the Democratic National Convention.

Preparing participants to use video, radio, photo, print, and web tools to document the protests and participation in the Democratic National Convention, trainers presented a wide variety of tools and techniques for grassroots journalism and production.

Participants included members of Coloradans for Immigrant Rights, Recreate 68, and Unconventional Action. Trainers came from Colorado Indymedia, Free Speech TV, KGNU, and Indymedia Newsreel.

I was happy to see so many people come together to learn about producing media and am looking forward to seeing the fruit of their work documenting struggle in the streets and the halls of the convention in the next few months.