American Provincialism Vs. Translocalism

Americans love to eat other cultures food, but when it comes to trying to understand geopolitics, much less engage in solidarity with oppressed people the world over, we fail.

All to often, American's only think of ourselves. We spend endless amounts of energy focusing on our own culture, political issues, and cultural productions. Even in allegedly political circles a strange parochialism persists.

How much stronger would U.S. social movements be if we engaged in regular dialog with translocal initiatives--the Zapatistas, the Korean Anarchist Movement, Irish Nationalists, Indigenous people in struggle throughout the world all connected directly with projects in our own communities.

Monolingualism and a profound lack of curiosity are dooming the bulk of the U.S. public. Immigrants are some of the few people in the United States who still have the ability to frame the debate beyond a narrow-minded patriotism and a naive self-obsession. Multilingual indigenous people and immigrants and from African, Asian, and Latin diasporas all present unique opportunities for people in the United States to connect to struggles beyond those presented in our Capitalist media.

Progressives and progressive media are guilty of xenophobia, racism, and parochialism as much as anybody. Until we resolve to erase the borders from our mind and broaden our political, cultural, and social interests while investing in our local communities, the United States will continue to stomp about the earth ignorant and hostile, lost in its own narcissism, wasteful, and destroying the possibility of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Only through a significant investment in face-to-face interaction within our own neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and streets coupled with a strong urge to network our localisms with others throughout the world can we create an alternative globalization that can over-through neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Liberating ourselves will require both local and global investments, networks, and projects entirely autonomous and hostile towards oppressive systems.

Blissful Sunday

Today was blissful. I woke up tired and groggy, drank bitter coffee on the couch with my incredible lover, had brunch with an old Chicago friend who introduced me to the mystic poet Hafiz of Shiraz, received life advice from Hafiz, spent the afternoon reading sex books, talking to my house-mate Nia, going with Jessi to a delicious desert oriented dinner at Mac, Chad and Chris' unknown named house, studied words, ate nachos, and slept again. Before the dinner I sat on the porch with Graves and talked about her trip to Chiapas to the Zapatista language school. There, the anti-capitalist movement seems unencumbered by the sectarianism and compromises of the U.S. Left. I spoke to my friend Lorraine who told me my friend Stacy was getting married in July. I spoke to Stacy and she confirmed the details. She called me later and said how important I am in her life. She can barely imagine how important she is in mine. We are close friends who have seen each other in almost every conceivable type of situation.

I love my friends, poetry, and possibility. A day as blissful and insightful as today comes rarely in this grotesque world. Crimson roses bloom. Furry babies pop off our peach tree. The world is incredible and well worth saving.

How Can We End This War?

9/11 derailed the counter-globalization movement. The morning the planes smashed into the World Trade Center, the Financial Times reported that "the protesters are winning." This referred to the international movement against neoliberal economic policy--that of the Zapatistas, the protesters against the WTO in Seattle, the IMF and World Bank, and the G8 in Genoa. When the anti-war movement began to emerge against the wars in Afghanistan and eventually Iraq, conversations about violence verses non-violence that hardly touched the counter-globalization movement began to sorely disrupt large-scale organizing efforts. Years later, the war continues. The public has grown in its disgust with the war; however, its ferocious opposition has slowly subsided. A violent reaction against the war in Iraq has not shaken the country. Capitalism continues strongly, unabated by mass discontent. The non-violent anti-war activists continue to voice opposition without effect. Militants continue to use violent language and do very little. The police continue their campaigns of violence. The military continues its campaign of violence. The capitalists continue their campaigns of violence and people remain largely quite. Is our silence not a form of violence? Is our refusal to disrupt business as usual not a form of violence? Is our absence in the streets not a form of violence? Are we not complicit in the daily slaughter of Iraqis? How can we remind people that the war continues, that children continue to be murdered? How can we stand by as the United States continues to commit grand acts of murder? How can we gain the strength to march in the streets day after day till the atrocities stop? How can we gain the faith that our actions matter? How can we end this war?