Do you sometimes feel like you sort of know about a certain subject but are foggy on some of the historical details yet don’t have the time to read a long book about the subject for basic knowledge and contexual clarification. Well, if you sort of want a “101″ on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, their history, their role in controlling public policy and economic imperatives the world over, and their current instantiation in world politics and American Empire, check out The Economics of Empire in Harper by William Finnegan. Without frills, its clear and powerful prose gets at the heart of the problems with these institutions that yield far to much power to determine the destinies of nations that depend on thier financial support in the form of loans, loans that really amount to social forms of bondage….

I sometimes forget that some of the best of our ideas come from “young ones.” I mean, I think I peaked in terms of insight at 17, so why not Aaron Swartz a young blogger (16?, 17?) with some great ideas. Recently, he posted a good, though I bet to some controversial recommendation on a way to get a “left” message out in the news in an effective, mass-media, fighting fire-with-fire sort of way. Now we need someone like Oprah to become a leftie, have her invest her trillions of dollars in a left leaning, sensationalist news show, be the host, and hook the American public on the evils of economic, social, and poltiical oppresion…

Last night I saw a movie about the Black Panther Chicago chapter leader Fred Hamptom, “The Murder of Death Hamptom” by Mike Gray. The movie was mostly raw footage of the rawness in its best form that was the personal vibrancy of Fred Hamptom and the rawness in its worst form that was his murder by the Chicago police department as part of a larger FBI conspiracy.

The movie which was basically a lot of footage without any narration captured what was most unique about Fred Hamptom. He seemed to be everything at once and it was in his conversations and speeches in which that everythingness came to be. He was witty, biting, sarcastic, endearing, angry, compassionate, confrontational, engaging, very humane, and a revolutionary all at the same time. I guess that is pure charisma a pure power that scared the daylights out of US intelligence.
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Organic food is good. It tastes better, it is more ecologically sustainable, it is healthier, and you can generally feel good about yourself when you buy and eat organic. But do you feel good about yourself when you buy organic food at the local “Safeway” market instead of the local cooperative?

So today I went to Safeway for the first time in like a year only to discover a large natural foods and products section with a diverse range of things like toilet paper made from recycled paper, colon cleansing herbs, gluten free grains, the token Amy’s frozen food dinners, and all sorts of weird organic teas.

I was a bit shocked to see all these products that I associated with coops, Whole Foods, and small health food stores in the monolith, big, bad, Safeway. Hell, the modern supermarket sucks. I think one of the more revolutionary acts would be to do away entirely with the supermarket. But I have to say that I am on the whole ok that Safeway carries these types of products because it exposes a whole other set of people to the powerful message contained within organic foods.

One of the large problemsof politics is preaching to the choir, something that worries seth quite a bit within his political world. I think it is one of the most fundamental problem of any sort of politics–> how to sing outside the choir. The problem is that most people don’t want to be sung to because it is not the song of their own choosing.

So one solution is reaching them via stealth mode. And it is this steathliness that I find important in the relatively large scale presence of organic/natural products at a mainstream market. It is in this way that people who have never really thought of going organic might be exposed to this world and in the process learn enough about it, to actually care so that they learn about the isssues surrounding large scale unorganic food production is all about. It is only when people learn and really viscerally care about something that then one can break out into some preachy tunes.

But in the end, I see it only as a possible stepping stone, in which people, through exposure are brought to greater consciousness about an issue and then go beyond the Safeway and into the coop. I know that for many in Safeway, having natural products will just be an added convenience and they will not switch out of the “supposed” safe zone of the supermarket which is really full of unsafe stuff. But I think it has the potential to reach a greater mass of people, a fraction of which will hopefully migrate over 3 blocks west and 2 blocks north to Rainbow, San Francisco’s worker owned food coop…

I lament the maleness of the Net, geek culture, and tech activism. But then, once in a while, a counter-force strikes back and in this case, her name is hep. She has been on the streets lately reporting back constantly on IRC through her “heptop”. Mother to kids and iguanas, activist, geek, and an immigrant, she really surprises.

Leave it to the good old French to propose
classification of Free Software as an intangible world cultural heritage. I like the spirit of this as it shows how a lot of free software developers really do think and act upon the larger socio-political meaning and importance of what they do.

Praveen responded to one of our friends on email about why it is important to protest. His answer is below.
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Your analysis of the rights we enjoy in America is almost exclusively a
“left coast” thing – san francisco, portland, and seattle have all been
fought for hard to remain a place that’s not under total lockdown. As I
type this, I’m seeing the report of my friend Dave Worth in NM shot by a
rubber bullet for being in a small peaceful protest of 300- a
demonstration that was surrounded by SWAT and gassed:

http://nm.indymedia.org/media/protests/display/391/index.php

Granted it wasn’t a live bullet. If the crowd was any larger, it would
have been a live bullet. But, I’d like to point out,
that right now:
– tens of thousands of middle eastern immigrants are being wholesale
monitored, detained, and deported with no good reason
– the U.S. prison population is pushing 2 million in wholesale
concentration camp style class warfare, with a vast
disproportion being latino or black.. As the general public turns a blind
eye against what they see as a “criminal class”.
– political activists are time and again monitored, railed against,
and framed

I don’t want to be negative or a downer, and you know as well as I do the
situation here…. There have been a lot of critiques about U.S.
imperialism throughout the entire world, but we as americans are just as
subjugated as the rest of the world.

Who do the streets belong to? It’s a matter of perspective. It’s a big
cultural gap between myself and mainstream america. If you come from the
neighborhoods and the class where I do, it certainly doesn’t belong to
us. It’s tough to convey some of this living in the Bay Area (an
island of public discourse)… But I’ll give it a shot… Walk along the
streets from your house to the stores or to your workplace. Is it your
streets? Or is it Krispy kreme’s? Or the mega realtor that owns the
neighborhood? The class, the wrong race, being homeless, and you must
keep moving- you are a criminal if you don’t. I say this from a very
personal perspective. The U.S. has developed a compulsion to keep what
they don’t like out of their reality, and have legislated it thusly. If
it’s not for sale and it’s at all publicly empowering, we have to
legislate it out of existence. If there is even a risk of cutting into
profits, we must legislate it out of existence. Keep the homeless out of
the suburbs, keep the shanty towns down, lock them in prison. Keep the
kids on curfew, keep minorities working in the industries where they
belong.

What’s happened because of this compulsion of real estate prices is we
have effectively choked all forms of physical communication
networking between people across the country.

You know already know this. This is why you are talking to me.

Let’s say the protests yesterday were predominantly latino or black.
Would we be seeing the same news? Or would we be seeing a “riot” instead
of demonstrations? What would the body count be then?

The reason the left and these protests have been able to sustain the
pretext of “civil disobedience” and the ONLY reason we haven’t had people
disappearing in the U.S. is because of a great legacy left by communists
and christian radicals: NETWORK network network. Get your voice out
there and get it LOUD. Were we in the pre-internet era, and were there no
indymedia, there would be no protests because they would have been
squelched before they started (see cointelpro), and you wouldn’t have
known about them.

10 years ago, the only people who would know what the “WTO” is are
economist and conspiricy wingnuts. 10 years ago, the actions of the U.S.
in foreign countries would not have even been known unless you were a
wingnut. Remember the Panamanian invasion? Did you ever heard about the
U.S. bombing raids over peasant farmers?
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Since the threat of war, I have been attending the many protests in SF, a city whose lifeblood is that of public outpouring of protest. Yet, on Thursday, the protests were different: rawer, richer, and more simple.

Yes simple. The emotions were in your face. People were upset over an unjust war; the clashes with the police was a raw meetings of opposition, the solidarity was palpable. But the simplicity lay in the power of taking over the streets, of halting traffic, and the normal humdrum of the city. It was a simple yet total instantiation of what a city or any community is supposed to be and mean for its inhabitants: a space for its inhabitants. Strangers and friends were visible everywhere, bodies strung literally and metaphorically together, forcing a disruption to let people know that the war is no game even if CNN et al present otherwise.

We were all anti-war. But the public outcry was so much more. Going to war was done in such a wholeheartedly, stark, and nauseating fashion that even your average apathetic American has been moved into action. Those who were already acting, acted with more passion.

There is something very empowering about taking over streets and yes, shutting them down as a very vivid, dramatic, but really simple reminder that it is “the people” who should control the life blood of our communities whether you conceive of that at a local, city, or national level. Taking over the streets is sometimes the only way that a large mass of citizens can feel that power and really that democratic right especially given these times when the political process is so clouded, obscure, and directly manipulated by the powers that be.

The next day I went out to participate more in the continuing protests. The police had clamped down more directly so that the streets were only sporadically taken over. It made me realize just how deeply San Franciscans halted the normalcy of life that day before. I hope that these counter movements grow stronger, that they rise with the dropping of every toxic bomb that the US releases

Lately my life has been all about Debian although not in the way it is for most people. I mean I use apt-get a lot and all but it is more about “apt-get install debian-culture” and really all the Debianites are starting to grow on me.

One of the greatest parts about being an anthropologist is that it is ok, in fact encouraged to really get to know people. Relationships matter more or just as much as surveys. So it is great when a Debian developer drops you a line to tell you about a really cool conference they are organizing. It looks like just the thing this country needs so if you are in that part of California, Mexico, do try to make it!

From time to time, I grab my roommates’ copy of Social Text ,
a largely garbled and incomprehensible journal for the learn-ed to
read while soaking in the bath. I rarely understand more then 50% of
what I read, but somehow I sometimes like the unsubstantiated fluffy
though grandiose narratives of articles, sometimes because they are truly thought provocative, sometimes to remind me that I *never* want to write in that style.

But today, I read a piece that was clear, provocative, depressing, and inspirational. The article, “Tenure Denied: Anti-unionism and Anti-intellectualism in the Academy” by Joel Westheimer recounts how he was basically denied tenure for actively supporting the unionization of graduate students at NYU. After he testified on their behalf, his treatment especially by administration dramatically shifted and soon after he was denied tenure although he was like the cookie cutter candidate for tenure. He had published profusely, was awarded yearly prestigious fellowships, received yearly excellent reviews for tenure, and had the unanimous support from the tenure academic advisory committee. Anyway, he was denied tenure, but thankfully later on after the federal government sued NYU over the fishy tenure proceedings well, NYU lost. It was one of those embarrassingly crystal clear cases of discrimination that was made apparent after certain emails were released after the trial that suggested a strategy for dispelling him after his testimony, a strategy that would indeed be tough given his high qualifications. As he notes in his article:

“Another internal memo between department administrators describes ‘all the high merits that Joel got’ aling with various external awards as a ‘real problem’ and notes the
difficulty of construction a negative evaluation given that
‘Joel is known beyond NYU[and] has the outside ltters.” p. 64

The dumb-ass administrative serving Dean of the Education School of course had to resign. It is great that this professor won and is now a
teacher with tenure in Canada. It also exposes such press releases as shams.

He won but the University is losing as he really shows in this article. I don’t think that the University has been the totally sacred space of independence that people think it is or at least was, but it
is what we should strive for even if an imperfect ideal. This ethos of
independence is being threatened not just by corporate-industry
affiliations which are most relevant to the science but as this
articles shows but the adoption of the corporate mentality of the
administration one that curtails workers rights and intellectual
freedom. As he notes, many departments are making professors reliant
on the administration for money, recognition, and advancement.

I have my problems with tenure (I can’t tell you how many tenured
professors are terrible academics because they, well can’t lost their
job), but it is not such a bad idea. For every 3 lousy professors, if
there is one who is producing high quality work who will not be
punished for his or her work, then the system is worth it. Sure
you can criticize loud and clear without the PhD and the fancy
institution behind your name but it gives power and force to the
critique. And yes, the system can be improved. Like I would prefer
long contracts (ike 25 years) over absolute tenure but the freedom
that tenure gives is one worth holding onto.

Being punished for the expression of one’s political beliefs in
the University is like well, Buddhist monk elders telling their little monk neophytes that they are not shaving their heads to contemplate compassion but to go to war. All right, maybe I am exaggerating but I am pissed and sickened by this case mostly because I know that it is not an isolated expression but an expression of a much deeper problem going on in the field of academics. I don’t want the university to corporatized as is the current trend and I think it is important for academics at all levels to care about it and do something about it. It is our institution not “theirs” and if we don’t do anything about it, it will change right before our eyes. And everyone will lose.

I am about to start an article with my friend Mako about the differences between free and open source and the academy, in part to clarify the unique ethos that the Debian project has. Free software is often conceptualized as an extension of the academic model of openness and freedom and I have always had a problem with this rendition especially since there are significant differences between these domains institutionally and culturally. And after reading this article, something that really struck me is that free software projects don’t have an administration in the same way that the University does and this has implications for the ethics of these projects. Administrations whose interest are often not in line with the interest of the wider community. Granted, universities are complex institutions with a long histories and I am not saying that they should get rid of administration but it is one significant point of difference with the world of free software that has implications for how the ethics of sharing and knowledge creating is carried out.

But given there are administrations, students and faculties should have a watchful eye for the place they call their community. The first week that I went to Columbia University, the administration was planning on taking away need blind admissions which is a damn important little part of the admissions process in imho. As I was walking around the quad my first day there, it was so great to see a bunch of students climbing all over the administrative building, Low Library, breaking in so they could attend the “closed-meeting” on need blind admission. The break-in to the administration building was a powerful statement that ultimately the administration should not be making decisions without the voice of the entire community and that students and professors should make their voice heard. They succeeded, need blind admissions remained, and the University figured out how to route around the financial problem that it caused.

Without meddling at some level, the path towards corporatization will
continue on ward. It is only those in the inside than can and really
can do something about it. I hope that in the few years that I have
left in academics I see this meddling increase.