transmissions from a compromised antenna

Hey All,

This came out in print a few days ago but just appeared on the Web today. Unlike some of the other things I've put in print lately, I really slaved over this one, which tells the history of ABC No Rio through the imprints that remain in the grimy details of the building on 156 Rivington. Comments welcome as always.

So my first real piece of reportage on the election is now up here.

There were some interesting elements of the reporting process that didn't make it into the story. The one that most sticks with me is that the Obama people resisted the category of "Latino," which my editor had pretty much told me to run with, saying "We don't put a label on everyone." The guy at the Obama office was also proud to tell me one of his primary Latina organizers had also worked for Pataki, a Republican. All the people in the Clinton camp were much more comfortable with the categories: Yes we're out canvassing Latinos, and yes we're all Democrats.

On Daniel Pinchbeck's advice I picked up a copy of Hardt & Negri's Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. It's a sharp yet optimistic take on political possibilities today and opens with a thorough discussion of post-Fordist war. It comes down to a debate between advocates of the "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA), who believe war should now be run mostly by drones and information technology systems rather than by embodied, expendable soldiers. This group is sometimes called "technologists" and includes Donald Rumsfeld. On the other side there are those who believe that human soldiers will always be essential and should be there getting killed anyway in order to preserve and strengthen the population's willingness to accept casualties. This group is sometimes called "traditionalists" and includes people like Gen. Shinseki and Rep. Murtha who criticized Rumsfeld for invading Iraq with such a small force.

Then I came across a passage that might be of interest to friends of mine from both the political and SF communities--not, of course, as if those are mutually exclusive.

I was out last night with my friend Shawna, who I know from Food Not Bombs/Homeless Census/Haunted House/assorted seedy adventures. I ran into her last week and we've been doing a bit of catching up. Seems she's become a professional dominatrix, which surprised me at first because Shawna is not what I would normally think of as "the type." More cutesy, crustie, cheerful punk girl than any kind of stern, paddle-brandishing dom thing. But she tells me she can "turn it on at will."

The funny thing was something she said over pecan pie last night:

"The dom scene is really small so after a while you meet everybody else who's working in it. Right when I started I heard that my friend Kiri had just started too, but I hadn't seen her in a couple of years so I didn't look her up. I just figured sooner or later I'd run into her. Now this is my friend Kiri who I know from squatting on the Lower East Side, my DIRTY DIRTY DIRTY, dumpster-diving, anarchist, fucked-up girl Kiri. Kiri that stole everything she had and never showered. And then a client comes up to me after a session and tells me 'I sometimes go to see another girl named Kiri. She told me to say hi to you.'"

"And James, it was crazy because here we are, these two old squatter friends, who know each other as habitual shoplifters and outcasts, and this guy is connecting us again who sees us only as . . . as . . . "

"Upscale commodities?" I suggest, using all that great marketing experience.

"Upscale commodities!"

It was hard not to wince a bit when, during George W. Bush's recent visit to Albania, Prime Minister Sali Berisha called the American president the "greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times (sic)." Especially when flanked by pictures of ordinary Albanians clambering over one another for a chance to shake Bush's hand, and mentions in every article of stamps featuring Bush's face and streets named after him, the news carried a strong whiff of the strange political atmosphere in a country that has always seen itself as abandoned by Europe (with good reason) and now feels no choice but to welcome a warmongering U.S. president whose approval rating has long hovered around 30 percent at home and is widely hated in Western Europe.

To understand the truly unconditional support that Albanian representatives are demonstrating to Bush, one has to be aware of the historical dynamic, so well known in Albania that almost every one I spoke with mentioned it to me at least once, of European abandonment and American concern. The story of European abandonment goes back at least to the fourteenth century, when Albanians fought countless battles against the invading Ottoman armies, with virtually no assistance from Christian Europe. Later, after World War I, the European Great Powers were allied either with Greece (in the case of Britain) or Serbia (in the case of Russia) and favored the total annexation of the Albanian territories. It was Woodrow Wilson--the most respected U.S. president in Albania--who defended the country's right to exist, although it still lost the regions of Chameria to Greece and Kosovo to Serbia.

Since the fall of Communism in Albania, a somewhat similar dynamic has appeared. Unemployment is severe; poverty is rampant, and almost every family has at least two members living in Greece, Italy or the U.K. to work and send money home. This situation has created a kind of snobbery or even racism against Albanians in Europe, which does not exist in the U.S. Interestingly, despite the fact of numerous extraordinary renditions and detentions of random Muslims by the U.S. military, Albanians--70% of whom are Muslims--have been somehow immune from this. Perhaps U.S. anti-Islam-ism looks for a combination of racial and religious difference? I don't know, and many immigrants can tell you horror stories of desperate life in New Jersey or Ohio, but the fact remains that Albanians are more welcomed in the U.S. than they are in Europe.

Compound this with Clinton's intervention on the behalf of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo during the 1990's, and you can see why the Albanians are pro-American. This is a small, poor country that needs friends, and America really has been one. Bush is serious when he says he supports independence for Kosovo. This will inflame things even further with Russia, of course, but that isn't stopping Bush on any other front. And, in return, Albania offers the chance for the media to say "As despised as George W. Bush is, there's still one country in the world that welcomes him as a hero." That does make a difference in the global PR war.

I worry what that representation will mean for Albania's future. A millennium of struggle for independence, just to kowtow to the likes of George W. Bush? It's depressing, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. As an Albanian friend wrote to me yesterday:

I am a little sad too. Albania always makes me a little sad for lots of reasons. I, however, know one thing for sure: they are so sick of their position in Europe after the saga of the communist regime and the subsequent consequences we suffer to this day (the alienation from the rest of EC, the sense of isolation and rejection, the sad fact of being poor to the bone and having such an awful domestic leadership, which is to my opinion the worst evil they need to fight against), that they seek all means to get out of the puddle and find a way to become stronger.

That said, I remember what it was like to talk to people in Albania about America. The media makes it seem like they're overflowing with emotion about it, but I have a feeling that the emotion was more pride at being important enough to warrant a visit from Bush than love of Bush himself. People had a very particular way of talking about it. "We don't like the war in Iraq," they would say, "but you helped us so we'll help you." That was the sense I got of the real relationship: a pragmatic exchange of support that Albanians saw as essential to their own survival.

—James

Japan really sucks right now.

As much as I love Japanese manga (I just read one at work today), robotics, sexual obsessions, anime, solar panels, woodcuts, and so on, the current behavior of the Japanese state regarding whaling is totally gross. For thoe of you not keeping up with the story, the rub is that the International Whaling Commission (IWC) ruled in 1986 to ban commercial whaling, making an exception for "scientific purposes." In the aftermath of that decision, three nations have come out as strongly pro-whaling: Norway, Iceland, Japan. Norway withdrew from the IWC altogether and Iceland continues relatively small-scale whaling under the "scientific" clause. But it's Japan that, in addition to scientific whaling, is engaged in a massive campaign to fill the ranks of the IWC with small, poor nations that it can basically bribe with aid to vote in its favor on the IWC.

So, just the other day, the pro-whaling nations managed to get a 33-t0-32 victory on a decision to issue a statement making all sorts of preposterous claims: the IWC represents whaling nations, whales are to blame for third-world poverty because they eat too many fish (!?!) and so on. This is being called the "St. Kitts Declaration." Luckily, they would need a 70% majority in order to actually overturn the whaling ban and all they have is barely over 50%.

But you can read this story practically anywhere, so I'm not going to drone on and on about the details of it. What interests me are the political lessons that come out of a case like this. For instance:

1. A lot of people are pointing out that profits fromle-related tourism completely tower over any prospective profits from selling (just imagine how gross...) whale meat. And yet, Japan is able to rope poor Carribean nations like St. Kitts into voting in its favor. This gets us into Franz Fanon, post-colonial territory. Post-colonial poverty places nations within the hands of local elites who only think in terms of relief money. In this case, to the detriment of their people and the whales themselves.

2. Political victories are not permanent. The 1986 whaling ban is seen by practically anybody with as much as a green eyelash as one of environmentalism's most significant victories. And yet, they're rolling it back. I can't help but feel that we have to start all over again, raising consciousness and drumming up support. But then, there's a lot of emotional support for whales that exists as a sort of foundation built by the 70s and 80s movement. That's still there. And it's good to be able to see the United States as a good guy FOR ONCE. The most basic solution is a strong boycott against Japan. I think they'll step back from the radical and nationalistic position (anti-whaling nations are being accused of Western cultural imperialism in Japan) if it starts looking like an economic albatross.

3. Nationalism can't be predicted. Nationalism has brought us many strange things and you can see a lot of them watching World Cup games in Brooklyn bars. It brings us nationalized gas in Bolivia, but is also brings us this really savage whaling from Japan. I haven't really spoken with my Japanese friends about it--I'm rather afraid of what I might hear from them--but people say most Japanese politicians see this as a proud Japanese tradition, yadda yadda yadda. I really wonder how the average Japanese person thinks about it.

These ideas are slightly related to the story I have under construction. It's called "The Extinctionists" and some of you will see it fairly soon.

Hope all of you are well.

James