Dear Santa Claus,

What a year! I feel so overwhelmingly lucky. Every day has so much to look forward to.

This morning (after transacting with the diaper service delivery guy), i lay quietly in bed and simply beheld the beauty of my sleeping son. Roy looks just like he did in the 3D Ultrasound video (that i watched half a dozen times during Sara’s pregnancy), which kind of makes sense, following the “4th trimester” concept; he mostly holds his hands up by his face, occasionally scratching his head with his little fingers.

I’m so in love with him that it makes me cry.

Sara and i had a good cry together the day before yesterday, when we received Love You Forever by Robert Munsch (as a gift from the Peak House team), and each took a turn trying to read it, and were overcome by our emotions.

How did i get so lucky Santa?!

Did it help that i’ve always believed in you? Were you in fact somehow winking at me, sending these life-altering gifts? And, incidentally… did you secretly underwrite Elf in 2003, ensuring that it would be the first Christmas movie Sara and i saw together (just a few weeks after we fell in love)? Well, if so, it worked. We fell even deeper in love, and Christmas became additionally magical for us.

...

In the time since i started this letter, i have to let you know i’ve seen a new dimension of joy unfold before my eyes. I changed Roy’s diaper, then took him for a stroll around the apartment, and as we stood in the soft morning light by the living room window, he gazed up at my smiling face, and smiled back!

He’s had smiles before, but only ‘inner’ smiles, not ‘social’ ones. He was looking into my eyes, and we exchanged smiles. We did it at least a dozen times!

So Santa, as the central supernatural being in my pantheon, i just want to thank you so much for these blessings that continue to bloom in my life. But also, of course (being aware of the traditional contents of our correspondence), i’m left wondering: how can i possibly reply to your annual interrogative?

What would i like for Christmas?

I won’t bore you with perfunctory disavowals — we both know i am abundantly wealthy in all the ways that Scrooge famously wasn’t, before he met those three spirits that Dickens sent him — so i won’t guiltily pretend to believe that being extraordinarily fortunate (both lucky and privileged) either exempts me from further desires, or renders my desires indecent. (An inner critic asks: How could i ask for anything more? Well... i could ask humbly and politely, for example, with an appropriate measure of gratitude for all that i already have).

I know you’re well aware of my standing order for a Global Peace and Goodwill package (with extra civil liberties and economic justice); so i won't go over that again. I trust your elves are working on it (how are their consensus decision-making workshops going?).

In deference to the annual anti-materialist objections, and the concerns (which i know we both share) about holiday waste, i’ll begin with my intangible wish-list. Oh, but first: thanks for granting my midsummer wish for restored funding to the MAP Van, and for the early surprise of the official renaming of Haida Gwaii! Those things have already made this Christmas great. You rock, Santa.

1) The first thing i would like for Christmas is...
To have some meaningful conversations about the ambiguities of Christmas.

I'd like some progress (new insights, improved dialogue and/or even cultural synthesis) in the ‘[secular] Christmas’ vs. ‘[multicultural] holiday’ schism… (y'know: the distinctly leftist sub-strain of the broader, frequently absurd, Christmas controversy — which usually centres around insane paranoid zealots, bigots and fanatics threatening to boycott any business that shows a hint of secular or multicultural sympathies).

Specifically, i'd like to see some productive acknowledgment of the tensions between those who problematically (often implicitly) assert the ‘secularity’ (and therefore ostensibly inclusiveness) of Christmas celebrations (ie: if “Everyone’s Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day” then can’t “everyone” (who might like to) “be 'Christian'” at Christmas time?), and those (including but not limited to many members of distinctly non-Christian communities [whether atheist, faith-based, ethnic, or ‘other’]), who assert that ‘Christmas’ — no matter how secularized (or in fact deeply pagan) it might be — is a reminder of ongoing, insidious Christian hegemony.

As i’m sure you can understand, Santa, i find myself with (at least) one foot in each camp (of course debates around the socio-cultural ethics and politics of holiday celebrations involve many more dimensions than just these two, and many more issues than can be acknowledged or discussed in one Christmas wish list!).

On the one hand i love Christmas, but on the other hand i’m all too aware that my relationship with this holiday is mediated by layers of privilege…

I’ve always happily rejected Christian dogma, yet i’ve also retained a sense of entitlement to some kind of (albeit vague, secular) ‘Christian’ identity, especially at Christmas. My position is hardly unique (a recent, in many ways disturbing, poll confirmed Canada as a land dominated by “[Christian] believers, but not belongers”). As a “white” / non-racialized “person of pallor” with (long-severed) Irish-Catholic roots, i have the luxury of choosing when i wish to ‘identify’ (usually strategically, [eg: to challenge fundamentalist prejudices]) as any kind of (secular) ‘Christian’. Thus, I can “come out” as ‘Christian’ when it suits me, but also, crucially, no one else has the power to “out” me, because i can legitimately disavow any real (or specifically/narrowly) Christian theological commitment.

[EDIT: i found this interesting post, which articulates a position similar to mine, except i imagine this chap might like to challenge my vaguely pantheistic inclinations.]

The important thing to recognize about this doubly luxurious, optional, loose, secular / quasi-Christianity is that it is — because of the configurations of power in North America — completely incommensurable with the experiences of (racialized or otherwise marginalized) people who are positioned outside of what is normal by their non-observance of Christian holidays, most notably Christmas.

This morning, a Google search for ‘Christo-normativity’ brought me to two interesting and relevant discussions.

The first author, Asher (“an anarchist Jew from Aotearoa / New Zealand”), stated that he is "sick of hearing: ‘Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday, it’s a secular family one!’” Fair enough... But proposing “social revolution” as a solution to complex social conflicts always seems like a cop-out to me. Sure, revolution sounds promising; but what can be done (this Christmas / holiday season) to make a positive difference in this situation?

The second author, Abbey L. Ferber, more helpfully asks: “...how do we create a more inclusive culture, a climate where everybody feels included?” and goes on to say: “I don't have the answer, but I can think of many ideas. As a starting point, it would be wonderful if organizations had meetings or discussions to brainstorm ideas about how to make their environments feel religiously inclusive. Simply demonstrating that this is an issue worth thinking about is one step to making people feel more included.”

It certainly is “worth talking about” of course. She moves the discussion forward by reminding ‘us’ to think about people

“whose religions have unwisely failed to schedule a major holiday in December. Because of Christmas, December has become defined as THE holiday season. Even within Judaism, Chanukah is only of minor significance, yet it has become the most widely known and recognized Jewish holiday because it falls close to Christmas on the calendar.”

The last two paragraphs of her post gesture towards my own hopes for the holidays:

“This [situation] is what Shirley Steinberg and Joe Kincheloe call "Christonormativity." It means that Christianity is the normative culture in the US [and Canada], and we are oblivious to what that means for non-Christians. Experiencing the overwhelming sense of exclusion I feel at this time of year, I try to use this insight to understand what it feels like for LGBT people in this heteronormative culture of ours. Or for people of color in this predominantly white culture. It gives me some insight into what they experience all year round. And just as most Christians are oblivious to how non-Christians feel this time of year, my privilege allows me to be oblivious to how it feels to not be white and heterosexual.

“So, my hope this holiday season is that we will all take a few minutes to stop and think about what it means to have privilege, as well as what it means to strive to be inclusive. Not everyone is made to feel that this is the "most wonderful time of the year."

Hear, hear!

Nevertheless, i still have some ambivalence. I think that a lot of objections that get raised around Christmas on the grounds that it is actually a Christian holiday are somewhat misguided and historically illiterate, since many of the main rituals we recognize today as ‘Christmas traditions’ are in fact pre-Christian in origin. Does this matter today? Perhaps not much. But i feel like it can help emphasize that Christmas doesn’t “belong” to Christians.

Overall, i believe that Christmas, in its current form in North America, entails (in Nancy Fraser's terms) a serious “recognitive injustice” to all those whom it casts as other. But, while it may be nauseatingly naïve, my first impulse is still to share Kermit the Frog’s sentiment, from his song The Christmas Wish:

“I don’t know if you believe in Christmas / or if you have presents underneath a Christmas tree / But if you believe in love / that will be more than enough / for you to come and celebrate with me.”

So please Santa, bring me more ideas about how to love Christmas and yet also be in solidarity with those whose struggles (against Christo-normativity, among other things) i share. As Ferber points out, such understanding will be of use all year round.

I'll try to be more concise from here on...


2) The second thing i would like for Christmas is:
Increased awareness of (what i call) the “anti-countercultural critique.”

This could be viewed as either subordinate or superordinate to the preceding wish. That is, it could contribute something to the enrichment of dialogue outlined above, but it also has implications far beyond this holiday season…

I wish for many self-identified rebels, activists and indeed anarchists to receive copies of The Rebel Sell by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, just as i received a copy for Christmas in 2004 (from my Uncle in Ottawa). Oh, and i hope that they actually read it... Carefully.


3) Following from the above, i also wish for:
Increased popular engagement with democratic decision-making structures that currently exist (and redoubled efforts to expand and improve those structures — specifically to the extent that they can be applied to the economy).


4) Closer to home, i wish for:
The continued health of my little baby. (And for his first words to be something like: “Let's destabilize the gender binary!” Or: “Reinstate provincial grants for post-secondary education!” Or: “I can't believe they're closing the Bloedel Conservatory!” Even just something like: “Fuck the Olympics — we need social housing!” would be lovely).


5) Naturally, i also wish for:
Even more love, luck, happiness and hope for me and my little family throughout the coming year. And in particular the serenity, courage and wisdom to *manage my time* and maximize opportunities to hang out with my baby and my lady.


6) The shopping list

Thank you Santa, for listening to all the above. Now that i’ve mentioned some of my biggest intangible Christmas wishes, here is what you’ve been so patiently and indulgently waiting for: my wish list of things from your magic workshop!

First though, of course, it should be noted: i readily acknowledge that most of the human beings in whom you would usually instill your generous spirit have already acquired whatever material things it is they may see fit to exchange with me during this year’s gift-giving ritual, so this list is mostly for reference and conversation purposes. There’s always next year...

a) An Amazon Kindle (or comparable e-reader device)
You know i would happily get rid of half my library if i could easily replace it with electronic texts for reference. That would be an amazing gift to me and Sara, who has suffered all these years with my ballooning collection.

b) Super Mario Bros. Wii
Dude, i just know this game is going to be awesome. And i promise i will never let enjoyment of it interfere with my real responsibilities.

c) Wii Fit Plus
Santa, i know you noticed i lost some weight this year… Wii Fit gets half the credit. The new version is even better. You might want to get one for yourself too. Just sayin’.

d) Books… there’s a few (of course).

i) A copy of Joseph Heath’s new book Filthy Lucre: Economics for People Who Hate Capitalism
I can only imagine this one’s gonna prompt some major revisions in my thinking, just like Rebel Sell did.

ii) A copy of My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer
i saw this at Duthie Books on 4th. I must have it!

iii) A nice hardcover copy of Joyce’s Ulysses.
Do i need a reason?

iv) Anything by Scott McCloud.
Understanding Comics rocked my world; now i want it all.

e) A sequel to Elf (perhaps featuring Harvey Keitel as buddy’s naughty uncle!)… But only if all the original cast (and crew) will reprise their roles.

f) A time machine.
Hey, you know i’ll just keep asking every year until i get one...

Well Santa, i'm sorry my letter was a little long this year, but i’ve had a lot on my mind. Please give my very best wishes to Mrs. Claus and everyone at the pole.

In solidarity (with Christmas spirit to make your sleigh fly),
ryan andrew murphy

PS: we just finished watching Love, Actually (again). So i'm all teary-eyed (again).
Merry Christmas from the three of us.

Holy crap: i'm a dad!

It's been two weeks. I haven't had any time to think, let alone blog (i do consider the former a prerequisite for the latter, inconveniently for me).

There are, of course, many many things i'd like to think / write about, but for now i'm simply posting a link here to the birth announcement that we sent out last week:

Roy Oscar Anachie Rozell

I'm a dad. Am i happy? I'm in love! But it may be a while before i can elaborate — and i'm not sure whether i will choose to do so here... or even whether this blog will continue or not, as i re-evaluate "everything". After i hand in my final papers for the semester (and: do the dishes, have a shower, clean the bathroom, and change as many diapers as it takes), i'll try to find some time to write some of what i'm feeling / experiencing. Then i'll decide where those words should go.

Thank you, world. I am so lucky...

The revolutions

Last night a friend and i stood at Hastings and Gore, holding candles for the MAP (Mobile Access Project) van. Among those standing with us, i recognized Libby Davies and Spencer Herbert. This evening i sent the following letter to the premier:

------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Premier Gordon Campbell,

I can only echo the words of the editorial in The Vancouver Sun [Cutting off funding for street prostitute van is unconscionable; June 17, 2009]

"...it is nothing short of extraordinary that the province would eliminate funding for a project like this in a city still reeling from the murders of scores of women."

According to the executive director of PACE, who was interviewed on the CBC yesterday morning, the MAP Van program only costs $250,000 a year. It is outrageous that such a project, saving the lives of the most vulnerable women in the province, could be scrapped at a time when the government is spending incalculable amounts of money on the dubious spectacle of the olympics. I urge you, as a man -- and as a fellow resident of West Point Grey -- to take immediate action and restore funding to this urgently needed service!

For almost two weeks now, the survival sex trade workers in Vancouver have been in serious danger without the MAP Van. Do the right thing: fund the MAP van now!

I look forward to your response...
------------------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow i get to hear an old friend speak about the work we do at Peak House, and its connection to human rights. I know this is short notice, but here's the flyer (it is supposed to be a fund raiser)...


Vikki always gives me new insights and perspective on what it is that i "do".

I also just have to shout out to anyone who happened to catch Lightning Dust (and Ladyhawk & the Constantines) last week: i was reborn (as usual) in the sweaty euphoria of your beautiful tunes. If god(s) were dead it would be necessary to recreate them, and hearing the Webbers' heavenly harmonies would easily do the trick -- it makes me feel holy every time.

Meanwhile, amidst all the sound and fury, the struggles and glories, the lovely rain and the new Ghostbusters video game, this week brought something else; the most revolutionary experience of my life so far.

In a quiet little room, a woman wearing a white coat held a goopy instrument up to my lover's beautiful belly and then, on a blueish monitor screen, i beheld a tiny little face. Little fingers. A perfect, tiny spinal cord. And two tiny feet. I saw the future in the present. And everything changed.

There’s no place (left)... like home

Today is the anniversary of Emma Goldman's death. She died in Toronto in 1940; my brother just moved there. If we travel in similar circles in space, do we circle each other in time too?

Sara (who continues to feel pretty pukey, by the way, though we are told the unpleasantness should abate any day now, as she enters the quasi-utopian second trimester) took this picture as we walked past Emma’s former residence in NYC.

The night we got home from our trip, i knew exactly what had to be done: i ran out and rented The Wizard of Oz. Having a good cry with Dorothy about the terrible beauty of what lies over the rainbow and the sad, wonderful fact that there really is “no place like home” seemed like the right thing to do. I really do love coming home.

In the days that followed, while finishing an essay, i found myself reading about Emma’s lectures on Nietzsche; i was reminded of these while listening to Irving Wohlfarth’s discussion of Walter Benjamin’s “anarcho-messianism” at SFU last week. Plenty to think about, but then along came the election. And the referendum... Which will be the the focus of my blogging energies today.

-------------

I’ve already written about why this referendum was significant, so rather than simply hurling curses at everyone who campaigned against BC-STV (and those who stood by as this battle was lost), i would like to share a little simile:

Arguing that there are better systems of proportional representation than the one on the referendum ballot is as helpful to the disenfranchised as promulgating architectural ideas while we are trapped in a burning building... We don’t need a better blueprint, we need an axe and a fire extinguisher!

The people behind the “No” campaign (including Bill Tielman and Andrea Reimer — whom i’ve been inclined to support, at times, in the past) claim to want electoral reform, but prefer another system (MMP) to that which we had the option of adopting immediately (STV). Thanks to them, we’re still trapped in the current system (FPTP); the movement for reform is exhausted and demoralized, and the media proclaims a triumph for the status quo. This is their desired outcome?

Their detrimental insistence on “the better” over “the good” (borrowing again from The Rebel Sell) is completely transposable onto “radical” and anarchist contexts: what i am saying to the “No” campaign i also say to fellow anarchists who “refuse” to vote “on principle”. As i’ve said before: voting, always an act of at least some distaste (especially for anarchists) — choosing someone else (or, under STV, choosing some few others) to make big decisions, rather than making them ourselves — can be best understood as a form of Harm Reduction.

Everybody knows Harm Reduction saves lives — why are people able to understand that when it comes to the dangers of injecting drugs, but not the dangers of electing governments?!

My hallucination of the burning building haunts me because i am so appalled by the obliviousness of those who comfortably decline urgently needed reforms on the basis of flaws in the proposed improvements. This strikes me as a contemptible denial: we must frequently face critical choices between imperfect options. If we refuse, we might as well curl up and die.

Because people do die, because of politics. And people do suffer, because of the flaws in our existing political system. These existing flaws are like existing flames. While a risk of fire can be planned for, a deadly blaze already ignited must be dealt with immediately, with the tools at hand.

We can reduce the heat of existing flames. And we can help the people whose lungs are filling up with smoke. To “refuse” to do so — to claim that we should apply some set of principles other than those that pertain to emergencies — is to ignore the consequences of the current system to those whom it harms the most! In this particular case, the broad, but appropriate term for the victims of this system — the electoral system — is: the disenfranchised.

To argue against BC-STV based on the claim that it doesn’t help the disenfranchised “enough” is like saying “No, we shouldn’t save that family’s house. Let it burn! It’s ugly! It was a fire-trap all along! They’ll be much happier in a safer, more beautiful house.” The day that firefighters begin making such judgments will be the apotheosis of this high-minded “progressive” idealism.

So i dare say: we need not refuse amelioration of lousy conditions today, on the basis of plans for radical improvement tomorrow — such patience is characteristic of an unaccountable, privileged position. If we can do both: put out the fire and build a new house... which do you think we should do first?

-------------

When i was working at the polls, i invited people to read the summary (even though it sucked) on the implications of the referendum question; no one read it. Maybe they really had read about it before — most people (at the polling station where i worked) at UBC voted for STV, and the STV campaign had a huge presence on campus... Did people elsewhere even know what they were voting against?

Another thing that bothered me about the “No” campaign was its invocations of stereotypes of the “fighting” Irish; simply showing that politicians do indeed argue there (in a country devastated by centuries of war) and hinting at the Irish temper — this is supposed to strengthen the case against their electoral system? Cheap, stupid and desperate. And, apparently, effective.

Props to Fred Bass for mentioning the evidence (in a comment on Libby Davies’ page [whose uncharacteristically feeble endorsement of STV speaks to the depth of the NDP’s backwardness throughout this election]) against the dubious claims that STV is somehow bad for women: referring to the many conspicuously successful STV-elected women, including Mary Robinson; Fred didn't mention that Ireland is also the first country to elect successive female heads of state.

I’ve also heard some grumbling about the lack of clear information about BC-STV, but i’m just not convinced it was that hard to find or understand — for example, Charles Demers did a fun, and concise, demo — but i do agree that much of the information in the campaign got bogged down in technicalities (Charlie did the right thing, for a general audience, and ignored the mathematical details of the “transfer value”).

The summary provided by Elections BC contained no image of the ballots themselves. I think that the most effective illustration of the most important difference between the two systems would have been to just show the two ballots. On one ballot (STV), there is a list of candidates with numbers written beside each; on the other ballot (FPTP), the same list, with an X beside one candidate. Such a stark juxtaposition illuminates the most significant difference: voters have exponentially greater potential influence over the electoral process. (Of course it should also have been emphasized that under STV everyone is free to continue voting as they always have — the right to rank candidates is optional — why not just let those of us who want it so badly have it?)

Would clearer illustrations have moved us to victory? I don’t know. But the notion of contrasting what is with what could have been reminded me of a quote i’ve loved for years, which, when i first read it, was attributed solely to Noam Chomsky, but is, in fact, from the 1986 book “Liberating Theory” which he co-authored with several others. The words are actually those of a fictional composite character (“Coho” personifying the ideas of the book: what the authors themselves call the “dumb” label “complementary holism”): "Once you accept the possibility of attaining a humanist alternative, you have to be a terrible hypocrite, coward or cynic to live passively with the contrast between what is and what could be."

-------------

So today, 69 years after Emma Goldman’s life of struggling and dancing (and being thrown in prison, exiled, and demonized) came to an end, my convictions about the urgency of our struggles today are more fervent than ever... To celebrate Emma, i think i’ll re-watch Maureen Stapleton’s Oscar-winning portrayal of her in Warren Beatty’s REDS. Will i still like the movie (i haven’t seen it since high school)? I have a hunch that it’ll be a healthy antidote to the current cinematic celebrations of regressive masculinity (in Wolverine and Star Trek — both of which i [nevertheless] quite enjoyed, by the way). In any case, i’m looking forward to getting recharged — whether the charge is positive or negative, at least i’ll have something to run on.

The Anarchist Dork Manifesto - prologue

I've been catching my breath for a few days, and savouring the sweetness of my own absurdly giddy fanboyism... The result has been a minor flurry of creative activity; in particular, i've been inspired to "embrace the dork side" and all the strange, funny, awkwardness of it all. Coming soon: manifesto of an anarchist dork.
How can i sleep tomight, when i know Wolverine premiers at midnight? ...only 22 hours to go! Oh epic, heroic, phallic power and hairy-chested musclemen! Good god, such spectacular, dizzying, simple, shameless, guilty pleasures...

Hoping for heaven, rowing for shore

Drifting towards sleep, reflecting on this week in New York, and anticipating our immanent return to the city i love — small, unsophisticated Vancouver (kidding! Geez, don't get defensive) — i wanted to take stock of all i've seen and done, and learned and thought (and eaten and bought), but i got distracted. A conversation about The Pirate Bay and Louis Riel lead us to wonder today about whether or not we've been sleeping soundly in a state that legally murders its citizens; it seems the answer is yes, but so far (since 1976), only in theory.

Remembering this huge inescapably clear difference between the state to which my passport belongs and this one i am visiting brought Obama back into my thoughts... Naomi Klein says it's time for Obamafans to "stop hoping and start demanding." While i'm a little dismayed by her haphazard choice of words, i naturally agree with the commonsensical thrust of her statement. Her phrase, in context:

"If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding."

I will be one of the very last people on earth to suggest anyone should "stop hoping" but in addition to keeping our hopes alive, and hoping harder (and more imaginatively) than ever, we do indeed need to demand action from those (like Obama) who occupy positions of power that enable them to turn (some of) our more modest hopes into realities. Without the momentum of hope, our demands will be impotent (and ignored).

Demanding things is pretty hard work. To seriously demand concrete action from powerful authorities can also be frightening. Powerful people are often quite intimidating, and speaking to them with sustained conviction can be even more difficult if the powerful individuals happen to be charming, disarming, charismatic and persuasive, as we can probably all agree Obama is. Whether one is setting boundaries with friends, petitioning an MLA, filing a grievance at work, or challenging an interloping neighbour, a creep on the bus or an aggressive police officer, standing up to an authority — and demanding accountability from them — is hard enough; sustaining and following through on demands in the face of smiles and nods (whether patronizing or in good faith) can be exhausting, even confusing and mind-numbing.

So, while i naturally enjoy Klein's contributions to our ballooning collection of Obama-related neologisms (i think hopesick is my favorite today), and i applaud her warnings about a "dangerously deferential" attitude towards charismatic authorities, i remain (surprise!) optimistic about a burgeoning renaissance of both hope and civility, especially in politics, especially in the USA. But the question of how we avoid letting civility become a pretense for obfuscating or avoiding disagreement remains open and, i think, productive. Of course, you may disagree. :)

And while i'm on the subject, here's a current petition from Avaaz, "demanding" Obama end the Embargo against Cuba. You know what to do.

My summary of our NYC adventures will have to wait until a later post. I'll get to it soon, but as much as i love the comfy chair in this hotel, the bed is quite nice too and, after i've spent a few hours there, i hope to get up early enough to enjoy the shiny new gym downstairs, one last time... I'm getting pretty good at being on vacation. Sometimes i surprise myself.

Oh, ps: our first night back in Vancouver there's an "Oscar Wilde & Anarchy" event at Spartacus. I shall be there, in my fanciest pants.

all is (not) well in the state of new york

As i write this, sitting on a luxurious Aeron chair in a comfy Manhattan hotel, a student "Rally for Justice" at Union Square is probably over, having ended either peacefully, in a spirit of celebration and solidarity, or violently with a rash of new arrests by the NYPD...

It may be just after midnight in Vancouver, but i'm well over the jet lag now, so it's past 3am for me and the rest of NYC, thus i won't be reporting in any depth on the events that have come to my attention. However, i'm certain that some folks back home will be interested in the ongoing struggles at The New School, so i'll say a few words and include the links.

I first heard about the situation this morning, as i drank a cup of tea and read this article in the NY Times. Before i go on, i feel compelled to say that it's been surprisingly and dishearteningly difficult to get clear and substantial information about the unfolding events. The materials Sara and i were able to collect from the activists all appear (from our wide-eyed, Canucklehead perspective) to have been written by and entirely for "insiders" — either fellow New School students or at least fellow New Yorkers (who might have been following the long-brewing story), so the Times article is the best i can recommend for a quick & general backgrounder.

After some digging around, i've cobbled together the following ultra-brief summary / analysis of what strike me as the salient points:

Students have at least twice occupied campus buildings recently, demanding the university president Bob Kerrey resign; Kerrey has entirely lost the confidence of the faculty (they have voted); it's hardly surprising based on all accounts of Kerrey's actions as president over the past 7 years in general, and the past few months in particular — eg: Kerrey recently attempted to appoint himself university provost (after four or five provosts resigned)...

Sure enough, when we got to the the Anarchist Bookfair this afternoon, there were ongoing updates about the students who'd been arrested on Friday. They have all been released without bail.

For more info:

An earlier Times article includes disturbing video of police aggression against the protestors. The "New School in Exile" website includes a variety of videos from which one can glean insight into their grievances. The "New School Reoccupied" blog contains posts ranging from the aforementioned "insider" updates, to (what i take to be) more entertainment-oriented accounts of their activities. Overall, the most illuminating source of information has been the Student Senate's website, but there might be more coverage to come on the New School Free Press' site.

In any case, suffice to say these protests, along with the bookfair — which was awesome, of course — have added a fascinating and unanticipated dimension to my first taste of the big apple. After visiting friends in Brooklyn, we bought even more books at the Strand and Forbidden Planet. It's been a feast... Will we be able to wake up in time for the Easter Parade & Bonnet Festival? Hopefully we'll make it to the Anarchism & Anti-Colonialism workshop being offered in the afternoon by a panel of Anarchist People of Color... Then i expect we will fight for our right to read. Quietly.

No matter what the coming days look like, i know my nights will be filled with fabulous anarchistic dreams (if i get any sleep).

The Vegan & The Anarchist Take Manhattan (plus: a referendum reminder)

This post might be more accurately titled: The (pregnant) Vegan & The (allergy-stricken) Anarchist (sleepily, nauseously, and snifflingly) Take Manhattan (plus: a referendum reminder)

I'm still in a bit of a daze, but i wanted to post a few words about falling in love with the big apple. It's true; my lifelong suspicions have been confirmed: I heart NY.

I was smitten with this city from the first time i saw (cartoon) Spidey swing over the streets on TV when i was a kid; from the first time i saw Ghostbusters (hearing my mentor Winston Zeddemore proclaim his love for this town). Over the years my crush on New York continued through movies like The Fisher King and, of course, two of my seasonal favorites (for which i remain unapologetic) Scrooged and Elf. And that's just the cinematic romance; then there's the music, the literature, the art, the politics... good heavens. How could i not be seduced by a place where every crack in the concrete is legendary?

Anyway, as my luck would have it: today is the third annual NYC Anarchist Bookfair! I couldn't sleep in this morning (and we have definitely been catching up on sleep in the city that never does); it's like a special anarchist christmas! Visions of radical independent publishing dance in my head...

I won't recap every step of our adventure (i could write a Joycean epic about the first evening alone), but i will say that we've had some amazing vegan meals; last night we dined at the Candle Café. I'm sure i'll be writing some poems about the food soon (and adding new sections to my ongoing description of the great buffet that awaits us all in the afterlife).

I'll try to post again before it's over, but chances are we'll be busy: celebrating Sara's birthday, visiting her friends and their new baby, buying too many books, trying to see all the museums and get into the Daily Show, and so on.

But before we head back into the hustle & bustle, i have to remind all my lovely friends back home in Vancouver: there's only one month left to persuade everyone you love to vote YES in the electoral reform referendum on May 12th. We came within 2% of victory last time! Please, talk to your family and friends.



Changing the way power is exercised in British Columbia, specifically by empowering voters to indicate (dis)approval of multiple candidates will invite a significant deepening of political engagement and accountability.

I've wanted to be able to rank political candidates ever since i spoiled my first ballot in an Alberta provincial election back in the dark days of my adolescence, in the chilly shadow of the Conservatives' dynastic one-party government. I grew up in Ralph Klein's riding. The elections were pure formality; he won by a soul-crushing landslide every time. If i could have ranked candidates, rather than merely scrawling a dispossessed rant on the ballot, i might have indicated an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of two or three quixotic non-conservatives, and leant my weight to one or two joke/protest parties. And i would have declined to rank Ralph at all! It's a nice dream... But this summer we have a chance to make it come true in BC. I beseech you all: don't let obfuscation and mystification of the single transferable vote system scare you or your folks away from it. Yes, it's more complicated than first-past-the-post. Democracy is also more complicated than dictatorship; is that an argument against democracy?

The debate can be frustrating, but i look at it this way: whether or not you're fully persuaded that the proposed BC-STV system will actually bring about all of the particular hoped-for beneficial results (to name a few: more power-sharing, more independent and small-party MLAs, increased voter turnout and political engagement due to the vastly increased probability that [at least] one of each voter's top choices for political office will actually get a seat), we can be sure to see improvement in some of these areas of concern. Given the calamitous state of things in BC politically and economically (Campbell's opposition-free legislative reign; ubiquitous homelessness and poor-bashing), can we please agree that the current system is a collosal failure and a sad scrap of the potential for democracy?

The referendum is a chance to exponentially increase the depth of popular influence on the legislative assembly. Don't let it pass us by.

Time & Quietism Or: Speechless spin cycle — blogging from the laundromat

What a month: i turned thirty-one, got into grad school (officially, at last) — and... drum roll... i found out i’m gonna be a dad!

So, i've spent much of March in stunned silence. Whether it was contemplating the eruptions of violence here in Vancouver, or over in Ireland, or struggling with the implications of the chasm between positivist and post-structuralist epistemologies, i’ve been doing a lot of staring quietly into space lately, asking myself: what the hell should i do? And now i’m confronted by the fact of imminent parenthood, too.

I’m excited, sure; i’ve always wanted to be a dad. But i’m terrified too. Really fucking scared. Some of this is “useful fear” such as that which motivates me to be more organized and to “do my homework” (learning about pregnancy and birth, and how to remain calm / relax enough to be supportive and helpful to Sara, etc.); but some of this is unhelpful fear such as … well a whole bunch of lame crap i’m trying not to get too distracted by.

I manage to get (sometimes pleasantly, sometimes just obliviously) lost in the quotidian minutiae quite regularly, but when i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror or something, my reflection winks and says: “Hello, Daddy!” and i am suddenly paralyzed, entranced by some vague shape on the horizon of my mind. What am i gonna do?

All i know is that i don’t know…

I do think that i’ll be turning to art more often in the coming year(s); as in recent weeks i’ve found myself reading and writing a lot more poetry, and even producing some music for the first time in many moons. In this i’ve been inspired (and gently compelled) by the “A/r/tography” course i’m taking. This course has also contributed to my deepening fascination with (and hope for anarchistic applications of both) pluralism and post-structuralism, and that’s another way of saying i’m enjoying it. However, even though i’m always grateful for all of the interesting puzzles of this life, some days it feels a little overwhelming to consider all these overlapping and intersecting challenges: financial, professional, academic, intellectual, emotional, physical…

So, on days, like today, when i feel reduced to a furrowed brow and a thought bubble containing only question marks, i thank god for video games (...and the simplicity of clean socks — speaking of which, i owe a special thanks to my lovely friend McKinley for these amazing hand-knitted socks haunted by the ghost of Pablo Neruda: gracias amiga).
Amen.

After these messages, we'll be right back... where we started.

Two related thoughts for the week, in lieu and in anticipation of more substantive ramblings...

While i sympathize with the concerns underlying it, and i genuinely enjoyed the presentation of this ad campaign from Avaaz.org, if i were to spend money sending a message to Obama concerning his meeting with Harper, it would be about Afghanistan, not climate change. Harper's regressive positions on the environment should prove a feeble obstacle for a president committed to serious action on that front. However Harper's hawkishness combined with Obama's own apparent optimism about warring for peace in Afghanistan is a troubling combination indeed.

If i had a full page ad in the Washington Post from which to advise Obama, i would invite him to read Gwynne Dyer's article "Obama's Vietnam" (the phrase itself should be familiar to him by now, having been used in at least two other noteworthy articles: here and here).

Of course most Canadians oppose Harper's environmental policies; that's pretty obvious. But Obama himself is proposing what amounts to a (further) vietnamization of Afghanistan — and especially troubling, from my vantage point, is that this time around Canada is actually more tangled up in this madness than the yanks (so far).

Demand a global carbon cap? Certainly! But, while inaction on such matters will ultimately prove truly omnicidal, the ongoing murder of Afghan civilians (along with the slowly growing death toll on "our" side[s]) remains an astonishingly clear example of bloody deaths that can be prevented today — by pursuing the possibility of negotiations with insurgent groups.

That is what i would want Obama to think about this week. And so that is what i'll be thinking about...


Dear Mr. President:
a little less killing, please.
(Both immediately and in the long term.)
Thank you.

PS: on a lighter and more local note, the 9th annual People's Prom was the best one yet!
Hope you all can make it next year.
xo

anarchobamanaugulationmania

A long (and long-overdue) post-inaugural / new year’s “revolution” blog.

“What the cynics fail to understand is that
the ground has shifted beneath them…”

— Barack Obama

Part Zero:

For a laugh, here’s my (Omamaphoria-induced) contribution to your expanding list of Obama-related neologisms:

anarcho-bamist: an anarchist who is impressed / inspired by Obama.

anarch-Obama (or anarchObama / anarcho-bama): an articulate, intelligent, earnest, elected democrat, concerned with their own legitimacy.

inaugulation: inaugural inoculation (against cynicism).


Part One:

Today i woke up from a dream and reality was more exciting. Guantanamo Bay, a place i’ve visited in nightmares, is going to close. Obama called the prison “a stain on America’s reputation” — it seems incredible, to me, that the new president of the United States might actually see with his own eyes what Sunera Thobani received death threats less than eight years ago for pointing out: that “American foreign policy is soaked in blood.” Guantanamo is only the first of innumerable stains Obama will have to wash out, but it is a beginning about which any conscious human being can breathe a sigh of relief.

Many people, including my dad, expressed worry — shortly after his coup in 2001 — that Bush would look for a way to hold on to power at the end of his term(s). But of course today such fears seem surreal: clearly Bush himself never wanted to be president, and barely ever was. (He wanted the perks, not the job.) He couldn’t get in that helicopter fast enough. Who on earth wasn’t relieved to see him leave? Part imperial autocrat, part obnoxious frat boy, part wanna-be hillbilly, Bush II was truly all bad. Scholars and scalpers alike will struggle to articulate the scale of his failures. We can expect to hear more phrases like: The most criminally incompetent statesman of the modern era. The worst orator in the public realm in a generation. Etc. A war criminal. An asshole. A clown.

His accomplishments are an astounding inversion of achievement. He embodies the words: just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

Almost any mammal who sought to proceed him would have looked promising. Almost. Sarah Palin seems to have been sprung from the same zoo, and — while i don’t condone the incarceration of animals for human entertainment — it’s good to know she’s back there. For now. I imagine her bizarreness will attract more tourists to Alaska than an entire chorus line of dancing bears. However, we are all indebted to her for catalyzing the long-overdue recognition of Tina Fey’s comedic genius.

Speaking of the power of laughter to make dark days more bearable: as i sat, paralyzed with horror during Israel’s mass-murdering kick-off for 2009, John Stewart summed the situation up with a bit of brilliant wit beyond even his usual high standards: demonstrating the “range” of perspectives presented in the US media by American politicians, Stewart concluded (on the January 5th show, if you want to look it up) that the Gaza strip is “the Möbius strip of issues: there’s only one side!” I hadn’t laughed that hard yet this year.

But seriously…


Part Two:

I maintain: the idea of legitimate government is something everyone, but anarchists in particular, should be very interested in (with ever-vigilant skepticism, but nevertheless). This is a propitious moment for people who share basic concerns for human rights and justice (in all domains: social, economic, ecological, etc.). All of us living in this context, anarchists, liberals, even the spectral conservatives, have a relationship with the idea of democracy, and as Edward Said says of Orientalism: it is certainly much “more than a mere collection of lies.” To me, as an anarchist, recognizing the power and complexity of ideas is a first step to harnessing their power to motivate change.

Here’s an excerpt from an essay i handed in on Monday, lamenting the way “lazy-minded fools” (to abuse my favorite Jimi Hendrix lyrics) drove Murray Bookchin to give up on anarchism:

Bookchin tried to warn us: Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism. I wish i could have told him, before he died, that i heard his warning: we are social beings! Life is of the social; “true individuality… depends on a social context.” (Beihl: 16) Perhaps he should have said “before” rather than “or”. Either way, i feel remorseful knowing in his last years he “felt alone and misunderstood, a man out of his time”. (17) It’s too late to hug Bookchin, but not too late to heed him. As Stephen Collis describes Phyllis Webb’s poetics as one of “response” (one of public engagement, despite being flooded with the tensions between public and private) and as Webb herself speaks of the “future” as “tact” (Collis: 15) — it is clear: we are concerned with each other. We share, create, withdraw, re-create, etc. We like spirals, which are both cyclical and linear, and it is their both-ness that makes them flexible. Makes them bouncy. Exciting. Useful. Fun.

Anyway, i will be returning to the idea of [engagement with] democracy, and its purported thorniness for (some) anarchists, again. Hopefully i won’t share Bookchin’s fate of having my faith eroded by decades of cruel personal attacks.

Moving on…


Part Three:

Recently i’ve been reminded of one of my favorite lines from one of the great movies of my childhood: Winston Zeddemore (the first African-American Ghostbuster) in his job interview, saying “If it has a steady paycheque in it, I’ll believe anything you say.” Believing things is easy. Reconciling beliefs and reality, even to the extent that we can change reality, is not. And getting a job isn’t easy these days either. As indicated by the recent headline from The Onion —“Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job” — many people are ready to take whatever employment they can get.

So how about that inauguration? Quite a show. Of course the first thing that must be said is about the first things that were said, and who said them. The invitation of homophobic, anti-choice zealot / bestselling author Rick Warren to give the invocation has been rightly described as “an utter nightmare and a total insult to the LGBT community.” Some people, caught in the dazzling headlights of Obama’s inspiring oratory, might be tempted to rationalize the decision in terms of Obama’s aim to ameliorate the intense polarization of American political culture, but veteran gay Democrat Barney Frank (interviewed in last week’s New Yorker) would like to disabuse us of any such illusions. He explains that the invitation was a wrong turn attributable to the fact that “Obama tends to overestimate his ability to get people to change their opinions, and underestimates the importance of confronting ideological differences.”

In an editorial published after Warren’s invitation was announced, New York Times writer Frank Rich opines: “It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.” He goes on to quote historian — and Obama campaigner — Timothy McCarthy who does us all the favour of putting things plainly, saying: after such a poor start, it is time for Obama “to start acting on the promises he made to the LGBT community during his campaign so that he doesn’t go down in history as another Bill Clinton, a sweet-talking swindler who would throw us under the bus for the sake of political expediency.”

So Rick Warren’s presence was, to recycle Obama’s reference to Guantanamo, a “stain” on the inauguration. Warren seemed to steer wide of language that would point back to the ideological sewer he calls home, and in doing so he reminded me of our famously evasive renegade Prime Minister — whose outrageous arrogance catalyzed December’s constitutional crisis (a tragicomic/farcical echo of the abovementioned fears that Bush would cling to power) and set an abysmal new precedent for unaccountable oligarchy in Canada. That whole melodrama certainly deserves a long post of its own, but it will have to wait for the time being…

Returning to our creepy crypto-fascist preacher, i do think one aspect of Warren’s invocation merits further attention. Warren spoke of hope for “civility even when we differ.” It has already been pointed out that Warren’s attacks on queer communities are a “strange model of civility” but the idea of civility is a difficult one, worth thinking about. Sure, sometimes it gets cynically used as a means of silencing justified outrage, but i think it has a lot of potential power. It is a key ingredient of pluralism — something i’ve become more and more interested in recently, especially since reading this fantastic piece from Claudia Ruitenberg (a brilliant UBC prof i was lucky enough to take a course with last semester). Of course the challenges of pluralism are very familiar to anarchists, for example in the recent debates about “diversity of tactics.” Civility and pluralism, along with democracy and engagement, are “unpopular” themes i intend to explore in the coming months.

One more thing about the power of the spectacle, i have to say: Aretha Franklin brought a tear to my eye with her rendition of My Country Tis of Thee — when she sang “Let freedom ring!” you know she really meant it. At such moments, i relish the freedom to let go for a moment and just give myself over emotionally to a musician and i luxuriate in the euphoric glimpse of a vague but shared idealism. It’s a life-sustaining feeling. I also couldn’t help but be reminded of that scene from School of Rock where Dewey Finn says “Everybody wants to party with Aretha!”


Part Four:

I wanted to say something about the Gaza rally i attended at the Vancouver Art Gallery recently. It was raining cruelly, yet there were certainly hundreds of umbrellas gathered together for the event. The part i saw however, didn’t go very well. There were many three-word-chants, of course, and shouts of “Shame!” at the usual intervals, right on cue. But things unraveled during a bumbling speech from Vancouver-Kingsway’s new NDP MP Don Davies (who by all accounts is a very nice, earnest, political activist). He implicitly invoked the most irritating of logical fallacies: the fallacy of the golden mean, which is a real pet peeve of mine, and the crowd reacted harshly. Davies’ mind-boggling blunder was to utter a condemnation of Hamas’ rocket-fire in the same breath as speaking of Israel’s completely incommensurable mass-slaughter of Palestinians. That’s the kind of “both sides” crap we expect to hear in the American media (it’s what makes John Stewart’s “Möbius strip” analysis so friggin’ hilarious), but it was beyond distasteful — just shockingly stupid really — to hear it from a Canadian MP at a rally against Israel’s war crimes.

Davies’ moment of ineptitude as a speaker, however, provoked a revelation of something that also disturbed me (in my perpetual naiveté): as he backtracked and stammered, suddenly we were hearing a different voice (i couldn’t see anything but umbrellas — i assume someone grabbed the microphone from him). This voice declared that “we” (ostensibly the damp, heterogeneous crowd) “do not support a two-state solution” to the conflict; according to the angry voice, “we” support a “one-state solution” (a “free Palestine” — well, who wouldn’t want that?).

I was actually surprised to hear this position expressed seriously. I had thought that there was a consensus that, in the foreseeable future, the only plausible means to end the violence is a two-state solution; but what i heard at that rally made me wonder if polarization has intensified too much for that idea to remain viable. A grim thought. I found this interesting article from the L.A. Times that suggests, if the two-state solution is dead, the only hope is for a one-state “solution” (if you’re thinking a “free Palestine” guess again): democratizing Israel.

Honestly, a two-state solution sounds a lot easier than that, but i could be wrong. In any case, i hope Mr. Davies is taking notes from Obama (who, so far, seems to have a real knack for evoking the complexities of a situation without reducing them to formulas that abandon all perspective), and i wish him better luck (and encourage him to prepare more carefully) in future public appearances, and in Ottawa.


Part Five:

I think that everyone who gives a shit about politics (human rights, social, economic & ecological justice, etc.) has some serious work to do. That much was also true during the Bush presidency of course, in a very different way. Today, in addition to forging new working relationships to overturn injustices and accelerate progress (our perennial concerns), we have to ask ourselves, with renewed willingness to confront inconsistencies between belief and reality: how — in what ways, to what extents, and by what means — shall we engage with the existing political structures?

Of course, we must continue to aggressively challenge the legitimacy of the power structures with/in/under/against/through which we struggle, but the second stage in this spiraling process of anarchistic critique is to vigorously champion their/our moments of success. Doing so will help us propel and steer them forward: towards the goals of justice (and ultimately, an anarchist hopes, their radical transformation / obsolescence — perhaps not too far over the utopian horizon).

On that note, let me state for the record that i’m decidedly not interested in pursuing serious conversations with people who object to incremental progress. You can go ahead and call me an “incrementalist” anarchist; i would rather be an anarchist “without adjectives” but i‘ll welcome adjectives that get hurled as insults if they in fact describe me fairly. Voltairine de Cleyre was right that “Little dreams are folly” but I don’t have much patience left for people who think change is only possible, or good, if it all happens at once.

Let’s say goodbye to Guantanamo Bay, and raise a glass to progress, then get back to arguing about what to do next. It is a very exciting time to be alive.

Happy new year.

PS: one of my resolutions is not to neglect this blog for months at a time, so i’ll be back soon; there are several things of a more personal nature i plan to write about so:
Hasta pronto companer@s...