Progressive Calendar 11.19.07 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu) | |
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 04:53:46 -0800 (PST) |
P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 11.19.07 1. Politics/elections 11.19 10:45am 2. Report news 11.19 4pm 3. LRT scam 11.19 5:30pm 4. Race riot/film 11.19 6:30pm 5. RCTA memories 11.19 7pm 6. New e-tools 11.19 7pm 7. IRV/MN Senate 11.20 10am 8. No thanks Gov P 11.20 12noon 9. 35W bridge 11.20 5pm 10. Palestine/CTV 11.20 5pm 11. WarMadeEasy/f 11.20 6:30pm 12. Asian America 11.20 7:30pm 13. Nonprofit 11.20 14. Peak oil/KFAI 11.21 11am 15. Iraq redacted/f 11.21 16. Mike Whitney - 15,000 or more US deaths in Iraq war? 17. Roberto Rodriguez - On the verge of democracy collapse disorder 18. Adolfo Gilly - Bolivia's ongoing revolutions & spirit of revolt 19. ed - Reform from inside (poem) --------1 of 19-------- From: Erin Parrish <erin [at] mnwomen.org> Subject: Politics/elections 11.19 10:45am Monday, November 19: American Association of University Women Minneapolis Branch. 9:30-10:30AM: Writing and Re-writing a Life with Patricia Hampl. 10:45-11:45AM: Politics of Elections. 1:15-2:15PM: Autism and the Brain: What We Know so Far with Charlene Myklebust, Psy.D., 2115 Stevens Avenue, Minneapolis. --------2 of 19-------- From: Mary Turck <editor [at] tcdailyplanet.net> Subject: Report news 11.19 4pm The Daily Planet is a citizen journalism project. We welcome and invite people in the community to write stories and submit them. Not many do so. I suspect that there are several reasons that people do not contribute articles: 1) Writing takes time. Lots of us have more ideas than time. 2) Writing news articles may be intimidating. Prospective citizen journalists may have questions about style, substance, fact-checking, fairness, quotations, sources, etc. If you have some time and want to write news articles about our community, or want some help in shaping an opinion article or letter to the editor, help is here! The TC Daily Planet writers' group is at Rondo Community Outreach Library November 19, 4-6 p.m. in the Children's Room Come with your ideas. Come with the beginning of a story. Come and find out what you can write about. Help us to make citizen journalism work in St. Paul. --------3 of 19-------- From: Amber Garlan <agarlan [at] hammclinic.org> Subject: LRT scam 11.19 5:30pm LRT meetings in St. Paul. The meetings are held at the Central Corridor Resource Center, 1080 University Avenue (University & Dale). [Don't let developers tell you LRT is a "done deal". They only wish it were, along with all the big bucks they hope to make off gutting University Avenue. All they care about is the $$$, and not a bit about how it will harm the city and small businesses, making historic St Paul more like the seen-one-seen-em-all suburbs. If we have to have it, why not along 94? Oh oh, developers don't like it because there aren't as many $$ in it for them. Well, must we continue to let these greedy exploiters make city policy? We owe them nothing. Wake up and look anew. -ed] Dates/Stations 11/19/07: Lexington 11/20/07: Snelling 11/26/07: Dale 11/27/07: Rice 12/3/07: Westgate 12/4/07: Raymond 12/5/07: Fairview The meetings begin at 6:30, with an open house at 5:30. These are good places to voice concerns about protecting small business owners and working class homeowners, and to find like minded people who share these concerns. -- From: Dave Bicking <dave [at] colorstudy.com> I believe that Light Rail, as currently operating and as proposed in the Twin Cities, is an outrageously expensive boondoggle that undermines our ability to fund much more extensive and desperately needed improvements to our transit system (primarily buses). Light rail has some nice benefits and amenities (I use it frequently myself), and it has been shown to attract those who would otherwise drive. It also has some drawbacks, in addition to the cost. It is inflexible - the route can not be easily adapted to conform to future land uses, it can not detour around temporary obstacles or construction, and it can not allow express service on the same route, because trains can not pass one another. It also exacerbates traffic congestion, rather than reducing it - thus causing more, rather than less, energy use and pollution. One fundamental issue, for me, is that - while drawing people out of their cars is important - our FIRST priority must be to provide better public transportation for those who are transit dependent. This includes children, the elderly, the disabled, and those too poor to afford a car (or a second car for a two-adult household). It also includes those who have chosen to give up their car to rely totally on transit! --------4 of 19-------- From: "wamm [at] mtn.org" <wamm [at] mtn.org> Subject: Race riot/film 11.19 6:30pm FREE Third Monday Movie and Discussion: "Rosewood" Monday, November 19, 6:30 p.m. St. Joan of Arc Church, Hospitality Hall, 4537 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis. "Rosewood" tells the story of the 1923 racist rampage of Rosewood, Florida where white residents hunted down and murdered the black majority. Sponsored by: WAMM Third Monday Movies. FFI: Call WAMM, 612-827-5364. --------5 of 19-------- From: Jeff Martinka <jeffreymartinka [at] yahoo.com> Subject: RCTA memories 11.19 7pm Resource Center of the Americas Story-telling Evening Monday, Nov. 19th, 2007 7-9 p.m. Community Room, Holy Trinity Church 2730 East 31st Street, Minneapolis Share the triumphs and trials of the Resource Centers' first 24 years with key former staff and volunteers in an informal exchange of memories and ideas for the future. For more information, please e-mail Adriana Barboza at adbarboza [at] gmail.com --------6 of 19-------- From: Jonathan Barrentine <jonathan [at] e-democracy.org> Subject: New e-tools 11.19 7pm New Tools for Public Participation Rondo Library (University and Dale) Monday, November 19 7:00 - 8:30 pm FREE As part of our ongoing E-Tools For All series at the Rondo Library, St. Paul E-Democracy will be offering a workshop on New Tools for Public Participation, Monday, November 19, 7:00 - 8:30 pm. In this workshop, St. Paul E-Democracy volunteers will demonstrate powerful internet tools for organizations and individuals wishing to be more active in their communities. Bring your ideas and questions! Also, we are currently looking for presenters! Presentations would be 10-15 minutes in length, would describe a "cool" internet tool, and would be geared towards an introductory to intermediate audience. Anyone interested should contact SPED-Outreach [at] e-democracy.org. As always, the workshop is free, all are welcome to attend, and no registration is required. Please go to http://pages.e-democracy.org/Rondo_Workshop_Schedule for a complete schedule. --------7 of 19-------- From: Andy Hamerlinck <iamandy [at] riseup.net> Subject: IRV/MN Senate 11.20 10am St. Paul Better Ballot Campaign Supporters - Please consider attending a hearing of the Minnesota Senate Subcommittee on Elections next Tuesday, November 20th from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm in Room 123 of the Capital Building. There will be presentations on and discussion of Ranked Choice Voting (Instant Runoff Voting). If you can't attend, please contact your senator to let him or her know of your support. This hearing will include presentations by FairVote Minnesota, City of Minneapolis, Ramsey County Elections, Secretary of State's office and election authorities from cities using Instant Runoff Voting. Minnesota Voters Alliance, an opponent of Instant Runoff Voting, has also signed up to testify. The hearing comes in advance of possible legislation in the 2008 session that would support Ranked Choice Voting implementation in Minneapolis and elsewhere in Minnesota where it becomes adopted. Key messages about why IRV is an important municipal election reform: Ranked Choice Voting eliminates low turnout municipal primaries and consolidates the primary and the general election into a single ballot in November. The benefits... * Increased voter participation and choice of candidates * Broader, more accurate representation * Shorter, more affordable, civil campaigns * Saves tax-payer dollars with just one election to administer What: State and Local Government Operations and Oversight - Subcommittee on Elections When: Tuesday, Nov. 20th, 10:00 am - noon Where: Room 123 Capitol Building, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd Committee Members: Dan Larson Chris Gerlach Joe Gimse John Marty Sandra L. Pappas Ann H. Rest Contact Senator Dan Larson's office at 651-297-8061 if you wish to testify or if you would like additional information about the hearing. For the FairVote action alert go to: http://stpaul.betterballotcampaign.org/node/880 Thanks for your support of Instant Runoff Voting (Ranked Choice Voting), Beth Mercer-Taylor St. Paul Better Ballot Campaign for Instant Runoff Voting --------8 of 19-------- From: Welfare Rights Committee - Alt Email <welfarerights [at] qwest.net> Subject: No thanks Gov P 11.20 12noon Come to the Welfare Rights Committee's our annual "No thanks!" Thanksgiving week protest at the Governor's mansion! Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 12:00 noon Governor's Mansion, 1006 Summit Ave., Saint Paul Join us to tell Governor Pawlenty to quit being a turkey [how can he go against his nature?] and to stop him from gobbling up poor people's money! Every year, the governor and others try to steal welfare money from the state budget and use it for other things. We have to put them on notice that we will not let it happen! During the 2008 legislative session, the Welfare Rights Committee will be building our successes of last year. We will be fighting to... --Raise the grants --Outlaw workfare/slave labor --Undo the rest of the 2003 budget cuts (like the family cap, the $50 cuts, MA co-pays, medical cuts to immigrants and others.) For more info: Welfare Rights Committee 612-822-8020 welfarerightsmn [at] yahoo.com www.welfarerights.org --------9 of 19-------- From: Jeff Hartman <hartm152 [at] umn.edu> Subject: 35W bridge 11.20 5pm "Integrated Design: Sustainable Community": A talk with Lance Neckar Tuesday, November 20, 5:00 p.m. 100 Rapson Hall 89 Church Street SE, Minneapolis Lance Neckar is a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota. This event is part of a series on the I-35W bridge collapse and its consequences, Telling River Stories: The I-35W Bridge, the Mississippi River, and Rebuilding Community Connections. More information can be found at www.bridgeproject.umn.edu --------10 of 19-------- From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net> Subject: Palestine/CTV 11.20 5pm St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN 15) viewers: "Our World In Depth" cablecasts in St. Paul on Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings. All households with basic cable can watch! 11/20 5pm and midnight and 11/21 10am "Ali Abunimah: Where Next for Palestine-Israel?" Part 2. Palestinian American talks at the U of M on 10/9. -------11 of 19-------- From: patty <pattypax [at] earthlink.net> Subject: WarMadeEasy/f 11.20 6:30pm Tuesday we will show the film, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. The film is narrated by Sean Penn. It is Norman Solomon's (Fair and Accuracy in Reporting) analysis of how governments, with media complicity, makes the case for war. It is about 75 min. long. Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon ) are held (unless otherwise noted in advance): Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Mad Hatter's Tea House, 943 W 7th, St Paul, MN Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats. Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information. --------12 of 19-------- From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com> Subject: Asian America 11.20 7:30pm Wing Young Huie discusses his new book Looking for Asian America (University of Minnesota Press) 7:30pm Tuesday, November 20 at Magers and Quinn Booksellers.3038 HENNEPIN AVENUE SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS MN 55408 612-822-4611 www.magersandquinn.com In search of contemporary Asian America, celebrated photographer Wing Young Huie--the only member of his family not born in China--traveled with his wife, Tara, through nearly forty states to explore and document the funny, touching, and sometimes strange intersection of Asian American and American cultures. "Looking for Asian America" illustrates their rich and surprising journey across the United States. Through Huie's eyes, keenly aware of his own Midwestern roots and perspective, we witness such images as a Vietnamese Elvis, Miss Congeniality on her cell phone in San Francisco's Chinatown, a Hmong street sign in rural North Carolina, a meditating Falun Gong protestor in Washington, D.C., a bubble tea Valley Girl, and a Chinese theme park in Orlando. Huie's camera captures ABCs (American-born Chinese), FOBs (fresh off the boat), and a self-described "redneck Chinese restaurant owner" near the Okefenokee Swamp. Taken together the photographs reveal a complex portrait of the U.S. cultural landscape, and their dignified elegance invites a closer, deeper look. Accompanied by the personal reflections of both Wing and Tara Huie, the nearly one hundred spectacular photographs tell a story that both mirrors and contradicts stereotypes of Asian Americans, ultimately questioning what it means to be ethnic and American in the twenty-first century. "Looking for Asian America shows real people engaged in the full range of human activity. This is no small accomplishment for the photographer or his subjects. For Asian Americans, both the newcomers and the native born, it is extraordinary to be merely ordinary. To others even if not themselves, Asian Americans appear to be contradictions of identity--a Chinese Yankee is a knock-off."--Frank H. Wu, from the foreword Wing Young Huie documents the socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural realities of his home state, Minnesota. His photographs have been exhibited at the Walker Art Center, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art, and he is a recipient of the Bush Artist and McKnight fellowships. He is the author of Frogtown: Photographs and Conversations in an Urban Neighborhood and Lake Street USA. For further information, contact: David Unowsky 612/822-4611 davidu [at] magersandquinn.com MAGERS AND QUINN BOOKSELLERS 3038 HENNEPIN AVENUE SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS MN 55408 612-822-4611 www.magersandquinn.com --------13 of 19-------- From: Tim Erickson <tim [at] e-democracy.org> Subject: Nonprofit 11.20 I just heard about a series of free workshops in nonprofit leadership offered by Hamline University and the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches. Registration is required but there's no fee. Word following the first on Tuesday is that it was excellent. More info: http://gmcc.org/Compassionworkshops.htm Here are some of the sessions coming up: Nov 20 - Conflict resolution Nov 27 - Nonprofit fundraising: research methods Dec 4 - Grant writing --------14 of 19-------- From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com> Subject: Peak oil/KFAI 11.21 11am LISTEN TRUTH TO TELL/: Wednesday Nov 21 at 11AM KFAI 90.3FM Minneapolis/106.7 St. Paul - Streaming @ KFAI.org: PEAK OIL AND THE URGENCY OF SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVES TTT's Andy Driscoll and Lynnell Mickelsen lead an important conversation about the dangers of ignoring the numbers and signs that our reliance on oil is leading to economic and energy calamity -- far sooner than we might admit. Is the sky really falling and are the wells really running dry as crude prices edge over $100 per barrel and we pay higher and higher prices for using this finite resource and ts energy? What might replace it as reliable, renewable, and affordable Can the idea of Localism , that is, can Twin Citians and Minnesotans alter our personal and cultural behavior to ensure a secure energy future no matter what happens elsewhere? GUESTS: Philipp Muessig, geologist and MPCA Sustainable Communities analyst Michael Noble, Executive Director, Fresh Energy (formerly ME3), St. Paul John Farrell, Research Associate, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Minneapolis Brian Merchant, Peak Oil activist and advocate, St. Paul --------15 of 19-------- From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com> Subject: Iraq redacted/f 11.21 opens 11/21, Brian De Palma's film "Redacted" about the points of view of soldiers, media and local Iraqis, Edina Cinema, 3911 W 50th St, Edina. http://www.landmarktheaters.com --------16 of 19-------- Pentagon Cover Up 15,000 or More US Deaths in Iraq War? By MIKE WHITNEY CounterPunch November 17 / 18, 2007 The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it. CBS's Investigative Unit wanted to do a report on the number of suicides in the military and "submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense". After 4 months they received a document which showed - that between 1995 and 2007 - there were 2,200 suicides among "active duty" soldiers. Baloney. The Pentagon was covering up the real magnitude of the "suicide epidemic". Following an exhaustive investigation of veterans' suicide data collected from 45 states; CBS discovered that in 2005 alone "there were at least 6,256 among those who served in the armed forces. That's 120 each and every week in just one year." That is not a typo. Active and retired military personnel, mostly young veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing themselves in record numbers. We can assume that "multiple-tours of duty" in a war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is entirely unaware and which the Pentagon is in total denial. If we add the 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the "official" 3,865 reported combat casualties; we get a sum of 10,121. Even a low-ball estimate of similar 2004 and 2006 suicide figures, would mean that the total number of US casualties from the Iraq war now exceed 15,000. That's right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that - as yet - has no legal or moral justification. CBS interviewed Dr. Ira Katz, the head of mental health at the Department of Veteran Affairs. Katz attempted to minimize the surge in veteran suicides saying, "There is no epidemic of suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem." Maybe Katz is right. Maybe there is no epidemic. Maybe it's perfectly normal for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the battlefield. Maybe it's normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it's normal for politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put themselves in harm's-way for their country. It's not normal; it's is a pandemic - an outbreak of despair which is the natural corollary of living in constant fear; of seeing one's friends being dismembered by roadside bombs or children being blasted to bits at military checkpoints or finding battered bodies dumped on the side of a riverbed like a bag of garbage. The rash of suicides is the logical upshot of the U.S. war on Iraq. Returning soldiers are traumatized by their experience and now they are killing themselves in droves. Maybe we should have thought about that before we invaded. Check it out the video at: CBS News "Suicide Epidemic among Veterans" Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney [at] msn.com --------17 of 19-------- On the Verge of Democracy Collapse Disorder by Roberto Rodriguez Published on Sunday, November 18, 2007 by CommonDreams.org Colony Collapse Disorder: this is the name given to the dying off of the world's bees, which spells an impending global crisis. It's not that I want to make light of this diagnosis. Quite the reverse; it's that the name could just as easily be applied to the state of the nation. Though Democracy Collapse Disorder is what comes to mind. When historians look back to examine the origins of this latter disorder, it will be determined that it began in 2000, compliments of the U.S. Supreme Court when its intervention resulted in the ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency of the United States. Lacking the tradition of contesting government, the opposition meekly accepted the results. Yet, by governing from the middle, the highly contested presidential election might have simply resulted in an asterisk next to the president's name. Instead, he began to govern as if he had received an overwhelming mandate from both, the electorate and God, helping to usher in the most greedy, corrupt, anti-science, secretive and unaccountable administration in the nation's history. Under the guise of Christianity, POTUS or the President Of The United States single-handedly helped to usher back in The Dark Ages. Just as plans for the Iraq invasion were in place long before, 9-11, the designs for Democracy Collapse Disorder were also in place, long before the president's installation. Yet, President Bush, a blue-blood son of a former president, was not an innocent bystander; to carry out the neoconservative agenda of world dominance simply required the notion of a unitary executive in which all power resides in POTUS. Given 9-11, the attack gave him an opportunity to accelerate that agenda, which included the de-Constitutionalization of the United States.. The seven primary components of Democracy Collapse Disorder include assertions by the president that he has the right to: 1) wage preemptive permanent war against any potential enemy, while coddling tyrannical blood-thirsty dictators who support the U.S. agenda of world domination. 2) declare that the United States is in fact in a permanent state of worldwide war against "Islamo-fascism". 3) disregard the rights of anyone, including the right to secretly detain anyone indefinitely, without due process and without the right to legal representation, including the right to torture. 4) disregard any law, create any law, or interpret any law to his favor, to be able to operate outside of the U.S. Constitution, while also asserting the right to interpret his illegal actions as lawful. 5) operate outside of the Constitution during this time of permanent war, without being subject to any checks and balances. 6) operate outside of international law and in disregard of international treaties and conventions. 7) pardon, grant amnesty and grant retroactive immunity to anyone under his control who violates the Constitution or any international law. If these were but theoretical assertions of power, that would be dangerous enough. But this president has actually carried out his assertions and aside from engaging the United States in a disastrous illegal war and occupation, he has also been wrong about everything. Wrong in a moral sense. Wrong in a legal sense. And wrong in a strategic sense. Enter the Democratic Party and the 2006 elections: its leaders are given an overwhelming mandate to stop this runaway president who has been plundering the public treasury to wage his illegal war. Yet, their first order of business is to grant him and his war cabinet unconditional amnesty and retroactive immunity. That is the definition of Democracy Collapse Disorder. If Congress had an alternate and effective plan to actually terminate the illegal occupation of Iraq, that would be one thing, but worse than being impotent, the refusal to hold the president accountable has emboldened him to continue his criminal endeavors worldwide, including threatening to wage yet another unsanctioned war against Iran. To its credit, Congress has at least now taken a firm stand in support of "the rule of law". Joining the likes of Lou Dobbs and Sen. Tom Tancredo, who represent the lunatic and fanatical wing of the political spectrum, Congress has taken a firm stand against amnesty, that is, no amnesty for Mexicans. No amnesty for brown Spanish-speaking dishwashers and maids. At least they are consistent. There will also be no amnesty for those in the U.S. government whose lies have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Iraq. Similar to Scooter Libby, instead they will be granted immunity, pardons and commutations. That too is Democracy Collapse Disorder. It also sounds like the definition of insanity. Rodriguez can be reached at XColumn [at] gmail.com. His columns are archived here. (c) Column of the Americas 2007 --------18 of 19-------- Bolivia's Ongoing Revolutions The Spirit of Revolt [If only our spirit here were half as strong! -ed] By ADOLFO GILLY CounterPunch November 15, 2007 Prologue to Forrest Hylton and Sinclair Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics (Verso 2007) In Bolivia in mid-October 2003, a popular insurrection had been going on for days in El Alto, a city of 800,000 workers, peasants, migrants, and petty merchants, most of them indigenous. 400 meters below, insurrectionary alteos [residents of El Alto] controlled the gateway to La Paz and blocked the supply of fuel to the capital of the republic. Surrounded, the government decided to break the blockade with a military convoy that opened a path up to the city by firing on, and killing, dozens of people. This is how it cleared the way for trucks loaded with gas cisterns to get down to the capital. Alteos collected their dead, held wakes in their churches and homes, and said, "Enough!" With the strength of men and women, young and old, they pulled train cars along the tracks from the station and pushed them off a bridge, so that many meters below, the cars blocked the highway leading from La Paz to El Alto-the very route by which the truckloads of soldiers had come to make way for the gas cisterns. "Enough! No one else gets through here!" The following day, they started to descend, by the dozens, or perhaps even hundreds of thousands, to occupy the city of La Paz, while from the other side of the valley, more unending columns of Indians ascended, with the same goal: to take the capital and overthrow the murderous creole regime of Gonzalo Snchez de Lozada. By then, the middle class in La Paz supported El Alto and demanded a government ceasefire. The army did not dare to keep killing. The government fell, and Gonzalo Snchez de Lozada fled to the United States. The history of this fraction of time that explodes out of quotidian time as a sort of shift in destiny; the history of this instantaneous time called revolution, its past, its ancestors, its protagonists, their reasoning and motives, is the subject of this book by Forrest Hylton and Sinclair Thomson. They were there, and have spent years studying Bolivia's indigenous revolts and revolutions. A classic revolution, at the very beginning of the twenty-first century, has taken place in Bolivia, a cycle of popular rebellion that began with the "Water War" in 2000 and culminated in the indigenous insurrections of 2003 and 2005, which twice seized the capital, and forced early elections in December 2005. With an absolute majority, and for the first time in Bolivian history, an Indian leader became president of the republic. This book boldly and rightly affirms that what happened was a revolution, and demonstrates it through history, analysis, and chronicle. A revolution, that which no longer existed, a violent and liberating revolution like all others in history: here it was again, bringing back the spirit of revolt out of grievance and out of the past. * * * After chronicling the cycle of popular mobilization since 2000 that led to such an outcome, Hylton and Thomson seek out its roots, premonitions, and precursors in the long time-spans of history. Bolivia is an Indian country, a place where two-thirds of the population recognizes and declares itself to be Aymara, Quechua, Guaran, or of other indigenous groups governed since Spanish conquest by a white and mestizo minority. Since the sixteenth century, the relationship between rulers and ruled, and between dominant and subaltern groups, has had a specific feature, indelible as skin color. As in the rest of the colonial universe born in that century, the relationship took the form of racial subordination. The first great indigenous insurrection against this domination - which preceded the Wars of Independence - was led by Tupaj Katari in 1781. Indian armies imposed a prolonged blockade of La Paz, which was only broken with the arrival of troops from the distant city of Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of Ro de la Plata. Defeat did not erase the memory for indigenous people, who have known ever since that they once laid siege to the city of the "seores," nor for the white and mestizo minority, as successive generations have transmitted until today the fear - negated, but always living on at the threshold of consciousness - of a new siege on the city by a limitless dark-skinned population. In April 1952, a popular insurrection exploded in defense of a presidential election stolen by the dominant oligarchy. Known as the "April Revolution," rebels took the city of La Paz, dispersed the army, overthrew the president, established a mestizo government that nationalized the mines - the principal Bolivian industry - decreed an agrarian reform, and had to live for years with the parallel power of miners', workers', and peasants' unions, their armed militias, and community radio stations. Of course, miners, workers, and peasants were Indians, and their indigenous languages were used to debate in their assemblies and to talk during their celebrations and in their homes. After a long period of vicissitudes and tenacious resistance, beginning in the 1980s the new power of the neoliberal world reorganized Bolivia, closed the mines, dismantled trade unions, and dispersed workers and their settlements. The April Revolution was no more than a historical reference. Order was re-established. Once again, Indians were put in their place. But like all domination with racial roots, nationalist ideology and the shared symbolism between dominant and subaltern groups was merely a thin, formal layer, and hegemony a fractured and fragile covering. Underneath lived the persistent and vast human community of the indigenous, those life-worlds that filmmaker Jorge Sanjins called "The Clandestine Nation." Since Tupaj Katari, and even before, those worlds never ceased to emerge, here and there, to break up the surface of domination with violent local revolts which were rapidly put down and punished, but not forgotten. This nation, negated by the liberal republic, was also nearly invisible for the republican left, which confused it with Indian positions in economy and society: peasants, factory workers, miners, petty merchants, artisans. The republican left did not, therefore, see the ancient place that this nation occupied in the colonial world and that persisted in the republic: Indians, people the color of the earth; Aymaras, Quechuas, Guaranes, Urus, those who, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, claim to be the most ancient of human beings. Each time the country today called Bolivia begins to move, the clandestine nation reappears, or better, makes itself violently visible and audible, as Edward P. Thompson put it, taking leading places on the stage previously occupied by noisy politicians, bureaucrats, military men, investors, and their scribes. That is how it made itself present in October 2003 when people descended on La Paz and took it over, unfurling their flags and symbols and putting forth their bodies, and their dead, as Thomson and Hylton note: "Beginning with Warisata in September, and spreading to El Alto in October, the mourning of martyrs provided a time to express grief and fury, to bolster the spirit through ritual and reflection, and to dedicate ongoing struggle to those who had lost their lives. The martyrs also provided a new example of indigenous patriotism in Bolivia, insofar as Aymaras were the ones defending the nation against foreign control." Revolutionary Horizons speaks to us of continuities and ruptures in time, of the cruelty and fragility of internal colonial domination, of centuries-old dispossession and impious exploitation; of the immaterial inheritance of memories and experiences; of how the spirit of revolt has been transmitted across generations through protest, mass clandestinity, and everyday life amidst discrimination and difference. The inheritors and bearers of Andean civilization might well say, "Generations come and generations go, but the earth lasts forever." The authors put it as follows: "In this book, we approach revolutionary 'horizons' not only as those perspectives of men and women in the past who looked upon the possibilities of future social transformation. For there is another sense of the word. At an archeological site, the phased strata of the earth and the remains of human settlement that are exposed by careful digging are called 'horizons'. We offer this then as an excavation of Andean revolution, whose successive layers of historical sedimentation make up the subsoil, loam, landscape, and vistas for current political struggle in Bolivia." Thus the revolution of October 2003 and its aftermath in June 2005 are presented as the condensation, in two decisive moments, of the previous experiences of rage, humiliation, and desire: a resounding explosion, an illumination that lights up an instant, a break in the time of everyday life in which linear time, circular time, and messianic time whirl and mix together. This temporal break passes, and does not last, but its resonances and dissonances never die down. They come to be known as years and lives unfold, Thomson and Hylton tell us at the end of their book. * * * A victorious revolution, like the Bolivian one in October, implies a deep change in institutions and political leadership, which happened in the presidential elections of December 2005 and the inaugural ceremony of Indian President Evo Morales in January 2006. Although connected, the new political leadership and the revolution that brought it about are two phenomena that differ in substance. The new power is a result of the revolution, not its embodiment. In their final reflections, Hylton and Thomson tackle this crucial question. People do not go into a revolution on behalf of an image of the society of the future, Leon Trotsky noted, but because present society has become intolerable. Their revolt nurtures itself on the image of enslaved ancestors, not the ideal of liberated descendants, wrote Walter Benjamin. A revolution means that nothing goes back to being what it was before in the spirits of the living and their relations with each other. It also pays homage to the dead, rescues the memory and the trials and tribulations of humiliated ancestors, and renovates the symbolic universe. That is why a revolution has repercussions in place and in times yet to come. But its duration is short. And if, when it manages to triumph, a revolution engenders a new political leadership, the insurrection is neither embodied by nor prolonged in it, and the break in time closes: "mais il est bien court le temps des cerises." What then follows concerns a subsequent time, even as the new leadership continues to affirm, "I am the revolution." It is important to debate and assess the composition and subsequent changes in political leadership that arise out of a revolution. But to subsume its analysis and its meaning in this fashion is to lose one's way and to enter into a shadow play. This is frequently done by those who, without suspecting it, have themselves become shadows of real life, which goes on elsewhere, far from them. The history of revolutions is usually treated in terms of the consolidation of a new order. In other words, revolution is a necessary prelude to the new order. This is not the way this book considers the third Bolivian revolution, which inaugurated the twenty-first century on the altiplano. Thomson and Hylton concede the importance of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), headed by Evo Morales, as a channel and political instrument for the popular insurrection, in which social movements played the leading role. They note, "Morales and MAS tail-ended, rather than led, the insurrection of 2003 and 2005. [But] in the electoral arena, Morales and MAS have served as the only effective vehicle for national articulation of the heterogeneous movements." Nevertheless, they continue, this does not authorize the leadership to uphold that in the future indigenous sectors do not need representation as Indians (in the Constitutional Assembly, for example), on the grounds that "they have already received representation - through MAS." Instead of continuing to resist, the official argument runs, these sectors "need to locate themselves in this new time of occupying structures of power." Both historians go against such an argument: "Whatever their intent, such statements de-authorized, marginalized, and silenced indigenous demands. It was a new example of the condescension that has plagued Indian-Left relations historically and that has pushed indigenous activists into more radically autonomous positions." An indigenous president is not enough to turn the clandestine nation into the Republic. It is necessary, of course, to understand the inelastic limits that those who govern run into, whether it be the ferocious resistance of the classes that have been displaced from power, and their political and economic representatives, foreign as well as domestic; or the steel cage in which the new global neoliberal order encloses possibilities of action, along with the imminent presence of its powerful material base - the Pentagon, the military force of the United States; or the material limits of scarcity, national isolation, and poverty. In the words of the authors, "There are consequences of the present whose force will be difficult to obstruct or reverse in the near future. And yet, if history has shown that revolutionary moments leave an indelible mark on the future, it has shown that internal colonialism and class hierarchies are durable structures as well." But for this very reason, the popular movements that gave rise to the new configuration of state power cannot lose themselves in it. They must maintain not indifference or neutrality, but rather their autonomy and independence. * * * We need to treat the history of revolutions as the history of those unique moments in which the forgotten, the oppressed, the humiliated - those who make the world with their hands, bodies, and minds - rise up and suspend the time of contempt to inaugurate a new time; moments, unforgettable whether long or short, of revelation of their own being, their own intelligence, and their own inheritance, which is that of all human beings. "Not man or men but the struggling, oppressed class itself is the depository of historical knowledge. In Marx it appears as the last enslaved class, the avenger that completes the task of liberation in the name of generations of the downtrodden," wrote Walter Benjamin in his "Theses on the Philosophy of History." There, the spirit of revolt survives and burns in secret, in diverse times and places. Those moments in which that spirit comes to light and stirs like gale winds, those breaks in time whose duration should be multiplied by their intensity, can later be suspended and converted into memory and the past. But they also become lived experience and, as a result, ongoing reverberations into all the possible futures of those who lived through those moments as a people. These are the themes of this exceptional book, which is the work of two historians who have followed and lived Bolivian life. Revolutionary Horizons is a chronicle, a history, and an archaeology of indigenous insurgency on the Andean high plains, and, at the same time, a mature fruit of study, experience, and reflection. A longtime participant-observer of Latin American revolution, Adolfo Gilly is a professor of history at the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (UNAM) and the author of numerous books on history and politics, including the classic The Mexican Revolution: A People's History (New Press, 2006 [1971]). --------19 of 19-------- 205 AD NB: I'm working reform the Roman Empire from inside. Vinces! 1935 Achtung! I'm working to reform Naziism from inside. Sieg heil! 2007 Hey all! I'm working to reform the Dem Party from inside. Think pink! 2057 (Sigh). I'm still working to reform the Dem Party from inside. Next year! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - David Shove shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu rhymes with clove Progressive Calendar over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02 please send all messages in plain text no attachments To GO DIRECTLY to an item, eg --------8 of x-------- do a find on --8 impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney
- (no other messages in thread)
Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.