stigmergy and graffiti

I just learned about a word new to me: stigmergy. The word is very exciting and I keep thinking about it, applying it to ideas of community and transformation.

The word is basically defined as a process through which parts of a larger whole independently act in ways that alert and communicate other parts, thereby changing or transforming their environment.

From what little I've read about it, ants leaving pheromones to communicate the whereabouts of food and nests is the most common example used.

Here are a couple of definitions:

Stigmergy is the process of emergent cooperation as a result of participants' altering the environment and reacting to the environment as they pass through it.

Stigmergy a method of communication in emergent systems in which the individual parts of the system communicate with one another by modifying their local environment.

Stigmergy is a process via which unorganized actions of individuals serve as stimuli to the actions of other individuals, and, in sum, result in a single outcome; a group of individuals who collectively behave as a sole entity.

After reading about this word, the first thing I thought about was communication via stenciled messages, spray-painted art, and other forms of 'graffiti' on publicly observed property. This is a way to communicate with others in a community, to let others know that you and certain beliefs exist. It is also a way in which to expose other individuals to ways of understanding the world. It can be a way to send a different message, to tell another story. For example, when a message on a billboard is changed, perhaps in an attempt to reveal a more accurate picture of consumption and advertising, another message enters the arena of public discourse as manifested in advertising spaces. In other words, part of our environment is advertising. Almost everywhere we go, we are subjected to advertising (billboards, signs, television commercials, text advertisements at checkout aisles, ads on buses and trains, ads at sporting events, name brands pasted on the clothes of those around us, ads in the media we read, imbedded ads in television programming and movies on the bigscreen and those we rent, ads on the radio, product promotion in the very products we use (coffee cups that advertise a product, for example), toys that advertise a movie and vice-versa, adds online, ads on car windows). We can modify and alter our environment by creating other messages.

We can spray paint 'love yourself' on the sidewalk (an attempt to combat the negative self-perception of body engendered by capitalist advertising?--your body is too fat, too thin, to flat, to saggy, too bald, too split-end, too wrinkly, too zitty, too poorly dressed, too thin lipped, and on and on). We can spray paint 'proudly supports sweatshops' next to the logo of whatever corporation fits. We can alter these messages, we can communicate with others out there who might feel similar, we can create spaces for other voices in a domain so constricted by corporate control.

So, by independent actions (reactions and alterations to our environment), we are able to communicate with others, serve as stimuli to the actions of others, and transform our environment!

Of course, spray painting, and other attempts to create spaces for other voices, is only one way that all the above can happen. To me, it was just a simple, concrete way to think about the concept. When I read about the idea of stigmergy, the image of spray painted messages and ideas just immediately lept to mind; like ants leaving scents to tell others about a certain path, someone can tell another human about an idea by leaving some sort of sign or trailmarker. This makes me want to go and spray paint "read about anarchy at your library!" on a bunch of sidewalks.

ovules

for some reason i am remembering a conversation a friend told me he overheard at the everopen cafe in fort collins. there was an old man and his grandson at a nearby table. the old man was intense, focused. his voice was serious. he said to his grandson, who was looking off vacantly, "what do you get, boy, if you plant corn?" no answer. "i said what do you get if you plant corn?" the grandson just stared at him, blank and bored. "you get corn!" the grandfather said. "you get corn, that's what you get." he looked at his young grandson intently. "what do you get if you plant wheat?" again no response. "i said wheat! what do you get if you plant wheat?" once again, the old man had to answer his own question. "you get wheat, that's what you get." if any of this was sinking in, registering at all, was not apparent. "now," the old man said, "what do you get if you plant hatred?" the grandfather sat for a few moments looking across the table at his grandson. i imagine a waitress walked by carrying hot coffee. looking into his grandson's eyes, the old man said softly "you get hatred." the grandson just looked on, maybe focusing on some spot beyond his grandfather, maybe looking at one of the customers eating toast across the cafe. "if you plant hatred, you get hatred." the old man narrowed his eyes. some glasses clinked together in the kitchen. "what do you get if you plant love?" the old man was serious, this was meaningful and he knew it. he knew it in his old age and wanted to save his grandson some pain. wanted to teach him what his own life had taught him. wanted to tell him before he was gone. "you get love." he looked at his grandson, hoping that something got through, that some of this entered his grandson's mind. "if you plant love, you get love," he said again, trying through some kind of osmosis to impart the lesson of his long life on earth to the young man sitting across from him in some anonymous cafe on the edge of some town full of anonymous people going about their lives. i think another waitress passed by, balancing a plate of eggs and a pot coffee while, a few tables away, two people got up to leave.

grand prairie and other lands

i'm in billings montana, sitting in a cafe. it's sunny out and cold and that actually feels pretty good (on a short walk, anyway). i went up to north dakota for thanksgiving, to be with my grandparents and to see my parents who were also visiting. i was able to see some old friends, too, which was wonderful.

i took the bus to bismarck and i had hoped to hitchhike back. for a few different reasons i ended up taking the bus again and now i have a 12 hour layover in billings. believe it or not, it's really nice. i am at this cafe, drinking coffee and just thinking. i haven't had a chance to be alone much since i got to north dakota. it's good to have some time to just write and read and think and maybe walk around a bit.

a train just rolled past this cafe; i saw it through the front windows. in another season, under a warmer sun maybe, that would be a new way to travel. new to me, i mean. i would really like to try it. but i think it would be best to wait until a summer or spring to try it for the first time. with the wind and cold steel and all.

my gramma and i looked through so many old photographs and even some scrapbooks from when she was in highschool and college. it was amazing. and so much fun. there were photographs from the nineteen teens, pictures of my gramma's parents and grandparents. and then photographs of her as a child with her family and friends. many photographs of her friends all through school; many of her family as she grew up. and then pictures of her and her own family as it began; her wedding to my grandpa, their first homes, their first child (my mother), their three other children.

the scrapbooks were incredible windows for me into another time and someone else's life. and for my gramma, they were memories in letters and napkins and notes from friends. i learned a lot about my gramma as a person, as an individual growing up and experiencing the world around her. we read letters and cards from old loves and close friends. i was able to recognize the faces of friends through several years, as photographs showed their changing faces.

the scrapbooks especially were also a revealing fragment of a culture at certain times in the past. some of it was really beautiful. a time when my gramma lived with her gramma in the summers and made close friends in her summer town, where everyone walked to each other's houses and sent notes inviting one to little gatherings of close friends. when she moved back to her parents' home after summer, letters were the only way to keep in touch with her friends who lived in her grandmother's town. as she told me, young folks didn't have cars or make phone calls to another town like we do today.

there were also things like a napkin from a restaurant called 'coon chicken' with a black cartoon face with big lips and a hat--typical racist blackface--with the words 'nation wide'. there was a lot of war propaganda....assuring us that we were good and just. a drawing of a male soldier with an image of a woman's face above him and an ode beneath: behind the gun is a man and behind the man is a woman, whether it is a mother, a wife, a sweetheart, or just a girl around the town.....my gramma's father was a really successful basketball coach and, as such, there were numerous newspaper clipping about him. sometimes in these clippings, and in other clippings hightlighting young men she knew that were shipping off for the war, were news articles about the war and little bits of propaganda praising the man with the gun or the man sweating on the assembly line. one article i remember had a photograph of a father and son from north dakota, both of which were joining the military together. this was praised as very noble.

i saw pictures of one of the places she grew up in--an old building next to a cemetary on a church grounds. her family was given the place to live in when her father took up a teaching position at the school. their neighbors would pick my gramma and her brother up in the morning on schools days in a sled pulled by horses. it was a box on runners, she told me. and there were metal boxes full of coals to warm your feet on.

the photographs left one overall impression or feeling in me--relationships. so many photos of family and friends. of parents with children, of siblings together, of several generations all together. it was a really meaningful experience for me. i feel closer to my gramma and even my grandpa (because of the photos i saw of him throughout his life and the associated stories). the photos and scrapbooks are all kept in an old trunk that a relative of mine, depew swartout, built after he came home from the civil war. in the bottom of the trunk were his old tools, really beautiful works of art themselves. the first night we started looking at the contents of the trunk, we stayed up until one or two o'clock in the morning; we stayed up almost as late the next night.

it was so cool to see all that, to think of my gramma as a young women, to see some of the changes in her life, some of the paths she followed, that were recorded in the photographs and scapbooks.

i kinda want to just keep writing but i just overheard someone saying that this cafe closes soon. which stinks--i wanted to hang out here for awhile longer. i guess i'll probably walk around downtown a bit; maybe i'll find another place to sit and read and drink some coffee.

comics and what if i was born an american

*i originally wrote this about a month ago, after a trip to the library. i wrote it to get it out and haven't returned to it until today. after reading it, i guess i just decided i'd post it here. if nothing else, it's just me wanting to say how i feel, to get it down somewhere.


I oppose this war. But how is that enough, just to say it? I am still a part of this country, this system, this culture and my mere presence supports the war in many ways. I pay income taxes; I purchase goods, a small amount by this culture’s standards but goods nonetheless, that regardless of ethical considerations still support the capitalist economic system; what little money I have is in a bank and is used as investments by the bank for profit (of course being invested in companies that are currently financially successful, for example, war profiteers). I still wake up everyday and go about the business of living my personal life. This personal life is not hampered by snipers, helicopters, planes dropping bombs, and occupation armies. I go about things pretty much the way I usually do, without constant fear of safety, without watching loved ones killed, without my life being overcome by violence, fear, and death. And things just go on.

So, how am I really opposing anything? How much do I really care about what happens to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and to U.S. and other soldiers fighting for the right of an imperial/corporate government to extend its fingers into another market and geopolitical prize? Life is a struggle to reconcile your actions with your values and beliefs, to ensure that they compliment and reflect each other. The truth is I care deeply about compassion, love, and humanity. I care about the Iraqis that are being killed and forced to live under a violent occupation. I care that the country in which I was born is a violent imperialist nation, acting out of the greed of predatory capitalism. I care that the citizens of this nation, and increasingly the world, are subjected to powerful indoctrinations of consumption and desire; that the values of both community and personal awareness and growth are being sidelined by the values of the accumulation of stuff and the determination of success based on expressions of material “wealth.” And while we contract our realm of concerns, concentrically focusing on material wealth and representation, we inevitably continue to broaden our ignorance in regard to global politics and other human beings in general, while our feelings of helplessness and isolation grow. This increasing emphasis on material consumption effortlessly condemns human beings to ever-narrowing realms of concern, leading to a capitalist induced paradigm of money and success that has resulted in a population that can’t see beyond their own fingertips, beyond their own bank accounts.

So, I oppose this war. But what else am I bound to do because of my own values and perceptions? I know I must minimize my involvement in the capitalist system of profit over humanity. I must be continually vigilant in questioning my own actions and motivations. I cannot give my political support to a government based on greed, violence, and imperialism. But these do not amount to much; I need not necessarily challenge my own privileges or make much in the way of personal sacrifices. We are often faced with the question “what would you have done if you were a German in Nazi Germany?” or “what would you have done had you been born during slavery in America?” Maybe we can see that one question now is “what would you do if you lived today in Israel?” But just as important, more important because it is reality, is the question “what do I do as an American today living in this country?”

The other day I read some recent comic books from a mainstream publisher. These comics all revolved around a central story in this particular comic book’s fictional universe: all mutants and superheroes must register with the U.S. federal government and become security agents. Anyone not willing to register and divulge their identity becomes a hunted criminal and, when captured, is placed in a prison camp indefinitely with no access to representation in a judicial system. In other words, the comics play heavily on current affairs and ask questions concerning personal liberties, security over rights, and unjust imprisonment. The comics’ main characters face the decision of whether or not to support this federal program of secret prisons within the context of a population motivated by fear. One by one, for various personal reasons and as the truth and extent of the operation is revealed, the superheroes begin to defect, some joining an underground resistance, one becoming an ex-patriot in another country, some leaving their spouses and families out of an unwillingness to participate in a program that runs so contrarily to their deeply held values.

As I read these comics, I couldn’t help but feel motivated to action. In the fantasy realm of a comic universe, individuals can make huge personal statements of resistance. They can take superhero action in a group of underground rebels. Their mere presence or lack-there-of can make a national statement and, it seemed to me as I sat in the library, almost vindicate the individual from the malignant actions of her or his nation. What I mean is it seemed that, in the context of the superhero world, an individual could simply state opposition and thereby do enough. Or maybe, on a slightly different level, could refuse to participate in the program and therefore go underground, immediately becoming an agent of change and resistance.

While reading these comics was in a way inspirational and I was seriously happy to see something so political conveyed through very mainstream mass media, the comics also depressed me. It seemed so easy for the superheroes to enact meaningful opposition and change. It is true that many of the actions taken by the characters would not be in any way simple or easy in real life; leaving your loved spouse because of his involvement in an oppressive program, realizing that friends may not be willing to question their own privileges and actions that aid oppression, endangering personal safety and even the safety of family in the opposition of power. However, the reader knows that the comic story will last seven issues. At the end of seven issues, the conflict will be resolved. The actions of the characters have such immediacy; opposition results in monumental consequences.

After closing the last of this handful of comics, I felt confused. Reading them left me feeling moved to align action with value but also with a feeling of hollow impotency. I strive to oppose systems of power and oppression; this is a reflection of my deeply held beliefs, beliefs that I have arrived at through sustained questioning and struggle for critical awareness. And, while I realize changes at the core of oppression and violence requires sustained effort over a lifetime, I often feel my actions are inadequate, not sufficient in relation to my own privilege, and simply not enough to evoke any meaningful change. This war is in its fourth year of outright occupation. Nothing seems to have changed. And the really horrible part is that, in many ways, nothing has changed in the couple of hundred years of this country’s history, not to mention the five hundred years of European violence and colonial, imperial ambitions in this hemisphere. We still impose our economic system of control and intimidation, conduct imperialistic wars of unimaginable violence, maintain systems of oppression locally and globally even while preaching democracy and freedom, support governments that, like our own, are guilty of incredible humanitarian violations, and maintain systems of classism, racism, sexism, and all other forms of hierarchy and oppression in every institution of our society. Yes, symptoms of the problem have changed. For example, slavery, an extreme expression of capitalism that requires the denial of the recognition of a human being, is no longer practiced outright in the U.S. Other forms of domination and hierarchy have been challenged and sometimes diminished to more subtle expressions. Sexism is still one of the most dominant features of our society, although it has morphed to some degree in reaction to critical opposition. While it makes me very happy to see positive change within our culture, it is primarily changes in the expression of some of the core elements that constitute our general world view. In other words, although we talk about sexism or racism, for example, and many of us do take action in changing our own understanding and environment, the underlying root causes of these inequalities, these exploitations and oppression, remain intact and unchallenged. Hierarchical systems of power remain and, so, we as a nation still participate in wars (and there is nothing more dehumanizing and fundamentally violent and oppressive than war). We still participate in a global system of predatory capitalism. We still allow our country to place the acquisition of resources over the lives of human beings. Women are still, and increasingly so, sexually objectified; lives and bodies are commodified. Our society is still class-based and access to resources (healthy food, education, fulfilling work, etc.) restricted.

It becomes easy for me to think about this lack of fundamental change and spiral into a dark hole of hopelessness, submit to feelings of isolation and the pointlessness of struggle. I know that the rope offered is that of consumption, of the entanglements of participating in the encouraged distractions of our culturally created system of meaning (non-critical absorption of “information,” celebrity, material success, pro-sports, television, 40 hour work weeks). The emphasis on personal gain and opulence is a direct means of suppressing perhaps the most useful tool of cultural and political change: the community. This isolation works in perfect harmony with the paradigms of oppression, profit, consumerism, and consumption. We isolate ourselves in private universes of concern and in front of screens depicting illusionary lives and promoting an endless dogma of consumption to fix our cosmetic imperfections and to cure the meaninglessness and emptiness of our lives. This isolation is at the expense of community, the very thing that has the ability to meaningfully confront oppression, profit at all costs, consumerism, and consumption.

After reading those comic books, I wanted to be able to do make some action that expressed my total opposition to this war and this system of imperialism that, in a sense, vindicated me, that separated me from this country’s actions. I wanted to make a statement that was enough, take action that resulted in visible change. I wanted things to be better in seven issues. And while I still want those things to happen, the process of writing this little essay has reinforced the realization that community and long term goals of change are a reality that I can work towards. It has made me realize the importance of direct action and civil disobedience. It has also made me realize that I do need to ask those questions of “what if I was born in….” and to constantly ask myself if, when looking back, I can be satisfied that I have acted in accordance with my beliefs, that I have not simply fallen back on my privilege and consented to atrocities in my silence.


I have arrived at a crossroads of sorts in my life, not so much a crossroads as an intersection of unsigned, innumerable paths. Truthfully, we are always at a crossroads in life, always capable of making decisions that will impact the intimate world of self as well as the world around us. It becomes almost a debilitating obsession with me, this internal debate over decisions of which path to take, what to pursue. So that, while I ruminate over possibilities, compare and contrast possible outcomes, and, mostly, worry about canceling out one possibility by pursuing another, I don’t take any of the paths I consider. This over-generalization is not entirely true; I recognize paths that I am currently on, many by some sort of choice, and I have been happy with past decisions and actions. However, when it comes to the future, to making choices that will to some degree chart certain aspects of my life, I begin to fall into this pattern of endlessly worrying about what I might not be able to do if I make a certain decision and focus on a particular path.

With this is mind, I am excited by some of the personal realizations at which I have arrived. I know what I value, I know what I believe to be important. This can serve as a guide as I move through life. As I make decisions and actions, I must correlate these with my values and view of the world.

I began this essay asking how simply stating that I oppose this war is enough and the answer is that, to me, it is not enough. If I were able to have a bird’s eye view of history and I looked down on my own life, I would be ashamed if all I did in regards to the present was to say “I oppose this.” I understand the ways in which isolation, capitalism, and our culture’s value of materialism contribute to the degradation of humanity that we see in the forms of war, violence, and all the oppressive hierarchies of power that are manifested in our society. I see the need for sustained critical awareness, both of my culture and my own personal life. The unity of action and belief is vital to both self- awareness and growth and I recognize the necessity of community in opposition, resistance, and, importantly, in change.
....
After reading through this about a month after I originally wrote it, I feel that I must add something about personal destiny and transformation. I have become increasingly aware that only by creating immediate alternatives to the oppressive systems of hierarchy currently in place can we hope for something different. It is through this kind of revolution that we can transform the specifics of our reality. Important to this transformation is the realization that only I have the ability to transform my own life, in all of its complexities—relationships to and with other people, actions, thought, and simply the way in which I choose to exist in this world. To borrow a couple of phrases: “The personal is political” and “Means create ends.” All of these realizations and the subsequent effort to transform the nature of my existence and help create alternatives to hierarchical structures are ways to oppose not only this current war but also what created all the wars before and those that are coming. And war is but one manifestation of hierarchy; to get at the core, these transformations have the ability to oppose power and domination in all its guises while, at the same instant, creating what can be.

deserts, memory, and stars

I put on a shirt, an old waffle cotton, long-underwear shirt. I put it on, it’s soft. The shirt has a three button neck, this lets it come over my head easy. It’s so soft. It’s old and it’s dirty. I should have done laundry this weekend. It feels clean, though, and smells clean, too.

Here I am. The sun is down. Evening has settled in, lights are turning on. There’s only one light on in this apartment. I’m actually listening to music, something I haven’t been doing much of lately. I just want to write at the moment. Just write, without aim or goal or purpose. This is a song from my past, even the moments when the singer grunts—I remember this, how it sounds and feels. It is truly beautiful. Music is one of the truly beautiful things in this world.

Even with so much horror and pain in this world there are moments that transcend everything and we are truly human.

It’s easy, I think, for me to feel this but what about the person in Chad right now, fearing for the safety of the family she is a part of, wondering when the militias will come? Is this true for that person as well? I hope so. And when there are people in situations like that, how can anyone really be free? Most of us are guilty of participating in relationships of domination. We also habitually take part in, and accept the benefits of, systems of hierarchy that must, by their very nature, oppress other human beings.

I am feeling something akin to cold winter nights back in North Dakota. That’s a pretty non-descript rumination, I know. I am remembering, but in a vague way, nights in Bismarck and maybe Fargo, nights spent with family, or with friends, or alone. Wow, now I am feeling things from long ago, about how I saw the world and myself in it and the future. The future.

Time seems to have taken on a different appearance now than then, a different context in my life. Often, time seems always there, making itself known, and it’s a matter of the night slipping by, of yet another day passing. I feel slowed down tonight. Like somebody grabbed my collar and just said “Whoa, hold up a moment.” Time doesn’t feel the same at a moment like this. Its fingers aren’t in everything. My mind is not diving into a thousand possibilities or constructing the passage of life before my mind’s eye. Instead, this is enough. Simply, this is enough.

This must be one of the key differences in living and, more importantly, feeling between the present, my present, and my past. I have really been go, go, go. This may not make sense to someone who knows that I am unemployed and have been for a couple of months. But my mind is so frequently racing around. It’s not that I don’t have moments of tranquility—I most certainly do. A lot of them, actually. And I cherish that. This is somehow something a little different. It’s very spatial.

I read the back of an old science fiction novel at a thrift store today. The description of the main character’s hopes and dreams was beautiful—tangentially, archetypically huge but simple. He wanted to find his home in the vast reaches of endless space. Unfortunately, he found himself at the bottom of an ocean, a captive among fishpeople. A hero, a lonely, wandering hero. Introspective but also an individual of action out there among the stars. One who demands freedom and searches for it endlessly through the cold void of unknowable space, bouncing around the stars.

I put it back on the shelf. I probably could never read it—it would be so sexist and likely other things that would disgust me. But that’s okay, I have the back of the book and the individual alone in space, approaching freedom on the horizon, getting closer with every bootfall.



*The description of the spacefarer is purposefully “mannish”—it’s kind of a joke, you know, tongue in cheek…..young boys dreaming to be desperadoes and smiling rogues. Maybe the ironic thing is we are all looking for some sort of freedom on the horizon, freedom from things as overtly manifested in that book as gender roles and sexism. Maybe, really, we are all listening to our own bootfalls and wondering if we’re closer. Somewhere out there, there is a star that says, “Only I can transform the nature of my existence.”

Beit Hannoun

I am so upset. I want to write to get some of it out, so that maybe I can redirect it into something positive.

At the library this afternoon, I read about 24 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military yesterday throughout Gaza and the West Bank; 19 civilians were killed in a single attack in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza. Israeli artillery shelled Beit Hanoun at dawn, hitting six homes as the inhabitants slept. When one family’s home was hit, the family members fled from their house and sought shelter in an alley, huddling together. Another shell killed them.

The Fort Collins Coloradoan reported on these killings in Gaza on page A-7, the last interior page, under the “World” category of quick little paragraphs from around the globe. The headline is “Hamas Calls Off Ceasefire.” Why is the title not “19 Civilians Killed by Israel in Gaza”? Why is this article just a few sentences and stuck away on the last page? There was no mention of the numerous testimonies of ambulances and medical teams being fired upon by the Israeli military. The article did not even mention the more than 50 people wounded in the dawn attack on Beit Hanoun or give any account of Operation Autumn Clouds, as the Israeli government calls the newest attacks. In Operation Autumn Clouds, which began on the first of November, more than 80 Palestinians have been killed and at least 250 wounded. More than 440 Palestinians have been killed since July. A few days ago, a group of schoolchildren was hit by a missile from a jet; one boy was killed and a teacher lost her arm. On November 3, two EMTs with the Palestinian Red Crescent were shot and killed while trying to evacuate another victim of Israeli fire in Beit Lahia.

I do not believe in hierarchies of suffering. Comparisons of pain and tragedy do not bring resolution or healing. But silence supports atrocities.

And now there will be more bloodshed and death. It is so horribly sad.

This morning, I read an email from a friend who lives in Askar, a refugee camp in the West Bank. He told me that the situation is constantly getting worse. He mentioned killings, homelessness from house demolitions, and lack of salaries because of a completely bankrupt government (almost all foreign aid being withheld). He thanked me for the Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen songs that I left him when I was there last year. He said he’s still playing the guitar and it is his only weapon in life. He told me, “I will keep rocking in a free world and you should keep rocking too and you should be like the right guitar and the right voice without fear of anyone even if it was your own government of U.S.”

So, I have to say this now: The United States government is criminal. It is criminal to continuously support, politically and economically, this violent and inhumane occupation; to support a wall that takes land and farms and water, that separates friends and neighbors and communities; to support an ongoing campaign of indiscriminate violence and killing; to support daily humiliations; to support a government that keeps an entire group of people from having hopes and dreams.

I feel around me, in this town and this country, an air of relief and satisfaction now after the elections, this sense that ‘Ah, finally things are okay again’. But things are not okay;
meaningful change will not be brought about by the Democrat Party being in power. Substitution and rotation are not change. In the U.S. system of capitalist hierarchy, imperialism, and “free” trade, foreign policies are virtually indistinguishable from one party to the next. This is particularly true concerning the occupation of Palestine.

Again, the U.S. government is criminal. I do not support its actions or its policies of death, imperialism, and corporate power. Many of us will fight against these policies and help to create alternatives to the systems now in place. We must create change through transformation—of our daily lives, our relationships, and our actions. Our very lives must be the revolution. We all need to have the right guitar and the right voice and fear no one.

invitational rhetoric

I’ve lately been interested in the idea of invitational rhetoric. I haven’t read enough about it yet but it seems to have some really promising ideas and methods for arriving at transformative communication. I want to include here a list of some of the basic concepts of invitational rhetoric (I found the following online, in a review of a book about invitational rhetoric by Sonja K. Foss and Karen A. Foss. Here it is:

Five core assumptions characterize invitational rhetoric: (1) the purpose of communicating is to gain understanding; (2) the speaker and the audience are equal; (3) different perspectives constitute valuable resources; (4) change happens when people choose to change themselves; and (5) all participants are willing to be changed by the interaction. The goals of invitational rhetoric are to clarify ideas and to create an environment in which growth and change can occur for both audience and speaker. Speakers can facilitate the exchange of ideas by creating conditions of freedom, safety, value, and openness. Freedom is at the heart of an invitation to transformation—the freedom to choose to change; safety generates confidence for all participants to express ideas; value recognizes and appreciates the intrinsic worth of all participants; and openness is a willingness to explore diverse perspectives. This ideal environment increases the possibilities of achieving mutual understanding.

from a description of "Inviting Transformation" by Sonja K. Foss and
Karen A. Foss

What do you think? In my own mind, I make connections with this and anarchist ideas concerning transformation as opposed to simple replacement or rotation. I have been reading a bunch of things lately from different perspectives and concerns and somehow things keep overlapping in wonderful circles of cohesion. I remember something similar sometimes happening when I was in school; sometimes apparently divergent topics would come together in my mind, forming a series of interconnected ideas that seemed to illustrate a fluidity and symbiotic essence to pretty much everything!

peaceful activists attacked

Israeli army injures 16 protesters demanding to be able to harvest their olives in Bil'in

Saed Bannoura - IMEMC - Friday, 27 October 2006, 23:18

Hundreds of Palestinian residents of Bil'in village, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, and dozens of Israeli and international peace activists held their weekly protest in Bil'in Friday, pleading with the assembled Israeli military force to allow them to harvest their olives. Israeli soldiers used excessive violence against the protesters and injured 16.

After Friday prayers, hundreds of residents and activists marched towards the construction site of the Wall on Bil'in village land, carrying ladders and harvest materials in an attempt pick their olive trees isolated behind the Wall.

The Israeli army was already deployed in the area from the early morning hours, and barred the residents from reaching their orchards.

Some of the ladders carried by the protesters had Palestinian flags on top of them.

Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall, told the IMEMC that these ladders symbolize the “bridges of unity among the Palestinian factions, and are the means to overcome the Wall separating the residents from their orchards”.

Abu Rahma added that the protesters chanted slogans calling for unity, and an end to Palestinian internal clashes.

Israeli Knesset members Mohammad Baraka and Dov Hanin from the Hadash Party also participated in the protest, along with the village residents and Israeli and international peace activists.

Abu Rahma also said that as the protesters reached the construction site of the Wall, soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets, and rounds of live ammunition. At least 10 residents and 6 peace activists were injured.

A 14-year old child was injured by fragments of a live round in his neck, and underwent surgery in Ramallah Hospital.

Several Israeli peace activists were arrested. Protesters were beaten with truncheons and even an ambulance was targeted with tear gas, according to eyewitnesses.

Abu Rahma added that the wife of Abdul-Fattah Bornat, a resident of the village, her two daughters Hadeel and Sereen, and her son Mohammad, were among the injured. At least four Israeli peace activists were taken prisoner by the army.

Abu Rahma also said that soldiers attacked him and his family while they were attempting to reach their isolated orchards to pick their olives.

After the protest, soldiers invaded the entrances of the village and deployed between the houses.

Abu Rahma revealed that Israeli authorities released on Friday Imad Bornat, from Kafer Nima village, taken prisoner three weeks ago during a Friday protest in Bil'in. He had to pay 15,00 Israeli Shekels (about $4,000 USD) fine, and is currently under house arrest in Kafer Ni'ma village near Ramallah.

OAXACA

Please look into what is happening in Oaxaca, Mexico. This is very serious and I know that I have seen nothing about it in mainstream media. Massive state violence has resulted in several deaths.....right now the government is attacking the university in Oaxaca.

Here is a link:
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml

Please learn more about what is happening and speak out in whatever capacity you have.