Author: jameswagner

When do we leave?

Unfortunately I can’t locate the documentation for this at the moment, but a recent poll of Berliners found that fully 61 percent believed our dear Shrub is a dangerously incompetent maniac. I don’t know any people who might be better equipped to make such a judgment, and the scrappy Berliners would probably agree about their qualifications.
If such an estimate matches my own, and it does, what shall I do with it as an American resident in America?
I saw this related observation today on a discussion site, and it should disturb or provoke each of us:

I am a citizen of the United States. I see the PATRIOT act, I see TIPS, and I think to the folks I grew up knowing as a kid, the German Jewish couple who “saw the signs and got out while they could”, and remember stories of many others like them who saw where their country was going and had the foresight to get out before it was “patently obvious there was a problem”… which brings us to the modern day…

But it’s not just that I don’t want to live under a government that is repressive, or worse. I don’t want to have to live with people who have no problem with government moving in that direction (who will never go to the barricades, or even contact their people in Congress or, damn, at the very least, talk to each other about their apprehension), and that is what we are experiencing already.
How bad does it have to get before the alarm bells go off?
[I gratefully acknowledge my Partner, Barry, as the source of much of the above material.]

A-ha! Of course, it’s still about oil!

Sure might help to explain why we’re willing to risk world conflagration by wiping another country off the map in an unprovoked and very aggressive act of war!
“Washington” is very concerned about diversifying sources for our present dependency on oil and satisfying the wasteful gluttony of our future oil appetites. Let’s simply grab Iraq and its oil for ourselves before anyone else has a chance to make friends there, even our own friends, who also need oil of course.

Access to Iraq’s vast oil supplies are a key, if unspoken, reason why the Bush administration has initiated plans to attack Baghdad. Of course, as yet, no senior official in Washington has publicly acknowledged this. To do so would be to eliminate whatever remaining credibility the Bush administration has in Europe and the Middle East. It could also provoke opposition in the United States among those who question the sacrifice of blood for oil.
….
But there can be no doubt that the White House — made up, as it is, of ex-oil company officials — is aware of the oil situation in Iraq and the problems this will pose to successful realization of the administration’s long-term energy strategy. Only by occupying Iraq and choosing its new government can the United States be certain that these problems will be overcome.
….
But if sanctions are lifted, and the current regime (or one that it allows to be formed) remains in power, Iraq’s vast untapped reserves will fall under the control of non-U.S. companies. Some of these companies will, no doubt, want to sell their output to the United States; others, however, may prefer to send their oil elsewhere, or to use these supplies for political advantage. In any case, the United States can have no assurance that they will be available to satisfy America’s future energy requirement. Obviously, the only way to prevent this from happening is to engineer a “regime change” in Baghdad, and install a government that will cancel these agreements.
….
At this point, it is impossible for outsiders to know what, exactly, is driving the administration’s campaign to oust Saddam Hussein. No doubt many factors are involved — some strategic, some political, and some economic. But it is hard to believe that U.S. leaders would contemplate such an extreme act without very powerful motives — and the pursuit of oil has long constituted the most commanding motive for U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf region.

But it’s all our oil, ain’t it?

nothing’s changed at the White House after 12 years!

For those who have been following the scuttlebut about the Barcelona AIDS Conference, this partial account from James Wentzy, ACT UP New York veteran, of one of its few dramatic moments may be enlightening. [Note from Dean Lance’s 1990 letter how almost nothing has changed in Washington in 12 years, while during those years the plague has run totally amuck.]

Although the Shouting Down of HHS Sec.Tommy Thompson at last week’s moribund Barcelona AIDS Conference certainly LOOKED like an ACT UP action, the community outreach and whistles were initiated by GMHC. [ I DO love to give creditwhere deserved…but admittedly, some people should never be given whistles.]
The last time AIDS activists shouted down a “high level” political
bureaucrat at an International Conference WAS done by ACT UP at the 1990 San Francisco International AIDS Conference where HHS Sec.Louis Sullivan was also shouted down. [Conservatives are so touchy…once every 12 years shouldn’t be too big a cross for them to bare.]
The following was Dean Lance’s response to news writer Mark Schoofs’
“opinion.” in his Village Voice article about ACT UP’s 10th anniversary,
which called the Shouting down of HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan at the 1990 San Francisco International AIDS Conference a “tactical error”.
Dear Mark Schoofs,
RE: The Sixth International Conference on AIDS, San Francisco 1990
I beg to differ. I was there when Louis Sullivan spoke, shooting video for
DIVA TV. I had spoken with researchers, delegates, PWAs, et al throughout the week and had my finger on the pulse (as an activist and media person) as per the sentiments of those attending.
You seem to have forgotten the boycott of that conference over the Helms legislation denying HIV+ people entry into the country. People who were delegates were detained at customs by INS and thrown into detention when AZT was found in their luggage.
Many of the delegates including the organizers of the conference wore red armbands protesting the Bush Administration’s refusal to veto the
legislation. Waivers were granted, but many organizations (not to mention FRANCE!) refused to participate because of this.
At the plenary session (where it is customary for the head of state to make the opening address), George Bush couldn’t be there. He chose instead to keep his “previous commitment”, a fundraiser in North Carolina for Senator Helms, sending a member of his cabinet in his absence to represent the President (and to take the expected heat.)
Everyone knew well beforehand that Secretary Sullivan, in his capacity as the shill (and sacrificial lamb) for the administration, was not going to
have his speech heard. In fact, most of the delegates – by their own
admissions – were looking forward to the anticipated obfuscation of his
speech at the closing session. ACT UP placed a fact sheet on each of the
12,000 seats at the Moscone Center before the session commenced explaining why Louis Sullivan’s speech was being drowned out.
For those who cared what he had to say (and they were few and far between as most of the delegates realized it was going to be mere lip service – face-saving rhetorical apologist bullshit), copies of the speech were given out in advance. So his performance was all that was blocked, not the “empowerment of information” he had to disseminate for which you accused ACT UP of being censorious.
Two nights before, when Aldyn McKean debated Dr. Sullivan on “Nightline”, the Secretary of Health and Human Services stipulated that they must be in separate rooms so he would not have to confront Mr. McKean head on, face-to-face. When the speech was given that Sunday morning, delegates could have heard it through headphones, though the majority of them turned their backs to the stage as he was making his address in an expression of their outrage over the Bush administration’s discriminatory policies.
It was actually a joyous celebration. Not only for those who concurred with ACT UP, but a small victory for those who have toiled on any level for the benefit of people with AIDS .
If you doubt accuracy of my account, any number of the people you’d quoted in your article who were also there will back it up anecdotally, as does the unedited video footage from the event that is now part of the Testing the Limits archives. Mine included (some of which made it into “Voices from the Front.”) [..and permanently ARCHIVED in the AIDS Activist Video Preservation Project at the New York Public Library –JW]
Thought you’d want to know.
Sincerely, Dean Lance DIVA TV

Looks like we won’t see change until a president contracts HIV disease, and then it will be called holy stigmata.

LMDC says fuck you, New York !

I’m posting the NYTimes‘ editorial take on the just-released Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s draft proposals for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site, because, coming from the establishment newspaper, it clearly shows the scale of the insult hurled at all of after we were made to await the product of ten months of behind-doors corporate planning by the people who remain convinced they know what’s best for New York.

… these are dreary, leaden proposals that fall far short of what New York City — and the world — expect to see rise at ground zero. The restrictions on the designers included a requirement that the site be packed with a full 11 million square feet of office space, 600,000 square feet of retail space and another 600,000 square feet for a hotel. The result was, in the main, several variations on the theme of a park hemmed in by a bunch of very large commercial buildings.
….
Despite all the talk about a downtown that would be alive 24 hours a day with cultural institutions, entertainment and residential developments, these features, which make an urban area live and breathe, are missing. Instead there is office space, far more of it than the city is likely to need in the foreseeable future, and enough large-scale construction to keep the entire neighborhood in chaos for decades.
….
For some time now the families of victims have asked that the footprints of the two towers be reserved for a memorial. But the proposals that resulted from that directive seemed the least imaginative of all.

I won’t even bother to bring up the subject of art and architecture, since the full banality, if not the urban insanity, of the actual proposals has otherwise left me in speechless rage.
That unnatural condition is not likely to prevail for very long.

living for art

Dean Daderko either does or does not have the hottest gallery in New York, and Toni Schlesinger either does or does not just write a regular column about where people live in New York.
I would say yes and no, respectively, but I would prefer to describe them both as remarkable artists in their own right.
You can visit Dean at Parlor Projects* almost every sunday, and you can visit Toni in “SHELTER” usually once a week in the Village Voice.

[Toni] This is such a visually advanced room but if you look out the window you can see women in house slippers discussing arthritis. . . . . Does your landlord care that you have a gallery here?
[Dean] It doesn’t particularly bother him, I think. He has a butcher shop. I’ve had about 16 exhibitions since January 2000. . . . . Inhwan Oh did a piece called Things of Friendship. He went through my house, looking in the medicine cabinet, in drawers. Anything he found that matched something at his house, he’d set aside—Elmer’s wood glue, a gay travel guide, some Wisk. At the end, there were 25, 30 objects in common. He set up the objects in two piles, almost like mirror images. The artists tend to take advantage of the fact that this is a domestic space. (Tom [a friend of Dean’s who has been in the kitchen] comes out and says: “I’m going to go now.”)
[Toni] You were so quiet back there. (Tom) I was writing down everything you were saying. The meta-interview.

Popomo?
* 214 Devoe Street (bet. Bushwick and Humbolt) 917-723-8626

all the news not fit for the other place

Finally, our very own ZNN (sic)! Don’t forget to come up for air.

ZNN provides a contrast to CNN. ZNN is maintained as a sideline project of Tim Allen of ZNet, with a little help from a volunteer now and then. CNN is maintained by a full-scale capitalist enterprise with thousands of employees. You judge which provides more useful and insightful information — and then, for a fuller look at our alternative content, try ZNet itself…in full.

Wanna make it in New York?

A savy and amusing navigation of the perils in store here for those who just can’t take it elsewhere any longer, and it’s not just for gypsies.

I can’t help quoting from Kirk Wood Bromley’s recent play about The American Revolution:
Admiral Howe- Tell me, Major Andre, of yon Manhattan,
Where I expect to sleep tomorrow night.
Major Andre- You will, sir, I’m afraid, get no sleep there.
Cornwallis- For yon Manhattan is the noisiest,
Filthiest, sleaziest, sauciest mess
Of anti-civilized, counter-cultural,
Money-grubbing yahoos ever festered
Unflusht in the devil’s antique outhouse.
Madness and mayhem, sir, that is Manhattan.

Some things never change. See, Manhattan does respect tradition!

I know dozens of people who leapt at New York City, but couldn’t get a toe-hold, and so fell back to where they came from. Thinking over these experiences, I’ve concluded that the three tricks to successfully living in New York are to find:
1. An apartment you can tolerate,
2. A job you like,
3. A community you love.
Focus first on these things, not on getting an acting job right away. There’s no sense getting cast in a play if you don’t have an apartment and a job. You’ll be distracted and may even be forced to drop out of the show (a real career killing move, by the way) if you find you can’t make it in the city.

This article comes from the wonderful Inverse Theater Company http://www.inversetheater.com

We won’t be saved by the Democrats

“But (he or she) did it first!” goes the plaintive rationalization with which every parent is familiar. Don’t expect anything better from the so-called oposition party in the campaign to return government to the voters, or the voters to government. Both Republicans and Democrats were bought out long ago.
But why do we only hear about the very latest, if banal, still no less egregious, evidence of the rape of democracy from a gossip column?

They’ve been calling for a crackdown on corporate abuses, but that didn’t stop Democratic senators from flying corporate jets from Washington to Nantucket for a weekend schmoozefest with 250 campaign contributors.
….
The Democratic mouthpiece pointed out that the National Republican Senatorial Committee will have a similar event at the Greenbriar resort in West Virginia this weekend.

Last night the Senate unanimously passed a bill supposedly designed to overhaul corporate abuses that have rocked Wall Street. I guess they’re afraid the pay-off money might dry up if the market totally tanks. Hadda do something.