…the almost right word

Everyone is watching, talking and reading about the DNC. It is, obviously, quite historical. However, somehow, among all the excitement and drama, we are still missing certain headlines. For example, how come I only found two mentions of this incident? Here is a brief recap, for those who aren’t in the know…

On Tuesday, a demonstration took place in which arrests were made. In an effort to document the arrests, a young CODEPINK woman (Alicia) was photographing the police and their aggressive behaviors. Apparently one of the local sheriffs wasn’t too pleased:

The sheriffs were NOT appreciative of Alicia’s attempt to photograph the incident. Thus, in an over-the-top, some might even say unprofessional response to Alicia’s citizen journalism, the Denver sheriff (shown in the video), apparently bashed the diminutive young woman with his baton, knocked her to the ground, and left her sprawled across the pavement in pain.

After being helped to her feet by witnesses who were shocked at the officer’s seemingly unprovoked aggression, Alicia was approached by on-site media who asked what precipitated the altercation with the sheriff. When Alicia began to tell the media what happened, the sheriff, in still another questionable act, grabbed her, collared her gruffly, whisked her off the premises, and arrested her.

This whole incident was caught on video, though some of the relevant footage is missing. When I first watched it, I was in shock. I had to review it multiple times to fully digest what happened. To be honest, I’m not sure if it was just people getting carried away (no pun intended) at a protest. However, I’m unclear what the grounds are for arrest in a situation like this one.

The question remains, how do we miss this stuff? Why isn’t this making the cover of The New York Times? Isn’t it just as important as other DNC events? Or are we already living in a “police state?” Has apathy regarding such footage become second nature?

Because emo kids vote too…

This morning, many internet-perusers are reading about Obama’s declaration of a Vice Presidential running-mate. In fact, Wikipedia has already updated their Joe Biden page to include the mention that, he is, indeed, “the presumptive Democratic Party vice presidential nominee in the 2008 presidential election as running mate of presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama.”* Meanwhile, I am considering what will happen if Obama doesn’t win. I know, I know. *Gasp* Don’t talk about that! Doubt will only harm the potential success of this revolutionary election. But shouldn’t we address this issue? Shouldn’t we wonder, what if?

To put it simply, Slate states that an Obama victory would mean seeing “our legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in the rearview mirror.” Conversely,

If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world’s judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn’t put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.

Personally, I am extremely concerned about this election, and I know I’m not alone. What does it mean for the future if McCain becomes president? I see the hope that Obama represents. I see the potential. But I also see it all suddenly, and easily, fading away.

To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn’t just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation’s historical decline.

If we truly are the “melting pot” nation, then shouldn’t we be represented by someone who isn’t white? I worry that our country’s racism will hold us back. I worry that we will stay in Iraq until 2011. I worry about the freedoms we do have, and where they will go, about the progress we have made, and what will happen to that progress. If Bush is looking to repeal parts of the Endangered Species Act, if he is reconsidering Roe vs. Wade or calling for a ban against same-sex marriages, what will happen if another Republican is elected to the White House?

* Wikipedia’s footnote for this quote states that information was “retrieved August 23, 2008″ from Obama’s website.

I just finished “Everyone Will Remember Me as Some Sort of Monster,” the Rolling Stone article on the December 2007 Nebraska mall shooting. Thinking back, I can hardly remember hearing about it in the news. And this is, in part, the point of the article.

It was a big story. For about a week. Immediately after the shooting, the media descended on the woodsy suburb of Omaha known as Bellevue (population 50,000), where Hawkins had been living, and began some hit-and-run reporting. But that soon sputtered out. After it was discovered that the shooter had a history of mental illness, the national media left town, and then when it came out that he’d recently been fired from a job at McDonald’s, even the local guys dropped the story and went back to reporting on the weather. That was pretty much the extent of the digging, as if losing the opportunity to flip burgers was what drove the teen to murder.

It’s a depressing time in which we live. A 19 year-old kid is so traumatized by his family and upbringing — the only “way out” he can see is to kill himself. I think of the hours he spent playing video games, drinking beer in his car, passing time in one institution or another. I think of the depression and self-destruction. And then I think about the sudden disappearance of the story. Where did it go? What was so important that the country quickly forgot about this shooting? Are we all so accustomed to hearing about these events that they have become that easy to ignore? What happens when we continue to ignore them?

Less than a decade ago, in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings, teen murder was such a horrifying novelty that it occupied the entire national conversation for months. But these days, teenage shooters come and go on TV with such regularity that their sprees hardly seem surprising anymore; on the contrary, it feels almost naive to be shocked. In the end, the Robert Hawkins mall massacre — the bloodiest episode in Nebraska since the Charles Starkweather murders of 1958, and one of the deadliest rampages in American history — amounted to just a few days’ worth of news and infotainment. Within two weeks of the shooting, Von Maur was speed-cleaned and reopened, just in time for the Christmas rush.

Apparently Christmas shopping is more important to Americans than acknowledging, than remembering the tragedy.

I direct you to the hilarity that transpires around our beloved President Bush.
This is, by far, one of my favorites:

And there is something that continues to crack me up about these…
(Note the captions, both courtesy of Gawker):

“This is all you have to show for the past four years of your life?”

“Kidding, heh. Actually I’ll take this now.”

It’s here — the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the release of the American Sexpress Card (term coined by the Daily News). The card is proof, certification that the cardholder is STD-free.

This STDFree Certification was developed by a Manhattan-based company. It is, indeed, a credit card that conveniently fits in your wallet. The idea is that every cardholder has a member number, and anyone can call and “check up” on another member.

More than 15,000 people nationwide have signed up for the STFree service, launched in 2004 by Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, native Eli Dancy. Dancy, a former club promoter, said he saw “a lot of irresponsibility” in his neighborhood and created the STFree card to help raise awareness.

Remember that scene in Gattaca? Uma Thurman’s character does a little “background check” on Ethan Hawke. She’s given a computer-generated document of his personal information — health risks, intelligence level…Looks as though Gattaca is not too far away.

NYMag’s Daily Intel came up with a hilarious set of segues to the card:

•  “Isn’t the view from my rooftop lovely? Here’s my STDFree card. Why are you still wearing your top?”

•  Subtly, in the elevator to the apartment: “Let me just get my keys. Oh, look what fell out of my pocket! It’s my STDFree card! Anyway, aren’t you so excited to see Christopher Walken on SNL?”

At the end of July, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to New Zealand. Little did she know that she would be met with protesters.

The AUSA, one of the country’s largest student organizations, offered a $5,000 reward for a citizen’s arrest of Condoleezza Rice. The AUSA states that Rice’s role in overseeing the Iraq invasion, and continued occupation, is in direct contradiction with the Geneva Convention. New Zealand citizens believe Rice is responsible for sanctioning war crimes and torture:

“Rice is the public spokesperson for an illegal and immoral occupation that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the continued oppression of the people of Iraq. We believe Rice should be arrested and detained in accordance with the law and tried fairly at the International Criminal Court for her role in these war crimes,” said AUSA International Affairs Officer Omar Hamed, who moved the motion for the reward at Monday’s AUSA Executive meeting.

Protesters stood outside the Government building while Rice met with officials. They burned American flags, raised signs calling her a War Criminal, and attempted to bring attention to the controversial issue of Free Trade. Over the course of the protests, the $5,000 reward was doubled by another New Zealand student organization. “Although several people turned up to the demo with handcuffs, the chance to nab Rice didn’t present itself. Police refused to cooperate in the arrest of this war criminal, giving the irrelevant excuse that she is a visiting dignitary.”

Needless to say, Rice was not arrested. However, the movement to hold her accountable has clearly begun. IndyMedia states that the New Zealand Police “can now consider themselves accessories to war crimes.”

It looks like General Augusto Pinochet’s daughter is entering the political realm. The BBC reports that Lucía Pinochet Hiriart will run in a Santiago municipal election in October. In 2007, Lucía, along with her mother and siblings, were all detained based on the suspicion of aiding Pinochet in embezzlement during the dictatorship. The eldest son was the only not cleared of the charges.

In 2006, Lucía praised her father for having fought a “flame of freedom” during the military junta of 1973. She had intended to run for an independent seat in Parliament in 2007 prior to her arrest. Although a municipal position has limited power, speculations are being made that the acquisition of this seat would “test the political climate for the 2009 presidential election.”

The country’s first female president was elected in 2006 — Michelle Bachelet was one of the many who disappeared during Pinochet’s regime. She was held and tortured at Villa Grimaldi, a notorious detention center in Santiago (I visited Villa Grimaldi in my time in Santiago. They’ve turned the concentration camp into a public park of sorts, commemorating the deaths and losses with beautiful trees and statues, while still mainting the enormous watchtower that existed during the dictatorship). In 1975, Bachelet and her mother were exiled to Australia. She did not return to Chile until 1979, when the totalitarian regime was brought to an end with a plebiscite. Despite Bachelet’s personal experience with such atrocities, she has led Chile on a path of true progress. In 2007, she passed a law allowing girls, 14 years and older, to receive the morning-after pill without their parent’s consent. This is an enormous step in a nation which has been controlled by the Church for decades.

I can only wonder if progress like this will continue if Chile’s citizens support the election of Pinochet’s offspring.

Unfortunately my head must have been buried in the proverbial sand when the art exhibit, The Disappeared/Los Desaparecidos, came to Santa Fe. The term references the many people who were kidnapped, tortured, or murdered during the totalitarian regimes of Latin America in the late 20th century. This chapter of history was the main motivation behind my choice to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Politics and Latin American Studies — I was, and still am, enamored by the struggle of countries like Argentina and Chile. During the 1960s and 1970s, Americans were fighting for Civil Rights and “Making Love, Not War.” Meanwhile, just south of us, people were losing their freedom and basic rights in order to secure economic progress and a “free market.” In Argentina, 30,000 people “disappeared.” When General Pinochet took control in Santiago, Chile (1973) and overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, 40,000 people were imprisoned in a makeshift concentration camp at the National Stadium. Locker rooms and corridors became torture halls. Today, the stadium is still used to host concerts, soccer games, as well as a public gymnasium. In fact, when I spent a year living in Chile, I saw Shakira perform there. I was in awe with the knowledge that this contemporary place of celebration was once used during the ugly dictatorship.

The Disappeared/Los Desaparecidos is an art exhibit traveling across North and South America. The show features 15 Latin American artists who have all personally experienced the affects of these regimes. Work ranges from photographs to installations and includes simple yet also extravagant, emotionally charged pieces. In 2007, The New York Times reviewed the exhibit:

Whatever its practical results may be, it gives an overpowering sense of the sheer statistical enormity of loss. You think you’ve reached the end; you turn a corner and find more…This all may seem long ago and far away to us, but every Thursday in Buenos Aires, groups of women continue to hold their protests demanding a full accounting of their children’s fates.

It’s true, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo convene weekly to remember the disappeared. These countries are still fighting for retribution. Although General Pinochet was arrested and put on trial, he never received punishment for the atrocities his government inflicted on the Chilean public (Pinochet died in 2006).

This is what art should be — a way to remember, to question and challenge; a form of activism in a world where power is less and less in the hands of the people.

It may have taken me two years to finally watch The Lives of Others, but it certainly won’t take me another two to watch it a second time — This was the first thing I thought of while finishing the film — I must see it again.

Leben der Anderen, Das chronicles East Germany in 1984, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this period, many German citizens were called upon to watch their comrades and report supsicious activity. It was typical of dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, etc. In a sense, more recent acts of national security against terrorists are not very different — Arrest anyone whose loyalty is uncertain. In the film, one man strays from his path to professional success by withholding information from the “Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, better known as the Stasi—the state security service, which, by the mid-nineteen-eighties, employed more than ninety thousand personnel.”*

I don’t want to give away too much of the story — One of my personal pet peeves is spoiling a film with the review. The movie is quiet, yet haunting. It captures a piece of history that is easily forgotten, yet just as easily repeated.

[Editorial Note: ...the almost right word is experimenting with capitalization. Please be patient and, if you have any opinions on the matter, let me know!]

* Anthony Lane of The New Yorker: “Guilty Parties“

a few months ago, rolling stone published an article titled “china’s all-seeing eye.” the article’s subhead read: With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export. the article details the investments made in preparation of a truly totalitarian society, one that the u.s. supports. over the past two years, more than 200,000 security cameras have been installed in one chinese city alone. the majority of these cameras, developed by a quickly advancing technology corporation known as “l-1,” (a company with offices around the globe, including many in the u.s.) are hidden under the guise of lampposts. l-1 is continually working to develop more and more technology designed to watch your every move. they capture your face on camera and create what is called a “face print” — essentially the exact same as a fingerprint, only more dangerous. of course, many representative of the technology claim that it is only dangerous for criminals. in fact, this is stated multiple times throughout the article. it begs the question, how does one define a “criminal?” the cameras are just part of this system to control the public.

Remember how we’ve always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American “homeland security” technologies, pumped up with “war on terror” rhetoric. And the global corporations currently earning superprofits from this social experiment are unlikely to be content if the lucrative new market remains confined to cities such as Shenzhen. Like everything else assembled in China with American parts, Police State 2.0 is ready for export to a neighborhood near you….Liu Zhengrong, a senior official dealing with China’s Internet policy, has defended Golden Shield and other repressive measures by invoking the Patriot Act and the FBI’s massive e-mail-mining operations. “It is clear that any country’s legal authorities closely monitor the spread of illegal information,” he said. “We have noted that the U.S. is doing a good job on this front.” Lin Jiang Huai, the head of China Information Security Technology, credits America for giving him the idea to sell biometric IDs and other surveillance tools to the Chinese police. “Bush helped me get my vision,” he has said.

the writer of the article describes his experience of reentering the u.s. after his trip to china. he mentions the jfk security cameras and customs line, the “fly clear” brochure he receives as he exits the airport terminal — a brochure advertising “an easier way to travel” via the scanning of ones fingerprints and irises, after which you are given a “clear card” with a biometric chip that allows you to pass easily through security. the end of the article reads: Later, I look it up: The company providing the technology is L-1.

go on, continue fooling yourself into thinking that we’re a democracy, a free nation. but we’re on the verge of some serious changes. personally, i have hope that, if obama wins, these changes will be delayed, if not prevented. but perhaps that is my naiveté speaking. if our current president is the “inspiration” for this repressive form of technology, what does that say for the future of our country? what does that say for the present?

in 2003, bush invaded iraq. i was living in santiago, chile. i remember bush asked for the approval and support of the chilean president at the time, ricardo lagos. lagos refused. the chilean public, myself included, rejoiced — they didn’t want to be a part of this “war.” isn’t it amazing that, five years later, we’re still in iraq? in fact, i hardly think about it. i live my days completely oblivious, i never even consider the atrocities that are occurring at any given moment.

last night, we watched ‘in the valley of elah.’ i could ignore it no longer. the terrifying reality of iraq and this occupation was thrown in my face and in many ways, i welcomed it. i don’t want to ignore or forget. but what can we really do about it? what kind of action can i take? i think this sense of helplessness is what pushes my head back into the sand. i often prefer to hide for awhile before i confront.

the movie wasn’t perfect — there were simple flaws, and obviously the story has been done, in one way or another. but it addresses that which many of us tend to ignore, and for that, i am thankful. rolling stone said it well: It’s about the humanity being sucked out of the soldiers we send there, and how that process reflects on us as a nation. Yes, Haggis stumbles and loses focus. The haunting, heart-piercing Elah isn’t perfect. It’s something better: essential.

Clinton to Suspend Campaign on Friday
Senior Adviser Says She Will Also Endorse Obama
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MICHAEL LUO 8 minutes ago
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is moving to suspend her campaign after Democratic members of Congress urged her to leave the race.

an open letter to senator hillary rodham clinton,

they’re right.
give it up.
seriously.

–the a.r.w.

and now for the neverending questions:

can he really win the election???
is this country really ready for a “president of color?”
and please, for the gods’ sake, hillary as possible vice president candidate?
isn’t that just going backwards???

seen this yet? it’ll need to be refreshed a few times…