Cross posted from Docudharma.

I find myself, on some level, torn between my highly strained faith in American democracy and a perception that it no longer exists.  I applaud and encourage political activism and cherish the activists that I know, but for all their heroism, commitment and hard work, I see us sliding steadily backwards.  This has been my observation for the past 40 years.  We progressives have faced unremitting defeat at the hands of the ultra-conservative ‘system’, which clearly serves our super-wealthy overlords – not us.  

The unsavory details of torture techniques don't normally come up in polite conversations.  Many people don't want to think about the subject.   The average person devotes even less of their thoughts to the principles of resisting torture.  To clearly understand exactly why the current leaders of our nation are guilty of war crimes the subject needs to be discussed.  Only by examining torture from the perspective of the victim can the subject really be understood with full clarity.

Classified documents regarding torture have been released, with everything blacked out but "waterboarding."  An astute person does not need classified material to learn about torture.  The methods employed by the intelligence community today are not new.  United States citizens suffered from all of these methods in the past, at the hands of other governments.  It happened so regularly our military teaches courses in resistance techniques. The press may crave documents to point to as evidence, but they aren't necessary to learn the truth.  References do follow the diary though.

Caution:  Graphic and disturbing information after the flip.

Yesterday I had the privilege of working my first shift as a volunteer for the Plumas-Sierra County Fair at the High Sierra Music Festival here in Quincy, CA.  Our volunteer group is known as the Friends of the Fair.

The primary mission of Friends of the Fair is to act as goodwill ambassadors during events held at the fairgrounds.  We are there to answer questions any guests may have, such as providing directions, what to do in the event of lost belongings, how to find medical assistance if necessary, and so forth.  We also have a secondary role.

The High Sierra Music festival, held over the Fourth of July weekend each year, sees a massive influx of visitors to Quincy and to the fairgrounds.  Friends of the Fair wants to make sure they have a good time and leave with fond memories.  Regretably, the local sheriff's department (Plumas County) seems to view the festival with a different attitude.  That's where the secondary role of Friends of the Fair comes into play.

Note:  This is the third essay in a series.  The previous are Sixty Years of Losing and Sixty Years of Moral Acid.

B.H. Lidell Hart, in his 1954 classic Strategy, spends a chapter discussing guerilla warfare, its methods, and its long-term social effects.  In light of the challenges we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the recent history of the progressive movement in the Democratic Party, it's worthwhile to consider Hart's thoughts on what happens when insurgency becomes infection.

More and more people are calling for a General Strike, for a way to withdraw our support from a system which seems heedless to the will of the people.  Our governmental representatives treat us as if "We the Rabble" are to be ignored.  One group, vote strike, is doing incredible and substantive work in calling for a General Strike on 9/11/08, with smaller strikes and economic boycotts between now and then.

This diary will present the thinking and work of vote strike with links for additional information; it will include excerpts from a cogent article by scholar, journalist Garret Keizer.  I also recommend that anyone interested in this subject watch the DVD/Video "A Force More Powerful" which presents a brief history of 6 successful non-violent resistance groups; the DVD can help activists in modeling the action.  Links provded below.
                   
I urge you to consider this call to a General Strike, the use of non-violent resistance.  It is a time-honored technique, possible beginning with "Lysistrata," and effectively used several times in the past one hundred years.

(Cross posted from Docudharma)
 
I came of age in the time of Nixon and Vietnam.  I learned then that our government was not to be trusted, that they lie to us whenever it’s convenient and that there is nothing pure about their motives.  I also learned to suspect that elements of our government played an active role in the assassination of John Kennedy and possibly others.  I’m not saying they did, just that I’ve pondered that possibility for most of my life and not without reason.  I still have to wonder.  The possibility that our government is that fucking evil shouldn’t seem like such a stretch to anybody these days.

Earlier this month, I baked brownies for the Iraq Vets Against the War.  They intended to hand out gift bags to active military in Fort Bragg and veterans in Fort Bragg and Asheville.  I got a call one day from a friend who told me my brownies made the local paper.  Here’s the story from Jason’s email (he gave permission to reprint it):

Brownies Will Get You Five to Ten:   A Boondocks Chapter Christmas at Fort Bragg

By Jason Hurd

   On the morning of December 17, 2007, Steve Casey and I awoke bright and early at the Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Steve and I had driven nearly three hundred miles from our home-base in Asheville, North Carolina to distribute holiday gift bags to the wonderful servicewomen and men stationed at our nation's busiest military post--Fort Bragg.  Our friends and supporters in Asheville stuffed nearly three hundred small lunch bags full of holiday cards, chocolates, cookies and home-made brownies.  

more below...

Rebecca Solnit has an essay up at TomDispatch.com that deserves a plug for all those of you who are still seeking a last-minute gift. Especially if it's a gift for someone who is having a difficult time with what's happening in the world. Which, let's face it, is just about all of us these days. Indeed, for many progressives right now, the operative word is despair. And that's bad news. Because despair leads to political paralysis, and paralysis of progressives mean the bad guys keep winning. No need to point out that we can't allow that.  

Solnit has a remedy. She calls her essay and list The secret library of hope: 12 books to stiffen your resolve. I can attest to the power of only four of them, although two others can be found in the stacks of unread books on my desk, or the floor around it, or, as my wife often reminds me, piled somewhere on one of several other horizontal surfaces throughout the house.

I'll get to Solnit's list in a moment. But, beforehand, let me suggest that you consider as your first choice her own 2004 book: Hope  in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.

In it she celebrates activism and rejects the idea that resistance and protest are no longer viable. While we measure today's "failures" by comparing them to great past victories - abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, union rights, gay rights - those social struggles were only victorious after a multitude of smaller achievements added up over the long run.  She rejects the idea that if a shift in perception, a bit of reform legislation, an attempt to overturn militarism isn't perfect it isn't important. All those little accomplishments are links in the chain of struggle. As Charles Munson notes, Solnit is not one of those glass-is-half-empty kind of activists. Her inspirational message is made all the better by the fine, poetic writing style that also suffuses the rest of her work.

Here's her eclectic list. Don't forget to read the essay that accompanies it.

Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People.
Aung San Suu Kyi, The Voice of Hope
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves
Charles Wilkinson, Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations
Richard Walker, The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area
Alan Weisman, The World Without Us
William Morris, News from Nowhere
News from Nowhere Collective, News from Nowhere.
We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism
Marina Sitrin, Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina.
Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, The Speed of Dreams: Selected Writings 2001-2007
Peter Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All.
Jonathan Isham and Sissel Waage, editors (introduction Bill McKibben), Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement

and it's time for us to STAND IN THE WAY of the march of US colonialism and oppression, the enabling Democrats, the compliant media, the war criminals in the white house and US Congress, the white wing courts, and all the brown shirt bureaucrats out there evangelizing for, making excuses for, and ultimately lying for their corporatist masters. Democracy is farce in this country and it's time we realize that this country has been an ENEMY of the left since the military industrial complex build-up in WWII. Follow me below the fold if you can handle true left discourse. Otherwise you are free to go back to your petty and ultimately meaningless Clinton/Obama/Edwards squabbling.

Crossposted from Docudharma.

Some people believe we shouldn’t complain too loudly, protest too vigorously or argue too passionately – the theory being that if we appear too leftist, too radical or too seriously committed to our beliefs that people who don’t share those beliefs will be offended and therefore unlikely to become seriously committed radical leftists themselves one day.  Well I have big news; those dim bulbs are not likely to ever shine – certainly not in response to our stifling ourselves.  For once, let’s let the smart people have their say.  

If one guy believes in global warming denial, torture, war profiteering, and ripping off the poor and another guy objects to all of these things, then one of these guys is right and one is wrong.  This is not merely a difference this is a distinction.  I’m not saying the latter individual is more human than the former, I’m saying he is a better human...period.

A while ago I painted The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly.  It is a painting that reflects an idea on how the Bush administration has dehumanized the world to such an extent that I fear the possibility of becoming a wandering specter.  I decided that it might be fun for our Kossack community to hear about some my thoughts as an artist on history, politics, and the creative process that goes into planning a painting.

I read Frank Rich's column this morning and the diary associated with it. I now feel compelled to write my Very First Diary on some other Germans who are worthy of our attention, and this time, our respect.

Imagine that it is 1943, and you are not one of the Good Germans. You stand alone, or you have too few friends with you to matter. You have a mob of crazed fanatics baying for your blood, and they will have it.

Well, imagine no more:

The White Rose Society

For those of your with a Netflix subscription, I recommend the following:

Sophie Scholl, Die Letzen Tage

Also available at Amazon.com and most well-stocked video centers.

I don't have much to add here. The Wiki entry explains it better than I could. This started as a comment on the Frank Rich Diary, and I realized that there was precious little in D Kos that was available on the White Rose and their doomed attempt to dissent against the German state. At the time, their pamphleteering seemed futile and even foolish. Today they are looked upon as heroes.

Andree de Jongh has died at age 91 in Belgium.  She was a hero of the Resistance in World War II.  More below.

Blog.  A word that sounds more like a noise I would make if I threw up in my own lap.  

I visited the Capitol Hill Hunger Striker again on Friday night and dropped off a gallon of water in a plastic jug.  It's been unseasonably hot for DC in October and it may reach 90 again this afternoon.

He's looking rather thinner.  The calorie deficit and quite brutal weather are clearly sapping his energy.

His thought process remains clear and in conversation he exudes a resevoir of determination and strength which comes through in a surprisingly powerful and oddly comforting handshake.

As we talked a few tourists stolled past, pointedly ignoring us.  He really does make people feel uncomfortable.  Which is one of the reasons he's determined to take this hunger strike beyond the ones that have come before.

How far will he go?

Crossposted from Docudharma

Remember when they were an opposition party?  Remember when they were on our side?  I’m sure most of you have noticed by now that they just aren’t anymore.

Crossposted from Docudharma.

(source)

The numerous struggles of Third World peoples against neoliberalism and US-backed client states deserve more attention. That's why today, I will be publishing a diary highlighting recent events in Mahala, Egypt (link via Lenin's Tomb) as well as some context. It is in this northern Egyptian city that a strike has been declared by 27,000 workers in a state-owned textile factory, one of the country's largest. Much more can be read about this strike and its background at this post by Freddy Deknatel.