Stone Cold Pimpin'

I've been so busy being either sick or working on this commercial I helped write and direct (more details later) that the Miami protests were something happening in the far corner of my eye. I finally read about them in this Rebecca Solnit essay, and I can see that this is where this country is heading. That "F" word is rearing its head again, and we shouldn't be afraid to use it, because that's what this is.

Fragments of the Future:
The FTAA in Miami
By Rebecca Solnit

The future was being modeled on both sides of the massive steel fence erected around the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami last Thursday. Inside, delegates from every nation in the western hemisphere but Cuba watered down some portions of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement and postponed deciding on others in an attempt to prevent a failure as stark as that of the World Trade Organization ministerial in Cancun two months before. Outside, an army of 2,500 police in full armor used a broad arsenal of weapons against thousands of demonstrators and their constitutional rights. 'Not every day do you get tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and hit in the face,' said Starhawk, a prominent figure in the global anticapitalism movement,, who experienced all three Thursday.

Since the Seattle surprise of 1999, it has become standard procedure to erect a miniature police state around globalization summits, and it's hard not to read these rights-free zones as prefigurations of what full-blown corporate globalization might bring. After all, this form of globalization would essentially suspend local, regional, and national rights of self-determination over labor, environmental, and agricultural conditions in the name of the dubious benefits of the free market, benefits that would be enforced by unaccountable transnational authorities acting primarily to protect the rights of capital. At a labor forum held the day before the major actions, Dave Bevard, a laid-off union metalworker, referred to this new world order as 'government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.'

Posted by Ted Mills at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's about time I linked to the fabulous Baghdad Burning blog. Even more than "Where Is Raed" and some other Iraq-based blogs, this page by a young, female Iraqi citizen dishes up life in the Occupied Territories of the U.S.A. The news here made much of our bombings of Tikrit and Baghdad as if it meant progress. "See, we're not just getting attacked indiscriminately! We can drop bombs too!" And seeings the news is vague about what exactly was hit, we can just assume it's the usual: innocent people's houses, fields, and livestock. Take it away, riverbend:

Difficult Days...
They've been bombing houses in Tikrit and other areas! Unbelievable… I'm so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?! What do the Americans think Tikrit is?! Some sort of city of monsters or beasts? The people there are simple people. Most of them make a living off of their land and their livestock- the rest are teachers, professors and merchants- they have lives and families… Tikrit is nothing more than a bunch of low buildings and a palace that was as inaccessible to the Tikritis as it was to everyone else!
People in Al Awja suffered as much as anyone, if not more- they weren't all related to Saddam and even those who were, suffered under his direct relatives. Granted, his bodyguards and others close to him were from Tikrit, but they aren't currently in Tikrit- the majority have struck up deals with the CPA and are bargaining for their safety and the safety of their families with information. The people currently in Tikrit are just ordinary people whose homes and children are as precious to them as American homes and children are precious to Americans! This is contemptible and everyone thinks so- Sunnis and Shi'a alike are shaking their heads incredulously.
And NO- I'm not Tikriti- I'm not even from the 'triangle'- but I know simple, decent people who ARE from there and just the thought that this is being done is so outrageous it makes me want to scream. How can that ass of a president say things are getting better in Iraq when his troops have stooped to destroying homes?! Is that a sign that things are getting better? When you destroy someone's home and detain their family, why would they want to go on with life? Why wouldn't they want to lob a bomb at some 19-year-old soldier from Missouri?!

Posted by Ted Mills at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some hi-tech peeps call it "analog blogging" but it's really anonymous protest signs. Either way it's edifying to see these great protests hanging from the freeways of L.A. Check out the Freeway Blogger

Posted by Ted Mills at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

George Soros, I could kiss your billionaire head! A few months back friends and I were wondering when Soros would throw his hat into the ring, and this has heartened me no end. Listen to the GOP whine about how unfair it all is.

Soros: Beating Bush is my life's mission

GEORGE Soros, one of the richest men in the world, has given away nearly £3 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating the president of the United States, George Bush.

“It is the central focus of my life,” Mr Soros said. The 2004 presidential race, he said, is “a matter of life and death”.

Mr Soros, who has financed efforts to promote open societies in more than 50 countries around the world, says he is bringing the fight home. On Monday, he and a partner committed up to $5 million (£3m) to Moveon.org, a liberal activist group, bringing to $15.5 million, (£9.75m) the total of his personal contributions to oust Mr Bush.

Overnight, Mr Soros, 74, has become the major financial player of the left. He has elicited cries of foul play from the right. With a tight nod, he pledged: “If necessary, I would give more money.”

“America, under Bush, is a danger to the world,” Mr Soros said. Then he smiled: “And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”

Mr Soros says a “supremacist ideology” guides the White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary: “When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.” It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit (The enemy is listening): “My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitised me,” he said.

Posted by Ted Mills at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)