Impeach the MoFo Already

Dan Savage, brilliant advice-giver that he is, has started a campaign called ITMFA--based on his classic acronym DTMFA (drop that mofo already) from his weekly column.

He's definitely not alone in this awareness campaign: I googled "impeach Bush" and came up with 7 million hits.

Of particular interest is the site Impeach Bush.org which provides a legal document listing 20 points that provide grounds for impeachment. It is soliciting signatures for its referendum, and to date has collected 700,000 signatures.

This is the moment where the US must decide its moral stance: Puritanism or Human Rights?
Will they allow history to record that they are willing to impeach a President over extra-marital sex, but will not impeach one that consistently lies to the public, invades a country based on said lies, illegally wiretaps citizens phonelines in the name of their "protection", and permits torture to be used in defense of "freedom" and "democracy"?

women in urban nightscape

I’ m thinking about the flaneuse.

My perversion and appropriation of Baudelaire’s and (modernism’s) concept of the flaneur who walks the streets of Paris; he's part of the body of the ebbing crowd, yet separate while he composes poetry in his mind. The intellectual prince who strolls through the urban landscape, the sparkling nightscape.
I’m thinking about the inability of women in the same period to engage in flaneurie. There were no flaneuses then. Women’s mobility has always been strictly controlled. I did a project with Diana in third year in which I explored the idea of a contemporary flaneuse, unable to walk the nightscape for reasons of fear, unseen violence. The nightscape no longer an intellectual artistic journey thru metropolitan spaces, but an ominous oppressor with fingers that are dark alleys, straining to grab, pull, prod.


[Now I’m Kathy Acker, rip-off red looking for women to prey upon]

I’m connecting this idea of the modernist flaneur/ lack of flaneuse, with the phenomenon of prostitution. In many ways streetwalkers were the flaneuses of the fin-de-siecle. They were the only women out at night without chaperones, though they certainly had escorts. What does this lineage suggest?

Can I tie in the Contagious Diseases Act? First introduced in 1864 in Britain, actively fought by Josephine Butler, finally repealed in 1886. The government recognized that the Navy was over-run with venereal disease. Instead of forcing officers to undergo examination and treatment, they introduced the CD Act which required all port cities to keep a list of “prostitutes” who would have to undergo enforced examination for disease (infection).
How to distinguish who is a prostitute? Any woman suspected to be a sex worker had to submit to an examination. If she refused, she was confined to hard labour for 9 months. If she consented and was found to be infected, she was confined to a lock-hostipal until cured (no hard labour). If she consented to examination and was found to be healthy, then she was obviously free to go, having been a victim of state enforced “instrumental rape”, a term coined by Josephine Butler and her “Ladies National Assoc. for Repeal of CD Acts”. [please imagine the horrified masses contemplating these dignified middle class “ladies” orating on prostitution, vaginal examinations, and rape].

Can I link these elements with the experiences of prostitutes in Canada? in Edmonton? In East hastings? Those forgotten flaneuses of the night (to be overly romantic and not at all practical), every movement controlled, their fates somehow decided? The assumption by society that men require sexual services and therefore we should set aside a class of women to see to this need?

I’m building a constellation here for development. musing aloud.

"What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding?"

Perhaps we need some powerful poetic protest songs to solidify the anti-war movement. the anti-bush movement. I don't know why or how intelligent lyrics and accompaniment have an effect on politics, but I think they might.

I offer here a video of the lead from Bright Eyes performing his song "When the President talks to God" on Jay Leno. Even though the crowd is supportive, it's amusing to picture Jay off-screen thinking "what's that? did i just hear some thing about rape? oil? crap. there goes the sponsors."


"When the President Talks to God"

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends

When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?

I doubt it

I doubt it

revolutionary speaker

one week til Angela Davis speaks at uofa! i've got my ticket and i've pinned it to my calendar. i anxiously anticipate ripping off the stub and traipsing through Horowitz theatre. she is being presented as part of the "Revolutionary Speakers" series. i presume she will be speaking about the penal system, but who knows. i will report back in rapt delight on the 29th. Stephen Lewis and Angela Davis in one semester: I wouldn't have thought it possible.

and yes, i'm contributing to the fetishizing of this cult photo. how can i not? she's gorgeous.

Harper, you lied.

Harper speaking to troops in Afghanistan, pledging to sacrifice a dozen or so Canadian soldiers every year for the next ten years to support the cause in Afghanistan and to secure our economic and social interests there.

One of Harper's main election platforms was Accountability. He promised that all future military action would be put to a parliamentary vote.

What is he saying now? How did he suddenly appear in Afghanistan addressing troops and condoling with President Karzai?:

At a newsconference today (according to cbc.ca) Harper cited his Conservative election promise to hold a vote on all future military deployments. "These things obviously will be put to votes in the future. That's a commitment we've made".

OH. So you will do what you want without consulting the parliament, despite your promise to do so. Is this present not the future you spoke of during the election? How many more promises for the future are you going to evade?

Peter Mackay has said the a parliamentary vote would undercut support and morale for the troops. At today's press conference in Afghanistan, Harper also suggested that if the "opposition parties vote against an extension, they could undercut Canada's commitment to the military mission". (cbc.ca)

What a twisted concept. Informed discussion will undercut both our troops and "Canada's commitment"? OK: instead of discussing the pros and cons of sending our sons and daughters to war, let's just blindly keep them there. That's easier and less complicated. And Yes, Mr. Harper, a vote against an extension of our mission in Afghanistan will indeed "undercut Canada's commitment". That's exactly what a negative vote would mean: we don't want to go to war in Afghanistan.

"As I said to the president, we have a parliamentary system. I don't control the majority," Harper said. "I don't control the other parties." (cbc.ca) True. But parliaments have procedures for decision-making. You are not following these procedures as you promised, and as is your duty.

What a shameful day for Canada.

Coming soon:
South Dakota and A Womb of One's Own: a reqiuem for women's reproductive and human rights. If I can manage to bottle all that bile.

Teutonic Tale of Teen Tampering

~~

Following the theme of combatting rampant commercialism and consumerism, I recommend the German film The Edukators. Directed by Hans Weingartner, and starring Daniel Bruhl from "Goodbye Lenin" and the recent Maggie Smith/Judi Dench combo "Ladies in Lavender", and Julia Jentsch, who I am eager to see portray Sophie Scholl in the upcoming biopic about the White Rose, the film was shot on DV and maintains the immediacy inherent to that form.

The opening scene hooked me right away. A rich family returns to their mansion to find all their plush furniture piled in a pyramid in the centre of their gargantuan living room, their faux Venus de Milo danging by the neck from a noose, and their collection of Royal Doulton soldiers stuffed into a toilet. Nothing has been broken or stolen, just re-arranged. A note sits on their kitchen table: "You have too much money. Your days of plenty are numbered. The Edukators".

You can watch the Trailer.

Also on the foreign film recommendation list:

The Franco-Algerian Exils, a beautifully shot film showcasing fantastic scenery as the gypsy-duo travel by foot to Algeria, a wicked gypsy-spanish-afro score composed by the Director Tony Gatliff, and a mid-film flamenco sequence!
De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrete, also starring Romain Duris from Exils. I saw this sans subtitles when I was in Paris on a rainy afternoon. Mostly hand-held and dreamy blinking neon lights of the nightscape. A little violent, but the soundtrack and gorgeous actor more than compensate.

I found all these films at my local indie store, but they're also at Rogers stores acorss Canada.

Bon Appetit!

The Fog of More

In the past month I have watched a plethora of docs on the state of consumerism/warism of the United States (and by default N. America): The End of Suburbia, Why We fight, The Age of Walmart. I've reached a definite satiation point where I cannot endure further tales of mass destruction and consumption, critiques that neatly apply to both topics: the rampant consumerism and consequent destruction of the environment and health, and war-mongering and the military industrial complex that fuels it.

But I can't stop with the docs. Grizzly Man helps to alleviate some of the activist ennui by allowing me to pretend I too can escape the pitfalls of modern life and commune with teddy bears. I poke at their noses as though they are puppies, and tell them I love them in an oddly high-pitched sing-song voice. I have theories about the sensual connection of bears and humans, dating back from reading Anne Cameron's Daughters of Copperwoman when I was fourteen, and Marion Engel's bestial Bear in my undergrad. Though these tales are concerned mostly with the intuitive and loving connection between women and bears, I was inspired to see Timothy Treadwell show how possible it is to commune with a wild animal. If you're that committed.

But back to Walmart, the company with the GNP of a country. The proprietor Alice Walton, the second-richest woman in the world, recently dropped $35 million to hoard away the classic Durand 1849 painting "Kindred Spirits", meanwhile getting the state of Arkansas to pass legislation specifically for her to save on taxes-- about $3million. For an in-depth analysis of Ms. Walton's hypocrisy in her choice of the painting, see Rebecca Solnit's rich article Alice Walton's Fig Leaf.

I recently watched the CNBC doc on Walmart, courtesy of Peter. I don't think I learned much that I didn't already know, other than the Execs prudently keep their two-story office building modest with quasi-seventies decor. Presumably they've never re-decorated or renovated since Sam started the ball rolling. (No $35 million paintings will hang on these exemplary walls). I did not however find out how much the CEO earns in a year. I'm curious.

What I did get from the doc was a revelation about gender-based employment inequality. We've all heard of the class-action suit currently filed against the company, brought forth by six women, and supported by a slew of current and former female employees. I seriously doubt there is an official policy on the part of Walmart to systematically underpay and overlook female employees. The problem lies with the reality of operating thousands of stores, with thousands of managers. Walmart is a microcosm of the American way, in every way. We finally have a lense through which we can fully examine the state of part time and full time female workers, and single mothers. Their treatment is symptomatic of the makeup of society as a whole, of the undervaluing of women's labour by every business, not just Walmart. This suit provides an opportunity to see the larger picture: we've never before been able to hear a unified voice from the hundreds of thousands of underpaid working women. Is it possible to file a class-aciton suit on behalf of all women in North America, against Capitalism? Imperialism? I'm being silly, but I wish I wasn't.

In the meantime, I can rest assured that Walmart will never carry Engel's "Bear".