Transmissions

A warm welcome to those of you that drifted over here from Dissident Voice, Slept On and Mickey Z! Have a look around and be sure to check out my Rejection08 page–it will be updated in about an hour. Also scroll down to “Blogroll” where you will find a link to our MySpace page, where we sometimes have radical trivia contests and other fun stuff.

Hey, since you’re here, ya wanna see my favorite guy in the whole world right now?

Just fucking with you, it’s this guy: Red Fox From Seattle!

He purchased two shirts from our shopping cart. He is officially, (other than close friends) our second customer! Feel free to look up a few inches and click on “slow-guns” and join the Revolution!…of two people. Like I said Rejection08 will be updated in a couple of hours and I should have some new material here tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for coming by!

Maxwell Black

A Moving Train

It’s my favorite day of the year! Today is the day that my boss (wife) and I plant our urban garden. This year we will attempt to grow ourselves strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapenos, squash, watermelon and various herbs…on the 15th. floor/wind tunnel. Earlier today my co-conspiritor and I scampered on over to our local mega Home Depot where–due to the market forces of my yuppie liberal friends and neighbors here in Arlington county–they have switched to locally grown organic plants. Yippee!

Standing in line to purchase all of our green goodies I could smell the stench of bigotry in the air. I tuned into the “conversation” between a really, really “proud American” elderly lady and a really, really annoyed African clerk. Between the mumbles and grumbles of the proud American lady (PAL) I finally made out something like “We ‘mericans are good and proud hard working people, wall-n-cha go tha heyl back where you caym frum.” As shocking as finding a real life redneck racist here in northern VA is, what happened next was even more odd, (not to mention it made my day!) Right before I could step in with my planned “hey why don’t you leave her the fuck alone” this guy, who looked just like these “Nascar dads” we hear so much about, chimed in with “Gawd-damn moe-ron.” Fuck yes! So I let my PAL wobble the fuck away, but in her honor I bought myself an American flag, turned it upside down and planted it in our garden. There you go PAL.

The End

To read a really great article about gardening by George Monbiot click read more. It’s more interesting than it sounds!

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“The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.” –Guy Debord

One summer afternoon when I was about eight, I remember asking my mother if we were rich. She looked at me, puzzled and a little embarrassed, and said, “We’re doing all right, maybe one day.” For me, a little kid growing up in the 80’s, I couldn’t see the dingy two-bedroom apartment we lived in or the mounting bills and stress of living paycheck to paycheck. I couldn’t see all of the domestic violence and substance abuse going on all around me in my neighborhood…yet, (however, I did know that there was this thing called “lay-offs” that seemed to work like a tactical nuclear weapon in my community.) I think my generation was maybe the first to experience the full on assault of our minds and souls by the, now perfected, mind-fuck media machine.

The reason a kid like me could believe for even one second that he might be rich is that we don’t actually live in the real world at all. We have stopped identifying with community and the natural world and now only identify with the digital hypnotists of the television. It’s a world we don’t really inhabit, but a world that inhabits us. No matter how desperate our real lives are, the spectacle of the television, (and it’s outward and all encompassing culture), lull us to believe that we are a member of this netherworld of beauty and power and “we’re all in this together”. The tragedy of this relationship between the Spectacle and our childhood minds is that most of us in America never grow up.

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Maxwell the unwise posted the wrong video by mistake yesterday, so check out the REAL stimulator by scrolling down. Check out this fiery sermon by Tim Wise. I’ll have my new article up by sundown.

My new short essay “Molotov Youth” should be up later tonight. For now check out my comrade over at submedia. For a guy that only consists of two eyes and a mouth he makes a lot of righteous noise–not to mention the greatest use of the word “fuck” since Richard Pryor.

If you are looking for my recent Mickey Z interview just scroll down. I’m currently working on new material. For today just rock out to Bouncing Souls:

Let’s recycle our cars into bikes. RIDE!

{Welcome to A Moving Train! If you’re looking for the, now legendary Mickey Z interview, just scroll down a few inches. With all of this “unexpected” new traffic I decided to re-post this article I wrote last year. Be sure to check out the rest of the site: “Rejection08″ and “Slow-Guns.”}

Driving in to work Friday night I ran into about an hour long back up for a commute that usually doesn’t take more than 15 minutes. However, I wasn’t troubled in the least, the traffic was so bad because of road closings due to planned citywide actions against the IMF in DC. Throughout this night there would be revolutionary street parties and carnivals of rage. Fuck Yes! The traffic also made me about an hour late for work. One hour not doing what I hate is OK with me, so I slid in a Strike Anywhere CD and let images of Seattle dance in my head.

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I manage a restaurant in DC where I’m often baffled by the presence of people like Senator “Joe-mentum” or former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Night after night of making sure the sons and daughters of CEO’s and Saudi oil barons get their grilled salmon on time can be a bitter pill to swallow. However, on two nights last week I had a subversive secret: whenever I had a moment I would sneak back to the office and tend to my email interview with my hero, and under-read American mischief maker, Mickey Z. The following is the result of our somewhat spontaneous interview.

Mickey Z. is a self-educated writer/martial artist/vegan who lives with his wife Michele in

Maxwell Black: Call me cynical, but I have a sinking suspicion that the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are permanent. Even if Cindy Sheehan were to self-immolate on the White House lawn, I don’t think it would make a difference. Do you think there is any real reason to believe there is an end in sight?

Mickey Z: Well, things tend to be permanent…until they end. I’m sure some confluence of events will impact the durability and/or feasibility of the US occupation. I’m also pretty sure those events will not involve anything that we call “activism” today.

Since we acknowledge that there is certain amount of futility to the anti-war movement, would activist’s time and effort be better served on other projects? I’m not saying we should abandon the cause, but perhaps it could be fought along side a broader cause like say a revived Global Justice Movement.

We clearly need new ideas, new methods, and a new focus. The most insane part about me trying to answer this question is this: If I discuss tactics that could be slightly misconstrued by the powers-that-be, I risk serious trouble. For now, I’ll suggest folks read both volumes of Endgame by Derrick Jensen.

Speaking of Jensen and “tactics that could be misconstrued by the powers that be”. In his work Endgame volumes 1 and 2 he makes a great effort to smash the ideology of pacifism. One of his premises is “love does not imply pacifism.” He explains that it’s just the opposite–you fight for and protect what you love. He gives examples like a mother grizzly naturally protecting her cub, fighting back against domestic abusers, Indians fighting for their land and so on. If we apply Chomsky’s idea of universality–that what is moral (or immoral) in one setting should be considered in other settings–do we have moral dilemma? What I mean is what if “what you love” (or think you love) is Capitalism, slavery or unearned privilege?

If I randomly walked up to a man, kicked him in the nuts, and then smashed his face down onto my rising knee, I’d justifiably be vilified as a dangerous sociopath. If that same man was brutally attacking someone I loved (or anyone, for that matter) - perhaps even with a weapon - and I came along on the scene and promptly acted out the above scenario, would I still be a sociopath? The trouble is, once you give anyone “permission” to anyone to use force, they often abuse it. No easy answers for sure. Maybe Malcolm X said it best: “We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.”

Nice.

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Endgame: Volumes I and II

Whether one agrees or disagrees, is comfortable with or not comfortable with Jensen’s work, as Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote:
“Jensen raises vital questions that must be asked, and, moreover, must be answered. In this mad venture we are all complicit, if only in our silence. Jensen shatters that silence.”

Endgame: 20 Premises

Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.

Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.

Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.

Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

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Here is part of his last speech. Our brother and our father, Martin Luther King Jr. 1929-1968