New Clear Vision

Despite Harassment, Peace Activists Vow to Continue Work for Justice

by Randall Amster

On January 25, 2011, people gathered in cities across America to demonstrate against the ongoing harassment of peace organizations and individual activists by law enforcement agencies. In particular, these “solidarity actions” were focused on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had served subpoenas and raided the homes of people involved in anti-war and international solidarity work in Minneapolis and Chicago in late September 2010. From Boston to Los Angeles, activists rallied at federal buildings, collected petition signatures, distributed pamphlets, and peacefully demonstrated on street corners as part of the “National Day of Action to Stop FBI Repression and Grand Jury Witch Hunts.”

In Chicago, over 350 people assembled in front of the Dirksen Federal Building to protest U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s decision to subpoena 23 antiwar activists and order them to appear in front of a grand jury. In Minneapolis, more than 100 people swarmed the sidewalk at the downtown Federal Building, waving signs that read “Opposing war is not a crime” and “Hands off free speech,” denouncing the infiltration of their groups with undercover agents, and stating that they will not cooperate with the grand juries even if it means going to jail. Actions large and small were held in over 50 cities across the nation in a show of solidarity for peace activism and against official harassment. (more…)

In Search of a New Beginning … Before the End

by Randall Amster

Undertaking even a cursory review of the news queue evidences the apocalyptic overtones in our collective midst. In the most recent additions to the canon, 2010 ended with semi-sardonic coverage of the so-called “Snowpocalypse” and its aftermath, and 2011 began with perplexed musings over the “Aflockalypse” in which birds and fish seem to be dying in odd ways due to mystifying causes. Not long before, we had the perceptive invocation of the “Shopocalypse” by Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, and next year’s 2012 allusions promise to spawn a new generation of nomenclatural evolutions.

While we may be tempted to dismiss the suffix “-ocalypse” being deployed much like “-gate” as an all-purpose distortion device, on another level we can also perceive that its very utilization as both a linguistic tool and interpretation of concrete outcomes is telling about the times in which we live. We’re actually in good company on this, at least historically speaking, as the sense of looming apocalypse has been woven into the fabric of Western civilization since its earliest days of recorded reckoning. And there certainly has been no shortage of cataclysmic harbingers in the modern era, from the inception of cinema itself to the invocation of the “mushroom cloud” as part of political theater. This is, in short, our cultural talisman, and its influence upon us is palpable. (more…)

Sustaining Scarce Resources in the Desert

by Randall Amster

Life in the desert southwest is richly complex and oftentimes a great challenge. A hint of frontier culture remains even as rampant growth and homogenization take hold at breakneck speed. People love the landscapes and the history, but can still sit and watch both disappear in the name of “progress.” At times it seems as if a strange double consciousness exists here, nowhere more prominently than in our relationship to water.

It’s interesting to live in a place where you regularly see coyotes, roadrunners, hawks, antelopes, and javelina (just to name a few local species) with packs of the latter still roaming through our downtowns. People have horses in their front yards, gunracks on their cars, and cacti in their burritos. In a few hours time you can go from a densely-packed urban center to the Grand Canyon, watching the landscape change from desert hills to mountain forests and back again. Despite ubiquitous strip malls, golf courses, and backyard swimming pools, the southwest is still magical in many ways. (more…)

Will It Be Force … or Discourse?

by Randall Amster

In that fateful supermarket parking lot in Tucson, two drastically different forms of politics were on display, and the contrast couldn’t have been more starkly evident. On the one hand there were ordinary people meeting with their congressional representative, ostensibly to get to know one another and share concerns about important issues. On the other there was an alienated and disturbed individual armed with a deadly weapon, seemingly bent on making a statement of his own while brutally silencing others in the process. The fact that this transpired in beleaguered Arizona, known widely for its invidious policies, lax gun laws, and blunt politics, has served to heighten the contrast and arouse the nation’s conscience in the process. (more…)

Remembering King as an Antiwar Icon

by Randall Amster

Martin Luther King, Jr., obviously is recalled as a champion of racial justice and civil rights. Equally fervent, yet less invoked, was King’s focus on economic justice and ending poverty. King understood the multi-layered relationship among these issues, and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Still, despite a peace award, even far less remembered today is King’s deeply-held belief that “war is not the answer” and his outspoken opposition to the conflict in Vietnam. In retrospect, he appears as a sophisticated antiwar crusader, and had been so throughout much of the 1960s. He didn’t come late to the issue, either, after public support for the war eroded and it became safe to stand against it; and as the war escalated so too did his critical rhetoric, often to the consternation of some of his civil rights allies.

Looking back at excerpts from King’s key anti-war speeches, they remain equally relevant today, beginning with his Nobel acceptance speech in December 1964: (more…)

From a Culture of Violence to a Place of Recognition

by Randall Amster

Whatever your political leanings, you’d have to be incredibly hardhearted not to be moved by the shooting in Tucson that claimed the lives of a federal judge and a nine year old girl, among others, and critically wounded Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Some will attempt to politicize this episode as emblematic of the poverty of the “other side,” whereas others will seek to depoliticize it as the work of a deranged “lone gunman.” Meanwhile, moderate voices will be raised aghast at the violence in our midst, both of the rhetorical and spectacular varieties, and many will attempt to draw a direct link between the two. And still, in all likelihood, all of this will soon fade into the collective rear-view mirror and slide down the news queue, as the “normal” state of business as usual adjusts to a new equilibrium that encourages a reestablished complacency. (more…)

Time for a New Clear Vision

by Randall Amster

For the coming year, rather than short-term resolutions, I’m issuing an ongoing challenge that is at once both personal and political. Despite much evidence to the contrary, and notwithstanding the relentless news cycle that we frequent, I believe that 2011 will be the year that the majority of people in the world demonstrably turn away from the brink of destruction and embrace a spirit of positive innovation and creative intervention in their communities. This may seem like a preposterous conclusion, but then again if someone told you in early 2001 that we would be living in a perpetual state of terror/war and that our rights would be wholly eviscerated in short order, you might have said the same thing. (more…)