"Members Only: Bohemians in Their Groves"

Adair Lara, San Francisco Chronicle

On Saturday, some 2,000 CEOs and politicos and arty types arrived at the cool redwoods and lily-choked lake of the Grove, the famous Russian River playground of the powerful Bohemian Club.

They say it's the place to be seen in America in July.

Except, of course, you can't see them.

Signs abound: No Thru Traffic. No Trespassing. Members and Guests Only. No Turn Around. Sentries scan the paths from above with binoculars, helped out by infrared sensors.

And what are those important men doing out there for 17 days behind that elaborate security?

"Enforced Democracy: The Bolivian Referendum"

Jennifer Whitney

La Paz, Bolivia — After a long day of tension, rumors, and ocasional provocations,
Bolivian polling stations have closed and the counting of votes is
underway. But the results are already known. Regardless of whether the
"yes" vote or the "no" vote wins, Bolivia’s most valuable natural
resource — natural gas — will remain in the hands of the
transnationals.

Enforced Democracy: the Bolivian Referendum


Jennifer Whitney

After a long day of tension, rumors, and ocasional provocations, Bolivian polling stations have closed and the counting of votes is underway. But the results are already known. Regardless of whether the “yes” vote or the “no” vote wins, Bolivia’s most valuable natural resource – natural gas – will remain in the hands of the
transnationals.

Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, has long had its wealth plundered by foreigners. First, it was the realization by the Spanish in the sixteenth century that a small hill in the southeast of the country was comprised almost entirely of silver. For two centuries, the wealth extracted from Cerro Rico in Potosí was, according to Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, “the primary nourishment of the capitalist development of Europe.” Next it was saltpeter, desperately needed as fertilizer for exhausted European soil, and plundered by the English. Then during the second world war, Bolivia’s tin was mined and sold at approximately ten times less the market price, leading to massive strikes, and massacres of the workers, who were only demanding to be paid a living wage. Now, the world wants Bolivia’s gas – the second largest reserves in Latin America. But Bolivians are sick of watching
the wealth of their nation stolen from underneath their feet.

kirsten anderberg writes:

"The Gold of the Nuclear Age:
Lost and Stolen Nuclear Materials"
Kirsten Anderberg

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov) in New Mexico, USA, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, has halted much of its operations as of July 15, 2004, in an unprecedented, and open-ended, shut down of important “secret work,” until security breaches can be seriously addressed.

Citing the loss of two computer discs containing classified information from the testing and design facility of the plant, during the first week in July 2004, as well as other security concerns, the nuclear plant is regrouping. In the last year and a half, Los Alamos has admitted losing classified materials four times, according to the Albuquerque Journal. And the Associated Press is reporting that in the last year, Los Alamos employees lost 9 floppy discs, a large-capacity storage disk full of classified information, and a recordable data storage device, and the lab officials say these materials are “believed” to have been destroyed.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Exiles: Black American Radicals in Cuba"

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

Once they considered themselves black freedom fighters. The FBI
considered them armed and dangerous. After more than a generation as
fugitives in Castro's Cuba, they are living pieces of unfinished
business.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"America's Pathetic Liberals: The Sequel"

Featuring Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11"

John Chuckman

The controversy over Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" provides sharp insight into contemporary American liberalism. You might think from all the noise that something radical or revealing or important was happening.

But you would be wrong. The noise represents another example of what Robert Hughes called America's "Culture of Complaint," an endless bickering, never deciding anything but enjoyed purely for itself.

The film is at its heart a thoroughly conservative document, a fact which generally has gone unnoticed except in Robert Jensen's acute review, "A Stupid White Movie." Worse, it explains virtually nothing about events it claims to examine.

kirsten anderberg writes

Chemical Coolness: Anti-Capitalists in Makeup and Hair Dye

By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

I am trying to figure out why so many of my friends who are eco-conscious, anti-capitalist, and anti-authoritarian, wear tons of toxic chemicals and corporate beauty products in the form of hair bleach and dye and face makeup. The pollution created from the making of the toxins on many an anarchists’ head is equal to an SUV’s pollution, I would guess. I do not believe all of the counterculture is buying bio-friendly hair bleach. Does that even exist? And I also know that a lot of the counter culture is buying cheap hair dye, full of toxic chemicals not only in the dye itself, but in the output in pollution in the making of those hair dyes at chemical factories. Additionally, most punks and anarchists I know cannot afford the designer organic face makeup available in health food stores. Many of them use cheap chemical cosmetic products, such as Maybelline. But even “health” products are made in polluting factories. “Tom’s Toothpaste” makes it sound like he is making that stuff in a stream in his backyard. But I have heard from people who have visited the town Tom’s factory is in, and Tom’s toothpaste is made in a factory, polluting like all factories do. I have been trying to figure out for decades now, why buying a bunch of chemical crap from corporations, then smearing it on your face, is considered radical or anti-establishment in any way.

NOT BORED! writes

Pete Townshend's strongly held political beliefs

On 7 July 2004, Pete Townshend announced that more than a year ago, he had refused to let Michael Moore use the Who's 1971 song "Won't Get Fooled Again" in Fahrenheit 911. In Townshend's own words,

I had not really been convinced by Bowling For Columbine and had been worried about its accuracy. To me, it felt like a bullying film [...] Once I had an idea what Fahrenheit 9/11 was about, I was 90 per cent certain my song was not right for them and pointed out that "Won't Get Fooled Again" is not an unconditionally anti-war song, or a song for or against revolution. It actually questions the heart of democracy: we vote heartily for leaders who we subsequently always seem to find wanting. (WGFA ["Won't Get Fooled Again"] is a song sung by a fictional character from my 1971 script called LIFEHOUSE. The character is someone who is frightened by the slick way in which truth can be twisted by clever politicians and revolutionaries alike).

Townshend is partially right about "Won't Get Fooled Again": while it's true that the lyrics of the song are "against" revolution, the music -- especially the use of sequenced synthesizers -- is clearly revolutionary, or, rather, was clearly revolutionary for the time at which the song was released. That's precisely why the song is famous and worth fighting about: the tension in it, and the release that's provided by the legendary scream "Yeah!" that comes after the long instrumental break. The listener doesn't need to be "convinced" by the song (what a ridiculous idea!); the listener need only feel it.

"Hard Man For a Tough Country"

Paul McGeough, Sydney Morning Herald

His enemies say he was an assassin for Saddam Hussein. Now Iyad
Allawi is accused of personally executing prisoners.

Hold the doctor up to the light and there are flaws in the glass. We
are not quite sure how Iyad Allawi became Iraq's interim Prime
Minister and no one knows just how and why he fell out with Saddam
Hussein. It is unclear whether his preoccupation with security
outweighs a professed love for democracy or what that might mean for
Iraq's 25 million people.

kirsten anderberg writes:

Charity Versus True Sharing and Giving
Kirsten Anderberg

It took me quite a while in this world to see the subtle differences between charity and actual sharing and giving. Charity involves one entity keeping all the wealth and power, and giving metered allowances to those they control. Sharing involves equal access to resources and equal access to power. Giving involves relinquishment of control of property to another. Charity is controlling and paternalistic, while Sharing and Giving involve empowerment. Charity is a very different species than Sharing and Giving. This subtle difference is played out in so many ways it is astounding, from our “charity” in Iraq, where we want total control yet try to play ourselves off as merciful, selfless, “givers,” to Christian soup kitchens that hold food from they hungry until the hungry proclaim allegiance to a mythic white god from the Middle East. People need to ask themselves whether a situation involves actual sharing or giving, or whether it is manipulative “charity,” at every turn in the road.