Style OR Justice? 
Sunday, May 21, 2006, 07:44 PM - Politics
Julie Su was the keynote at the LAANE women's event described below. She's been a leader in the anti-sweatshop and immigrant rights movements, and about current struggles of immigrant garment workers. I think she set up a false dichotomy in her presentation, implying that we have to choose between style and justice - but it was interesting to think of the crowd of lovely luncheon ladies conducting silent inventories of their wardrobe choices. (There is loads of privilige inherent in the following statement, but I don't think that invalidates the principles behind it.) I buy organic food because I don't want pesticides in the soil (not so much because I'm worried they'll give me cancer); I buy locally designed and produced clothes to support independent businesswomen and fair labor practices. (I felt moderately righteous in my pretty Dema top, but must admit that I can't vouch for the pedigree of the Katyone Adeli pants. Lord knows that super cute D&G lavender jacket was probably swimming in sweat (I just checked, it's made in Italy, so probably not as bad as it could be?) Is it more socially acceptable if things are bought far below retail price? Just like bottled water, it seems environmentally unsustainable to fly a jacket halfway around the world, no matter how smart. I'm sure this is somewhat frivolous, but I want to stake a small claim for fashion and style as fun and something that can exist outside of a corporate, exploitative entity. Spending money with locally-owned, less-exploitative business recyles community resources and allows for great pleasures. (Of course there is a long debate about how localization now would reinforce the current eonomic north/south stratification, but you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that the Wal-Martization of the world is an unequivocally good thing).
I'm interested in what a friend of the Republican is doing on making visible the true nature of production costs - just a taste athttp://www.revealinfo.com/.
I'm going to try for style AND justice, whever possible.
Women for a New Los Angeles 
Friday, May 19, 2006, 08:38 PM - Politics, Books
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Today (at the lovely Amy Wakeland's invitation) I attended the Women for a New Los Angeles/ Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy luncheon. It was such a great surprise to open up the latest issue of their newsletter and find a full-page spread on MomsRising! Plus Barbara Ehrenreich gave a great powerful acceptance speech for her award, and she seems interested in the MomsRising project. Last night I went to see David Sirota in a sea of westside liberals and got stuck in a funny conversation between Wendy and Tom Hayden... the old guard LA progressives are an interesting bunch, to say the least. David is touring to support his new book, Hostile Takeover. I think the most useful point from his talk is that us lefties need to stop being afraid of sounding angry - there's definitely a lesson for MomsRising in there somewhere...maybe a way to get women to vent and share their frustrations and obstacles in balancing work and family... and generate ideas for non-legislative focused action.

Planet of Slums 
Sunday, May 14, 2006, 10:32 PM - Politics

I caught the last half of Mike Davis' talk at UCSD last week (was there interviewing sweet young things for GCI recruitment). He was talking about his new book Planet of Slums, which treats the astonishing urbanization of the poor and its potential social and economic impacts. As someone who's spent small amounts of time in the slums of Central and South America, many of his points ring true - especially about the dire consequences of long-term warehouseing/ complete disenfranchisement of the extremely poor on the periphery of urban settings. he paints a dickensian picture of the future of most cities - kind of like what's already happened in Sao Paolo - the rich fly around in helicopters to avoid the urban chaos. He was hopeful that the poor (as has happened recently in Bolivia) can transcend their marginalized existence through protest and shut down commerce (as they shut down the airport and traffic in La Paz) - but I'm not convinced that the economies of the midsized cities where most the fastest-growing slums are concentrated matter much in the greater economic sphere. Does the west care if Lagos shuts down for a week? Florianopolis? A small city in India? Coordination through low-cost technology (texting) has allowed for effective protest among some poorer communities (in the Phillipines) but even a cell phone is far out of reach for the kind of slum-dwellers he considers in this book. And I'm not convinced that the Paris riots (while garnering much attention) did much to change the opportunities for Arab French youth- I worry that they'll be even less able now to integrate into European culture. The last thing we need is more disaffected teenage boys with no prospects and too much time on their hands...
Anyway if you want more there's a very detailed review here.
Net Tuesday LA Report-back - Immigrant Rights and Technology 
Thursday, May 11, 2006, 02:35 AM - Politics, Technology

I'm happy to report that our first LA Net Tuesday was a success - we had an interesting diversity of attendees and a presentation from www.stickam.com on their live streaming video of the May 1 immigrant rights demonstrations. People who came were a mix of nonprofit folks (California Association of Nonprofits, Asian Pacific American Legal Center), freelance programmers and technologists, people working in the for-profit technology sector interested in social change (Yahoo, NetworkLive) and politics (LA Councilmember Garcetti's Communications Director). We were a small enough group to have an interesting discussion about the role of technology in the organization, documenting, and analysis of the May 1 demonstrations - as well as our responsibilities as technologists to be aware of and try to minimize the digital divide. We had fun discussing the role that myspace.com had in organizing student protests, brainstorming tools we need to better filter information to support progressive debate, and thinking about how linguistic differences limit the adaptation of progressive technology solutions for immigrant communities. We talked a little about topic ideas for another session, and people seemed interested in coming up with a project or goal for the group (maybe helping to do communications training for students organizing on immigrant rights issues?). Come to the next event and find out more - we may move out to the west side for our next meeting...
A small aside 
Thursday, May 11, 2006, 02:13 AM - Politics
I've been thinking about this all week, since I read one of the editorials in the Sunday Times about Democrats' chances this fall and their struggles to build a coherent message. Sadly I haven't had time to come up with my own coherent message, but if I don't write about this today it will evaporate from my little brain. Why, on earth, do the Democrats not understand that emphasizing the dangers/ risks of the current economic situation will NEVER WORK. People do not want to believe they're on the bring of disaster or bankruptcy - even when they are. Scare tactics and doomsaying are the wrong strategy - we need to find ways to point out the inconsistencies in our current economic reality while emphasizing progress and positive solutions. (Don't get me wrong - what's unsustainable is endless - growing inequality in the middle of abundance, constant credit-fueled consumption of foreign-made goods while domestic producers wither, massive agricultural subsidies for crops nobody needs; I could go on - but it's not what we should be foregrounding). We need to come up with a message that's consistent across domains - one that stresses opportunity, advancement, and personal and community standards, while demanding accountability from corporations, rational tax policy, reasonable regulation, and realistic and fair rewards. We have to develop a conversation about what's feasible and hopeful in our economic lives, not constantly harp on what's wrong.
A day without immigrants. Actually, for me it was a day when I spent way more time than usual with immigrants. Where were all the other white people at this march, anyway? 
Monday, May 1, 2006, 03:21 PM - Politics

I'm not buying anything today, and will probably try to get down to the afternoon protest on Wilshire. It's not like LA needs a reminder that our city functions on immigrant labor - but I wonder how much people staying home today will impact the perception of immigrants in cities in the middle and eastern parts of the country. I am losing hope that the Dems will step up and take a proactive position on the immigration issue - I would love an honest acknowledgement of the net benefit that immigrants have on our economy (whether legal or illegal) - I mean really how else do you think we're going to pay for social security 30 years from now without immigrant-driven population growth? I find the hardline conservative criminalize/ deport position so disingenuous, it's disgusting. I've never seen anyone work harder than undocumented grape pickers in Napa vineyards, and I have huge respect for people who take personal risk to better their own and their families' lot. Why capital should be able to flow freely across borders, while people are limited by the accident of their birth is one of those hypocrisies that drive me up a wall. We're a nation of people (with the obvious exception of descendents of slaves and native people) who took the initiative to get here - what is more American than doing what is necessary to support your family? And don't get me started on how our free-trade policies throughout Latin American have failed to make a dent in poverty there - so I hope we're not surprised that there's considerable 'push' out of those countries, as well as 'pull' through the economic incentives to work here. I guess as someone who's at heart a relativist, I have no problem with an amnesty program. I think a principaled realistic immigration reform package includes a path to legal residency/ citizenship for people who are here, increased quotas for new immigrants, a guest worker program for people who only WANT to come for a season/ a short time, increased border enforcement with a national security focus (what's more dangerous, a dirty bomb or a woman who wants to be your nanny?), and a real focus and aggressive enforcement against employers who exploit undocumented workers. A good start towards integrating new immigrants into our civic life is opening up local elections (such as school boards) to all residents/ parents of children in their schools, regardless of immigrant status. We've got so many resources, why can't we be more accepting?
Update: March was great - tons of families, endless crowds, a sea of white t-shirts and american flags, there was even some cute young actor couple (don't ask me who). I liked walking down the middle of Wilshire.
LA Update 
Friday, April 7, 2006, 09:58 PM - Politics, Friends, Technology, Art
This feels like it's been my first real week in LA - I've been working like a dog on the CA_50 special election that will happen Tuesday...setting up all kinds of hyper-geeky autodialiing/ web-based phone system tests to see if we can create a super-streamlined and foolproof phone bank infrastructure for the fall. Hopefully we'll help Busby win outright on Tuesday, but the evaluator in me wants another election in June to perfect the model...
I am getting used to the braces but feel horribly sibilant. You can catch my orthodontic voiceover debut on a MoveOn volunteer training call Monday, if you're lucky.
And yesterday I also had my first taste of what it will be like to have a community here - I went to an opening at Stephen Cohen gallery of photos from Democratic Republic of Congo with Jeannette- a fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres - and ran into Noah Craft. Maybe someday I'll have a new network of friends to run into?? Maybe I already do?
I promise to post some braces photos this weekend, and will dish on what Ben Ball's party is like, too.
Iraq/ El Salvador 
Friday, February 24, 2006, 12:48 PM - Politics
A while ago our government started the process of instituting tactics developed during central american counterinsurgency struggles in Iraq (reported in Newsweek, some coverage here). Seems like the Salvador model in an Islamic context would definitely include things like paramilitary squads blowing up shrines, kidnapping imams, nighttime disappearances, and secret detention facilities. I can think of some positive lessons we could learn from El Salvador - we should be shipping FMLN advisors to Hamas to share their knowledge about the risks and benefits of transforming from a military to a political institution. Instead we're exporting some of our least defensible tactics to a country where they're likely contributing to further destabilization, possibly just to keep the opposition to the occupation fragmented (more on this interpretation in the Guardian UK today). This is why it's terrifying that John Negroponte has so much influence; he thinks this stuff is a great idea. I am still mulling over Fukuyama's piece in the magazine last Sunday (* and there's a prize for someone who knows which of the fundamental principles of neoconservatism he elaborates I embrace), but I think the neocons are using all the wrong strategies in the face of the morass they've gotten us into. I worry (as does good old Francis) that we've now squandered our capacity for productive international intervention. I hope we don't really need to use it any time soon...and I hope we learn that teaching people how to run death squads doesn't exactly promote democracy.
Democracy in Action 
Tuesday, February 7, 2006, 01:33 PM - Politics
So today they're voting in Haiti, where Aristede (democractially elected) was softly ousted 2 years ago. Preval (frontrunner who will likely need a runoff to win) is seen as allied with Aristede, and perhaps will bring him back from exile in S. Africa. Hamas overwhelmed Fatah in Palestinian elections. There are new women presidents in Chile and Liberia. I struggle to understand our administration's rhetoric around the promotion of democracy in the context of pragmatism- I am a pure enough idealist to believe that self-determination is a fundamental right, but can this administration handle all the results of fair elections? I've gleefully celebrated the elections of Lula and Zapatero and others that offer alternative models of social and economic policy (even if Lula in particular has been a disappointment). Is our majoritarian system the best export product? What does it mean in the context of our Iraq rhetoric for us to be allied with countries like Saudi Arabia who are taking only the tiniest steps towards representative government - or supporting the current regime in Egypt that would likely lose to Islamists in a free election? Hamas has shown itself capable of running social/governmental institutions in the West Bank and Gaza - I hope we're prepared to deal with them as a legitimate governmental entity, because I imagine they will become one. Thankfully the middle east is too messy for Palestine to be Nicaragua all over again. But what about Iran? Candidate disqualification was of course an issue there, but Ahmadinejad is at least as democratically elected as Mubarak. Is the U.S. ready for the real impact of democratic elections on a global scale? Democracy means that sometimes you get Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez. It makes me understand why our historic level of support for the democratic process has been inconsistent at best and hostile at worst.
Super Bowl is heathen anathema! 
Saturday, February 4, 2006, 05:06 PM - Politics
So yesterday Angela and I were waxing nostalgic about the days when we thought the Super Bowl was just another good reason to have a feminist protest (still believe that domestic violence is worse on Super Bowl Sunday? Well that's why we have Snopes. Not that we shouldn't be raising awareness about domestic violence every damn day.) This year the strangest protest idea I found was a group of street preachers going to Detroit to condemn Super Bowl idolatry. I have to admit to being morbidly fascinated by these guys - they're this freaky blend of populist economic analysis (it's obscene to have the Super Bowl in steadily declining Detroit, the homeless have been swept behind the Potemkin village, etc.) and religious insanity - God will not forgive porn star parties and abortions. Why can't we get some decent religious people to raise hard economic questions, without going off the deep end into hellfire? It does seem like our national amnesia has kicked in full bore...I mean, what would it be like to watch the game if you had been one of the people trapped in the Superdome in New Orleans? Should we really be able to have an uncomplicated relationship with a football stadium so soon?

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