In three parts:

(1) Melanie Morgan, from the esteemed Move America Forward, thinks she has solved the mystery of the Times Square recruiting station bombing that has so far eluded FBI investigators (the very same ones who have visited several of my friends at WRL, SDS, and PMR). Her answer: Why, it must have been the oldest secular pacifist organization in the nation, the War Resisters League! Her baseless accusations have spawned some rather entertaining hate mail directed our way (which, hilariously enough, was CC’d to several email addresses at Fox News — they must be so proud!):

Subject: To the Disgusting Cowards Who Attack Military Recruiting Stations

To the war criminals at the NYCWRL,

Your actions speak volumes about the cowards you are.

Legislation is being formed right now to treat you all as war criminals and send you to Gitmo where you belong, indefinitely. It won’t be long before you get your one way ticket to Cuba.

Where did you pathetic people come from, and who raised you miserable poor excuses for humans? From a practical point of view, I’ve never seen such moronic, twisted, and demented behavior. Ultimately, your only danger is to yourselves. Believe it!!!

Where to begin? I’m certainly curious about this new legislation he’s referring to. But it’s better not to feed the trolls, I guess — even though it’s heartening to me that some in our group actually wanted to send a thoughtful reply to this person, despite the fact that he not only makes no attempt to appeal to rational thought, but also considers us to be pathetic, moronic, twisted, and demented war criminal cowards who belong in Gitmo, indefinitely.

(2) On a more cultural note, I actually went to see a movie — Chicago 10. It’s a creative retelling of the Chicago 7 (which is actually the Chicago 8, but which the movie refers to as the Chicago 10 in order to include the trial’s lawyers), combining animation and documentary footage to recreate the events surrounding the protests of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and the subsequent trial of several principal agitators (including, most notably perhaps, Abbie Hoffman). The film is pretty good, although it might be better as a rental. The voice actors are nothing less than an all-star cast, including Roy Scheider, Jeffrey Wright, Hank Azaria, Nick Nolte, and Liev Schreiber.

The animated recreation of the trial is entertaining and often hilarious, but the real power of the film lies in the documentary footage of the protests and rallies. It’s useful — or, more accurately, extremely depressing — to compare the anti-war movement of that summer to the one we have today. Theirs was more tied into the youth culture, and much more anarchistic (well, the yippees at least: I was struck by how many times I heard someone from the 7 disavow any kind of leadership role for the movement). I kept thinking — now that’s the kind of rally I want to be at, not these boring-ass ones we have today.

Of course, it took a damn near perfect storm of events to create the widespread radicalization of the cultural moment of that time — a hugely unpopular war, the advancement of the civil rights movement, multiple assassinations within a relatively short period of time, and the concurrent emergence of a genuinely anti-establishment counterculture. The national character of the anti-war movement today seems lifeless, stale, and conservative by comparison.

(3) Finally, I actually made it to the Met to see the excellent exhibition of Courbet paintings. Most of his major works were there, excepting a few that are unable to travel due to their condition. One of my favorites is his funky portrait of the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon — I wonder, is this the most famous work of art ever made about an anarchist? The only other moderately famous one I can think of is Ben Shahn’s painting of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Also of special note was a room that I lovingly refer to as The Porn Room: Courbet’s renderings of female nudes, lesbian lovers, and of course, The Origin of the World. It’s amusing to watch families of tourists, who no doubt would find such content horribly offensive in a different context, closely inspect the “paint quality” or “brush strokes” as they lean their faces to within inches of a vagina painting.

And speaking of FBI agents, the highlight of our afternoon, by far, was the coolest celebrity-spotting I’ve experienced in my 6 years of living here in NYC. We were amazed to discover that our appreciation of Courbet’s talents on that day were being simultaneously enjoyed by Twin Peak’s special agent Dale Cooper, otherwise known as Kyle MacLachlan. He was plainly dressed and wore an exhibition headset, but appeared to be enjoying himself immensely.

From Chuck’s blog Negations:

“The good people at ChristieBooks continue to expand their magnificent online library of anarchist and otherwise revolutionary films. Important works that were once buried in distant archives or locked in dusty file cabinets are now available to anyone with an internet connection. Follow this link to see the full list.

Among other gems, there is an extensive collection of rare films about anarchist activity during the Spanish Civil War, a Russian language biopic on Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno (The Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno), an interview with Gillo Pontecorvo on making The Battle of Algiers, and many more. A significant number of the films are in Spanish, although many are in English and many have subtitles.

ChristieBooks is an anarchist multimedia publisher sustained through the sale of its publications and posters and financial support from sympathetic donors. Please consider helping them continue and develop their project by either purchasing some of their books or posters or by donating to their sustaining fund. I just sent them $25 through Paypal (use this email address: christie@btclick.com) but you can also use regular mail (ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 2UX, United Kingdom).

They are presently uploading two or three films per week and, with our help, they will continue keep adding to that figure and enriching this wonderful resource for anarchist and libertarian video footage.”

Ever since being introduced to the politically-charged hip-hop duo Dead Prez by Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (which is awesome; definitely see it), I haven’t been able to get enough of them:

You expect me to vote for the lesser of 2 evils?

Never.

It’s more like the evil of two lessers.

That’s like sayin: M, choose your oppressor, pick one,

Jeffery Dhamer or Hannibal Lecter.

You want Crack, Coke, Pepsi, or Dr. Pepper?

They all fucked up and neither one of ‘em better.

Crack is like a Democrat,

Cocaine’s Republican,

Marijuana’s the Independant Party,

same government.

I watched Rabbit-Proof Fence the other night. Initially the film is so slow in creating a sympathetic portrayal of its main characters that I could barely muster any compassion even when the three young Aboriginal girls are first kidnapped by their Australian Protectors. But I was not left unmoved for long, as the film quickly picks up steam thereafter.

The girls are sent to a white-run prison/school, where their Australian masters force Christianity and English down their throats in an effort to literally “breed the black out of them.” It’s nasty racism indeed, although I was surprised at the relatively benign portrayal of Mr. Aboriginal Protector himself, played by Kenneth Branagh. Sure, he’s over-the-top racist and obsessed with ridding the mixed-breed Aborigines of any trace of their dark skin, but the film makes it a point to let us know, over and over again, that he’s ultimately motivated by a near-benevolent drive to help them.

Whether we believe that he was so motivated or not, it reminds us that racism doesn’t always stem purely from hate, but sometimes is the result of a much more common form of ignorance — in the Protector’s case, he imagined that the Aborigines were so lacking in intelligence as to be unworthy of consideration as equal to other humans (like the current justification for our treatment of animals?), thus necessitating His intervention in order to protect them from themselves. Of course, if white patriarchal governments weren’t so assured of their own self-righteousness in forcing massive programs of social-engineering on everyone else, they would never have had this problem of distinguishing the real-humans from the sub-humans in the first place!

The rest of the film tells the inspirational (and true) story of the girls’ fearless escape and 9 week, 1500 mile walk home through the Australian desert, where they outsmart and elude their captors at every turn. It’s an excellent example of how to restore one’s freedom when faced with abusive power — DON’T OBEY. The children that stayed behind did so not only because they were dominated by their fear of the harsh punishments that were sure to follow, but also because they were far too willing to respect the authority of their white caretakers. Of course, who could blame them! They were just little kids, ripped from the arms of their Aboriginal parents before they even had a chance to grow up — most of them never to see their parents again.

 I finally saw Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, the story of the capture and execution of the members of The White Rose movement in Nazi Germany. The White Rose was a small nonviolent resistance group of students (and their philosophy professor), formed during WWII, who famously printed anti-Hitler leaflets in an effort to inspire an anti-Nazi uprising. The film is meant to be an accurate(ish) historical depiction based on interviews with survivors and transcripts that were only discovered after 1990.

The film is excellent, and, for the most part, steers clear of caricatured depictions of the Nazis as irrational demons. I found the most powerful scenes to be those in which Sophie Scholl faces repeated sessions of intense interrogation at the hands of a Nazi investigator, at one point even engaging in a kind of intellectual argument over the moral justifications for Hitler’s total war and German purification. It’s an important scene because it humanizes her captors (a far cry from the Hollywood characterization of Nazi Germany as a society of brainwashed Satans) by presenting the investigator’s rationalized, albeit repugnant, justifications for aggressive militarism versus Sophie’s idealistic and compassionate moralism. It reminds us that similar logic is still being used today to rally support for abusive acts of state-sponsored violence, including the all-too-familiar persecution of those dissenting against the status quo of patriotic nationalism. The White Rose warns us:

“The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals … Each man wants to be exonerated of a guilt of this kind, each one continues on his way with the most placid, the calmest conscience. But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!”

The question today is, are we guilty too? How will history judge the American people?

Learn more about The White Rose and their nonviolent resistance. Also, here’s a relatively recent anti-war action, inspired by The White Rose, in which nine activists were arrested.