12/30 "Hi, Mom, I'm not on TV" I've been thinking about mass public protests. As in marches, demonstrations, etc. And I'm trying to formulate a question. Something like this: Is public protest effective in direct relation to its illegality? Of course, it depends what effects you want. But certainly, mass demos seem to aim to 'send a message' to the government, influence public policy and officials. I'm not sure if this really happens anymore in the US. They also 'send a message' to the public, those who are able to witness the protest, if the protest is formulated in a way that the public (john and jane q. right? hmmm) can understand. Increasingly, it seems to me, mass protests are for the people who are already protesting. Not that this is completely futile, as they can inspire participants to go home and work more on their local movements, and make connections with larger movements, but I'm not sure how to measure the value gained vs. effort spent.
During the (first) Gulf War, me and my mother took a bus to DC for the (bigger of the two) March on Washington. People present (including non-protesters) estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people. It was an intense experience. I marched with the Bread and Puppet contingent, in costume. The everpresent Punk Percussion Protesters were mostly audible from where we were. Black-masked anarchists stalked by. Teens in groups, family groups of all kinds. Someone had a sign that said "Hi, Mom, I'm not on TV." When we got back to Boston, a stack of Sunday papers awaited us. The march had made front page, but with two photos, one of a single antiwar protester, in a gasmask, in front of a US flag; the other of a cluster of pro-war protesters. No crowd shots, no wide-angle lens, none from above. "An estimated 19,000" the Globe said. It seems now that few people outside the US got much of a sense of the numbers of protesters. Few people inside had a sense of that either. We came home, exhausted, with a glow of moral somthing-ness, and our feeling of 'something must be done' had been slightly aleviated. But what had we done? Who had gotten our message? It was good to know we're not alone, but what are we to do now, in our not-alone-ness?
Contrast this with my experience of a pro-choice march on Washington in (I think) 1992? The one where I saw Bikini Kill and Fugazi play, hooked up with riot grrrl, was a Punk Percussionist. Traveled with threee fine ladies from college, talked shit all the way there. The event was inspiring. Shook up my whole scene. The size did affect me then, and the diversity of the crowd. (although still not as diverse as I would have liked, the number of men and people of color was higher than many prochoice events I had seen.) The images of coalition building were hopeful. I came back to school with a new sense of urgency and momentum.
But in neither case did I get a sense of the effects of our actions on the larger world. I'm not sure now if that's something to expect from these events. I'm starting to wonder if the adbusters method is more the way to go. Spreading the image of the two cowboys riding into the golden sunset, with the words emblazoned large across them: "I miss my lung, Bob." a new kind of media guerilla. It seems like this is an issue that new media studies people like slantgirl can help with. How to make use of and subvert media techniques. How to form coalitions across distances.
But I also am saddened by the idea that the mass protest can feel so futile. The soviets had a fascination, in the early era, with huge spectacles. I find it romantic, their thousands-of-persons "reenactments" of historic moments. The huge crowd scenes in some early soviet films. This concept of "the people" (undifferentiated) as a character. Does it have to be homogenous? or does the method of presentation homogenize? and to make those in power tremble, does it have to be in the face of violence and direct repression? is it partly that risk, that flouting of specific law (against public protest, against gatherings larger than 3) that made such things so powerful? But this individualizes repression as well. Some people face violence daily, but not because they're publicly marching. It's because their attackers associate them with a group even when it's not present, a 'them' to hate more than an individual... grr this should be rewritten. will be. but not today. hyah! onward!

On a more personal, daytoday note, I guess I'm still a little discombobulated by the holiday/finals season. Every year, somebody in one of the circles i'm connected to, has relationship trauma. Last year at this time, it was me. At this time last year, I was operatic, as in "mad scene." This year, a good friend is on the *other* side of a familiar (to her and to me) situation. I know in a larger sense that's good for personal growth etc., but it also sucks sometimes that you find yourself sympathizing with that jerk who said it to you, cuz now you're saying it to someone and you know you're only being honest. whew.

12/29This morning i embarked on a little internet research on a company called Sandline International, also affiliated with a company called Executive Outcomes. I suggest doing a search on either name with your favorite search engine. These are mercenary organizations, involved (at my first glance) in Namibia, Sierra Leone, and Papua New Guinea. They provide training, tactics and trained, armed fighters. They are hired by governments (or governments-in-exile), often paid in rights to minerals and other natural resources. Executive Outcomes is linked to diamond mines in Sierra Leone and South Africa, for example. A new business plan for mercenaries is to be involved on the side of 'good' organizations like the Red Cross, 'protecting' them in unstable areas.
Reading about these groups brings up a welter of emotions. On the whole, i believe conspiracy theories are the sign of someone who cannot grasp the entirety of what goes on in the world. they are egotistical, personalized responses to information about things that operate on a very large scale. Not to deny that many many things happen to benefit particular people or groups, but conspiracy doesn't quite cover the hows and whys. But I also feel a lot of undirected fury. The machinations of nations, and individuals (mercenaries oftena re extremely well-paid, and the CEOs --good grief!) to gain wealth, political power. And if a nation's natural resources are controlled by a partner company of a mercenary fighter organization, the web grows ever more tangled. Still this morning I pulled at the thread of Sandline, and followed it all around the world.

12/28 I'm back. final ate my life but i've (been) passed (heh). Lots to think about, lots to do. Now I have to pour it on for my paper for American Economic History.
At first, the problem wasthe method. well it still is. Apparently, to write as an Economic Historian, one begins by 1) forming a hypothesis; then one 2) searches for data to support it, and 3) -if necessary- alters hypothesis and looks for more data. This seems like an arrogant way to work. Coming from a historian's viewpoint, where I would do tons of reading and let the data and other writings speak to me, combing out an idea from what rythms,/patterns/voices I find. So I had a lot of trouble even getting started. "but I don't KNOW anything yet!" I howled to my instructor. "That's fine." he said "make up a hypothesis anyway. You can always change it later." So I did. and changed it. Than got one I could run with. Now I have some data which maybe backs it up, but I don't feel it's really enough. But worse, I don't know how I feel about my hypothesis. i don't know if I care whether it's true or not. Which means that the theory behind it (however unformed it is at present) doesn't yet relate to the things i care about. I feel naive and unscientific half the time, and morally-radically indignant the other. I feel like all the interesting parts of the subject I'm looking at are peripheral to my hypothesis. Especially the human beings. howl!

On another note, saw Alien *again* last night with some friends. Soon will be updating my alien piece in my film section. this strand is partly inspired by johanna of the seemingly defunct android sisters website, whose only trace i can find is here on another brilliant person's website. Anyway, hanna wrote a bunch about gender, sex, technology, referencing some of Donna Haraway's Cyborg ideas. And her discussions about how she identified with computers, with clones, helped me develop some of what I was getting at in my critiques of Alien. A lot of the uneasiness in Alien is about whether technology serves "us humans" --or what horror ensues when it seems to have its own agenda. there's a colonial/slavery fear in there as well. As I smarmily commented about the horror flick "the hand that rocks the cradle", is there anything more awful than when you can't trust the help?" the fact that the ship (whose brain is called 'mother'), is called "Nostromo." Joseph Conrad (explorer/embodier of the nether regions of the colonialist mentality) has a book by this name, whose character Nostromo is a 'native' who seems to serve the colonists, an intermediary with the masses of natives. an enigmatic individual of great charisma, it becomes ambiguous whom he really serves. Hah! More later.

12/21 Well really, Miss Xeney says it (almost) all about the impeachment. It's sounding like this weird exercise in public naivete. no. it may have more to it: melty quotes jesse jackson making some astute comments about the parallels between the last impeachment procedure, used against Reconstruction, and this one, (although Clinton's inching-rightward "liberalism" is a limp take on reconstuction). Go read them both.
My favorite argument for impeachment which i read this weekend was that "If Clinton gets away with this then people will think that the justice system in America is skewed in favor of the politically powerful." Noooo... really? And if we impeach then Dred Scott, Mumia Abu Jamal, Huey Newton, Rodney King, the Framingham Eight (women imprisoned for killing their abusive husbands), etc etc etc, will all rest easy that their imprisonments were impartial? shame. shame on these people for such twisted arguments. historical amnesia and voluntary blindness abound.