Avatar has become a pop culture nexus for Palestinian rights activists.  The film portrays the struggle between a heartless interstellar corporation and the Na’vi, lithe and luminescent aliens indigenous to a planet rich in the lucrative mineral “unobtanium.” The Na’vi live atop a rich deposit of this shimmering ore, so the corporation and its thugs want to remove them, by any means necessary. For activists, the film is an apt analogy to Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory. So what do these idealistic youth do? Dress up like the aliens.

The protestors appeared in Bil’in, a Palestinian town cut in half by the Wall (whatever adjective, security or Apartheid, no one on either side disagrees that the structure is a wall) and Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem which Israeli settlers have laid claim to and from which Israeli authorities have evicted Palestinians.

When I was in Bil’in in April 2009, the buzzword on the banners was “Occupation Flu,” play to the now-almost-forgotten H1N1 craze. Demonstrators gathered every Friday after prayer to confront Israeli soldiers who meet Palestinians’ stones with tear gas and flash-bang bombs. I was there to write a story, here, which explains more about this weekly protest.

A protestor shields his nose and eyes from the effects of tear gas.

The most striking aspect of this re-appropriation of a distinctly American, Avatar meme, is the irony. And right across the barbed-wire fence opposite from Bil’in are Israeli soldiers whose weapons supplied by American taxpayers. So, as Joseph Nye would explain, that’s an example of U.S. “hard power.”. Then, on the other side, the Palestinians to score by appropriating imagery siphoned with sophistication from the mighty currents of American “soft power.”

One of my favorite artistic movements is Czech New Wave cinema.  The movement was deeply embedded in Czechoslovak politics of the period, particularly De-Stalinization which permitted political and cultural reforms such as state support for the film industry and increased artistic freedom generally.  The filmmakers objective was “to make the Czech people collectively aware that they were participants in a system of oppression and incompetence which had brutalized them all.”

Perhaps the international success of such films was due to Cold War curiosity about Central and Eastern Europe and these films offered the outer world a rare look at art from a communist country with relatively little censorship.  Two New Wave films received Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, The Shop on Main Street in 1965 and Closely Watched Trains in 1967.

New Wave films are characterized by dark humor, unscripted dialogue and often center around misguided youth.  My favorite is Vera Chytilová’s Sedmikrásky (Daisies, 1966), perhaps the movement’s most radical and surreal film.  The two main characters, both named Marie, realize that the world they live in is corrupt and decide to go corrupt themselves.  The narrative follows Marie I and Marie II as they justify their ‘bad’ behavior because ‘the world has gone bad.’  While Marie I and Marie II destroy social norms, Chytilová’s approach to cinematic form destroys conventions, reinforcing the audience’s shock.

Some argued Daisies is apolitical and void of substance (Jean-Luc Godard did), but I believe that any film from this era defying socialist realist aesthetics is inherently political.  Chytilová is clearly working in response to the political reality of Czechoslovakia; exploring morality, anarchy, gender roles and automatism.  I could go on and on, but I hope you’ll judge for yourself.

It’s great to hear new work from this poet/survivor, and generator of the radical meme: “The revolution will not be televised.”

The video is of Scott-Heron’s cover of Robert Johnson’s Me and the Devil and is included on his new album which can be heard on his website.

Here’s an animation by Ineke Goes of Johnson’s original song.

Scott-Heron’s Message to the Messengers.

BBC interview.

Jess Baines has an excellent new article in Afterall on the history of radical graphics beginning in England in the 1960’s.  It’s a great introduction/reminder of how a previous revolution in technology, namely broad access to low-cost printing equipment, fueled global resistance to war and helped spread alternative social justice movements.

A wiki has been started to collect information on the topic.

Image: Poster from the Poster-Film Collective’s History Series.

On the occasion of the U.S. national holiday in his honor, below is a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King most well-known speech.

From the Wikipedia entry for Martin Luther King: “I Have A Dream” is the popular name given to the public speech in which Dr. King spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites among others would coexist harmoniously as equals. Dr. King’s delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.”

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream.]

And from another great address:

“And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., “A CHRISTMAS SERMON” 24 December 1967

A new documentary, Coal Country, directed by Phyllis Geller and shot by Jordan Freeman, tells the story of how coal mining has permanently deformed the Appalachian landscape and society. Here’s the trailer.

The film focuses on the modern mining practice of Mountain Top Removal (MTR), which involves coal companies blasting off the tops mountains to reach the coal underneath. MTR is a cheap and convenient way of getting at the resource, but causes pollutants to spew into the air and spill into the water, poisoning miners and the general population. The film shows the civil strife between miners wary of losing their jobs and anti-mining activists, some of them former miners themselves, who want to preserve the environment and protect human health. The battle continues.

In debates about the developed world mitigating the effects of climate change, sometimes it is forgotten that the necessary dismantling of our carbon-intensive economy can’t happen simply with confident utterances, but rather in the excruciating uprooting of thousands lives and livelihoods. Science says that curbing the most disastrous consequences of climate change means the immediate cessation of carbon emissions. After seeing what’s happening in West Virginia, however, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Pop music star and Sri Lankan native M.I.A. reacted angrily to the Times heavily laundered assessment of touristic possibilities on the revolution-torn island.  “HERE IS THE LUSH COASTLINE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT,” she stated in a Twiitter post with a link to atrocities commited against rebels.

Here’s an article about government-inflicted atrocities.

Thanks to Pitchfork.

The Sea Shepherds, a guerrilla group of anti-whaling activists, have  acquired a new secret ship, the Bob Barker, with which to disrupt Japan’s whaling fleet. The Shepherds contend that Japan’s whaling activities are illegal under international law. The Japanese contend otherwise, claiming they’re conducting scientific investigations under the guise of The Cetacean Research Institute (not even the whaling-friendly International Whaling Commission believes this), which bears a remarkable resemblance to the fictional, San Francisco-based Cetacean Institute in Leonard Nimoy’s pro-whale masterpiece, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. But that’s another story.  The Shepherds interpret UN statues in order to justify their disruption of whalers’ activities. Since most countries can send a prowl car to keep an eye on what the whalers do, the Shepherds, and their fearless leader, Paul Watson, take it upon themselves to enforce anti-whaling laws. Now, with a $5,000,000 donation from Bob Barker, animal lover and former MC on The Price is Right, The Sea Shepherds have a new ship, named after their patron, ready to harass Japanese whalers and save more whales.

Bob Barker, funder for ecoterrorists (at least that’s what Greenpeace calls The Sea Shepherds) and Captain Watson

Like the Spanish inquisition, nobody expects The Sea Shepherds. Their methods include fear, surprise, and an almost fanatical devotion to Captain Watson, who lives by the Lakota Sioux saying hoka hey– “today is a good day to die”– (for the sake of whales, of course) and instills this wisdom in his youthful, volunteer crew, who hail from a number of nations. Watson has faced criticism for taking liberties with the truth. In his book Earthforce!, he encourages environmental activists to fabricate facts since “truth is irrelevant” anyway in today’s media. Despite his questionable scruples, his efforts have seen success. Over the past 30 years, the Shepherds claim to have sunk ten whaling ships by ramming and sabotage.

To hamper whalers’ ghastly activities (indeed, no one could reasonably believe shooting an explosive harpoon into a living creature qualifies as humane or even inside the pale of scientific ethics) the Shepherds hurl nausea-inducing stink bombs (butyric acid) and fire a high powered lasers (their newest weapon) at the whaling ships. The whalers retaliate with flare guns, water cannons, and their own shouting over megaphones.

Multimedia Interlude: An argument between Canadian Paul Watson and Canadian Mike Duffy about the Shepherds anti-sealing actions in Canada. And also little bit of the Whale Wars show on Animal Planet.

What’s odd about Japanese enthusiasm for whaling is that whale meat isn’t even a big part of the Japanese diet. The whalers yearly catch of whale meat sits frozen and uneaten in storage. Indeed, General Douglass MacArthur instituted whaling in Japan as a way of relieving post-war food shortages. So there’s no reason to good reason to go hunt whales. That said, there’s no reason for Paul Watson to have such contempt and disrespect for the media, which, after all, is what generates the civilian and celebrity support for the Shepherds work. But both sides have their own habits, and neither seems likely to change.

UPDATE: A Japanese whaling vessel has destroyed the Sea Shepherds skiff, the Ady Gill. Click here for more.

Berkeley, California.

Bicycle boulevards are lightly-trafficked streets that prioritize bicycles. Although many routes have no bike lanes, bicyclists are free to use the middle of the street, sharing road space with cars. Motorists on these routes expect to see bicyclists and therefore travel with caution. Designated streets should be distinguished with uniformly colored signs and bold pavement markings.

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[Text and graphic from Livable Streets Initiative website. Photo Credit: "Berkeley Bike Boulevards - Streetfilms."]

The COP15 Conference, the  meeting in Copenhagen for countries party to the United Nations Framework Convention (UNFCC) on Climate Change, has begun in earnest. With it, a flood of foreigners has washed ashore in Denmark, among them NGOs, IGOs (Intergovernmental Organizations), the Press, and delegates from UNFCC signatories. Among them, unfortunately, is not your correspondent, Wilson Dizard, the one writing this blog post from Copenhagen. Others are in a similar position, and not just due to the fact that the they basically accredited twice the number of people the conference center can hold.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of interesting things going down around town that concern the arts of social change. Here are the first photos of the acts at the conference.

Alright, this is a picture of a ice flow in Iceland, where I had a rather long lay over. Iceland’s endangered glaciers are a topic of discussion at the Conference, as you might imagine.

The Bella Center. The world will have to wait to see what kind of substance, if any, might manage to emerge from this building a fortnight from now. Look at the cranes in the background, evidence of economic development chugging along. And then there’s a wind turbine, too. To be sure, Denmark is a land of contrasts.

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