NTodd Has A Blog?

And all the bells of the tills of the town shall ring

I am enraptured by this Michael Sheen performance of Under Milk Wood.

Soon I'll be busting out A Child's Christmas in Wales.  Anyway, happy birthday to Dylan Thomas.

198 More Sundays: Sedition Must Become Our Creed

Maybe I should call this series "198 Sundays Redux" since I never made it through all 198 Methods last time, and thus it's not "more"...but whatevs.

Today, I'd like to escalate from last week's Method of public speeches, and consider rejection of authority as a tool in our efforts to effect change.  This is a sub-category of political noncooperation (again from Gene Sharp's The Politics of Nonviolent Action):

Political noncooperation is the third subclass of methods on noncooperation [the others being social and economic]; these methods involve refusals to continue the usual forms of political participation under existing conditions.  Sometimes they are known as political boycotts.  Individuals and small groups may practice methods of this class.  Normally, however, political noncooperation involves larger numbers of people in corporate, concerted, usually temporary suspension of normal political obedience, cooperation and behavior.
...
The aim of the political noncooperation may be to achieve a particular limited objective or a change in broader government policies.  Or it may be to change the nature or composition of that government, or even to produce its disintegration...

The political significance of these methods increases in proportion to the numbers participating and to the need for their cooperation for the operation of the political system...

Political noncooperation may take an almost infinite variety of expressions, depending on the particular situation.  Basically they all stem from a desire not to assist the opponent by performance of certain types of political behavior.

One way to refuse cooperation with a regime is to engage in Method #122 - Literature and speeches advocating resistance:

In many situations, the making of speeches and the publication and distribution of literature which call on people to undertake some form of nonviolent noncooperation or nonviolent intervention themselves become acts of defiance and resistance.  This is especially so in those countries where any call for resistance, especially for illegals acts of resistance, is itself illegal or seditious.

Now sedition is a rather subjective thing, and often used too loosely to describe a variety of acts (witness the contrast between treatment of BLM vs 1/6 insurrectionists).  I think for our intellectual exercise today we can apply it in a more colloquial sense as "advocating stuff that upsets the status quo."

I can't allow any such discussion take place without bringing up the quintessential practitioner, MK Gandhi.  A year before his arrest for sedition, he wrote in Young India on March 30, 1921:

If sedition means disaffection towards the present system of Government, it is a virtue and a duty. But we do not need to preach it...We cannot paint the system blacker than it appears to the average audience today. All we need do is to show the people the way to destroy it. That way is self-purification. We shall put the Government in an uncomfortable corner...

Hitherto the word “revolution” been connected with violence, and has as such been condemned by established authority. But the movement of non-co-operation, if it may be considered a revolution, is not an armed revolt: it is an evolutionary revolution, it is a bloodless revolution. The movement is a revolution of thought, of spirit. Non-co-operation is a process of purification, and, as such, it constitutes a revolution in one’s ideas. Its suppression, therefore, would amount to co-operation by coercion...

Inaction on our part will kill Government madness. For violence flourishes on response, either by submission to the will of the violator, or by counter-violence. My strong advice to every worker is to segregate this evil Government by strict  non-co-operation, not even to talk or speak about it, but having recognized the evil, to cease to pay homage to it by co-operation.

I don't know if that specific article was used as part of the basis for the sedition charge, but certainly his writings in Young India in general were.  Fans of Attenborough's movie might remember a stirring court scene that encapsulated the trial which ended with this statement (necessarily summarized in the film):

I know that I was playing with fire. I ran the risk, and if I were set free I would still do the same. Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also last article of my creed. I know that my people have sometimes gone mad. I am sorry for it. Their crime consisted in the love of their country.

I am here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest Penalty. In my opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good Nonviolence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation with evil. I am here to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be the inflected upon me for what in law is a deliberated crime and what appears to me be the highest duty of a citizen.

The only cause open to, judge, is either to resign post and thus dissociate yourself from evil if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is evil and that I am innocent or to inflict on me the severest penalty, if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal.

He was sentenced to six years in prison, though was released early because of illness (he was 53 at that point and had ended a fast just prior to his arrest on March 10).

We in the US have a long history of trying to suppress dissent via sedition laws - almost as long as our nation has existed.  From the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in during John Adams' tenure in 1798 to the Sedition Act of 1918 under Woodrow Wilson to the Smith Act that was signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt and remains on the books to this day.

Lest you think charges of sedition are in the remote past, this stuff ain't exactly gone away (paging Faulkner).  Since 9/11, "terrorism" has become the new sedition, a blunt rhetorical weapon to stifle legitimate protest and other activism.

When I despair I think of something Thomas Jefferson (yeah, that dick) wrote at the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts (with many apologies to my dear friend Hecate and her co-religionists):

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake.

For now, we on The Right Side of History might have to modestly recalibrate the sedition I've long called for.  Its target isn't a specific regime like when I started this project in the Bush Era, but an entire political structure that fosters MAGA refusal to accept election results they do not like, enables our ongoing cold civil war, and threatens all of the gains protecting basic rights and human dignity that we've painstakingly won.

Regardless, keep patiently, passionately preaching revolution, and don't forget to actually participate in it, no matter who is in office.  We're still a (fading) empire, exporting death and destruction while exploiting and oppressing "othered" people at home.

I'll keep posting ways to do so and hope you'll join me in some merry sedition in the process...

 

Covered on previous Sundays:

The Sleeper Must Awaken: A Dune Review

So yeah, Dune.  Desert planet.  Fucking awesome.

I saw a prompt on social media that was something like, "what's a movie you paid for that you walked out on."  I've never done that.  Even Xanadu (which I did not pay for), where I saw countless shadows moving toward the exits, or Indiana Jones and the Movie I Do Not Acknowledge.

I guess I don't generally go to a flick unless I know it will meet my minimum standard of "first, do no harm."

Anyway, I've read the first book several times.  Completed the entire series twice.  Tried Brian's prequels, slogged through 1.5 of them (is that the literary equivalent of walking out, and do I want to even go near the "insult to the author" discourse?).  I love the universe and Herbert's dense storytelling.

I also loved Lynch's/Smithee's 1984 versions, and did a rewatch recently in anticipation of Villeneuve's.  Even enjoyed the heck out of both miniserieses (but Gurney fucking kills me in that, gotta admit).  I like stuff that is not only imperfect, but arguably bad (like Highlander) because there are other qualities that just resonate.

Take those stupid Weirding Modules.  Totally stupid, right?  Yet, what a clever way to make tangible something that is difficult to convey in this medium.  Is that really any weirder than a super martial art wherein old ladies can kill with a flick of their toe?

One of my absolutely favorite scenes in all of cinema is The Crossing, just because it's so quiet and ethereal.  Soft electronic warbling music, and a massive ship just...appears over Arrakis.  Space travel doesn't have to be super colorful and noisy and eventful like jumping into hyperspace or warping, but can also be serene (space is super quiet, I've heard).

That's probably one reason I really like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 (not to mention Scott's original along with 2001).  I dig a good laser sword fight or space station blowing up, but scifi for me also is an overall experience, and an exploration of space and time in ways that are not inherently something we can see and touch and smell with our paltry senses and understanding of the cosmos. 

So gimme something philosophical and talkie sometimes, otherwise we're only taking our current reality and dressing it up (which is cool too, because it's a great way to interrogate our current social/economic/political problems, for example).  I want to feel desert wind or ocean breeze in my face, and wonder what it's like to have humans be computers again, and trip on a drug that lets me navigate our universe and humanity.

With all that dense prologue, here are the primary things I like about Part One in a sparser form and order of importance:

• Ornithopters.  Finally, execution that feels right (if not in precise form) for how I imagined them.  Top notch, makes the whole movie for me, not joking.
• All the spacecraft.  Designs that echo some cover art of the old paperbacks I had (especially Mohiam's ship and the Heighliners), really just gorgeous.
• Centering the Fremen from the very start.  A beginning is a very delicate time, and know that I don't really fucking care about the Great Houses.
• No inner monologue.  I appreciate it in the books, and it was fine in 1984's presentation, but what a nice departure in this context.
• The musical number in the middle.  Okay, I made that up, and I kinda miss Toto's soundtrack.

There's more (e.g., changing up Dr Kynes), but that's enough.  Imma watch this bitch again at least once more this weekend.

I guess this wasn't much a review of the movie.  2 thumbs up.  There, now it's a review.  The sleeper has awakened.

#throwbackgetoffmycasefriday

2 years ago in Seattle.  I do not know the couple.  Wonder how they're doing?

198 More Sundays: Speak Your Peace

Nonviolent action is a means of combat.

- Gene Sharp

Back by popular demand, I'm kicking off a revival of my old 198 Sundays series, covering Gene Sharp's catalog of 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.  Why don't we be a little pedestrian and just start at the top?   

First, a brief introduction to the the category of Protest and Persuasion (we'll get to Noncooperation and Intervention later), found in The Politics of Nonviolent Action:

Nonviolent protest and persuasion is a class which includes a large number of methods which are mainly symbolic acts of peaceful opposition or of attempted persuasion, extending beyond verbal expressions but stopping short of noncooperation or nonviolent intervention. Among these methods are parades, vigils, picketing, posters, teach-ins, mourning and protest meetings.
...
The act may be intended primarily to influence the opponent—by arousing attention and publicity for the issue and thereby, it is hoped, support, which may convince him to accept the change; or by warning him of the depth or extent of feeling on the issue which is likely to lead to more severe action if a change is not made.

Or the act may be intended primarily to communicate with the public, onlookers or third parties, directly or through publicity, in order to arouse attention and support for the desired change.

Or the act may be intended primarily to influence the grievance group—the persons directly affected by the issue—to induce them to do something themselves, such as participate in a strike or an economic boycott. 

And without further ado, under the sub-category of Formal Statements, here's Method #1 - Public speeches:

Some public speeches may become significant acts of nonviolent protest. They may be spontaneous in some unexpected situation, they may be formal addresses, or they may be sermons delivered during religious services.

In 1934, for example, when the Nazis were simply a minority in a coalition cabinet headed by Hitler as Chancellor, the non-Nazi Vice-Chancellor was Franz von Papen. In a dramatic, rather untypical act, Papen in a speech to students at the University of Marburg on June 17, 1934, expressed his alarm at the course of events since Hitler's accession to the chancellorship and called for an end to Nazi terror and a restoration of some freedoms, especially freedom of the press.

Coming from the Vice-Chancellor himself, this was an unexpected act of opposition which, despite censorship, received widespread support within Germany and major publicity abroad.

Well, we know how that all ended (thanks, NYTimes!), but anyway...

Often in the US, people think of Dr King delivering powerful speeches, but they don't have to be stemwinders.  For instance, Jeannette Rankin offered a pretty short statement in Congress before World War I:

Given Rankin’s strong pacifist views, she was inclined against war. Colleagues in the suffrage movement urged caution, fearing that a vote against war would tarnish the entire cause. Rankin sat out the debate over war, a decision she later regretted.

She inadvertently violated House rules by making a brief speech when casting her vote. “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war,” she told the House. “I vote no.”

The final vote was 374 for the war resolution and 50 against. The Helena Independent likened her to “a dagger in the hands of the German propagandists, a dupe of the Kaiser, a member of the Hun army in the United States, and a crying schoolgirl”—even though Montana mail to Rankin’s office ran against U.S. intervention.

Doesn't take a lot of speechifying to make your point and put a stake in the ground.

Speeches aren't, of course, the be-all and end-all of NV action.  They are one important tactic as part of any strategic movement, really the kindling for your fire.  Makes some sense to start with a statement of principles, or a list of grievances, or just basic PR to get people involved in your campaign.

You don't have to be Mario Savio or a member of Toastmasters to speak in public, but naturally it's not everybody's natural milieu.  We'll get to other methods that individuals might feel more capable of engaging on another Sunday.

Anybody out there ever given a speech as a means of nonviolent combat?

I question all of your answers

Quick snip from RMJ:

[P]eople come to school board meetings now to rail against books and "CRT," which it is illegal to teach in Texas now.  One notable event was the woman recently who ranted for her three minutes, then declared she would be a candidate for the board in the next election, where presumably she would straighten things out.

I knew a guy who voted against the school budget every fucking Town Meeting.  He eventually got tired of that, so ran for the school board on essentially a platform of "gonna cut everything of value including pre-k" and won a seat. 

The Town kept on voting for the budget (invariably 2:1 margins), so after winning re-election, but losing another budget vote, he resigned in the middle of Town Meeting.

Sometimes it's hard to burn everything down.  Although I guess it'll be easier now with all the astroturf.

Moral: more folk who love us some CRT and mask mandates and whatnot need to run for school board.  That's where all the action is (not even joking).

"I don't want to make another memory without you..."

Hmm, sensing a theme.  This track from The Quest has been really grabbing me recently.

"Bored and sad..."

In honor of Mikhail Lermontov's birthday:

Любить... но кого же?.. на время - не стоит труда,
А вечно любить невозможно.
В себя ли заглянешь? - там прошлого нет и следа:
И радость, и муки, и всё там ничтожно...

To love...but love whom?.. a short love is vexing,
And permanent love's just a myth.
Perhaps look within? - The past's left no trace:
All trivial, joys and distress...

Now I kinda feel compelled to read my favorite "superfluous man" novel, Герой нашего времени (A Hero of Our Time).  But that seems like quite a commitment...

A Cursed Sect of Heretics

Your regular reminder as we hurtle toward Thanksgiving that, contrary to mythological propaganda, the Pilgrims did not actually come to the New World for the noble principle of religious freedom.  To wit, the act passed by Massachusetts on this date in 1656:

Whereas, there is a cursed sect of heretics, lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called Quakers, who take upon them to be immediately sent from God, and infallibly assisted by the Spirit, to speak and write blasphemous opinions, despising government, and the order of God, in the Church and commonwealth, speaking evil of dignities, reproaching and reviling magistrates and ministers, seeking to turn the people from the faith, and gain proselytes to their pernicious ways:

this court taking into consideration the premises, and to prevent the like mischief, as by their means is wrought in our land, doth hereby order, and by authority of this court, be it ordered and enacted, that what master or commander of any ship, bark, pink, or ketch, shall henceforth bring into any harbor, creek, or cove, within this jurisdiction, any Quaker or Quakers, or other blasphemous heretics, shall pay, or cause to be paid, the fine of one hundred pounds to the treasurer of the country, except it appear he want true knowledge or information of their being such;

and, in that case, he hath liberty to clear himself by his oath, when sufficient proof to the contrary is wanting: and, for default of good payment, or good security for it, shall be cast into prison, and there to continue until the said sum be satisfied to the treasurer as foresaid. 
...
And it is hereby further ordered and enacted, that what Quaker soever shall arrive in this country from foreign parts, or shall come into this jurisdiction from any parts adjacent, shall be forthwith committed to the House of Correction; and, at their entrance, to be severely whipped, and by the master thereof be kept constantly to work, and none suffered to converse or speak with them, during the time of their imprisonment, which shall be no longer than necessity requires. 
...
And it is hereby further enacted, that if any persons within this colony shall take upon them to defend the heretical opinions of the Quakers, or any of their books or papers, shall be fined for the first time forty shillings; if they shall persist in the same, and shall again defend it the second time, four pounds; if notwithstanding they again defend and maintain the said Quakers' heretical opinions, they shall be committed to the House of Correction until there be convenient passage to send them out of the land, being sentenced by the court of Assistants to banishment. 

Yeah, they banned us.  Nobody could help us get into the colony, nobody could defend us, and G-D knows we couldn't...be.

The Puritans loved their original installment so much, there were 2 sequels in October of 1657 and October of 1658.  And finally they just started killing us when we kept coming back. 

Which is totally on brand for people whose first acts on this continent included grave robbing, before escalating to stealing land and starting barbaric wars with the folks who already lived here.  Really just shitty people our nation venerates.

Speaking of...who's getting excited for Black Friday?!

#throwbackthursday

Self-portrait from Feb '05.