Cob

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Cob is a trip. When we are in each other’s presence, I have a great time. The conversation is great as is making love. We’re exploring some interesting dynamics around power and consensuality through mild S/M fantasies. It’s when he’s not around that I experience difficulties, the uncertainty because he can’t seem to plan when he can be here. So, I try to leave space in my schedule for his arrival which ends up in frustration as I miss opportunities when he doesn’t show up at the time I hoped he would. We’ve discussed the situation. He’s now travelling for a couple of months without a home. I’m in my work and live at home routine. So our needs are probably a bit different. Hopefully, this will work out. I’d like us to spend more time together.

I was a bit surprised when he told me about relations that he was having with a woman we both know. Somehow, I hadn’t realized he is bisexual. I’ve felt brief bouts of jealousy for his liaisons whatever the gender. I work it through in about ten minutes each time. As long as he lets me know what’s going on and as long as he is playing safe, I’m fine with it.

Social Power and Political Freedom

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Lately, I’ve been reading Gene Sharp’s “Social Power and Political Freedom.” It’s an excellent overview of the politics of violence and non-violence reaching some surprising conclusions. For example, Sharp points out an obvious and important aspect of maintaining true democracies that often goes unremarked: the necessity of what he calls “loci of power,” that is, societal institutions that organize to obtain and exercise power beyond that of disparate democratically empowered individuals. Examples include unions, neighborhood organizations, even the media and police forces. When a society has many democratically-oriented loci of power, that society becomes democratically sustainable, resistent to the rise of dictators from within or from outside that society.

Sharp then introduces the concept of “civilian-based defense,” in contrast to “military-based defense.” He points out many surprising examples where populations have resisted partially or completely the rise of dictatorial forces through the use of nonviolent civilian-based defense, usually without advance planning or training of the populace. He points out that a well-trained populace with a well-reasoned civilian-based defense plan could effectively resist virtually any despotic incursion.

Sharp reports that, as of 1979, five European governments were discussing civilian-based defense with some government-financed research taking place. I’d like to know the outcomes of that research. He mentioned Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark.

I find Sharp’s work extremely compelling at a time when we are witnesses to U.S. and British atrocities against civilian populations in Iraq and, to a lesser degree, against anti-war protestors such as those whom the police shot with rubber and wooden bullets and concussion grenades even as the non-violent protestors fled from advancing lines of police shooting the weaponry from their rifles.

What should be the response of the populace in the U.S. to consistent and continuous intrusions on our basic rights as guaranteed in the U.S. constitution?

Will’s Speech to San Francisco Board of Supervisors

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Here’s the speech I tried to give in person to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors today. Perhaps Kevin succeeded in giving it as my proxy after I had to leave to the volunteer meeting at work.
Will’s Speech to San Francisco Board of Supervisors

I’ve been out on the streets of San Francisco protesting against the aggressive and illegal war of the U.S. against Iraq over the last two weeks. Last Thursday, I spent the night in the Bryant Street jail after my arrest for nonviolent civil disobedience in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I joined other nonviolent protesters in what as far as I can tell, with 2300 arrests and counting, is collectively the largest civil disobedience action ever to have taken place in the history of San Francisco. In addition, it may be the largest number of people arrested in opposition to the war in any city around the globe.

On the streets and in the jails, I witnessed abusive behavior both by protesters and by police. Massive police presence led to unnecessary confrontations between police and protesters as citizens watched the clear abridgment of our constitutional right to peaceful assembly.

I urge the Board of Supervisors to take measures to rein in dangerous police abuse, such as illegal and intimidating street sweeps, sidewalk blocking, closures of public parks and squares, and the beatings, pain holds, and detention of nonviolent protestors without due cause.

However, the root cause of this problem is not so much in the San Francisco community but from the federal government of the U.S. Indeed, last October this Board passed by a vast majority a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress to refrain from any injust war in Iraq which I believe accurately reflects the views of the vast majority of people here in San Francisco, including many of the police. I believe the Board should seek federal funding, whether by appeal to the administration or through the judicial system, to compensate the City and County for the costs of maintaining the peace in San Francisco due to the U.S. government’s aggressive foreign policy.

In addition, and perhaps more controversially, the Board of Supervisors should adopt a resolution freeing the City and County of San Francisco from the State of California and the United States of America, so that we the citizens of San Francisco can organize ourselves into a truly democratic, participatory free state that will more properly implement the will of the people of this fine city with its long tradition of diversity and respect for human rights for all.

Cob Visit, Mouse in the House

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Cob (Jacob), who I met at the last Breitenbush radical faerie gathering, will be visiting my place starting tomorrow for about a week. I’m looking forward to getting to know him better.

In other news, we’ve had a mouse running around the kitchen for about a week. My housemate Jack got a mousetrap, but the darn mouse has so far evaded it.

Jack and I have started jamming, him on the electric guitar and me on the bass guitar. He bought me a book to help me learn how to play better.

Protesting for Peace

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You can see pictures from the San Francisco peace protest I was at today at
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/1583088.php

Yesterday, I bared my breasts along with forty or so “Boobies for Ashcroft” who marched from Van Ness Ave. to the Federal Building as employees left the building for the day around 5:00pm. The crowd bared their breasts as they chanted “Boobs Not Bombs” or “More Boobs in Public, Less Boobs in Office” and carried signs condemning U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s policies including the war against drugs and against sexuality, noting particularly his decision to cover a barebreasted Lady Justice statue with curtains during news conferences at the U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington, DC. Following the march, the group entered a local pub and fraternized with federal employees while discussing the issues of the day. See http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/1582640.php

de cerca

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te sientas con las piernas cruzadas
haciéndome frente
mis piernas sobre las tuyas
rodillas a los tendones de la corva
las raíces pusieron a tierra
espinazos que zumban
manos en cada otros corazones
ojos a los ojos
mirando
respirando
el tercer ojo emerge

p.s.
de cerca
y cerca
viviendo

New Sidekick Portable Device

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Wow! I can blog from my new Sidekick PDA phone/browser/email/im tool. Email me if you need my new cell phone number. G33k 0ut! (actually I had a problem getting it to publish from the Sidekick, but I can write the entries from there and publish ’em when I get back to a regular browser… Cory tells me there’s a way to email in and publish the entries from a Sidekick.)

Cultcha

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Vivek brought home an interesting film called “The Blue Kite” the other evening. It was banned in China because it shows the damaging effects of the various stages of the cultural revolution on an apparently typical Chinese community.

I am reading Polyani’s “The Great Transformation” about the negative societal effects of market-based economies and how social and political controls on markets are necessary to retain human values.

I’m also reading “The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s,” which is a series of essays from activists, administrators, and others who lived through the events as well as historians providing interpretations. It looks like quite an impressive volume.