Upheaval! : AZ IMC

As of March 1 the fourth issue of Upheaval is officially off the press. The following is the call for submissions and articles which appear in the publication.

Upheaval is an anarchist publication put out by members of the Phoenix Anarchist Coalition (PAC). This is the fourth issue of Upheaval and the first since Spring of 2006. Most of the original editors have moved on, however the new Upheaval team seeks to carry on the anti-authoritarian values of the original three issues.

By publishing Upheaval, the editors seek not only to agitate and educate, but to reframe mainstream political debate and to create a discourse on issues of interest to anarchists, radicals, and the working class in general. Issues such as:

• Border issues and (im)migration
• Police brutality and repression
• Gender, feminist, and queer issues
• Struggles against white supremacy, white privilege, and racism
• Gentrification and community displacement
• Ecological issues
• Prisoner resistance and the prison-industrial complex
• Subverting the alienation of everyday life
• Methods of turning our visions of a new world into a reality

That being said, we at Upheaval want to hear what you, the reader,, has to say. We
are currently looking for article submissions, letters to the editor, and artwork. All submissions can be sent to our p.o. box (listed below), or electronically to pac@phoenixanarchist.org. Please specify if your submission is intended to be an article or letter and note that by submitting a piece to this address you are consenting to the possibility of having your work published and/or edited.

We can always use financial support to cover the costs of creating Upheaval. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so either through our paypal account on the PAC website or by sending well-concealed cash the p.o. box listed below.

Upheaval
c/o PAC
PO Box 3348
Tempe, AZ 85280-3438
pac@phoenixanarchist.org
http://www.phoenixanarchist.org

You can read the articles in the "comments" section.

Language as Tool of Oppression
Neon Trotsky

In an age in which the general public is force-fed mind-numbing slogans by parasitic advertising firms and the words of sitcom characters are systematically appropriated and regurgitated verbatim by Polo-wearing frat boys void of individual personality, little regard is given to the influence of language on habitual thought and behavior. Yet in actuality, the impotence of modern thought and the widespread apathy and lethargy it creates is very closely, if not directly, linked to language. That is, at least, the failure thereof to provide a medium in which to process a reality in which humans are systematically divorced from their primordial instincts and impulses by the spectacles of fast food, “reality” television, and a false sense of affinity via internet social networks.
This shortcoming of language is by no means accidental. In fact, the power of language as a weapon for social control and the maintenance of the status quo is well known by those in power, who systematically use it to that end.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
In order to demonstrate how language is used as a tool of oppression, it is first necessary to document its effect on human thought and behavior. The concept that language significantly shapes thought is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, named for the early twentieth century linguists who pioneered the idea (Kay and Kempton, 1984).
In “The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language” (1956), Whorf notes that the Hopi do not use nouns to describe phases or cycles of time but an entirely unique part of speech reserved for such situations. Western European languages, on the other hand, use noun constructions such as “a moment of time”, “a second of time”, or “a year of time” that imply time is a tangible “thing”.
Consequently, speakers of Western European languages view reality in terms of things while Hopi speakers view reality in terms of events. This objectified perception of reality in Western thought leads to an obsession with records, calendars, clocks, history, schedules, budgets, and time-based wages. A Hopi speaker (who did not also speak a time-objectifying language) could not possibly grasp such concepts because they would not conceive of time as a concrete unit able to be quantified into periods (Kay and Kempton, 1984).
While there is some controversy as to the absolute validity of the Spair-Whorf Hypothesis, there is ample scientific evidence that supports it. Kay and Kempton (1984) performed a series of experiments comparing how speakers of English and Tarahamura (an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in northern Mexico) differently perceive color.
Tarahamura was chosen because the language does not differentiate between the colors blue and green. The researchers found that when subjects were presented a series of three chips of varying shades of the two colors and were asked to identify the “most different”, Tarahamura speakers were able to identify the variable chip correctly almost every time while English speakers frequently could not.
This is because, when unsure which chip was the most divergent in color, English speakers would assume that if a chip could be called a different color (for example, if two of the chips could be called blue while the other could only be called green), then it must be further from the other two in “green-ness” or “blue-ness”, respectively. Tarahamura speakers did not have this option and therefore did not trick themselves into the wrong answer.
More effects of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can be found in anthropological and historical data. Zerzan (1987) notes that at the beginning of the Neolithic period, hunter-gatherer languages were comprised of almost half verbs. The spread of agriculture, which lead to a division of labor that hampered the freedom of people’s actions, and later industrialization, which even further inhibited individual liberty, resulted in a reduction of the amount of verbs in language to the point where today, verbs make up less than ten percent of modern English. Later, the spread of feudalism resulted in the formation of a formal second person pronoun common in many Western European languages (for example “thou” in Old English, “usted” in Spanish) as a means of expressing hierarchical social roles (Bodine, 1998).
Sexism in Language
The sexism inherent in modern English is an example of one way the dominant culture uses language to reinforce the patriarchal status quo. This is merely one example of the dominant culture’s appropriation of language and is used mainly because it is far easier to identify in the English language than are other forms of oppression such as racism, classism, ableism, or heterosexism.
Dale Spender’s Man Made Language (1998) posits that as the dominant group, men have constructed language (and therefore thought and reality) to legitimate their superiority and exploitation of women. She continues, stating that the act of naming creates meaning that allows us to view and interact with the world. However, names emerge from existing patterns of thought and are inherently biased. Therefore, when one group holds a monopoly on naming, the group enforces its biases on everyone else, including those who do not share their worldview.
Inga Muscio expands on these ideas in her influential book Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (2002). She notes how the etymology of certain words can reveal how the act of naming is undertaken primarily by men. For example “vagina” is derived from a word meaning sheath for a sword, implying that the purpose of the vagina is to house long, sharp objects (i.e. phalluses). Similarly, the terms “fuck”, “screw”, and “lay” all describe heterosexual sex as something men do to women. (Ehrlich and King, 1998)

Muscio then discusses the terms “cunt”, “bitch”, and “whore”. While these words are now considered highly offensive and derogatory, they are derived from words that were used as titles of respect for women in their respective cultures of origin. However, in a patriarchal culture such as our own, words once used to revere and honor women take on negative connotations.
While the connotations of the above examples gradually changed over time, the term “Ms.”, as Ehrlich and King (1998) demonstrate, is an example of an artificially created word whose intended meaning was immediately rejected by the dominant culture. The term was introduced by feminists in the 1970’s as a title for women parallel to “Mr.”, that is, one that designated gender but not marital status.
However, the corporate media essentially refused to acknowledge this attempt at female empowerment. Associated Press style guides instructed that “Ms.” be used only “if known to be the preference of individual women”. When the term was used, it was followed by indications of “Miss” or “Mrs.”, thereby undermining the title’s marital ambiguity. Still other times “Ms.” was used for divorced women. Thus the meaning of a term created to undermine the sexist double standard that women must be identified by their marital status, was intentionally altered and skewed, reinforcing the prevalence of sexist language.

Bodine (1998) notes another example of the deliberate enforcement of sexist language: the use of “he” in English as a sex-indefinite pronoun as opposed to “they”, “she or he”, or “he or she”. These non-sexist alternatives are often considered improper and “clumsy” and many grammar textbooks consequently advise against their use. However, number-indefinite terms such as “one or more” and “persons or persons” are widely accepted despite the fact that the two situations are linguistically analogous.

Thus the use of “he” instead of “they”, “she or he”, or “he or she” is not only androcentric, assuming that people are males until proven otherwise, but entirely illogical. Its preference by grammarians then, can only be attributed to sexist language reforms such as the following, which, in the 17th Century declared: “Relative shall agree in gender with the antecedent of the more worthy gender… The masculine gender is more worthy than the feminine.” (Poole, 1646 qtd. in Bodine). Not stopping there, grammarians pushed for an act of British Parliament, which in 1850 legally replaced “he or she” with “he”.

Often, by looking beyond the meaning of words, one can find sexism embedded in the syntax of a text. The following example is from the London tabloid, Daily Telegraph: “A man who suffered head injuries when attacked by two men who broke into his home… was pinned down on the bed by intruders who took it in turns to rape his wife.” (qtd. in Cameron, 1998).

The man is the grammatical subject of the main clause as well as the subject of the verbs “suffered”, and “was forced”. The woman, who is referred to as “his wife”, is mentioned in a dependent clause and is third in grammatical importance behind the man’s head injuries and the violation of “his home” (Cameron, 1998 emphasis added). Thus the rape is presented as a crime against the woman’s husband, rather than the woman herself (ibid.).
Newspeak, Doublespeak, and Propaganda
George Orwell (1949), in his seminal dystopian novel 1984 introduces the concept of newspeak. In the novel, newspeak is a language reform project undertaken by a totalitarian government whose goal is to so grossly simplify the vocabulary and grammar of the English language (referred to as “oldspeak”) that “thoughtcrime”, or any thought that goes against the formal policy of the dominant (and only) political party, will be, quite literally, impossible.

While 1984 is a work of fiction, newspeak is quite real and enjoys regular usage by government officials, the corporate media, and everyday people alike. As Orwell himself notes in his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946), words such as freedom, democracy, communism, patriotic, justice, etc. are so often used with the intent to deceive, that they have become altogether meaningless.
Political language, he continues, must be vague and ambiguous so that those in power can engage in discourse without calling attention to atrocities such as war and the exploitation of the working class, which would encourage dissent and subversive thought. Therefore villages are not bombed, but pacified. There are no prisoners of war, only “detainees”, who are not tortured but subjected to “interrogation techniques” (sourcewatch.org). Countries are not invaded; they are liberated (ibid.).
Such bastardiazations of language, whether referred to as newspeak or doublespeak (a term coined in the early 1950’s that is often falsely attributed to Orwell), are so rampant and widespread it would take several volumes to catalogue them all. One particularly insulting example however, is the use of the term “Anti-Iraq forces” to describe Iraqi opposition to the imperialist occupation of their country (De Rooji, 2004). The sheer arrogance of this term suggests U.S. and British troops represent the country they are occupying, and therefore Iraqis who resist them must be “Anti-Iraq” (ibid.).
Even more insulting is the term “Evidence-free” which the former head of the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group (which searched for WMD’s and links to terrorism) used to describe Dick Cheney’s assertion that Saddam had long standing ties with Al Qaeda (ibid.).
However, as Chomsky writes (1986), Orwell did not anticipate the subtle effectiveness of so-called “democratic” states in controlling the thoughts of its citizens. One can easily identify the propaganda of totalitarian states as it is dispersed by a government-run department of information and it espouses a single, official party line. “Democratic” states are much more subtle in their mind-control techniques as media is disseminated by various privatized corporations from which the citizen can choose.
He then points out that rather than a single official position to which the citizen must adhere (or suffer violent repercussions), a series of alternatives (usually two) are presented. An example of this is the “hawks” and the “doves” during the Vietnam War. The hawks argued that with sufficient use of military force, the state’s military objectives in Vietnam could be achieved. The doves disagreed, arguing that military victory was impossible, however desirable it may have been. Both positions are completely acceptable by the state and serve to distract the general public from the unacceptable and dissenting position that regardless of whether or not the war could be won, the occupation of Vietnam was immoral. This pattern is often repeated in mainstream discourse, most notoriously in the false dichotomy of Democrats vs. Republicans.
Implications
What then, is the relevance of this to everyday life? For one, simply being conscious of language and how it is used is a necessary step in the reclaiming of language from those who, consciously or subconsciously, use it to oppress. Truly radical and subversive thought can only exist when attempts by groups in power to impose their metaphors of interpreting reality on others are exposed and rejected.
By reforming the symbols used to describe and interpret the world, oppressive ways of thinking can be unlearned (Ehrlich and King, 1998). While this includes removing terms such as “gay” or “fag” to describe a person with qualities judged as undesirable, it goes beyond “political correctness” which is often used to pacify oppressed groups (an example of this is the implementation of “non-sexist” languages in workplaces in which women continue to receive lower wages than men) (Cameron, 1998).
True language reform, if it is to occur, must be part of a larger social movement and will require more than replacing “sexist” terms with “non-sexist” terms (Cameron, 1998). In short, when language is reclaimed from one’s oppressors, it can be used to define and interpret the world on one’s own terms and to create a reality that espouses values deemed important by the individual as opposed to those championed by a dominant party or class.

Works Cited

Biever, Celeste.
“Language May Shape Human Thought”. 19 August 2004. 19 November 2007. < http://www. newscientist.com/article/dn6303. html>

Bodine, Ann.
“Androcentrism in Perspective Grammar: Singular ‘They’, Sex-Indefinite ‘He’, and ‘He or She’”. Feminist Critique of Language. 2nd ed. Ed. Deborah Cameron. London and New York” Routledge, 1998. 124-138.

Cameron, Deborah.
“Introduction: Why is Language a Feminist Issue?”. Feminist Critique of Language. 2nd ed. Ed. Deborah Cameron. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. 1-21.

Chomsky, Noam
Knowledge of Language: It’s Nature, Origin, and Use. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1986. 276-287.

De Rooij, Paul
“Glossary of the Iraqi Occupation”. 30 August 2004. 11 December 2007. <http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/DeRooij0429.htm>

Ehrlich, Susan and King, Ruth.
“Gender-Based Language Reform and Social Construction of Meaning”. Feminist Critique of Language. 2nd ed. Ed. Deborah Cameron. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. 164-179.

Kay, Paul and Kempton, Willett.
“What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis”. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 1. (Mar., 1984), pp. 65-79.

Muscio, Inga.
Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. New York: Seal Press, 2002. 3-11.

Orwell, George
1984. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1949.

Orwell, George
“Politics and the English Language”. 24 July 2004. 19 November 2007. <http://www.orwell.ru/library/ essays/politics/english/e_polit>

sourcewatch.org
“Doublespeak”. 13 November 2007. 11 December 2007. <http://source watch.org/index.php?title=Doublespeak>

Spender, Dale.
“Extracts from Man Made Language”. Feminist Critique of Language. 2nd ed. Ed. Deborah Cameron. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. 93-99.

Whorf, Benjamin L.
“The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language”. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Ed. John B. Carroll. The Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1956. 134-159.

Zerzan, John.
Elements of Refusal. Columbia, Missouri: C.A.L. Press, 1988. 31-44.

Take the Streets and Ransack the Dumpsters with Food Not Bombs!

Lately, I've seen many Food Not Bombs volunteers that are ignorant as to what the organization, made up of grassroots, autonomous groups throughout the world, is really all about. Without judgment, I offer the following clarifications.
To start, here is the chorus and last verse to the Food Not Bombs song, which can be found on the Internet:

Food! Not Bombs!
We're gonna take the streets and ransack the dumpsters!
Food! Not Bombs!
We're gonna tie you to a table and feed your face,
With Food! Not Bombs!
'Cause those guns and 'nukes cause indigestion.
Food! Not Bombs!
We're gonna fill up all the tummies in the human race!

You've gotta fight the corporations every inch of the mile,
From the factors of production to the produce aisle!
Uproot the crops and burn the tractor!
Monkey-wrench the trash compactor!
Shop-lift in the supermarket chain!
Every dollar that they profit is your people's pain,
But every nickel that you save on your criminal spree,
Is gonna help you build your local mom and pop economy!
Tear up their toxic parking lots,
And replace them with some all-organic garden plots!
And go: Food! Not Bombs!

FNB is radical. Food Not Bombs is not a soup kitchen, nor is it about feeding the homeless. FNB groups don't have to go out of their way to find homeless people to feed. FNB serves to call attention to the military-industrial complex, and the fact that people in the wealthiest nation in the world are starving while their government builds and detonates bombs – hence the name.
Traditionally, the best way to call attention to these issues is to go into a public place (such as a park) and share food with anyone who might be hungry at that time. Just being visible with the notion of Food Not Bombs is the main goal. Having a regular schedule will ensure those that really need to eat know where to go.
In addition, the food we serve should either be dumpstered or donated – preferably dumpstered. The purpose is to use food that would have otherwise been thrown out – a good lesson in the waste of this country; while people are hungry, good food goes in the trash.
With crackdowns on Food Not Bombs groups throughout the United States [most recently in Prescott] and elsewhere – particularly in Nevada and Florida, volunteers should know how to deal with the police, and be willing to get arrested. The important thing is not to relinquish your public space and to keep the schedule as regular as possible.
If you suspect a police crackdown during an FNB food-sharing day, send a few people with a small amount of food (in containers you don't mind getting seized or damaged) to your serving location. Once those members have been arrested and taken away, send another group. Repeat the process until the police give up for the day, and you can serve anyone who has yet to eat. In the Food Not Bombs book, Keith McHenry (an FNB founder) says he has not heard of more than three small groups taken away before the police give up.
FNB is vegan. Dairy is to be used as a last resort. Incorporate it if you received a large donation, but overwhelmingly, Food Not Bombs is vegan. This is to maintain its reputation as a place where all can eat – this is universal among the Food Not Bombs groups. Vegan dishes should be available each serving day.
FNB is not a network for social services. The notion of Food Not Bombs is that of a basic failing of our government to provide for its citizens. We shouldn't be quick to recommend the services of a government that doesn't care about its people, or church groups with dubious histories of actual help. The idea of Food Not Bombs should encourage people to build their own networks of mutual aid and support to move us away from government dependence and toward people helping and governing themselves, without the need of government.
Lastly, one particularly important function of Food Not Bombs that often gets overlooked is solidarity with other radical groups and struggles. FNB should be serving at demonstrations, to strikers, and others, so that these activities can continue much longer than if the participants had to go off-site to find food.
Of course, as an individual you can do any of the things mentioned here – serving meat, sharing services, etc. – but it is out of the scope of a Food Not Bombs group and should not be attributed to us.

Charles Imboden has been involved with Food Not Bombs since 2005 and is a veteran of the Food Not Bombs crackdown in Las Vegas from 2006-2007. He is currently compiling an archive of anarchist-communist thought which can be found at: http://archive.thenuclearsummer.com/kropotkin.html and currently resides in the Phoenix, AZ metropolitan area.

Orange Juice for All
“Drink juice and smash the state – now that's the real thing!” - David Rovics

Watching Fast Food Nation, our sick cycle of blind consumerism was again apparent. Without a thought as to how this cycle is sustained, we ignorantly live out our lives. Blind too are we to the misery each of us are in – until one day waking up with an unexplained emptiness inside.
This Matrix-like world-within-a-world – smiling faces selling cheap, clean products without a thought about who or what has been exploited or murdered to grease the gears of this machine – really does exist, is all around us, and does everything to perpetuate itself, unnoticed. Not necessarily is that world manufactured or designed – like the planchette of a Ouija board, no one and everyone moves it, though absolutely there are those more aware and guiding.
In our present society, the molding hands belong to chiefs – be it Executive Officer or “Commander and” – setting the rules, making the laws, and selling us our emotions, identities, and ways of life. We have been fed this line since birth – is there any wonder that we do not see, let alone question? Awaken now, to the world of the real!

--#--

Walking to the convenience store with my partner at night – forced to patronize Circle K due to lack of independent alternatives and decent transportation – I pull the $2.00 from my pocket. Thirsty, I know I am going to have to buy a gallon of Tampico for $1.59 (plus tax). I would prefer juice, but cannot remember when last I could afford it.
Of course, I could purchase a tiny juice or soda, but with as much as I drink, being vegan, and trying to eat healthy, Tampico is really the only option. No, Tampico is not healthy, but at least is not carbonated.
Just my luck: there is no Tampico, but the name-brand equivalent, Sunny D, is the same price – albeit for half as much.
My partner and I spend the remaining change on a gallon of water. To pay for water – the insanity! Only being able to afford an artificially flavored representation of juice is worse. To borrow from Dave Chappelle: orange drink, not orange juice. Who really knows what “neotame,” “sodium hexametaphosphate,” or “yellow #5” is, anyway? Definitely not the average consumer. I am sick of having to Wiki the mile long ingredient list of everything I buy and never getting a straight answer!
As in the scene in Fast Food Nation where they manufacture the smell and taste of their burgers – we have degraded or expended everything in society, and can settle now only for substandard representations. How many millions of research dollars were spent to make Sunny D approximate the taste of an orange?! And Sunny D always leaves my mouth tingling suspiciously...
The juice that I buy is not organic, on the rare occasion I can afford to buy juice. I definitely cannot afford organic. What I have to settle for is most likely pesticide-laden and genetically modified, grown in countries where pesticides outlawed in the United States are still legal; where the rights of humans are dubious, let alone workers; that has been shipped thousands of miles to finally end up at some corporate mega-mart.
We still call this god-forsaken capital of “western civilization” the land of the free, yet I am not free enough to choose to drink juice from a real orange. I do not make enough money, and I am of white, male privilege. What of the migrant workers, women, workers of color, and millions of others “below” me in this racist, sexist, society?
Every time I buy anything, I buy into the blood-profit system, and there is nothing I can do about it. “All money is blood money,” rings true indeed, when looking at the origin and destination of our funds. One could modify it to read, “All labor is blood labor!”
This fast food nation is no way of life! End this capitalist system! End the profit from hunger! End the exploitation of animals, of workers, of ourselves! I say, orange juice for all!

--#--

Charles Imboden opposes profit from hunger and argues that food should be free for all that are hungry. He is currently compiling an archive of anarchist-communist thought which can be found at: http://archive.thenuclearsummer.com/kropotkin.html and currently resides in the Phoenix, AZ metropolitan area.

Checkerboard Souls:

Reckless abandoner – tell me of your dreams
Reckless abandoner – tell me of the scenes
you've seen behind this world known as
Reality.

Reckless abandoner – why did you leave
Reckless abandoner – confide in me
the reason none of us
was good enough – for you to stay here
Was it fear? (I'm afraid)

Reckless abandoner – I will not let you sleep
Reckless abandoner – forgiveness is not me
I will not be content

with all the disconnected lives
discontented worlds
souls, afloat

We've all abandoned.
The ship is sinking out alone at sea.
the captain has already been thrown to the sharks.
Not allowed to die at the wheel,
despite the cries of appeal.
We can not heal!

Reckless abandoner – a name I carry with me
Reckless abandoner – look at you and I see.

Me.

Mother:

I see, I see the sun around me,
wind blowing behind me;
the ground is creeping up myd feet.
Can you feel her heart beat?

There's her oceans, ovaries,
she's made of life that big men on big boats will never see.
But I close my eyes and she sees me,
tells me of how things are,
not what every man thinks,

but what is. What is is only what's there.
She will tell you if you listen- listen with you ears,
standing at the edge of deserts' piers,
eyes wide. Sing with the wind,
feel the sand and the sun and she will tell you.

Taste her Freedom.

Rain:

Do you know what it means when the water currents move moss?
Like mothers finger falling down your back,
rain drops clack clacking on the roof,
sipping on teacups of poisoned air.

Never drink the rainwater darling,
it soaks up all our evil on the way down.

And the tree shaking in the wind,
he'll tell you something of your future
if you know how to tune your ears to the scriptures of nature.
Dribbling thick ink that patters off in dots.

Never drink the rainwater darling,
it's carrying messages from Sky to Earth.

Do you worry about the spots it leaves;
what it will say about you;
what if your neighbors can read the dotty spots;
and your the illiterate little boy?!

Drip droppy rain is telling all tonight
and cloudy twilight will have your dark thoughts.

Never drink the rainwater darling -
I drank the rainwater!

I swallowed the messages from sky
and in my head are all your water spots,
but all of me comes to light in the flood bed.

I am free.