Project Steev

The World Turns, as New York Churns

As the arrest count spirals upwards in Manhattan all eyes not there, including my own, turn that way, when they're not doing whatever they need to do otherwise - working to pay september rent, trying to concentrate on other projects, trying to figure out what i'm doing with my life. Etcetera.

I'm feeling notably distanced, confused, and unempowered right now. I felt, months ago when I was deciding, as though I could not go to New York and that was okay because I could work on other things, other activist project that I've been involved in. But now I sit and stare for hours at indymedia and other sites, reading the frustratingly brief accounts of what is happening at the RNC protests and desparately looking for photos or something that will connect me more to what is going on.

Meanwhile the rest of the world continues to exist off in our peripheral vision. For example, who is now paying attention to Bolivia, where things continue to boil and bubble, as described in this Narco News article? Is a lot of alternative, independent media just as guilty as corporate media of neglecting other stories when something big and flashy is happening in one place? The global IMC site has 5 of 11 current features stories that are related to the RNC protests in New York.

But other indymedia centers continue to report what is happening in their communities. That is encouraging. We must remember that other things are happening, important things. We must also remember that the protests in NYC are not about mostly white, mostly middleclass activists from North America getting arrested and brutalized.

We must remember the original point: our country is brutalizing the rest of the world. New York is temporarily the locus and focus of this abuse, because the current leader of the Imperium is there with all his cronies. I must remember this too. It is so easy to forget, to turn and focus and exclude. It's not (just) about our friends in lockdown on Pier 57 - did we all not expect that this would happen? Did those people not go to New York expecting this? Let us support them and give them solidarity, but always remember that they are there in solidarity with the millions of others around the planet who are being crushed under the boot of the U.S.A. and global late capitalism....