Brian Kim Stefans: Circulars, what's new

[Here's an email I sent out to everyone on my address book -- probably sounds bit self-congratulatry, but there are a lot of people working on this site now, in different ways. Alas, I do little actual writing for this site, and it gives some idea of where I think it's going.]

CIRCULARS has become a pretty distinctive mixture of writings by poets and artists (including satires, leaflets, and the "Mirakove Relays"), report activities (including news of arrests), links to political humor sites, a repository for articles covering things you won't hear about in the news (including government leaks and floor speeches), and some lively debate pro and con (look at the comments bar). Thanks to all of the editors, writers and hecklers who have contributed so far!

We were also recently written about in an article in the Village Voice. The article prompted over 5,000 hits over the past 4 days -- 1300 on Thursday alone.

One can question what a site like CIRCULARS or any indy media site does to stop the march toward war -- I do myself -- but there is no doubt that a lot of information and opinion has moved through the internet consolidating public anti-war sentiment in a way that is not happening on television, and that the web can spark new ways of imagining and enacting protest -- of creating a culture with its own points of focus, senses of humor, etc. -- that couldn't have happened 20 years ago. As many people are reading indy-media sites online, and what flies into their inboxes, as are reading the New York Times, and they are not necessarily radicals "in the know," with the right subscriptions and contacts.

I still hope that something some poet writes for CIRCULARS or any site, like Poets Against The War, becomes as addictive as the Senator Byrd speech has been for those with email trigger fingers -- "forcing the hand of chance," as they used to say. If I can be faulted for thinking of this as a media war leading up to the "real thing," I think it's an ok mistake to make -- I think of the entire Homeland Security Department as a multi-media department, lodging their camouflaged, gun-toting performance artists in the NYC subways at their will, and without petitioning for handouts. This all seems so incredibly shameful and insulting to me; I hope they keep doing it if only to embarrass themselves further.

Perhaps we can bring it to a point where we can organize worldwide protests EVERY WEEK -- sounds ridiculous of course, but not impossible. But I, personally, think the protests made a difference, if not in the US then to the people the US will have to talk to for airspace, foot soldiers, or even a sympathetic chat on the phone (or in the headlines). This one feel good moment is not enough, and people seem willing to spend a few hours walking in the same street.

Other site news: today I'm installing a search engine!

Please pass on word of Circulars to friends of yours who might be interested, and especially to other site and listservs who might include them in a links column, blogroll, etc.

Here's a few items that have appeared recently (the first paragraph of each entry is included -- all the stories go on from there):

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Bookseller Purges Files to Avoid Potential "Patriot Act" Searches
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000209.html

In the interest of avoiding potential searches under the Patriot Act, Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vermont has already discarded the names of books bought by its readers' club, and will purge purchase records for customers if they ask. "When the CIA comes and asks what you've read because they're suspicious of you, we can't tell them because we don't have it," store co-owner Michael Katzenberg said. "That's just a basic right, to be able to read what you want without fear that somebody is looking over your shoulder to see what you're reading."

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Nick Lawrence/Jonathan Skinner
War On Iraq?
(leaflet for Teach-Ins)
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000204.html#000204

Over the past year and a half the Bush administration has put forth a variety of arguments for prosecuting a war on Iraq to unseat Saddam Hussein. Keeping up with these arguments can be confusing—partly because they keep changing. At the same time, both here and abroad, challenges to the administration's reasoning continue to mount. What follows is an attempt to break down the major areas of debate.

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Jonathan Skinner
Empire At The Brink: A Call To Action
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000203.html#000203

We stand truly at an historical juncture, with several directions mapped before us, and several more unknown. Yesterday's protests demonstrated an immense will for peace around the world, a growing sense "the people" have had enough. While immensely inspiring, the moment also calls for a clarity of mind, to assess the powers before and behind us, as well as within, and the road ahead. We must not underestimate the technological and ideological behemoth massed at the borders of Iraq and lodged in the minds of the men who command it.

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Lytle Shaw and Emilie Clark in New York
Account of the Clark/Shaw Arrest
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000202.html#000202

Many friends have asked for more details about our spending the night in jail for taping up flyers last Thursday, February '3. So we wanted to offer a description of what happened. First of all, the flyers we were putting up were images of daily life in Baghdad taken by Paul Chan. As many of you know, Chan was in Baghdad in December and January as part of the Iraq Peace Team, a project of Voices in the Wilderness. Last Thursday night about fifty people met to pick up 8.5 x ''-inch copies of Chan's photos and begin posting them around Manhattan. The goal, of course, was to particularize and humanize our soon-to-be victims.

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Mirakove Relay#2: On Patriot Act II
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000199.html#000199

CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY OBTAINS SECRET DRAFT OF PATRIOT ACT II

The nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft of a secret document called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. This document is more commonly known as the Patriot Act II, and is designed to "give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information." You can download the document here:
www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=502&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0 &L5=0

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"These Weapons of Mass Destruction Cannot Be Displayed"
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000195.html

"The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable. The country might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your weapons inspectors mandate." ... so begins this parodic 404/Not Found page (http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/) for the UN Weapons Inspectors scouring Iraq. The page also offers a variety of helpful suggestions, including "Some countries require 128 thousand troops to liberate them. Click the Panic menu and then click About US foreign policy to determine what regime they will install."

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Kasey S. Mohammad
Acknowledged Legislators: A Rant
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000194.html#000194

I sense that the poetry community is in a sensitive transitional period right now. By "the poetry community," I mean all the thousands of people who write poetry and who are increasingly more aware of each other's views and activities than historically ever before thanks largely to electronic technology. And by "sensitive" I mean simultaneously very promising of increased dialogue and cooperation, and very delicately poised on the brink of bitter conflict. It seems trivial to use such a phrase when the world is poised on the brink of a much bitterer conflict, but it is especially that larger conflict, along with poets' responses to it, that has advanced this transitional phase dramatically in the past month or so.

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Guardian Unlimited
The human shield has arrived, but what now?
Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000184.html#000184

At times it felt like hell on wheels. But the peace activists who travelled across a continent by London double-decker bus arrived at a Baghdad bomb shelter yesterday with their sense of mission just about intact. Few places in Baghdad convey the horror of war as sharply as the al-Ameriya shelter, where 400 Iraqi civilians were incinerated by US missiles during the last Gulf war.

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Senator Robert Byrd: Senate Floor Speech - Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences
Senate Floor Speech - Wednesday, February 12, 2003
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000165.html#000165

To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war. Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.

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nationalphilistine.com: Baghdad Snapshot Action goes online and worldwide
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000168.html#000168

[New York City]-- On February 13, 2003, teams of artists and activists postered New York City with thousands of copies of snapshots from Baghdad. Quiet and casual, the snapshots show a part of Baghdad we rarely see: the part with people in it. The snapshots were taken by a friend of ours who just got back from Baghdad working with the Iraq Peace Team (link below). Yes, he saw Iraqis suffering and struggling. But he also saw Iraqis dancing and laughing. This moved him because laughing under the weight of the UN sanctions and the threat of an absurd war is no easy task. We were moved because the people in the pictures remind us of our friends & family.
http://www.nationalphilistine.com/baghdad/

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Bob Perelman: Where We Are
for Kerry Sherin
http://www.arras.net/circulars/archives/000163.html#000163

We may not have chosen to live inside Dick Cheney’s mind, but we do.
Wyoming, I read somewhere, is the safest place to live in North America.
No tornados, no tsunamis, no earthquakes, no hurricanes, monsoons, cyclones, or floods. No major airport: no big planes crashing in the sleet. Not even much traffic: not too many car crashes.
But if living in Wyoming is so safe, living inside Dick Chaney’s mind, though it was formed in Wyoming and stood for Wyoming in the Senate, is not safe at all.
How do you get from Wyoming to Shock and Awe?
Getting from Love to Hate, that’s easy: Love, Live, Give, Gave, Gate, Hate.

Posted by Brian Stefans at February 21, 2003 05:06 PM