Who Killed 'the Movement'?

How do movements die? And who is responsible for their death? This is my adaptation of Nietzsche's fable in The Gay Science of the madman who announces the death of God, curiously reinterpreted as a declaration of the death of 'the movement'.

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the agora, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for The Movement! I am looking for The Movement!"

As many of those who did not believe in The Movement were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. "Have you lost it, then?" said one. "Did it lose its way like a child?" said another. Or is it hiding? Is it afraid of us? Has it gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"Where has The Movement gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed it - you and I. We are its murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying The Movement? Do we not smell anything yet of The Movement's decomposition? Movements too decompose. The Movement is dead. The Movement remains dead. And we have killed it. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? The greatest Movement of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become world-movers simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed The Movement shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still traveling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."

It has been further related that on that same day the madman went to The Movement's origin and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these spaces now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of The Movement?"

Union Busters

TACOMA - on Thursday February 21st, 2008 a picket line was staged at the Port of Tacoma APM terminal to push the administration of Maersk, the largest ship supply vessel in the world with its North American headquarters in Tacoma, and Securitas, its contracted security department, to free its workers from strict union controls which led to a union organizer's firing earlier in the month.

Watch the video about the November picket line here:

"Eminent Domain" or "Police Power"?

I've dug up an old case on the issue of property law and decided to digest it.

In 1922 a landmark case helped form the justice department's opinions about eminent domain. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who delivered the opinion of the court, said that in certain situations, according the contracts of law, one must yield to the police power of the state. "Police power" in the sense that Holmes is using it refers to the "regulatory taking" of property through contracts that are facilitated by the government. This is different from eminent domain since that kind of regulatory taking requires compensation by the government. Police power does not. Government can proclaim contracts between private parties invalid if they are damaging to the public interest.

The case in point, Mahon v. Pennsylvania Coal Company, appears to be justified in its reasoning. Mahon had purchased surface rights to a parcel of land, which he inhabited. The Coal Company later wished to mine for coal under Mahon's property, and later, under Pennsylvania law (i.e. the Kohler Act) mining that could potentially cause damage to human habitation was forbidden. Mahon plead to the court to disallow the coal company from mining under his property, and the Supreme Court reversed earlier decisions and upheld the principle of regulatory taking.

Facilitating property rights and disputes is perhaps one of the few good uses of government. In Mahon v. Pennsylvania Coal Company, the court merely facilitated a misunderstanding between contracting parties as to what limitations a "surface right" had implied within it. Significant diminution of property value or damage to human habitation, Holmes said, is a right that surface owners have regardless of the explicit terms of contracts. With the development of new technologies and new sources of property use, which require constant revision of contract law, agreements which did not contemplate future uses need to be arbitrated by a court system in the event of a dispute.

The court refers to this sort of "regulatory taking" as police power, and yet it is later used to justify eminent domain, which is the government's active taking of property in order to fund public developments. This I don't understand. Since states have the power to arbitrate property disputes, it does not follow that they have the power to arbitrate property usage altogether. It puts states on a slippery slope towards complete control of land properties. In forming the opinion of the court, it is difficult to see how the justices could have reasoned that, since there is one legitimate use of government power, that there are further uses of that power which extend beyond mere arbitration and into the realm of annexation.

"Reality Check"

Son of Nun, the underground hip hop artist in this video, is based out of Seattle but frequents venues in the South Puget Sound. I recorded this in Tacoma.

Détournement Gallery

Welcome to the Gallery of Détournement! Below you will find some links to radical or revolutionary and iconic favorites détourned into consumer artifacts. The gallery will be updated as I come across more cultural items of interest. After exhibit C I decided that all the artifacts had to be ones I came across myself instead of ones I found online.

And now, the exhibits!

Exhibit A) Career-Girl Barbie.
Exhibit B) Barbie learns to cook.
Exhibit C) The anarchist action figure.
Exhibit D) Anarchy-scented perfume.
Exhibit E) The iPod vending machine.
Exhibit F) Revolutionary Jack-in-the-Box restaurant.
Exhibit G) Communist Cookie Cutters.
Exhibit H) Macy's Fashionista Détournement.

Exhibit D: "Anarchy Perfume"

I found this in a Tacoma sex shop. My friend and I both agree there is something musty about this iconic détournement. The tagline is "the rules have changed".