Sunday, October 22, 2006

Documentary on Salvador Allende/Rice Media Center

I love the Rice Media Center; I loved it as a student, I love it as a Houston-area resident. They always bring such consistently high-quality cultural offerings to this city, as does MFAH.

Last night I saw a moving documentary on the life and tragic death of Salvador Allende, the former President of Chile, before the Military Coup'd'Etat (materially assisted at some level by the Central Intelligence Agency) which ended his presidency, his life, and Chilean democracy for a couple of generations and installed the brutal fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. It was a very moving film, but also very sad. Here was a man, a medical doctor by training, a truly decent human being, a self-described militant socialist, yes, but almost Gandhi-like in his demeanor. In truth he was a classic Fabian (Utopian) Socialist, who believed Socialism can be voted in at the ballot box. As he is described in the narrative of Guzman's documentary of him, he strikes me as a man who was a pure idealist, who really did believe in the power of ideas, that the pen was mightier than the sword, that the upper classes would lay down their opposition because he could out debate them. He insisted always on the pacifist's path, to a fault.

Douglas MacArthur is reputed to have said "whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword never had to contend with automatic weapons"; and that is the lesson Allende learned tragically too late. He would also have done well to remember Mao Tse Tung's dictum about political power flowing out of the barrel of a gun. Allende seemed to like to give aggressive, determinedly militant speeches. The US State Department claims Allende was a deep admirer of Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse-Tung, and of course every US nationalist's favorite bete noir in Latin America, Fidel Castro. He did invite Castro to Chile, which scandalized and mobilized the Right wing in Chile in reaction. And some of the recorded speeches Guzman assembled for his film seem very determined and defiant. But Guzman himself catches the kernel of the problem by noting that Castro himself once told Allende that he would need to break the army and sieze it as his own instrument (a lesson not lost on Hugo Chavez today, by the way, who rose up through the ranks of Venezuela's military). He failed to do so, in the same way the Social Democrats in 1918 left the Junker-dominated military in place after the Armistice (and sickeningly relied on right-wing paramilitaries like the Freikorps to do their dirty work against their rivals in the German Communist movements--but that's another story). The only reason Lenin's revolutionary movement succeeded is because the Tsar's army was itself broken and disillusioned by World War 1, and when Kerensky ordered them back to the trenches, back to the front, the Bolshevik promise of "Bread and Peace" became unstoppable. Enough of the Tsar's common soldiers went over to the Reds, bringing their valuable military equipment with them.

My point is, if you're going to talk the talk, like Allende clearly relished in doing--and man o man did he have the popular support of the masses, too...you've got to be willing and able to walk the walk as Mao, Ho, Fidel, Lenin, et. al. did. Allende surely remembered the fate of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954...or Mossadegh in Iran. But because his movement was not sufficiently armed and militant, it was doomed when the forces of reaction began their backlash and asserted their traditional class power.

Michael Parenti offers an excellent analysis of the problem of a path like Allende's by noting, with analogues also to the situation around John F. Kennedy...that actually there are 2 centers of power in most countries today...there is the formal, civil, elected government that is (or is supposed to be) relatively open, transparent, democratic, etc. But there is also the vast National Security State, with men and women in appointed, largely unaccountable positions...it is comprised of the nation's armed forces and its intelligence agencies and national police forces and the agencies, corporations, and private interests that nurture and support them and often provide the leadership for. As one prominent investigative journalist has demonstrated, the CIA is Wallstreet, and Wallstreet is the CIA. The same people, in the same small circles, all defending their mutual class interest(s) around the world. These are people who live off of trust funds and use their modest government salary as purely discretionary income. They are the sort of people, both in this country and in their proxies abroad drawn from the elites of third world nations, who support brutal men like Agusto Pinochet, and see to it that men like Salvador Allende meet with an early grave. Allende seized the reins of power of the formal civil government, but learned too late that the real power was in the internal Chilean National Security State, where Pinochet had his base.

Although careless right-wingers might (mis-)label me an "extremist liberal", in fact I'm a radical populist, a socialist with anarchist leanings. Allende could've taken a page from Patrick Henry who rightly insisted "that every man be armed". Although I don't deny the Leftist lable, I'm intelligent enough to know that the Right-Left dichotomy is often chimerical and illusory, and that the real struggle is actually Top versus Bottom, and this does NOT always neatly map the same territory as Right versus Left....lot of overlap? Sure there is--but it's not a perfect overlay, which means there are a few right-wing populists running around that I may actually have more respect for than some centrist and more mainstream "limousine liberals" who mostly focus on "cultural" issues and obfuscate or just plain ignore true class realities and honest class struggle. Michael Parenti has written in a very general way that any Third world leader who starts a socialist revolution will have to beef up his military almost immediately to prepare for the inevitable capitalist backlash and counter-revolution. Nice, inoffensive Fabian Social Democracy might not be possible right away because of these inherent dangers...Allende was right in that genuine democracy IS a road to socialism, but that's why genuine democracy is usually attacked and subverted by ruling classes the world over whenever possible. De Toqueville records the opinions of American oligarchs who privately express their genuine distaste for American democracy at bottom. Point is, they still feel that way...and some of them ever more openly than before. Did you know there was actually a plot to remove FDR from office by possible military coup? The problem is, the conspirators approached a man with far more integrity than they realized and who knew very well that he had been, in his distinguished military career, a "gangster for capitalism"---I speak of none other than General Smedly Butler, author of War is a Racket whose message is as poignant now as then. He would not work with the plotters.

Does Patricio Guzman's Salvador Allende have any lessons for our present moment? Of course it does. But they are not lessons many Norteamericanos either want to hear or learn from or even acknowledge in their own hearts, and so it goes. I'm not talking about US complicity in the Chilean coup, that much is obvious. I'm talking about the lesson of the reaction of the Chilean people to the destruction of their precious democracy by the brutal fascist regime of Agusto Pinochet. I'm not so sure it would be comfortable for many Norteamericanos to walk around in the shoes of Chileans from that generation. There are some important words to know in Spanish if you wish to count yourself as remotely politically aware about what goes on in the world, words like "los deceparicidos", "guerra sucia", "golpe militar". Guzman's film is a documentary, but I can also point to a fictional film, based on real life, that could be set in very nearly any Latin American country (which is why the country goes unnamed in the film); I refer, of course, to the film Hombres Con Armas , "Men with Guns". Also still painfully, ever relevant, Eduard Galeano's classic book Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina , the "Open Veins of Latin America". The United States, with ever increasing gulfs between the super-rich and the rest of us, is structurally becoming ever more like the stereotypical Latin American government(s) that snobbish (and ingnorant) Norteamericanos used to feel vastly superior to. Return of the Repressed? Baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Ben Franklin was once asked by an esteemed lady what sort of government he hoped for America. His reply was "a Republic, madam, if you can keep it." He did not mean a "Banana Republic", either.

WTF? or Pleasantly Surprised!

I have resumed my jobsearch in earnest, and the feedback has been astonishing...I've been called back and conducted telephone interviews already twice now within less than a month of starting my jobsearch...Guess the old showbiz cliche about "no bad publicity" is also partly true about "library experience"...professional library experience is still experience, even if you f*cked up in your last job. Actually the f*ck up in my last job really was just as much my clueless, ditzy director's fault as it was my own, but anyway. I'm serious, though, I NEVER expected the 2nd time on the job search path to be like this...suddenly I'm like a hot commodity or something where fresh out of library school it was a pretty tough sell. I'm getting called back by mid-sized universities...all of them bigger than TAMUG, thank goodness. I got called by one just north of Houston (cataloging) , one in extreme South Texas affiliated with the t-sips (reference!), and now one in far northeastern Missouri (cataloging). I've interviewed for the first two by phone already, and have a phone interview for the third on Wednesday. The NE Missouri school is a premier liberal arts institution in that region and they teach A LOT of foreign languages there, which means I might actually get to deal with German and other Foreign Language Monographs quite a lot more than I ever would've anywhere else so far. I'm really hopeful about this one. Maybe a chance to really learn Cataloging properly, the way it's supposed to be learned/done, e.g. hands on with a mentor always at hand, working with subject matter I truly love. They just may make a decent cataloger out of me yet. Wish me luck.

I felt strangely ambivalent about the position in South Texas, mostly because I don't know much about South Texas or what it would be like to live there. My gut reaction was negative, then looking at photos on flickr of the town, its environs, etc, reinforced some of that negativity. But then looking at their book holdings, and their curriculum...I felt a little better--and at least it would be a Reference job, which despite my best efforts at Cataloging, is probably still my forte in the long run. The phone interview went alright, but I know it was rougher and less prepared sounding that I probably would've liked. I had really just applied to the position on a lark, I didn't seriously believe they'd actually call me back...and so I guess I was caught a little of guard when they actually did. Another thing I like, I happen to know the Socialist Party of Texas (such as it is) is active down in the Rio Grande Valley (I get their emails), so it would be something I could hook up with if I felt like it. Reynosa, Mexico, is the nearest town across the border from where I'd probably move to if this t-sip library actually did make an offer and I accepted...and I would accept, no bones about it. I had my reservations before the interview, but now that I've had more time to think about it, absolutely I'd go to South Texas, no matter what, if they promised me a decent professional library job at a fair salary. I'm single, no girlfriend, no kids, no car payments, no mortgage payments--I'm free as a bird--Have MLS, Will Travel, baby. I could always fly in and out of Harlingen, TX on Southwest Airlines if I got homesick for Houston. Besides, they do teach French at this place, and the Rio Grande Valley has an organisation simliar to Alliance Francais, promoting French language and culture. Vive la difference, vive la France!!

The other library just north of Houston would be alright, too. It's a decent sized college, again better than my last one. I'd not plan on staying there long term, mind you, but it would be another good place to pick up experience, even if the materials I'd be cataloging weren't nearly so interesting as the potential items I might get to work with in Missouri. Although I'm familiar with Missouri, and my parents are both from there, neither one of them has been to this particular part of extreme Northeast Missouri...it's further North than St. Louis...quite a bit further North, in fact. Snow would be a definite reality every winter up there. It'd be a real test whether or not I really do like more northern climates like I say I do. But I do know that at least as far as weather goes, I definitely preferred Denton, Tx, where I went most of my time in library school, to my (semi-)native Houston. People are a different question, but I liked Denton, with its cooler fall temperatures, prettier leaves, and guaranteeed at least 1 or 2 perfect "snow days"...just enough to be beautiful without being annoying.

This part of Missouri is a small college town....rural, yes, but also seat of a major (if small) state university focused on liberal arts. It would be reminiscent of College Station. It's depressingly saturated with churches, of course, and not a UU congregation among them, either. And good ol' St. Louis, with the fabulous Saint Louis Rationalist Society, is over 100 miles away, much much further away than Mineral Area College would have been (one of the schools I actually did a face-to-face interview with but didn't get the job). Still, the town...or at least the campus, sounds like it would be an oasis of liberal-minded thinking in an otherwise more conservative area. The University itself sounds very cool and I like the way they organize their curriculm, especially for foreign languages. I mean WOW, they have RUSSIAN! In Missouri!! Amazing. As much as I'd like to pick up French, maintaining and building on my Russian skills would be even better.

October in Houston has been an amazing month for cultural stimulation...so many great films recently, both at Rice Media Center and MFAH; I've been so caught up in things I actually missed one of the ones I was dying to see, the new Jan Svankmajer film Lunacy (Sileni). At least I got to see the pair of American animators who draw their greatest inspiration from this Czech master, namely the Brothers Quay, who contributed heavily to the new film The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes...a poetic science fantasy horror-suspense art film, kind of. You just have to see it, there's no adequate label for it. It's strange, it's fun, it's classic Brothers Quay expanded to feature length movie making, much the same way Svankmajer broke new ground with his retelling of FAUST, etc, after doing animated shorts for many years.

Last night I caught a documentary in Spanish on the life and death of Salvador Allende, former President of Chile. I'll post more at length later; it was a powerful film, but deeply saddening.

Aside from the flooding rains of last week, we have had a couple of cold fronts lately in Houston that have given us some wonderful and genuinely Fall weather. It doesn't last, of course, but it's nice when it happens. Makes me get out and walk more...I love the smell in the air when the air is cool and crisp. Love wearing sweatshirts and jeans...wish it was like this a whole lot more often, y'know?

That's it for now for the Aggie Librarian; I'm just pleased as a peach to get so many phone interviews so quickly this time around...makes me hopeful I'll be getting back in the game a whole lot sooner than I expected. I was anticipating a tough slog, but I'll take a quick, decisive victory if it's within my grasp!

All's Well that Ends Well

Happy Ending to my quest to get books on Cowboy Action Shooting into Fort Bend County Libraries:


-----Original Message-----
From: AskALibrarian
Sent: Fri, September 22, 2006 8:28 AM
To: (AggieLibrarian)
Subject: Library Question - Answer [Question #XXXXXX]

Dear Mr. (Aggie Librarian)
Thank you for your suggestions.
I have found a book on the subject in which you are interested that is available through our vendors. The book is "Cowboy Action Shooting," by Hunter Scott Anderson. I will place this title on our next order list.
We appreciate your input as the library system is always interested in patron recommendations. If you have further questions, you may e-mail me, or you may telephone the Reference desk at 281-XXX-XXXX.
I hope this information is helpful.

(another Helpful Librarian)
Fort Bend County Libraries
somebody[at]fortbend.lib.tx.us

-----------------------
Question History:
Patron: -----Original Message-----
From: Aggie Librarian
Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 1:30 PM
To: (original librarian)
Subject: RE2: Cowboy action shooting
Importance: Low

Are there any books on this particular SUBJECT available from your vendors?

The Aggie Librarian, MA, MLS
Alumnus, 200X
School of Library & Information Sciences
University of North Texas
Personal Email: TheAggieLibrarian[at]myisp.com
Resume/CV Page: http://people.unt.edu/.... (snip)

(sometimes doesn't hurt to show a little Library cred...)

The upshot was, I was persistent without going all Saklad on their *sses. ;-) An equitable solution was reached, and the library found books at least on the subject I wanted, if not the specific book I was after. I'm sometimes pretty hit or miss with Public Libraries and my suggestions...sometimes the things I request are declined because they're too advanced, e.g. better suited for an academic library. Sometimes the sources are too old, reportedly, even though I think the topic is timeless and the book in question is still the best book out there dealing with the subject matter. Anyway, I guess the lesson here is, if the library's vendor can't get you the specific book you want, but you'd be satisfied with ANYTHING else on the topic, it doesn't hurt to ask. They just might come through for you, like they did with me.