On Thursday’s Radioshow: Environmental Encroachment the Magic Circus Band

Independent media comes in all forms, next to ‘zines, podcasts and blogs there are trombones, drums and batons. In parades, clubs and gatherings of all types across the US, and across the world a fresh wave of marching bands are bringing musical chaos to the streets.

Insurgent marching bands from around the globe are soon gathering in Boston for the Honk! Festival. One of those bands will be Chicago-based Environmental Encroachment. But before they head to Beantown EE is making a stop into the WNUR studios for an appearance on the mediageek radioshow.

As a Magic Circus Band, EE uses circus acrobatics, live music and costumes to create unique entertainment environments. At the same time they bring incredible marching band interpretations of classic and modern rock that you’ll never hear on a high school football field.

It’s going to be a fun and unique episode of the radioshow. You can hear it live this Thursday, Oct. 1 at 9 PM CT on WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago and online at www.wnur.org. Afterward listen to the podcast at the mediageek radioshow website.

Reboot the FCC? Better, Democratize the FCC

A week ago Prof. Larry Lessig penned a provocative little column for Newsweek that apparently was supposed to be titled “Blow Up the FCC,” but was published as “Reboot the FCC.” In essence, Lessig argues for the FCC to be done away with, replaced by an “Innovation Environment Protection Agency,” focused on curtailing monopoly power in telecommunications and staffed by professions without any industry ties.

Indeed, Lessig provoked a response across the media reform blogosphere and elsewhere. I’m a little late to the game in adding my comments (a whole week is like a decade for a blog!), but I’ve wanted to think about it for a while before firing off.

As John and I discussed on last night’s radioshow, I think replacing the FCC is problematic, primarily because I don’t trust another government agency to necessary do a better job. Why would I think an iEPA would be any better than the current EPA, which has been hamstrung under the Bush administration in a far more damaging way than the Bush FCC?

The ban on industry ties is the most interesting amongst Lessig’s proposals, though one which would also be difficult to achieve in practical terms. Nevertheless, it’s valuable for Lessig to jump-start the debate like this, regardless of the details.

What has been left out of the debate is the very fundamental notion of democracy. The left-progressive reaction to Lessig’s salvo has been along the lines of, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” or more reactionarily fearful of losing the few public interest regulations that still have teeth. The libertarian reaction has been mostly “Atta boy, but you don’t go far enough!” Unfortunately it gets boiled down to regulation vs. deregulation or government vs. no government.

What it really should be is public accountability vs. industry solidarity. For all of its flaws the FCC is still a nominally democratic agency, with five commissioners who actually vote on proceedings, who represent the two major parties. While the majority represent the party in the executive, there is still a reasonably powerful minority that can’t be steamrolled constantly, even in the unlikely event that the majority commissioners march in utter lockstep.

The uptick in citizen activism on media and communication issues has only forced the FCC to become more responsive, though not nearly as much as we’d like. Compared to the USDA or DHS the FCC seems absolutely transparent and accountable. Yet I agree that the FCC is still a captured regulator where commissioners and high level staff have a disproportionate incentive to feather their beds for a soft landing in the private sector after their public service tour.

There’s a strong side of me that would love nothing more but to see the FCC go away, except that I don’t trust the so-called “free market” to result in anything better for the public. We’re not starting at ground zero, and the current inequities in communication–especially the oligopolistic control of broadcast and telecomm–would only be exacerbated by an FCC-less US. While I do like the idea of a “reboot” with a new agency, I’m not sure this kind of creative destruction would be sufficiently creative nor destructive. In what way is the Department of Homeland Security that different from the separated pre-2001 TSA and FEMA?

Instead, I think the focus needs to be the increased democratization of regulatory bodies, making changes that require greater public responsiveness and accountability. What if FCC commissioners were elected? Sure, it flies in the face of our current executive practices, but it also means we could end up with an FCC that is far more representative of the public interest than either the president or congress. Less radically, what if public comment requirements were strengthened and the equal of anti-lobbying rules enacted, along the lines of Lessig’s suggestions for an iEPA? Combined with restricting the industry ties of FCC staff I think you’d see a lot of changes at the Commission.

Of course we can’t expect the FCC to become that much better than any other federal agency, not to mention the Congress and the president. There’s an overall lack of accountability and democracy in the US government in general. It’s unreasonable to expect the FCC or iEPA to be any more accountable than the executive or your state’s senators. Without wider reform or reconstruction of the nation’s politics we are not going to see a substantially better FCC. Following the libertarian argument, doing away with the FCC entirely is only useful if we do away with government entirely, which, to me, is only useful if we also dismantle corporate power in the process, truly leveling the playing field. That’s the plan that would get my vote if it were truly on the table.

Short of that, reforming the FCC we have is our best bet. With our current corporatized government a better, more responsive and accoutable FCC is better than no FCC at all.

Anarchy, Integrity and the Digital Marketplace, via a Double-Ended Podcast Interview

Michael W. Dean is the former lead singer of the 90s band Bomb, an author of instructional books, podcaster and is probably most well known for his documentary DIY or Die about independent artists. I watched DIY or Die a year or two ago and had made a note to get Michael on the radioshow, and then promptly forgot. Then this weekend I read this excellent commentary that he wrote for O’Reilly Digital Media, Anarchy, Integrity and the Digital Marketplace:

What I’m saying is this: I believe in a free-flowing global exchange of information. I believe free flow is important to continue advancements in art, science, and commerce. And I believe in Fair Use. But I also am not a communist, and I enjoy getting paid for something I work very hard on. I think the artist (or content creator, if you like) will do well to learn what all the various options are, all the different levels of copyright, copyleft, free, and pay, and adjust accordingly on a project-by-project basis.

Don’t believe the pundits, intellectuals, or dumpster-diving squatters who tell you that any one way is the right way or the wrong way. Don’t let anyone guilt you into doing anything you don’t want to do with your art. Your art is your baby. Respect it, love it, cherish it, but don’t devalue it just because “everyone’s doing it.”

Art belongs to the ages, but it primarily belongs to the artist. To you. You are free to do with your art as you please. And that’s true anarchy.

So i shot off an email to him and almost immediately received a positive response and we recorded an interview Monday night.

Be sure to tune in to this week’s radioshow to hear this very interesting interview with someone who is making a go of it as a multi-media independent artist. You can listen live Friday at 5:30 PM Central Time on WEFT’s live stream, or wait for the archive which will be posted by midnight Sunday.

And a quick note on the tech behind this particular interview. Michael suggested we do it “double-ended” where he recorded his voice in his podcast studio and I recorded my voice in my studio. We did the interview over Skype, which I also recorded so I would have a good sync reference. Michael uploaded a high-quality mp3 of his vocal track and I’m mixing it together with mine. Then it will sound like we were in the same room together.

That’s actually how a lot of public radio interviews are conducted, like on Fresh Air. All those celebrity guests don’t travel to Philadelphia to be in-studio with Terry Gross. Instead they go to some studio or station nearby where they record the celebrity’s voice as s/he speaks with Terry on the phone. Then the Fresh Air producers mix it all together.

Radio magic.

Dispatch from Oaxaca: Breaking the Communication Blockade

I received the following email from George Salzman yesterday:

Oaxaca, 3 May 2007
Friends,
I fully endorse this call for support of popular radio in Oaxaca from Tonee Mello, who initiated the Oaxaca Study-Action Group with me in December 2005. Here’s Tonee’s message:

Subject: [oaxacastudyactiongroup] APPEAL
From: Tonee Mello
Date: Wed, 2 May 2007 17:02:55 -0700 (PDT)
To: oaxacastudyactiongroup@xxxxxxxxx.com

Mis Amigos,

Mid afternoon on May 1, Labor Day, students took over the radio station at the Autonomous University Benito Juarez of Oaxaca. They explained that they intended to give ample coverage to the labor day events, which included a march by the Popular Assembly Movement.

By seven o’clock that night, government supporters were already hard at work jamming the university signal. By 10:00 the students were no longer audible.

The fear of the government is that the public hear honest news, news of real events that affect the lives of people without money and power, in towns lacking any access to newspapers. Their only source of news is government controlled corporate television.

The only available remedy is community radio. Right now, young Oaxaqueños are working to put on the air as many community radio facilities as the communities can afford. The technical support project for them is completely Oaxaqueño in staff and muscle. It’s controlled and managed at the base, in a system of democratic participation. But the funding comes in part from people like you.

This is the moment to show Oaxaca communities that they are not alone in wanting access to the truth as it relates to them in their towns and villages.

Your donation, of any amount, will help to maintain the vital training and technical support provided by Servicios de Comunicación de Oaxaca .

If you want the address to send money, drop a line to Jean Rodriguez, wabob(at)earthlink.net

Update from Oaxaca: “In the face of repression, quiet determination, dignity.”

Nancy Davies and George Salzman have written two new updates from Oaxaca and posted them on the web:

Last Sunday, 10 Dec, the popular movement held its eighth mega-march, the first large manifestation following the imposition of a virtual state of siege imposed by the federal armed forces on 25 and 26 November. Nancy Davies’ comments on the march are posted at

http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/2006-12-11.htm

and some comments of mine that relate to the state of the struggle, and its nature are posted at

http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/2006-12-12.htm

Here’s hoping next year will be better than this one.

Best wishes,
George

In case you missed it, I spoke with Nancy and George on the November 10 edition of the radioshow, which is available for download. You can also listen right away in your browser.

Political Economy by Any Other Name Is Apparently a Fresh, New Idea

Perhaps this is nothing new, but I’m starting to really notice a severe lack of awareness of critical traditions within the A-list blogosphere/digerati culture.

Back in March, Andrew took note of a proposal to create a new “interdisciplinary discipline’ of Critical Information Studies, which he concluded, “sounds very like the areas covered by Political Economy of media.” The original proposal was floated by cultural historian Prof. Siva Vaidhyanathan, and picked up by BoingBoing.

Today I’m reading BoingBoing myself and find a post about the political disenchantment of Mitch Kapor, the original designer of Lotus 1-2-3. And what is his insight?

I’ve become completely convinced that we need to begin a process of fundamental political change in the U.S., not in the form of a new party per se as a new multi-faceted movement of ideas, organizations, and cultures, based around a vision of democracy which is fundamentally open, participatory, and decentralized.

Wow? Really? Open, participatory democracy? Them’s some pretty radical ideas there.

Please forgive my sarcasm, but I guess what annoys me most is not that Kapor’s unoriginal. It’s that now when these critiques come out of the mouth of the digerati it’s like they’re heretofore unseen insights about the political condition. And the a-list bloggers that spread the word seem equally ignorant of the critical tradition of the last 150 years as explored and explicated by scholars, activists and radicals.

Kapor follows up with his analysis that “Politics is Architecture:”

When it comes to building a new movement, the converse proposition, “politics is architecture” holds true as well. The architecture (structure and design) of political processes, not their content, is determinative of what can be accomplished.

Can someone please hand this man some Weber, Marx or Chomsky books (or Cliff’s Notes of them)?

I guess I should be at least somewhat happy that a central argument of Political Economic analysis comes so obviously and without apparent precedent to someone who sort of comes from the business side of the internet universe. But the failure to historicize these ideas, or even attempt it, does a disservice to all. Both because it fails to make linkages with vibrant movements that are taking concrete action this very moment, and because it threatens to create another instance of reinventing the wheel.

Even if we just look within the young world of the blogosphere there are thousands (if not millions) of bloggers like me who have been punching away at the modern political economic machine from a critical perspective, be it reformist, socialist or anarchist. We’ve been criticizing the very structure of western capitalist governments, the collusion of elected representatives and industry, and the myth of the free market, obeyance to which devolves into corporate oligarchy.

This isn’t a matter of sour grapes — I’m quite well aware that my own critiques are built upon a strong foundation of thought and scholarship that I have read and studied for the last sixteen years or so. I may have the occasional insight that I think is an original moment of praxis or synthesis. But under no circumstance do I presume that I’m knitting newly developed ideas about the modern capitalist state.

And if Kapor’s recent revelations are your first introduction to these ideas, then I’m glad you’ve also stumbled onto my words here. My advice is that you take a moment or more to read and understand other similar perspectives, and especially look into the field of Political Economy which has been addressing these fundamental problems for a very long time.

Crimethinc, and thinking critically about itinerant recovering-middle-class twenty-somethings

Burningman has written an eloquent and spot-on review of the newest Crimethinc tome, Recipes For Disaster: An anarchist cookbook for Clamor magazine.

For those not aware of Crimethinc, it’s an anarchist publishing collective–they call themselves an “Ex-Workers’ Collective”–that puts out radical books and zines that tend to espouse and promote dropping out of mainstream capitalist culture, living off its efflusive waste stream, towards a freer self-determined existence.

I generally enjoy Crimethinc publications; they especially have an attractive and well-developed aesthetic. The writing is more variable, though it always provokes thought. The new “anarchist cookbook” provides recipes and advice for living the Crimethinc lifestyle, which I’ve often found to be more fantastic than real, and rather impractical for most people other than itinerant recovering-middle-class twenty-somethings.

So Burningman’s review respectfully hits it on the nose when he writes,

It’s easy to hit the road when you know you have a home to return to, to refuse basic hygiene (as bourgeois) when you only associate with the equally dirty (and bourgeois). …

It’s a whole lot easier to like Crimethinc when you don’t take them too seriously. Like Adbusters in a ski mask, they confuse the very real oppression of a working class (they pretend doesn’t exist) with the terminal boredom of consumer culture.

Nevertheless, I’m glad Crimethinc keeps putting this stuff out there. I wish such a book had dropped into my hands when I was 16, if only to make me question some things a lot earlier.