It is especially difficult to hold back when the theme of the movie has to do with socio-political reality or history. I barely saw Avatar last night…spoiler alert. Avatar was well received in the progressive community internationally, and Filmmaker James Cameron, become recognized as a champion of indigenous and environmental rights almost overnight.

Perhaps it was this acclaim that allowed me to begin watching Avatar with a generally open mind. I usually expect the worst when Hollywood picks up such a theme, but I thought I would give the movie a chance.

The movie acts as a mirror for today’s corporate-driven imperialist politics. It is an allegory for what is happening today in Afghanistan and what has happened historically at the hands of white imperialism.

In the film, it becomes clear early on, and in no uncertain terms, that the invading, white human army is after a mineral deposit which sits under the tree that the Na’vi, an alien race, inhabit. The tree is miles tall and houses thousands of Na’vi families.

One of the techniques used by the humans to get the Na’vi to leave the tree is to create a Na’vi look-alike with some human DNA. This creation is called an Avatar. This Avatar is controlled by a white human counterpart named Jake Sully.

This was a reference to the racial politics of early Spanish and English colonization, where explicit imperialist strategies were to inter-marry invading men with native female royalty. One northern native elder called this strain of imperialists, “liberal” imperialists. The goal of the liberal was very much to take land, gold and women from the natives. They only disagreed with their conservative counterparts as to the most useful strategy.

This Avatar was to ingratiate himself with the Na’vi and influence them to move elsewhere. It was clear that if the Avatar was unsuccessful, the corporate contractor would then authorize the military to move in and blast the tree and the civilization to Mictlan. The corporate administrator, played by Giovanni Ribisi, says something along the lines of, “Shareholders are greatly bothered by media images of natives being slaughtered, but they are bothered much more by quarterly losses, so hurry up an get them to move.”

Long story short, Jake fails to persuade the Na’vi to move, and he falls in love with an alien native. He never warns the natives that they will be under attack. It is only until the military begins its assault that Jake bothers to protest.

The army does come in and does blast the Tree of Life and the Na’vi to Mictlan. The Na’vi leave and mount a conventional counter-attack on the invading whites. Some Na’vi die, but in the end, Jake is successful in uniting different clans of the alien race, and under his leadership he defeats the white humans. The Na’vi goddess permanently transfers his soul from his human body to his Avatar body, and he becomes a hero of the resistance and a recognized leader of the Na’vi.

Generally, the movie did an adequate job in portraying the imperialist culture as one which has no problems with trading the lives of “savages and their children” for corporate profits. For all of the leftist acclaim, I found it surprising that it was, at essence a white savior film. It took a white alien human to unite the Na’vi and create the new technology (the domestication of a large bird) to defeat the white aliens. I mean, come on, really? For being a darling of the left, Avatar sure played into this tired ass theme. The white savior complex has been done almost everytime there has been a story about uplifting minorities: Wildcats, Dangerous Minds, The Last Samurai, Dances With Wolves, Gran Torino, The Blind Side, Mississippi Burning, but the list is really endless.

I also took issue with the fact that the liberal imperialist ended up as the hero. Jake conspired to have their society destroyed, and he never for one minute before the invasion tipped off the Na’vi that it was coming. He was an agent for liberal white imperialism and ended up as the hero of the film.

The film also fetishizes the response of the Na’vi. In the white mind, the only honorable way for an oppressed, obliterated, colonized society is to pull itself up from it’s bootstraps and engage in a conventional warfare response. Even in this Hollywood version of resistance, the response of native people is held to a higher, double standard. In reality, most colonized people have beaten the colonizer not by engaging in conventional warfare, but by being elusive and using effective, guerrilla tactics, by tiring and exasperating the invaders so much that they lose their will to occupy.

Finally, in the Hollywood version of colonial resistance, the native army simply rounded up the invaders and sent them back home with not so much as a handcuff to inconvenience them. The white psyche only wishes that the resistance would be so forgiving, even though the invaders themselves are guilty of intentionally killing unarmed civilian children. Deep in the white psyche, it is just for them to be strongly reprimanded and sent home. wrong. Think more along the lines of scorched earth.

The film did a good job of characterizing colonialist tendencies, which admittedly I did not cover in depth in this post, but it did a characteristically poor job in characterizing native response to colonialism. In the end, I give the film the score of fifty out of a hundred, which is higher than all other Hollywood films of a similar nature.

Here in Houston, El Dia, went out of business a few months ago. As I begin this venture, my second attempt at newspaper publishing (I tried ten years ago, fresh out of college), there are probably at least ten Spanish-language newspaper, split between alternative newsweeklies and classified newspapers in Houston. In the English-language scene there is one English daily newspaper, one alternative weekly, a couple of monthlies and a couple of classifieds.

In this age of declining print, what would make me believe that I could or should engage in this venture?

About the could part…I think that the major trend in the last decade within media lies within consumption. The trend, and I think that the trend is here to stay, is toward a more niche, point-of-view-oriented preference among the people. Lines have slowly blurred between editorial and news content. The people understand and are ok with that. Their response is just to look for media which more or less corresponds with their point of view. Those who are not ok with it are traditional media, because their monopoly on legitimate information mongering is being broken by right-wing Fox, lefty blogs and the strengthening of right-wing radio.

Traditional, supposedly “unbiased” journalism is now kind of just like vanilla ice cream. You’ll eat it, but you won’t go to the other side of the city to buy it if you can buy it at the convenient store. And if the convenient store offers it for free, con menos ganas will you drive to the other side of the city to buy it. This is the predicament that dailies find themselves in. By the time I find a daily to buy, I’ve already heard everything that they have to say on CNN, Yahoo News, NPR and Pacifica. If I haven’t, I can get the same articles from Reuters and the other sevices on Google for free, and I can do it while, I am sending out e-mails and giving out insurance quotes online.

Now, if there is a point of view, or hard-to-come by information, I might drive a few blocks to pick up the paper, especially if its free. For example, I’ve never seen a story on the people that ICE disappears in The Chronicle, but The Houston Catholic Worker ran such a story. Now I want to see everything they publish.

So, as far as journalism goes, I do intend to offer spicy, advocacy-oriented, pro-gente, pro-movimiento oriented pieces. So, what about the idea that our people are not really print-media consumers, especially Spanish-speakers? Hector, you might say, you might drive a few blocks for the Catholic Worker, but you are not most people. You’re weird. You’re a news junkie, an ideologue and lefty nationalist. Most people aren’t, and most just don’t care enough.

My solution to this is that the newspaper is designed as a classified-style newspaper, which has been a staple of the barrio for years, and which I expect to remain so. Small businesses will always need a way to promote their businesses to buyers, and buyers will always look for a way to shop around. Classic community organizing teaches that successful campaigns are those built on the self-interest of the participants. Applied to the newspaper, I am riding the self-interest of buyers and sellers to get the information out to the people who want it.

A free newspaper has been and will be the solution to this self-interest. Sure, there is the internet, but even I, as tech-savvy as I am, don’t think “internet” for searching for some things, like handymen and mechanics. When I do think about consuming services on the internet, I don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling. With some exceptions, it sucks.

To increase readership even more, the journalism in El Pueblo will run bilingually.

In essence, I am banking on classifieds to be the backbone of the paper. The journalism will add, let’s say, ten percent to the readership, the English, will add, perhaps, another ten percent to the readership and the point of view will add, hopefully, another ten percent.

As a side note, the alternative newsweeklies use the national advertising style of selling space. I think that they could be in some trouble. Being in the industry years ago, I know that, in general, the circulation numbers that they post to advertisers are bogus. Yes, they are audited, but I have been told by other insiders how to get the audit numbers that you want. It’s simple, when the auditors come, you print more copies and pay someone that week to go pick them up. If national advertisers figured this out, they would pull out immediately. It is unfortunate that our people don’t pick them up because they are too newsy and not classifiedy enough. Classified papers don’t have the “luxury” of this scam. At the end of the three-month contract, the small business guy or gal just wants to know if you brought them business or not. Did you make their phone ring? Yes or no?

The last eight years in business, I have learned that multiple income streams are helpful. When applied to readership, diverse reasons for picking up the paper will be key. Some people have written off print completely, and have even brought this to my attention. I truly believe that there will be a place for print for a century or more, with only the price and availability of paper, relative to the value of the dollar vs other currencies, being able to totally displace print in this part of the world. I will say that the traditional, non-free, daily newspaper will be a thing of the past, just like the family sitting around the radio in the evening is a piece of history.

Print will adapt to the introduction of the internet, just as radio adapted to the introduction of the television. Radio, still has a place. Although TV dramatically reduced the relevance of radio, it did not totally displace it. The same will hold true of the print industry.

I think that the combo that I am presenting will represent the new place of print.

I go into this project with much more experience and acumen than I did ten years ago. Perhaps because of this experience and acumen, I also go in much more humbly and conscientious of the fragility of the project in its initial phase.

In the end, I can cost and business justify it as much as I want, but the reason that I am doing it is because I want to. It is not for profits, which I could more easily attain by focusing on one of my other revenue streams. I am both an ideologue and a practical activist/organizer. The entire reason that I became self-employed was so that I would not have to shut my mouth. I want this paper to share my ideas and to share the good community work of others in Houston. The business aspect to it is simply a practical necessity.  I won’t be able to print as much journalism as I’d like at first, but I will slowly improve the paper.  I took a blind leap of faith the first time around.  This time, I am taking a measured, cautious first step and hoping for the best.

In about a month or so, I will begin running tests for the viability of a new community publication. 

Should the tests indicate that the project is viable (and I hope they will), I hope to begin publishing by early to mid-August.  The primary goals of the publication shall be two-fold:

1.  To have a regular and disciplined vehicle with which to promote the worldview that I have been promoting for years.

2.  To promote news and events from “the coalition” and its supporting groups, using the voice of advocacy journalism. 

Secondary goals include the creation of jobs and income opportunities  for people who support the work of progressive organizations; an avenue to promote some of my other lines of business, and to aid in re-prioritizing some of the focus of other media, which, at times, ignore stories which are very important to us.

At least initally, the publication will be a mix of a “shopper” publication and an alternative weekly.  The inital goals will be to publish 10,000 to 20,000 copies twice a month and to distribute in the northeast, northwest and southeast areas of Houston.

If the project comes to fruition, I will have a need for salaried and commission-only sales people, contract distributors and freelance translators and writers.  If you know of anyone who might be interested, please do not hesitate to contact me as soon as possible. 

I have an immediate need for help with names for the publication and with identifying prospective small business advertisers, who would be interested in promoting their business in such a publication as well as through online formats that will be packaged along with the print advertisements.  If you would like to suggest a name for the publication or if you would like to advertise or suggest an advertiser, please hit me up on Facebook, by phone, by e-mail or the feedback function of this blog. 

I believe that this is an idea whose time has come, as I understand that Tony Diaz is working on his own English-language publication and the crew from El Gato at UH is doing the same.  Tip of the sombrero to all y adelante!

Sincerely,

Hector A. Chavana Jr.

Many people confuse my rants against “White Power” with me taking a position against all white people.  In fact, my measure for a human being are her soul and her deeds. 

It is true, as Olbermann suggests, that I do look at whites with some suspicion because of their inherent racial/cultural privilege, and because I believe that most are not willing to sacrifice their privilege for any moral good.

I do not excuse liberals who, were it for their impotence, would grant us equality of opportunity in a heartbeat. This classic liberal stance will not remedy the immense theft of cutural and economic wealth which has put our people at a disadvantage, and on an inherent uneven playing field. We do not wish to compete in race to build in which we are handed a hammer at the same time that our competitors have been out stealing power tools all night.

My test for a white person is whether or not they will consciously act toward giving our gente the ultimate rights that we deserve and that we are owed: self determination.  If a white person can respect and actively support our desire to have full authority of ourselves (equality of authority) then they are no longer deserving of the title gringo.

Full self determination, autonomy and sovereignty over our own lands (without political, military or economic intervention) shall complete the cycle of justice.  The Azteca concept of justice was equated with untwisting a twisted rope.  The last stage of such atonement is reparations.  Unfortunately, this country and the gringo populace in general has not even embarked on the first stage of atonement. Listen carefully to Keith Olbermann. Does he ever suggest that the solution to the problem of racism is granting people of color the rights to govern ourselves? Instead he defends the classic liberal position that we are all the same and should be colorblind, that integration is the answer and that the president is just as capitalistic as anyone else.

We don’t want colorblindness. We want land.

They have become much slicker at masking their racism. The other day, I heard one of them condemning a lady’s hair do for looking too much “al estilo Benito Juarez.” Translation for the mentally conquered—look anything but Indian.

I think TV Azteca did a good job of trying to be decent when they first came on, but most of their decency has long passed. I don’t think Hispano-trash television can get much worse, but it might just get more brainwashy after all. Fíjate lo que dice Ernesto Aguilar on his latest post about Telemundo being swallowed by Comcast.

NBC Universal owns 27 broadcast television stations, many of them Telemundo affiliates. Since Comcast already provides cable and internet service in Houston, this would mean that one company will control content online, on cable and over the airwaves. This is unprecedented.

The Comcast-NBC Universal/Telemundo merger also reflects a reduction of choices in Spanish-language media. Houston’s Latino community is not served well when megacorporations control access to consumers and potentially strong-arming other Spanish-language channels out of the market.

The United States Revolutionary Army Started as A Terrorist Force

It is one of the greatest ironies that a nation founded on terrorism is being pestered in its latter days by groups using modern terrorism.  The founders of this country labeled themselves patriots, as in Che’s famous phrase patria o muerte.  Patria, you know, as in country, as in they wanted their own.  They were violent separatists who used terror tactics to achieve their means. 

I am not referring, as I usually do, to the terror that they unleashed on people of color.  Their very own people equated them with what we would understand to be terrorism. 

Their use of guerrilla-hide-in-the-bushes tactics, instead of the disciplined European lines, put them squarely in the scum-of-the-earth-coward category.  More analogous to modern-day terrorism is the fact that the revolutionaries intentionally killed off-limit targets—military officers.

The negative reputation of snipers can be traced back to the American Revolution, when American “Marksmen” would intentionally target British officers, an act considered uncivilized by the British Army at the time

Why? Because they put their efforts toward liberty before anything else. 

Today, the modern day terrorists is on the one hand told that they must convert to democracy, because a democratic country is run by the people.  On the other hand this democratic governement invades foreign countries, to the tune of half a million to two million CIVILIAN deaths. If a democracy means rule by the people, ostensibly, the decision to kill these large number of civilans was made by a civilian populace. The American Revolutionaries targeted officers because they were “the deciders.” Modern terrorists are doing the same thing, going after the deciders.

The recent on-base suicide bomber was motivated by the high civilan deaths, according to Jordinian sources.

Anonymous Jordanian intelligence sources told TIME that Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was not a double agent working for al Qaeda, as claimed by the U.S. government. They say the bomber had provided useful information exposing al Qaeda leaders and he only turned out of anger at the high number of civilians killed in U.S. airstrikes.

Labeling Terrorism is Propaganda-Civilian Deaths Come From Both Sides
The term terrorism, in fact, is used not to describe acts, but rather to polarize the people. Again, the US has caused half a million to two million civilian deaths.  Many attacks lead by the US were carried out fully knowing that massive civilian casualties would result. The terrorists have caused probably less than 4,000 civilain deaths on US soil this century. We can easily see that the term terrorism is applied not to those who knowingly cause civilian death, but to “those other people” on the other side.

Maybe its a style of killing that earns the term terrorism. Let us compare two incidents that occurred in the past month. One was Abdumutallab, the would-be plane bomber. The other was Johnny Lee Wicks, who opened fire in a federal building, and actually killed a veteran US Marshall. Abdumutallab, who did not succeed in killing anyone, completely overshadowed the news of Wicks. The Wicks incident received only one or two days of major coverage, while the plane incident is still major daily news.

Why? Because it is a propaganda piece. Polarization, remember? The US wants to keep us emotional, dissatisfied, scared and generally ready to strike, while covering up its imperial interests. Senior senators (Lieberman) are already hinting at the possibility of striking Yemen. 

So to get us on board, they ignore the hundreds that die weekly in street crimes. They ignore the thousands that are robbed or burglarized daily, and the countless spousal and child abuse cases. These problems, the problems which really affect us on a daily basis, are made to be much more acceptable. Whiles some dramatic theatre plays on for months, despite the lack of one death on US soil for nine years. Get over it, you are more likely to die walking out of a taqueria than by a terrorist. That’s just a fact. But they keep feeding us this myth to keep us on their side.

Attempted deaths caused by foreigners are more freighteneing to the white, xenophoic psyche than actual deaths caused by citizens.  The government-media complex knows this and exploits this by publicizing “terrorist” attempts and the hype around “criminal” aliens.

Pretending That We Can Control It Will Lead To Abuses
Finally, I am sick and tired of politicians and the media pretending that terrorism can be prevented or trying to assign blame to bureaucrats for failing to prevent a bombing. Nobody goes around blaming the cops for a pre-meditated bank robbery or murder. These things happens.

It’s not that I am defending the bureaucrats. It is their fault to the extent they continue with an imperialist policy, not because their policing powers are deficient.

My point is this, as long as people harbor the errant belief that all terrorism can be prevented, they will demand that officials take those intrusive steps, like the Patriot Act, to do so. I do not expect that federal officials can prevent a small group of individuals from planning something secretly and then acting on it. Those who do, begin to negotiate whether or not having the government eavesdrop on our cel phone calls is acceptable. It isn’t. Even if it were, it would not stop all attacks.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall removed the legal prohibition on combinations between commercial banks on the one hand, and investment banks and other financial services companies on the other. Glass-Steagall’s strict rules originated in the U.S. government’s response to the Depression and reflected the learned experience of the severe dangers to consumers and the overall financial system of permitting giant financial institutions to combine commercial banking with other financial operations.

I thought a little bit about the meaning of the report, but the wheels of my mind started turning when I heard this little tidbit, which is also on the blog post:

Then, in 1998, in an act of corporate civil disobedience, Citicorp and Travelers Group announced they were merging. Such a combination of banking and insurance companies was illegal under the Bank Holding Company Act, but was excused due to a loophole that provided a two-year review period of proposed mergers. The merger was premised on the expectation that Glass-Steagall would be repealed. Citigroup’s co-chairs Sandy Weill and John Reed led a swarm of industry executives and lobbyists who trammeled the halls of Congress to make sure a deal was cut.

It painted the picture that the corporate chairs basically did whatever they wanted and that they would have to deal with a little matter of those people over on the hill later. Congress and federal law were basically reduced to a detail in the transaction, a detail that would have to be worked on later, but not something that could actually stop these two mammoths from doing whatever they wanted.

We have become accustomed to corporations essentially buying votes, and execs doing things under the table, but to hear that two major corporations openly disregarding federal law, premised on the thought that they would make Congress come around, is a new one on me. I know that I am twelve years late on this, but this was the first that I had heard of such an overt act of “civil disobedience” by major corps. It made me think hard about the future of corporations overtly disobeying laws. It was almost as if they did not recognize the authority of Congress.

That’s when it hit me. The government only has authority because we recognize this authority. No, that was not the epiphany.

I finally began to understand the decline of the Roman Catholic Church’s authority over sovereign nations. But more importantly, I began to understand why they ever had such control over nation-states in the first place, a concept which I understood academically, but could never relate to.

The Catholic Church could command countries simply because these countries, and their sovereigns, allowed The Church to do so. Period.

The Church was the recognized moral authority. Once nation states were no longer dependent or fearful of The Church, they began to disobey its orders, especially when such orders were no longer convenient.

Today, the recognized authority is the government.  The moral authority has changed from God to “the people,” at least in propaganda.

The Swiss Guard: Today's Ceremonial Guard at The Vatican. Their forces were not needed by England.

I began to see the corporate executives of Traveler’s and Citi as today’s version of Henry VIII. By the time Henry VIII disobeyed Rome by taking his new wife, Anne Boleyn, Rome seems to have become more dependent on nation-states than vice-versa. The pope could no longer offer the defense to the nation-states, after each country had organized its own military. Sure they had the Swiss Guards, but c’mon. The sovereigns, after all, could muster loyalty among the people without the consent of the pope. Basically, The Church had become superfluous, unnecessary, and maybe a little pesky to the captains of countries.

And it dawned on me that as these corporations become more powerful, bloggers in four or five hundred years, or maybe even one hundred, might wonder why on earth, corporations would have ever sought the approval of democratic governments in the first place.  It seems silly to us, in these days, that a sovereign might have to seek permission from a foreign pope for anything.  It might seems silly to our future generations that these theoretically democratic institutions supposedly by the people (however fraudulent it may be) might have had sway over private enterprise.

England had its own powerful, loyal constituents at the time it left The Church.  After all, it was the House of Commons who banned Rome from making decisions in England.  Today, corporations have their own powerful, loyal constituents.  They are called lobbyists and politicians.

At the time it left The Church, England has its own “national” army.  Today, corporations have their own “private” armies.  As of March, according to the Christian Science Monitor, 57 percent of the Pentagon’s Afghanistan personnel were private contractors.

Obviously, the members of Congress are far more dependent on corporations than are corporations dependent on Congress for anything.

Finally, as the sovereign and his apparatus controlled a great deal of the communication in England, so do the corporations control the vast majority of mass communication in the US.

It seems that it is only a matter of centuries before captains of industry get it into their heads that this whole rule by the people thing is too inconvenient, and perhaps, yes, a little pesky.  Sure, goverment will continue to exist, for those who wish to believe in it, but today’s US Marine might look as ceremonial to our future generations as the Swiss Guard do to us.  In fact, they might just be that-ceremonial with the contractors of Blackwater/Xe holding the real force for the new sovereigns: the corporate executives.

My expectations for CNN’s Latino In America were quite low. I counted on hearing only from entertainers. I was beating my head against the wall in preparation for the consecutive Horatio Alger stories, the myth that anyone can do anything as long as they work real hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even if they don’t have any boots. There was a great deal of this propaganda.

Los Scandalous mayor, Antonio Villariagosa, did his whole tired titere-mozo-de-hacienda routine. “Only in America does the success against all odds happen on the scale and scope it happens here,” he said toeing the line of the occupation. No wonder Union Del Barrio calls him the imperialist’s puppet of occupation, or some other apodo like that I think he’s better at playing tune in Tokyo with young reporters while he’s married than selling this propaganda. It just doesn’t work for him. Ashamed to say that he was a member of MEChA, just like me

Despite all of the usual praise-the-system jive, CNN had the courage to point out some alarming statistics. At Freemont High, the focus of one segment, a full seventy percent of the students don’t graduate on time. Almost in the same breath, Soledad O’Brian pointed out the lack of resources in the community. She noted the fact that at nearby Garfield High, the high school made famous by the movie Stand and Deliver, over four thousand students make use of a school which was designed for fifteen hundred students. She stopped short of editorializing about any connection, but the point was sufficiently clear. Of course, the program did not question why the school was overcrowded, which would have taken into account the social disease, instead of the symptoms, but this post is about my expectations, not my ideals. We all know the revolution will not be televised.

I also did not expect to see publicized the fact that we were here before them. In an introductory interview, much ado was made about Eva Longoria’s family being in Texas for nine generations, which ante-dated the arrival of the Mayflower. No hint was there that we have been here for 90,000 years or that the borders were falsely imposed, but again, expectations, not ideals. During the commercial trailers there was even someone who proudly prolaimed that they were Chicana! There was frank discussion by a psychologist, Dr. Zayas, about cultural dissonance and how assimilation (though not explicitly identified as such) causes a great amount of stress, and even the suicide attempt of many young women. They even showed the ugly nativist attitudes which believe that English is purest and the only language of the land.

Conspicuous by its absence was any mention of the Basta Dobbs campaign, a campaign whos mission it is to remove Lou Dobbs from the ranks of CNN. This campaign has already signed on 65,000 supporters and is, I believe, the first modern campaign with a truly national character.

There was also a whole fettish for the Garcia surname. For some reason, CNN felt obligated to begin every segment with someone whose last name was Garcia…something about the Garcia last name now being one of the ten most popular surnames in the US. So the ____ what? There are many non-Garcias doing important work…maybe I wouldn’t be complaining if they had chosen the surname Chavana…he he. A little undersampling curve never hurt. Oh well, there’s always next year.

During the closing, they did meet my low expectations by wrapping it up with some Hollywood figures. It is possible that the producers cut G Lo’s and Eva’s comments out of context, but I was disappointed to hear America Ferreara’s, a supposed progressive, go Bo Jangles on us: “The greatest triumph of the show (Ugly Betty) for the Latino culture…is the fact that she is Latina and that is the least of the labels put among her (sic).” Really, that’s the greatest thing? That you can “pass?” That nobody notices your ethnicity?

If that’s the society that they’re selling, I’ll continue with my demands that we have Our New Anahuac Now.