Review of Self-Defense for Radicals: A-Z Guide for Subversive Struggle by Mickey Z. (PM Press, 2009).

The prospect of setting words to page about Mickey Z.’s Self-Defense for Radicals catalyzed a certain queasiness. It brought up the rosebush reality of…violence.

In an era of drop-of-the-hat planetary destruction, as dirty wars erupt like acne and respect for Gandhi’s ahimsa has re-blossomed like Persephone’s return, as former Weather Underground activist Mark Rudd is crisscrossing the U.S. calling for a pacifist movement and Hugo Chavez is pronouncing that armed struggle is passé — to purvey violence seems patently verboten.

Martial artist Mickey Z. tackles my hesitancy on the first page, laying out a scenario of a strong-arm attack on a friend and asking if I would pray, meditate, and go philosophical—or if I would stomp my foot, jab the dude’s eyes, kick him in the balls, grab my friend, and bolt. It’s the de rigueur challenge presented to every armed-services draftee applying for Conscientious Objector status, perhaps thorny for he who is seeking community service over combat—but oh so obvious to the rest of us.

Review of Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (Little, Brown and Company, 2009).

When will humans stop eating factory-farmed nonhuman animals? They won’t—unless something happens to curtail the supply of nonhuman animal meat produced by the factory farm system.

If you’re waiting for governments to pass laws or issue new rules forcing corporations to shut down their factory farms, don’t hold your breadth. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, is an active partner in perpetuating the factory farm system.

On the opposite end, nonprofits and “activists” can take credit for ever so slightly reducing the suffering of nonhuman animals at factory farms. But these groups and individuals will never succeed in completely dismantling the factory farm system.

So, what will it take to rid the planet of this scourge? In his new book, Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer writes that the factory farm “will come to an end because of its absurd economics someday. It is radically unsustainable. The earth will eventually shake off factory farming like a dog shakes off fleas; the only question is whether we will get shaken off along with it.”

By Frank Joseph Smecker

As the world continues to heat up so, too, does the political world in a conflagration of dialectical polemics. It’s absurd to debate over how severe global warming is or is not while ice shelves, the size of American states, fissure off into the ocean; while tundra permafrost melts, taking with it entire neighborhoods; while mountain glaciers recede into obsolescence; while entire shorelines vanish with every lashing of the rising tides. Global climate change, no matter how intense it is, should be more than enough of a wake up call for each and every one of us, admonishing that our cultural behavior just doesn’t cotton well with the innumerable other communities that arise out of unique places on this planet.

Even if global warming were not happening, the dominant culture would still be systematically dismantling the ecological infrastructure of this planet. Industrial production is also efficient annihilation—it’s an accelerated process of production that turns the living into the dead at a rate faster than the lifeworld can rejuvenate. This is not sane, healthy or sustainable behavior by a long shot. And as the world’s leaders put on their show at Copenhagen, geared with platitudes and promises as hollow as a holiday gift box, the president of one of the largest contributing countries to greenhouse gas emissions has passed through the COP15 with a jovial wave and a smile to collect his Nobel Peace Prize, while promulgating to the world that sometimes, just sometimes—speaking about the western occupation of Afghanistan—wars are just and moral. The coup de grâce is even more of a brow-raiser: the evening Obama got on his plane to receive his trophy, his administration requested that the DoJ reject a lawsuit filed by convicted terrorist Jose Padilla against attorney and torture memo author, John Yoo. Wasn’t Adolf Eichmann arraigned and held accountable for “just doing his job?” Are universal, moral principles being usurped by unchecked, unhinged power?

In this time of escalating exploitation, poverty, imperialist wars, torture and ecocide, we don’t need a piece of art that consists of a mattress dripping orange paint, cleverly titled “Tangerine Dream.” In this time, as countless multitudes suffer and die for the profits and luxuries of a few, as species go extinct at a rate faster than we can keep track of, we don’t need an orchestra composed of iPhones. In this time, when the future of all life on Earth is at stake, spare us the constant barrage of narcissistic tweets juxtaposing celeb gossip with quirky food choices.

If we lived in a time of peace and harmony, then creating pretty, escapist, seratonin-boosting hits of mild amusement wouldn’t be a crime (except perhaps against one’s Muse). If all was well, such art might enhance our happy existence, like whipped cream on a chocolate latte. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure, or decorative art.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded some 30 at Fort Hood, Texas, in November reportedly regards the US War on Terror as a war aimed at Muslims. He told colleagues that “the US was battling not against security threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islam itself.”

Hasan had long been in close contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric and al Qaeda sympathizer now living in Yemen, who also called the US War on Terror a “war against Muslims.” Many, probably most, Muslims all over the world hold a similar view about American foreign policy.

I believe they’re mistaken. For many years, going back to at least the Korean war, it’s been fairly common for accusations to be made by activists opposed to US policies, in the United States and abroad, as well as by Muslims, that the United States chooses as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims.

On Sunday, Dec. 6, the New York Times published an outrageous op-ed piece by corporate cheerleader Jared Diamond, who states, “I’ve discovered that while some businesses are indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world’s strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.” The examples he provides? Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Chevron.

His title asks, “Will Big Business Save the Earth?” That’s not a difficult question to answer: No. No, big business will not save the Earth. Instead of being honest, though, Diamond, answers the question in the affirmative and subjects us to a poorly-argued, mind-warping, illogical and denial-drenched apology for some of the most destructive corporations that curse our planet with their existence.

By Frank Joseph Smecker

Jason Miller, Senior Editor and Founder of the radical blog, Thomas Paine’s Corner, is a tenacious forty-something vegan straight edge activist who lives in Kansas and who has a boundless passion for animal liberation and anti-capitalism. Addicted to reading and learning, he is mostly an autodidact, but he has also studied liberal arts and philosophy at the University of Missouri Kansas City.

An accomplished and prolific essayist on social and political issues, his writings have appeared on hundreds of alternative media websites over the last few years. He is also a press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office and the founder of Bite Club of KC, a grassroots animal rights activist group.

Frank Joseph Smecker: You founded Thomas Paine’s Corner in March of 2005 as an act of commitment to “ending the unnecessary suffering of oppressed and exploited sentient beings and to the total liberation of human animals, nonhuman animals, and the Earth.” Can you explain, in further depth, the content managed on the site and its relationship to the direct action that is needed to halt the dominant culture’s destructive behavior?

Imagine if aliens from a galaxy light years from Earth decide to seek out a New World. Imagine they discover Earth, it’s the New World, they assume. And they pursue a relentless campaign of occupation, colonizing the planet. One by one, these aliens systematically remove, with much violent force, the people of the planet, starting with the First World dominant culture, because, of course, they’ll want what that culture has: access to the land and resources which that culture controls. Imagine these aliens succeed with such a crusade, centuries later marking the genocide with an annual feast celebrating a deluded history that claims they were embraced with much alacrity and congeniality, that, while they were killing off human beings to clear the way for their own culture, human beings weren’t fighting back but teaching them how to make mashed potatoes and gravy and pies and roast turkey and things. “C’mon, Frank…” you’re probably saying, “this is a bit too much, don’t you think?”

I know, I know, so this scenario is a bit kooky. Such a concept is a little too bonkers for the sociological imagination. Okay. Fine. Let’s try it another way.

Mickey Z.’s Self-Defense for Radicals is more than a metaphor for resisting the oppression of governments and corporations. It’s literally a manual for helping you defend yourself when attacked by a mugger, political adversary, bully or anyone intending to commit physical violence against you.

Whether you should use the advice offered by Mickey depends on the situation, of course. If you’re walking down a city street and you’re confronted by a mugger armed with a gun, you may want to think twice about attempting to fend off the attacker by biting him or head-butting him — two self-defense techniques described by Mickey in the book.

However, let’s say you’re walking down the same city street and you’re grabbed from behind, but there’s no hint the attacker is armed. If you’re able to free your arms, why not follow Mickey’s advice and “deliver a sharp elbow to power’s jutting jaw.” Or try to use your elbows as a weapon by aiming them at your attacker’s eyes or groin. Just to be safe, Mickey suggests that if your first elbow lands cleanly, follow it up with several more strikes against your attacker.

A friend of mine recently brought to my attention a former vegan who has now re-invented himself as the “Ethical Butcher” (a title right up there with Peacekeeper missiles, limited autonomy, and military intelligence). The butcher writes: “After 14 years as a vegetarian, a few of those as a quite ‘militant’ vegan, I became a butcher. The factors that went into me taking the position are many, but the result was maybe quite predictable. Within a month I was a full-fledged meat eater. What has not changed is my passion for the welfare of animals. Through my work as a butcher and chef, I now see a more direct way to influence and work for change in the meat industry and to improve the quality of life for all of the animals we rely on for food.”

Such backlash in the face of compassionate evolution is not uncommon. For example, just as more and more women begin to challenge gender roles, the patriarchal culture countered with Howard Stern, Maxim, and Spike TV. But I digress ...