August, 2010

We all need to reflect on one fact that has been almost completely expunged from the U.S. consciousness: in the last 20 years U.S. policy toward Iraq has been responsible for the death of over two million Iraqis, and probably closer to three million. That’s on the order of one in ten Iraqis. The death toll is about equally divided between the 12-year period of stringent economic sanctions that the U.S. and its allies imposed on Iraq and the post 2003 war period.

– Jim Fine, Friends Committee on National Legislation

photo from Voices in the Wilderness

…will save the world”

I don’t know about “save”

But, yes, beauty

& friendship

& community

& solidarity

May get us through the next week

Hi Mark!

I am beyond thrilled that you contacted me. Yes, The Book of Mev, has been helping me to grow and change as I begin my journey into a year of volunteer service with Mercy Volunteer Corps. I am truly in awe of how honest and intimate you were about your relationship to Mev. It was quite bold and much appreciated to put out the love letters that you shared with one another. I’ve been telling so many people about the wonderful lessons that the book has taught me. The concept of “The struggle is one” is what I’ve been marinating about for long time. I’m especially drawn to Mev as a liberation photographer, as I too like to use my prints, videos, and artworks as a form of advocacy.

I would absolutely love a copy of the book. I’m so grateful that you would offer it to me.

And yes, MVC is enriching me beyond description and it’s only been my first week here in Detroit! I’ll be the Media/Marketing Coordinator for Matrix Theatre Co., a wonderful place that puts on plays about social justice issues, has puppetry, and works with young kids and special needs adults. If you would like, you can follow my journey through the link below.

Thank you so much for you openness. I am very appreciative of getting to know the story of Mev through you. I hope all is wonderful in your neck of the woods!

Peace & Love,

Danielle Daguio

1.

The factory inspectors had to confront the problem of how the working day might be defined in practice. At what times should laborers get to work? Is the start-up time inside the factory or outside the factory? And what about breaks for lunch?

Marx quotes an inspector’s report: “The profit to be gained by it” [over-working in violation of the British Factory Acts] “appears to be, to many, a greater temptation than they can resist”…These “small thefts” of capital from the workers’ meal-times and recreation times are also described by the factory inspectors as “petty pilferings of minutes,” “snatching a few minutes” or, in the technical language of the workers, “nibbling and cribbling at meal-times.”

Marx then quotes the key idea: “Moments are the elements of profit.” I think this a crucial formation. Capitalists seek to capture every moment of the worker’s time in the labor process. Capitalists do not simply buy a worker’s labor-power for twelve hours; they have to make sure every moment of those twelve hours is used at maximum intensity. And this, of course, is what a factory disciplinary and supervisory system is all about.

–David Harvey, A Companion to Marx’s Capital

2.

One minute alive is one minute to serve the revolution.

–Đặng Thùy Trâm, Vietnamese doctor, author of Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Đặng Thùy Trâm

Dear Mark,

I finished the book this morning.  It is a beautifully written testament of your love–and your intelligence and spirituality.  I appreciated your candor.  Although I am not personally acquainted with you, I can sense your integrity.  I want to wish you something–but I’m unsure how to phrase it and I also think it might be a bit arrogant to think that I could add anything to a life that I am not intimately connected with.  So, with that admitted, I will simply say thank you

Nancy D. McDonald

Nancy worked with Mev on Haiti activism in the early 1990s. She is an associate professor of English at Palm Beach State College in Florida.