Rod Bryan’s word against the troopers’, gotta stop the polluters/ban teevee

Rod’s the leader of what would be a strong anti-fracking movement in Arkansas, if we could figure out how to make the media work for us. This is a start though. Too bad he got his ass kicked. But as Rod’s annotations to the video at the end of this post show, there’s a grammar of administrative-authoritarian meaning to this video account of what happened at the Capitol last week. The governmental sap says,

If you produce one document for me that shows me that there is pollution occurring, that they are doing anything intentional to cause problems in your area, I will go to the mat for you and I’ll fight for you ’cause we want to take care of Arkansas. … Make sure that you stand up for your rights as local Arkansans and don’t let people run over you here who are coming in to agitate from outside.

Of course, no one at the corporate level brought in any astroturfers to the Little Rock demonstrations that day — not that I’ve heard at least. By the accounts I’ve heard, the numbers were modest but the local Arkansans who showed up were pissed. Yet the actual narrative in the mainstream corporate-administrative media was that the demonstrations were illegitimate. The puppet whom Rod interrupts conflates the documented existence of fracking-caused pollution with the absence of any intention to poison on the part of those managers who cause the pollution. The businesses responsible for this pollution probably aren’t “intentionally” poisoning the environment so much as they are intentionally serving the profit-motive. Even though this pollution itself is by definition a by-product of some intentional market process, its nature as being a residue from something else doesn’t erase the irreversible pollution of our environment. And it doesn’t make right that these businesses’ employees privately know more than anyone else about the nature of these unique pollutants.

In Arkansas the fact of pollution itself is in tension with the norm of pollution denial. As Al Jazeera’s recent lesson to the world has shown, much of the power to dissolve this tension — to publicly validate the fact that the public is being exploited — concentrates in the commercial cameras pointed at that governmental sap in the Rod-Bryan-gets-his-ass-kicked video. Such a strong social power exists in our media because we the people rent out public discourse space to a few profiteers. Under practical reason then, we might ought to castrate that power by banning commercial television in the name of the First Amendment, and we’d do well to start working on this castration soon for the sake of decentralizing social power.

But now as it becomes clearer each day, it’s even more urgent that we try to use the system of pluralist representation we do have to draw those cameras away from bureaucrats (pardon the triteness but bureaucrats is the perfect term) and onto Rod Bryan, otherwise no one in what I’m pretty sure is the most populous region of the state will have access to clean public water. We have to try to beat television with social discourse in order to save our aquifers, and it wouldn’t hurt if in the process we built a movement for a federal constitutional amendment banning commercial television and calling for the socialistic funding of the hardware and network necessary for a free and open Internet for everyone. Within each of these suggestions social discourse inheres, so in any case we should probably think more carefully  about narrative framing.

So of course now more than ever we should directly take on our administrative overlords in the fight over fracking legislation, and I think it will help if we add more overtly Christian framing principles, like we did in the healthcare debate (“Love they neighbor / health care for all”). We were up against a national framing campaign then, but now our opponent isn’t organized on such a mainstream level. I’ll lay-speak if your church will take me. What does Six Flags Over Jesus have to say about this? Are the churches mobilized, or do they want to pollute the earth so we can all die off and be with father god?

We also might ought to figure out how to apply organized civil disobedience in the issue of fracking pollution. Or if nothing else, we can create a spectacle in the public square outside the Capitol during operating hours — surely there’s a permit process for this — using something like Radiohead or Dale Earnhardt Jr. (both please) to stir up attention. It would be great if our governor were cool, though of course he’s not.

Also, what is Rick Fahr at the Log Cabin Democrat doing about this? Really, I’d like to know but need to get back to work. Waylon, do you have anything to say? I haven’t talked to you in a while. What’s up?

Is the inventory of a pharmacy usually worth more than the real estate it sits on?

I’m honestly not sure, and sincerely want to know the answer to this question.

WANTED: Democratic primary challenger to Blanche Lincoln

(Cross-post from Daily Kos)

Conventional wisdom in Arkansas, where I was born and raised, is that it would be stupid and suicidal for a Democrat to oppose Sen. Blanche Lincoln next May. Most of those under this persuasion cite Lincoln’s $1.7 million war chest and cower, but I say the true narrative of Blanche-the-Wal-Mart-funded-Villainess is stronger than complacent Arkansas Democrats’ fetishized center-right hegemony. We have the villain; we now need a hero.

What frustrates me is outside of anecdotal talk on the Arkansas Times blog of the SEIU sending out feelers around Little Rock for a Green Party candidate, I’ve heard little about a progressive Democrat willing to challenge Blanche 12 months from now. All corporate media focus in the state seems to be on which Republican will challenge her in November.

I asked the uninvolved, savvy-worshipping pundit John Brummett a couple weeks ago if he’d heard anything about a progressive primary challenger and he said via direct tweets:

rumors that bill halter would do it, but i’m all but certain he wouldn’t. futile. suicidal. i simply do not believe you can beat a well-financed 2-term democratic senate incumbent in her own primary amid our state’s inertia and ‘statement’ campaigns don’t make much of a statement.”

Via Facebook chat I asked leading Arkansas politics wonk Jay Barth the same question, and he said he’s heard of no such candidate and that he’s hearing a lot of calls at the national level to challenge her in the primary, but Barth doesn’t think that’s a good idea.

Unless centrist Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter’s willing early on to swear off the DLC and Evan Bayh crew, nevermind him (Halter: Are you? Speak up here if so.) Even though I’d also like to write, “and nevermind John Brummett,” he has however made an excellent case in recent days, perhaps unintentionally, for why now is the time for progressives to try to kick Blanche out of the party: In short, as difficult as it would be to challenge Blanche, it would be much more difficult to challenge the son of David Pryor.

Blanche’s polling is down, and her actions on the hill practically — flippantly — dare us to challenge her 12 months from now.

The narrative is simple: Arkansas is a state of poor people. We do not need a senator taking bribes from the wealthiest people on earth.

Earlier this month at Huffington Post, Jonathan Tasini encapsulated the national progressive outrage toward Blanche:

There has got to be a labor candidate from the state’s labor executive board who has the gumption to jump in as the standard-bearer for a primary challenge. I’d pledge a contribution to such a campaign. And I’m sure such a campaign would draw financial support beyond the state’s borders. Enough.

Arkansas organized and canvassed for the Campaign for Change. Of course we didn’t go blue, but we made strides, and some of us — including myself — went to Missouri and learned quite a bit about rural organizing. The face-to-face element is key, and I think we could get a lot of mileage out of it even though we would have to start now. I propose that we start a campaign on thepoint.com in order to raise funds for a progressive primary challenger to Blanche Lincoln, and that we give those funds to the best and most serious candidate as determined by the donors.

I’ve canvassed for Obama and raised money for journalistic projects but I’ve never raised money for politics. How much should we set as a fund-raising goal starting out? $50,000? $100,00? Please give me feedback on this immediately. I have some very close friends in the Young Democrats of Arkansas as well as Teamsters 878, and I am ready to make this happen.