Wal-Mart No Way’s ad is now on the air. The ad, “The Real Costs of Wal-Mart,” is airing on NY1, but you can view it here.

And be sure to call Mayor Mike at 311 to say Wal-Mart No Way!

Over a quarter of a million people filled the streets of Washington yesterday to protest the war in Iraq and the Bush regime, but our nation’s corporate media has given the event scant coverage. The demonstration itself, with a large turnout from labor, was broad and impressive.

There is much debate in the anti-war movement about the value of these large mobilizations. The side that I am on argues that these are the most visible manifestation of the movement against war and Bush that we can muster, and that there is an additional value in buoying our spirits by bringing so many of us together.

Another side argues that we’ve been marching by the millions against this stupid war since before it began, failed to stop it then and have since been losing momentum and turning out fewer people (yesterday was the largest turnout in a year). It’s time for new tactics and strategies, they say, and I don’t necessarily disagree.

The problem with a march on Washington that the media ignores is that it’s like a tree falling in a forest, with no CNN corespondent there to ask the tree why it chose today to fall and then interview three anti-tree-falling counter protesters to ask why they think the tree should keep standing.

My friend John Nichols argues in his book, “It’s the Media, Stupid!” (co-written by Bob McChesney) that the left should prioritize media reform amongst our many issues since the media has such an overbearing influence on public discourse and debate that they can effectively pretend we don’t exist no matter how many hundreds of thousands os us march in the streets. It’s on days like today, scanning the papers for any coverage of yesterday’s huge demonstration, that his argument should have a special resonance.

Today and tomorrow, dedicated activists remain in Washington to engage in acts of civil disobedience in order to ratchet up the pressure against the administration and its war. Most likely, they’ll block a few traffic intersections and maybe drop a banner or two from public places. Talk about overused and ineffective tactics.

I’ve believed for a few years now that our comrades who engage in direct action should focus on the headquarters and newsrooms of major media companies. Let’s see if NBC news can ignore the antiwar movement if activists block the entrance to their news studios and prevent Brian Williams from sitting in his comfy chair. Let’s see the NY Times ignore protests and arrests in their lobby. How about simultaneous CD’s and banner drops outside the various “window on the world” studies of the morning newscasts?

Remember “the whole world is watching?” Well, it’s not. Not anymore, and not yet again.

This is going to be unforgivably morbid.

A lawsuit has been filed against the Port Authority by the kin of those who died in the 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Center. Without comment on the lawsuit, which has serious merits, one motivation is dubious. According to the NY Times:

“Among survivors of the first attack, which left six people dead and more than 1,000 injured, there has long been a feeling of neglect, as if their suffering was not valued as highly as that of the people who endured the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001. There was no federally engineered compensation fund, no blue-ribbon panel to apportion blame.”

Well, geez, whose death is as valued as those who perished in the attack on New York four years ago? And what, exactly, is fair about valuing any random death over another? We have in the Gulf Coast devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina a clear example of our weird priorities. Only weeks later, as the death toll reaches 9/11-like proportions, is there anything approaching the outrage that was palpable in this country four years ago. Maybe it’s because we can’t bomb God and Nature in retaliation, or maybe it’s because we’re so numb to daily life that doesn’t directly affect us that we’re only moved by astronomical body counts.

I’m working again – organizing – and without giving too much away, I am brought in daily contact with senior citizens (shucks, I’ve probably given it away). I met a woman the other day who was all too eager to talk about her life’s tragedies with anyone who would listen, particularly any young man who reminded her of her own son, who died years ago at the age of 33. Apparently he got into an argument with a friend of his, which resulted in a karate chop to the neck and a death from internal bleeding a few days later. Totally random and tragic, but who’s left to mourn him except his elderly mom and maybe an old flame, if he’s lucky? The old woman still beamed with pride over her lost son. She talked about the flashy job in finance he had landed a year or two before he died. He worked for some firm on the hundred-and-somethingth floor of the World Trade Center. “He would have died anyway,” she said wistfully.

Of course he would have. Everyone you know someday will die. So why privilege certain deaths over others?

Why do the 9/11 widows get to veto any kind of cultural space downtown that acknowledges the USA’s imperialism? Why is Cindy Sheehan’s voice privileged over those of the moms whose kids didn’t die in Iraq, or over the kids themselves who have yet to be shipped there?

My younger brother was at the World Trade Center on that fateful day in 1993, part of a third grade field trip to the observation deck. And had that been an airplane bomb instead of a car bomb, then I would be devastated by the loss of my kid brother and probably still climbing on the soapbox afforded me. But my brother will still die one day (I promised this would be morbid, Brian), and if I’m still around to see it, I’ll still be devastated. So why the double standard over everyday tragedies?

Anthony Weiner’s concession in advance of the Democratic primary run-off is the best possible result of Tuesday’s election, and not least of which because I have no intention of voting for Whitey (whatever name he may go by).

Freddy Ferrer, whose campaign has been rather timid until now, deserves the chance to finally take on Mayor Mike directly, without diminished strength and campaign funds. His “two New Yorks” theme from four years ago was exactly the message that voters deserved, and I will always appreciate that Freddy didn’t back down on September 12, insisting that nothing had changed. We still had then, and still have now after four years of Bloomberg, a city of inconceivable riches that is pushing its poor and desperate farther out into the margins. If Freddy campaigns like a populist from now until November, our CEO Mayor may yet get fired.

Better yet, the possibility of wasting $12 million in taxpayer money on an unnecessary run-off election opens the possibility for significant election reform. It’s time to put proportional representation back on the agenda. Taxpayer outrage was a significant, if not primary, factor in San Francisco’s recent switch to instant run-off voting (elections by ranked ballot, where the votes for the lowest vote-getting candidate are redistributed to the next choice listed on each ballot until a candidate finally achieves a majority vote). It could be here, too. The gradual demographic shifts in the city virtually ensure lots more run-off elections, with a splintered, Balkanized electorate unable to elect majority candidates.

Those run-off elections are bad for democracy, too, for how divisive they can be. Four years ago, when Ferrer had to face Mark Green in a run-off, Green’s campaign played the race card, using fears of Al Sharpton to galvanize the white suburban vote. Green won the primary, but lost support and lost the election. But Whitey won anyway.

That wouldn’t happen in an instant runoff vote. A candidate must appeal to his rivals’ supporters for their second and third place votes in order to prevail in multiple rounds of counting. Divisiveness doesn’t work if you’re simply a plurality, nor does painting certain candidates (the wild ones, with the kooky lefty ideas) as “spoilers.” Voters could finally vote their conscience and their true preference, and candidates would have to emphasize common ground and areas of agreement.

The Bush appointed National Labor Relations Board is poised to curtail the use of those giant inflatable rats that we’ve grown to love. A staple of labor demonstrations for the last decade, the rats are apparently a victim of their own success: increasingly viewed as a signal to the public not to patronize certain ratty, union-busting establishments.

That any branch of the government would ban an effective tactic of the labor movement should come as no surprise. The law’s just not on our side. The Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin amendments to the National Labor Relations Act expressly restricted labor’s solidarity power by banning so-called “secondary activity.”

“Primary activity,” for your edification, would be the employees of Company A striking and boycotting the products of Company A (for example: the UFW grape-pickers at Gallo striking and calling for a boycott of Gallo wines – that boycott is now over, by the way). “Secondary activity” would be the employees of Company A calling for a boycott of Company B for engaging in business with company A (for example, the UFW picketing wine stores that continued to carry struck Gallo wines – something that never happened, because of the law).

Try to imagine Teamsters deliverymen refusing to transport struck goods or UFCW grocery clerks refusing to sell struck goods or even UNITE HERE garment workers picketing Gap stores for selling sweatshop-made underwear, and you’ll see how the law denied the labor movement one of its most potent weapons. In fact, all of this talk about how the labor movement was at its peak membership when the AFL merged with the CIO in 1955 usually fails to mention that Taft-Hartley was passed by Congress in 1947, and Landrum-Griffin followed in 1959.

What about free speech, do I hear you cry? Well, yes, there is that pesky first amendment, and the courts have ruled that speech alone is exempt from labor regulations.

So, one can stand in front of a wine store and shout, “Do not shop in this store, because the rats are selling lousy wine made by scabs,” and that is fine. You can even hand out fliers saying the same.

Once you combine that free speech with any kind of activity (say, picket lines or picket signs), the courts have ruled that you are making an illegal “signal” to the general public to boycott the establishment, in violation of the amended National Labor Relations Act.

About ten years ago, the Laborers union begin accompanying their handbilling with large inflatable rats, as way of attracting attention to themselves and their message. The idea caught on like wildfire and other unions started doing the same. The message was certainly not a clear signal at first. I remember the first time I handbilled with a big rat, sometime in 1997 or 1998. More than a handful of passersby stopped and asked, “Is this about Giuliani?”

Now, people love the rat. As the sight of the big inflatable rats has become more familiar in New York City, people cheer when they see them, honk in support and jeer the bosses (whom, the rats are meant to evoke, in case the meaning was lost on you) and the judges and lawyers have taken note. “The rats think the big rats are a ‘signal,’” noted my UMass classmate, Jen Badgley, when we first heard about this in our labor law class this spring.

The rats admittedly are a signal to those of us with a little conscience and class consciousness (although, I’m not really sure how many people truly have the cause of labor in their hearts to allow for any kind of activity to be a meaningful “signal”). My favorite rat quote comes from the legendary president of the Transport Workers Union, Mike Quill, who responded to Taft-Hartley’s anti-Communist provisions by saying, “I’d rather be called a red by the rats than a rat by the reds.”

Another quote from Mike Quill is more appropriate at this time: “the judge can drop dead in his black robes.” That’s what he said to the press after being sentenced to prison for taking his union out on strike in violation of New York’s public sector Taylor Law.

Three weeks later, it was Quill who was dead, felled by a heart attack. Jail was not kind to the old man. Such is labor’s lot.

“The Aristocrats” is a disappointment. For all the talk of how the World’s Dirtiest Joke is like some great jazz improv, which improves with each new teller’s unique voice, mostly, it’s the same joke. There’s diarrhea, there’s incest, there’s Joe Franklin and the same lame punchline.

I always thought the joke was that aristocrats (like England’s royal family) actually engage in some of the child-fucking, shit-eating acts described in the joke’s set-up. In fact, the punchline is meant to contrast the genteel evocation of the “aristocracy” with the foul deeds detailed in the joke itself. For that reason, the montage of interviews with comedians laughing at the existence of a better punchline (“the sophisticates!”) around the middle of the film is one of its funniest bits.

Likewise, when comedians digress from the established joke into hilariously ribald tangents, the film finally hits its stride. George Carlin riffs on the consistency of diarrhea, Gilbert Godfried explains the preponderance of blood in the set-up, Sarah Silverman makes it personal with Joe Franklin and damn near everyone picks on the absent Gallagher.

“Tell me a joke” would have been a better motivation for the filmmakers than “tell me the same old dirty joke.”

Join the Socialist Party on Tuesday, September 13 at 7:00 for “Left Field Day at Shea.”

We’ve got a block of seats for the Mets vs. Nationals baseball game, so the New York Mets will welcome the Socialist Party on the scoreboard!

Tickets are only $5, and we’ll all be sitting together way out in the left field upper deck.

Despite a few bad games lately, the Mets are in a wild card race, so the game itself should be exciting, but we’ll also be taking the opportunity to protest the war in Iraq, public money stadium giveaways and corporate sponsorship stadium names.

Bring a sign. Bring a kazoo. Bring your wacky commie newspapers.

To sit with the Socialist Party, get in touch with me ASAP. There are a few tickets left.

The disastrous magnitude of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the Gulf Coast is almost inconceivable. I’ll hardly bother with a political commentary on the government’s woefully inadequate response to, and preparation for, this utterly predictable storm. I don’t think that we, as a society, are going to learn the lessons we need from this.

Global climate change is real, and it’s magnifying the size and impact of storms like Katrina, but don’t expect Bush to sign the Kyoto treaty. The National Guard belongs here, protecting the nation, not occupying foreign nations, but don’t expect our governors to demand the immediate return of their states’ troops. Natural disasters are much more likely, and predictable threats than fantastic terrorist threats, but don’t expect the Department of Homeland Security to focus on coastal evacuation. We’ll learn nothing, and this will happen again. Perhaps next time it will be Long Island.

I haven’t been near a television this week, so it’s hard to comprehend reports of dead bodies floating in the water and the thousands who are feared dead. And so, paradoxically, I am focused on one man.

Alex Chilton is missing.

Chilton is not a celebrity, or even a rock star really. He’s kinda the ultimate cult figure. The invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.

He first hit the top of the pop charts as a 16-year-old in the late 60′s with the band the Box Tops. His deep growl, which powered hits “The Letter” and “Cry Like a Baby,” was produced by the amphetamines he was force-fed by his producers (the same svengalies who likely pocketed all the dough).

He resurfaced a few years later with the first significant power pop band, Big Star. Their first two records undersold, although, like the Velvet Underground, it seems as though everyone who bought those records formed a band. (A cover of one of their songs, “In the Street,” served as the theme song to the sitcom, “That 70′s Show” and probably provided Chilton with the biggest paycheck of his life.)

Big Star’s unfinished third record is the stuff of legend. The band, their relationships and even their record label were disintegrating during the recording of “Sister Lovers.” The result is haunting. Some songs are pissed off and defiant. Others are sad and resigned. Some trail off into nothingness. The record finally saw the light of day a decade later when Chilton became a cult figure.

He produced the Cramps and became a hero of the punk movement, touring London on a legendary bender. REM praised him. The Bangles covered him. The Replacements recorded a tribute to him, simply called “Alex Chilton.”

Chilton, meanwhile, continued to be a legendary fuck-up. He left plenty of unfinished records, his own and even half of a never-completed Replacements record. Finally, he sobered up and frustrated his new young fans by recording R&B covers instead of new paeans to young love and angst.

I saw Alex Chilton play live twice. The first time was at the old Bottom Line club, when he delivered a set of those R&B covers. The club is intimate enough that you could whisper your requests to him. Every plea for “September Gurls” or “I’m In Love With a Girl” would be met with a sly smile, a promise that that was the next song on the set list and another R&B cover. I loved him for it.

The last time I saw Alex Chilton was at the World Trade Center, which hosted a free lunchtime oldies concert every Tuesday during the summer of 2001. Chilton played with a reunited Box Tops for an audience of grey-haired old-time fans and pink-haired new fans. I remember looking up during the show to watch a few seagulls fly in between those two towers, scraping the sky. Two weeks later, that image, and the sound of Alex Chilton’s voice, haunted me as I watched images on teevee of seagulls flying out of the thick plumes of smoke and debris that rose from the collapsing towers.

And, now, there’s another national disaster and I’m thinking about Alex Chilton again.

According to his record label, Alex Chilton remained behind at his home in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approached. He hasn’t been heard from since, and his name is listed among the missing on the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s website.

In his old tribute, “Alex Chilton,” Replacements singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg concludes “If he died in Memphis, then that’d be cool,” but he was probably imagining a death of old age after a long life and career of writing and recording beautiful, sad, frustrating, awe-inspiring songs. At 54, Chilton is hardly old. He deserves the chance to make it back to Memphis. This is not cool.

(Thanks to Tommy for bringing this to my attention.)