Here it is! The first true blog post of the Praxis Summer Road Show. The goal is to write a short re-cap like this one the next day and edit the longer interviews into extended posts and podcasts as possible. Day 1 was jam-packed and followed two nights of next to zero sleep, but a perfect start to a long adventure.
After a send off breakfast with all my parents and one of my sisters (my last Satellite Diner fix until fall), I headed south and west toward my first real destination, Portland, OR. This drive took me directly through Pasco, and though I had a tight schedule ahead to make my first interview at 4:00 PM, I wanted to see whether the nearly 5 month old memorial to Antonio Zambrano-Montes still stood at 10th & Lewis. Earlier this year, I interviewed Jackie Vaughn and Alfredo Llamedo about their activism to raise awareness and seek accountability for Antonio’s murder and I had not yet been able to see where the horrific events unfolded in person, though I did see (along with hundreds of thousands of others) the bystander video that made the case famous, and added Zambrano-Montes’ name to the long list of unarmed people killed by police.
The focus of this trip is not overtly on police violence, but no issue exists in a vacuum. Police and state violence tie in to the broader devaluation of life that has led us on a path of planetary destruction and social disconnection so we will certainly continue talking about it along the way. I felt angry that this happens so often, but also hopeful that people are mobilizing against unchecked police violence and refusing to forget the injustices that have been done, tried not to wilt in the heat like the flowers pictured and continued on south to the Washington-Oregon border.
I-84 follows the Columbia River out of the scrub desert and basalt of the Eastern parts of Washington and Oregon into the lush forests on the other side of the Cascade divide and also the journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. I thought about them as I listened to the recording of Matt Damon reading Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States” that I dragged along for my driving. Zinn spoke in his introduction about the problems with teaching the history of a nation as though it were the history of a family. Being educated in public schools in this region, we learned about the history of western expansion as a fun myth about brave explorers and sealed in the tales playing 8-bit Oregon Trail. The unpleasantness about genocide was left out.
The story of colonialism is raw in the Pacific Northwest, especially given how near in generational terms the experience is for the descendents of both indigenous and settler populations. That aspect of this country’s history will surely be on my mind as I continue this summer. It also intersects with the broader story of industrialization and the many dams and wind turbines along the Columbia Gorge that propel civilization along. While fossil fuels are obviously among the most harmful in terms of extraction and pollution, the entire philosophy of growth and linear thinking that drove the original takeover of this land underlies even “green” energy expansion. Do salmon and birds have less value than electricity and how do we make those decisions?
By the time I arrived in Portland, I was sluggish from driving and beyond thrilled that my first interviewee, Paul, greeted me at his house with a cup of coffee. We talked about his work with the Institute for Anarchist Studies, the Hella 503 Collective, which grew out of Occupy Portland, and the Parasol Climate Collective. Between the three, he shared a wealth of knowledge about organizing and the clear ties between our climate change reality and our social and cultural realities. Talking with serious anarchists always makes me hopeful because of our shared belief in fellow humans to organize without domination. It’s even more gratifying to see that belief play out in real world projects. The full interview is published here and portions will air on Saturday’s Praxis show on KYRS.
I headed from there to meet Jordan, my second interview of the day, for a bite and a hike. We had met last week in Spokane through my sister and I was glad to get the chance to talk again and get some exercise after driving. The two of us hiked up to the top of Mt. Tabor Park, where it was clear enough to see Mt. Hood and quiet enough to record an interview about climate adaptation and oil consumption from a systems perspective. The full interview will be published here later in the week, but you can hear an older interview on Recovery Zone on KBOO about some of the same ideas here. His vision of using radically democratic worker co-ops to implement scientifically sound mitigations to climate change gave me a lot to think about and I hope that listeners enjoy it, too.
I was thrilled to encounter my first Piano. Push. Play. installation at the park and sat down to play for a while.
Thoroughly exhausted, we headed out and I made my way to a friend of a friend’s house where I’d be staying. I met the friendly dog and another visiting traveler with whom I was able to talk about his work with political prisoners in the U.S., changing culture, and the similarities and differences between his town and mine. He was badly sunburned and I was really ready for bed, so we called it an early night. I was so pleased with this first day being surrounded by interesting, engaged people and have so many more questions for moving forward.
Leave a Reply