Body of (Written) Work

Here is a fairly comprehensive archive of work by Brian Awehali.

FEATURES | ESSAYS | INTERVIEWS | LiP: INFORMED REVOLT


FEATURES

» Occupy Everywhere, Part 1: Notes from Wall Street
In the first days of the occupation, most corporate media reporters approached the protesters as would any good B-movie alien delegation: “Take us to your leader,” they demanded. Confronted with a decentralized organizing culture, they furrowed their brows, demanded demands, preferably in sound bite form, and generally derided protesters for being young, unrealistic, weird-looking, and/or unhygienic.
:: Earth Island Journal / The EnvironmentaList :: October 2011

» After the Twister
Empire Electric saw its load drop by over a third in seconds as transmission lines and substations vanished from the grid… Veterans said it really looked like a bomb went off; it was like a mower went through it, chewing everything up… This is a close-knit town. It’s very wholesome, you know, it’s part of the Bible Belt…—From Joplin, MO-area news accounts, one month after the most destructive tornado in U.S. history. (This is a personal essay about the climatological destruction of my birthplace.)
:: The Brooklyn Rail :: July 2011

» Drift to Live: A Profile of Liao Yiwu (廖亦武), China’s Most Censored People’s Historian
“Why should the government fear me?” says Liao smiling, the first day we meet, along with an interpreter and several of Liao’s writer friends, at a riverside teahouse outside of Chengdu, in Sichuan province. “I’m just a guy who tells stories.”
:: Counterpunch / LOUDCANARY :: May 2011

» China’s Underground Historian
Liao Yiwu may be the most censored writer in all of China. His work has been translated into several languages and has enjoyed international critical acclaim, yet in his hometown of Chengdu, where his books are banned, he’s virtually unknown.
:: The Progressive :: April 2011

» Mongolia’s Wilderness Threatened by Mining Boom
Multinational mining companies eye Mongolia’s earthy fortunes
:: Earth Island Journal / Guardian (UK) / Third World Resurgence (Malaysia) / Ger (Denmark) :: 2010-11

» Native Energy Futures
Renewable Energy, Actual Sovereignty & the New Rush on Indian Lands
:: LiP :: 2006 :: Project Censored award winner

» Trust Us, We’re the Government
How to Make $137 Billion of Indian Money Disappear
:: Alternet :: 2002 :: Project Censored award winner

» The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ $100-Billion Shell Game
:: Z Magazine (cover) :: April 2002 :: with Silja Talvi

» Broken Promises
Government malfeasance continues in landmark Indian Trust case
:: ColorsNW :: 2003 :: Society of Professional Journalists award-winner :: with Silja Talvi

» New World Disorder
How U.S. arms dealers and their Cabinet-level cronies profit from the war on terror
:: LiP / Alternet :: 2002

» Monitoring Your Every Move – A Guide to Biometric Technologies
What are the facts about biometrics? Predictably, industry leaders and critics paint wildly different pictures. Here, however, are a few brief looks at today’s leading biometric technologies, which may be a much bigger part of your life than you’d expect, in a considerably shorter time than you’d imagine.
:: High Times :: 2002

» Profit, Control, and the Myth of Security
The advance of Total Surveillance Society promises a world free of danger and uncertainty, yet the arguments for a comprehensive surveillance society comprise a fear-addled litany of threats and fantastic promises of security that are grossly exaggerated by the very corporate and government serial offenders who pose the greatest threat to our health and safety.
:: LiP :: 2006 :: with Ariane Conrad

» Life After Corporate Death Care
As traditional religious death rituals have given way to more secular alternatives, a consumer revolt against the high cost of dying in America is well underway.
:: Alternet :: 2004

» David and Goliath in Indian Country
The feds are on the losing side of the largest class action lawsuit ever filed against the U.S. government. This time, the Indians may actually beat the cavalry.
:: Alternet :: 2005

» Propaganda, Public Relations, and the Not-So-New Dark Age
Edward L. Bernays birthed the public relations industry in the United States. His clients included General Motors, United Fruit, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the U.S. Department of State, Health, and Commerce, Samuel Goldwyn, Eleanor Roosevelt, the American Tobacco Company, and Proctor & Gamble. He directed public relations campaigns for every president from Calvin Coolidge in 1925, to Dwight Eisenhower in the late 1950s. He was, in the estimation of cultural historian Ann Douglas, the man “who orchestrated the commercialization of a culture.”
:: LiP :: 2006 :: with Stephen Bender

» Nike Come Home, All is Forgiven
Oregon governor Mannix invites shoe giant to consider the economic advantages of domestic prison labor.
:: LiP :: 1998

» Challenging the War on Drugs
A landmark conference on drug policy in Los Angeles convened nearly 600 attendees from across the U.S. and Europe.
:: Santa Fe New Mexican / Alternet :: 2002


ESSAYS

» Inventing Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day provides an ideal opportunity to consider the formation of national identity and the concept of a civil religion. It’s also a living metaphor of the prevailing American model for immigrant assimilation and the ways in which history can be reinterpreted, and indeed wholly reinvented, to serve competing ethnic, patriotic, religious, and commercial ends.
:: Britannica.com :: 2002

» Where Fools Rush In – Custer’s Last Stand
July 25, 1876 ― The U.S. Army today suffered its worst defeat ever in Plains Indian warfare, as more than 260 soldiers in the 7th Cavalry were killed along the banks of the Little Bighorn River in the disputed Montana Territory today. The bloodbath followed an evidently ill-conceived charge under the command of Gen. George Armstrong Custer.
:: Britannica.com :: 2000


INTERVIEWS

» Madness and Mass Society
Pharmaceuticals, Psychiatry, and the Rebellion of True Community
:: an interview with Dr. Bruce Levine :: LiP :: 2006

» Torture Taxi
Anatomy of a CIA Front Company
:: an interview with A.C Thompson and Trevor Paglen :: LiP :: 2007

» Remote Control Hip Hop
Culture, power and youth…
:: an interview with Jeff Chang :: LiP :: 2005

» Who’s White?
Race, Humor and the New Black/Non-Black Breakdown
:: an interview with damali ayo and Tim Wise :: LooseLiP podcast :: 2007

» Bad Vibes – Poison Pleasure Products?
Words with Jessica Giordano, co-founder of the Smitten Kitten and the Coalition Against Toxic Toys (CATT).
:: with Lisa Jervis :: LiP :: 2006

» Conveying Correctness
The Prefabrication of Political Speech
:: an interview with Chip Berlet :: LiP :: 2005

» Designing Our Demise
One respected Cornell robotics expert is in firm belief that machines will acquire human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, and that by the middle part of this century, they will be our intellectual superiors.
:: an interview with Hans Moravec :: Britannica.com :: 2000

» Membership Has Its Disadvantages
Whiteness and the Social Entropy of Privilege
:: an interview with Tim Wise :: LiP :: 2005

» Notes On a National Disorder
A look at the growing problem of excessive concentration in the U.S. culture industries, and the oligopolistic sway of just a few giant players over television news, book publishing, popular music and cable TV. Also, how the hell Bush II happened.
:: an interview with Mark Crispin Miller :: LiP :: 2005

» Addicted to Waste
Harm Reduction, Disposability and the Myth of Activist Purity
:: an interview with Julia Butterfly Hill :: Tikkun :: 2005

» On Irony
A pointed Q&A with author Rebecca Solnit
:: LiP :: 2006


LiP: Informed Revolt

LiP: Informed Revolt was an award-winning alternative zine-turned-magazine that took on various incarnations after I founded it in 1996. It began in Chicago as a zine, distributed mostly at local bookstores and coffee shops, then began publishing online in 2001 before eventually evolving into a full-format North American periodical in 2003. It was run by an all-volunteer staff until 2007, and was devoted to politics, culture, sex and humor, and took a satirical, analytical, and often biting approach to what we called “a culture machine that strips us of our desires and sells them back as product and mass mediocracy.”

Unique among its publishing peers, but consistent with its stated political values, LiP printed entirely on 100% recycled PCW paper, with non-petroleum-based inks, and using only union-run or worker-owned presses.

Contributors to the magazine included activists, cultural critics and literary figures, including Vandana Shiva, Tim Wise, Julia Butterfly Hill, Mark Crispin Miller, Martín Espada, Rebecca Solnit, David Solnit, Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Jeff Chang, damali ayo, Chip Berlet, Michael Eric Dyson, Mary Roach, Boots Riley, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Heather Rogers, Timothy Kreider, Iain Boal, Jeff Conant, Neal Pollack, Neelanjana Banerjee, Antonia Juhasz, Bruce Levine, and Christopher Hitchens. The magazine also regularly featured excerpts from contemporary and historical authors, including Susan Faludi, Mary Roach, Derrick Jensen, Eduardo Galeano,Winona LaDuke, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth and Stuart Ewen, Mark Crispin Miller, Voltairine DeCleyre, Robin D.G. Kelley, Albert Camus, Dorothy Allison, Eduardo Antonio Parra, Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood, Christian Parenti, Leslie Savan, Mark Zepezauer, John Ross, and Noam Chomsky.

You may also check out one complete issue of LiP:

The Relentlessly Persuasive PR Issue (pdf)