los anjalis

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.

Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written exactly 50 years ago, on this day. Do read it again if you can. A paragraph:

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

MLK Jr’s tone is conversational — he tries to reason with his readers — as well as indignant and righteous. And he takes great aim at the ‘white moderate’. His description of the white moderate feels… timeless.

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

In a beautiful showdown at the October 15th Times Square #OccupyWallStreet protest yesterday, a US Marine yelled at NYPD police for their aggressive behavior. Marine Sergeant Shamar Thomas first talked peacefully to the police, then yelled at them, as they blasted on their megaphones statements like “leave the sidewalk and nobody gets hurt.” So many people who were tweeting or speaking on livecams from the protest side confirmed that the NYPD were being aggressive and repeatedly threatened protesters about hurting them if they didn’t immediately heed the commands to move out of Times Square (where they were very peacefully protesting). After a minute or two, the US Marine became increasingly angry, and among what he yelled to the NYPD were:

“These are U.S. citizens peacefully protesting! These are the people you are supposed to protect!” “Why are you all acting like there’s a war out here, no one has guns! Why are you treating people like this! This is America, why are you treating people like this! Nobody’s gonna hurt you guys. Why are you all gearing up like this is war? This is not war! This is not war!

Why am you all acting like this? No one has guns. There are no bullets flying out here. How tough are you? How do you sleep at night? There is no honor in this. None. It takes a coward to hurt an unarmed civilian!”

It was so moving to see a US Marine check the NYPD on their actions, and remind them of their duty to protect, not threaten, the protesters. It was also moving to me, personally, to see this anger come from the mouth of a black man, and for his words to be respected (instead of tasers or batons being unleashed on him). Viewing the video, you get a sense of the collective frustration and rage of the crowd, coming out of the mouth of a US serviceman.

We are living history right now. Can you feel it?

Another video of the same interaction:

Remember this speech from Charlie Chaplin, in The Great Dictator, a movie he wrote, directed, and produced himself? (did you know it was released in 1940, before we even went to war with germany?)

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”…

…Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security.

happy labor day to all.

[if interested, here's the full text of the speech.]

Oliver Stone’s documentary ‘South of the Border’ (trailer). Interesting!

Melissa Harris Lacewell, “Countering Anti-Choice Terrorism”:

I believe the murder of George Tiller was an act of domestic terrorism whose aim was not only to assassinate a single man, but also to frighten a generation of doctors and to shame and terrify women and families who are making difficult choices. While the murderous rage of Tiller’s assassin is not representative of the broader anti-choice movement, I believe that the anti-choice community operates with a totalitarian impulse that generates a culture of terror rather than a culture of life.

and

Often women must wade through disgusting, painful, and misleading “information” about abortion just to get basic medical advice. While there are political, judicial, and structural aspects to this issue, I want to also make an appeal for the power of our personal narratives to fight back against anti-choice terrorism.

Check out the whole piece…

Check out this poster, starting with “389 Years ago the first slave ship lands in the American colonies.” And ending with “And on November 4th 2008, the people of the United States elect their first African-American President and his name is Barack Obama”.

Thanks, folks at Wallstats, for putting it together and for celebrating progress.

(cross-posted at LAist and Cure This)

Photos by jbhangoo via flickr; graphic and videos from Students for Bhopal

Today marks the 24th anniversary of the world’s worst industrial disaster — one that has been called the “Hiroshima of the chemical industry” and that took place in Bhopal, India. Around midnight on December 3rd, 1984, a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. Safety systems were not operational and the gas spread through the city. Thousands died that night, more than 20,000 have died to date as a result of the effects of the exposure, and over 100,000 people still suffer from ailments caused by the exposure. From Bhopal.org, a harrowing account of the fateful night 24 years ago:

Shortly after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India, owned by the Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none of the plant’s safety systems were working. In the city people were sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighborhoods fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead. People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets.

“We all live in Bhopal” is a common saying among the environmental justice movement, and it is relevant to LA residents too. We have no lack of potential and real environmental injustices, and no paucity of corporate crimes. Also of interest, the first ever nuclear accident actually occurred in Simi Valley in 1959, as noted in LAist previously:

We had no idea that Simi Valley was the site of America’s first nuclear accident (obviously we should watch more History Channel). At the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a liquid sodium reactor had a partial meltdown in 1959; the facts weren’t made public until UCLA investigated 20 years later. Researchers speculate that the radiation released was as much as 240 times that of the Three Mile Island accident. Exactly what was contaminated in the area, and by how much, was never accurately measured. Yikes, just 30 miles from downtown LA.

More on the Bhopal tragedy:

“The site has never been properly cleaned up and it continues to poison the residents of Bhopal. In 1999, local groundwater and wellwater testing near the site of the accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and 6 million times those expected. Cancer and brain-damage- and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than EPA safety limits. Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women. In 2001, Michigan-based chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities. However Dow Chemical has steadfastly refused to clean up the site, provide safe drinking water, compensate the victims, or disclose the composition of the gas leak, information that doctors could use to properly treat the victims.”

And if you have the stomach for this personal story, Aziza Sultan, a community health worker at the Sambhavna Clinic shares her personal account of that horrific night.

The pursuit of justice around the Bhopal tragedy is also a study in effective strategizing for positive change. The courageous residents of Bhopal, also known as Bhopalis, have captured the energies of social justice activists and students around the world. Bhopali women and children have performed numerous direct actions aimed at the most powerful leaders in India and America. The Bhopal Medical Appeal and the Sambhavna Trust Clinic were created to provide treatment and rehabilitation for victims and their families. And the activists’ relentlessness has finally paid off, and last month the government of India promised to create an Empowered Commission on Bhopal and take legal action on the criminal and civil liabilities of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical.

In a movement of solidarity, students at colleges and universities around the world have for years engaged in online actions, sent letters and faxes to the Indian government, and hosted thousands of events at their own campuses around the issues of the Bhopal tragedy.

Awareness about this disaster in Bhopal is important not only for its historical and present significance, but also because the battle to clean up the site of the power plant, compensate victims appropriately, and to stop completely preventable disasters like this around the world continues. December 3rd is noted as the Global Day of Action for Corporate Accountability, in memory of the Bhopal tragedy. From Bhopal.net:

Dow, the creator of Napalm, Agent Orange and responsible for Dioxin related deaths and diseases worldwide is not the only corporation that kills and maims people and causes irreparable damage to the planet. Wherever we may live, corporate greed and industrial poisons affect our lives and health through slow and silent Bhopals. Justice in Bhopal means justice for the poisoned everywhere.

Below is a poster that was distributed worldwide during the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster:

Links of interest:
International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal — Bhopal.net
The Bhopal Medical Appeal and Sambhavna Clinic — Bhopal.org
The worldwide student movement — Students for Bhopal

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations

Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.

This unit’s supposed to be deployed in October 2008, but i SWEAR, i SWEAR i saw these guys last month — masked as riot police at the Republican National Convention, using “so-called nonlethal weapons to subdue unruly crowds”.  It didn’t go too well, as I last understood.

So this is what i’m wondering… Why now?  Where is this greater threat, or this perception of greater threat, coming from?  What’s the need for this internal deployment?  Who called these guys in?

The photograph is a picture I took from Kellogg Street, overlooking Shepherd Road, while a mass arrest of peaceful protesters was underway. This was probably the first time during the RNC that the police used “unlawful assembly” to arrest hundreds of people who literally couldn’t escape. The police allowed a crowd to gather, locked down the escape routes, and arrested everyone for unlawful assembly. As I reported at FDL, I saw a simlar tactic deployed on 7th Street later in the week–the police blocked off both ends of the street, encircled the protesters, and then issued the order to disperse. When over a hundred people couldn’t vanish instantly, the cops seized the pretext to tear gas everyone. The trick worked so well they repeated it on Thursday night on the Marion bridge where about 300 people were told they would be allowed to march even though there permit had expired. The cops let them proceed to the bridge over I-94 and then locked down both ends of the bridge and arrested everyone, including about two dozen journalists, families with children, legal observers, and medics.

From first-hand documentation of the protests outside the Republican National Convention, as photographed and observed by LB. This should settle some more doubts about whether the protesters “deserved” what they got or whether they were inciting riots and hanging out in places where they shouldn’t have been. Also in almost every photograph I’ve seen like this (where a wide view is captured), there’s clear evidence of cops in riot gear outnumbering the protesters.

Thanks LB and the others who documented the situation outside the RNC with much more objectivity than the traditional press.

Some photos from a talented photographer who was arrested today at the peaceful protest outside the Republican National Convention. Apparently 43 others were arrested together, paraded to the press (as Webster states) and then cited for presence without a permit and then released. This was Day 2 of the RNC. On Day 1, the riot police arrested 300 people, 250 charged with CONSPIRACY to RIOT (including a few journalists). The second photo above is of a mass detention of 300 people on day 1 of the RNC protests. On both days — pepper spray and tear gas used indiscriminately, as per passers-by and protesters.

Also of note — LB on the Poor Peoples March (check out the photo):

Do these people look like a ravening mob to you? A few minutes later, the police tear gassed the whole block after pushed the crowd back about a block or two.

What you can’t see in the picture is that bicycle and riot cops were surrounding groups of people on the sidewalk and blocking the intersections at both ends of the block.

And LB on infiltrators:

When the anarchist checked the photographs she recognized the familiar-looking guy as one of the officers who had raided the Convergence Space on Smith Ave. the previous week.

The Pioneer Press traced the license plate of the unmarked sedan to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office.

Court documents also show that the police relied heavily, in some cases exclusively on the testimony of paid informants to lay conspiracy charges against certain defendants.

Keep these facts in mind when assessing claims that anarchists are responsible for various misdeeds at protests. If the authorities can infiltrate, they can also instigate.

This morning on my drive to work, I tuned into Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman (who was arrested for asking the police why her colleagues had been arrested). Among the insightful reporting on the constitutional violations that the riot police committed, she shared an audio clip of her producer Nicole Salazar essentially filming her own arrest. The audio was almost unbearable. And then this evening I saw the actual video:

Absolutely unbearable and horrifying.

What’s happening in the video: Salazar is filming (she’s a producer for a well-respected tv and video show, and she has full official press pass information around her neck). Riot police come swarming in from 3 sides. You can hear her saying Where do you want me to go? as they’re rushing the crowd. She screams “I’m Press! I’m Press!” as she’s being pushed by them. They take her down to the ground, stomp her face in the asphalt, one officer puts his elbow in her back, the other picks her up by her leg, she tries to keep her face up off the ground so it doesn’t get macerated from being dragged while elbow is in back and other is holding her leg. She ends up with a bloody nose and a scratched up face. And she’s still detained. (info from witnesses)

Her charge?

CONSPIRACY TO RIOT. What was she doing? Videotaping the protests and interviewing people. She’s still being detained. The Department of Pre-Crime (Minority Report reference) is in FULL EFFECT.

Salazar is just one of the 250 people who were detained or arrested for conspiracy to riot. And she’s a journalist — so not only are the riot police attacking her, they’re attacking the right of the free press to report. As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s a video of Amy Goodman on the situation a short while after her arrest:

Amy Goodman, world-reknown and widely respected journalist broadcaster of the show Democracy Now!, being arrested for ASKING the police why they were doing what they were doing.

Yes, a woman peacefully holding a flower, getting pepper sprayed. (thanks to BFP for the video)

Just two examples of the violent protesters being nicely moved away by our police state. If this doesn’t infuriate you then I don’t know how you can believe in a free America.

- – - – -

As the DNC and RNC created “Free Speech Zones” far from the actual conventions, and as police are now pulling out tasers, concussion grenades, and tear gas at peaceful protesters at the RNC in Twin Cities Minnesota, and as police horses are stampeding protesters, and as cameras and cellphones are being seized without reason, and as police in the twin cities in Minnesota are jailing some without reason and threatening others, and as a friend of mine is involved in the Northstar Collective (a group of medics and others who have been preparing for months to provide medical and psychological support for victims of the police during the RNC), and as I’m hearing about victims of tear gas streaming into the Northstar makeshift clinics, I don’t know what to think.

Protests SHOULD matter, but increasingly they don’t, and people are criminalized and made out to be america-hating anarchists for it. Folks around America should be enraged, but it’s a bit hard to when the media isn’t covering it (and the media who IS is being arrested for it) and when the convergence of Palin/McCain and RNC media and Hurricane Gustav are all occurring at the same time.

In any case, I’m really proud of the folks who are tirelessly covering it.

The ColdSnapLegal collective is live-twittering (short live-blog posts) about up to date arrests and civil rights violations occurring at the RNC protests. Check out their messages here. And check out their website here. Thank you so much ColdSnapLegal.

Here are some of their latest twitter posts:

Cops threatening to arrest everybody @ river walk – 300+ ppl inc. medics, legal observers, journalists, concertgoers, kids. Tear gas used.

Mass arrests on Jackson & 9th, including Democracy Now! journalists Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddou, Nicole Salazar.

Ramsey Cty jail on lockdown – no lawyers allowed inside. St. Joseph hospital also on lockdown, denying people water.

Steady stream of folks with pepper spray injuries at the Northstar clinic; medic headed to jail with supplies soon.

2 medics arrested at 6th & Wall

7th & Jackson arrests at 30-40. Democracy Now! journalists among those arrested at Temperance. Lots of police brutality among these arrests.

Anti-capitalist bloc being tear gassed on Jackson by river.

Pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades being used in more locations than we can write in one tweet right now.

Person tackled by 5 SPPD in riot gear for refusing a search. Media was present for this.

~300 people being stampeded by police horses on 2nd & Kellogg

Cops are getting ready to gas funk the war blockade at kellogg and wabasha. Legal observers needed there now.

Others reporting on this (because the mainstream media is late to it):

Firedoglake (with videos and up to date reports)

The Uptake

Amazing to see so many folks using YouTube, Qik video (upload from phone), Twitter, and other social networking means for the dissemination of this much-needed information.

Last I checked, I thought we were living in the free world, not Beijing…

Back when the two major Democratic candidates were vying for the place of THE presumptive democratic presidential nominee of the United States of America (TM), there was much discussion in the mainstream media about the so-called “Oppression Olympics” — the idea that we were too busy fighting over who was more oppressed. This was all a bunch of B.S. but the mainstream media was all over it (and i think clinton’s campaign and some supporters really played into it too, unfortunately). And of course, the Daily Show was all over the media’s being all over it, and produced a segment on this topic in quite fanciful style:

(thanks Susie for the link!)

But I digress a bit. An oppression olympics of a much more frightening kind (and one that the mainstream media isn’t all over) is the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Let’s just put it bluntly — shit is going down, but what we’re seeing is just the QUITE FANCIFUL show they’re putting on.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not dislike the idea of the olympics, I am not the grinch (well, sometimes i’m pretty close). But there’s so much to the story here that isn’t covered, and so many human rights and privacy violations wrapped up in this story that it’s alarming beyond belief (and i wont even go into the issue of tibet). This news – from before the olympics began:

Hua Huiqing – an underground Christian – told me that police bashed down his front door, dragged his family from their apartment, and instructed him to leave Beijing for the duration of the Olympics.

Gao Hongming, recently released after an eight year prison sentence for ‘incitement to subvert state power’ is being followed by a team of plain clothes policemen on a 24 hour shift pattern. Several others reported similar intimidation – all beginning at 8am on 28 July.

Wang Zhixin, a thirty-year veteran of China’s democracy movement, was given a contract by government officials. He and his wife were ordered to sign it. The consequences? If he speaks out during the games, she will be punished.

He told me: “To the outside world, the government says ‘don’t politicize the Olympics’. But they’re the ones who are politicizing the games.”

Much of what went on in preparation for the Olympics in Beijing is not unique to Beijing:

…a clean-up of the city which has involved laying out 40 million flower pots, festooning building sites with billboards painted with scenes of what the developments will eventually look like, and removing beggars, dissidents, the mentally ill, and hundreds of thousands of poor migrant workers from the streets of the city.

Oh yeah, and 2 million Beijing residents — TWO MILLION — have been displaced by the government’s efforts to clean up the city and create the right environment for the olympics.

The Olympics has an uncanny history of clean-up operations by host cities, whether in other countries or in the United States of America. But the new unique twists abound and they’re quite disturbing, including the above information about people being threatened or disappearing entirely; aggressive threats to journalism; and the threats to China’s own people going about their business:

Wardens yesterday were patrolling the park demanding that passing journalists not conduct interview with local people.

Among the stranger banners exhibited elsewhere is one that reads: “Go outside less – give our foreign friends some space.”

Yikes. Embarrassed by your own countrymen and women much? Or just trying REALLY hard to continue the balancing act of globalization and a militarily repressive type of communism? And… meeting success with that strategy.

From the fine folks at RockRap, today’s musical thought for the day:

The problem is
We’ve been trained
We’ve been programmed
To not dream
Not want
Not think that there’s a better life available
Other than the one that’s being portrayed to us
Through the tube
Through the radio
We don’t even understand how much
The world is ours
But we just haven’t claimed it yet

Black Ice & K-Salaam

“If Gaza is the world’s biggest prison, this is the world’s biggest prison break.”
- a reporter

I heard about the massive break through the GazaStrip/Egypt border wall by Palestinians earlier today and couldn’t believe the radio. I knew that Israel had placed tighter restrictions on movement of food, fuel, and necessary medical supplies to Palestinians in the Gaza strip for a long while, and that for the last few days had completely cut off ALL supplies to Gaza (hence the prison reference) but I had to see it for myself. So now I share with you some video of the great 21st century prison break (juuuuust in case the mainstream media is focusing on clinton/obama or on the israeli government’s point of view).

Wow.

Some background from a physician in Gaza, blogging a few days ago at From Gaza, With Love:

In 2 hours all of the Gaza Strip will sink into darkness completely

Sunday 20 January 2008
I am writing to let you know that in less than 2 hours the last turbine of the Gaza Strip’s only power plant will stop working. The fuel for the power plant fuel will run out in 2 hours.

I hurried to recharge my laptop and my mobile and to wash the clothes. I checked my candles and rechargeable lights !!!!!! I telephoned Al-Awda hospital and was really panicked to learn that we have only have enough fuel for 4 days for the electrical generator!!!!! What more details shall I give?

No electricity leads to no pumped fresh water and no proper sewage system which in turn leads to more diseases and more needs for different surgical operations. But after 4 days no emergency operations can be conducted in our hospitals.

Israel sealed the Gaza Strip completely and strictly on Friday. Even the UN food supplies are not allowed to enter Gaza. 80% of the population at the moment depends on the UN aid and different international aid agencies. The UN staff are also not allowed to leave or enter Gaza. And while Israel is sealing the Gaza Strip it is at the same time intensifying air raids and military ground operations against Gaza. In the last few days 37 people were killed and 120 were injured. Most of them are civilians. It is a desperate attempt to stop the rockets from Gaza against the Israeli villages where the Israeli citizens are complaining of panic attacks. This response with such overreacted operations against Gaza is unjustified. The cutting off of power and fuel is frank collective punishment.

I AM WRITING TO TELL YOU PLEASE DO SOMETHING FOR US IN GAZA
1.5 million of Gaza are dying slowly. They need your help and support. Tell the world that Israel’s search for peace and security will not be achieved by this collective punishment against us.

and 1 month ago she wrote this:

The siege against Gaza has completed its six months 1.5 million of population are not allowed to travel outside Gaza ,many essential medications are not on the local pharmacies shelves as well as the hospital drug stores , tens of necessary goods are lacking only 15 kinds of goods are allowed to enter Gaza regularly , severe shortage of detergents, no cars spare parts , irregular electrical power ,most of local small industries has closed down due to lack of raw materials hundreds of local employees were made redundant , 39 patients have died before getting permit to leave Gaza for treatment in Israel , at least 2000 patients with different urgent health needs, including children with heart diseases and cancer patients , are waiting to be referred for further treatment outside the Gaza strip.

In related news, a member of the former israeli government was on the radio, on NPR’s show Which Way LA, and he commented that Palestinians were given the potential to transform their land’s worth/economy into a Singapore, but had decided to ruin it all, and therefore could not be trusted to govern their own land. He forgot to mention the noose tied just tight enough around palestinian land and the walls built left and right and the limitations of everyday necessary goods into Palestine. Minor details, eh?

Above — an amazing video. What a fine community showing. Powerful beautiful words. Kudos to the residents for fighting back so strongly.

Today, December 10th is International Human Rights Day.

And this month, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is tearing down 4,600 units of affordable public housing in four areas of New Orleans, Louisiana and putting up private mixed-income developments, of which only 744 units will be public housing. This is after rents in the city have doubled since the hurricane, thousands of people evicted from their apartments are homeless and being denied the right to return, and most of the public housing units have only endured mild damage from the hurricane.

What is at stake with the demolition of public housing in New Orleans is more than just the loss of housing units: it destroys any possibility for affordable housing in New Orleans for the foreseeable future. Without access to affordable housing, thousands of working class New Orleanians will be denied their human right to return.

Although this situation is unique and urgent in the city of New Orleans, it does not occur in isolation. The plans for redevelopment here are part of a national assault on public housing, in which tens of thousands of homes have been demolished in the past decade.

- Kali Akuno, director of the Stop the Demolition Coalition

People are being illegally denied their right to return. Racism is rampant. Classism is rearing its ugly head. At the most vulnerable time for thousands of displaced renters.

There’s a call to action this week to save NOLA’s public housing units, please check out Peoples’ Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition and Justice for New Orleans. There’s much to be done, and the people of New Orleans, heck people around the world whose right to the city is being threatened on a daily basis, need as much solidarity as possible.

Housing is a civil right, and health and dignity have everything to do with housing.

The above is a small celebration of Women-of-Color feminism and bloggers. I’m blessed to be included in the prelim video that Sudy put together and know that there are many others more deserving of a place in this montage.

Sudy ends the video with this quote:

“Power is never given back. When it’s stolen, if you want it back, you have to take it.” – M. Caballero

Woohoo! Didya hear that? Los Angeles is the largest city in the US to pass a resolution against the war. Who you callin’ vain? It’s exciting — the city of West Hollywood already voted for a resolution like this, and now it’s big bad Los Angeles’s turn:

LA City Council Adopts Resolution To End Iraq War; Resolution Calls For Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq (msnbc.com)

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council adopted a resolution Tuesday calling for an end to the war in Iraq, making it the largest city in the nation to make such a call.

“Today the city of Los Angeles is sending a message loud and clear -end the war in Iraq,” Councilman Bill Rosendahl said, drawing cheers from an anti-war audience packing the council chamber.

“We are calling for an immediate and complete withdrawal of United States military personnel from Iraq,” said Rosendahl, who introduced the resolution. “We have lost too many of our young men and women to this illegal and unjust war.”

The resolution passed on a 12-2 vote, with Dennis Zine and Greig Smith dissenting. Councilman Jose Huizar was not present for the vote.

Rosendahl said that among the more than 3,500 members of the military who have died in Iraq, 409 came from California, including 115 from the Los Angeles area and 25 from the city.
“Supporting our troops does not mean keeping them in Iraq,” he said. “Supporting our troops means taking them out of this war and bringing them home.”

Rosendahl said the expense of fighting the war has meant that more than $4.5 billion in tax revenues have been diverted from Los Angeles.

“This war has diverted funds that could be used for important domestic needs that would improve the quality of life for Los Angeles residents,” he said.

…where I’m surrounded by 30 amazing progressive and passionate doctors, at the National Physicians Alliance board and committees meeting!We’re having some serious discussions and strategizing together on health care issues, advocating for our patients and the public’s health, and building a more robust organization in the process.

The NPA does not accept ANY money from pharmaceutical companies, AND advocates strongly against physicians and physicians’ organizations having an unhealthy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition, we’re discussing our access to health initiatives, building our global health workforce initiative, responding to the SCHIP insurance cuts crisis, and developing our race/medicine and institutional racism (undoing racism) analyses.

It’s nothing less than a party. With ideas. And energy. Of a positive future of integrity in medicine. And the coffee is being drunk like the wine it is at meetings like this.

A few days ago, on the eve of the 1 year anniversary of the Olympics (that China’s hosting), a group of activists performed a HUGE banner drop of a Free Tibet banner ON the Great wall of China! My friend Nupur Modi participated in it, and there are videos and other links on the Students for a Free Tibet website. Lhadon Tethong, the executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet was also in China blogging about her experiences there (which I hear is illegal to do in China) during and after the event. She runs a text and video blog at Beijing Wide Open, it’s phenomenal (and she’s hot too). :>

They were all detained after the event, by Chinese authorities, but now are safe and home in the US and Canada. Lhadon writes:

I know we did this and got off pretty easy. And while I appreciate that some people think I did something brave, I’m not sure I did. Bravery is standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square. Bravery is getting on a stage in Tibet and calling for the return of the Dalai Lama. Bravery is going to Beijing to petition to get compensation for your confiscated farmland to the very same government that probably took it in the first place. All this, with no protection. No foreign passport, government, or official body that will defend you.

What I did, what we did, it was nothing in comparison. But I hope and I pray that somehow we have made a difference in the battle for human rights and freedom in Tibet and in China. The Olympics spotlight is on the Chinese leadership now and they want the world to believe they are open and free. But they are not. They demonstrated this by deporting me at the very moment that the one-year countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games was taking place in Tiananmen square. Paul and I just wanted to attend. To see it for ourselves and to blog about it like one should be able to in any place that truly enjoys freedom.

Some people have said we got what we deserved. Others have suggested we got off to lightly and should act more responsibly next time. I think it is the regime in Beijing – unelected, unaccountable and tyrannical – that should act more responsibly. I think our government, governments around the world, corporations doing business in China and the IOC itself, should act more responsibly. They are the ones who have clear and direct influence over Beijing. They are the ones who could make a huge impact by doing just a little in the way of speaking up for and promoting human rights and democracy.

Until this happens, we will keep doing what we have to do – challenging China’s control over Tibet and working to make the occupation too costly to maintain. One thing is clear in all this Olympics mess, the Chinese government cares what the world thinks. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t spend so much time trying to get us all to like them with slogans like “One World One Dream.” Knowing this, we must push them to change. And if our direct actions are seen as stunts by a few, I trust the vast majority will see them for what they really are, nonviolent expressions of dissent and protest to bring positive social and political change to people living under brutal oppression.

For Tibetans, Uighurs, Southern Mongolians, Taiwanese, Falun Gong, Christians, Catholics, farmers, factory workers, lawyers, doctors, journalists and every other person who lives under fear of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party and their goons, I say, we will never give up.

We stand with you.

Definitely check out her blog Beijing Wide Open. She’s inspired a little part of me to start videoblogging. But not yet, i’ve gotta marinate on it a bit.

My friend Nupur Modi, who was one of 6 who actually performed the banner drop, writes this:

We had the glamorous jobs. We were the ones to hang a banner on the Great Wall and make sure the footage got out to the world. I’m not saying that doing the action, and then being detained in China, being interrogated, and facing extreme consequences wasn’t hard and challenging.

But the hardest part is the unknown. And you all had to face the most of that. We were dealing with the situation minute-by-minute in bite-sized pieces. But not knowing what was happening to people you care about and not hearing from them for days, that can be distressing.

I truly appreciate all of your amazing strength, support, thoughts, and prayers through the process.

While we were in police custody trying to find the most comfortable position to sleep and pass the time in old Chinese police station chairs (answer: there is none), we found comfort and strength knowing that folks on the outside were working nonstop: getting media and the word out, pulling strings via diplomatic channels, calling and pressuring the embassies, providing emotional support to friends and family, etc., etc., etc. The six of us weren’t the only ones in that action, it was a whole community effort. I probably will never know about all the people who were involved and all the crucial roles they played, but I owe you all a sincere THANK YOU.

I truly appreciate all of emails and phone calls of commendation for my courage and “bad-ass-ness”. But let us please not forget the issue at hand. I am a US citizen, and with it comes innumerable benefits, resources, and privileges. I had it easy. Tibetans are struggling and taking action every single day, facing constant repression and violent rule. They don’t have freedom of speech or religion, and they are trying to preserve their culture. They are the true heroes.

Thank you, thank you, Nupur and the rest who participated in this action.

Oh I also wanted to add this — check out an interview on Canadian TV with Lhadon — what’s the most phenomenal, i think, is the amount of airtime they devote to this human rights issue. Would you EVER see this much time devoted to Tibet in the US? We’ve gotta break down the mainstream media, it’s brainwashing us all.

Think about supporting Students for a Free Tibet in whatever way you can. Whether that’s being the media (spread the word) or otherwise…

On my way home from work, I heard an NPR report on the bedouin struggle for keeping their land in the Negev desert, while the state of israel bulldozes it. [Amazing report, listen to it here] I was almost moved to tears, before finding myself enraged. Enraged.

Check out the NPR story (just a few minutes long), then think — does this remind you of anything? A people with no “formal” claim to their land, though they’ve lived there for centuries. A people with no significant amounts of money to their name. A state bulldozing these peoples’ lands in the name of the state, for their other projects they’re pursuing (scientific research in the desert, expansion of housing, etc). A state wanting to displace people from the land they live off of, and thinking it’s no big deal to move these people to government sponsored housing projects where these people will be concentrated in an area with few jobs, poor education, and very poor housing… ghetto love. A state spokesperson saying hey look, we’ve gotta do this, we don’t have enough resources for water, sanitation, etc to share with them in the desert so we have to raze their communities. A state spokesperson saying hey, look, we had to do this, we’ve tried negotiating and we’ve tried to make them compromise. Since they’re not compromising we had to bulldoze their land for the betterment of the state. Bedouins on record saying “i’m a farmer, my family is uneducated, my son is uneducated, *I* am uneducated” I grew up farming as did my parents and beyond. What am i going to do in an urban bedouin ghetto?

Ah, what rights do the bedouins have? They are nonviolently resisting.

Colonialism. Racism. Classism. This pattern is repeating. I’m reading a book about urban injustice and the things that were done to Black Americans in the name of all of the above. Arundhati Roy so articulately and passionately lays out the India/Narmada Dam vs the people situation in her essay The Greater Common Good. And there are numerous other stories, happening every day, on this issue. And I’ll say this again — It shocks me how much harm the Israeli state can inflict on others after the Holocaust that they went through. Displaced people displacing others, it breaks my heart.
The struggle for land/home/neighborhood/peace. Ongoing…

Ok, so Los Angeles ain’t ALL vain. Damn straight it ain’t. I love this city. Even though the average price of an alcoholic beverage in Los Angeles ($10.66) has now surpassed the average price of same in New York City ($10.12), the city of West Hollywood is representin’ patriotically, because the folks there care about the future of our country:

WEST HOLLYWOOD, July 17, 2007 (KABC-TV) – West Hollywood has taken a stand on the war. The City Council is the first in southern California to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

The council unanimously approved the symbolic, non-binding resolution Monday night. The resolution claims Congress and the country were given false intelligence to lead the U.S. into the war in Iraq.

Other charges include orders to spy on Americans, and stripping Americans of their constitutional rights.

It’s about time. Leave it to the gay, hedonistic community of West Hollywood to take SoCal to task :> Rawk! I believe there are 7 cities in California alone that have passed a similar resolution. Anyone know of other cities in Los Angeles that are deliberating on similar resolutions? I’ll find out if my town of Culver City is.

And in the meantime, know of any resolutions to cap the price of a basic alcoholic beverage in this charge-what-we-like city? What about amendment number 45 to the bill of rights — “every person shall be reserved the right to enjoy an alcoholic spirit or beverage for less than $4, and make fun of those who enjoy the same for over $10.66″ — remember that one?

Carnivals are cruise ships.  Carnivals are also blog roundups on a variety of issues.  I’m a big fan of the recently created “Carnival of Radical Action”.  Other than just sounding kickass, it’s a powerful blog roundup of posts that speak to effective actions, education, and radical thought.  Here’s the latest carnival (number 3), which is, even more excitedly focused around the Allied Media Conference from last month, in Detroit.  I was slated to go, speak, but was most excited to meet some of these people i hope to always surround myself with — energetic media makers, radical thought-sayers and beautiful booty shakers. Alas, I wasn’t able to make it, but thanks to the carnival that Nadia put together this month, I (and you too) can get a taste of the delicious deliveries of the conference. It’s posted at No Snow Here, so check it out.

Welcome to the third edition of the Carnival of Radical Action! This installment is inspired by the recent Allied Media Conference, and themed on media as a tool for organizing, education and social change…

In putting together this collection of blog posts, articles, poems, photos, videos and zines, I am even more convinced that we are populating the world with our messages by all means available to us. We aren’t just using media, but redefining media, to communicate with each other, speaking our truths, documenting our experiences, and recording our movements.

Why so beautiful? Students and faculty protesting TOGETHER. Most everyone protesting. Silent processional protest with folks wearing No Card stickers. Loud booing from the whole hall of folks when Andrew Card gets his “doctorate in public service”. Signs pulled out of peoples’ gowns everywhere. Press coverage is inevitable for such an event. Completely nonviolent. Everything went off without a hitch.

Beautiful.

Now let’s look at the press coverage.

Interestingly, the Associated Press inaccurately portrayed the protest (check out the video then take a look at this piece of the article):

The protests were mainly contained to an area in the back of the campus arena. Many faculty on stage joined the three- to four-minute outburst.

Wow. Didn’t it look like the majority of the graduating class was holding up signs? Many of the students in the Orchestra Pit area right in front of the stage were holding signs, clearly demonstrated by the video. And students in various other places of the hall were holding up signs. What’s freaky is that the Associated Press, or the AP, reports on an event and then sends it out over the newswire to be syndicated in regional and local outlets all over the country (hundreds of newspapers reprinted this specific article).

The About section of the Associated Press’ website describes that hundreds of radio, tv, and news outlets use their pieces. So, a little misrepresentation, exponentially distributed? How do we hold the media accountable when they can blatantly lie like this?

Anyone who reads this site regularly knows i’m a stickler for wording / connotation / framing. The way the AP framed these two lines is stunning — the protests were “contained” to an area… 3 to 4 minute “outburst”. What would you picture from the AP article, if you hadn’t had access to an individual’s home video footage of the graduation ceremony? Some crazies in the back of the hall shouting nonsensically, and not supported in their protest by the other members of the graduating class.

If it weren’t for the internet and the ability of sites like YouTube to broadcast the peoples’ videos, we wouldn’t have any checks and balances on the media’s ability to repeatedly misrepresent anything they want to.

[Andrew Card was Bush's chief of staff from 2000-2006, lied to the american public about the Iraq war, and in the last month it was revealed that he and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez went to the bedside of John Ashcroft (while he was zonked out in the intensive care unit after an operation, and who had previously appointed another man to his position in the interim) to try to get his signature for reauthorization of a huge public citizen surveillance program (more at this slate.com article)].

From “In Los Angeles, Where the Police Were Unable to Contain Themselves” (NYTimes editorial, May 12, 2007)

Helped along by its own words and actions, and a way of dealing with the public that can feel more remote than professional, the force has a poor reputation with minorities that predates the Watts riots of 1965, set off by white officers arresting a black man for drunken driving. In 1982, Daryl Gates, then police chief, set a tone the city has yet to live down when he explained — after a black motorist was rendered unconscious by a police chokehold — that blacks might be more likely to die by chokehold than “normal people.” The mayor, Tom Bradley, was African-American, as were the next two police chiefs. That hardly mattered. The South Central unrest in 1992 that followed the acquittal of officers who beat Rodney King, a black man, was the worst in the nation’s history.

In these days of heated national debate over immigration, the police’s edginess seems heightened when immigrants congregate, and in California, that is frequently. Some 600 officers were assigned to the demonstration in MacArthur Park on May 1. They included dozens of officers equipped with face shields and enough body armor to resemble a small army of Robocops.

Immigrant advocates said the riot unit cast a pall over the crowd, which posed no threat and included undocumented workers who prefer to avoid law enforcement altogether. Before long a group of about 30 people at the fringe of some 25,000 demonstrators threw plastic bottles and cans at the police. The police failed to isolate the troublemakers, instead managing to push them into the larger crowd.

Officers seemed clueless or unconcerned about procedures for crowd control and even about allowing journalists to do their jobs. They ineptly ordered the crowd to disperse, in English, from a helicopter that may have been too far away for anyone on the ground to hear.

Several people were wounded by so-called rubber bullets, batons or general manhandling, including working journalists, some of whom are themselves immigrants. An officer caused a hairline fracture to the wrist of a local news camerawoman. Her camera was flung to the ground, but images from other cameras, including from cellphones, showed the police out of control. One video showed an officer using his baton more than once to strike a boy who appeared no older than 12.

…of a number of posts here regarding the brutality that the LAPD inflicted on people gathering peacefully on May Day (May 1) in Los Angeles. Late by 6 days, yes, but I needed to process… and more recently I’ve become quite incensed by some peoples’ responses, whether apathy or a sense of “they deserved this.” Video does it SO MUCH better, so here is some (if you haven’t already seen this):

For those who are ACTUALLY discussing whether or not these peaceful protestors brought this onto themselves or not, I bring you the few and important words of the U.S. Constitution’s First amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Thou shalt watch this video:

some words:

thou shalt not buy coca cola products, thou shalt not buy nestle products…

thou shalt give equal word to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries…

guns, bitches, and bling were never part of the 4 elements [of hip hop], and never will be…

thou shalt not pimp my ride…

when i say hey thou shalt not say ho…

thou shalt think for yourselves…

[Some more tracks by them at their Myspace page -- I really like "A letter from God to Man". Some live performances are also available on YouTube, check 'em out, just search for them]

From Los Angeles based artist Mark Vallen’s wonderful blog — Art for a Change — the story behind his Free South Africa posters that are wheat-pasted on a wall in the upcoming movie The Pursuit of Happyness:

I created my Free South Africa poster in the summer of 1985, just as the international anti-apartheid movement was truly gaining strength and influence. My poster was given away at anti-apartheid rallies and protests across the U.S., and sold internationally through a network of progressive poster distributors. The image was wheat-pasted on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco as college students across California joined the protest movement that would force the California University system to divest all of its holdings in racist South Africa. The artwork was circulated at the demonstrations in Beverly Hills, California, that eventually succeeded in permanently shutting down that city’s Consulate for the white minority South African government. The poster was carried on picket lines held in front of coin shops selling the South African Krugerrand, in a successful campaign that eventually banned the importation of the gold coin from the racially-segregated Republic. In short, my poster had an extremely visible and active street life – especially in California.

I created my first mass-produced silkscreen street poster in 1979, and for nearly ten years afterwards produced dozens of other anonymous underground posters and flyers, including Free South Africa. During this period my politicized street posters blanketed the boulevards of Los Angeles. Mine were the first bilingual, Spanish-English political posters to hit the streets of L.A. in the early 80’s, but I always worked clandestinely – my hand remaining incognito. While some artists have built entire careers out of promoting themselves as “guerrilla” poster artists, wheat-pasting themselves to fame and fortune, it has always been my position that the best political street poster art is done anonymously. The finest example of this would be those still nameless artists who created the brilliant street posters of protest from the student/worker uprising of Paris ‘68 – their efforts placing paramount importance on delivery of a clear message. There is a major contradiction between enjoying art star status, while at the same time proclaiming oneself to be a guerrilla artist.

The Pursuit of Happyness has as its actual star the mythic American dream story, where anyone can become financially successful through dedication and hard work. While it’s said “everyone loves a winner” and “a happy ending”, I’d still like to see Hollywood tackle the stories of those real-life people who’ve struggled and worked hard all of their lives but never even came close to achieving their dreams. Odds are that describes a huge number of people, and as yet, their stories haven’t appeared on the silver screen. I also find it ironic that a poster once considered controversial, and used by activists who were willing to be beaten, arrested, and jailed for a cause – has became set dressing for a popular “feel good” movie. As the American satirist Ambrose Bierce once said, “Radicalism is the conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today.”

2 years ago, I posted a photo to my other blog To the Teeth — of an anti-bush flag that we hung from our patio during a televisted presidential debate, when I was living in an apartment complex in New Jersey. Within two days, I received a piece of mail from the housing association asking me kindly but firmly to remove the flag from my window. I did so, but mainly because it wasn’t going to be my battle to fight. But if I placed a peace sign in my window, they couldn’t touch me. Or could they?

The latest in housing association vs individual (actually, homeowner in this case) is this:

A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

“Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Lisa Jensen said she wasn’t thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, “Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing.”

Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines will cost her about $1,000, and doubts they will be able to make her pay. But she said she’s not going to take it down until after Christmas.

“Now that it has come to this I feel I can’t get bullied,” she said. “What if they don’t like my Santa Claus.”

The association in this 200-home subdivision 270 miles southwest of Denver has sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and the board “will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive.”

The subdivision’s rules say no signs, billboards or advertising are permitted without the consent of the architectural control committee.

Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn’t say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members.

(From “Woman faces fines for wreath peace sign”, Associated Press, Nov 26th, 2006).

In a conversation with my friend Carol the other day, we got to talking about how housing associations can create many rules that towns cannot create. There are some limits in regards to discrimination issues, but other than that, things are pretty fair game. She thinks that as more and more people live on parcels of land that fall under housing associations, such rules will mellow out. I hope so, but maybe the housing association chief will just fire everyone below him or her, like Kearns did above.

My friend Vivek is a law student at UCLA and writes at a wonderful blog called Your Good Name. He participated in a protest organized by UCLA students, on the issue of a Persian-American student who was tasered (stunned by a stun gun with 50,000 volts) several times by community police in the university library. And he had this to say about the framing of the protest:

But after attending the protest today at UCLA, where the messaging was around public safety rather than police brutality and race, I realize that we do not have much time. We don’t have time to obfuscate, to skate over the issues that dig deep into us and threaten to rip us all apart.

If we don’t call things as they are – that Mostafa was targeted because he was a Persian male, that he was cuffed and then tazed more than four times because he was a person of color, that the UCPD’s actions have created a climate of fear for people of color all over campus, that ’safety’ as a message only means more cops and no change in accountability – then we all suffer.

We don’t have time to call things otherwise because eventually we all are going to be hit by this. And it will hurt like hell when it happens to us or to someone we love.

Amen. I agree with that. Here’s to calling it like it is, for our kids’ sake. Good analysis, Vivek.

Now, for some other thoughts on the tasering incident:

[1] I’m so impressed by the actions of the student who was tasered in this incident. I mean, he fell to the ground, limp (in true civil nonviolent disobedience style) when the police wouldn’t let go of him. He called the police out on the Patriot Act while they had their tasers pointed at him. He repeatedly explained to the police that he wasn’t attacking them. Do you know what a taser does to you? It’s 50,000 volts of stun gun. Makes you lose bowel and bladder control in many cases and literally stuns you into paralysis for a few minutes. And all that time, between the taser shots, Mostafa Tabatabainejad was telling the policemen like it was. I don’t think I could have been so courageous.

[2] Don’t know what i’m talking about? Haven’t checked out the YouTube video yet that was shot on a cell phone videocamera? Indymedia has a link to the video here (disturbing) — [link]. Upon seeing this video, I was shocked (no pun intended) by how brazen the police were, KNOWING very well they had an good sized audience of undergraduate student witnesses (and maybe they even saw the cell phones pointing at them, shooting video). I mean, how do you do this with an audience? How do you not think twice about the brutality of it? I wonder how brutal they would have been if there was NO audience. Can you even imagine? And in the last minute of the video, a police officer tells students to leave and then threatens “or we’ll taser you too” after they ask for his badge number. Wait, i thought we at least ACTED like we live in a democracy… (and by the way, how brilliant that that was caught on video)

[3] It made my day to see, on the front page of the LA Times, impassioned students marching with signs taped to their chests saying “I’m Studying, Don’t Taser Me”. More often than not, the mainstream media picks up an outlier at a rally doing something really weird, to place as their photo representing an event. And if the event even gets a photo or article, it’s usually nowhere near page 1. So thanks LA Times for placing the photo and article front and center. Did I just “thank” a newspaper for representing the peoples’ voice?

[4] Back in 2004 (sounds so long ago!) there was talk of tasers becoming available to the public for consumer purchase (yes, we’re talking negotiations between taser manufacturers and the retail shop The Sharper Image. I wrote a post on my other blog To the Teeth about it, and compared our society to that in Minority Report (Department of PreCrime).

[5] If it was a white boy who was asked to leave the library? He wouldn’t be tasered, first of all. And second, if he was tasered, there would be no talk of well…maybe…why didn’t he just leave…why cause trouble…maybe he deserved it…well not deserved it…but he was kinda asking for it… maybe he wanted publicity… and all the other twisted arguments I’ve heard.

[6] I love you cellphone videocameras. And I love you YouTube. There’s nothing like you two. You’ve done so much for documenting and sharing in this world, and you are yet so very, very young.

Amy Goodman is my heroine. She’s always been, but this video from the MSNBC’s 10th birthday party/Chris Matthews’ Hardball show is MONEY (I know it’s like 2 months old, but I just came across it today). She has always moved me with her deep knowledge of world issues and conflict resolution, and her unending passion to investigate issues of importance to humanity.

In the interview recorded above, as she was being asked how bombing is not the only answer, she came back with the power, talking about how we live in the 21st century and we’ve gotta be a bit more creative. The other guy who was being interviewed asked her something along the lines of how can you negotiate with a military hezbollah (from the point of view of israel) and 3:20 mins in she hits him hard:

“You don’t negotiate with your friends, you negotiate with your enemies”

“I would say that right now we are talking about terroristic tactics on both sides, and we, talking in a civilized way can be a model for how this has to be negotiated. Listen, ultimately face it, it’s GOING to be negotiated, it’s just a matter of HOW many kids have to die.”

That’s IT. That’s IT! ONE TWO PUNCH.

Now my initial reaction, everytime i’m amazed by someone like her (or Ani Difranco live in LA last weekend), is to say “I love her” or “wow, she’s so amazing, what a leader”. And boy it was a bit sickening how many times we heard “I love you Ani!” when Ani Difranco performed. My brother’s friend Anna, who went with us to the concert, pointed out that Ani Difranco puts all this work into constructing beautiful poetry and folk and rock and punk, and all we can reply with is the trite “I love you Ani?” Anna was furious. We thought screaming more creative things would be more fun (for both us and for Ani) or giving her some respect and not screaming during her performance. But I digress — my point is this — I can say I love you Amy Goodman! and that puts me in the BACK SEAT. It places me squarely back there in the audience, a comfortable spot, no? But, if i want to give credit where it’s due (to Amy Goodman, for being a sage, an activist, and a daily informer), I’m first of all going to listen to Democracy Now, her daily radio show, more often, and second of all i’m going to Pay it Forward, instead of sitting in the back seat. What does that mean? It means civil discourse, discussion, negotiation, with my friends who don’t agree with me, with others who don’t know how to grapple with the war situation in this world, and with other Americans in general, in whatever creative ways I can.

It’s so simple yet such a huge change in frame-of-reference — negotiations are what we should be fighting for, and as damn quickly as possible so as not to kill more innocent civilians. War is not the only answer, nor is it the answer at all, in the 21st century.

“The turn to death themes in the spirituals was partly due to the execution of Nat Turner in 1831. Soon after, many songs included references to the coming ‘Judgment Day’ for the plantation regime and, later, for the Confederacy–’Can’t stand the fire.’ Turner’s rebellion also sparked a movement that spread white Christian missionaries across the South in order to establish churches for African Americans that used only approved songs. The battle over lyrics and music censorship, sacred and secular, has been fully engaged ever since. The day-to-day life of the plantation bloc was built around the perpetual monitoring of the behavior of blacks and whites.”

from Development Arrested: Race, Power, and the Blues in the Mississippi Delta by Clyde Powers

(passed on from the folks at Rock & Rap Confidential)

My credit card was acting wonky in the swipey thing at the gas station today, so I gave it to the attendant inside and assumed that he verified its usability before I pumped $40 into my car’s gas tank. But he didn’t, and after I permanently transported many gallons of gas from the pump to my tank (quite irreversibly, and even if I could give it back i’m sure they wouldn’t take the gas), my card was declined — at which point I panicked. I just lost my bankcard yesterday and am having another one mailed to me, so that wasn’t an option. My other credit card was not on me. I had 5 bucks to my name in my wallet. This credit card was IT. It was my only hope (AND 10 cents of every purchase goes to good ol’ nonprofits doing good ol’ thangs because it’s a Working Assets card). Where’s Working Assets when I need them? How come they couldn’t bail me out here?

So many thoughts ran through my head — would I have to wash dishes at the gas station in order to make up the $40? Could I just say “i’m going to my car to get more money” and drive off? Or could I say, listen man, you’re filipino-american, I’m indian-american, we’re brothers and sisters, how about an I-Owe-You and i’ll pay you back tomorrow? I didn’t think he’d go for it.

Finally I put into play Plan B, which involved calling the credit card company and finding out why my card was being declined. Ended up being a very smart decision (especially over the driving off one), and I was reauthorized with much ease, giving me back my right to pay for 40 bucks of gas with plastic.

What a day. Which brings me to the subject of oil. Moveon’s doing great things, already kicking off the first of its three campaigns that were democratically chosen very recently. (I excitedly wrote about “health care for all” being one of its three campaigns at health justice blog totheteeth). So here’s a line from MoveOn’s email:

“To start, we need to ask every member of Congress, including yours, to go “Oil-Free” and sign a pledge not to take any money from the oil industry. Can you sign this letter telling Rep. Harman to take the pledge?”

Nippin’ it in the bud. How can you say no? Getting big oil out of big government is happiness. I just sent off a letter to Rep Harman, you can do the same (for your rep — you know, the person representing you, not corporations, in the government). :>

Update (1 hr later): hmm… so i sent off a letter to my congressperson, and a few minutes later I received an email from MoveOn thanking me and providing me with information about rallies they’re facilitating around the country on Wednesday June 28th… 0utside gas stations. i don’t know… something makes me a bit uncomfortable. I think of my new filipino-american friend at the gas station today and his likely reaction of “what are they doing?” to folks gathering on the sidewalk of his gas station.

See, this is why I’m having trouble with this — it feels similar to protesting at a local pharmacy about Big Pharma (huge pharmaceutical corporations) corrupting government. It would seem more appropriate to gather at gas stations and protest outside of them if we were protesting rises in gas prices that we felt were propagated by local gas station franchises. So umm… challenge me on this, or just throw me your thoughts, in the comments section. Is my thinking flawed?

Thanks to my friend Julio for sharing the wikipedia entry for the Mother’s Day Proclamation with me:

The “Mother’s Day Proclamation” by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother’s Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe’s feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level. Today, the proclamation is included in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition.

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Mother’s Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

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How are we so lost now in mandatory gift-giving and obligatory consumerism? How do we bring the realness and the peace back?

Happy mothers day to my mom! (did you receive the diamond necklace and the laptop in the mail? just kidding)

inspiring story of the day…

…Not that Marie Runyon, 91, is what you’d call a hardened criminal. Nor is Molly Klopot, 87, nor Lillian Rydell, 86. Nor, for that matter, are any of 15 other women — a few of them practically kids, no older than 61 or 62 — who went on trial yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court, charged with disorderly conduct.

The Granny Peace Brigade, they call themselves. Last October, they descended on the armed forces recruiting station in Times Square. They wanted to enlist, they said. They’ve been around. Send them to Iraq, they demanded, instead of some 20-year-old who has barely tasted life.

When the military, shockingly, showed no interest in signing them up, this Walker and Cane Brigade held a sit-in. The police ordered them to leave. They refused. So officers young enough to be their great-grandchildren handcuffed them gently and put them under arrest.

Obviously, theirs was an exercise in street theater, intended to draw cameras and scribblers to record their opposition to the war in Iraq. The tactic worked. Grandmothers being hauled away in a police wagon is what we in the news business call a story…