Oct 16 2009
I think one reason less 3D activism is… blogs. Computers.
Think about it.
Before, when we were angry, we got together in the same room to talk about it. From there, organizing an action was relatively easy. From there, each person involving a few friends was easy.
If today’s activists had an event planned for every 10-20 hours they spend online, the world would be a different place.
Oct 13 2009
On this past Sunday evening, I sat with my daughter, a 7th grader, and went over homework with her. She needed colored pencils to complete an assignment for History. Teacher had talked to them about Columbus Day and the homework was to draw… the faux version of history taught to the poor leetle 5th graders on one page, and divided by the spiral bound, the true version on the other. (scans below in comments.LL) She colored while I read aloud to her from Zinn. I know she is in a great (public) school, gifted and all that, plus an IB program, but still … maybe there is hope if middle school curriculum is embracing some truth in its history classes. Buffy St. Marie knows a thing or two about that concept.
Democracy NOW! aired a full hour yesterday evening with Buffy St. Marie. I only caught a few minutes of it while I was in my car, but I found the links as soon as I got back home, so I thought I’d share here in essay form. PLEASE take the time to go view/read transcript there.
She kind of made me cry a little.
Oct 12 2009
A weekly roundup of the news made by of, by and for the active engaged progressive people of the world.
HEAD LINES
Canada: Nickel Mine Strike
After months of unresolved bargaining a strike began on July 13th at the Sudbury mine in northern Ontario, Canada, after employers Vale Inco refused to alter its original demands for concessions. United Steel Workers union members (USW Local 6500) in Sudbury and Port Colburne in Ontario and Voisey Bay in Labrador responded by voting 85% in favor of strike action.
The strike affects 3,073 employees at Vale’s integrated mining, milling, smelting and refining operations in Sudbury, 116 employees at the Port Colborne refinery and over 200 at Voisey Bay. The concessions demanded by the company include a drastic change in pension benefits for new hires (the pension Fund is $725 million in deficit), changes to seniority rights and a cap on the “Nickel Bonus”. “This bonus was negotiated in earlier years to allow the company to benefit from relatively lower wages when nickel prices were depressed and workers to benefit when the price was high. Nickel bonuses – once used to placate underpaid unionised workers – in recent years suddenly paid off ‘big’
Oct 07 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos
If you missed the last two nights of Countdown with Keith Olbermann you missed a lot of new details in the Health care Reform debate, and I don’t want to sound bleak, but things do not look good. The main points are these.
Wendel Potter: “If there’s not a public option, the plan that is passed, if it’s passed and signed by the President, will not be sustainable. And it ultimately will be a disaster for the middle class and ultimately be a disaster for the Democratic party . . .
~snip~
“We’ll be paying a lot more out of our own pockets. We’ll have the appearance of being able to afford premiums but we won’t be able to afford health care. That can not be sustained.”
You can watch the video here
And then there is the news that Rahm Emanuel will be representing the White House in the presumably upcoming Houuse-Senate Conference committee. Thus the title “If you wanna kill the (Public Option) you gotta do it yourself.
More below the fold, and it ain’t pretty, with a call for action that puts it all on the line.
Oct 05 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos
Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the committee, told CNN that there is a preliminary investigation of Ensign’s actions. “We will look at all aspects of this case, as we do whenever there is a case before us, and try to get to the bottom of it as quickly as we can in fairness to all,” said Boxer, D-Calif.
John Ensign, of C Street and extramarital affair infamy, will get off scot free here, because the game is rigged. What a surprise, the Select Senate Committee on Ethics is Unethical.
Regarding C Street and The Family, Senator Mark Pryor is up to his eyeballs in this scandal.
Who sits on the Senate Ethics Committee?
Chairwoman
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Mark Pryor (C-Street) (D-AR)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Vice chair
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Jom Risch (R-ID)
My bet, Ensign walks away without a slap on his wrist, 2 -4 bipartisan vote in favor of corruption and sex scandals.
More on this and a call to action below the fold
Oct 04 2009
A roundup of the news made by of, by and for the active engaged progressive people of the world. Also posted at the GOS.
Oct 02 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos
In a startling article at huffingtonpost.com by Andy Worthington, author of “The Guantanamo Files”, puts together an absolute must read in my opinion.
False confessions obtained through torture
The judge also noted the significance of the evidence in the record indicating that al-Rabiah “subsequently confided in interrogators [redacted] that he was being pressured to falsely confess to the allegations discussed above,” and also the significance of the fact that, although “al-Rabiah’s interrogators ultimately extracted confessions from him,” they “never believed his confessions based on the comments they included in their interrogation reports.”
After noting — again with a palpable sense of incredulity — that “These are the confessions that the Government now asks the Court to accept as evidence in this case,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly proceeded to demolish them all . . .
From Huffingtonpost.com
Bold added by diarist
More below the fold
Oct 01 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos
Two weeks ago, on 9/15/09, a few good men, actual Marines, told chickenhawks Ex VP Daddy Cheney and his Brat Daughter, who have never served in the military, to STFU, cause your not helping.
Former Marine commandant Charles Krulak and former Marine general Joseph Hoar, who succeeded Schwarzkopf at Central Command, dress(es) down former VP Cheney on the issue of torture.
“… we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas — and his scare tactics.”
~snip~
“What leaders say matters. So when it comes to light, as it did recently, that U.S. interrogators staged mock executions and held a whirling electric drill close to the body of a naked, hooded detainee, and the former vice president winks and nods, it matters.”
Bold added by the diarist
If you like that, it gets even better below the fold.
Sep 30 2009
Years ago, when I was training for and running marathons, I learned that the best way to perfect form, to have economy of movement, and a smooth, fluid style, was to watch others who ran beautifully and just imitate what they were doing. It was basic, monkey see; monkey do. Similarly, when I see somebody who has seized the moment to make the world better, I wonder about what I could do that would imitate what s/he did. I’m inspired when I see people nourish their activism.
Here’s today’s example from the New York Times:
Playwrights and producers have used scathing commentary, heartbreaking drama and sharp satire to score political points about war, torture, presidents, AIDS, race relations and women’s rights with New York theater audiences. Now the Broadway musical “Hair” is expanding the concept of stage activism by taking to the streets and urging audiences to follow. The producers canceled a Sunday matinee so that the cast and crew could attend and perform at a march for gay rights in Washington on Oct. 11.
That unusual – and expensive – decision to skip a popular weekend performance at the beginning of the theater season originated with the show’s star, Gavin Creel.
“I said, ‘My God, we have to go, we have to go,’ ” Mr. Creel recalled when he first heard about the rally late last spring.
Although Mr. Creel, 33, stars in a show that is associated with ’60s-style activism and sexual liberation, he personally wasn’t much interested in politics before Barack Obama ran for president. On Election Day last November, he said, he was ecstatic that his candidate won, but was crushed by the victory of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. So he decided to help create the activist organization Broadway Impact to mobilize the theater community.
Then in May Mr. Creel met Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, when he came to see “Hair” with Dustin Lance Black, author of the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Milk.” At a party afterward for the release of the cast recording, they all talked about the Oct. 11 National Equality March that Mr. Jones was helping to organize. The rally’s organizers say they are seeking “equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states” for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.
And so, to make a longer, interesting story more concise, Gavin Creel and the tribe, the cast of “Hair”, are going to DC for the Equality March. And they’re closing a Broadway Sunday matinee to do so. With the full support of the producers of the show. Because, and this is the important part, because Gavin Creel thought it was a good idea and he decided to try to make it happen.
I just love this story. It’s inspiring.
It’s a reminder, a beautiful reminder that even seemingly impossible ideas can be brought into reality, and that you and I and everybody else who is passionate about something can make a difference. It’s surprisingly simple. When we have a good idea, we can decide to try to make it happen.
Here’s to Gavin Creel with thanks for being a great example. One I happily will copy. Please join me in that.
——————————
simulposted at The Dream Antilles
Sep 30 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos
Beatings of a rhetorical sort, of course
Senator Olympia Snowe all but admitted that a Trigger on a Public Option is total bull yesterday. She basically proved that she is NOT bargaining in good faith, and that if there were any illusions that the trigger she supports is designed to never be pulled, they are totally gone now. How do we know this?
Because Sen. Snowe VOTED AGAINST a Public Option twice.
This proves (HELLO! ARE YOU FRAKKING LISTENING DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS?) that Sen. Snowe WILL NOT vote for an actual Public Option, just the idea of one, or rather, the idea of the idea of one.
And why? What is Olympia Snowe, the Republican Party, the Insurance Lobbyists and at least 5 DINO Republocrat Senators afraid of?
This quote from yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing sums it up best. . .
“What are we afraid of? That Americans might actually like it?”
~ Senator John Kerry (D-MA)
Yes. That is EXACTLY what they are afraid of.
More and a call to action below the fold.
Sep 27 2009
I’ve loved Bonnie’s Raitt’s music for ages. Not just her music but really her whole vibe. Yeah, I love the red headed vibrancy she emanates and her guitar chops kick ass. She’s right there with the blues and she can bring you to your knees with some of those soulful ballads too.
What I didn’t know was that she’s had a long standing relationship with AFSC.
One of our most famous families of supporters are the entertainers (father) John and (daughter) Bonnie Raitt. Their roots in peace go back to the early 1960s, when John Raitt starred in an AFSC-produced film urging nuclear disarmament. We present these clips from “Which Way the Wind?” to show that even when things change, they remain the same.
When John Raitt, Marsha Hunt, and James Whitmore made this film almost 50 years ago, the world remembered Hiroshima and Nagasaki vividly. That memory has faded. The nuclear threat remains.
Here’s a sweet 2 minute interview where Bonnie talks about her early influences:
As I’ve said here before, my activism was honed in the early 70’s when I was in high school. I learned from some incredibly fine people, most of them my agemates, and I internalized many of the principles and values of the AFSC.
This AFSC community works to transform conditions and relationships both in the world and in ourselves, which threaten to overwhelm what is precious in human beings. We nurture the faith that conflicts can be resolved nonviolently, that enmity can be transformed into friendship, strife into cooperation, poverty into well-being, and injustice into dignity and participation. We believe that ultimately goodness can prevail over evil, and oppression in all its many forms can give way.