to do list

envision : nap : whisper : laugh : caress : sing : love : consider : hug : create : wonder
but above all
—dance

Traveling Hopefully

"Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

-Arundhati Roy


Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Gaza Freedom Graffiti in the Warsaw Ghetto


Monday 28th 2010

Yesterday, Israeli and Polish activists met in the ruins of Warsaw’s old Jewish Ghetto.

The activists sprayed ‘Liberate All Ghettos’ in Hebrew, followed by ‘Free Gaza and Palestine’ in English on a wall of an original block in the ghetto. The block is across the street from the last fragment of the remaining perimeter wall of the Ghetto. They also hung Palestinian flags from the wall.

This was first time such an action took place in the ghetto.

Yonatan Shapira
former Israeli Air Force captain and now refusnik and BDS activist said:

‘Most of my family came from Poland and many of my relatives were killed in the death camps during the Holocaust. When I walk in what was left from the Warsaw Ghetto I can’t stop thinking about the people of Gaza who are not only locked in an open air prison but are also being bombarded by fighter jets, attack helicopters and drones, flown by people whom I used to serve with before my refusal in 2003.

I am also thinking about the delegations of young Israelis that are coming to see the history of our people but also are subjected to militaristic and nationalistic brainwashing on a daily basis. Maybe if they see what we wrote here today they will remember that oppression is oppression, occupation is occupation, and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity, whether they have been committed here in Warsaw or in Gaza’.

Ewa Jasiewicz, activist with Kampania Palestyna and one of the co-ordinators of the Free Gaza Movement who just returned from participating in the Freedom Flotilla said:

`Yonatan could have been the pilot in the Blackhawk that dropped commandos onto the Mavi Marmara that killed nine activists from our flotilla. I could have been one of them. Poland is full of the ruins of ghettos and death camps and shrines to those who sacrificed their lives in the defence of not just their communities but in resistance to fascism.

People here need to wake up and realise that occupations and ghettos did not end with the end of the second world war. These tactics and strategies of domination and control of other people and lands are present in Palestine today and are being perpetrated by the state of Israel. We have a responsibility to free all ghettos and end all occupations’.

Poland continues to deepen its’ military and political alliance with Israel whilst ignoring its obligations under international law to stop the ghettoization of the West Bank by Israel’s apartheid wall and to ensure the protection of civilians.

Kampania Palestyna together with the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, calls for an end to Israeli impunity and degradation of human rights and international law.

Ewa Jasiewicz said, ‘Poland can no longer be a Greenzone for the normalisation of Israeli apartheid. We all have the responsibility to end the occupation and ghettoization of the Palestinian people’.

Yonatan Shapira said: ‘I was always taught growing up that the atrocities that happened to the Jewish people here happened because the world was silent. And therefore I cannot be silent. The Jewish people needed to be liberated from the ghettoes, and now Israelis need to be liberated from the crimes of their own government. Each one of us can take part in this global struggle for justice, and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for the sake of not just the Palestinian people but for Israelis too’.

www.kampania-palestyna.pl

www.bdsmovement.net

Original article www.kampania-palestyna.pl, found via Window Into Palestine.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Human - The Killers

Brandon Flowers of the Killers, says the song was inspired by a comment made by Hunter S. Thompson about how America was raising a generation of dancers.

A dance is a choreographed pattern, which is learned and then followed, the moves proscribed.

Are we human or are we dancer?


I did my best to notice
When the call came down the line
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind
And sometimes I get nervous
When I see an open door
Close your eyes
Clear your heart...
Cut the cord

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance,
They always did the best they could
And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye
Wish me well..
You've gotta let me go

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Will your system be alright
When you dream of home tonight?
There is no message we're receiving
Let me know is your heart still beating

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer

You've gotta let me know

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human
Or are we dancer?

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Are we human
Or are we dancer?

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Online Video Lectures and Classes in Marxian Theory by Richard D. Wolff, UMass Amherst

In addition to the video lectures, class readings are linked in these free online courses. Prof. Wolff has a clear and accessible style. A great way to learn about Marx's theories.

Click here for the Online Lectures and Classes page.

Marxian Class Analysis Theory and Practice Online Course - Run time: 7 hours 45 minutes (in 5 parts)
There are two basic purposes of this intensive class taught by Professor Wolff at the Brecht Forum in New York city in the Spring of 2010. The first is to teach the specifics of Marxian class analysis (its history, different interpretations, and basic structure). The second is to show in detail how to apply Marxian class analysis and what unique insights it achieves both in terms of understanding society and strategizing for social change.


Economic Crisis and Globalization - Run time: 10 hours, 30 minutes (in 8 parts)
This eight session lecture series, from Spring 2009, is taught by Dr. Wolff, in the context of the same name graduate course, offered by the Graduate Program for International Affairs (GPIA) of the New School University in New York. Not only does Dr. Wolff challenge the conventional thinking of the crisis, he provides one of the central frames which links all of our projects: the role and influence of capital as a structuring force in our daily lives


Marxian Economics: An intensive introduction - Run time: 7 hours (in 4 parts)
This four part course provides a working foundation in the core concepts of Marxian economic theory – necessary and surplus labor, labor power, surplus value, exploitation, capital accumulation, distributions of the surplus, capitalist crises, and the differences between capitalist and other class structures. In addition, these core concepts will be systematically used to understand current social problems (including political and cultural as well as economic problems). The goal is to enable students to apply Marxian economics in their own efforts to analyze society and to strategize politically today.

This course was taught in the Spring of 2010 at the Brecht Forum in New York.

Obama Summed up on The Daily Show

This clip succinctly demonstrates how Obama's attitudes and actions are at complete odds with what he claimed as he campaigned in 2007. He claimed he would restore America's moral high standing that was lost in the 'war on terror'. At 1:00 in, clips of Obama's campaign interviews evidence the disparities between what he said then and does now on issues such as Guantanamo, rendition, habeas corpus, warrantless wire-tapping.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Respect My Authoritah
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

Monday, June 14, 2010

National Feminist Antipornography Conference 2007 Selected Speakers

Google Video has not fixed the embed problem. The videos below can be accessed here.

Gail Dines - Pornography & Pop Culture: Putting the Text in Context Gail Dines at the Feminist Antipornography Conference: Pornography & Pop Culture - Rethinking Theory, Reframing Activism Wheelock College, Boston March 24, 2007

Robert Jensen -
Real Men, Real Choices Robert Jensen at the National Feminist Antipornography Conference: Pornography & Pop Culture Wheelock College, Boston March 24, 2007



Rebecca Whisnant - Not Your Father’s Playboy and Not Your Mother’s Feminist Movement: Contemporary Feminism in a Porn Culture - Rebecca Whisnant at the National Feminist Antipornography Conference, Wheelock College, Boston March 24, 2007

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Teen Poetry Slam

"The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which the dominant minority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them of the right to their own purposes), the more easily the minority can continue to prescribe." -- Paulo Friere from The Banking Concept of Education (Myra Bergman Ramos, trans.)

My hope is that more and more children will look at their culture and say, "We are not your canvasses. We are not your soldiers. We are not your target market. We are not yours. Period." --Cat

Teens talk back to the dominating culture. This is great stuff. I am very excited about finding this.