In addition to hopefully bringing people together for a good time, we hope to share some of our experiences and beliefs in working class solidarity, friendship, loyalty and self- improvement as a means to bettering society.

Yeh, this one's for the workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead 

In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We've often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed 

We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And we're always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about

And when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
Though we've never owned one lousy handful of earth? 

All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can

Seriously, they really think they are going to beat down THIS band?

One People’s Project

“Fuck Drop Kick Murphy’s (sic),” the email from a person calling himself “Joe Smith” read. “You fucking interracial communist faggots. Be careful in Australia because there is (sic) plenty of neo nazis in Australia who would love to kick your ass, watch out Zionists.”

The email was dated March 21, just over a week since they played a show at Terminal 5 in New York City to a packed crowd. Known for inviting fans on stage as they play, when one of those persons began giving the Nazi salute to the crowd, bassist Ken Casey noticed him from the corner of his eye, confronted the person and an altercation ensued. Seconds later, Casey returned to his microphone and declared, “Nazis are not fucking welcome at a Dropkick Murphys show!” The video of the altercation has since gone viral.

Dropkick Murphys, who in recent years have been seeing mainstream success, have long been a staple in the underground music scene, and have a huge following among traditional skinheads, who, like the band, do not hold the neo-Nazi beliefs that many in the mainstream have been falsely led to believe is a part of skinhead culture. One of the band’s more popular songs is "Skinhead on the M.B.T.A.", which is about the working-class punks of Boston.

Despite this, neo-Nazis have been fans of the Boston-based band due to their promotion of their Irish culture and heritage, but a recent thread on Stormfront might suggest this recent incident changes everything. “All these homos did was place a big target on their backs,” a poster from Texas calling himself 14th District wrote. “The result will be some of their fans will get beat down, shows stopped and loss revenue.” Still, another poster did admonish the reputed neo-Nazi, saying, “As much as I don't like it, it was the guy's own fault for not being situationally aware.” Indeed, another poster recalls the band doing this to another neo-Nazi ten years ago.

Dropkick Murphys is expected to be in Australia this week.

THE VIDEO THAT STARTED IT ALL

ANOTHER DKM VIDEO FROM BACK IN THE DAY

Shot July 16, 1999 during the Warped Tour on Randall's Island in NYC by DLJ

Kevyn Orr began the first day of his eighteen-month tenure as the state-appointed Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) of Detroit Monday, three days before the new emergency manager law goes into effect. Detroit is now the largest US city to be under the control of an unelected official with sweeping powers to gut public services and the wages and pensions of city workers.  - African Globe

Kevyn Orr, anointed by Michigan’s Republican governor, is a bankruptcy specialist whose mission is to liquidate the assets of the 82 percent Black city, especially the revenue-producing Water and Sewerage Department. Orr’s firm’s clients – which, according to their website, include “more than half of the Fortune 500 companies” – have plenty of experience at liquidating in Detroit. Butch Hollowell, general counsel for the local NAACP, says Wells Fargo has “done more foreclosures in Detroit and the state of Michigan than any other firm,” and is Detroit’s number one property tax scofflaw. Jones Day also represents Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and CitiGroup.

“If an emergency manager comes to town, arrest him and put him in the Wayne County Jail with the rest of the fellows.” 

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, and State Treasurer Andy Dillon, in collusion with Detroit city officials, are racing to put the city under the direct control of Wall Street banks and disenfranchise its residents, before over 226,000 signatures for a referendum to repeal Public Act 4 are validated.

“This is war!  We are not going to let you come in and take our city.  This whole process is built on racism. It’s white supremacy at its best. House Negroes still exist. You don’t live in Detroit, and all you want to do is close, shut down, take everything we have away, our city, our schools, our homes, our libraries!” 

As early as 2005, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, an influential right-wing think tank in Michigan has called for emergency managers as a way of breaking public employee contracts and lowering wages for public workers. The Mackinac Center is a member of the State Policy Network and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and has been funded by a number of right-wing foundations including the Dow Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the DeVos Foundation, and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.

Louis Schimmel, a former Mackinac employee who penned reports and articles on EFMs, was appointed the EFM of Pontiac, Michigan by the Governor Snyder in 2011.  Schimmel "pursued the most aggressive turnaround plan in the state,"according to Mother Jones. Schimmel proposed putting nearly every city property up for sale, "including city hall, the police station, fire stations, water-pumping stations, the library, the golf course, and two cemeteries," but Pontiac still faced a huge shortfall in 2012.

The Lords of Capital Seize Detroit

Glen Ford

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The Nazi’s 10 Control-Freak Rules for Jazz Performers: A Strange List from World War II

Written by Josh Jones

Like the rock and roll revolution of the 1950s, which shocked staid white audiences with translations of black rhythm and blues, the popularity of jazz caused all kinds of racial panic and social anxiety in the early part of the twentieth century.

Long before the rise of European fascism, many American groups expressed extreme fear and agitation over the rise of minority cultural forms. But by World War II, jazz was intrinsically woven into the fabric of American majority culture, albeit often in versions scrubbed of blues undertones. This was not, of course, the case in Nazi occupied Europe, where jazz was suppressed; like most forms of modern art, it bore the stigma of impurity, innovation, passion… all qualities totalitarians frown on (even anti-fascist critical theorist Theodor Adorno had a serious beef with jazz).

And while it’s no great surprise that Nazis hated jazz—so much so that, as we noted yesterday, Stanley Kubrick almost made a film about the WWII-era European jazz underground—it seems they expressed their disapproval in a very oddly specific way, at least in the recollection of Czech writer and dissident Josef Skvorecky. On the occasion of Skvorecky’s death, J.J. Gould pointed out in The Atlantic that the writer was himself one of the characters that so interested Kubrick. An aspiring tenor saxophone player living in Third Reich-occupied Czechoslovakia, Skvorecky had ample opportunity to experience the Nazis’ “control-freak hatred of jazz.” In the intro to his short novel The Bass Saxophone, he recounts from memory a set of ten bizarre regulations issued by a Gauleiter, a regional Nazi official, that bound local dance orchestras during the Czech occupation.

1. Pieces in foxtrot rhythm (so-called swing) are not to exceed 20% of the repertoires of light orchestras and dance bands;
2. In this so-called jazz type repertoire, preference is to be given to compositions in a major key and to lyrics expressing joy in life rather than Jewishly gloomy lyrics;
3. As to tempo, preference is also to be given to brisk compositions over slow ones so-called blues); however, the pace must not exceed a certain degree of allegro, commensurate with the Aryan sense of discipline and moderation. On no account will Negroid excesses in tempo (so-called hot jazz) or in solo performances (so-called breaks) be tolerated;
4. So-called jazz compositions may contain at most 10% syncopation; the remainder must consist of a natural legato movement devoid of the hysterical rhythmic reverses characteristic of the barbarian races and conductive to dark instincts alien to the German people (so-called riffs);
5. Strictly prohibited is the use of instruments alien to the German spirit (so-called cowbells, flexatone, brushes, etc.) as well as all mutes which turn the noble sound of wind and brass instruments into a Jewish-Freemasonic yowl (so-called wa-wa, hat, etc.);
6. Also prohibited are so-called drum breaks longer than half a bar in four-quarter beat (except in stylized military marches);
7. The double bass must be played solely with the bow in so-called jazz compositions;
8. Plucking of the strings is prohibited, since it is damaging to the instrument and detrimental to Aryan musicality; if a so-called pizzicato effect is absolutely desirable for the character of the composition, strict care must be taken lest the string be allowed to patter on the sordine, which is henceforth forbidden;
9. Musicians are likewise forbidden to make vocal improvisations (so-called scat);
10. All light orchestras and dance bands are advised to restrict the use of saxophones of all keys and to substitute for them the violin-cello, the viola or possibly a suitable folk instrument.

As The Atlantic notes, “being a Nazi, this public servant obviously didn’t miss an opportunity to couch as many of these regulations as he could in racist or anti-Semitic terms.” This racialized fear and hatred was the source, after all, of the objection. It’s almost impossible for me to imagine what kind of music this set of restrictions could possibly produce, but it most certainly would not be anything people would want to dance to. And that was probably the point.

Credit: Open Culture

Call for Coordinated Week of Action for Grand Jury Resisters: 

April 24-May 1st 2013

Why I no longer tell my brother to wear his 

pants properly

Why is CCSF under threat?
CCSF is widely acknowledged to be one of the best community colleges in the country. The current "crisis" is largely the artificial creation of the accreditation commission (ACCJC), which itself acknowledged that the education and student success rate at CCSF is excellent. While funding has been cut by $50 million dollars over the past five years, CCSF has prioritized keeping classes open and preventing major layoffs. Now the ACCJC says that in order to receive accreditation CCSF must cut classes, programs, and wages, narrow the Mission Statement, end democratic decision-making (i.e. "shared governance"), lay off department chairs, hire more administrators, and put more money into the reserve. If accepted, these proposals would drastically undercut the quality and accessibility of our community college. This is an attack on tens of thousands of Bay Area residents, particularly from communities of color.

What is the ACCJC?
The ACCJC accreditation commission is an unaccountable privately-controlled and privately- financed body. Its funding comes from large foundations seeking to privatize and downsize public education for the benefit of private education providers. Its parent organization (WASC) recently received $1 million from the Lumina Foundation and $1.5 million from the Gates Foundation for this purpose. Far from being neutral, accreditation has been transformed into an undemocratic instrument to blackmail schools into accepting austerity. From 2003 to 2008, the ACCJC sanctioned 37 percent of California’s community colleges; in the same period, other community college accrediting bodies across the country sanctioned only zero to six percent. Now 25% of California Community Colleges are under sanction. This is unacceptable.

Isn't there a real budget crisis?
Yes and no. It's true that there's been a statewide budget crisis in the past years, due to the fact that the rich and corporations do not pay enough in taxes and because so much of the budget goes to prisons. But in the Fall, SF voters passed Proposition A to bring $16 million dollars each year to fund classes and programs at CCSF. They also passed Prop 30 statewide, which will bring in $376 million to the community college system. But now the new CCSF Chancellor and Special Trustee (who is paid $1000 dollars a day) are refusing to use the Prop A funds for funding classes and programs! This is illegal and immoral. In the short term, the budget issue can be resolved by using Prop A and Prop 30 funds to go directly to education as the voters intended. Any additional budget gap needs to be filled by the intervention of SF City Hall, for example by offering the school a no interest "bridge loan." The only long term solution for education is to raise more revenue by making the rich pay.

Doesn’t CCSF need accreditation?
Yes, but it's not true that the only way to stay accredited is to blindly accept all of the ACCJC's impositions. It is possible to pass accreditation and prevent any cuts to CCSF. This can be done by building a mass movement of students, faculty, staff, and community members to demand that the Prop A funds be used for education and to call on City Hall to intervene to save our school. In the process we can expose ACCJC's hidden agenda. It is the accreditation process -- not CCSF -- that needs to be overhauled. Accreditation should not be in private hands: it must become public, democratic, and transparent.

The smash and grab policies of the money class are transforming the community college system into a top down, hierarchical governing system that will eliminate humanities, liberal arts, music and critical thinking in favor of a school-to-work programs that favor industry and Wall Street at the expense of students, faculty and staff.  The means to the end is the “Shock Doctrine’ we see played out all over the world (http://www.isreview.org/issues/71/feat-disasterschooling.shtml); basically, creating and/or capitalizing on a crisis in funding and in the minds of the public to decimate any shared governance of the community college systems, while reducing student access through two-tiered toll booth systems of admission and class access.  The actors in this obdurate and cruel hoax are the same well heeled Wall Street minions who seek to both assure students get no opportunity to think critically about their place in the world and to gobble up the $650 billion dollar industry that is “education”.

Tucked under the logo of “progress’, reactionary forces like The Lumina Foundation have been at the forefront of eliminating both shared governance, lowering staff to student ratios, increasing ‘online earning’ in place of real life learning and peddling the idea that more graduates from college are needed to compete with the emerging Chinese Empire.  Clothed in mendacity and soaked in billions of dollars, this attempt to corporatize and privatize all learning is now in full swing, aided and abetted by ACCJC, the accrediting agency for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, itself a private corporation with no accountability to the public it purports to serve.

...I understand why so many teachers and students are upset with the accreditation commission. The accreditation process is just another arbitrary step in the educational bureaucracy – this system propped up entirely by its own self-importance, and not its effectiveness. Shutting down a massive, edifying facility like City College is the exact opposite of effectively educating.

The accreditation commission upholds the Capitol’s standards. Twenty percent of California’s schools don’t meet them. Even if those schools are doing exactly what the needs of their community call for, if they don’t fulfill the standardized, cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all requirements assigned to them from these almighty officials, they can’t be seen as worthy.

As a community college, the community – us – our diverse population of immigrants and city natives, our labor unions, our lifetime students, and every single one of our educated minds knows how to run our school best. Far better than some private agency that would threaten to close our school with almost no prior warning.

City College represents the radical notion that everyone – every single one of us – is capable of governing themselves and collaborating for the good of all – if granted our right to education and given the means to do so.

We can save City College.

Taking back City College from the corporations

 – by any means necessary

As a formerly houseless, very poor single mama whose life was truly saved by the affordable education, support services, free child care and so much more I received at CCSF, I have been terrified to watch the orchestrated and systematic attack on CCSF, one of the largest community colleges in the country with a student body of over 90,000 people, unfold. Like the sudden closure of 52 public schools in Chicago and more across the country, it is an act of violence against our poor and working class communities of color. To me its insidiousness and covert under-handedness feels like 21st century corporate COINTELPRO.

“This is their fault; they over-budgeted.” “They were sloppy with their accounting.” “They need to clean house.” One after the other, editors of small, wannabe corporate news agencies spoke a strangely similar party line in a press briefing I was invited to a couple of months back in the early stages of this corporate coup of City College, when weekly hit pieces would appear in the SF Chronicle. As these corporate media editors, albeit smaller and less influential than the Chronicle, were all saying the same thing I wondered how they were all so bought in. And then I did a little WeSearch (poor people-led, not philanthro-pimp led, research).

Like the Monsanto Protection Act, the support for all of this corporate destruction of our communities’ schools can be traced to as high up as the federal government and multi-million dollar mandates to privatize most of public education. President Obama’s 2009 American Graduation Initiative for community colleges is directly from the corporate playbook. The plan includes such privatizing measures as partnering with industries and for-profit schools, transferring loans to private lenders, and funding based on student progress.

One of the main players in the corporate coup is the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) who out of the blue gave City College an “F” and a deadline of March 15 to correct supposed defects or face closure. With Board of Trustees’ approval, a very corporate interim chancellor, being paid $1,000 a day, took a wrecking ball to CCSF – in the name of “austerity.”

Shanell Williams, third from left, a leader since high school, when she served on the influential San Francisco Youth Commission, now leads the fight to save City College as president of its student body. Here she is at a forum to save City College with Trista Barrantes, Eric Blanc, Terrilyn Williams, Tiny, young Tiburcio and Tony Robles. – Photo: Matthew Lew, Manilatown Heritage Foundation

Behind this huge corporate coup is the Illumina Foundation. It was funded by Sally Mae, the student loan and high stakes testing corporation, which, along with 21st century parachute liberal philanthro-pimps, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “donated” $1.5 million to the WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) or accreditation board so a comprehensive Karl Rove-style campaign of disinformation could be launched against the otherwise stellar and problem-free City College of San Francisco.

Why? Perhaps those 90,000 warm bodies would be generating a lot more profits in tuition and whole more student loan debt if they were enrolled in a private college like Heald, University of Phoenix, DeVry and Pepperdine and/or through the multitude of on-line universities being pushed heavily by the digital sweatshop perpetrators, the Gates Foundation.

And of course these kinds of campaigns work. Or do they? Yes, it’s true that since the disinformation campaign was launched, enrollment in CCSF has dropped from 90,000 to 85,000. People are understandably confused and scared. But the people are also mad and the people can only be lied to so much with a lie so blatantly obvious as this one against a college so large and deeply rooted in our community.

“We aren’t going anywhere,” roared the beautiful, multi-colored crowd of thousands of people who gathered on March 14 at City Hall in San Francisco.

“My ethnic studies teacher, my counselor and my women’s studies teacher all received pink slips. They are all about to lose their jobs if this push goes through,” Terrilyn Woodfin, my sister-mama, PNN poverty skolar, reporter and City College student told me. As I did more Wesearch I discovered that not only were massive layoffs being threatened, but administration staff and teachers are being told not to say anything and just go along with the flow to keep their jobs.

Thousands marched and rallied outside City Hall on March 14 to demand that the City of San Francisco ensure the intact survival of City College. – Photo: Muteado Silencio, Poor News Network

“What makes it so crazy-making is the people are being lied to in so many ways,” Shanell declared, proceeding to describe how Propositions A and 30, giving $14 million and $376 million to save City College, were passed resoundingly by San Francisco and California voters to protect City College. Yet no matter what, the corporate forces say, “It’s not enough,” and proceed with their deadly corporate wrecking ball trying to make sure that our people’s college no longer belongs to the people.

“Whose college? Our College!” The wave of thousands of people’s voices at City Hall rang in our collective ears. If we ever needed to put our bodies in the forefront of this fight, it is now.

Please show up with your bodies and souls to the Southeast Campus of City College, 1800 Oakdale at Phelps, in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco, on Wednesday, April 3, 6 p.m., to get involved and/or go on-line tosaveccsf.org.

Tiny – or Lisa Gray-Garcia – is co-founder with her Mama Dee and co-editor with Tony Robles of POOR Magazineand its many projects and author of “Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America,” published by City Lights. She can be reached at deeandtiny@poormagazine.org. Visit www.tinygraygarcia.com andwww.racepovertymediajustice.org.

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: 

How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.
Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them.

How exactly has American society subdued young Americans?

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt—and the fear it creates—is a pacifying force. There was no tuition at the City University of New York when I attended one of its colleges in the 1970s, a time when tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to get a B.A. and even a graduate degree without accruing any student-loan debt. While those days are gone in the United States, public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt.

Today in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. While average undergraduate debt is close to $25,000, I increasingly talk to college graduates with closer to $100,000 in student-loan debt. During the time in one’s life when it should be easiest to resist authority because one does not yet have family responsibilities, many young people worry about the cost of bucking authority, losing their job, and being unable to pay an ever-increasing debt. In a vicious cycle, student debt has a subduing effect on activism, and political passivity makes it more likely that students will accept such debt as a natural part of life.

2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance. In 1955, Erich Fromm, the then widely respected anti-authoritarian leftist psychoanalyst, wrote, “Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.” Fromm died in 1980, the same year that an increasingly authoritarian America elected Ronald Reagan president, and an increasingly authoritarian American Psychiatric Association added to their diagnostic bible (then the DSM-III) disruptive mental disorders for children and teenagers such as the increasingly popular “oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD). The official symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules,” “often argues with adults,” and “often deliberately does things to annoy other people.”


Many of America’s greatest activists including Saul Alinsky (1909–1972), the legendary organizer and author of Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals, would today certainly be diagnosed with ODD and other disruptive disorders. Recalling his childhood, Alinsky said, “I never thought of walking on the grass until I saw a sign saying ‘Keep off the grass.’ Then I would stomp all over it.” Heavily tranquilizing antipsychotic drugs (e.g. Zyprexa and Risperdal) are now the highest grossing class of medication in the United States ($16 billion in 2010); a major reason for this, according to theJournal of the American Medical Association in 2010, is that many children receiving antipsychotic drugs have nonpsychotic diagnoses such as ODD or some other disruptive disorder (this especially true of Medicaid-covered pediatric patients).


3. Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy. Upon accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990, John Taylor Gatto upset many in attendance by stating: “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.” A generation ago, the problem of compulsory schooling as a vehicle for an authoritarian society was widely discussed, but as this problem has gotten worse, it is seldom discussed.

The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and that they are impotent to affect their situation. A teacher can lecture about democracy, but schools are essentially undemocratic places, and so democracy is not what is instilled in students. Jonathan Kozol in The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home focused on how school breaks us from courageous actions. Kozol explains how our schools teach us a kind of “inert concern” in which “caring”—in and of itself and without risking the consequences of actual action—is considered “ethical.” School teaches us that we are “moral and mature” if we politely assert our concerns, but the essence of school—its demand for compliance—teaches us not to act in a friction-causing manner.

4. “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” The corporatocracy has figured out a way to make our already authoritarian schools even more authoritarian. Democrat-Republican bipartisanship has resulted in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, NAFTA, the PATRIOT Act, the War on Drugs, the Wall Street bailout, and educational policies such as “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” These policies are essentially standardized-testing tyranny that creates fear, which is antithetical to education for a democratic society. Fear forces students and teachers to constantly focus on the demands of test creators; it crushes curiosity, critical thinking, questioning authority, and challenging and resisting illegitimate authority. In a more democratic and less authoritarian society, one would evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher not by corporatocracy-sanctioned standardized tests but by asking students, parents, and a community if a teacher is inspiring students to be more curious, to read more, to learn independently, to enjoy thinking critically, to question authorities, and to challenge illegitimate authorities.

5. Shaming Young People Who Take Education—But Not Their Schooling—Seriously. In a 2006 survey in the United States, it was found that 40 percent of children between first and third grade read every day, but by fourth grade, that rate declined to 29 percent. Despite the anti-educational impact of standard schools, children and their parents are increasingly propagandized to believe that disliking school means disliking learning. That was not always the case in the United States. Mark Twain famously said, “I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” Toward the end of Twain’s life in 1900, only 6 percent of Americans graduated high school. Today, approximately 85 percent of Americans graduate high school, but this is good enough for Barack Obama who told us in 2009, “And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country.”
The more schooling Americans get, however, the more politically ignorant they are of America’s ongoing class war, and the more incapable they are of challenging the ruling class. In the 1880s and 1890s, American farmers with little or no schooling created a Populist movement that organized America’s largest-scale working people’s cooperative, formed a People’s Party that received 8 percent of the vote in 1892 presidential election, designed a “subtreasury” plan (that had it been implemented would have allowed easier credit for farmers and broke the power of large banks) and sent 40,000 lecturers across America to articulate it, and evidenced all kinds of sophisticated political ideas, strategies and tactics absent today from America’s well-schooled population. Today, Americans who lack college degrees are increasingly shamed as “losers”; however, Gore Vidal and George Carlin, two of America’s most astute and articulate critics of the corporatocracy, never went to college, and Carlin dropped out of school in the ninth grade.

6. The Normalization of Surveillance. The fear of being surveilled makes a population easier to control. While the National Security Agency (NSA) has received publicity for monitoring American citizen’s email and phone conversations, and while employer surveillance has become increasingly common in the United States, young Americans have become increasingly acquiescent to corporatocracy surveillance because, beginning at a young age, surveillance is routine in their lives. Parents routinely check Web sites for their kid’s latest test grades and completed assignments, and just like employers, are monitoring their children’s computers and Facebook pages. Some parents use the GPS in their children’s cell phones to track their whereabouts, and other parents have video cameras in their homes. Increasingly, I talk with young people who lack the confidence that they can even pull off a party when their parents are out of town, and so how much confidence are they going to have about pulling off a democratic movement below the radar of authorities?

7. Television. In 2009, the Nielsen Company reported that TV viewing in the United States is at an all-time high if one includes the following “three screens”: a television set, a laptop/personal computer, and a cell phone. American children average eight hours a day on TV, video games, movies, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, and other technologies (not including school-related use). Many progressives are concerned about the concentrated control of content by the corporate media, but the mere act of watching TV—regardless of the programming—is the primary pacifying agent (private-enterprise prisons have recognized that providing inmates with cable television can be a more economical method to keep them quiet and subdued than it would be to hire more guards).
Television is a dream come true for an authoritarian society: those with the most money own most of what people see; fear-based television programming makes people more afraid and distrustful of one another, which is good for the ruling elite who depend on a “divide and conquer” strategy; TV isolates people so they are not joining together to create resistance to authorities; and regardless of the programming, TV viewers’ brainwaves slow down, transforming them closer to a hypnotic state that makes it difficult to think critically. While playing a video games is not as zombifying as passively viewing TV, such games have become for many boys and young men their only experience of potency, and this “virtual potency” is certainly no threat to the ruling elite.

8. Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism. American culture offers young Americans the “choices” of fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist consumerism. All varieties of fundamentalism narrow one’s focus and inhibit critical thinking. While some progressives are fond of calling fundamentalist religion the “opiate of the masses,” they too often neglect the pacifying nature of America’s other major fundamentalism. Fundamentalist consumerism pacifies young Americans in a variety of ways. Fundamentalist consumerism destroys self-reliance, creating people who feel completely dependent on others and who are thus more likely to turn over decision-making power to authorities, the precise mind-set that the ruling elite loves to see. A fundamentalist consumer culture legitimizes advertising, propaganda, and all kinds of manipulations, including lies; and when a society gives legitimacy to lies and manipulativeness, it destroys the capacity of people to trust one another and form democratic movements. Fundamentalist consumerism also promotes self-absorption, which makes it difficult for the solidarity necessary for democratic movements.

These are not the only aspects of our culture that are subduing young Americans and crushing their resistance to domination. The food-industrial complex has helped create an epidemic of childhood obesity, depression, and passivity. The prison-industrial complex keeps young anti-authoritarians “in line” (now by the fear that they may come before judges such as the two Pennsylvania ones who took $2.6 million from private-industry prisons to ensure that juveniles were incarcerated). As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed: “All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.”


Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite  (Chelsea Green, 2011). His Web site is www.brucelevine.net

Republished from alternet.org 

"Many of the most effective strike tactics – from sit-down strikes that physically occupy a workplace, to solidarity strikes that spread through a supply chain – are now generally illegal. "  

Remember this quote for a minute.

Fast food workers plan surprise strike

UPDATED: Workers in some 70 restaurants expected to walk off job, potentially shutting down several eateries today

A protester holds up a sign at a demonstration outside McDonald's in Times Square in support of employees on strike at various fast-food chains in New York November 29, 2012. (Credit: Reuters/Andrew Kelly)

“We take the land from one hand and put it in the hands of a thousand...landowners would only use this land for cattle, and now we produce beans, milk, food, for the entire population.” – Ilda Martines de Souza, a leader of Brazil’s landless farmer movement. 

 Maria de Oliveira, former superintendent of the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform in Pernambuco and technical director of the Institute of Land and Agrarian Reform of Pernambuco said at the time, 

The death is the sign that the authorities are incapable of seeing what is so visible, which is impunity. It’s cowardice not to carry out agrarian reform, even more cowardice not to punish the killers and even more to allow the slowness of the bureaucracy not to do its part, leading the workers to death. Each one has a piece of the blame. It’s necessary to react, we are going to oppose the crimes of agrarian reform, one of the ways is to do it.


While the Brazilian State does not carry out agrarian reform, does not take a position in relation to the concentration of land, the Brazilian people and primarily those who struggle in an organized way, continue to die at the hands of power. We have no way to arrive at peace in the countryside without agrarian reform.

Eleven days later Regina dos Santos Pinho was killed.  A leader of the MST, Marina dos Santos, stated:

It is a barbaric crime. We want to emphasize the level of brutality of this murder and the motivations that this brutality elucidated. In principle, we see no direct relationship with the land struggle and the murder of Cicero. But we cannot rule anything out nor affirm anything.

Regina was active in the MST for a decade. The police were contacted by neighbors who were surprised at the absence of the militant at the mass of Sétimo Dia de Cícero Guedes, held on Monday (February 4, 2013). Regina and Cicero were very close and both worked on agroecology in the Zumbi of Palmares settlement.

Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in Portuguese, is a mass social movement, formed by rural workers and by all those who want to fight for land reform and against injustice and social inequality in rural areas.  As a grassroots socialist organization, MST promotes land reform as a means of achieving social equality for landless rural farmers. It organises occupations of unproductive land, on the basis of which it negotiates with the state or federal authorities to transfer that land to the peasants. The occupying campesinos work the land productively, providing an escape from poverty and providing them with a dignified, self­sufficient existence. MST then invites the government to take the next step — formalising the settlements and providing education, health and other services.

The last twenty five years have seen an increasing numbers of landless workers joining the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, It’s, in fact, the largest social movement in Latin America

According to War on Want:

 

In Brazil less than 3% of the population owns two-thirds of the land and more than half the farmland lies idle. Four million homeless, landless and jobless peasant farmers are denied a decent living.

The conflict over land, with homeless peasants on one side, and landowners’ armed thugs and the police on the other, has plagued Brazil for decades. The conflict has left over one thousand landless peasants murdered, and landless and rural people face malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, sanitation and basic health or education services, and a lifetime spent in roadside shantytowns of black plastic tents.

Writing about their recent visit to Brazil, delegates from Trident Ploughshares point out:

Some 90 million people, two ­thirds of the population, are landless peasants or slum dwellers excluded from land by this concentration of ownership. Their conditions of life are among the worst in the world: high infant mortality, millions of destitute street children in the cities and, in the countryside, situations sometimes akin to slavery, where workers are controlled by the landlord’s hired gunmen.

The struggle of the landless in Brazil is a leading component in the fight against global capital and Empire.  This self organized and fearless campaign carried out by the landless themselves stands as an example of "how its done."

The following is from Friends of the MST.

Landless demand justice during the funeral for MST leader in Bahia

MST leader  Fábio Santos da Silva, assassinated on April 2 by 15 shots fired by gunmen in Iguaí, in the Southwest of Bahia, was buried on April 3. 

The vigil for the body began in the Rural Community of Ribeirão das Flores and afterwards the body was taken to the City Hall of Iguaí, where the city can follow and share this moment of mourning and show solidarity with the grief of the family, friends, and men and women comrades in mourning.

On leaving the City Hall, families, friends, and MST activists held a march to the end of the city to accompany the coffin. On the way, a lot of music and chanting showed the people’s anger.

“This march has the goal of establishing a dialog with society in the sense of denouncing what happened and demanding that justice be done and the killers do not remain unpunished”, said the Federal Deputy Valmir Assunção (PT-BA).

The MST leadership states that the activists in the region are suffering continuous threats aimed at weakening the Movement’s struggle, trying to prevent new occupations and mobilizations.  After the march, the body was taken back to the Rural Community, where Fábio was buried alongside other family members.

“How many times are our peasants and workers assassinated? It’s this type of action, killing by gunmen, which is so cowardly and cruel, that we are facing in the Brazilian countryside. This killing, with clear signs that it was an execution, cannot go unpunished. Fábio, who was also a candidate for assemblyman for the Workers Party in the region, was a great fighter, comrade, and activist in social causes. Like every MST activist, he wanted to see Agrarian Reform put into effect”, added Valmir Assunção.

“Companheiro Fábio, here we are continuing your struggle. I am in solidarity with your family.  Fábio, presente, presente, presente! The  MST is in mourning",  he concluded in his homage to the landless leader.  

History

Since 2010, starting with occupations carried out by families from the Mother Earth Encampment in Iguaí, the MST activists of the region began to receive threats from the owners of the big estates.

Faced with the threats, the Movement called a meeting with the Agrarian Auditor. In this way the activists placed the offensive of the estate owners against the struggle for expropriation of land for the purpose of agrarian reform, and nothing was done. 

Because of this indifference, Fábio Santos was killed. This is why the Landless are demanding justice from the court.

Violence in the Countryside

The Pastoral Land Commission registered 29 killings of rural workers in conflicts in the countryside in 2011. A smaller number than 2010, when 34 workers were killed.

However there was an increase of 178% in the number of workers who received death threats.

The data shows that in the countryside in the first four months of 2010, 12 workers were killed in conflicts in the countryside. In the same period in 2011, eight were killed.

This shows that violence continues and the impunity for the killers and those who make threats persist

Here is today’s speech of Russia’s President Putin on the subject of gay marriage (translation is mine):

There is no discrimination against homosexuals in Russia. These. . . khm, khm. . . people [with a facial expression showing deep disgust] have jobs, they get raises at work, and even statewide prizes, if they deserve them. However, there will be no gay marriage in our country because such marriages do not produce children*. Here in Russia and in Europe, we are suffering from a demographic crisis. We want people to reproduce. And the people we want to reproduce are not immigrants. We want the “title nation” to reproduce**. . . The only countries that allow propaganda of homosexuality*** are the same countries that allow propaganda of pedophilia. We cannot allow this in Russia because if we legalize propaganda of pedophilia, there are regions that will organize an armed uprising.

This speech on Russian TV is followed by a long investigative report on Holland’s pedophiles.

* Putin’s marriage hasn’t produced any children in over 30 years and is not likely to do so in the future.

** The “title nation” means ethnic Russians. The ones who are blond and blue-eyed.

*** The expression “propaganda of homosexuality” in Russian means allowing gay teachers to work and gay people to appear on TV in any capacity. It also refers to the Gay Pride parade.

...police in St. Petersburg, Russia, have made arrests on the strength of a new law banning the dissemination of information on homo-, bi- and transsexuality. Two men were arrested in the city center on Thursday after holding up a sign reading "Homosexuality Is Normal," according to the newswire Interfax.

Russia's second-largest city passed the controversial law on Feb. 29. The two men now face a possible maximum fine of 500,000 rubles (€12,800/$17,000). The maximum penalty is more than the average annual income in Russia.

The law bans films, music videos, books and newspapers that contain homosexual content as well as the rainbow flag, which is a common symbol of gay pride. And the ban may soon no longer be limited to just St. Petersburg and other cities in Russia. At the end of March, Vladimir Putin's United Russia party introduced a bill in the country's parliament, the Duma, which would impose the ban at the national level.

 ...the Russia of Vladimir Putin is an equally grim place to be queer.

If we explain to our children that our family is no worse than other families, then we are breaking the law.

“The ban on so-called homosexual propaganda is just one step in what gay rights activists have called a state-sponsored witch hunt. Just last year, a Moscow court slapped a 100-year ban on the city’s Gay Pride march. 

Anyway, Mr. Putin showed up in Amsterdam yesterday to meet with the President of the Netherlands.  You can imagine how his visit is going down there.  Thousands of protesters greeted him with rainbow flags, song, noise, dance, and anger.  A nice touch came around 8Pm when a boat entered the water at the Maritime Museum with:

...two male inflatable dolls kiss(ing)  each other. On the forecastle demonstrators had a life-sized statue of a scantily clad Putin put a rainbow flag.  

At Amsterdam City Hall the mayor raised a rainbow flag in protest. 

And so went Vladimir's trip to the Netherlands.

The following rap up is from Raw Story.

Russia’s Putin faces thousands of pro-LGBT protesters in Amsterdam

Over 3,000 people protested Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Amsterdam on Monday, with rainbow flags flying at half-mast around the city that prides itself on enjoying every kind of freedom.

The brightly dressed crowd chanted “Go home Putin!” during a festive protest opposite the museum where Putin had dinner with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, at the end of his visit to the nation that first legalised gay marriage in 2001.

Protesters were mainly targeting a bill before the Russian parliament that bans homosexual “propaganda” among minors, but also a general rights clampdown in Russia, where Putin is serving his third term as president.

Activists and Western governments have condemned the measure, which provides for fines of up to 500,000 rubles (12,500 euros, $15,830) for any “public act” promoting homosexuality or paedophilia.

“There are no violations of the rights of sexual minorities in Russia,” a defiant Putin said alongside Rutte before heading in to dinner. “These people enjoy full rights and liberties just like everyone else.”

Putin said that gay couples could not produce children and that “Europe and Russia have demographic problems.”

“We need to reach a consensus with this community, we need to agree to work collectively. Don’t insult each other, agree with, understand, each other and develop certain civilised rules,” he said. “I think this is possible.”

Rutte said he had raised concerns over NGO and gay rights with Putin.

“We had a good talk about it,” Rutte said, which testifies “to the good relations between our two countries.”

Dozens of police were deployed in the tightly secured area, including anti-riot forces, although an AFP correspondent saw some police dancing to the thumping music.

“Critical journalists not allowed. Do not frighten President Putin. Keep this area human rights free,” read one huge Amnesty International banner hanging from a window.

“No gay propaganda beyond this line,” another sign read.

Dutch police said they had briefly detained one person, a gay Dutch artist who wrote expletives against Putin on the window of his Amsterdam studio.

Barges sailed on the Amstel river with signs reading “Punk bands strictly prohibited”, in reference to members of the band Pussy Riot who were jailed last year for staging an anti-Putin concert in Russia.

Rainbow flags dotted the city, including outside Amsterdam City Hall. Many of the flags were flown at half-mast.

Putin’s visit is centred on trade talks with The Netherlands, and many Russian business leaders are travelling with him.

Russia has invested heavily in the Port of Rotterdam, a transit point for much of its oil and gas.

Many Russian companies are also registered in The Netherlands because of its favourable taxation regime.

Environmental group Greenpeace criticised an active cooperation agreement for Arctic exploration signed during the visit between Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell and Russian giant Gazprom’s oil subsidiary.

“It would seem that Shell has not learnt from the litany of errors that plagued its attempts to drill in Alaska and that its relentless search for oil and gas continues,” said Greenpeace Netherlands Arctic Campaigner Faiza Oulahsen.

“This deal is bad news for investors and bad news for the fragile Arctic environment and the indigenous peoples whose way of life depends on it,” she said.

Putin attended the opening of an exhibition at Amsterdam’s Hermitage Museum with Dutch Queen Beatrix about Peter the Great, who came to The Netherlands as he tried to modernise Russia more than 300 years ago.

Russian authorities have launched a crackdown on foreign NGOs operating in Russia, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and German think-tanks.

Putin arrived from Germany, where he was met with topless protesters. In Amsterdam, the Russian leader, who is himself not averse to being photographed topless, said: “Thankfully the homosexuals didn’t undress here.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday urged Putin to “give a chance” to non-governmental organisations which she described as a “motor of innovation”.

The head of COC, the world’s oldest gay rights group, told AFP that they were protesting particularly because of the law’s vagueness.

“If I walk down the street holding my wife’s hand that can be construed as propaganda, flying a rainbow flag can be considered propaganda, and that’s all punishable,” Tanja Ineke said.

People’s Minister of Information JR Valrey

I want to say Happy Black History Month! Although KPFA will not be honoring black History this month due to the fact that they have a fund drive for three of the four weeks. I don't know why don't they split the fund drive with Women's Month -- Black History Month. I don't know that they do this to any other group of people and disrespect any other group of people like this. 

Another thing that's disrespectful that I want to put out on the airwaves is that February 17 is the birthday of the late great Huey P. Newton, who is one half of the founders, he is half of the founders of the black panther party. Him and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party in October of 1966. On that particular day, February 16, KPFA will be honoring a white woman. You know, they will be honoring a white woman. Sasha Lilley of "Against the Grain" will be reading from her book. I don't how that's being done in Black History Month, but it is. So, what we're going to do is: We're gonna have a community meeting outside of her event. We're gonna have a town hall meeting outside due to the fact that Andrew Phillips refuses -- he's the General Manager of KPFA -- he refuses to address these issues dealing with the anti-black Jim Crow climate at KPFA. 

So what I want all of the listeners and people who appreciate the "Block Report" to do is to come to the meeting out of the event on February seventeenth, and we're going to have a meeting outside the event where Sasha Lilley is speaking. Why did we pick Sasha Lilley? We picked Sasha Lilley because she is the former Program Director of KPFA -- in2008 she was the number two person at the station when veteran broadcaster Nadra Foster was beat. Beat! Lost her baby, had a paralyzed hand and kicked between her legs and kicked in the head after another manager at KPFA lied and said that she was trespassing. 

So we going to come on February seventeen. And we're going to address Andrew Phillips and also, Summer, the Executive Director of Pacifica, and ask them: Why are you having this event during Black History Month? Why is Bob Baldock, who organizes for these events to happen, why is he not bringing black speakers? And why is KPFA not doing what the FCC mandates it to do: having community meetings so that the listeners can be heard, since you are the ones that 's paying the bills. 

Another that I want to make a point, in talking about Sasha Lilley, is that on January 8 ,if you go to the show "Against the Grain," there were two f-words that were dropped on some tape during Sasha Lilley's broadcast. Now what's important about that is that you are -- we are risking when any time you dropped the f-words. You are risking a $300,000 penalty by the FCC. So this woman is, I haven't seen anything, she hasn't been punished. But when she was in power, and Youth Radio in downtown Oakland -- a non-profit which consists of a lot of black and brown youth, including me, Wesley who's at the boards right now, Dev, Nora Barrows-Friedman. Lots of people have come through Youth Radio. Youth Radio was taken off the air. Off the air -- not suspended -- taken off the air forever by Sasha Lilley and her administration because she was the Program Director in 2008. But we see how you know there's a right way to do things, there's a wrong way to do things, and at KPFA there's a white way to do things. So there's three categories- the right way the wrong way and the white way. 

So during Black History I'm gonna make sure that we have things that make you say hmmm, hmmm. We're gonna talk about lot of these issues. And we want you to share your commentary with Andrew Phillips. I have a few more bombs that I'm gonna end up dropping. You can share your commentary directly with Andrew Philips. 

You can copy me, if you like. My email is blockreportradio(at)gmail.com. Andrew's is andrew(at)kpfa.com. Also you can hit Andrew on the phone at (510) 848-6767, ext 203. 

I want you guys to call him. But also email so that I have a record of what the listeners who pay the bills, what they want at this station. And that we have a record that our black listeners as well as our allies who are listening are not with this Jim Crow thing. 

Now a problem that I have with the fund drive is that my show in particular -- the Wednesday edition of the "Morning Mix" -- we've raised $40,000 in the last year and a half. Our show hasn't been given a penny of support. Everything comes out of my pocket. I don't have a car to get here in the morning Catch the BART. Catch the bus. Not a dollar out of that $40,000 was given to me, or to anybody else that are part of the unpaid staff. We are being used as chattel slavery to prop-up the paid staff in their mediocre broadcasting. 

Now some of you are saying: Why JR are you saying this on the air right now? Why are you not working for some kind of a peaceful resolution? We've been trying to come to a peaceful resolution, I should say revolution because that's what it's turning into. We've been doing this for over two months, I've been trying to meet with the Executive Director of Pacifica who's been blowing me off. 

We met with Andrew on an issue dealing with Michael Yoshida, the head engineer at KPFA. Michael Yoshida on the day after Black Media Appreciation day November 27 or 28, barged into the studio where I was recording a breaking interview about the Congo and the war that has claimed over six million lives in Africa, which isn't covered adequately by the news here, or by most of the shows with the exception of Walter Turner and "Hard Knock Radio." 

So we were getting ready to break the interview. I did not get a chance to ever air the interview because Michael Yoshida busted into the studio, cut off my guest who was live on the air from Africa, and erased the interview. Because I was five minutes late coming out of the studio. 

Now I tried to keep this kind of calm. And for two months I tried to meet with Andrew --some sort of due process. Michael Yoshida they put soft ban on me at the station where you need codes to get into KPFA. All of my codes have been cut out. I don't have a code to get into the building, if it weren't for the black broadcasters and our allies who've been moving more secretly in making sure that I have codes, because every time Michael Yoshida and Andrew Phillips realize that I have a code, they erase the code, and so a number of broadcasters have given me codes to get in, as well as has given me codes so that I can get into the pre-record studios. So that's going on at KPFA. I know that Andrew Phillips, the General Manager, got on here and lied about the three top black woman last year at KPFA or Pacifica -- who've either been let go as in the case of LaVarn Williams at Pacifica, her contract not renewed, who fought for black broadcasters. Carrie, Carrie Core, who was the Program Director who left in April and is quoted as saying: "KPFA is the most racist, sexist, classist place that [she has] ever worked in [her] life." 

I mean this woman is like her fifties. So she can remember kind of like the Jim Crow era, and stuff like this  .But when I say apartheid radio, pertaining to KPFA, this isn't a tongue in cheek kind of criticism. This is what is really going on. Now the last person I wanted to mention is Veronica Faisant. She is an assistant to the manager right now. She does managerial work, but they claim that she is not a manager. And also, Andrew Phillips is planning to cut her hours during Black History Month and give them to the whites show that comes on before us "Up Front." I mean that's what's going on Black History Month. And I know Andrew is going to come up here and lie and give some justification. I'm saying that you can contact me blckreportradio(at)gmail and we can talk about this .You can also call Veronica Faisant and talk to her personally. Her phone number is (510) 848-6767 ext 209, if you would like to talk to her to discuss: is this true? 

Also last but not least I need to bring up the point in dealing with Walter Turner, who was leading the black broadcasters against Andrew Phillip's decision to cut off veteran broadcaster Emmit Powell, who has the only Gospel show on KPFA. They took one hour and gave it go to the "Father Figure Show," led by white celebrity Adam Mansbach, as well former KPFA "Hard Knock Radio" host Weyland Southon. Now I know that fatherhood show is a good show but why did the hour have to be gentrified from black programming which already doesn't have enough. So enough of the tirade but we want you guys to call in (510) 848-6767 ext 203 for Andrew Phillips, Veronica Faisant is ext 209, JR is at blckreportradio(at)gmail.com, Andrew is at andrew(at)kpfa.org. 

Also, I would like you to cc Summer, who is the Executive Director of Pacifica, at summer(at)pacific.org, and demand that she has a meeting to discuss these anti-black policies that are going on not just in the past at KPFA, not just in the 50s or 60s. I'm talking about in 2013. I'm talking about yesterday, today, tomorrow. 

Also, there's a plan to preempt us, two weeks from now, and probably let Brian Edwards-Tiekert, their favorite golden boy, you know, preempt the "Morning Mix," and let him do the broadcasting for us, or they'll put on some BS so that they can make a lot of money, instead of actually trying to culture and work with our audience. 

Before I want to say radio is a human right, not a privilege. The manager walks around the station saying being on the radio is a privilege. No, Andrew, it is a human right. If white people have access to the radio to teach what they think is important and their culture and their history, then every one else should have also. The native Americans should. The Asians should. The Latinos should. Black people should. I mean Andrew I don't know where you come from. Actually I do know where you come from. You come from Australia where there's also Jim Crow in dealing with the Aborigines. 

So, I don't know why you would think this is a privilege when people are not even versed on the problems at the station. Radio is a human right, Andrew Phillips! 

Bring JR back to KPFA now!

Norberto Gonzalez Denied Medical Care

COP SHOUTS "WHOSE STREETS, COPS STREETS"

Now, finally, a group of folks, mostly white, mostly associated with the local IWW (I think) are trying to do something about all this.  They have gone to the Plaza to actually video what is going on and to talk and actually LISTEN to what the kids have to say.  This was the first weekend for what is called PlazaWatch 2013.  It will not be the last.  What you will read directly below is a report on last night.  It was put together by a young woman from the IWW whom I had the good fortune to meet a while back during the Occupy stuff and with whom I have also been fortunate to remain in contact.  

You should know that PlazaWatch 2013 didn't just spring up out of nowhere.  This same women and her comrades have been working hard now for several years directly against white supremacy and white skin privilege and combatting racism in a fresh and energetic way (especially from the point of view of an old leftie like myself).

The path they have embarked on (whether they know it or not) is an important one.  It is one of rejecting their own white skin privilege, it is one of being a "race traitor (look it up)."  It is also a demonstration of the autonomous action of a group of self organized people who are demonstrating by their actions a way to stand up and a way to begin to build a new world.  I may sound dramatic, but I believe this.

Anyway here is what follows below;

1. a description of last night's PlazaWatch
2. a recording of some young African American women talking about their perception of what is going on (it's great)
3. my article from 2011 giving some historical context and background on what has been going down and my own thoughts on it (it makes reference also to an article I put with it on some similar stuff in Philadelphia (I won't reprint that article here).

I will keep you updated, by the way, as things progress.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is some good and important work going on...finally...I have been individually observing the same now for two years and talking with kids, but this is much better organized and involves more folks and has a strategy. I know Brianna and she and many of her friends and her comrades in the local IWW are going where no one here has gone before. Call me very impressed. I hope to join in soon...

PLAZAWATCH 2013

PlazaWatch 2013 is on!! Most important note of the evening - Please do not post videos of the kids without the permission of everyone in the frame. Many of them did not trust the intentions of the people out filming and were very uncomfortable with it.

Second most important note - These kids are most definitely not a violent mob. The ones I talked to were a bit suspicious at first but nearly all of them warmed up pretty quickly after I explained what we were doing and why.

We need a couple of teams of people to film. I just can't stay out that late. I got too tired and couldn't make it past 11pm. The scene was exactly as the musician had described. At around 10pm kids all poured out of the theater. The cops main interest was in keeping the kids from blocking the sidewalks. Cops on horses got on the sidewalk and herded everyone a couple of blocks away from the theater. Some groups went one way, others went other ways. I am thinking another movie lets people out around 11:30, but again, I was just too tired to make it that long to find out for sure when the second round of cops on horses versus kids happens.

Any problems that would have arisen were, again, exactly as the musician had described. Cops telling kids to disperse even when they were not blocking the sidewalks (the cops are not supposed to do this) and then the kids getting pissed about the harassment. Bystanders injecting themselves into the conversation and filming deescalated several of these kinds of interactions. However, in each case the kids did end up moving when they should not have been required to do so.

Many of the kids were very upset about being filmed, but I promised them that the film would never be put up in public unless the cops started beating on people or something like that. This made them happy. Many were surprised to have someone on their side, and several of them offered high 5s.

What the kids want: A place for people under 18 with video games, chairs, pizza, kool-aid, and a dance room... A chill room :)

Things the kids responded well to: Being treated like human beings, being asked how they felt and being listened to when they answered, filming cops for the purpose of keeping the cops on their best behavior.

Things they did not respond well to: Being filmed without permission by people they do not know, being treated like little children and talked down to by adults, being asked how they felt and having their answers talked over or ignored, being told what to do without being asked about their thoughts on the matter.

Also, everything felt really safe and comfortable until around 11pm. The police presence became much more visible as the crowd around them thinned out.

Do these young women sound like the dangerous thugs the media makes the kids trying to enjoy themselves on the Plaza seem...

4-14-13 young women on the plaza

4-14-13 Audio of interview with teen women on the Plaza.

Friday, August 19, 2011

CURFEWS, LIES, RACISM AND AMERICA'S WAR ON BLACK KIDS

I wanted to follow up on yesterday's story (which you can read here) concerning the on going police harassment of African American young people which has been on going for two years on the "exclusive" Country Club Plaza shopping and entertainment district here in Kansas City.  Yesterday's post focused on the work of a group of folks who are trying to take action on behalf of the kids in a number of ways.

Now, if white people want to help, they can help. But they can't join. They can help in the white community, but they can't join. We accept their help. They can form the White Friends of the Organization of Afro-American Unity and work in the white community on white people and change their attitude toward us. They don't ever need to come among us and change our attitude. We've had enough of them working around us trying to change our attitude. That's what got us all messed up. So we don't question their sincerity, we don't question their motives, we don't question their integrity. We just encourage them to use it somewhere else in the white community. If they can use all of this sincerity in the white community to make the white community act better toward us, then we'll say, "Those are good white folks." But they don't have to come around us, smiling at us and showing us all their teeth like white Uncle Toms, to try and make themselves acceptable to us. The White Friends of the Organization of Afro American Unity, let them work in the white community.

definitions of commons