whitebeard

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

posted by: Whitebeard at 15:38 | link | comments |
italy

Entre irse y quedarse
Octavio Paz

Entre irse y quedarse duda el día,
enamorado de su transparencia.
La tarde circular es ya bahía:
en su quieto vaivén se mece el mundo.

Todo es visible y todo es elusivo,
todo está cerca y todo es intocable.

Los papeles, el libro, el vaso, el lápiz
reposan a la sombra de sus nombres.

Latir del tiempo que en mi sien repite
la misma terca sílaba de sangre.

La luz hace del muro indiferente
un espectral teatro de reflejos.

En el centro de un ojo me descubro;
no me mira, me miro en su mirada.

Se disipa el instante. Sin moverme,
yo me quedo y me voy: soy una pausa.

Found here

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:42 | link | comments |
latin america

World trade

For more than 20 years in Europe and in the rest of the world, the transport of freight is growing at a rate that is almost double the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thousand of millions of tons of goods go backwards and forwards on roads, rail, in the skies and on the sea. And each year this increases and they go further.

Progress can’t be stopped, they say. As if progress were like a locomotive in descent and without brakes. The only thing that has not already been affected by progress is the idea of progress. I’m fed up of imagining progress as Marinetti and the futurists imagined it at the beginning of the last century: roaring, clattering machines, always bigger, always more powerful.

If we want to continue believing in progress, we need to progress the idea of progress.

A progressive progress is one that whispers, that doesn’t roar. It’s a progress on tiptoes, not a progress with jangling chains. “From the atom to the bit” was the promise of the technology gurus of twenty years ago. I understood that instead of moving ever more atoms, we would be moving ever more bits, (that is information).

I understood wrong.
What’s actually happening is very different.  There is an explosion in the exchange of material goods and the use of thousands of millions of tons of infrastructure and of combustible material to transport more stuff longer distances and for more insane reasons. It’s very clear to me that the communication routes have been the arteries of civilisation and that free and fair trading has brought advantages to all.
But the situation has changed.

 Follow Beppe Grillo  It's a very great post!

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:32 | link | comments |
environment, world trade

We stared at him. He did not flinch.

But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.

Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.

But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both then and now.

I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.

The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.'

Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.' There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.

It follows

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 12:38 | link | comments |
us, war, latin america

Comics against corruption

John Hooper
Monday December 12, 2005
The Guardian

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:38 | link | comments |
italy

Bush step down

BUSH: STEP DOWN, AND TAKE YOUR PROGRAM WITH YOU! 
Welcome New York Times readers. It's going to take an organized movement of millions to drive out this regime. Here's our next step:
Late January: Drown out Bush's lies at the State of the Union address (date TBA). In large cities and small towns all across the country, join in rallies one hour before Bush's address as we make our determination to "Drive Out the Bush Regime" the political message of the day. We are not allowing Bush to set the tone. The following Saturday, everyone heads to Washington DC to protest at the seat of government. Prominent voices of conscience will help deliver the people's verdict on Bush's criminal regime.

Here 
I put my signature. Courage, american people.

posted by: Whitebeard at 19:25 | link | comments (2) |
us

 

Ben tornata, Lawrence!

posted by: Whitebeard at 07:50 | link | comments |
civil rights, palestine

The future is unwritten.  WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US."

DECEMBER 3-11 BRING THE MONEY. BRING THE NOISE

We are calling you -- everyone, everywhere, representing the full
diversity and strength of our movement -- to pull together and make donating
and raising money to drive out the Bush regime your mission the week of
Dec. 3-11.  Our goal: $200,000, with $50,000.00 of that raised this
weekend!

The political moment is very sharp.  Hatred for the war based on lies
intensifies.  Bush plows full-steam ahead – “no retreat!”  Revulsion for
US torture grows, Bush insists on codifying it into law.  Bush selects
a Christian fundamentalist to the Supreme Court, and the extreme right
demands “Sc-Alito” – Bush accedes

Pundits are musing about a weakened presidency.  We can’t be lulled
into passivity, hoping, waiting for this administration to implode or fade
away.  As our Call says, this regime “is setting out to radically
remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.”
These people are vicious; they are on a mission and they won’t go down
without a fight.

We must seize this moment to build on what we started a month ago. 
November 2 was a significant beginning.  Thousands took to the streets in
68 cities and at least 40 college campuses to declare that we won’t
stop until the Bush regime is driven out.  Everywhere people noticed a new
fresh wind as thousands of high school students walked out of over 200
schools.  Now we have to vault this movement to a whole new level, to
reach the millions who hate Bush and fear for the future.

When Bush steps to the podium to deliver his State of the Union, a
cacophony of NOISE from every corner of the country will drown him out. 
People all over the world must hear clearly the voices that say, NO, you
do not represent or speak for us. “Bush Step Down and Take Your Whole
Program with You.”  Reverberating throughout society will be the
question, “Should he stay or should he go?”   The agenda for 2006 must not be
set by Bush, but by the people, in our millions, determined to stop
this whole disastrous course.

This is an audacious plan that needs money to bring it into being.  The
first $45,000 buys a full-page ad in the New York Times containing the
Call, a list of prominent endorsers and the announcement of plans for
the State of the Union speech and the People’s Verdict to follow. And we
have to build the essential framework -- supporting the staff and
office in New York City and opening a new office in Washington D.C. 

Donate online through our website (worldcantwait.org), or mail a check
to our address below.  See details about tax-deductible contributions. 
The website has fundraising ideas, material, a kit to help you raise
money.   When deciding what to contribute and ask others, think of this
from our Call:
“History is full of examples where people who had right on their side
fought against tremendous odds and were victorious.  And it is also full
of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get
swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined.

The future is unwritten.  WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US."

****************

Contributions of $100 or more may be made tax deductible if the donor
sends a check made out to World Can't Wait/AGJ to World Can't Wait, 305
W. Broadway #185 New York NY 10013.  At this time, online donations are
not tax deductible.

The Alliance for Global Justice, a 501(c)(3) organization, is the
fiscal sponsor of World Can't Wait. AFGJ will acknowledge contributions in
writing, and furnish evidence of its status as an exempt organization
upon request. Their latest financial report is available at their
offices, 1247 E Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. 

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:09 | link | comments |
us, civil rights

Courage, american people!

The old Europe will follow you.

December 1, 2005

Friends,

I just thought we should all pause for a moment today to remember the simple act of courage, defiance and dignity committed by Rosa Parks when she refused to move to the back of the bus because the law said she had the wrong skin color. The greatest moments in history, the ones that have truly mattered and have taken us to a better place, are made up of scores of these singular acts by ordinary, everyday people who could no longer tolerate the crap and the nonsense of those in charge.

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

Rosa Parks may have been alone on that bus at the moment of her arrest but she wasn't alone for long. The old order was shaken, the world was upended and, as a people, we were given a chance for a bit of redemption.

Perhaps the best way to celebrate this most important day in American history is to ask yourself what it is that you can do today to make a difference. What risk can you take to move the ball forward? What is that one thing you've been wanting to say to your co-workers or classmates that you've been afraid to say -- but in your heart of hearts you know needs to be said? Why wait another day to say it or do it?

There is probably no better way to honor Rosa Parks -- and yourself -- than for you to put a stop to an injustice you see, not allowing it to continue for one more second. Do something. Then send me an email (contributions@michaelmoore.com) and tell all of us what you did (I'll post as many as I can).

Fifty years later, the bus we're on could use a few more people simply saying, "No. I'm sorry. I've had enough. I'm not going to take it anymore."

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com

posted by: Whitebeard at 18:09 | link | comments |
civil rights, war

Seven students

November 30, 2005

Dear Friend,

Seven students at Hampton University face possible expulsion in a
hearing this Friday for peaceful political protest on campus.

Join Howard Zinn, Michael Eric Dyson and Katha Pollitt in signing a
statement in their defense (below).

Also, please call the HU Dean of Men at 757-727-5303 and the HU Dean of
Women at 757-727-5486 to demand that these students NOT be expelled.

A bit of background:

On November 2nd, protests were held in over 70 cities with
participation from more than 200 schools. These were initiated by The World Can't
Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime (worldcantwait.org) which has been
endorsed by Harold Pinter, Russell Banks, Cindy Sheehan, Studs Terkel, Gore
Vidal, Cornel West, Howard Zinn, Michael Eric Dyson and many others.

Students at Hampton gathered in the Student Union on November 2nd to
hold a gathering of poetry and speeches, but the event was shut down by
Hampton Police.  Students' IDs were taken, their faces were video-taped
without their consent, and later several of these students received
disciplinary letters. The Hampton Administration has accused students of
breaking several codes of conduct, including a rule about cajoling or
proselytizing students, "distribution of unauthorized materials" and "the
policy on student demonstrations."

Press coverage of this can be viewed at:
Daily Press, local Virginia Newspaper, November 23:
 
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-26621sy0nov23,0,6983144.story?track=mostemailedlink
Inside Higher Ed website:
  http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/30/hampton
Revolution Newspaper:
  http://rwor.org/a/025/defend-hampton-university-7.htm
Daily Press, local Virginia Newspaper, November 28:
 
http://www.dailypress.com/dp-27586cm0nov27,0,6886291.column?track=mostemailedlink

A statement from two of the students facing charges is available at:
 
http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=437&Itemid=5

Sincerely,
Sunsara Taylor
Co-Initiator of World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime


STATEMENT - To add your name, email: youth_students@worldcantwait.org
and specify how you would like to be identified.

Drop the Charges and Stop the Harassment of the Hampton University
Students Against the Bush Regime!

Students who act to Drive Out the Bush Regime, especially when they
remain firm in the face of police and administrative threats, are heroic.
They must be defended. Their example must be followed.

Students at Hampton University participated in nation-wide outpourings
in over 70 places and 200 schools on November 2nd to launch of a
movement to drive out the Bush regime. In the course of organizing, they were
followed by campus police, targeted by video surveillance, and forced
to turn over their ID's for the simple act of distributing literature.
That these students were targeted for the content of their activities is
demonstrated by the fact that other students routinely post
unauthorized flyers (often with scantily clad women advertising parties) without
harassment.

On Friday, November 18th, three student organizers were issued summons
for a hearing regarding possible expulsion the following Monday
morning, giving them no time during the working week to contact lawyers,
parents, or campus administrators. After hundreds of phone-calls from around
the country to the Dean's Office, their hearing was postponed. Days
later, four more students were issued summons and campus police shut down
an interview being filmed by the local media, attempting to prevent the
student's story from getting out.

The attacks on the student organizers at Hampton University, a
historically black college with a mostly Republican administration, is an ugly
harbinger of the "dissent-free" future the Bush regime is trying to
lock into place. These attacks are part of a pattern of repression against
high school and college students nation-wide on November 2nd that
disproportionately targeted black, Latino and other oppressed students.

A standard cannot be set where the President of the United States can
stay on vacation as a major city's poor and black people are left for
five days without food or water, where influential friends of this
President are allowed to float out genocidal notions of aborting all black
babies to bring crime rates down, and where the President's policies of
"abstinence-only" in the face of an international AIDS pandemic threaten
millions of lives, but where students who dare to act to end this are
silenced and expelled from school.

As it says in the Call for The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush
Regime: "This will not be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to
silence us. If we act, they will to try to stop us. But we speak for the
majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are
going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush
and we are NOT going to stop."

We, the undersigned, demand that the Hampton University administration
to drop all charges against, cease their political harassment of, and
to apologize to these students. These students must not be expelled! We
also call on students at campuses nation-wide to send statements of
support, and to join, strengthen and support the movement to Drive Out the
Bush Regime because the World Can't Wait!

Signed:

Electa Arenal, Professor Emerita, Ph.D. Program in Hispanic &
Luso-Brazilian Literatures & Women's Studies Certificate Program, CUNY/Graduate
Center*
Eleanor J. Bader, adjunct Kingsborough Community College & Pratt
Institute, Brooklyn, NY*
Jennifer Baumgardner, author, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the
Future
Rosalyn Baxandall, Distinguished Teaching Professor, SUNY Old Westbury*
Edget Betru, Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative - Center for
Constitutional Rights*
Susan Bordo, University of Kentucky*
Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara*
Joan C. Callahan, Professor, Department of Philosophy & Director,
Women's Studies Program, University of Kentucky*
Carl Dix, National Spokesperson, Revolutionary Communist Party
Michael Eric Dyson, author, Is Bill Cosby Right?
Beva Eastman, Associate Professor, William Paterson University and New
Jersey City University*
Judith Ezekiel, Universite de Toulouse le Mirail*
Joan L. Griscom, Ph.D. Lexington, MA
Barb Josephs, SUNY Old Westbury*
Carole Joffe, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Davis*
Bea Kreloff, director, Art Workshop International*
Allen Lang, National Student Organizer, The World Can't Wait - Drive
Out the Bush Regime!
Judith Mitchell, former counselor, Columbia University*
Efia Nwangaza, Executive Director, African American Institute for
Policy Studies & Planning
Stephen Orvis, Professor of Government, Hamilton College*
Katha Pollitt, writer The Nation*
Nancy S. Rabinowitz, Margaret Bundy Scott Professor, Hamilton College*
Sonia Jaffe Robbins, freelance writer and editor
Alix Kates Shulman, writer
Paul C. Taylor, Morehouse, '89 Chair of Philosophy at Temple
University*
Sunsara Taylor, writer for Revolution, Co-Initiator of The World Can't
Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Barrie Thorne, University of California, Berkeley*
Lise Vogel, Professor Emerita, Rider University*
Lawrence Weschler, director, New York Institute for the Humanities at
NYU*
Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College*
Laura X, Women's History Library*
Howard Zinn, Historian and Author
*affiliations for identification purposes only

Demand that the 7 students facing expulsion be cleared of any
disciplinary measures and that the intimidation and punishment for student
protest stop!
Call the Dean of Men (Woodson Hopewell Jr.) at 757-727-5303, the Dean
of Women at 757-727-5486.

To add your name, email: youth_students@worldcantwait.org and specify
how you would like to be identified.

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:49 | link | comments |
us, civil rights, war, censored news