Opponents of Corrupt "Trade" Agreement Stage March, Rally July 7 (tags)
About 200 opponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the so-called "trade" agreement that has been negotiated in secret between government and corporate representatives, marched on the Bayfront Hilton Hotel in San Diego July 7 during the most recent round of TPP talks. The march and rally finished a week of events protesting the secret negotiations of a corporate-welfare treaty under the guise of "free trade."
Will Johnson: Occupy Activist Says Movement's Alive & Well (tags)
According to Occupy San Diego activist Will Johnson, the movement is alive and well. It may no longer be running law-defying occupations in prominent public places, but it's still working out ways to challenge the vast and increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth and income in the U.S.
San Diegans Rally Against Citizens United Decision (tags)
Though the original location had to be changed when agents of the Department of Homeland Security blocked off the original one, San Diegans nonetheless held a rally January 20 against the Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which opened the floodgates for even more corporate influence over American politics and elections.
The Way She Sees It: Jamala Rogers in San Diego (tags)
Jamala Rogers, columnist for the African-American weekly St. Louis American since 1994 and co-chair of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, spoke in San Diego November 15 to promote her book, "The Best of 'The Way I See It,'" a compilation of her columns. Among them are a ringing defense of Queer rights and a series denouncing the government response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath as anti-Black genocide.
Activists Host "Radio Summer" in San Diego August 29 (tags)
Members of San Diego's activist community gathered together at the Media Arts Center in North Park on August 29 to hear about how low-power FM (LPFM) radio can create new opportunities for progressive media and break the Right-wing stranglehold on the local airwaves. The attendees heard a presentation via Skype from Philadelphia-based Ian Smith of the Prometheus Radio Project, which was instrumental in lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the LPFM opportunity in the first place, and also heard from representatives of the World Beat Center, Media Rights Coalition and Activist San Diego.
Media Arts Center Hosts "Radio Summer" August 29 (tags)
The Prometheus Radio Project, a nationwide organization working to broaden the range of community voices available on America's audio airwaves, scored a major victory in July when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally set up a licensing rule for thousands of new low-power FM (LPFM) radio stations, including some in urban areas previously ineligible for these grass-roots local stations. Now Prometheus is promoting a series of events called "Radio Summer" to organize people to obtain these licenses and get their stations on the air. The Media Arts Center of San Diego is hosting a "Radio Summer" event Monday, August 29, 6 to 8 p.m. at their office, 2921 El Cajon Boulevard (near 30th St.) in North Park, with a wide variety of other organizations in coalition. So if you're tired of the San Diego airwaves seeming to be the private preserve of the extreme Right, that's where you need to be next Monday!
San Diego Hosts Three May Day Rallies (tags)
San Diego hosted no fewer than three rallies on Sunday, May 1 — one between the Centro Cultural de la Raza and World Beat Center in Balboa Park, followed by a march to the Federal Building downtown where the second rally was held, and a third at the San Diego Community Concourse that united the participants with another set of marchers, who had assembled earlier in the morning in Chicano Park, also for a walk downtown. The rally speakers focused on a wide variety of progressive issues — workers’ rights, education cutbacks, health care, immigrants’ rights, war and peace, Queer liberation — and attempted to draw connections between them and psych the participants for the long struggle ahead to preserve and extend those rights in the face of a relentless assault on them by the radical Right.
“Nommogeneity” Explores African-American Poetry and Culture (tags)
It took two years to make and it's only 32 minutes long, but Terrence Stubbs’ film “Nommogeneity” is a powerful portrayal of cutting-edge African-American poetry and culture that's well worth seeing. Stubbs, a former stand-up comedian turned film student and TV producer, landed the legendary Amiri Baraka (shown reading his provocative 9/11 poem) as well as many younger African-American poets strongly influenced by him. The film — whose title comes from the twin gods in African mythology who brought humanity the gifts of language and writing — shows young poets working in a politically and socially conscious vein instead of writing “love jones” poems or odes to gangsterism and conspicuous consumption.
Fletcher Rallies Progressive Crowd to Fight the Right (tags)
The leaflet advertising author and former labor educator Bill Fletcher's talk September 13 in Balboa Park promised a considerably more optimistic speech than the one he actually gave. Stunned by the mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. by radical-Right opponents of President Obama's supposedly "socialist" agenda, Fletcher gave a strongly worded warning to his Leftist audience that unless the American Left organizes now, not only to fight the Right but to appeal to the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans, the movement he called "Right-wing populism" — talk radio, Fox news, the "teabag" protests and the thug-like disruption of Congressmembers' town-hall meetings on health reform — will sweep the country and consign all progressive movements and any part of distributive justice and a social-welfare state to oblivion.
Journalist Snow Offers Alternative View of Africa (tags)
Independent journalist Keith Harmon Snow began his February 5 presentation at San Diego's World Beat Center with a promise to "piss you off" — and he succeeded. He took on innumerable progressive sacred cows, including the United Nations, the Peace Corps, the Nation magazine, Jane Goodall and Ben Affleck, and he presented an alternative view of recent African history focused on the role of Uganda, Rwanda and the U.S. in the continued war and exploitation in the Congo.
LAST MINUTE CHANGE: Andres Barrera Presentation (tags)
LAST MINUTE CHANGE: Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Andres Barreda workshop on the Plan Puebla Panama HAS BEEN MOVED. It will now be held at the WORLD BEAT CENTER, in Balboa Park, 2100 Park Blvd. CAMBIO DE LUGAR PARA EL TALLER DE ANDRES BARREDA. Debido a circunstancias fuera de nustro control, se cambiara el taller de Andres Barreda al WORLD BEAT CENTER en el Parque Balboa, 2100 Park Blvd.
San Diego IMC Extravaganza, Poetry, --CLICK HERE! (tags)
IMC EXTRAVAGANZA! VIDEO, MUSIC, DANCE, POETRY, FOOD Featuring the following films: Free America-Trade Bush!: the FTAA protests at the SD/TJ border Storm from the Mountain: the Zapatour to Mexico City Bodies and Boundaries: families divided by the border Praha 2000: The World Bank and IMF Under Siege