Villaraigosa: The Myth of The Progressive Mayor (tags)
While Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa disappointed supporters and failed to deliver any progressive policies whatsoever, he was hardly a failure to those he really serves. Indeed, for developers, real estate tycoons, billionaires, and school privatization profiteers, Villaraigosa's eight year reign was a smashing success.
The Shortwave Report 06/25 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio. With times and freqs for listening at home. 2 files- broadcast and slow-modem streaming. Free to rebroadcast. China, Netherlands, Cuba, and Russia.
Juan Santos: Im Memorium (tags)
To Walk in Beauty More than just a Dream: The South Central Farm is Everywhere The Declaration of the Leadership Council of the South Central Farm Movement The Spirit cannot be uprooted. That’s the most fundamental truth of the matter. It was heart breaking to have the Farm stolen from us, to be driven away from it by a small army of police like chattel slaves being driven to the slave ships; to have to re-live what our ancestors faced, what indigenous peoples have always faced at the hands of this system. But we know that it is not the tragedies of our lives, but, rather, the choices we make in response to them, that have to power to shape who and what we become, and that shape what we are able to realize in our futures. No one but each of us, individually and collectively, has that power, it is not the tragedies and oppressions that are scripted into the system that are decisive, but the choices we make about our lives as we encounter them that ultimately decide the matter.
Barack Obama and the "End" of Racism (tags)
Obama doesn’t represent peace – he represents an expansion of war and the power of Empire. He’s even more extreme on this than Bush himself, except in his public rhetoric. He doesn’t represent the real and legitimate needs, desires and hopes of Black people - he refuses to speak openly of the most fundamental issues affecting Black people. He doesn’t represent the “end of racism,” but the perpetuation of oppression in a new guise.
The Hate Equation:Targeting Migrant Children in LA (tags)
The May 1 police riot in Mac Arthur Park sent a deliberate political message and was part of a larger pattern of attacks targeting Brown children and families.
The Great Emergency: Global Warming, Mass Death and Resource Wars in the 21st Century (tags)
"We are the watchers. We are the witnesses. We see what has gone before. We see what happens now, at this dangerous moment in human history. We see what's going to happen, what will surely happen unless we come together---we, the Peoples of all Nations---to restore peace, harmony and balance to the Earth, our Mother." --Chief Arvol Looking Horse, from White Buffalo Teachings
Apocalypto: The Cinematic Logic of Genocide (tags)
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within," is how Gibson puts it. In other words the Conquest was not genocide but a moral comeuppance; the civilization didn’t fall, in the final analysis, from climate change or inadvertent soil depletion or even war – it was conquered in god’s wrath against the forces of evil. And Gibson’s made sure you see the ancient Maya as a force of profound evil.
Seeds of Hope, Seeds of War: Race, Class and the Battle for the South Central Farm (Final) (tags)
The world is literally watching. Media worldwide have covered the case of the South Central Farm, the largest urban garden in the United States, the efforts of the city's elites to drive the farmers from the land, and the farmer's remarkable resistance. On June 13th, the County moved to evict, concentrating a massive police presence in the area to uproot the resistor's encampment on the land. The South Central Farm arose from the ashes of the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion, and stands as a symbol of hope to millions. Despite the eviction, the struggle continues, with a court hearing this week challenging the City's sale of the land to a private developer. When the Los Angeles City Council sold the 14 acre plot called the South Central Farm to developer Ralph Horowitz, they sold land they didn’t own.
Letter to Voz de Aztlan (tags)
What Immigrants Must Learn from the Black Civil Rights Movement ... and Soon (tags)
Un Pueblo Unido
Speak Now, or Never: Stopping Sensenbrenner (tags)
Tomorrow morning, anti-fascists and anti-racists join together in the streets.
Campo: Good Riddance and Goodbye (tags)
On Saturday, protestors celebrated the defeat of the California Minutemen, and Friends of the Border Patrol introduced themselves.