Thursday, December 22, 2005
The transit strike in New York was a beautiful thing. Solidarity for all workers! They haven't gotten what they wanted, and have been deterred, but I hope they do not give up their determination.
Hooray!!
Kudos to Congress, and especially the Senate, for putting a road block in front of the Patriot Act. May it recieve a death blow.
Happy Birthday Me
Today is my Birthday. I probably won't be posting much until after the holiday, so Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hannukah,and Happy Holidays to all.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Who Will Buy?
Who will buy George Bush's bullshit, two scents for a penny? Who Will Buy George Bush's bullshit, two scents for a penny?
Sunday, December 18, 2005
I saw the film Fat Girl in the theatres when it first came out while I was still in Montgomery. It was absolutely chilling. I remember being frightened as I left the theatre.Powerful film that definitely gives you a lot to think about.
I think that the pundit of The Rude Pundit is a brilliant rhetorician. I like the honesty of his words.
This From Hungry Blues
The “Shakedown Gang”: Roy Innis and the New Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Guest post by Patrick Jones
Founded in 1942 by an inter-racial group of pacifist students in Chicago, including George Houser, James Farmer, Anna Murray and Bayard Rustin, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) became one of the most important and influential civil rights organizations in the United States until the end of the 1960s. Profoundly influenced by the writing of Henry David Thoreau and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, CORE organized the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 and the 1961 Freedom Rides, and also played a crucial role during the student sit-in movement of the early-1960s, the 1963 March On Washington and the 1964 Mississippi “Freedom Summer” Project. CORE chapters were also involved in struggles for racial justice throughout the urban North, organizing rent strikes and a variety of campaigns to end employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schooling and police brutality.
Since 1968 when Roy Innis, one of today’s most prominent black conservatives, wrested control of the organization away from Farmer and others, CORE has become an affront to the group's founding principles and to its important contributions to the struggle for racial justice in the forties, fifties and sixties. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has moved sharply right, aligning itself with the Republican Party, conservative think-tanks, anti-environmental organizations and large multi-national corporations, including drug companies like Monsanto, who give it large donations. The organization rarely engages in direct action and does not appear to have a significant grassroots membership, relying instead on its sizable contributions from Right-wing think-tanks and corporate donors to lobby in favor of their favorite conservative issues.
Roy Innis came to power within CORE during the Black Power era after a tumultuous and divisive internal struggle. He led the drive away from inter-racialism and toward an increasingly conservative black nationalism/capitalism. According to one former member of the group, Innis opposed the leadership of Gladys Harrington, the long-time head of the New York chapter of CORE, saying that women should not head black organizations. During the 1970s, Innis and CORE supported the murderous Ugandan dictator and Nazi sympathizer, Idi Amin, stating, "Ugandans are happy under General Amin's rule of Africa for black Africans” and terming the despot’s decision to expel 50,000 Asians from the country "a bold step." The following decade, Innis reportedly said “the so-called anti-Apartheid struggle” was "a vicarious, romantic adventure" with "no honest base." Also in the 1980s, Innis teamed with Bob Grant, the right-wing radio host who at one point called Dr. King a "scumbag," to form the Howard Beach Legal Defense Fund, which assisted a group of white youths who had chased a black man into the street to his death in a racial attack. Innis supported the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court and publicly defended “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz who shot and killed four African American youth on a subway in New York City in 1984.
More recently, the group organized an anti-Greenpeace campaign to uncover what it calls "eco-imperialism" on the left. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has instigated or participated in a variety of campaigns to support and protect multinational corporations in their relentless pursuit of profit over worker/human rights and respect for the natural environment. CORE also defended Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott after his sympathetic comments about Senator Strom Thurmond's "Dixiecrat" run for President in 1948. In 2000, Innis supported extreme right-wing candidate Alan Keyes’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he told Justice Department officials that young African American Muslims in prison and at colleges were ripe for terrorist recruitment ("a clear and present danger," in his estimation). During a February 2005 speech, Innis lamented "liberals coming into Black churches" and "the 1500 black children aborted every day." He also said it is a myth that "slavery has done some irreparable harm [to African Americans].” Addressing the supposed dearth of black leadership in the U.S. today, Innis reportedly said, "We have a black leadership; George Bush is our leader." In April 2005, CORE sent a letter to the Senate encouraging an end to the filibuster in order to get President Bush's upcoming Supreme Court nominees through the process. CORE has also advocated an abstinence-first policy to combat AIDS in Africa and has criticized the UN ban on DDT in Africa calling it a means to hold back those nations from "modernizing." Roy Innis has served on the boards of the Hudson Institute, a Right-Wing think-tank, the Landmark legal Foundation, which led the charge against Bill Clinton in the 90s, the National Traditionalist Caucus, a group that works against women’s rights and equality for gays and lesbians, and the National Rifle Association. Innis has also been a featured speaker at a Christian Coalition gathering.
Niger Innis, Roy’s son, acts as CORE’s public spokesperson and has taken an increasing leadership role in the organization over the past few years. In early 2005, Niger called WV Senator Robert Byrd a "racist" for delaying confirmation of Condaleeza Rise as Secretary of State. Niger occasionally writes for the National Review and has spoken at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] on several occasions, which is billed as the “largest gathering of conservative political activists in the country." He is a board member of the Alliance for Marriage, which seeks a constitutional amendment to define marriage solely as a union of a man and a woman, and “Project 21,” which bills itself as a "National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives.” During a recent interview supporting John Roberts’s nomination for the Supreme Court, Niger Innis called African Americans who vote for Democrats "useful fools."
Over the past few years, CORE has honored a series of individuals at their annual Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration who are hostile to racial justice and human rights, including Jorg Haider, Australian politician and Nazi-sympathizer, Bob Grant and President George W. Bush’s political architect, Karl Rove, claiming Rove's “mission is to fully integrate our people in every aspect.” In 2006, the group is scheduled to honor Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, UN Secretary John Bolton, and Pfizer Vice-President Rich Bagger.
James Farmer called CORE under Roy Innis's leadership a "shakedown gang." Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, prominent black journalists, have written that CORE now has "a tin cup outstretched to every Hard Right political campaign or cause that finds it convenient - or a sick joke - to hire black cheerleaders" and describe Innis as a "gangster 'civil rights' caricature." Shiela Michaels, a long-time civil rights activist, has written that Innis has “shamed the name of CORE.” Dr. Herschelle S. Challenor, Professor at Clark Atlanta University, in a 2000 speech at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa, drew this comparison between James Farmer's leadership of CORE and Innis's: "James Farmer, the leader of CORE during the highpoint of the civil rights movement, was a bright, dedicated activist of unimpeachable integrity. His immediate successor, Roy Innis was seen as a chameleon prepared to change his political ideology as necessary. There were rumors that he worked in later years as an FBI informant."
This summary was culled from a variety of print and online sources. It is intended as a public service, rather than a piece of formal or original academic work
Guest post by Patrick Jones
Founded in 1942 by an inter-racial group of pacifist students in Chicago, including George Houser, James Farmer, Anna Murray and Bayard Rustin, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) became one of the most important and influential civil rights organizations in the United States until the end of the 1960s. Profoundly influenced by the writing of Henry David Thoreau and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, CORE organized the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 and the 1961 Freedom Rides, and also played a crucial role during the student sit-in movement of the early-1960s, the 1963 March On Washington and the 1964 Mississippi “Freedom Summer” Project. CORE chapters were also involved in struggles for racial justice throughout the urban North, organizing rent strikes and a variety of campaigns to end employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schooling and police brutality.
Since 1968 when Roy Innis, one of today’s most prominent black conservatives, wrested control of the organization away from Farmer and others, CORE has become an affront to the group's founding principles and to its important contributions to the struggle for racial justice in the forties, fifties and sixties. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has moved sharply right, aligning itself with the Republican Party, conservative think-tanks, anti-environmental organizations and large multi-national corporations, including drug companies like Monsanto, who give it large donations. The organization rarely engages in direct action and does not appear to have a significant grassroots membership, relying instead on its sizable contributions from Right-wing think-tanks and corporate donors to lobby in favor of their favorite conservative issues.
Roy Innis came to power within CORE during the Black Power era after a tumultuous and divisive internal struggle. He led the drive away from inter-racialism and toward an increasingly conservative black nationalism/capitalism. According to one former member of the group, Innis opposed the leadership of Gladys Harrington, the long-time head of the New York chapter of CORE, saying that women should not head black organizations. During the 1970s, Innis and CORE supported the murderous Ugandan dictator and Nazi sympathizer, Idi Amin, stating, "Ugandans are happy under General Amin's rule of Africa for black Africans” and terming the despot’s decision to expel 50,000 Asians from the country "a bold step." The following decade, Innis reportedly said “the so-called anti-Apartheid struggle” was "a vicarious, romantic adventure" with "no honest base." Also in the 1980s, Innis teamed with Bob Grant, the right-wing radio host who at one point called Dr. King a "scumbag," to form the Howard Beach Legal Defense Fund, which assisted a group of white youths who had chased a black man into the street to his death in a racial attack. Innis supported the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court and publicly defended “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz who shot and killed four African American youth on a subway in New York City in 1984.
More recently, the group organized an anti-Greenpeace campaign to uncover what it calls "eco-imperialism" on the left. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has instigated or participated in a variety of campaigns to support and protect multinational corporations in their relentless pursuit of profit over worker/human rights and respect for the natural environment. CORE also defended Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott after his sympathetic comments about Senator Strom Thurmond's "Dixiecrat" run for President in 1948. In 2000, Innis supported extreme right-wing candidate Alan Keyes’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he told Justice Department officials that young African American Muslims in prison and at colleges were ripe for terrorist recruitment ("a clear and present danger," in his estimation). During a February 2005 speech, Innis lamented "liberals coming into Black churches" and "the 1500 black children aborted every day." He also said it is a myth that "slavery has done some irreparable harm [to African Americans].” Addressing the supposed dearth of black leadership in the U.S. today, Innis reportedly said, "We have a black leadership; George Bush is our leader." In April 2005, CORE sent a letter to the Senate encouraging an end to the filibuster in order to get President Bush's upcoming Supreme Court nominees through the process. CORE has also advocated an abstinence-first policy to combat AIDS in Africa and has criticized the UN ban on DDT in Africa calling it a means to hold back those nations from "modernizing." Roy Innis has served on the boards of the Hudson Institute, a Right-Wing think-tank, the Landmark legal Foundation, which led the charge against Bill Clinton in the 90s, the National Traditionalist Caucus, a group that works against women’s rights and equality for gays and lesbians, and the National Rifle Association. Innis has also been a featured speaker at a Christian Coalition gathering.
Niger Innis, Roy’s son, acts as CORE’s public spokesperson and has taken an increasing leadership role in the organization over the past few years. In early 2005, Niger called WV Senator Robert Byrd a "racist" for delaying confirmation of Condaleeza Rise as Secretary of State. Niger occasionally writes for the National Review and has spoken at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] on several occasions, which is billed as the “largest gathering of conservative political activists in the country." He is a board member of the Alliance for Marriage, which seeks a constitutional amendment to define marriage solely as a union of a man and a woman, and “Project 21,” which bills itself as a "National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives.” During a recent interview supporting John Roberts’s nomination for the Supreme Court, Niger Innis called African Americans who vote for Democrats "useful fools."
Over the past few years, CORE has honored a series of individuals at their annual Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration who are hostile to racial justice and human rights, including Jorg Haider, Australian politician and Nazi-sympathizer, Bob Grant and President George W. Bush’s political architect, Karl Rove, claiming Rove's “mission is to fully integrate our people in every aspect.” In 2006, the group is scheduled to honor Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, UN Secretary John Bolton, and Pfizer Vice-President Rich Bagger.
James Farmer called CORE under Roy Innis's leadership a "shakedown gang." Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, prominent black journalists, have written that CORE now has "a tin cup outstretched to every Hard Right political campaign or cause that finds it convenient - or a sick joke - to hire black cheerleaders" and describe Innis as a "gangster 'civil rights' caricature." Shiela Michaels, a long-time civil rights activist, has written that Innis has “shamed the name of CORE.” Dr. Herschelle S. Challenor, Professor at Clark Atlanta University, in a 2000 speech at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa, drew this comparison between James Farmer's leadership of CORE and Innis's: "James Farmer, the leader of CORE during the highpoint of the civil rights movement, was a bright, dedicated activist of unimpeachable integrity. His immediate successor, Roy Innis was seen as a chameleon prepared to change his political ideology as necessary. There were rumors that he worked in later years as an FBI informant."
This summary was culled from a variety of print and online sources. It is intended as a public service, rather than a piece of formal or original academic work
Perhaps related to the previous post, I am intrigued with Derrida's idea in Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness of cities being places of refuge....independent of states and solely for the purpose of harboring refugees and people in search of asylum. Also, the idea of a stateless person is something that I am quite sure is foreign to the average American mind because it is quite foreign to mine. I am trying to get my mind around it as I think it is an interesting state to be in.
I just wanted to comment on something, and I am going to put it in bold because I think it needs to be heeded and listened to.
It has been four months since New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. How can they take away the aide to these people? There lives were completely destroyed in this hurricane--largely due to the horrendous unhumanity of capitalism and its lack of concern for human well-being and now they expect them, after FOUR MONTHS to have pieced their lives back together and become self-sufficient. I find it horrendous and I think this government ought to be castigated for it. Capitalism is wicked and horrible, and to expect these people to fend for themselves four months after having their lives torn apart is inexcusable, inhumane, and totally ought to be taken out of the realm of posibility. This is a blatant example of the inhumanity of capitalism--their message to these people that their time is up, that they will only provided the equivalent of a "sick leave" from this government in order to get their lives back in order....always, everything in capitalistic terms. I think there has to be some drastic measures taken to return this government to its intent and purpose of being FOR the people and BY the people.
It has been four months since New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. How can they take away the aide to these people? There lives were completely destroyed in this hurricane--largely due to the horrendous unhumanity of capitalism and its lack of concern for human well-being and now they expect them, after FOUR MONTHS to have pieced their lives back together and become self-sufficient. I find it horrendous and I think this government ought to be castigated for it. Capitalism is wicked and horrible, and to expect these people to fend for themselves four months after having their lives torn apart is inexcusable, inhumane, and totally ought to be taken out of the realm of posibility. This is a blatant example of the inhumanity of capitalism--their message to these people that their time is up, that they will only provided the equivalent of a "sick leave" from this government in order to get their lives back in order....always, everything in capitalistic terms. I think there has to be some drastic measures taken to return this government to its intent and purpose of being FOR the people and BY the people.
The Times They Are a Changin'-By Bob Dylan
As Sung By Josephine Baker
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
George Bush says that newspapers reporting his allowance of secret wiretaps and other spying techniques undermines national security. Whoever is buying this bullshit needs to be whipped.
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