Independent candidate for President
I know a lot of folks don't take me seriously, because I don't have the money machine behind me that Elizabeth Warren or Barack Obama, but but here's my two cents again. I am not rich. I am not owned by the corporations or by the political machine. I am of the working folk, like you. Not a Wall Street mouthpiece robed in false promises of populism. Not an Ivy League-educated lawyer with a web of powerful and dangerous connections.
I am not a lawyer, but I have been reading the Law now for years... like another man you may have heard of... his name was Abraham Lincoln.
I am tired of our current President and our current Congress tearing down our world. Every four years a new President come into office, and every four years, all the President does is work for the rich and for the war machine. And they continue to destroy and despoil our planet.
I am not a lawyer, but I have been reading the Law now for years... like another man you may have heard of... his name was Abraham Lincoln.
I am tired of our current President and our current Congress tearing down our world. Every four years a new President come into office, and every four years, all the President does is work for the rich and for the war machine. And they continue to destroy and despoil our planet.
Listen to the song: Occupy Wall Street
David lives with his family in Portland, Oregon and tours regularly on four continents, playing for audiences large and small at cafes, pubs, universities, churches, union halls and protest rallies. He has shared the stage with a veritable of who's who of the left in two dozen countries, and has had his music featured on Democracy Now!, BBC, Al-Jazeera and other networks. His essays are published regularly on CounterPunch elsewhere, and the 200+ songs he makes available for free on the web have been downloaded more than a million times. Most importantly, he's really good. He will make you laugh, he will make you cry, he will make the revolution irresistible.
Click on "Read the Article" to hear the Occupy Wall Street song.
Click on "Read the Article" to hear the Occupy Wall Street song.
Book Review: Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers In the South, 1865 - 1960
Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers In the South, 1865 - 1960
By Rebecca Sharpless
University of North Carolina Press
182 pages, Notes, Index
Though I have not read The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, I have seen the movie. It has unleashed furious criticism, especially in the black blogosphere. The most common criticism is that The Help sanitizes an important and painful part of African American history: the role of black female domestics in white homes. Not to worry, though: the real story has been told, and more than admirably, in Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens.
Sharpless explores three issues in relation to black female domestics: the manner in which they moved from slavery to paid employment as domestics; how the women survived the brutal discrimination, racism and poor working conditions common to their roles, and the myths and stereotypes surrounding African American female cooks.
By Rebecca Sharpless
University of North Carolina Press
182 pages, Notes, Index
Though I have not read The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, I have seen the movie. It has unleashed furious criticism, especially in the black blogosphere. The most common criticism is that The Help sanitizes an important and painful part of African American history: the role of black female domestics in white homes. Not to worry, though: the real story has been told, and more than admirably, in Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens.
Sharpless explores three issues in relation to black female domestics: the manner in which they moved from slavery to paid employment as domestics; how the women survived the brutal discrimination, racism and poor working conditions common to their roles, and the myths and stereotypes surrounding African American female cooks.
An 11/11 masterpiece cries out for peace
As the numerologists note our arrival at 11/11/11, our attention is better focused on this day as the anniversary of the end of the useless, worthless, horrifying war that turned so much of 20th Century into a twisted, violent mess. And on how we must prevent the same from happening to our shiny new millennium.
A superb route to that understanding comes through a modern masterpiece, TO END ALL WARS: A STORY OF LOYALTY AND REBELLION, 1914-8, by Adam Hochschild.
A seasoned author and social critic who helped found Mother Jones Magazine, Hochschild's page-turning account of the "Great War" in Great Britain is both a joy to read and a tragedy to digest.
Its glory lies in Adam's ability to penetrate the human core of the arrogance, foolishness and utter senselessness of a conflict that for no real reason killed at least ten million people outright and tens of millions more (including 500,000 in the US) by disease, most notably the influenza, which struck just prior to humankind's ability to mass-produce penicillin.
A superb route to that understanding comes through a modern masterpiece, TO END ALL WARS: A STORY OF LOYALTY AND REBELLION, 1914-8, by Adam Hochschild.
A seasoned author and social critic who helped found Mother Jones Magazine, Hochschild's page-turning account of the "Great War" in Great Britain is both a joy to read and a tragedy to digest.
Its glory lies in Adam's ability to penetrate the human core of the arrogance, foolishness and utter senselessness of a conflict that for no real reason killed at least ten million people outright and tens of millions more (including 500,000 in the US) by disease, most notably the influenza, which struck just prior to humankind's ability to mass-produce penicillin.
Occupy movement demands home mortgages correction
On Thursday, OccupyWashingtonDC.org teamed up with the Backbone Campaign, National People's Action, and the New Economy Working Group in a march from Freedom Plaza to the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA).
The demand they brought, along with giant props including a foreclosed house under water, was for a correction. The 1%, they said, inflated house values and made off with ill-gotten gains, but those left with underwater mortgages when the house values were brought back down have suffered. The demand is for mortgage values to be adjusted to match the current market values of houses.
"People in power know that the real solution to the continuing collapse of the housing market is universal principal reduction of American mortgages to real market value," said Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign. "It's time those with the power find the backbone to stand up to the banks and Institutions that hold these mortgages and insist they stop drowning America with false solutions, inaction and greed."
The demand they brought, along with giant props including a foreclosed house under water, was for a correction. The 1%, they said, inflated house values and made off with ill-gotten gains, but those left with underwater mortgages when the house values were brought back down have suffered. The demand is for mortgage values to be adjusted to match the current market values of houses.
"People in power know that the real solution to the continuing collapse of the housing market is universal principal reduction of American mortgages to real market value," said Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign. "It's time those with the power find the backbone to stand up to the banks and Institutions that hold these mortgages and insist they stop drowning America with false solutions, inaction and greed."
From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy the Neighborhoods
The Occupy movement has done something amazing, getting Americans to start questioning our economic divides. It's created spaces for people to come together, voice their discontents and dreams, creatively challenge destructive greed. It's created powerful political theater, engaged community, an alternative to silence and powerlessness.
Democracy key to fixing economic and eco crises, says Van Jones during visit to Columbus
The long time activist for economic, racial, and environmental justice, and former Green Jobs Czar of the Obama Administration spoke at the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Memorial Hall on Nov. 3, adding his voice to the fight to repeal SB 5.
Some activists have said the American Dream has been bad for the planet and a nightmare for some of the people in poor countries for whom the consequences of our consumerism are as severe as they are out of sight and out of mind to most of us.
Report back: Yoo v. Pitts debate in Dallas
The topic was the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" and detainee treatment, when John Yoo, former Department of Justice official and author of the "Torture Memos" debated Chip Pitts, Stanford University law professor and former Chairman of Amnesty International, at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
It was not widely publicized ~ at least, we didn't get the complete info until less than 24 hours beforehand. It was free, but required registration. When we called to register, we were told it was full. So, we planned to just go protest outside...but then at the last minute decided to see if we could get in anyway, without registration. There were some no-shows, so, to our surprise, they let us in after all...and we sat at the table right next to Yoo in a very fancy room lined with gilt-framed oil paintings and had a very lovely lunch. We decided not to disrupt because we didn't want to distract from Chip, and we knew Chip would blow Yoo away. (He did.) It was filmed, so I'm hoping it will be made public soon, because it was terrific ~ Chip is always terrific.
It was not widely publicized ~ at least, we didn't get the complete info until less than 24 hours beforehand. It was free, but required registration. When we called to register, we were told it was full. So, we planned to just go protest outside...but then at the last minute decided to see if we could get in anyway, without registration. There were some no-shows, so, to our surprise, they let us in after all...and we sat at the table right next to Yoo in a very fancy room lined with gilt-framed oil paintings and had a very lovely lunch. We decided not to disrupt because we didn't want to distract from Chip, and we knew Chip would blow Yoo away. (He did.) It was filmed, so I'm hoping it will be made public soon, because it was terrific ~ Chip is always terrific.
Former Tea Partier reaches out to Occupy Movement
Shortly after our march back to Freedom Plaza from Capitol Hill where we protested at a meeting of the Super Committee, Shane Brooks of Waco, Texas ducked under the tarp of the media tent to tell us about his journey from the Tea Party---which he said the GOP co opted--- to the Coffee Party, which he said is becoming a real trans-partisan movement.
“Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Christians, Atheists--it doesn’t matter. We’re all Americans,” said Brooks.
The Occupy movement seems more inclusive and playful and less angry and less fear-based than the Tea Party movement. But both movements invoke the Constitution. We have at Freedom Plaza in DC a bus-sized banner with the image of the Preamble where the operative phrase We the People stands out as it does on the parchment of the original document.