Global

#108 Gree-Gree Zoom August 29, 2022

DIABLO ARMAGEDDON, *ARIZONA BRAKEY*, GRASSROOTS CONGRESS

Our Green Grassroots Emergency Election Protection zoom opens with a tribute from WENDI LEDERMAN to Women’s Equality.

We also honor the great HOWARD ZINN, who would have been 100 years old this month.  Zinn completely upended the popular view of our nation’s story, and his PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES remains a foundational document.  Thank you, Howard!!!

We then do a deep dive into the decrepit, dangerous, earthquake-surrounded Diablo Canyon Nukes at San Luis Obispo, CA.  Governor Gavin Newsom is pushing to keep them open indefinitely despite a broad-based agreement to shut them in 2024-5.  The ramifications for the future health, safety, economy and ecological survival of the human race are without parallel.

We hear from DONNA GILMORE, KEN COOK, DANETT ABBOTT, ACE HOFFMAN, MYLA RESON, JUSTIN LE BLANC, TATANKA BRICCA, LINDA SEELEY and many more.

Arizona’s great JOHN BRAKEY tells us of major victories there.

John Brakey – Audit USA

“I feel like I’m in heaven!” gushed a glowing Ava DuVernay. I overheard the director of 2014’s Civil Rights epic Selma at the August 17 press preview of ​the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 praising “the first large-scale exhibition… to examine the compellingly rich history of Black participation in American cinema, both inside and outside the Hollywood studio system,” as co-curators Rhea L. Combs and Doris Berger write in their 288-companion book with the same name as the groundbreaking show.

The helmer of 2016’s mass incarceration documentary 13th, and the 2019 Central Park Five film When They See Us, DuVernay issued her rave review of Regeneration ​​​in the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, immersed in an 11,000-square-foot space that an Academy Museum press release states includes “rarely seen excerpts of films, documentaries, newsreels, and home movies, as well as historical photographs, costumes, props, and posters” chronicling and celebrating more than 70 years of often-ignored yet significant African-American contributions to cinema. The spectacular, sprawling show covers most of the Museum’s fourth floor.

Close your eyes and try to envision the two wolves.

Imagine yourself as a terrified child. I think that helps bring the myth to life . . . this myth, said to be Cherokee, of humanity’s two choices. The wolves are engaged in a vicious fight.

The wise grandfather explains to the child that the two wolves are inside all of us. One of the wolves is an arrogant narcissist — a jerk, an egocentric idiot. You know, evil. The other is the embodiment of joy and empathy, kindness and love.

The trembling child asks in alarm: “Which one wins?”

And Grandfather lays it on the line: “The one you feed.”

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A Constitutional Court suspended Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha from office on August 24, immediately replacing him with his deputy, while judges decide when Mr. Prayuth's prime ministry should end after he seized power in a 2014 coup and won a 2019 election.

The new Acting Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, 77, was expected to continue Mr. Prayuth's domestic policies and announce no major changes in international relations.

Mr. Prawit was a former army chief and is an influential political manipulator among conservatives.

He was senior among six deputy prime ministers, and had participated in Mr. Prayuth's coup.

It was not known when the Constitutional Court would issue a final and binding ruling on the opposition's petition which seeks to oust Mr. Prayuth and stage fresh elections.

Mr. Prayuth's opponents say his term as prime minister legally expired on August 24 -- eight years after his August 24, 2014 military coup which toppled an elected civilian government when Mr. Prayuth was army chief.

That junta had named Mr. Prayuth unelected prime minister in 2014 when he retired as army chief.

World BEYOND War’s Second Annual War Abolisher Awards will recognize the work of an environmental organization that has prevented military operations in state parks in Washington State, a filmmaker from New Zealand who has documented the power of unarmed peacemaking, Italian dock workers who have blocked the shipment of weapons of war, and British peace activist and Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn who has taken a consistent stand for peace despite intense pressure.

An online presentation and acceptance event, with remarks from representatives of all four 2022 award recipients will take place on September 5 at 8 a.m. in Honolulu, 11 a.m. in Seattle, 1 p.m. in Mexico City, 2 p.m. in New York, 7 p.m. in London, 8 p.m. in Rome, 9 p.m. in Moscow, 10:30 p.m. in Tehran, and 6 a.m. the next morning (September 6) in Auckland. The event is open to the public and will include interpretation into Italian and English.

The Whidbey Environmental Action Network (WEAN), based on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, will be awarded the Organizational War Abolisher of 2022 award.

While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, "Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day" is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.

The ‘West’ is not just a term, but also a concept that acquires new meanings with time. To its advocates, it can be analogous to civilization and benevolent power; to its detractors, mostly in the 'East' and 'South', it is associated with colonialism, unhinged violence, and underserved wealth. 

 The current, seismic shifts in world affairs, however - namely, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the budding conflict in the Strait of Taiwan - compels us to re-examine the 'West', not only as a historical concept, but also as a current and future idea. 

My daughter, Alison, who is 36 years old, flew into town the other day (angel that she is) and I can’t let go of the wonder and miracle of it all . . . being alive.

I had intended to write a column this week about the nature of the U.S. security state and the country’s trillion-dollar, only minimally challenged annual “defense” — actually, offense — budget, but then I came upon a journal entry I wrote in 1988, when my daughter, who is a stained-glass artist and poet living in Paris, was 2 years old.

Was this the birth of her career?

I wrote:

“Oh gosh, here it is, the morning of my 42nd birthday. I just dropped Alison off at Katy, Patrick and Erin’s. For some reason, she was real reluctant to go this morning. She was feeling her own brand of tension and disorientation. When Alison gets disoriented, she has to find some small, tangible, happy thing to focus on — for instance, the stained-glass teddy bear in Katy’s porch window. To psych herself up for her day at the babysitter this morning, Alison had to say, ‘I’m going to see the teddy bear!’ And imitating me as we walked down the sidewalk toward Katy’s house, ‘Where’s that teddy bear?’

In our GREEN GRASSROOTS EMERGENCY ELECTION PROTECTION zoom #107 we open with WENDI LEDERMAN explaining how Florida’s extreme right-wing Gov. Ron DeSantis has arrested 20 citizens for the crime of voting while black. Despite a huge public referendum win confirming the right of ex-felons to vote, DeSantis and his fellow vigilantes are intent on terrorizing the electorate.

The great GREG PALAST then introduces his new film VIGILANTE: GEORGIA’S VOTER SUPPRESSION HITMAN. Legendary investigative reporter Palast introduces the astonishing reality of Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp, scion of an historic slave-owning family, and his all-out assault on the ability of thousands of Georgia citizens to cast ballots at all. Greg’s hour-long presentation includes powerful questions from DANNETT ABBOTT, DR. RUTH STRAUSS, RAY MCCLENDON, DENNIS BERNSTEIN, MARY BUTLER-STONEWALL, STEVE SPITZ, ALEX WILLIAMS, PAUL SHERMAN, GEORGE RIPLEY and many more.

HELENA BUCHMANN tells us how grassroots organizing defeated anti-choice conservatives in Kansas.

In 2022, Pride month — June — gave way to an explosion of invective against LGBTQ rights, helped along by allies in right-wing media, particularly Fox News. But there’s also rising anti-trans sentiment in the liberal-left sphere, and it’s being driven by some elements of what might be called the “post-left,” onetime champions of progressive outlooks who have now tilted to the right. Former Intercept writer) Glenn Greenwald is one of those leading the charge, turning his audience on to fringe elements of a growing hate movement.  

It wasn’t always like this. Greenwald was once a stalwart defender of trans rights — perhaps in connection with his advocacy for U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning and his friendship with since-assassinated Brazilian politician and activist Marielle Franco. “If you want to get a taste for how widespread warped & creepy hostility against trans people is, mention Chelsea Manning & survey the bile,” Greenwald tweeted on Sept. 10, 2016.