John Akomfrah
Meklit Hadero
Akomfrah & Hadero-Spring 2011 Artists-In-Residence
When America Left Arab Rebels
to the Slaughter
Posted on Mar 8, 2011
AP / Murad Sezer A human skull sits on the ground as villagers pull body after body from a mass grave in central Iraq, exhuming in 2003 the remains of up to 3,000 people they suspect were killed during the 1991 Shiite revolt against Saddam Hussein’s regime.
By Barry Lando
As the standoff in Libya takes on the potential of a bloody civil war, President Barack Obama is forced to consider possible U.S. intervention—at the very least, the enforcement of a no-fly zone. He has ordered his staff to examine how his predecessors handled such situations. One of the most frequently mentioned: how George H.W. Bush dealt with the Shiite and Kurd uprisings in Iraq in 1991, after U.S. forces drove Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait.
But, rather than being an exemplary use of American power, that whole affair was a disgraceful episode that reverberates to this day. What actually happened was that an American president called for an uprising against a brutal Arab dictator, then turned his back, leaving tens, possibly hundreds of thousands to be slaughtered. I recounted that sorry affair in a documentary, “The Trial of Saddam Hussein,” excerpted on YouTube. (See Part 5 and Part 6.)
It was President George H.W. Bush who, on Feb. 15, 1991, as the Iraqi army was being driven from Kuwait, called on the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow Saddam.
That call was rebroadcast in Iraq by clandestine CIA radio stations and printed in millions of leaflets dropped by the U.S. Air Force across the country. Problem was, the Iraqis didn’t realize until it was too late that Bush and James Baker, his pragmatic secretary of state, didn’t really mean it.
When it looked as if the insurgents might actually succeed, the American president turned his back. The White House and its allies wanted Saddam replaced not by a popular revolt which they couldn’t control but by a military leader more amenable to U.S. interests. They were also fearful that Iranian influence might spread in the wake of a Shiite takeover. In fact, American officials refused to meet with rebel leaders who were not under Iran’s control and were desperate to explain their cause.
Though leaders in Washington later claimed they had turned against the uprising because key Arab allies in the region, such as the Saudis, were fearful of a Shiite victory in Iraq, the U.S. later turned down a Saudi proposal to continue aiding the Shiites.
So, as the United States permitted Saddam’s attack helicopters to devastate the rebels, American troops just a few kilometers away from the slaughter were ordered to give no aid to those under attack. Instead they destroyed huge stocks of captured weapons rather than let them fall into rebel hands. According to some of the former rebels in Iraq, American troops prevented them from marching on Baghdad.
Then, as Saddam’s forces began carrying out horrific acts of repression, American forces were ordered to withdraw from Iraq. And all the while George H.W. Bush answered calls for U.S. action with denials that the U.S. had any responsibility for fomenting the rebellion in the first place.
What about the no-fly zone? In the end, Bush agreed to provide a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds in the north, but that was only because the plight of thousands of Kurdish refugees was being dramatically broadcast around the globe by CNN. Bush had no choice. There was no such TV coverage of the slaughter of the Shiites in the south. So no need for Bush to react. In later years, American presidents would use the no-fly zone as a pretext for destroying Saddam’s radar defense and missile system and prepare the way for the U.S. invasion that was to come.
There is a convincing argument that if President George H.W. Bush had backed the 1991 revolt—not sent in U.S. troops, but just backed the uprising—the terrible bloodletting and destruction to which Iraq has been subjected to this day could have been avoided.
The U.S. role in the 1991 uprising is recounted at length in my book “Web of Deceit: A History of Western Complicity in Iraq From Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush.”Barry M. Lando spent 25 years as an award-winning investigative producer with “60 Minutes.” He has produced numerous articles, a documentary and a book, “Web of Deceit,” about Iraq. Lando is finishing a novel, “The Watchman’s File.”
via truthdig.com
Watch Trailer For Jamaican Film “Better Mus Come”
Having a wealth of North American film industry experience, including longtime assistant to music video director Little X, director Storm Saulter was able to cull from it on his first feature film Better Mus Come which he also wrote.
With the exception of veteran actor Roger Guenveur Smith who plays the Prime Minister, the cast was all Jamaican and included newcomers Sheldon Shepherd, Nicole Sky Grey and Duane Pusey.
The story follows warring political factions in 1970′s Jamaica as they enlist the support of gangs to enforce their policies, and advance their political agenda. It begins in ’77 and ends the first couple days of ’78 during the Green Bay Massacre . An urban love story develops between suspected political agitator Ricky (Shepherd) and Kemala (Grey), a young girl he meets at his homecoming party after being incarcerated.
As a native of the country, Saulter not only wanted to create this film but to also develop something that would help the Jamaican film industry. “I am a producer of the New Caribbean Cinema series. It is in essence, communal filmmaking. A group of filmmakers get together and work on each others films, like a round robin. In the end we will have at least 7 films by different directors, which we will put together to form one feature film at a fraction of the cost of a traditional feature film. We will also have at least 7 individual shorts that can travel on their own. I don’t think we are re-inventing the wheel, but we are getting very high quality films made for very low budgets,” he said.
BetterMusCome on Jun 1, 2010
Three years in the making, Better Mus' Come brilliantly captures the deep rooted conflict at the heart of Jamaican politics as seen in violent images in news reports and recent explosive political headlines all over the world in the international manhunt for alleged Jamaican "Don", Christopher "Dudus" Coke, leaving 76 civilians dead and a government-mandated State of Emergency in its aftermath. In a timely and provocative production, Better Mus' Come traces the origins of the use of street gangs by political parties in their violent struggle to win the national election.
Check out the film’s website at BetterMusCome.com.
Storm Saulter
via shadowandact.com
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Look pon di life we living…Better Mus’ Come?
In Green Bay Killings, Jamaican film, Jamaican politics, postcolonial misery, postcolonial societies, Storm Saulter on October 10, 2010 at 8:51 pm
It’s not often that locals get to see themselves on the big screen, especially in a full length feature film with such excellent production values as BMC. The film is an imaginative depiction of the daily trauma that passes for life in the postcolony, the tough, internecine runnings of people caught between “implacably opposed” political parties (to quote my friend Antonym), and the complete lack of access to basic resources to improve their impoverished lives. This may sound too much like real life, too close to home, too harsh a subject, after all a movie is supposed to transport you to new worlds and new imaginaries…but BMC holds up the imperfect lives we lead for scrutiny without surrendering the lyricism and poetry present even in the meanest streets of Kingston.
BMC is the brainchild of Storm Saulter, who has been instrumental in revitalizing the local cine world with initiatives such as the film festival in Negril where his family are in the hospitality business; he’s also the producer of the New Caribbean Cinema series, an innovative collaborative of filmmakers. Where other film industry folk have balked at going, claiming lack of funding and subsidies from government, Saulter has stormed the ramparts, showing that nothing can stop sheer determination and creativity. As he said in a recent interview “This is not the only country where access to funding is limited. So the “filmmakers” need to stop using that as an excuse and find a way to tell their stories. Once you show potential investors that you know how to make a successful product then they will come. But don’t expect them to risk their money on something before its proven”.
And with BMC Storm has proven that he is a force to be reckoned with. Using an almost entirely local cast and crew (American actor Roger Guenveur Smith is the only foreigner) Saulter recreates the atmosphere of Jamaica in the seventies, the era of the Green Bay Killings, the extrajudicial killing of young men affiliated to the Jamaica Labour Party by the security forces, which remains a reference point in the country today. Dudley Thompson, the security minister of the day and the person Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke was reputedly nicknamed after, is reported to have argued that ‘no angels died at Green Bay’.
The eerie thing about BMC is its currency. Although supposedly set in the seventies, 25-30 years ago, the film could easily be about life in Kingston’s ghettoes today. And that is the abiding tragedy of postcolonial life, in Jamaica and elsewhere: democracy remains an illusion, a mirage behind which lurk unimaginable regimes of violence. It is this tenuousness of life today, of life thirty years ago that BMC captures so unforgettably. Too many people, Jamaicans included, have bought into the myth that Jamaicans are inherently violent, that there is a culture of violence here. In BMC Saulter tries to show that on the contrary violence is produced by the structured inequalities and dysfunctionality of postcolonial life in societies such as Jamaica.
Saulter works his grim raw material with with finesse and sensitivity. Some of the finest touches in the film for me were the fleeting shots of animals observing the activities of the humans around them. Sleeping dogs woken by tanks turning the corner, a talkative rooster, a lizard perched lightly on a banana leaf seen through the translucent underside of the leaf and the lyrical scene where Kemala, the female lead, dances in and out of the washing hung out to dry. There are streaks of tenderness running through BMC, a foil to an otherwise unremittingly dark and menacing theme.
Perhaps the most poignant and poetic scene in the film is the one of Ricky swimming underwater, locks billowing around him. There is something powerful and symbolic about this shot of a Rasta cleaving his way through the blue green water of the Caribbean sea. Throughout the film Rastafari is portrayed sympathetically, as a force for change and progress. The teacher in BMC is a Rasta, and at one point Ricky attends a Nyabinghi and is clearly attracted to the faith.
The actor who plays the male lead, Sheldon Shepherd, is a remarkable find. The lead singer of the furiously inventive group NOMADZZ, Shepherd is a natural actor. His portrayal of Ricky, the single Dad trying to bring up a young boy in the inhospitable climate of the ghetto is masterful, senstively rendered and filled with grace. The female lead, Nicole Grey, is equally competent. Both deliver their roles with understated eloquence and lightness.
Incredibly in making this film Saulter had to negotiate the same hostile terrain he portrays in it, getting permission from local dons to shoot in their neighbourhoods. In an interview with Yardedge he described the process with matter-of-fact elan:
Jamaica is somewhat lawless, like the wild west of filmmaking. That is definitely true when it comes to local film production. This can be very liberating as a filmmaker, but also kinda tricky at times. For example, don’t bother getting permits to film at a specific location, cause at the end of the day, the “Big Man” has to give the go ahead. That said, when you reach an understanding with said “Big Man” all of a sudden you are able to move mountains, the entire community is involved, and that is often the only way to have genuine protection. This needs to ultimately change in Jamaica, but until that point we filmmakers have to use it to our advantage, and approach our productions as if we are in the wild west, trying to get the stagecoach across the desert in one piece, without losing any passengers to the marauding cowboys.
With BMC Saulter has truly broken the mould of Jamaican film-making. The sets were designed by artist Khalil Deane, a graduate of the Edna Manley School of Visual Art. BMC’s soundtrack is also outstanding and varied. The film references and deliberately recalls that earlier masterpiece of Jamaican film-making The Harder They Come although it is completely different in aim and strategy. In many ways BMC is the visual counterpart to some of what the best songs from the dancehall have been drawing attention for years.Vybz Kartel’s hit song Life We Living is an eloquent case in point (see below). How can we look the other way anymore? After this film we either make sure that Better Mus’ Come or forever admit the failure of life in this postcolony.
Di garrison need a betta way
And a betta life (fi we pickney dem)
Society,
Please don’t condemn di ghetto to hell
Just…
[Chorus:]
Look pon di life we living
Look pon di life we living
Look pon di life we living
Is a betta way we seekin
Look pon di life we living
Look pon di life we living
>via: http://anniepaulose.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/look-pon-di-life-we-living-bette...’-come/
Ivory Coast women defiant
after being targeted by Gbagbo's guns
Slaughter of protesters calling for president Laurent Gbagbo to quit heightens resistance
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 March 2011 15.26 GMT
- Article history
Women hold posters reading 'Gbagbo, women killer' and 'Gbagbo, even Hitler did not kill like you did, true killer of democracy' during a demonstration in Treichville, Abidjan to condemn the killings of seven women. Photograph: Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images
First guilt, then pain, then disgust. First tears, then sleeplessness, then defiance. This has been the inner turmoil of Aya Virginie Toure, principal organiser of a peaceful demonstration by 15,000 women that ended in unthinkable, horrifying carnage.
Like millions of people in Ivory Coast and all over the world, Toure was sickened last week when soldiers loyal to incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo trained machine guns on protesters and opened fire. Six were killed on the spot, a seventh died in hospital and about 100 were wounded as the streets of Abidjan ran with blood.
But resolute and unbowed, women young and old were back out in force this week brandishing placards that said: "Don't shoot us" – a gesture that won the admiration of president Barack Obama and testified to a rich heritage of female activism in west Africa that could yet prove Gbagbo's undoing.
Toure is president of a women's group allied to the party of Alassane Ouattara, the man regarded by the international community as the winner of November's disputed election. She called the 3 March demonstration to intensify pressure on Gbagbo to step down. "They said that, as women, they had to play their part now," she recalled. "Gbagbo's forces have shot at men but we never thought they would shoot at women."
Toure estimated that about 500 of the demonstrators were either naked or wearing black. "In Africa, and Ivory Coast, this is like a curse," she explained. "That's why the soldiers were afraid and shot at them.
"Some also had brooms and leaves in their hands. They were cursing the rule of Gbagbo, putting a spell on him: 'If you were born of woman, step down; if not, you can stay.' This is why the soldiers were scared.
"The women were whistling and singing and chanting and dancing to encourage Mr Gbagbo to leave. Tanks and Humvees showed up – the women started to applaud them because they thought they were there to support them. But suddenly they started shooting at them. One woman had a baby on her back. She died but the baby survived.
"When I got there it was terrible. People were going mad on the ground. Women were crying and there was blood. Some women were running and others were putting clothes on the corpses. They were saying, 'Gbagbo killed us! Gbagbo is killing us! Please help, please help!'"
The massacre was an appalling test of Toure's self-belief and resilience. "The first feeling I had was guilt. I had called all the mothers and sisters into the street and I felt guilty for what happened. I spent all the day crying, wondering what are we going to do now?
"My second feeling was great pain for those who lost their lives. I could not sleep the whole night and had to take pills. But then I told the women that if we stop here it will be like our friends died for nothing. We have to continue the struggle to honour their memory."
Asked about her feelings towards Gbagbo, she replied: "Disgust. Pity. He is mad. Nobody can do what he did against women. I can't say I hate him because I'm a Christian, but he has to step down. Gbagbo doesn't love Ivorians; the only thing he loves is the presidential seat."
Toure no longer feels safe in her home. As a precaution, the 58-year-old grandmother sleeps at a different address each night. But despite the threat, she said three times as many protesters turned out to mark International Women's Day this week than took part in the 3 March protest.
"We will continue to march until Gbagbo steps down," Toure said. "He killed those women because he wanted to create fear. When a population is yearning for freedom, it has no fear. They were fearless on that day. Today I'm proud as an Ivorian woman to resist dictatorship and choose our own course."
Ivory Coast has had a long tradition of women's activism since before independence in 1960 when wives marched on the city of Bassam to demand the release of leaders jailed by the French colonialists. "Women go on to the streets when men fail," Toure said. "When women go to the streets, it shows the situation is not good."
A women's peace movement in neighbouring Liberia was influential in ending a civil war and forcing president Charles Taylor into exile. The country then chose Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Africa's first elected female head of state.
But what was shocking by any yardstick last week was the Ivorian army's lethal response – attacking women in such a way had previously been regarded as taboo. It is widely seen as one of the country's darkest days.
Some women feel the world's response has been inadequate. Kandia Camara, a member of Ouattara's government-in-waiting designated to education and women's affairs, said: "We are really disappointed by the international community. It seems that no one wants to help us.
"They are looking at us being killed without doing anything. There is no respect of human life here in Ivory Coast yet no one reacts. We need something right now, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month."
She even compared the situation to a notorious genocide of the 1990s. "We don't want Mr Gbagbo to kill everyone like happened in Rwanda before the international community came to apologise. Act now instead of saying sorry later. We don't want this to be a doctor after death."
Camara, 51, has been holed up at the Golf hotel, guarded by UN peacekeepers and surrounded by Gbagbo's troops, since the November election. She has not seen her husband or children, whose ages range from seven to 20, for nearly four months. Her family is in hiding in Abidjan and she can only communicate by telephone.
"For a mother it's very difficult," she said. "All the women of Ivory Coast plead with the international community to come and help us to stop this mass killing of our women, our children, our men, our country. Ivory Coast is dying because of this man. Mr Gbagbo is not a normal man. He is crazy.
"Please, please, please the UN, the USA, Great Britain, France, Ecowas [the west African regional bloc], the AU [African Union], pity the Ivorian people. We are helpless now. We don't know what to do. It's catastrophic."
via guardian.co.uk
Wisconsin Firefighters Spark
"Move Your Money" Moment
Saturday 12 March 2011
by: Mary Bottari | PR Watch | Report
Firefighters continue to be chief supporters of the Wisconsin labor movement even though they have not been targeted by conservative proposals to eliminate collective bargaining rights. (Photo: CindyH Photography / Flickr)
On the day that the bill passed the Wisconsin Assembly effectively ending 50 years of collective bargaining in Wisconsin and eviscerating the ability of public unions to raise money through dues, a new front opened in the battle for the future of Wisconsin families.
Bagpipes blaring, hundreds of firefighters walked across the street from the Wisconsin Capitol building, stood outside the Marshall and Ilsley Bank (M&I Bank) and played a few tunes -- loudly. Later, a group of firefighters and consumers stopped back in at the bank to make a few transactions. One by one they closed their accounts and withdrew their life savings, totaling approximately $190,000. See a video clip. After the last customer left, the bank quickly closed its doors, just in case the spontaneous "Move Your Money" moment caught fire.
The sedate, old fashioned M&I Bank on the Capitol Square has gained some notoriety in recent weeks. Oddly, a tunnel in the M&I parking garage links to the capitol basement. Dubbed the "rat hole" to the Walker palace, the tunnel was used by Governor Scott Walker to ferry lobbyists into the capitol building to hear his budget address during a time when the capitol was in a virtual lock down in defiance of a court order and after Sherriffs has quit the building refusing to be a "palace guard."
Now the bank is getting caught up in the controversy again. Word is beginning to spread that M&I is one of Walker's biggest backers. Top executives at M&I Bank have long been boosters of Walker. M&I Chief Executive Dennis Kuester and his wife gave $20,000 to Walker in recent years. When you package individual and PAC contributions by employers, M&I is number one -- at $57,000 dollars. The firm apparently uses a conduit to bundle much of its money to Walker. Flyers, webpages, and Facebook sites have popped up encouraging WI consumers to boycott Walker campaign contributors and "Pull the Plug on M&I Bank." Other banks whose employees have donated large sums to Walker, such as Associated Bank and North Shore Bank may also be seeing their customers soon.
ECONOMIC TRANSPARENCY
Joe Conway, President Madison Fire Fighters Local 311, explained to CMD that the action was totally spontaneous, but that "economic transparency" was going to be a big theme in the fight ahead. "Groups will be sending letters to Walker's major donors giving them the opportunity to support the teachers, firefighters and police in their community." Conway is well aware that new polling shows that 74% of Wisconsin families support collective bargaining rights for public workers.
Two of these letters are already in the mail to M&I Bank and Kwik Trip. "The undersigned groups would like your company to publicly oppose Governor Walker’s efforts to virtually eliminate collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the goods and services provided by your company," the letter says. "However, if you join us, we will do everything in our power to publicly celebrate your partnership in the fight to preserve the right of public employees to be heard at the bargaining table."
The letters are signed by the heads of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 311, Madison Teachers Inc., Dane County Deputy Sheriffs Association and the Madison Professional Police Officers Association.
JUST THE BEGINNING
Walker's list of campaign contributors is already in wide circulation on websites like "Scott Walker Watch" and fast-growing Facebook pages like "Boycott Scott Walkers Contributors". These grassroots efforts are backed up by solid names and numbers extracted from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign (WDC) database, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics.
The WDC data shows that Walker's major contributors include a diversity of national and state-based firms including Koch Brother Industries, AT&T, Walmart, John Deere Tractor, Johnsonville Brats, Miller/Coors, Kwik Trip, Sargento Cheese, and SC Johnson & Sons (producers of Windex, Glade, Pledge etc). The letter writing effort is being undertaken not to put people out of work, but to encourage workers to let their bosses know it is time to reconsider their support for Walker's newly revealed radical agenda.
Sam Hokin, a Wisconsinite and small businessman who started the Facebook page in the early days of the protest, put the strategy bluntly: "The only thing the Republicans care about is money. The only way you can touch them is through their revenue. They don't care about signs and protesters. They don't care about the opinion of the majority of the people in the state, their bottom line is money." Unions, pension funds, cities and counties and average consumers bank at these banks and support these firms by buying their products and services. They have tremendous clout in Wisconsin's small economy.
GREATEST HEIST IN HISTORY
Wisconsin workers are keenly aware that they are part of a historic push back that is spreading from state to state. After $14 trillion dollars of housing wealth, wages and retirement savings were taken from the middle class during the 2008 financial collapse, workers are being asked to take it on the chin again. Michael Moore put it best: “We aren't broke. Wisconsin is not broke. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the über-rich.”
M&I Bank is in the process of being bought by a Canadian bank. It took $2 billion in TARP bailout money from the taxpayers and have yet to pay it back. "They [state Republicans] came in like the Grim Reaper to drive a knife into the heart of labor," yelled Jim Garity at a recent rally. Garity is a unionized Jefferson County Highway Department worker and leader. "But we are going to stand and we are not going to bleed. Governor Walker's plan is to give more money to Wall Street, but we are going to take back our money from Wall Street and put Main Street to work!" Walker's recent moves include over $200 billion in tax cuts for corporations while stripping $1 trillion from Wisconsin schools and local governments.
The "take it back" movement is gaining steam. At the federal level, AFL-CIO, SEIU are joined by consumer groups in a fight to apply a small [financial transaction tax] to damaging Wall Street speculation in order to recoup over $100 billion dollars a year for job creation and other essential needs.
IT'S ABOUT POWER
Walker's collective bargaining bill not only seeks to gut a 50 year tradition in the state where public unions started, but by doing away with automatic check off for union dues he seeks to cripple the the ability of public sector unions to hire employees to organize, grow and be a force in Wisconsin politics. State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, one of Walker’s closest allies in the legislature, admitted as much to FOX News. "If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin," said Fitzgerald.
While some hold out hope for a general strike and vigorous recall efforts are underway, others remain focused on leveraging the power of the "sleeping giant" to force Walker to back down and to prevent devastating cuts to schools and municipalities. Stay tuned. This fire might be hard to contain.
via truth-out.org
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| PERMALINK | 578 COMMENTS |
Ladies and Gentlemen,
M & I Bank of Wisconsin has committed an unpardonable offense. This bank took bailout funds and thanks to the magic of Citizens United our own tax dollars flowed through their executives hands into the coffers of Scott Walker's gubernatorial campaign. We haven't dug deeply yet, but I think when we do we're going to find that we no longer have Russ Feingold's voice in the Senate because of this as well.
The mainstream media isn't covering it, but I'd like to show you a few images of what poetic justice looks like ...
(UPDATE 3 - M&I has made a weasely statement. I've placed it at the bottom of the diary)
What these pictures show are six hundred ordinary citizens descending on the M&I branch near the Wisconsin Capitol after learning of their purchase of the gubernatorial election last November. Two firefighters with old school ideas about saving had over $600,000 between the two of them and they demanded cashier's checks on the spot.
Not everyone has the purchase price of a couple of homes sitting in the bank, but if the 60% of Wisconsin that's sick to death of Scott Walker's behavior simply go close their accounts the bank will crash and they'll have stripped him of the funds he needs to fight the recall next January.
A couple of people have the documentation and my money is on @Karoli over at Crooks & Liars getting the job done first. I'll come back and post the first good piece I see. I'm trying to get this out and keep it tidy - look in one of the comments and I'll provide some of the links the researchers sent me, so those inclined to do their own digging can get started.
You know what really chaps my ass here? All week we've been seeing Tea Party trolls saying "It's not fair that public employees take our tax dollars and use them in elections."
On behalf of all of us who work for a living, unlike those fools with their misspelled signs being bussed around by Koch Brothers I'd like to say ...
UPDATE #1
According to this other rec list diary Bank that funded Walker, now closed, the specific branch near the Capitol is closed to avoid a run and the amount withdrawn by the firemen was only $192,000. I think that means random citizens pulled another $400,000 out on their own.
Looks like Susie Madrak over at C&L got to them first with Wisconsin Unions Call For Boycott Of Local Bank Over Walker Support, Withdraw Funds
OK, here is a fine link on who needs a spank over all of this - Scott Walker Watch's Boycott list. Spread this far and wide.
They have a Facebook page for Boycotting Scott Walker Contributors as well.
UPDATE #2
Per Jake's front page piece there is now a campaign to hold this bank and its executives accountable.
And I have provided the CEO, Mr. Mark Furlong with a nice bit.ly present so we can refer to him in shorthand.
UPDATE #3:
The bank in question, Marshall & Ilsley, issued a most unimpressive statement.
MILWAUKEE, March 11, 2011 PRNewswire -- M&I Bank (M&I) today issued the following statement in response to a letter it received from a union group threatening to boycott M&I if M&I does not publicly oppose Governor Walker's budget repair bill.
M&I has not taken, and will not take, a position either for or against the budget repair bill. As M&I has publicly stated before:M&I has not contributed to any candidate and did not contribute to Governor Walker or Mayor Barrett in the last gubernatorial election.
M&I has over 6,000 employees in Wisconsin, and, in the great tradition of political freedom in this country, those employees have the right to contribute to the candidate of their choice.
M&I employees contributed to both Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates in the last election.
M&I is proud of our tradition of standing with teachers, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, and other dedicated public employees to support, improve, and grow Wisconsin communities. M&I has 188 branches in cities, towns, and villages throughout Wisconsin, and M&I employees work side-by-side with these dedicated public employees in civic endeavors across the state.
So, it wasn't the bank, it was the sleazy executives. So, when do we see copies of their pink slips?
Here are some funny activists at the M&I headquarters in Milwaukee ...
This is just silly but quite apropos ...
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO STRANDED WIND ON FRI MAR 11, 2011 AT 10:37 AM EST.
>via: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/11/955214/-Were-Going-To-Destroy-A-Bank
Watch Now – Feature Documentary, “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues” (On The Birth Of The Blues)
Received another email from California Newsreel, alerting us that the full-length documentary, Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues, is available to watch for free online through the month of March, in celebration of Women’s History Month; so you’re encouraged to head over there and give it a look.
In short, the 1989 58-minute film “shows how the blues were born out of the economic and social transformation of African American life early in this century. It recaptures the lives and times of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters and the other legendary women who made the blues a vital part of American culture. The film brings together for the first time dozens of rare, classic renditions of the early blues.”
You can read more about the documentary HERE.
The film, produced and directed by Christine Dall, will be available for viewing through the end of March. So, you’ve got a couple of weeks+ to check it out. I plan to do so myself.
Click HERE (or the image above) to go to the California Newsreel page where you can watch the film in its entirety!
via shadowandact.com
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Wild Women Don't Have the Blues Preview
Wild Women Don't Have the Blues shows how the blues were born out of the economic and social transformation of African American life early in this century. It recaptures the lives and times of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters and the other legendary women who made the blues a vital part of American culture. The film brings together for the first time dozens of rare, classic renditions of the early blues.
To add the film to your personal collection or to suggest your public or school library purchase a copy of the film, please visit the Wild Women Don't Have the Blues website.
>via: http://www.newsreel.org/Wild-Women.htm
VIEW #1
Lil girls talk back to Lil Wayne
In 10 years, will Lil Wayne join Jay Z and come to regret his misogynistic lyrics?
Lots of people are talking about the “Open Letter to Lil’ Wayne,” a song written by two 9 and 10 year old girls known as Watoto From The Nile who call out the rapper on his misogynistic lyrics and disrespect towards women. Check out the video:
The description under the video reads:
Letter to Lil Wayne” is a candid evidence of official from Watoto From The Nile. Growing bushed and fed up with the unceasing humiliation of Negroid women exclusive of Hip Hop music, they vocalise their views and opinions on this melodic track.
What questions does this music video raise?
As an advocate for media literacy I LOVE that this song raises critical questions about authors, audiences, responsibility and representation. These are some of the questions I think it raises.
- Should authors be responsible for the messages they disseminate?
- Do these representations and messages matter?
- How do different audiences interpret these messages and representations?
- Who benefits from these messages? Who is harmed?
- Why are these messages so dominant?
- What is the role of parents?
- What enabled these girls to talk back in this form?
- What does it mean for us to re-represent ourselves when we are unsatisfied with the ways others represent us?
Many of these questions can be applied to so many texts– which is important, because clearly Lil Wayne is only one rapper, and part of a larger issue. While the girls focus on Wayne, this song creates an opportunity for us to acknowledge and challenge an industry and society that constantly reinforces misogyny (hatred towards women).
What questions do you have?
Constructive Criticism, Backlash and Impact
The Crunk Feminist Collective offered some insightful questions and thoughts about the video. They point out some contradictions and points of confusion, while acknowledging that one text cannot cover all points and that there is power in little black girlsspeaking up!
Often when individual artists are criticized, there is a flood of defensive backlash from theartist and his/her fans. Reading the youtube comments will give you a taste of it. A quote from feminist Robin Morgan puts these moments (backlash and all) in perspective for me: “It’s not about blame, but about responsibility; not about guilt, but about change.”
Lil Wayne may or may not take responsibility or change– but the truth is, this Open Letter asks this of all of us. By talking back, Watoto From The Nile remind us that we all have a role to play in this picture– if we indeed love our people, and specifically our women and girls.
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On Watoto From The Nile
- Letter to Lil Wayne
This musical open letter to Lil’ Wayne is getting lot of love!
I want to join the chorus and give a big ol’ YAY to black girls creating media and saying what’s on their minds! Speaking back to Wayne’s misogyny is super important
That said, I wonder about the limits of such a message.
Steve Harvey’s views on women are not progressive. He’s simply peddling a morerespectable sort of black gender relations that still have women in the role of subservient sex goddesses but with a bit more modesty. To set him up as a positive alternative to Wayne misses his own belief in narrow gender roles for men and women. The song disparages Wayne for being single and seems to imply that ideally he should be married or that if he was acting right he would be. Erykah Badu is signaled as a “good” artist despite having worked with Wayne(and she’s single too; tweets is watchin’).
Wayne gets constructive as wholly negative and Lauryn Hill et. al as wholly positive. That good vs. evil split is a little too easy and doesn’t get at the complexity of the issues I have with Wayne’s music. For me it’s not so much the “calling women out their names” as it is his objectification of women that informs his word choice and the earlier trauma in his life that may impact his behavior.
When we are young and maybe a little influenced by our parents, we can go a little too hard in the virtuous/Queen/good black people paint. In speaking back to Wayne and other rappers with misogynistic lyrics we have to be careful we don’t end up creating a new box for women, that is just as limiting if a bit more respectful. The “Madonna” is just as limiting as the “whore”, even if she gets more props.
I ain’t mad at them though and I definitely am sending them love, particularly since they are getting such hateful comments on the video’s Youtube page.
Congratulations, Watoto From The Nile, for rekindling a conversation that needs to be had!
Mission Statement
The Crunk Feminist Collective (CFC) will create a space of support and camaraderie for hip hop generation feminists of color, queer and straight, in the academy and without, by building a rhetorical community, in which we can discuss our ideas, express our crunk feminist selves, fellowship with one another, debate and challenge one another, and support each other, as we struggle together to articulate our feminist goals, ideas, visions, and dreams in ways that are both personally and professionally beneficial.
The CFC aims to articulate a crunk feminist consciousness for women and men of color, who came of age in the Hip Hop Generation, by creating a community of scholars-activists from varied professions, who share our intellectual work in online blog communities, at conferences, through activist organizations, and in print publications and who share our commitment to nurturing and sustaining one another through progressive feminist visions. This collective is a forum where we seek to speak our own truths, and to both magnify and encourage the feminist credos that shape and inform our lives and that we use to engage and transform our world. Crunk Feminism is the animating principle of our collective work together and derives from our commitment to feminist principles and politics, and also from our unapologetic embrace of those new cultural resources, which provide or offer the potential for resistance. Crunk(ness) is our mode of resistance that finds its particular expression in the rhetorical, cultural, and intellectual practices of a contemporary generation.
Beat-driven and bass-laden, Crunk music blends Hip Hop culture and Southern Black culture in ways that are sometimes seamless, but more often dissonant. Its location as part of Southern Black culture references the South both as the location that brought many of us together and as the place where many of us still do vibrant and important intellectual and political work. The term “Crunk” was initially coined from a contraction of “crazy” or “chronic” (weed) and “drunk” and was used to describe a state of uber-intoxication, where a person is “crazy drunk,” out of their right mind, and under the influence. But where merely getting crunk signaled that you were out of your mind, a crunk feminist mode of resistance will help you get your mind right, as they say in the South. As part of a larger women-of-color feminist politic, crunkness, in its insistence on the primacy of the beat, contains a notion of movement, timing, and of meaning making through sound, that is especially productive for our work together. Percussion by definition refers to “the sound, vibration or shock caused by the striking together of two bodies.” Combining terms like Crunk and Feminism, and the cultural, gendered, and racial histories signified in each, is a percussive moment, one that signals the kind of productive dissonance that occurs as we work at the edges of disciplines, on the margins of social life, and in the vexed spaces between academic and non-academic communities. Our relationship to feminism and our world is bound up with a proclivity for the percussive, as we divorce ourselves from “correct” or hegemonic ways of being in favor of following the rhythm of our own heartbeats. In other words, what others may call audacious and crazy, we call CRUNK because we are drunk off the heady theory of feminism that proclaims that another world is possible. We resist others’ attempts to stifle our voices, acting belligerent when necessary and getting buck when we have to. Crunk feminists don’t take no mess from nobody!
Have a question? Contact us at crunkfeminists@gmail.com
>via: http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/on-watoto-from-the-ni...
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VIEW #2
Shad - Keep Shining
thefacultyof on Feb 1, 2011
Artist: Shad (http://www.shadk.com)
Title: Keep Shining
Album: TSOL (2010 Black Box / Decon)
To me, the "Keep Shining" video is an ode to the strong and often under-appreciated spirits of women. This video was designed as a candid and thought/emotion-provoking concept. My goals were to create a candid and uplifting experience that featured a wide diversity of women and girls and to also unearth what I felt lay beneath the lyrics: A call to claim one's voice. Early on, I realized a key to this concept: Shad barely appears in the video. The ladies own the lyrics. For me, it's as if Shad is saying "take it, own it, your voice belongs to you." It was my intention to show strength, vulnerability, joy, catharsis and reclamation of the spirit of all those who appeared in these 3 minutes and 44 seconds. My hope is that it will speak to women, girls, men and boys and everything in between. Let's all "Keep Shining".
Guidelines
[Updated: 03 May 2010]
We are leaving the guidelines posted, however:
POCKET JUNO IS CURRENTLY CLOSED TO SUBMISSIONS.Warning!
Due to nearly three years of submissions that either overlook or ignore our most basic guideline, let's put it right up top: The novel must have a strong female protagonist. To further clarify: A protagonist is a character or characters whose intentions are the primary focus of a story -- not a supporting character, not the hero's girlfriend, not the main character of volume two in your trilogy which has a male hero in volume one. It is highly unlikely just changing the name of the protagonist from male to female will work. And, no, your novel is not an exception to this rule.
Please note, too, this is a fantasy imprint. Techo-thrillers, suspense, crime, science fiction, action-adventure, etc. without an element of the fantastic are not fantasies. Nor are we interested in Young Adult, teen, or children's books.
We do not want novelettes, novellas, collections of stories, anthologies, or poetry.
The Guidelines:
Juno is currently looking for novels from 80,000 to 100,000 words in length. We are interested in fantasy featuring a strong female protagonist set in a contemporary (or a very few years in the future) world quite like ours except for the intersection/transgression of the numinous (that which is "wholly other") with/upon the mundane. This world can be open ("magic", the "supernatural" is known to exist) or closed (where "otherness" is concealed from common knowledge).
This type of "urban fantasy" (sometimes called "paranormal/urban fantasy") is typically crossed with mystery, action/adventure, and horror featuring a woman with supernatural power (or some paranormal connection). Romance/relationship is usually an element in this mix as is humor. We want original, imaginative, well-written novels with fascinating characters interacting in a plausible (if fantastic) world. We aren't particularly interested in characters who feel that violence solves all problems, but they will, if needed, defend who and what they love.*
We are not interested in "paranormal romance" where the plot revolves primarily around a romance. We know that many folks are confused by the terms used to describe such fiction and there are no firm boundaries. But if you read this type of book, then you probably know the distinctions. (And we wonder why anyone would try to write it if they don't read it.) We hesitate to mention specific authors because we do not want books "like So-and-So writes."
And, although we once published a wide variety of diverse fantasy, we aren't looking for that now. No historical, epic, sword-and-sorcery, low, high, dark, etc. fantasy.
*If interested, here are some very rough Notes on "Urban Fantasy" & Roots of "Kickassitude". There are also some musings: here.
How to Submit:
We accept only emailed submissions in .doc or .rtf attached to email. Please submit three chapters (or equivalent sample) and a synopsis. Hint: Include a short cover "letter" in the body of your email. This is your chance to "sell" both yourself and your book. It is what will make us open that attachment right away or put it off as long as possible.
Although not required, it is best to have a finished manuscript before submitting. If we like it, we will usually want to see the entire manuscript right away before making a final decision. We are currently working on a tight schedule, so a completed manuscript is an advantage.
Email your submission to: submissions@juno-books.com
Questions or information: Paula Guran, editor@juno-books.com
via juno-books.com
Recently, on a shopping trip to Toys R Us, I (Antoinette Brim) came across a display of Barbies in the Basic Black series. Each doll was clothed in a little black dress inspired by legendary designer, Diane Von Furstenberg. In the front row of the display, there were three different black Barbies in three skin colors and with three different hair textures in three different little black dresses. My dear friend was immediately drawn to the doll known as "Goddess." She picked up the doll and said softly, “I have never seen a Barbie [with] my color and with my hair.”
Educators, poets, artists and now co-editors, Antoinette Brim, Lita Hooper and Demetrice Worley will be compiling an anthology of poetry, fiction, non-fiction (essays), and ten-minute plays surrounding the notion of beauty as it relates to black girls and women. Use Deidre, Goddess and/or Mbilia (the three black Barbies) as your muses. However, while the three black Barbies are the catalyst for this project, they need not be represented directly in your work. Consider how the standard of beauty impacts the way girls groom, envision, present, value and devalue themselves and each other. Consider how the larger community judges black beauty. Consider how the media depicts the black body. Visual Artists interested in submitting artwork for the anthology cover, should also submit.
The submission deadline is June 21, 2011. This call is open to all races and genders. Previously published work is welcome. Presently, a publisher is being sought.
Please e-mail poetry submissions to: threeblackbarbiespoetry@gmail.com
Please e-mail fiction submissions to: threeblackbarbiesfiction@gmail.com
Please e-mail essays and ten minute play submissions to: threeblackbarbiesessays.plays@gmail.com
Please e-mail cover art submissions to: threeblackbarbiescoverart@gmail.com
Antoinette Brim
www.antoinettebrim.com
