The Jaded Hippy

Detailed Schedule for #OccupyOakland Events This Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:14:00 +0000

Occupy Oakland Weekend of Action Detailed Schedule

Redistributed with permission, please forward an post widely.

Oakland Rise Up Festival!

Occupy Oakland will be holding a weekend long festival starting this Saturday, January 28 with the takeover of an empty building where it will host workshops, panels, a film festival, live music, assemblies and more. The Oakland Rise Up Festival runs through Sunday night and features over 50 speakers and performers including former Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown, anarchist anthropologist and member of Occupy Wall Street David Graeber, feminist, revolutionary & historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and many more. Saturday has been designated the Move-In day and activities will focus around settling into the building and celebrating Occupy Oakland. Sunday is organized as the Conference Day and a wide range of panels, presentations and workshops are scheduled. Music and cultural events in the occupied building are planned throughout the weekend. Below is a detailed schedule of the Festival's planned events. The Festival also encourages self-organized discussions, workshops and events and will help to publicize additions to this schedule to the best of our abilities.

Look for the festival table during the weekend & occupyoaklandmoveinday.org for the latest updates!

SATURDAY JAN 28: Move-in Day

• 12-1pm : Rally at Oscar Grant Plaza
- featuring Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Gerald Sanders & special guests
- lunch will be served at the plaza by the OO kitchen committee

• 1pm: March to the space led by OO sound truck 
- featuring Brass Liberation Orchestra  

• 2-5 pm: Move in time - help set up & settle into OO's new occupied social center!
- Featuring music & poetry inside and outside from the OO sound truck including Hip hop by Eddie Falcon, folk music by Marie Sioux, a performance by Rocker T, spoken word from DeWayne Dickerson & special guests
+ arts and crafts time & workshops including a know your rights training, an open discussions on gender dynamics within Occupy, a foreclosure defense action workshop and bike repair!

  • 5-6 pm: Dinner provided by the OO kitchen committee
- bring food to donate and share!

• 6-9 pm: Building orientation & assembly
- 6-7 pm Presentation from Building Committee on safety, security, and respecting each other in the space
- 7-8 pm Committee Reports & how to get involved
- 8-9 pm Open Forum on what we all want out of the space and community guidelines

  • 9-11pm: OO Film Festival
- featuring documentary shorts covering uprising across the world over the past year with filmmaker Brandon Jourdan and 'Better This World' documentary with filmmaker Kattie Galloway

• 11pm-sleepy time: music and entertainment
- Hosted by OO's MCs Shake & Teardrop
- featuring guest djs & bands

• Ongoing: Outside Bus Show
- featuring local bands in the OO Bus  

SUNDAY JAN 29: Conference Day

  • 8-11am: Breakfast, Coffee & Morning Workshops
 - Yoga & meditation
- Body Workers will also be on site
- Arts & Crafts time
- including workshops on the Paris Commune with Gerald Sanders, De-escalation training with Melissa and Mike from Sugetsukan, Trauma & Self Care with OO Safer Spaces, Divide and Conquer: Mapping Exploitation with Ryan Smith, Basic pepper spray and CS gas training with the OO medics, What California can learn from Latin America with Laura Wells and Andres Soto & much more! 

• 11-1pm: First round of panels & discussions on
- Crisis of Oakland public schools featuring Nick Pomquist, Jack Gerson & more
- Recent Arab uprisings featuring speakers from Arab Resource and Organizing Center
- Anarchist critiques of Occupy featuring Lawrence Jarach, Red Hughes & Greg

• 1-2 pm: BBQ & Voices of Liberation Rally
- Featuring Corrina Gould, speakers from Occupy the Hood, Gerald Sanders and an open forum with comrades from other movements across the region.
- BBQ provided by the OO kitchen committee and donations
- bring food to donate and share!  

• 2-4 pm: Second round of panels & discussions on
- Police Repression & Prisons featuring Elaine Brown, Jack Bryson, Bo Brown, & a member of the OO anti-repression committee
- Indigenous and Anti-Colonial Struggles featuring Corrina Gould, Michelle, V & more
- Current Crisis of Capitalism featuring Laura Fantone, Jim Davis, Eddie Yuen & Francesca Manning
+ Guerrilla Storytelling with kids by Amy from the Oakland Public Library  

• 4-6 pm: Third round of panels & discussions on
- Oakland Radical history featuring Elaine Brown, Gifford Hartman, Larry Shoupe, Robert Ovetz & Ricardo
- State of the labor movement and radical organizing featuring Kim Rojas, John Reiman & Chris Carlson 
- The Relationship Between Gender, Sexuality and Political Violence featuring Oki, Lobna Darwish, Devin, & more

• 6-7pm: Dinner provided by the OO kitchen committee
- featuring a conversation between David Graeber & Andrej Grubacic
- bring food to donate and share!

  • 7-9pm: Occupy Oakland Sunday General Assembly
- organized by OO Facilitation Committee

  • 9-12pm: Concert, Poetry & Films
- Hosted by OO's MC Shake & Teardrop
- featuring DJ G Star & special guests
+ Poetry by Jasper Bernes, J.Clo & more

• Ongoing: Outside Bus Show
- featuring local bands in the OO Bus

---------------------------------

Occupy Oakland Move-In Assembly

Please use this list for information sharing rather than debate. Lets have the debates in-person, at the assembly. The Move-In Assemblies are every Wed at 4:30pm and Sunday 12:30pm, at Oscar Grant Plaza.

https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/occupyoakland_buildingoccupation

http://www.occupyoakland.org/generalassembly/assemblies/buildingoccupation-assembly/

Letter to the Mayor, Oakland Police Department and City Council on Occupy Oakland's Move-in Day - Jan 28!

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:11:00 +0000

Released recently at Occupy Oakland Move-In Day:

Dear Mayor Jean Quan, Oakland Police Department, and Oakland City Council,

As you probably know, Occupy Oakland is planning the occupation of a building on January 28th that will serve as a social center, convergence center, headquarters, free kitchen, and place of housing for Occupy Oakland. Like so many other people, Occupy Oakland is homeless while buildings remain vacant and unused. For Occupy this is in large part because of yourselves, having evicted us twice from public space that was rightfully ours. For others it is because of the housing bubble, predatory lending, the perpetual crises of capitalism, and far reaching histories of imperialism and systemic violence.

Our families, friends, and communities built the buildings that sit empty in post-industrial Oakland. Now these buildings outnumber the homeless and represent the theft of our collective labor as the class of the unpropertied and dispossessed. Allowing this building to remain vacant while so many are in need is injurious theft, injustice; its extralegal occupancy is not.

When Occupy Oakland was first evicted on October 25, we organized a General Strike on November 2nd with only a week to plan. November 2nd proved our strength and relevancy. Conservative estimates said twenty thousand took the streets, but for those of us who marched on the ports it could have been a hundred thousand. November 2nd was an inspiration for the Occupy Movement and public condemnation of your violent repression.

Eventually we reoccupied Oscar Grant Plaza only to suffer a second violent eviction on November 14th. At this time there was a national crackdown on the Occupy movement as evictions were happening in Boston, New York City, Atlanta, Portland OR and elsewhere. It was revealed that you, Jean Quan, had been coordinating with federal agents how to best repress dissent. In response Occupy Oakland was the impetus for a West Coast Port Shut Down, in solidarity with Longview ILWU workers whose union is under attack by EGT. The action escalated to a national and then international action as more occupations signed on. In Oakland alone the shutdown cost some $8.7 million dollars in lost revenue and proved that when civic and economic institutions do not serve us, we can shut them down.

Since the beginning of the Occupy Movement when you have exacted violent repression on us we have proven that we are more powerful and diffuse than you. If you try to evict us again we will make your lives more miserable than you make ours.

This may be in one or more of the following forms:

-Blockading the airport indefinitely

-Occupying City Hall indefinitely

-Shutting down the Oakland ports

-Calling on anonymous for solidarity

It will be in our mutual interest if you respect our occupation by recognizing our residency and imminent domain. We are sure that we all look forward to the needs of Oakland’s people finally being met.

Don’t fuck with the Oakland Commune.

Signed,

Occupy Oakland Move-In Assembly

While I personally wouldn't have gone with the "Don't fuck with the Oakland Commune" line (despite the fact that it made me smile) because I think it undermines the professional tone of the rest of the letter (and this seems like a good moment/medium to speak the language of professionalism to me) I am in agreement both with the content and sentiment of this letter and the upcoming action, so, here it is re-posted in my space!

The move-in begins Jan 28. Rally at noon in Oscar Grant Plaza (otherwise known as Frank Ogawa Plaza), march to the as-of-now undisclosed building at 1pm. Join us if you can!

Tucson school district bans books by Chicano and Native authors

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:03:00 +0000

On Doctor King Day, how about another edition of "shit that makes whatsername's blood boil," care of the narcosphere:

The decision to ban books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the Tucson Unified School District board to succumb to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican American Studies, rather than fight the state decision.

Students said the banned books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, after Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.

[...]

"the last time a book of mine was outlawed was during the state of emergency in apartheid South Africa in 1986, when the regime there banned the curriculum I’d written, Strangers in Their Own Country, likely because it included excerpts from a speech by then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Confronting massive opposition at home and abroad, the white minority government feared for its life in 1986. It’s worth asking what the school authorities in Arizona fear today."

Indeed [emphasis mine].

Banned books include:
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years
The Tempest (yes, the Shakespeare play)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos
The House on Mango Street
Black Mesa Poems

Ceremony
The Devil’s Highway
Like Water for Chocolate
Ten Little Indians
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven
Ocean Power, Poems from the Desert
...And many more, apparently.

Instructors from the former Mexican American studies courses have also been told "to stay away from any class units where "race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes.""

Yeah.

Can't have the youth thinking about oppression, gods forbid, they might decide to work against it!

Despite knowing that book banning is NOT new to America, it still makes my blood boil (or at least it feels like it's boiling...).

I mean, really, when has banning books EVER led to or been a part of anything good? Isn't "our freedom" why we've been told "the terrorists hate us"? How can the same people who spout that line not see how fucking un-free actions like this are?

Oh, that's right, because they are hypocritical "Libertarian" assholes who think everything is ok as long as it's the US doing it... We're special fucking snow flakes that way.

Help Raise Funds for "Ajijaak" Ojibwe Storybook!

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:52:00 +0000

I got word about this project from the lovely Cecelia! Check out her blog if you haven't already: Anishinaabekwe. From the project's Kickstarter page:

The making of the Storybook "Ajijaak!"
FOUR Colours Productions is an aboriginal and non aboriginal collaboration of artists, language teachers, designers, elders, storytellers and more who come together to create Ojibwe Language storybooks and Cd's for sale in the community. The thing we have in common is an inherent interest in preserving creativity, culture and the arts in community- especially for the little ones!

Our Goal!
The intent is to assist populating the libraries, book shops, children's homes and schools with more Ojibwe language materials- the more the merrier. We reach a diverse audience from families on the rez to urban kids with awesome parents who want their kids to learn about all kinds of cultures. There can never be enough books, Cd's, videos, immersion classes and more. We feel we are a very small part of a large community trying to help save the language.The main thing we like about our process is that it allows us to do that- ''DO'' being the key word.

Please help if you can!

A Must Read: The US schools with their own police

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:21:00 +0000

File under "things that piss whatsername off"
From The Guardian

A few highlights:

The charge on the police docket was "disrupting class". But that's not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw her arrest for spraying two bursts of perfume on her neck in class because other children were bullying her with taunts of "you smell".

"I'm weird. Other kids don't like me," said Sarah, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit and bipolar disorders and who is conscious of being overweight. "They were saying a lot of rude things to me. Just picking on me. So I sprayed myself with perfume. Then they said: 'Put that away, that's the most terrible smell I've ever smelled.' Then the teacher called the police."

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.

"Zero tolerance started out as a term that was used in combating drug trafficking and it became a term that is now used widely when you're referring to some very punitive school discipline measures. Those two policy worlds became conflated with each other," said Fowler.

Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of police in schools. Simpkins describes the case of a boy with attention deficit disorder who as a 12-year-old tipped a desk over in class in a rage. He was charged with threatening behaviour and sent to a juvenile prison where he was required to earn his release by meeting certain educational and behavioural standards.

"But he can't," she said. "Because of that he is turning 18 within the juvenile justice system for something that happened when he was 12. It's a real trap. A lot of these kids do have disabilities and that's how they end up there and can't get out. Instead of dealing with it within school system like we used to, we have these school police, they come in and it escalates from there."

According to the department's records, officers used force in schools more than 400 times in the five years to 2008, including incidents in which pepper spray was fired to break up a food fight in a canteen and guns were drawn on lippy students.

Chief Brian Allen, head of the school police department for the Aldine district and president of the Texas school police chiefs' association, is having none of it.

"There's quite a substantial number of students that break the law. In Texas and in the US, if you're issued a ticket, it's not automatically that you're found guilty. You have an opportunity to go before the judge and plead your case. If you're a teacher and a kid that's twice as big as you comes up and hits you right in the face, what are you going to do? Are you going to use your skills that they taught you or are you going to call a police officer?"

Read it all, there were too many priceless quotes to pull them all out.

Why can't we see that we're slowly but surely destroying ourselves with this ever-growing prison industrial complex??? Let's observe that these programs are particularly common in communities with high numbers of people of color, immigrants and poor working classes. In other words, groups of people who are already criminalized in mainstream USian discourse. Coincidence? I doubt it. Is it going to take this coming to white middle class suburbs before we take seriously how increased policing exacerbates and spreads the violence these police are supposed to be curtailing?? And if it does... by then will it be too late?

Action in Solidarity with Egyptian Women on Friday in Oakland!

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:30:00 +0000

Bay Area women action in solidarity with the struggle of Egyptian women

Event Description:

Hello everyone. As most of you might know I'm Shimaa, an Egyptian activist currently visiting the Bay area to learn about occupy, speak about the revolution and the situation in Egypt and to connect occupy and Egyptian activists together.
The revolutionary women and girls struggling with the revolution and the systemic assaulting by the military in Egypt need the support and solidarity of their fellow Americans.
I'm no longer in Tahrir so feel obligated to do something here ASAP.
I would like us to have a solidarity rally and march that I'm pretty sure will be so much significant and will send a powerful message to our sisters back in Egypt.

3 pm come join us Dec the 30th at Occupy Oakland, bring signs and print pictures!
"Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th and Broadway"

If you have the time I hope to see you there! Click the link at the top of this post for more information and to RSVP on the Facebook event page.

Edit: You can also go to this site for more information on upcoming Occupy/Decolonize actions for the month of January in the Bay area.

On This Day in 1890: Learn What Happened at Wounded Knee

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:15:00 +0000

The Massacre at Wounded Knee 1890 - YouTube:

Mattilda's Call For Submissions For Anthology on Queering #OWS

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:42:00 +0000

From Nobody Passes

Please forward far and wide…

WE ARE NOT JUST THE 99%:
Queering the Occupy Movement, Reimagining Resistance
Edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

*CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*

Ignited by the Arab Spring, uprisings in Greece and Spain, and protests in Wisconsin, Occupy Wall Street has brought corporate greed and structural inequality into the spotlight while claiming public space and refusing hierarchical models of resistance. "We are the 99%," the central slogan of the Occupy movement, has been crucial in rallying mass support. And yet, this slogan invokes a vision of sameness that stands in stark contrast to a queer analysis that foregrounds, cultivates, and nurtures difference. From Mortville, the queer camp at Occupy Baltimore, to the Feminists and Queers Against Capitalism bloc at the Oakland general strike, queers are playing central roles in Occupy spaces. But, what would it mean to bring a queer analysis to the forefront, going beyond the politics of inclusion to question the very terms of the debate?

For the first time in decades, perhaps there's a possibility for a mass movement demanding radical social change in the US. Still, most Occupy spaces remain straight, white, and male-dominated: how do we prevent the power imbalances intrinsic to previous movements? What about accountability within the 99%? How have Occupy spaces addressed (and failed to address) homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, ableism, imperialism/patriotism, police brutality, anti-homeless territorialism, sexual assault, and other issues of structural, personal, and intimate violence? As struggles emerge to confront the colonial rhetoric of “occupying” indigenous land (and to address this history), what can a queer analysis bring to this challenge? What do queer struggles have to learn from Occupy/Decolonize movements, and what can Occupy/Decolonize movements learn from queer struggles?

I'm interested in missives from queers involved in Occupy/Decolonize movements, as well as from those veering between skeptical and inspired. I would love to hear about queer challenges within Occupy encampments large and small, across the country and around the world. Bring me your explosive analysis, your rants, your manifestoes, your journal entries, your rage and rigor and hope and heartbreak. In addition to written nonfiction work, I'm also interested in art, photography, posters, flyers, and other forms of visual documentation queering the Occupy movement – its goals and aspirations, its impact, its perils and possibilities.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the editor of five nonfiction anthologies, most recently Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (AK Press 2012), and the author of two novels, most recently So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights 2008). More info on Mattilda at mattildabernsteinsycamore.com.

Please send essays or written materials of up to 5000 words, as Word or text file attachments only, to nobodypasses@gmail.com. Include a brief bio. Please send a query before submitting visual work. The deadline is March 20, 2012, although the earlier the better. Any questions, send them my way!

Sounds like a book I will be very interested to read!

Happy Solstice!

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:15:00 +0000

For my area of the world the winter solstice is tonight, according to my Google-fu at 9:30 pm PST. The candles are lit and the house is about to be swept. So Happy Yule, everyone! If the light returns after tonight then it will do so earlier and earlier from now on. Stand watch, and welcome the Sun!!

V For Vendetta: Why I Liked the Movie Better Than the Book

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:56:00 +0000

Over the last week I read the graphic novel V For Vendetta. And as I finished it today I could not help thinking that it was not what I expected. In fact, although I know this to be highly blasphemous, on first read: I liked the movie better. I don't know that I have ever liked a movie version better than the book, so I found this revelation rather disturbing. It probably didn't help that I have seen so many fans of the book trash the movie adaptation either.

But, as I did what I usually do when something particularly troubling is bothering me (take a shower and think about it) I realized what bothered me about the book. It wasn't the violence or the more morally convoluted energy of the story or even the blunt anarchist propaganda of some passages (nothing wrong with propaganda in theory, but there was something jarring to me about it's application here), it was the individualism.

What the movie did really well was to express how V served as a catalyst, but for the overall vision to succeed it took the mobilization of people. A large mass of people. It took the community working together. It took an uprising. Surely that vision should look familiar these days, right? From Egypt to Oakland large amounts of people streaming out into the streets to oppose the powerful?

Anyway. In contrast, the book really relied on V as a spokesperson, as a LEADER, to mobilize the people. And so for all of his preaching of anarchism, V looked much more conventional to my First World eyes: the charismatic leader rallying his troops to revolution rooted in chaos and violence. I don't want to downplay the fact that he certainly was individually heroic in the movie too (maybe even "super-heroic," managing to take all those bullets and remain standing...)....but in the end the "victory" didn't rely on that, whereas in the book, it did.

Fundamentally I just don't believe that is how anarchism can succeed. This is why I am a SOCIALIST libertarian/anarchist, because I believe it takes us working together to protect each other, because I believe it takes community accountability, because I believe it takes self-awareness and openness to the needs of other people that are different from our own, to make a vision like anarchism realistic, because I believe it takes solidarity, real solidarity. (Look to the EZLN for a model that seems to be working as far as I can tell.)

In addition, the book's V required a replacement. Evey had to take up the costume to continue the work. While I get there is a sort of poetry to that (we can be/are all V!) I think it is less effective than the movie's version of this, wherein everyone in the crowd took up the mask TOGETHER, and less effective than the movie's version of Evey: who rejects V even as she loves him. She does not take up the mask, she fulfills V's last wish and then goes to build the better world. Book-Evey's taking up of the mask means she steps into his legacy and is symbolically walking in his footsteps. The people on the ground don't know this person is different from the one who started it all, and, again, maybe there is a kind of poetry in that, the duality of humanity encapsulated in one person...but it didn't work as effectively for me, that's all I know.

Because as V says in both versions: this new world has no place for him, the Destroyer. Movie-Evey's turning away from him (and what he did to her, even as she moved forward changed because of that experience and seems comfortable in her new skin) is precisely what is necessary for the new world he envisions, because there is no place for that kind of destruction in the building of a new world from the ashes of the old. In fact I found book-Evey's willingness to continue to live with and trust V after he tortured her to border on misogynistic writing.

I will say this though, I did like the book's villains better than the movie's. In the book the villains seem so average and regular, as leaders are at the end of the day: they are just people. In the movie the villains are larger than life and VERY evil. In the case of the Leader, "larger than life" is meant quite literally. Of course this is compromised by the end when he is killed, and we see that he is just human after all - so I get what the Wachowskis were doing here - but this humanity is clear all the time in the book, and that was more effective for me in showing how those in power can be worked against and overthrown. In the end, even evil people are just people, we have to come to terms with that both in the sense of realizing they are mortal, and in the fact that we are both human and that their evil might reside within us as well.

So yeah. I do know that it usually takes more than one read to absorb everything a book is doing, but this was my discomfort as I read through this first time, and I don't know that I will read it again anytime soon, but I think this was worth writing out.

Review: Shadoweyes, Volume One

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 04:30:00 +0000

Shadoweyes, Volume One by Ross Campbell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this graphic novel, the content was interesting, the story was intriguing and the characters were amazing. Not to do any spoilers but this text deals with several social issues and oppressed identities in ways I rarely see and I was impressed. Yes, the story was quick, but it seemed kinda par for the course with comics to me, and totally met my expectations. Can't wait to read Vol. 2!

View all my reviews

A Meditation on The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight, and the Decolonize/Occupy Movement

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:09:00 +0000

Link

It might be just me (and I realize this was released months ago but I saw it for the first time today), but this song seems like it should be the anthem of the Occupy/Decolonize movement.

While I was watching the video it just hit me really hard like, isn't the story being told (through the visuals, through the music) so much a story of the underclass choosing to stand up and just refuse to take the shit those in charge are dealing? To refuse to continue to be controlled by fear and manipulation and coercion and force and false privilege any longer?

And particularly, that those who used to be aligned with/protected by those in charge need to abandon that and stand with the oppressed?

Even so far as that it took one of "their own" being thrown out of the protective circle of the powerful group to galvanize those who revolted to their realization?

It's so bittersweet and inspiring at the same time... Just like I feel about this movement...

#DecolonizeOakland/#OccupyOakland West Coast Port Shut Down in Solidarity with Port Workers and Longshoreman

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 23:22:00 +0000

Click the link for more info

Transgender Day of Remembrance

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:57:00 +0000

(If anyone knows who took this photo I would love to know, a friend posted it on Facebook but they didn't know where it came from originally)

The list of the dead

Candles are lit for you tonight, sisters.

#DecolonizeOakland Saturday, November 19th! Day of Action to Expand the #Occupy Movement

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:13:00 +0000

Via hella ♥ east bay:

Indigenous Solidarity Teach-Ins at #DecolonizeOakland

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

From Facebook:

Press Release/Announcement
Decolonize Oakland (DeOccupy Oakland)
Sunday, 11/13, 5:00-6:00
Monday, 11/14, 4:00-5:00
Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland, California

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Indigenous Solidarity Teach-Ins will explore some of the questions raised at the Occupy Oakland General Assembly on October 28 when the Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples passed by a 97% voting majority.

What does it mean to acknowledge the United States as a colonial and imperial nation? What is colonialism and imperialism?

What does it mean to acknowledge that Oakland is already occupied land? Who are the Chochenyo Ohlone people?

What does decolonization and deoccupation of the United States and Oakland mean? What can it mean?

Come discuss and learn with each other.

Contact:
Joanne Barker
jmbrkr62@gmail.com

Beautiful Poster for General Strike in Oakland

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:56:00 +0000

Via DignidadRebelde:

To learn more about the Oakland General Strike please click here!

Who Are The Real Cybermen? Reading the Ruptures in Doctor Who Novel Made of Steel

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:29:00 +0000

Pulling together the arguments of Tania Modleski (Loving With a Vengeance) and Janice Radway (Reading the Romance), I contend that the Doctor Who series of novels creates for the sci-fi geek what the Harlequin romance is for the (predominantly) women who read them. Like Harlequins, these books are not taken seriously as “literature” but understood to be simply “fun” (read: not important or worth thinking about). Eminently consumable, Doctor Who novels follow a known formula (The Doctor faces down monsters and/or aliens and he wins in the end) that has been popular enough to keep both the television series and accompanying books in production for nearly fifty years. Through examining a recent “Quick Reads” Doctor Who novel, Made of Steel, as one star in a constellation of texts that I read across (Felski 512) I attempt to pinpoint what ruptures are allowed by this formula.

The mass market paperback: cheaply bound, 100-250 pages, fast paced stories meant to attract and satisfy as wide an audience as possible; a model championed and mastered by the Harlequin company (Modleski). The appeal may already be obvious; such novels are easy to pick up and set down and do not require a huge commitment of time, and there is a known emotional “pay off” at the end because of several common formulas, of which readers may choose their favorite. Similarly, such books are easy to produce cheaply, making even a very low sell-price profitable for the publisher. Couple these elements with a wide readership and you have hit pay dirt; a highly consumable book form perfectly suited to the needs and desires of both a capitalist market and industrial society (During 193).

Thus it should be no real surprise that in 2006, after the BBC’s “reboot” of British sci-fi classic Doctor Who was proving to pull in the ratings like few other television shows on the UK airwaves, they decided to continue the now common strategy of “branding across formats” (During 199) and re-mobilize their literature section in the production of Doctor Who themed novels. Yet, this time around the BBC was not satisfied with producing only the standard 250 page versions of these books, opting to also begin a new line of all-original “quick reads” meant to “promote reading” by being an even more manageable 100-150 pages (TARDIS Index File). In addition to their shorter length, the production and distribution of these novels follows in the footsteps of Harlequin romances: they are only ever produced in mass market paperback (or ebook) forms and carry a price tag of just £1.99, making them incredibly affordable for both producer and consumer (Radway 13).

Stylistically, the advantage of this format for these particular books is that it more closely mimics the feel of watching an episode of the television show – taking the formulaic element of this iteration of the adventure novel to a new (and perhaps more comfortable to the non-reader) level. It is difficult to ascertain if these novels are as successful as their longer counterparts, a ubiquitous feature in any major bookstore’s “sci-fi/fantasy” section. In general, while it is easy to find Doctor Who novels on bookshelves it is less obvious how much time the BBC devotes to actually promoting them or whether they assume fans of the show will simply know to seek them out. In this way the Doctor Who novels follow in the footsteps of other formulaic genres in that (in theory anyway) they are fundamentally interchangeable. This interchangeability is part of the appeal of such texts because the reader knows what to expect, and it is a desire for that particular experience which leads them to seek such entertainment out.

For example, as with the Harlequin romances examined by Tania Modleski (1980, 2008), the reader of the Doctor Who novel is always more well-informed than the protagonist(s). We know, always, that The Doctor will win the day by the end of the story and so, like laughing at the character in a horror movie who says “I’ll be right back” (because we know that means they are about to die), when The Doctor lays out plans of innocent sight-seeing or a picnic we smirk at his persistent (willful?) naivety and wait with anticipation for the “big bad” of the story to reveal itself. There are, of course, small variations on this pattern.

Often enough, as in Made of Steel, the antagonists of the story have already had a revealing moment. In such a case the anticipation is in wondering how long it will take The Doctor to figure out what the audience already knows (in this case, that the Cybermen, against all odds, are back on Earth). This superior knowledge of the audience is exploited right from the start with an opening scene of an overconfident security guard relaxing on the job with the knowledge that:

“MegaTech was protected by the finest alarm system in the world. If anyone so much as breathed hard on any of the outer doors and windows, bells would ring, sirens would howl, lights would flash and linked alarms would go off in the local cop shop” (Dicks 1)

Such nonchalance at his guarding duties indicates a disposable character, functioning in the plot solely to reveal the enemy of the story. And indeed, by the next page of the novel the guard is dead at the hands of the Cybermen. Similarly, when The Doctor says it is impossible for any Cybermen to be on Earth, and dismisses the evidence to the contrary, we experience one of “those [pleasurable] episodes which further the desired and expected ending” (Modleski 42) as the anticipation of a readership wondering “how will The Doctor get out of this one?” is prolonged.

And The Doctor does always make it out alive; even when he doesn’t. Time Lords (his alien race) can regenerate their bodies when they are dying. As a result, even when the events of the plot go horribly awry and one incarnation of The Doctor dies, another rises to take his place. Thus the reader is safe in the knowledge that good always triumphs in the end. However, like the Harlequin novel, this pre-set ending means that what happens in the middle of the plot is where possibility exists. It is within that space that The Doctor can be wrong, that we can question whether his decisions are the right ones, and whether his responses to power actually perpetuate (or even create) the problems he faces. It is here where we are able to (and often do) interrogate “the savior of the human race,” along with those humans who try to aid or thwart him.

In Made of Steel this interrogation comes via an interesting juxtaposition of the Cybermen (large, metallic, approximately human shaped beings constructed to erase emotion and facilitate immortality through conversion of living beings) with the military personnel trying to fight them. In several places in the novel, the individual member of the military used to represent the whole in our interactions with them (Captain Sheila Sarandon) is shown to be eerily similar to the Cybermen. Take this scene:

“She looked down at Major Burton’s body. ‘Is he dead?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

She nodded, accepting the loss as soldiers do. ‘He was very brave. Posthumous VC, I shouldn’t wonder.’” (Dicks 79)

While it is unclear precisely what kind of relationship Major Burton and Captain Sarandon had (whether friendly or strictly professional) it is pointed out earlier in the text that Sarandon is his second in command. Therefore it is safe to assume they have worked closely together for some time. Yet she does not really react to his death; “as soldiers do.” Similarly, when one of their own is cut down the Cybermen do not respond at all as part of their construction (part of what has made them “evil”) is to purge themselves of all emotion (a running theme in classic Who villains). In such a story, where our emotions are stated to be what “makes us human,” of why it is humans fight so hard not to be “converted” into Cybermen, this scene is jarring. It begs the question: are we also turning ourselves into Cybermen?

Like “the women who seek out ideal [romance] novels in order to construct such a vision again and again are reading not out of contentment but out of dissatisfaction, longing, and protest” (Radway 213) the reader of the Doctor Who novel is facing again and again the dangers of our own culture, of our very social order. And while The Doctor will always solve our problems by the end of the story, in between the thrill of the start of a new adventure and the happy ending we must grapple with the possibility that The Doctor will not come, or will fail. We face the prospect that perhaps we will have to fix what comes all by ourselves and by so grappling we hopefully prepare ourselves to face the Cybermen of the real world; who might end up being us.

Works Cited

Dicks, Terrence. Doctor Who: Made of Steel. Ebury Publishing, 2007.

During, Simon. "Culture high and low." Cultural studies: a critical introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. 193-207.

Felski, Rita. "Modernist Studies and Cultural Studies: Reflection on Method." Modernism/modernity 10.3 (2003): 501-517.

Modleski, Tania. Loving With a Vengeance. New York and London: Routledge, 1980; 2008.

Radway, Janice. "Conclusion." Reading the Romance. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. 209-222.

Radway, Janice. "Introduction." Reading the Romance. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. 3-18.

TARDIS Index File. "Quick Reads." The TARDIS Index File - a Doctor Who Wiki. 4 October 2011 <http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Quick_Reads>.

When Columbus got off the boat...

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:47:00 +0000

Via Fierce...Flawless...:

"When Columbus got off the boat, he asked us who we were. We said we’re the Human Beings, we’re the People. Conceptually the Europeans didn’t understand that, it was beyond their conceptual reality. They didn’t see us. They couldn’t see who we were. Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. It’s five hundred years later and they still can’t see us. we are still invisible. They don’t see us as human beings, but we’ve been saying to them all along that’s what we are. We are invisible to them because we are still the Human Beings, we’re still the People, but they will never call us that. They taught us to call ourselves Indians, now they’re teaching us to call ourselves Native Americans. It’s not who we are. We’re the People. They can’t see us as human beings. But they can’t see themselves as human beings. The invisibility is at every level, it’s not just that we’re tucked away out of sight. We’re the evidence of the crime. They can’t deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with the reality of what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren’t. So they have to fear us, not recognize us, not like us. The very fact of calling us Indians creates a new identity for us, an identity that began with their arrival. Changing identity, creating a new perceptual reality, is another form of genocide. It’s like severing a spiritual umbilical cord that reaches into the ancestral past. The history of the Indians begins with the arrival of the Europeans. The history of the People begins with the beginning of the history of the People. The history of the People is one of cooperation, collectivity, and living in balance. The history of the Indians is one of being attacked and genocide, rather than a history of peace and balance. The history of the People under attack, the Indians, in an evolutionary context, is not very long, it’s only five hundred years. The objective of civilizing us is to make Indian history become our permanent reality. The necessary objective of Native people is to outlast this attack, however long it takes, to keep our identity alive."

- John Trudell (Santee Sioux)

Fuck Columbus

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:37:00 +0000

This is probably my least favorite holiday. I can't think of one I dislike more anyway. On the flip side if all goes according to plan I will be joining up with the Occupy Oakland demonstration (in solidarity/conjunction with Indigenous Resistance Day) after class tonight so please send good thoughts our way.

Decolonize Oakland October 10th #occupywallstreet

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:31:00 +0000

Via Dignidad Rebelde

Why have I titled this post "Decolonize Oakland"? Because of this Open Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Activists and other similar critiques I've been reading this week. I am sharing this event with you in particular because 1) it is local and that has always been a focus for me here and 2) it seems to acknowledge the important linkages between decolonization, indigenous resistance and this emerging "occupation" movement.

For more information on the event check out Occupy Oakland's Twitter account. Next planning meeting is TOMORROW.

Oakland Museum Shuts Down Palestinian Children’s Exhibit

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:33:00 +0000

The Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland (MOCHA) has decided to cancel an exhibit of art by Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), which was partnering with MOCHA to present the exhibit, was informed of the decision by the Museum’s board president on Thursday, September 8, 2011. For several months, MECA and the museum had been working together on the exhibit, which is titled “A Child’s View of Gaza.”

MECA has learned that there was a concerted effort by pro-Israel organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area to pressure the museum to reverse its decision to display Palestinian children’s art.

Barbara Lubin, the Executive Director of MECA, expressed her dismay that the museum decided to censor this exhibit in contradiction of its mission “to ensure that the arts are a fundamental part of the lives of all children.”

Via Middle East Children's Alliance

People, Not Places

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 23:05:00 +0000

Invincible feat. Abeer & Suhell Nafar (DAM)

People Not Places (Detroit, New York, Palestine, 12 min)
Directed by Iqaa The Olivetone
Score by Vaughan T (LABTECHS)
Produced by EMERGENCE and Palestine Education Project

EMERGENCEtravel.net
EMERGENCEmedia.org
MP3: tinyurl.com/696jl9
lyrics & notes: emergencetravel.net/lyrics#people_not_places

This docu-music-video is based on the song of the same name by Invincible featuring Abeer and Suhell Nafar (DAM). Invincible plays two characters in the video: a Birthright Israel tour recruiter, styled as a used car salesman; and herself, subverting the recruiter’s mission by exposing the buried Palestinian significance of each location in the tour.

Invincible exposes the process of historic and continued colonization of Palestine as being even deeper than land seizure and ethnic cleansing, but one that attempts to erase the indigenous language, culture, and memory of Palestinians.

Intertwined with the music video are interviews that expose how Zionist claims to a Jewish “birthright” to Palestine have come at the expense of the Palestinian Right of Return to their indigenous land. These interviews show how the Right of Return of Palestinians is interconnected with the resistance of occupied and displaced refugee communities globally, from Turtle Island to Puerto Rico and beyond.

Please watch.

Must Read Link: Obama’s Department of Homeland Security Makes It Clear that Secure Communities Was Always Mandatory

noreply@blogger.com (whatsername) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:54:00 +0000

Via VivirLatino:

"If there was any question about whether the Secure Communities deportation program was voluntary, we are one step closer to a clearer answer. On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the roll out of the program would be continuing and that all Memoranda Of Agreement (MOAs) with states that have implemented the program are terminated. In other words, the intentions of the administration are crystalline. States that have “opted out” like Illinois, New York and Massachusetts really never were meant to have that option and no one in the future will have that option. Deportation is the Obama’s administration’s commitment to the the immigration reform process."

Read the rest at the link!