Class consciousness

Class consciousness: Members of “lower” classes are often more aware of their economic class than are members of the “upper” class. However, this may not necessarily be the case in societies where class hierarchy is a strict and deep tradition.[citation needed]

In the United States, class consciousness is somewhat conflated with race consciousness. Because racial minority correlates with poverty in that country, members of racial minorities may focus more on racial identities than on identities arising from economic class.

Defining a person’s social class can be a determinant for his awareness of it. Marxists define classes on the basis of their relation to the means of production – especially on whether they own capital. Non-Marxist social scientists distinguish various social strata on the basis of income, occupation, or status.

Early in the nineteenth century the labels “working classes” and “middle classes” were already coming into common usage. “The old hereditary aristocracy, reinforced by the new gentry who owed their success to commerce, industry, and the professions, evolved into an “upper class”. Its consciousness was formed in part by public schools (in the British sense) and Universities. The upper class tenaciously maintained control over the political system, depriving not only the working classes but the middle classes of a voice in the political process.”

Safety for Medical Caregivers During a Protest

by Paramedic & Activist

As a moment of Introduction, I am a paramedic with 17 years street experience and participated in many protest marches during the Act-Up and AIDS protests in San Francisco in the early 1990′s. Having one foot in the Public Safety world, and the other in the Protest community may, at times, seem to be a contradiction; however understanding the basics of police tactics and the appropriate role of a medical aid provider in a protest is essential to prevent the injuries and mis-handling of the injured person shown in the now famous U-Tube videos. There are glaring errors on BOTH sides of the line. Obviously, the fact the person was injured in the first place is of concern. Equally is the “rush” of protesters towards a solid police line under the “cover” of the few individuals who were rendering aid to the fallen protester is foolish, and the apparent ”justification” for the use of the stun grenade.

If you watch the video closely, the police take no action when a few individuals approach. They are obviously helping the fallen person. However when the crowd of protesters, many with covered faces and brandishing signs, flags, yelling directly at the officers, the situation changed in the eyes of the police; THAT is when they used force. Notice, the “protesters” run away from the grenade, the folks helping the wounded man do not run. They had intent of purpose, the others were opportunists.

Taking this in mind, and being on the side of NO-ONE GETTING HURT, I am listing below some simple procedures for those wanting to be Medical Support for future protests:

1. Are you a Protester or will you be providing Medical Help?

If you decide to provide medical help, you need to identify yourself in that way. We used bright orange vests with “MEDICAL” stenciled on the back. These were worn the ENTIRE PROTEST and you CANNOT be seen yelling, protesting, carrying signs, etc. This clearly identified us as being a “non-combatant.”

You can be sure the police have many ambulances and a medical team only a block away from the line of protests. They have everything you need to care for the injured, however they will not break their line because of the opportunists “rushing” them. ( as was shown in the video.)

You have to build TRUST, yes TRUST, that you are NOT going to harm them or act in anyway to “break” the police line.

2. Are you willing to get arrested to help a fellow Protester?

If you truly care for an injured protester, you will need to be willing to face arrest. In the many protests myself and many others provided assistance in, we were never charged, but were taken “in custody” in order to secure the passage of a wounded comrade across the police line; this is to allow for rapid medical care.

3. Do you have 5-6 other friends who are willing to help out?

Taking the path to provide aid at the front of a protest is not for one or two people. You need a “primary caregiver” and then 4-5 others who will act as a guard, to prevent protesters from rushing the police line.

In the case of this one individual (in the video) you would have seen a line of orange vest aid workers between the injured person and the crowd. They hold hands and stretch out to provide a shield from mingling of “protesters” from the “Medical Team” This means you will have you BACK to the officers, and face your own crowd and shouting “Medical Emergency, DO NOT CROSS” as loudly as possible. This provides a buffer so that the caregiver can render aid without being surrounded with protesters.

4. Can you hold STRONG when you are called a collaborator?

When you form your own line, facing your own crowd, you may now be seen as a part of “THEM” the “1%.” This can be a bit dicey, and you have to BELIEVE in your duty to help the fallen comrade. You have to hold back the protesters so the police will feel “Secure.” If you can hold the line, maybe even get the crowd to back off or be quiet, you will allow the commander of the police force an opening to do the right thing and allow the victim to cross over the Police Line.

5. Can you stay focused on the injured, and leave your politics at the police line?

IF you can maintain a line of helpers to keep a secure area, you can then check your fallen comrade.

1. Check to see if they are conscious. ”Are you OK?” ”What is your name?”

2. Check for breathing.

3. Feel for a pulse at the wrist. Is it FAST -or- SLOW? STRONG -or- WEAK?

6. Can you Calmly Speak to the Police?

Adrenaline will be pumping on all sides of the police line. Everyone will be very tense.

Your action is to face the line of police and say so they can hear you , not “yelling” but firm, “I have an injured person here who needs Medical Assistance. Who is the Officer in Charge?” You may need to ask several times.

If the Commander or Officer in Charge asks you what you need you will say firmly and with confidence:

“I have an injured person. They are unconscious.

They have a pulse and are breathing but need a Paramedic Immediately.

We need a backboards and straps.

Can THIS ONE PERSON cross the line for medical treatment?

I am willing to go with them if needed.”

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH...

IF… your other volunteers are holding back the crowd.

IF… the crowd backs off or quiets down.

IF… the Officer in Charge believes you (sometimes it is obvious.)

THEN you MAY get assistance.

The usual method is as follows:

The police will allow a backboard to cross the line between officers.

You will roll the wounded comrade on their side, place the board under them.

You will secure the person to the board with the straps.

THEN you will say to the Officer in Charge. “We are ready to transfer care.”

IF the Officer in Charge believes you have things under control, 3-4 people from the protesters side will lift the backboard up, and pass it carefully between the officers in the police line, and into the hands of the ambulance crew.

The Officer in Charge MIGHT allow you to cross with your patient. It depends on the mood of the crowd and the ability of your people to hold your line.

ONE THING YOU CAN COUNT ON….

If the crowd of protesters do not respect your authority and back down so you can render aid, then YES, the Police will throw flash grenades, etc and not heed your call for help.

IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR MOVEMENT

YOU NEED TO BE RESPONSIBLE AND BACK OFF IF SOMEONE IS INJURED

AND LET THE TEAM WORK

If you cannot establish this MINIMUM SOCIAL CONTRACT within the group of protesters, then ANY OF YOU may be the next wounded comrade with no-one to help.

KEEP IT REAL!

NO-ONE GETS HURT!

DO NO HARM!

Source:
Safety for Medical Caregivers during a Protest. Occupy Oakland. http://www.occupyoakland.org/2011/10/safety-for-medical-caregivers-during-a-protest/#comments

Your Bravest Children

by structural adjustment

To the Mothers and Fathers of America:

This may not be clear to you yet, but those protestors out in the streets are your bravest children. They now hold the front for all of us in the centuries-old battle against tyranny. Many are fighting the corrupting influence of money in American politics, others against a system no longer functional for a majority that will only grow.

Some do not know exactly what they want--only that something has gone terribly wrong in a country in which they would like to believe.

They have not articulated one focused message, or one set of demands--and they do not need to. This is not a battle of right against left, red against blue, or liberal against conservative. It is not made-for-TV politics. It is a battle of right against wrong. America has lost, in its political discourse and behavior, the ability to distinguish between the two. Many of its practitioners seem not to care.

Those who support this movement in all its myriad shapes, sizes, sexes, colors, ideologies, income levels, and nationalities--have no sound bite. They get the problem, in general, and are massing to change it. Like the old thinker, they would rather be approximately correct than precisely wrong.

They give their nights, their sleep, their weekends, and their comfort to fight an uncertain battle for you, for all your children. They face police lines and mainstream scorn. They face the indifference of the vast armies of complacency and distraction, who keep waiting for the channel to change, the web page to update, and this movement to end. They face cynics who believe nothing will change, they face the often well-intentioned defeatists who believe nothing can change. They face politicians who patronize, tell them they don't understand--that they, the politicians, support the movement, even as they make plans with their police forces to clear them.

On Tuesday, October 25th in Oakland, California, Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine and Iraq veteran, standing beside another veteran, a naval officer in dress, was critically injured by a weapon used against him by a police officer from one of 17 jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay Area. A group of occupiers running away from the scene, amidst police flash grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets, rushed back when they saw Scott Olsen lying still on the ground. As they rushed in to pick him up--a dozen of your bravest, America--an unidentified officer tossed, from behind police ranks, another flash grenade at their feet. A handful of these unarmed protestors persisted, carrying Scott Olsen, dazed with a fractured skull, away from the police line, shouting for medics as the explosions and smoke recalled the nightmare of American battlefields.

Like this, the guns have again been turned back on your bravest children, most fighting only for the core values they were taught as children: people in need should be helped; democracy should be uncorrupted; citizens must gather in peace; and this country belongs to all of us, not a political elite increasingly indistinguishable from a financial and industrial corporate elite. Like all of us, they see clearly and abhor this crony capitalism now ascendent. They are doing something about it.

These are not trouble-making hippies, America--you mistake them as such at your peril. These are your better angels, trying to save you from yourself. They are your child that cannot help tell the truth, the sometimes inconvenient one that thinks of safety last and justice first. They are fighting the war that rages inside you when you see the circus on TV, in print, or online and can only shake your head. You ignore them, laugh at them, demean them, or discount them at your peril. They may be our last hope of transformation for this country reeling from war, from a crisis of confidence, from scandal, division, corruption, and poverty. Let no demagogue--especially talkers at the service of money and power--convince you, a thinking American, that these are not patriots of the truest kind.

So go out and support your children, America, and with them the fundamental ideas upon which this country was founded. Take a walk by the protest in your town at night, in the morning--drive by or bike past. Stop and talk to someone for a minute. Listen and watch. Gather your friends and neighbors. Everyone has their own place and their own role.

For every Scott Olsen, now lying in a hospital bed in critical condition, there should be 100,000 witnesses, who by their presence lend this movement strength and legitimacy.

As long as they occupy the centers of our cities, big and small, we--who wish to create a more perfect union--have an opening to change something vital, such as removing money from politics once and for all. It is possible. It has been done elsewhere. These children have brought the season of democracy, the days and especially nights of renewing democracy, and they need your protection.

Even your bravest children need to feel your strong hands on their back.

---------

a concerned American

Jugo de arándano con vodka ~ Cranberry vodka

Los franceses tienen una palabra, flâneur, que significa "aquél que pasea por una ciudad para vivirla"

Anoche mientras sentía una brisa suave en mi mejilla me transporté a los pasillos de concreto y piedra del centro de Cuernavaca, en la avenida Guerrero. El ruido, el tráfico y la muchedumbre existían en función de un aire vivo que jugaba entre las antiguas columnas de piedra y los puestos de cremas. De vez en cuando me acariciaba, pero yo no lo sabía. Esas caricias eran besos, sellos que debían ser abiertos sólo con el transcurso del tiempo. Y anoche abrí uno.

Yo antes era Cuernavaca. Yo era sus calles- y sí las caminaba- desde Chipitlán hasta el centro. Una vez llegué hasta Vista Hermosa con un amigo. El grafiti, los baches, las rutas, todas esas cosas fui yo.

Yo antes era también el centro, su zócalo y su fayuca. Era sus puestos de playeras negras de rock pesado, metaleras, piratas. Era también la moda underground que se estrenaba en ciertos círculos de jóvenes, pero no de los que vivían en Vista Hermosa. Ellos no, porque yo también era la tierra de la preparatoria número uno que se levantaba al son del sonido del ska, aquél sonido libertador y problemático. Más problemático aún eran los deliciosos pulques de don Abel, que también los fui.

~~~

The French have a word, flâneur, that means "he who walks the city in order to experience it".

Last night, I felt a soft breeze on my cheek and I remembered the stone and concrete passageways on Guerrero Avenue in downtown Cuernavaca. The noise, the traffic, and the crowds existed in relation to a rare kind of air that played in between the old stone pillars and the open-air cosmetic stands. Every now and then the air caressed me, but I didn't know that then. Those caresses were actually kisses, seals that could only be opened with the passage of time. And last night one was opened by me.

I was Cuernavaca once. I was its streets, and I walked them from Chipitlán to downtown. One time I made it to Vista Hermosa with a friend. The graffiti, the potholes, the public buses, I was all those things.

I was also its downtown, its plaza, and its black market. I was its bootleg heavy metal shirts. I was the underground style that reared its head every now and then among certain groups of young people, but not the ones from Vista Hermosa. Not them, because I was also the dirt that was kicked up during ska's liberating and problematic beats at public high school number one. Even more problematic were don Abel's delicious pulques, which I also was.

Protest sign seen at Occupy Wall Street

It's wrong to create a mortgage-backed security filled with loans you know are going to fail so that you can sell it to a client who isn't aware that you sabotaged it by intentionally picking the misleadingly-rated loans most likely to be defaulted upon.

This is what happens when educated people can't find jobs.

Guy proposes to girlfriend using human microphone

Why Occupy Wall Street will fail

By Brett Arends

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The public has every reason to be angry at what’s going on in this country, and every reason to protest. But will the Occupy Wall Street movement succeed in changing anything? Don’t count on it.

Here are five reasons I think these protests are doomed to fail.

1. They are in the wrong place.

Why are they down in Lower Manhattan? Do they think that’s where the power — and the money — really is? Folks: When people talk about “Wall Street,” it’s just a figure of speech.

Even in the days of J.P. Morgan Sr., the real action didn’t take place in the company offices at 60 Wall St. It took place in the old man’s library. Uptown. These days the real movers and shakers aren’t anywhere near Zuccotti Park. They’re out in places like Greenwich, Conn., home of the hedge-fund honchos.

I called the town offices there to see if they’d had any protests.

“Oh, no,” said the polite young man who answered the phone, his tone somewhat surprised. “There’s been nothing like that here.”

It’s hopeless.

If these people were on the ball, they’d at least be moving down south to “Occupy Palm Beach” for the winter.

2. They don’t have an agenda.

And they can’t have one. Talk about a herd of cats. Occupy Boston is a camp of about 100 tents, and on a brief walk through I noticed posters, placards and stickers for 9/11 “truthers,” anarcho-communists, “Jewish Labor,” “stop the marijuana laws,” “stop the U.S. war against Islam” and so on. Some quasi-Buddhists had set up a “sacred space,” and were burning incense. Elsewhere, a sign denounced a new school project out in the suburbs. Tough to rope all this into a 10-point plan. Or a 100-point plan. Sorry, but it’s reminding me of the days watching the old University Left crowd — right down to the weird sweaters and vegan cooking.

In Boston, one man sat on a deck chair with a sign that simply declared, “Financial markets always make bubbles and crashes.” What’s that, the Hyman Minsky Front? For all I know, he was an investment manager on a lunch break. Famed Boston investor Jeremy Grantham, who’s been making the same point about bubbles and crashes for years, has his offices about 100 yards away.

You want to group these people into an agenda? How?

3. The weather’s turning.

It’s been unseasonably warm and dry out there till recently. Now the rain’s arriving. Wait until the temperature drops and the frosts move in. According to Weather.com, the average lows drop to 42 degrees for the month of November and 32 in December. Good luck with that. How’s that tent working out?

These protesters made a couple of big blunders.

The first is that they started protesting over the summer, leaving themselves just a couple of months till the weather turns. They should have started in the spring.

They’ve been lucky so far, but it won’t last. Read more on MarketWatch’s Occupy Wall Street blog.

The second is that they made it an outside camping event. I still don’t understand it. You can hold a protest march at any time. People can show up, protest and then go home for a hot meal, a shower and a good night’s sleep in their own bed. Net result: Lots of people can take part. But how many people can — or want to — camp out in downtown Manhattan for three months?

Especially after Halloween.

When the cold and rain really come in force, a lot of these people are going home. Then the opponents of Occupy Wall Street will declare victory.

4. Money talks.

Actually, these days money shouts, and it will drown out whatever anyone else says. The 2010 Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has opened the floodgates to unlimited spending on elections by anybody, anytime — including, of course, any corporation.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, there are now 156 super political action committees that have taken advantage of the ruling. Political operative Mark McKinnon told me last week that he expects them to raise about $1 billion, mostly anonymously. McKinnon, who helped run the Bush-Cheney campaigns of 2000 and 2004, called the amount of corporate spending today “absolutely pornographic.”

And no industry spends like Wall Street. The finance sector is the biggest source of campaign contributions, year after year. Politicians suck up to the banks for the same reason Willie Sutton once robbed them: That’s where the money is.

In 2008 bankers gave half a billion dollars to political campaigns — up from $350 billion in 2004.

And they are so outraged even by the toothless Dodd-Frank regulations that they have shifted the majority of their contributions to the Republicans. If they can’t stand Dodd-Frank, what’s the chance they would tolerate real reform?

We’re still a year away from the next elections, and they’ve already handed over $97 million in (disclosed) political contributions. That includes $5 million so far to Mitt Romney and $2.5 million to Barack Obama. How tough do you think politicians are likely to be on Wall Street?

No matter how much anger these protesters channel, the golden rule will prevail: Those that have the gold will make the rules.

5. We’ll forget about it.

Sure, people are paying attention to Occupy Wall Street now. But just wait till something interesting happens on the Kardashians. Or there’s a bust-up on America’s Top Pastry Chef. Or some child pretends to get trapped on a balloon.

OWS will go as stale as last month’s bread. Look! Over there! Monkeys running amok in Ohio!

Many optimists believe the new media world of the Internet and Facebook and Twitter puts more power in the hands of “the people.” I think instead we’ve sleep-walked into a nightmare world of mass attention-deficit disorder and easy distraction.

Nicholas Carr, in his 2010 book The Shallows, shows in alarming detail how the Web is rewiring our brains towards superficiality.

The information age? The democracy of media? In the age of the Internet, and “infinite media,” I see a world that is increasingly mean-spirited, anti-logical, and misinformed. (Or, to put it more bluntly: Mean, stupid and wrong).

And it’s left an open road for propagandists.

I got one of those mass circulated emails recently telling me how Lee Iacocca, the former Chrysler boss, had a “new book out” slamming Obama. It contained all sorts of brutal quotes.

The only problem? Iacocca’s book came out in 2007. His quotes were about President George W. Bush. Someone had simply doctored all the quotes and blasted out an email, that quickly went all round the Web.

For each recipient who caught the lie, a hundred won’t. Was it an amateur propagandist who sent out this email, or a professional? We’ll never know. According to the U.S. Labor Department, there are now about 280,000 public relations managers and specialists in America. The number of reporters: Just 45,000: That’s six flacks per reporter. Good luck with that.

In six months’ time, or maybe just six weeks, everyone will have forgotten about OWS.

Do I see no positive news for these protesters? I hate to be entirely negative, so I am happy to offer some good news as well.

If you really think the banks have a free hand to make money at the expense of the rest of us, you can just go out and buy their stocks right now and make a fortune.

After all, they’ve collapsed. Bank of America’s stock (XNYS:BAC - News) has been halved since the start of the year. At $6.40, the shares are trading at a third of book value (according to FactSet Research), about where they were at the absolute lows in March 2009. (Bank of America just reported $6.2 billion net income in the third quarter, returns on average equity of 22% and Tier One capital — a measure of balance-sheet strength — up to a decent 11.5%. Make of it what you will.)

Citigroup Inc. (XNYS:C) has lost a third of its value this year.

Even the Vampire Squid itself has covered its stockholders in red ink. Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (XNYS:GS - News) have lost a third of their value this year. The stock is trading below book value.

Contrarians, ho! According to the most recent surveys, big institutional money managers are massively underweight bank stocks. They won’t touch them with a 10-foot pole. They’re terrified. This is often a contrarian buying indicator. Not always, but often.

If you really do think these guys have the government in their pocket, it should be a one-way bet.

Source:
Brett Arends. "Why Occupy Wall Street will fail". MarketWatch. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-occupy-wall-street-will-fail-2011-10-19

Mensaje de la Secretaría de Salud ~ Message from the Secretariat of Health

A partir del mes de agosto la Secretaría de Salud recomienda a toda la población en general que después de bañarse no olviden secarse bien la panza, ya que el dengue se reproduce en llantas viejas y húmedas.

Todos por un México más sano

~~~

This August, the Secretariat of Health reminds you to dry your stomach well after bathing to avoid the spread of dengue. Dengue spreads in old and damp tires.

Together for a healthier Mexico.

Como dijo la enfermera IMSS gangosa...

En el hospital 35 una enfermera GANGOSA dice:

"Famidiades ded señod Fednandez, se des infodma qued señod ha muedto"...

Se le acerca la esposa y dice: NO ME JODA!! ...

Y le contesta la enfermera:

"No me joda, ni mejodadá, ni mejodó...
Se mudió!!!

OWS + Tea Party = Win

At a time when Americans seem more divided than at any point since the Civil War, two grassroots protest movements, the Tea Parties and Occupy Wall Street protests, signal the possibility of a major realignment in American politics along the lines of massive shared opposition to the domineering financial sector and its corrupt counterparts in government…

Washington Bails Out Wall Street

Since the very beginning in February 2009, I have defended the Tea Party movement against its detractors in the media and government. Just weeks before they spread like wildfire across the nation, while working through my senior year of college, I sat in front of the television in the Fall of 2008, watching with bewilderment as Congress passed a “$700 billion” bill (which has turned out to be more like $3 trillion in addition to another $10 trillion+ privately loaned out by the Federal Reserve) to bail out Wall Street banks.

As a teenage conservative raised on right-wing talk radio, I had always opposed government welfare programs for the poor. Private charity to help those in need, was in my opinion, not only a good thing, but according to the religious values I professed: an absolute moral imperative. But I didn’t believe charity should be legislated any more than any other private moral belief, just like many Democrats would oppose legislating private moral views about drug use, or Pat Robertson’s sexual mores.

But here I was in 2008 watching with horror as the government acted to redistribute hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth– not to people in need, not to the poor, the sick, the suffering, the hungry– but to already extravagantly wealthy Wall Street banks. If redistributing wealth to the poor by government decree, however well-intentioned, seemed misguided, inappropriate, and offensive to my sensibilities about the proper role of government, seeing wealth forcibly taken from middle class and working poor Americans and handed to big corporations was positively egregious decadence and corruption of the highest order!

At least the welfare statists who believe in a publicly-funded “safety net” for the poor have the good intentions of helping people in need. What can be said about the intentions of someone who takes hard-earned money from a struggling middle class household and hands it to the CEO of AIG (which turned around and handed out multimillion dollar bonuses to its top executives)? And I wasn’t the only American outraged by what Congress did.

Outraged Americans in both major political parties were melting the switchboards in DC ahead of each bailout vote, expressing their firm opposition to making Middle America pay for Wall Street’s mistakes. Already long disenchanted with the Bush Administration, many pundits in the conservative blogosphere and talk radio were blasting the bailouts as corporate welfare that Congress had no business passing.

The beginning of the Tea Party

By the time the trillion dollar economic stimulus package had passed the following February, anger, confusion, and dissent toward Washington’s radical economic interventions had reached a fever pitch. I was sitting in a computer room on campus, headphones on, stifling laughter as I watched footage from earlier that day: Rick Santelli on CNBC raging against the bailouts and calling for a modern day Tea Party. I knew instantly that it would be the start of something big.

Whatever its detractors will say, when the Tea Party movement began spreading to cities across America with protests that February, even bigger ones on “Tax Day” in April, and then positively massive demonstrations by July 4th, it was a completely leaderless, spontaneous, grassroots movement driven by the individual initiative of local groups of hardworking Americans opposed to Washington’s bailouts.

I defended them writing:

‘This Tea Party movement arose out of a frustration at an out-of-touch, out-of-control, out-of-solutions, out-of-money Federal government. Unlike the vague hope and change promised by the Obama campaign in 2007-08, the Tea Partiers had some very specific, very practical, very sane policy proposals to reign Washington in: these were 1) an end to corporate bailouts, 2) a balanced budget, 3) term limits, 4) a “read the bills” act, 5) and a full, public audit of the Federal Reserve bank.

… For goodness’ sake, you’d think any honest liberal would have been thrilled that a bunch of white, middle-aged, middle class Christians were standing up and raging against the malfeasance of corporate America, asking for more transparency and accountability, demanding some more regulation and oversight of the world’s most powerful and secretive private corporation [that would be the Fed], and trying to ensure that Congressional seats are more accessible to every day Americans, not just the wealthy, entrenched establishment.’

While many politicians have since tried to capitalize on the Tea Party’s momentum by branding themselves as “Tea Party” while advancing the same old domestic “Moral Majority” and foreign nation-building agendas, the original Tea Party phenomenon was a move away from these narratives and goals, a stricter focus on fiscal policy and true reform to an economic and political system that nearly all Americans agree is broken, unfair, and unjust.

Common Ground between “right” and “left”

Throughout 2010 I would repeat the same line to all my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and an interviewer from The Guardian at Rand Paul’s Senate victory celebration: “The Tea Party started as a movement to protest the bailouts Washington handed to rich Wall Street bankers. People on the ‘left’ should be thrilled that white, middle age, middle class Americans have made the unearned excess and unfair privilege of corporate America one of their primary issues. Listen: Michael Moore, this big ‘lefty’ just released a documentary all about how evil those bailouts were. Then you’ve got all these people on the ‘right’ who agree with him. Both sides are starting to say the same thing. If we’d stop being so suspicious of each other and listen, we might discover that we’re on the same side!”

I just couldn’t believe that people like my grandmother and my best friend’s mom were out in town halls protesting corporate greed while all my hipster friends from school were sitting at home with a Pabst Blue Ribbon fiddling with their iPhones and playing Wii. It made no sense. I was incredulous that the “left” had so quickly dismissed the Tea Parties as racist and fascist instead of joining them on the streets and in the public discourse as one unified voice against the corporate special interests that had secured financial favors from an insulated, out-of-touch Congress.

Yet after several centrally-planned-and-orchestrated false starts, including the reactionary, dead-on-arrival “Coffee Party” and the MoveOn.org-sponsored American Dream Movement, the “left” and those more aligned with the Democratic Party have finally joined the anti-establishment, grassroots fervor sweeping this country (and the entire world it would seem). The Occupy Wall Street movement is definitely the real “leftist” counterpart to the Tea Party movement, just as grassroots, just as leaderless, just as spontaneous, just as earnestly angry about a system that rewards the malfeasance of entrenched special interests by punishing the hard work and innovation of “the little guy” in Middle America.

This is some pretty serious shared common ground between the most vocal and active wings of the two major political factions in America. Both “sides” agree about the problem. Perhaps neither side is entirely sure about the solution, but both sides seem to intuit that the problem revolves around the financial sector. Getting the Republicans to that place was a true ideological revolution on the part of the Tea Party movement and the 2008 presidential aspirations of Congressman Ron Paul, whose obsession with the financial sector’s misdeeds is finally looking less fringe and more reasonable to the average American. Getting the Democrats– with their reflexive suspicion of big corporations– to the same place shouldn’t have been this hard.

But one thing is clear, and that is this: the now-not-so-silent majorities on both sides of the partisan divide are moving in the same direction, toward completely accepting and internalizing their distrust and disdain for the financial sector and its grip on power in this country. The next step is to have a conversation, a real conversation. No screaming. No yelling. No accusations. No preconceived suspicions of the worst in each others’ motives. The next step is a conversation about how deep this problem goes, the exact nature of its causes, and the precise policies that will effectively solve the problem and reform our broken economic and political system.

Are you willing to listen to me? I’m ready to listen to you.

Source:
Silver Underground. http://silverunderground.com/2011/10/stop-yelling-and-pay-attention-the-grassroots-left-and-right-are-saying-the-same-thing/

Norman Finkelstein

Véan este video:


Dice la niña (porque no se oye bien):

"During your speech you made a lot of references to jewish people, as well as certain people in you audience - not jewish people in general - but certain people - especially in your audiance - to nazis. Now that is extremely offensive, when certain people are German, and they are also extremely offensive to people who have suffered under nazi rule."

Y lo demás sí se escucha bien.

Why Occupy? #OWS in graphs

What OWS (Occupy Wall Street) is about. No feelings, just the cold, hard facts.

From the source:

Everyone works hard not to get cheated out of their fair share. In the past 30 years, due to gains in technology, productivity rose but salaries when adjusted for inflation decreased for the middle class. The extra wealth accumulated at the top 1%. They then use that wealth to influence politicians and get bailouts and all sorts of other favors. When wealth that is concentrated in the hands of a few is one of the main influences in politics then society is no longer a democracy it is a plutocracy. That is what the protest is about. We all work hard and we all want to be treated fairly and we want the rule of law to be restored such that it applies to everyone in society and that the wealthy are not exempt from their actions. Corporations are needed; unethical behavior and corruption aren't needed.

Source: http://imgur.com/a/U4FR4

Occupy your money ~ ¡Ya Basta!

Please read for a non-violent and effective course of action against the banks that helped wreck this country's middle class and its economy.

If you bank with Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, or Bank of America, take your money out of their hands.

It's not illegal to close your account and keep your money in a credit union.

Banks can lend money based on the money we keep with them, so let's start putting limits to their power, because the government won't do that for us.

¡Ya Basta!

We have a republic, if we can keep it.

Dylan Ratigan says it how it is ~ Dylan Ratigan dice la verdad

Dylan: What are you talking about $4 trillion?

Karen: $4 trillion, I’m saying…

Dylan: We owe $70 trillion. [cross-talking 04:29] a $4 trillion solution, which is basically just a way for the Democrats to avoid dealing with this until 2017. I’m not here to talk about plans to deal with this till 2017. I’m saying we’ve got a real problem, and I’m tired of Republicans and Democrats who either want – Republicans who want to burn the place to the ground and Democrats, with all due respect, who want to offer a plan that gets it through the end of their second term of their presidency, and then screws me and my kids when it’s over! And until we do that, we have to deal with the extraction that is at foot, it is the reason the financial markets are behaving the way they’re behaving, it is a mathematical fact! This is not some opinion; this is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America. Democrats aren’t doing it, Republicans are not doing it, an entire integrated system, financial system, trading system, taxing system, that was created by both parties over a period of two decades is at work on our entire country right now. And we’re sitting here arguing about whether we should do the $4 trillion plan that kicks the can down the road for the President for 2017, or burn the place to the ground, both of which are reckless, irresponsible, and stupid. And the fact of the matter is until we actually, and I’m sorry to lose my temper, but I tell you what, I’ve been coming on TV for three years doing this, and the fact of the matter is that there’s a refusal on both the Democratic and the Republican side of the aisle to acknowledge the mathematical problem, which is that the United States of America is being extracted. It’s being extracted through banking, it’s being extracted through trade, and it’s being extracted through taxation, and there’s not a single politician that has stepped forward, Susan, to deal with this.

Susan: Yeah, but there’s only one right now, the leader of the free world, whether you like it or not, the President of the United States is arguably one of the most powerful individuals we have out there, and he’s our President.

Karen: But, Susan, what you’re saying is exactly the point that Dylan is making. It’s not about one guy; it’s about all of them.

Susan: No, I actually disagree. I think Dylan – it is about one guy.

Dylan: I agree with her. It is about one guy.

Karen: What would you like him to do? What do you want him to do?

Dylan: I would like him to go to the people of the United States of America and say, “People of the United States of America, your Congress is bought, your Congress is incapable of making legislation on healthcare, banking, trade, or taxes because if they do it, they will lose their political funding and they won’t do it. But I’m the President of the United States, and I won’t have a country that is run by a bought Congress. So I’m not going to work with a bought Congress and try to be Mr. Big Guy, ‘I’m working with a bought Congress’, I’m going to abandon the bought Congress like Teddy Roosevelt did, and I’m going to go to the people of the United States and I’m going to say, ‘You’ve got a bought Congress,” and until we get rid of the bought Congress, which is Jimmy Williams constant point, which is get the money out of politics, and until a President says that’s the problem and says he’s going to fix it, there is no policy that I can possibly see no matter how brilliant your idea may be or your idea or my idea or her idea or your idea at home, is that idea will not happen as long as there’s a capacity to basically fire a politician who disagrees with me by taking funding away from him. Is that a fair assessment?

Jimmy: Money in politics is the root of all political evil. It is corruption at its worst. And until we step up and kick that out of the park, it’s going to be the same system all the way.

Dylan: And only the President can do that.

Jimmy: No, no, no, Congress has to do it, too. Congress has to do it, too.

Dylan: But I’ll tell you what, how bad does it have to get? How much money has to be extracted? How many things have to be heard?

Karen: [cross-talking 07:59] tax. Okay, physically, what do you do?

Dylan: You go and give a speech to…

Karen: Right now.

Dylan: Yeah, right now. You say…

Karen: And then what happens tomorrow?

Dylan: Tomorrow, what happens is you begin the process of actually investing in solving the problems, so I come out and I say, “How?” I create an infrastructure bank with 2% blending immediately. There’s – once I explain to people the problem, once I explain to you that you have cancer, once you understand how screwed up your trade, tax, and banking policies are, believe me, you will have no issue when I incorporate an infrastructure bank that I fund with repatriated offshore money that I bring in and then use to create 2% direct lending to every business in America because when you realize that the banking system is fully corrupt and defrauding us, and I come out and say that, which is what I want my President to do, then at that exact moment I say, “You know what, we’ve got a screwed up situation here, people. You all know it, and now I’m going to admit it.” And as a result, not only have I admitted it, but we’re going to begin the process of solving it like grown ups. They did in World War II, they did it after the Civil War, they did it in Latin America with the Brady Bond; we are not seeing it happen now.

#OWS: What the Media Can't See About America's First Web-Era Movement

#OWS: What the Media Can't See About America's First Web-Era Movement OCT 13 2011, 1:18 PM ET 98 Occupy Wall Street is a pluralist protest that's better at asking questions than offering answers. By cherry-picking messages and images, its critics are missing the bigger picture.

When the now-national demonstrations against the Wall Street / Washington status quo began in New York last month, it was easy (too easy, it turns out) to write the whole thing off as a hackneyed, vapid hipster fest. The most confident early appraisals were essentially exercises in verbalizing the eye-roll: In mainstream news coverage, new-to-CNN business anchor Erin Burnett's first reported segment on the story was called "Seriously?!," a heading that said everything she needed it to. On the (non-libertarian) right, National Review editor Rich Lowry quickly gratified anyone who might happen to hate being surprised by Rich Lowry, identifying the protestors as a "a juvenile rabble" and "woolly-headed horde," "the perfect distillation of an American Left in extremis." Some on the (old-school) left, meanwhile, showed acute disdain, too, with political cartoonist Ted Rall -- author of Wake Up, You're Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back from the Right -- writing that "for me and other older, jaded veterans of leftist struggle, [Occupy Wall Street's] failure was a foregone conclusion. ... yet another opportunity to agitate for real change was being wasted by well-meant wankers."

... this non-movement movement was doomed before it began by its refusal to coalesce around a powerful message, its failure to organize and involve the actual victims of Wall Street's perfidy (people of color, the poor, the evicted, the unemployed, those sick from pollution, etc.), and its refusal to argue and appeal on behalf of a beleaguered working class against an arrogant, violent and unaccountable ruling elite--in other words, to settle for nothing less than the eradication of capitalism.

Now, weeks later, The New Republic has set out to fill a remaining gap on the anti-OWS spectrum, declaring in a behind-the-paywall editorial for the magazine's November 3 issue that liberals should oppose the movement -- chiefly on account of "the protestors' apparent allergy to to capitalism and suspicion of normal democratic norms," but also on account of their "creepy" ways of trying to reach, and speak with, consensus. Yes, TNR is castigating Occupy Wall Street for its putative group-think in a collective statement published under the byline "The Editors." But don't be too distracted by the irony. There's an important issue here: The more we want to take the revolutionary (vs. reformist) strains in OWS rhetoric seriously, the more we'll have to ask a question that real revolutionaries have ended up with some grim answers to, from the Jacobins of the 18th century through the Bolsheviks and Maoists of the 20th: How is society going to work after the Revolution?

The thing is, it's only theoretically an important issue. No one at any Occupy Wall Street demonstration across the country today is actually overthrowing capitalism or America. No one is doing anything to precipitate the overthrow of capitalism or America. No one is even plotting actions that could at-all plausibly threaten to precipitate the overthrow of capitalism or America. True, a bunch of OWS protesters in New York did listen attentively as the Slovenian Marxist-Lacanian critical theorist Slavoj Zizek spoke to them about how awesome it would be if American capitalism came to an end, and how in China people are at least still able to dream of a better world, unlike us, and how blah blah blah. But Slavoj Zizek always talks that way, to the -- let's be clear -- relatively few people in the world who are seriously interested in what he has to say. We shouldn't be shocked that a guy like him would show up at demonstrations like this, nor should we attribute more significance to an appearance like that than it deserves. By all means, let's oppose Slavoj Zizek. But let's not pretend that opposing Slavoj Zizek is somehow opposing the philosophical underpinnings of Occupy Wall Street. You're not going to scratch the surface of signs reading "I Have a 4.0 GPA and $20,000 in Debt; Where's My Bailout?" or "We Want Our Country Back, Bitche$" or "I'm for Regulating the Banks; Apparently That Makes Me a RADICAL" and find Slavoj Zizek. You'll find real people with real stories trying -- with varying degrees, and kinds, of success -- to speak to the economic and political circumstances that determine their lives. Some will be confused, sure, maybe ridiculous; but many have already shown themselves to be, whether ultimately right or wrong, informed, smart, and serious. Why summarily "oppose" them? Why not, say, engage them in conversation? There's no good reason to suspend criticism about Occupy Wall Street, or necessarily to buy into any one of its zillion messages; but there's no good reason, either, just to pick our favorite things to hate about Occupy Wall Street and then tell ourselves that the whole multifaceted, rapidly changing movement must be those things writ large.

Douglas Rushkoff has an intriguing take on Occupy Wall Street that wouldn't have been intuitive to most of us a few weeks ago but may now seem more and more plausible. He thinks it represents the emergence of a new, distinctive, and authentically 21st-century type of social movement, one that a residually 20th-century media is still having a hard time getting its head around:

... we are witnessing America's first true Internet-era movement, which -- unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even the Obama campaign -- does not take its cue from a charismatic leader, express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as having a particular endpoint. Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on. Different people have been affected by different aspects of the same system -- and they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem. ... this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the Internet.

Of course, however well we might understand Occupy Wall Street now, in September and October, we can't really anticipate what the movement will turn into, let alone what a "21st-century social movement" is capable of turning into. Occupy Wall Street could, as far as we know, develop a more traditional organizational hierarchy and "narrative arc." It could fragment into different camps with different policy priorities, or with no policy priorities. It could end up being co-opted by one or more of the interest groups that's already joined with it in apparent solidarity. Who knows. But that's all the more reason why we shouldn't try to write the book on Occupy Wall Street anytime soon. Instead, let's follow this story as it evolves. Let's take advantage of Twitter, Tumblr, Vimeo, and other social media to see it and understand it in ways we haven't been able to see and understand mass-dissent movements in the past. Let's be like the Internet.

Source:
JJ Gould.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/-ows-what-the-media-cant-see-about-americas-first-web-era-movement/246618/

We are the 99% ~ Somos el 99%

I am 62 years old.

I have worked honestly and hard my whole life (since I was 14) because that is how you "realize the American dream".

I was a home builder and designer.

In 1980, the "savings and loan crisis" force me out of work and out of business. (The gov't helped the banks survive...)

I slowly rebuilt my life and business.

In 2007, the "sub-prime mortgage crisis" crushed me again. I lost my home, my wife, and my belief in that "American dream". (The gov't saved the banks again...)

We are the 99%

occupywallst.org

~~~

Tengo 62 años. He trabajado duro y honestamente toda mi vida (desde los 14 años) porque así es como se realiza el "sueño americano¨.

Yo diseñaba y construía casas.

En 1980, la "crisis de ahorros y préstamos" afectó mi negocio y me quedé sin trabajo. (El gob. ayudó a que sobrevivieran los bancos...)

Poco a poco reconstruí mi vida y mi negocio.

En 2007 la "crisis de las hipotecas subprime" me aplastó de nuevo. Perdí mi casa, mi esposa y mi creencia en aquel "sueño americano". (El gob salvó a los bancos otra vez...)

Somos el 99%

occupywallst.org

What if America truly were a Christian nation?

by Tom Ehrich

What if America truly were a Christian nation?

Not a Southern Baptist nation, or an Episcopal nation, or a Roman Catholic nation. Not grounded in the doctrinal and ecclesiastical isms that have grown up over the centuries. But a Christian nation, doing what Jesus did.

Well, we wouldn’t be arguing about sex, that’s for sure. Jesus devoted no time to matters of sexuality.

We wouldn’t be leading cheers for any particular economic system, capitalist or socialist, for in his many teachings about wealth and power, Jesus saw both as snares and delusions.

We wouldn’t be taking votes on who gets medical care, or who gets to live, or who gets to learn, or whose rights matter more, or whose race or religion can’t be allowed to breathe freely. For Jesus gave healing to all who asked, defended the lives of sinners, taught all who were eager to learn, welcomed all to his circle — even outcasts, lepers and children. He had no regard for his own tradition’s finely tuned boundaries.

We wouldn’t be loading great wealth onto the already wealthy, but rather would be asking them to follow the lead of biblical tax collector Zacchaeus and to give away half of what they have.

We wouldn’t need as many lawyers, because generosity would trump tax-reduction strategies, parables would trump rules, property would be shared as needed and people would be forgiving — not suing — each other.

If we were a genuinely Christian nation, we would be gathering the harvest of this abundant land and sharing it with the hungry of our own land and of many lands. We would forgive our enemies, speak truth to power and go forth to serve and to sacrifice, not to rule.

We would stand with the poor when predators circled around them. We would stand with sinners when the self-righteous picked up stones. We would join hands with nonconformists and strangers.

We would become God’s beacon to the nations. And when the tired and poor followed that light to our borders, we would greet them with open arms and make room for them in our communities.

That’s what Jesus did, and that is what it would mean to be a Christian nation.

So to those who insist that America be a Christian nation, I ask: Is this truly what you want? Do you want the I-was-hungry-and-you-gave-me-something-to-eat of Matthew 25? Do you want the Sermon on the Mount? Do you want to shine God’s light in the darkness?

Your behavior says no.

Your shouts against generosity say no.

Your penchant for oppressive culture says no.

Your willingness to shower wealth on the few while the many suffer says no.

Your hostility to freedom says no.

So stop pretending. At least be as honest as the hedge fund manager who paid himself $8 billion last year. It’s “all about the Benjamins,” not the Gospel. It’s about stifling any freedom but your own. It’s about imposing your cultural preferences on others. It’s about turning your fears and appetites into law. It’s about you, not about Jesus Christ.

That’s the nature of politics, of course: one “you” versus another “you.” That’s fine, and it’s why we formed a democracy, so that our various interests could compete fairly. Just spare us the religious posturing.

If America became a Christian nation, doing what Jesus did, you would be aghast.

Source:
Tom Ehrich. "Tom Ehrich asks if we really live like Christians". State Journal-Register. http://www.sj-r.com/features/x1461788336/Tom-Ehrich-asks-if-we-really-live-like-Christians

Glow in the dark surfing ~ Fosforescencia y surfeo

Red Tide Surfing San Diego 2011 Bioluminescence from Loghan Call on Vimeo.

The water glows because there are tiny creatures called plankton in the water that are bioluminescent, which means the plankton give off light as a result of chemical reactions in their bodies. Other animals such as lightning bugs are also naturally bioluminescent.

~~~

El agua resplandece porque hay millones de pequeños animales que son bioluminiscentes. Esto significa que sus cuerpos producen luz como consecuencia de procesos químicos. Otro animal bioluminiscente es la luciérnaga.

Source:
Bioluminescence. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence
Bioluminiscencia. Wikipedia. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminiscencia

Smurf Sighted in the Wild ~ Avistamiento de un pitufo en su hábitat natural

The Smurf is actually the result of a symbiotic relationship between two organisms. We believe that Smurfs put their 'embryos' in the button of a developing mushroom. From a distance, Smurfs seem like they are wearing a hat and pants but as you can see this is a fallacy. The fungus provides camouflage and protective epidermal layers for the creature, while the creature provides nutrients and mobility for the spreading of spores.

Smurfs are believed to be a hunter gatherer society. As you can see, this little guy is returning from a successful venture. It is generally difficult to spot a Smurf; they are very apprehensive and cunning. Sadly though, it is rumored that they are hunted for their medicinal properties. It's hard to determine but it is thought that there are not many colonies of Smurf left.

~~~

El pitufo es, en realidad, el resultado de una simbiosis entre dos organismos. Se cree que el pitufo deposita sus embriones adentro de una seta joven. Desde una distancia parece que el pitufo porta un sombrero y pantalones, pero las apariencias engañan. El hongo le proporciona camuflaje y capas protectoras a la criatura a cambio de nutrientes y movimiento que facilita la distribución de sus esporos.

Se cree que los pitufos son una sociedad cazadora-recolectora. Como se puede observar, este espécimen regresa de una caza fructífera. Por lo general es difícil avistar un pitufo ya que son muy cautelosos y astutos. Lamentablemente, se dice que se cazan por sus propiedades medicinales. Es difícil determinarlo, pero se piensa que no restan muchas colonias de pitufos.

Source:
Nate Hallinan. http://natehallinan.com/gallery/Smurf/Smurf.html

Dignidad rebelde ~ Rebel dignity

Al pueblo de México:
A los pueblos y gobiernos del mundo:

Hermanos:
No morirá la flor de la palabra. Podrá morir el rostro oculto de quien la nombra hoy, pero la palabra que vino desde el fondo de la historia y de la tierra ya no podrá ser arrancada por la soberbia del poder.

Nosotros nacimos de la noche. En ella vivimos. Moriremos en ella. Pero la luz será mañana para los más, para todos aquellos que hoy lloran la noche, para quienes se niega el día, para quienes es regalo la muerte, para quienes está prohibida la vida. Para todos la luz. Para todos todo. Para nosotros el dolor y la angustia, para nosotros la alegre rebeldía, para nosotros el futuro negado, para nosotros la dignidad insurrecta. Para nosotros nada.

Nuestra lucha es por hacernos escuchar, y el mal gobierno grita soberbia y tapa con cañones sus oídos.

Nuestra lucha es por el hambre, y el mal gobierno regala plomo y papel a los estómagos de nuestros hijos.

Nuestra lucha es por un techo digno, y el mal gobierno destruye nuestra casa y nuestra historia.

Nuestra lucha es por el saber, y el mal gobierno reparte ignorancia y desprecio.

Nuestra lucha es por la tierra, y el mal gobierno ofrece cementerios.

Nuestra lucha es por un trabajo justo y digno, y el mal gobierno compra y vende cuerpos y vergüenzas.

Nuestra lucha es por la vida, y el mal gobierno oferta muerte como futuro.

Nuestra lucha es por el respeto a nuestro derecho a gobernar y gobernarnos, y el mal gobierno impone a los más la ley de los menos.

Nuestra lucha es por la libertad para el pensamiento y el caminar, y el mal gobierno pone cárceles y tumbas.

Nuestra lucha es por la justicia, y el mal gobierno se llena de criminales y asesinos.

Nuestra lucha es por la historia, y el mal gobierno propone olvido.

Nuestra lucha es por la Patria, y el mal gobierno sueña con la bandera y la lengua extranjeras.

Nuestra lucha es por la paz, y el mal gobierno anuncia guerra y destrucción.

Techo, tierra, trabajo, pan, salud, educación, independencia, democracia, libertad, justicia y paz. Estas fueron nuestras banderas en la madrugada de 1994. Estas fueron nuestras demandas en la larga noche de los 500 años. Estas son, hoy, nuestras exigencias.

~~~

To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples and the governments of the world:

Brothers and sisters:
The blossoming Word will not die. The hidden face who gives that blossom a name may die, but the Word that came from the depths of history and of the earth can no longer be cut down by the arrogance of power.

We were born of the night. We live in her, and we will die in her. But the dawn tomorrow will be for the many, for all those who weep in the night, for those for whom the day is denied, for those for whom death is a gift, and for those for whom life is denied. For everyone, the light. For everyone, everything. For us, pain and anguish, the joy of rebellion, a future denied, the dignity of insurrection. For us, nothing.

Our struggle is to make ourselves be heard, and bad government screams arrogance and deafens its ears with its cannons.

Our struggle is caused by hunger, and the gifts of bad government are lead and paper for the stomachs of our children.

Our struggle is for a dignified roof over our heads, and bad government destroys our homes and our history.

Our struggle is for knowledge, and bad government distributes ignorance and disdain.

Our struggle is for land, and bad government gives us cemeteries.

Our struggle is for just and dignified employment, and bad government buys and sells our bodies and our shames.

Our struggle is for life, and bad government offers death as our future.

Our struggle is for our right to sovereignty and self-government, and bad government imposes laws of the few on the many.

Our struggle is for freedom of thought and movement, and bad government builds jails and graves.

Our struggle is for justice, and bad government is full of criminals and murderers.

Our struggle is for history, and bad government proposes to forget us.

Our struggle is for the homeland, and bad government dreams with the flag and the language of foreigners.

Our struggle is for peace, and bad government announces war and destruction.

Housing, land, employment, food, education, independence, democracy, liberty, justice and peace. These were our banners during the dawn of 1994. These were our demands during that long night of 500 years. These are, today, our requisitions.

Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice

by Walt Whitman

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten’d—Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet;
Those who love each other shall become invincible—they shall yet make Columbia victorious.

Sons of the Mother of All! you shall yet be victorious!
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.

No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers;
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian’s comrade;
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another, an Oregonese, shall be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come;
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection;
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly;
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron;
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

(Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
—Nay—nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

Porphyria's Lover

by Robert Browning

The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me — she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last l knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While l debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string l wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
l am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
l warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And l untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
l propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And l, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!

For some, this poem is about "a male psychopath living in a remote cottage, probably in Renaissance Italy, who has strangled his mistress and is sitting with her head propped upon his shoulder." (Bowbrow, Fisher. 2003)

However,

Porphyria is an incurable blood disease that disables and kills thousands every year. Its discovery dates back to the mid-1700s, well before Browning wrote "Porphyria's Lover." It is often referred to as mental illness or the Royal Disease, which, given Porphyria's tidy golden hair, means Porphyria could have been royalty inasmuch as that description would not likely be associated with Victorian lower class. Symptoms of Porphyria's disease are repeatedly described within the poem by Browning, e.g. blood loss ("gone so pale"), muscle weakness ("too weak to set her passion free") and light sensitivity which explains why she arrived at night ("rain set in early tonight") — and so on. Victims of Porphyria's disease suffer a horrible death, thus Porphyria's lover committed the highest act of love; he set his lover free from a grisly death.

Sources:
J.T. Best. "'Porphyria's Lover': Vastly Misunderstood Poetry". Victorian Web. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/rb/porphyria/best1.html
Jerry Bobrow & Stephen Fisher. CSET Multiple Subjects. 2003

Sonic Youth - Teen Age Riot

Songwriters: Kim Althea Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee M Ranaldo, Steven Jay Shelley

You're it
No, you're it
Hey, you're really it
You're it
No I mean it, you're it

Say it
Don't spray it
Spirit desire, face me
Spirit desire, don't displace me
Spirit desire
We will fall

Miss me
Don't dismiss me
Spirit desire

Spirit desire
Spirit desire
Spirit desire
We will fall
Spirit desire
We will fall

Spirit desire
Spirit desire
Spirit desire
We will fall
Spirit desire
We will fall

And everybody's talking 'bout the stormy weather
And what's a man do to but work out whether it's true?
Looking for a man with a focus and a temper
Who can open up a map and see between one and two

Time to get it
Before you let it
Get to you

If here he comes now
Stick to your guns
And let him through

And everybody's coming from the winter vacation
Taking in the sun in a exaltation to you
You come running in on platform shoes with Marshall stacks
To at least just give us a clue

Ah, here it comes
I know it's someone I knew
Teenage riot in a public station
Gonna fight and tear it up in a hypernation for you

Now I see it
I think I'll leave it out of the way
Now I come near you
And it's not clear why you fade away

Looking for a ride to your secret location
Where the kids are setting up a free-speed nation, for you
Got a foghorn and a drum and a hammer that's rockin'
And a cord and a pedal and a lock, that'll do me for now

It better work out
I hope it works out my way
'Cause it's getting kind of quiet in my city's head
And takes a teenage riot to get me out of bed right now

You better look it
We're gonna shake it
Up to him

He acts the hero
We paint a zero
On his hand

And we know it's down
We know it's bound too loose
Everybody's sound is round it
Everybody wants to be proud to choose

So who's to take the blame
For the stormy weather
You're never gonna stop all the teenage leather and booze

It's time to go round
A one man showdown
Teach us how to fail

We're off the streets now
And back on the road
On the riot trail

Chilean demonstrators splattered riot police in paint on August 25, 2011. Demonstrators in Chile want fundamental reforms to public education in order to make it more accessible to the general public.
Photo: Victor R. Caviano/AP