politics

Yay USA

Submitted by steev on 4. July 2010 - 13:07.

Happy birthday United States of America. Happy blow-shit-up and barbecue some meat and get drunk day.desecrated flags

While I acknowledge there are some nice things about this nation that I've been lucky enough to be born a citizen of, today I want to think and write about the common belief held by lots of Unitedstatesians that their country is "the best".  "We're number 1!" we hear them shout. Rah Rah.

Let's get right to it. Where are we, exactly, in the rankings? Are we Numero Uno?  How do we compare? Read more>>>

The Cost of Privilege: Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism

Submitted by steev on 20. June 2010 - 17:27.

The Cost of Privilege: Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism

Author: 
Chip Smith
Date read: 
Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700
Review: 
i have an early proof copy of this, and the subtitle is slightly different: &#34;Overcoming White Supremacy and Racism&#34;. <br/> <br/>This is a great book. Every white person should be required to read this, but then again, if we lived in a world where that was required then maybe they wouldn't need to read it. ha. <br/> <br/>Anyway, I think anyone who wants to learn about the history of racism and &#34;whiteness&#34; and also get ideas for how to advance their own personal and social struggle against white supremacy would benefit from this book. It's clearly written and covers all the bases in a thorough and persuasive manner.

Border Violence claims are BULLSHIT

Submitted by steev on 10. June 2010 - 11:52.

I've long been making this same criticism but this is so well done and so forceful and eloquent that I just have to slap it up here on this blog. enjoy.

Related commentary here: http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2010/06/09/border-cities-are-safest-in-na...

The message U.S. Border Enforcement seems to be sending is that Read more>>>

ok, but you'd be in big trouble if she won. (actually all of us would be)

Submitted by steev on 1. June 2010 - 12:05.

detritus posted a photo:

ok, but you'd be big trouble if she won.

in Silver City

Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction

Submitted by steev on 23. January 2010 - 8:18.

Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction

Author: 
Margaret Killjoy
Date read: 
Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800
Review: 
This is pretty interesting stuff. It gets a bit redundant by about 2/3 of the way through. Some of it is sort of like reading celebrity interviews in something like People magazine, only more niche-market of course, but still with the more famous authors it's a little bit... fawning or fannish. Then the other lesser-known authors are mostly traveller kid types like the editor, so it sort of devolves into a friendly compare-notes kind of chat about lifestyle and &#34;war stories&#34; and such.

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Submitted by steev on 24. October 2009 - 6:46.
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Author: 
Eric Hoffer
Date read: 
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700
Review: 
In this slim volume psychologist and thinker Eric Hoffer wrote down his observations on many regrettable social groups like the Nazis, Stalin's USSR, and Mussolini's facists, as well as more debatable tendencies like Zionism, the Christian church, and Islam. The fact that the book was first published in 1951 gives it, in hindsight, some limitations. <br/> <br/>First of all, the world was about to see the beginning of a series of what almost everyone agrees are positive examples of mass movements: the civil rights movements, the anti-war movement, women's liberation, and later the anti-globalization movement and renewed anti-war-on-terror movement.

Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

Submitted by steev on 7. September 2009 - 11:24.

Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents

Author: 
Ellen Ullman

Resisting the Virtual Life: Culture and Politics of Information

Submitted by steev on 7. September 2009 - 11:23.

Resisting the Virtual Life: Culture and Politics of Information

Author: 
Iain A. Boal
Date read: 
Wed, 01 Jan 1997 00:00:00 -0800

Stunts

Submitted by steev on 29. August 2009 - 15:28.

In less than 24 hours I've read 2 articles, one in the Times and one a book review by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker, about people who do "stunts" in order to raise awareness or disseminate knowledge about climate change. It's a trend where various writers and activists and others do some symbolic act, like a Thoreau-esque thing such as living for a year without electricity, or an attention-getting feat like walking across the country, and hence get people to think about this stuff and pay attention in a different way.

Kolbert rightly points out that a lot of the motivation for this is that few people want to be clobbered with yet another doom-and-gloom scenario that makes them feel like they're bad people for driving or buying plastic bottles. As the New York Times article concludes of the folks Greta Browne meets on her cross-country climate walk,

In the end, Ms. Browne said, she thinks that most people are sympathetic and want to do something

Remember...

Submitted by steev on 25. May 2009 - 14:16.

On this day, Memorial Day, please take the time, just a minute if that's all you have, to not only think of those who fought in our wars, but also think about how few of those wars were really necessary, and how many of them were begun based on lies to the american people.
eyes wide open - 6 Read more>>>

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