On 4/25/2019 I briefly attended the Boston Free Chelsea Manning protest of the incarceration of Chelsea Manning co-organized by BU Students Against Imperialism and MIT Students Against War.
Speakers advocated for pardons for Reality Winner and American Indian Movement Leader Leonard Peltier, as well as stopping the extradition proceedings against Julian Assange and US support for the war in Yemen.
Earlier that day I came across the Protected Bike Lanes Save Lives stand out in Porter Square, Cambridge and took this photograph that I hope communicates the need for separating bike lanes from lanes for automobiles:
Election day is 13 14 days away. Early voting starts today in Massachusetts and concludes on November 2nd. Find your city or town’s early voting times.
Whenever you vote, I ask you to vote yes on Questions 1 and 3.
Question 1 would set the maximum number of patients per registered nurse which would vary by type of unit and level of care. Our increasingly corporate-controlled health care providers are against it as it would harm their profits. Send them a message that people deserve decent healthcare and vote yes.
Question 3 prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity in places of public accommodation. The legislature already approved it, but some anti-trans bigots believe that our fellow trans citizens and residents do not deserve equality and are using lies and fear mongering to try to get their way. Don’t let them win; vote yes.
On Question 2, I have not made up my mind. Question 2 would create a citizens commission to advance an amendment to the United States Constitution to limit the influence of money in elections and establish that corporations do not have the same rights as human beings. I do not believe that corporations should have the same rights as individuals and I agree that we need to remove the corrupting influence of money in politics. Considering the influence of the rich and corporations on both major parties and on politics, it is pretty clear that once we open up any citizens process to amend the US Constitution, the rich will do their best to rewrite it in ways that enshrine their power and ideas.
If this movie is half a good as its trailer, it should be fantastic. African-American women mathematicians/engineers at NASA during the space program in the 1950s and 1960s. What’s not to like.
I only got to meet Aaron Swartz once. It was a great conversation and I feel lucky to have had that brief time to talk with him.
When I heard he died nearly a year ago, like many I was shocked and saddened. His death was not only a loss for his family and friends, but was our loss.
Yet, I feel I have a special bond with Aaron. You see on that January day, I realized that his death was on the birthday of one of my children. Later I discovered that his birth date was the same as that of my other child. That realization comforted me for when I look at my kids I will always remember him.
On Monday, January 13 starting at 3pm, Pirates will join with others to honor the memory of Aaron Swartz. We hope you will join us.
We will gather in front of the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, One Courthouse Way in Boston. To get there by MBTA, take the Silver line to the Courthouse Station, or the Red line to South Station and walk.
The memorial will last from 3:00pm until 7:00pm.
There is a Facebook event with more details as well as demanding Carmen Ortiz’s job.
And an equally basic essential to peace is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all Nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want. – FDR
Chris Hedges over at TruthDig has a well thought out article on our transition from Huxley’s Brave New World to Orwell’s 1984. Corporate/Governmental domination R Us. A few exerpts:
“The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s “Brave New World” to Orwell’s “1984.” The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity. The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called “near poverty,” coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills, means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work.
…
Those who do not comply with the dictates of the war on terror, a war which, as Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally silenced. The draconian security measures used to cripple protests at the G-20 gatherings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly disproportionate for the level of street activity. But they sent a clear message—DO NOT TRY THIS. The FBI’s targeting of antiwar and Palestinian activists, which in late September saw agents raid homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of what is to come for all who dare defy the state’s official Newspeak. The agents—our Thought Police—seized phones, computers, documents and other personal belongings. Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have since been served on 26 people. The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting “providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.” Terror, even for those who have nothing to do with terror, becomes the blunt instrument used by Big Brother to protect us from ourselves.”
On the face of it I don’t buy that high government deficits mean that the US government will be crippled. The Fed can easily print money to pay those deficits and we could inflate our way out of our debts albeit slowly and reasonably. A bit of inflation tends to improve the situation better than the deflation we are approaching.
That all said, the one and half parties of the wealthy will attempt to convince us otherwise, cut the deficit by imposing austerity on the poor and middle class, not the wealthy or the military. They never willingly impose austerity on the wealthy or the military. Chris’ suggestions of our path looks true to me.
UPDATE: A friend suggested that Chris Hedges’ article reminded her of this Barbara Ehrenreich talk, put to cartoons – Smile or Die!
Mark Boyle over at Just for the love of it posted a useful piece on why he attempts to live a life of zero waste and simplicity. Here is one quote:
"Because we are so disconnected from the embodied energy, embodied
suffering and embodied destruction that goes into the things we buy,
the natural ecology of the planet we share is being eroded by the
minute, factory farms and horrific slaughterhouses have become insanely
'normal', and we kill millions of people in the middle east just so
that us greedy bastards can have the luxurious, built-in-obsolescence
gadgetry that oil cheap oil affords us. I am sorry if that sounds
harsh, but the truth shouldn't be avoided for fear of offence. One of
the problems in the media and the publishing world is that everyone is
so cautious that they'll upset the reader and lose some sales, and so
the truth is rarely laid bare. We're adults though, so lets all grow
up, it's really our ego's that are making this planet inhabitable for
many species."
Haiti had its latest devastation with the earthquake they suffered two days ago. After being hit by four hurricanes in 2008 and 100s of years of US and French occupation/meddling, the earthquake was very devastating.
With at least three million people homeless, and likely over 100,000 people dead, it would be an understatement to say that things are dire there. Bikes Not Bombs and WBUR have sites you can go to listing organizations that can help. Locally, Partners in Health setup a page with news and ways for people to donate. The Red Cross has setup a way to make a $10 donation by texting "Haiti" to 90999.
With 2.8 million homes foreclosed on in 2009 (higher than in 2008) and more bad economic news to come, it can be tough to find the money to give, but if you can, please do.
UPDATE: Just found out that my employer has a part to play in the Red Cross' 90999 text message donation program. No company on the message path charges anything, so 100% of what you give goes to the Red Cross. Not an endorsement, just a clarification.
