Month: November 2016

You Should Be Terrified That People Who Like “Hamilton” Run Our Country | Current Affairs

ALEX NICHOLS: The conservative-liberal D.C. consensus on Hamilton makes perfect sense. The musical flatters both right and left sensibilities. Conservatives get to see their beloved Founding Fathers exonerated for their horrendous crimes, and liberals get to have nationalism packaged in a feel-good multicultural form. The more troubling questions about the country’s origins are instantly vanished, as an era built on racist forced labor is transformed into a colorful, culturally progressive, and politically unobjectionable extravaganza.

As the director of the Hamilton theater said, “It has liberated a lot of people who might feel ambivalent about the American experiment to feel patriotic.” “Ambivalence,” here, means being bothered by the country’s collective idol-worship of men who participated in the slave trade, one of the greatest crimes in human history. To be “liberated” from this means never having to think about it.

In that respect, Hamilton probably is the “musical of the Obama era,” as The New Yorker called it. More here.

Standing Rock Prostests Escalate As Police Attack Activists With Water Cannons In Freezing Weather, Call For More National Guard Troops

PLEASE CALL THE FOLLOWING AGENCIES:

ND Office of the Governor: 701-328-2200
Morton County Sheriff’s Department: 701-328-8118 & 701-667-3330
ND National Guard: 701-333-2000

Demand that they have law enforcement STAND DOWN on Highway 1806. There is no room in a democracy to firehose, tear gas or use rubber bullets on peaceful, unarmed water protectors. More here.

A New Documentary Explores the Devastating Effects of Drone Warfare on Victims and Whistleblowers

“That truck would make a beautiful target,” one of the operators says. The crew analyzes the convoy, debating whether children are present. “I really doubt that child call, man. I really fucking hate that shit.”
Under the watchful gaze of the drone crew, the families disembark from the convoy, stopping to pray at the side of the road. After a brief pause, they get back in their cars and continue their journey, still unaware that they are being stalked from above.

The drone crew, satisfied that they have a legitimate target in their sights, make the necessary preparations to use force.
As the cars trundle down the road, they open fire.

“And….oh…there it goes!” one of the pilots exclaims. The first car in the convoy, struck by a missile, disappears into in a giant cloud of dust. Moments later, a second car explodes. People run out of the remaining vehicle, waving at the aircraft above to stop firing. They brandish pieces of cloth at the sky to try and indicate they are non-combatants. A woman can be seen holding a child. More here.

Rising Up: The Alams

Want to know what resistance to the “Muslim registrations” can look like? This is the first in a series of posts sharing historical examples of resistance from DRUM, with this one focusing on resistance from impacted communities (DRUM members) themselves. THIS TIME, we must focus on preventing such programs from starting in the first place. #CedeNoGround #Here2StayHere2Fight

Extreme Center Goes After Anti-Trump Protesters

Adam Johnson: Worst of the alt-center attacks on the protests was Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak who, in “Stop Protesting Democracy. Saying #NotMyPresident Is the Same as Saying #NotMyConstitution” (11/14/16), took false equivalency to heretofore unseen levels of vulgarity.

Setting aside the adolescent writing (Gratuitous. Periods. Make. Platitudes. Seem. Important.), Dvorak is, quite shockingly, equating dumpster fires in Portland with spraypainting “Trump Nation. Whites Only” on a Spanish-language church in Maryland. From the outset, we have two “extremes”: those protesting–and occasionally causing property damage–in the face of emboldened fascists, and the fascists themselves. To the alt-center, these two poles are moral equals, two sides of the same ideological coin, and must be condemned in equal terms.

What Dvorak fails to understand is that the protestors aren’t protesting “democracy” as such, they’re protesting the pending presidency of a man who is stocking his White House with white nationalists, Islamophobes and gay-baiters—not to mention people with a notorious hostility toward democracy itself. They’re protesting someone who has pledged—and to a large extent already begun planning—the deportation of millions. In the face of this crisis, many have chosen to take to the street to send a message his agenda will not be acquiesced to without resistance, both legal and extralegal. More here.

DRUM on Muslim Registrations

Dear friends and allies, this is from DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving, a wonderful grassroots organization based in NYC. You might want to connect in order to work with them directly:

“Muslim Registrations”?

We have been here before.

As an organization that led the NYC efforts against NSEERS Special Registration in the aftermath of 9/11, lost hundreds of members to subsequent deportations, and still have members who survived, we know that we cannot cede an inch of ground to racists in power.

As DRUM members chanted at a march on Sunday, our goal must be:
“WE WILL NOT SUBMIT! WE WILL NOT COMPLY!”
We don’t need allies to volunteer to register; we need allies to join in the efforts to resist the creation of the program period!

Please stay tuned for next steps

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In September of 2002, Ashcroft and Bush announced the NSEERS (Special Registrations) program that forced non-citizen men from 25 countries (24 Muslim majority + North Korea –> Diversity!) to register with the government. Over 83,000 registered, and over 13,000 were put into deportation proceedings.

DRUM in partnership with allies (Prison Moratorium Project – Center for Nu-Leadership, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice [JFREJ], CHRI, and others) formed and led the Coalition Against Special Registrations, and held dozens of Know Your Rights trainings for community members in neighborhoods across the city and outside Federal Plaza, weekly vigils outside Federal Plaza, collecting info and contacts of registrants before they went in, a jail communication and support network, and organizing families whose loved ones registered and got detained or deported.

A shout-out to two friends and their wonderful books

Belén Fernández’s “Martyrs Never Die: Travels through South Lebanon” is hard to classify – it’s a travelogue, it’s journalism, it’s an honest and clear-eyed encounter with South Lebanon. What was surprising for me, in spite of my familiarity with the region’s history and politics, was the level, scale and frequency of Israeli violence in that part of the world, such that its presence is deeply imprinted on both the South Lebanese landscape and people. A must read.

Delia Robinson’s “A Shirtwaist Story” is a beautifully crafted book that tells the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, from an unusual perspective. Inventive and dynamic, full of Delia’s fiery art and imagination, this is a book everyone should own.

Montréal – Nov 2016

The Illuminated Crowd
The Illuminated Crowd

Algonquin Creation Myth, part of Cité Mémoire
Algonquin Creation Myth, part of Cité Mémoire

Algonquin Creation Myth, part of Cité Mémoire 2
Algonquin Creation Myth, part of Cité Mémoire 2

Algonquin Creation Myth, part of Cité Mémoire 3
Algonquin Creation Myth, part of Cité Mémoire 3

My guide, Pierre
My guide, Pierre

4 Course Dinner at Alexandre et Fils
4 Course Dinner at Alexandre et Fils

Robert Mapplethorpe: Perfection at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
Robert Mapplethorpe: Perfection at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal

The Eye by David Altmejd
The Eye by David Altmejd

Mara Ahmed at SAFF in Montréal
Mara Ahmed at SAFF in Montréal

Opera like no other

saw this wonderful mexican-american, multi-media opera at the eastman theatre today and loved every minute of it.
…

Daniel J. Kushner: In the opera, Soprano Tony Arnold plays the character known as “the author,” who battles the demons of writer’s block in an attempt to create lasting and meaningful art. Among the other characters are what Sánchez-Gutiérrez describes as “amorphous creatures,” ideas not yet fully formed that act as a kind of choir in support of the drama. The puppets and costumes featured in “Don’t Blame Anyone” (“No Se Culpe a Nadie” in Spanish) are fantastical and imbued with a cryptic surrealism.
While the visuals — somewhat similar in tone to those in the Guillermo del Toro film “Pan’s Labyrinth” — are a little discomforting, they’re also profoundly imaginative and fascinating. Adding to that the musical styles of both composers, the visceral combines with the otherworldly in a way that accentuates a sense of wonder, mysticism, and even dread.

This ambitious artistic endeavor benefits from the official involvement of the Mexican government — amid an American political landscape blanketed with the long shadow of Donald Trump-era, anti-immigrant discrimination and xenophobia. The operatic premiere begins to take on a major cultural significance in Rochester and beyond. More here.