Naomi Klein: And so, one of the things that’s happening — and this is why we so desperately need the debate — is while it is true that a bunch of losing candidates in the Democratic primary have endorsed Joe Biden, reality keeps endorsing Bernie Sanders. That is true for Medicare for All, and we’re going to be hearing from NNU and Alicia Garza more on that, because it is the care sector, it is nurses and home care workers, who are on the frontlines of this crisis, and we are seeing the living argument for why we need everybody to have health insurance, everybody to have paid sick leave. But instead of that, we have the Trump administration talking about cutting the payroll tax, which of course is a backdoor way of cutting Social Security and then privatizing Social Security. So it is extremely relevant that Joe Biden has a decades-long track record of trying to cut Social Security in a bipartisan way. More here.
Category: politics
Incredible Animation Summarises Noam Chomsky’s 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine
ooh this is good! chomsky’s ‘manufacturing consent’ wonderfully animated, and narrated by amy goodman.
There is quantitative evidence disproving the “Bernie Bro” myth
obvi.
‘A computational social scientist’s study shows Bernie’s Twitter followers act pretty much the same as everyone else.’ More here.
‘books sandwiched in’ at wood library
spoke about ‘citizen: an america lyric,’ part of ‘books sandwiched in’ at wood library in #canandaigua today. discussed the book (with a clip from an interview with claudia rankine), the idea of #microaggressions, the toll they take on the body, and how my film #TheInjuredBody was inspired by the book. shared some clips from the film and explained how dance, the muscular contraction of the body, and breathing are important themes in the film. the Q & A was particularly lively with some resistance to microaggressions i shared as examples. will write more about that. but the library’s director realized how such convos were badly needed, and asked for names of activists and speakers. i guess that’s a step forward. here i am with jenny goodemote the library’s executive director.
international women’s day 2020
instead of mollycoddling privileged white women, on this international women’s day, let’s lift the voices of the most marginalized and courageous. let’s pledge solidarity to the women of shaheen bagh in india, to indigenous women here, in canada and south america, to the women of the black lives matter movement, to arab feminists and revolutionaries fighting patriarchy as well as imperial wars, to women struggling for prison abolition and immigration reform, to kashmiri women, palestinian women, uighur and rohingya women who continue to resist, to women from the senegal, chad, kenya and south africa fighting for the world’s oceans, to the women of chile, mexico and bolivia, to all our powerful sisters across the globe, we see u – we will sink or swim together.
Biden Surrogate Whitesplains MLK To Nina Turner
as galling as this is, it’s so familiar, so recognizable.
universal healthcare over empty representation
i understand that warren supporters are disappointed, i would be too if someone i believed in and campaigned for didn’t get the votes to stay in the race. but some of the tributes to warren that i am seeing on social media are ridiculous. like this one: ‘one day, some day, maybe this nation will be worthy of elizabeth warren. this is not that day.’
for real? i am sorry (and i know this will be unpopular) but i have to call out nonsense when i see it. i understand that warren is a woman and that, in and of itself, is a challenge. trust me, all women can ‘feel’ that in their bodies. but at the end of the day, i will vote for universal healthcare over gender. i will do it every single time.
universal healthcare is the foundation on which we build an egalitarian society and that’s particularly important to me as a woman and poc.
also, sanders might be an old white man (as warren supporters like to describe him) but he’s also jewish, not the most privileged group of people in the world historically. as a muslim woman, as a religious minority, as someone who is used to my people being constantly orientalized, othered and attacked, i’d love to see the american presidency open up that way and embrace the kind of socialist reform that i associate closely with islam.
i don’t think our nation (whatever that means) is not worthy of warren, rather we, as human beings, are certainly worthy of medicare for all.
panelists for post screening discussion
After the screening of ‘A Thin Wall’ there will be a Q&A discussion about the film, the 1947 partition, and the current news coming out of India.
I will be joined by Hibah Arshad, who will speak from personal experience about what it’s like to have family in India.
Hibah Arshad is a graduate of the University of Rochester. She majored in Psychology and is planning to pursue a career in medicine. She has been actively involved in interfaith efforts and community outreach for a number of years. She is a first generation Indian-American, and hopes to bring light to the impact that these recent events have had on Indian Muslims around the world.
My second co-panelist, for our post-screening discussion, will be Thomas Gibson. Tom will talk about British colonialism, the history of the RSS and European fascism. He will also locate the Delhi pogrom in a global, neoliberal context. Here is his bio.
Thomas Gibson is an anthropologist who has conducted extensive field research in the Philippines and Indonesia on religious nationalism, the indigenous peoples movement, and the legacy of Spanish, American and Dutch colonialism in Southeast Asia. He teaches courses at the University of Rochester on Radical Social Theory, American Empire, and Political Ontology.
Sat. March 14 // 6-9 PM // 36 King Street
Tickets on sale now:
$8/online // $10/ at the door
http://tiny.cc/540thinwall
From Secular Talk
Secular Talk
@KyleKulinski
If you believe in real change I’m humbly asking you to back Bernie tomorrow. You see how panicked the establishment is & how they’ll stop at nothing to take him down. That should tell you something powerful.
why the partition is still relevant
when i was working on ‘a thin wall,’ some people questioned its relevance. after all, why would something that happened in 1947, on the other side of the planet, in south asia, have any relevance for the world in the 21st century.
the advent of fascism in india along with the recent violence unleashed on minorities, especially the anti-muslim pogrom in delhi, have everything to do with the partition – with ethnonationalism, racial supremacy, and ideas of separation and ‘purity.’ many have likened the pogrom to kristallnacht in 1930s germany. there are also astounding similarities to the incitement and killings of 1947.
so far there has been no public discussion in rochester about the unraveling of india, what arundhati roy describes as follows:
‘A democracy that is not governed by a Constitution and one whose institutions have all been hollowed out can only ever become a majoritarian state. You can agree or disagree with a Constitution as a whole or in part – but to act as though it does not exist as this government is doing is to completely dismantle democracy. Perhaps this is the aim. This is our version of the coronavirus. We are sick.’
pls join us for a vigorous post-screening discussion and learn more. this can happen anywhere, especially in the US where fascism has already become a reality.
will be posting the bios of my co-panelists soon.
tea with ruhi
spent the afternoon with the remarkable ruhi maker – lawyer extraordinaire, activist committed to racial justice, powerful change-maker. i always feel i’m home when i’m with ruhi.
Ernesto Cardenal (Jan 20, 1925 – March 1, 2020)
His poetry is ‘so deeply engaged with the historical, political, and spiritual landscape of his life that biography and bibliography seem almost arbitrary distinctions. Priest, social activist, and the former Minister of Culture in Sandinista Nicaragua, Cardenal is the most urgent and eloquent voice in a country of poets and revolutionaries, a cultural icon whose life and writings have altered history.’
From Cantiga 2: The Word:
Each person is for another person.
I am not I rather you are I!
One is the I of a you
or one is nothing.
I am nothing more than you otherwise if not I am not!
I am yes. I am Yes to a you, to a you for me,
to a you for me.
People are dialogue, I say,
if not their words would touch nothing
like waves in the cosmos picked up by no radio,
like messages to uninhabited planets,
or a bellowing in the lunar void
or a telephone call to an empty house.
(A person alone does not exist.)
I tell you again, my love:
I am you and you are me.
I am: love.
[Translated from the Spanish by John Lyons]
Cambridge Lecturer Priya Gopal on the Anti-Muslim Pogrom in Delhi
“I’m afraid that the parallels to 1930s Germany are extremely clear.”
Priya Gopal on Anti-Muslim Pogrom in Delhi @Democracy Now!
choreographing a piece about micro-aggressions
dance performance and collab
