Hawaiians make move for national sovereignty and occupy historic palace, declaring it would take over the official government duties. The Hawaii Kingdom Government is a constitutional monarchy of the rightfully independent nation of Hawaii. They do not recognize Hawaii as a U.S. state, but as an autonomous nation occupied by the United States.
Radiohead joins MTVexit to make this video about sweatshop labor.
Because the project is funded in part by USAID, I’m surprised how not terrible it is. Sure, it’s cliche and not insightful, but at least, it’s not dehumanizing and it makes the connection between the two kids.
It just doesn’t offer any analysis about the problem — why is the white kid wearing the shoes made by the other kid? And who is profiting from the exploitation of child labor? Corporations — like those who sponsor MTV programming and that of other Viacom networks.
And it doesn’t really offer any solutions. But MTVexit isn’t really about stopping sweatshop labor. Their mission statement says they want to increase awareness about human trafficking through education and outreach with local anti-trafficking organizations. Sounds like they’re trying for an easy PR boost.
Few would deny that child labor and human trafficking are bad — besides Nicholas Kristof, Milton Friedman and a few other insane ideologues who deny reality and ignore human suffering — so I can’t see what this campaign actually hopes to do — besides give MTV the false appearance of caring.
By the way, MTV’s website has a whole section on activism, listed under the subtitle “Movies, Games & More.”
SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former first lady who hasn’t driven a car or pumped gas in many years because of Secret Service restrictions, joined a blue-collar worker at a filling station Wednesday to illustrate how the high price of gasoline is squeezing consumers.
The Democratic presidential candidate and sheet metal worker Jason Wilfing, 33, pulled into the station in a large white Ford 250 pickup truck, Clinton riding shotgun. Never mind that it wasn’t even Wilfing’s truck — he had borrowed his boss’s larger vehicle to accommodate Clinton’s security agent and personal assistant, who rode in the back.
Trailing Wilfing and Clinton was a Secret Service motorcade consisting of six gas-guzzling Suburbans, two squad cars and a green SUV bearing photographers and TV cameras. Several other reporters and cameramen stood shivering in unseasonably cold temperatures, ready to capture the multi-vehicle arrival.
Clinton and Wilfing stepped out of the car and approached the pump. Wilfing chose regular unleaded gasoline, and began filling the tank. The two engaged in chit chat, with New York senator mentioning her proposal for a temporary gas tax holiday to ease the price pinch on consumers.
The tank filled, Clinton looked at the price recorded at the pump and shook her head.
“Sixty-three dollars,” she said. “For just about half a tank.”
First they randomly (racially profiling) targeted Sean Bell and two of his friends as they leave a club after celebrating his bachelor party. As he got into a car, the police began shooting at them - firing 50 rounds and killing Sean Bell.
The police claimed that they were fired on, but no gun was found on the other side. The men were completely unarmed and guilty of NO CRIME.
The trial only lasted two months.
This is a disgusting outcome. Shame on Judge Arthur J. Cooperman.
And why was there no jury trial? oh right, the three police didn’t want it and opted to go before the superior court. Good ‘ole democracy.
Civil rights leaders demanded a federal investigation and vowed to march through the streets in protest after three police officers were cleared of all charges in the killing of an unarmed black man. (April 25)
“We’re going to demonstrate to the government that New Yorkers will not take this abortion of justice lying down,” said Al Sharpton, prominent civil rights leader.
“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Hillary Clinton declared to an early morning audience on Good Morning America. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”
Not quite what I want to wake up hearing. What the fuck. She may as well have sang it as McCain did, “Bomb, bomb, bomb. bomb-bomb Iran.”
It’s official. I despise her.
But at least she’s now being honest about how hateful she really is. No more of those silly lies about diplomacy and measured action. Is this truthfulness a new shift in her campaign strategy?
Next up: “I supported and still support NAFTA - it was good for my friends at Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and other former clients.”
Yesterday during a radio interview, Bill Clinton said, “[Obama and his campaign] played the race card on me.” Right, because black people have a special card - not only does it help them win the presidency (so successful in the past!), but it can also get them out of jail free and let them off with a warning when police pull them for speeding.
Come on, Billary, stop being such a supercilious racist. Race privilege doesn’t mean that black people have a card they can pull, but that white people have a knapsack full of shit they didn’t earn.
“Hold on a second,” Obama responded when asked about Clinton’s recent remarks. “So former President Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he is suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it?
“You better ask him what he meant by that. I have no idea what he meant. These were words that came out of his mouth. Not words that came out of mine.”
His words? Bill says they’re not. Billary’s now denying he made the comments that he made while on-air. Frankly, by now, he should know the futility of disavowing something recorded. Ridiculous.
People are dieing younger in many of our nation’s worst off counties, a new study has found. The study authors conclude, “[T]he 1980s and 1990s marked an era of increased inequalities in mortality in the United States.”
“[These inequalities are] particularly troubling,” the researchers explain, “because an oft-stated aim of the U.S. health system is the improvement of the health of all people, and especially those at greater risk of health disparities.”
Despite its stated goals, our health system is leaving many people without the care they need to live. The insurance driven healthcare is not covering everyone. It is inadequate and the price is deadly.
We need universal, single payer healthcare to remove these unjust inequalities, so no one’s life is needlessly cut short.
Obama is a friend of Palestine? So says an article on the front page of the L.A. Times.
The Nation implies it is poor and misleading reporting on the LA Times part, and I agree. By hyping up the article and catering to Anti-Palestinian groups, the author confounds the facts and obscures the truth.
The evidence that Obama supports Palestine? He attended events with prominent literature professors and scholars of Arab history - Edward Said [an influential critical theorist and major contributer to the founding of postcolonial theory] and Rashid Khalidi [the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University].
From left to right, Michelle Obama, then Illinois state senator Barack Obama, Columbia University Professor Edward Said and Mariam Said at a May 1998 [TEN YEARS AGO] Arab community event in Chicago at which Edward Said gave the keynote speech. Electronic Intifada
I think it’s great that Obama heard lectures from the late Edward Said - I wish I could have! Said as “a Palestinian and a leading American intellectual” wrote one of the most important critiques of Western constructions of the East - Orientalism. (more…)
The Atlantic Monthly offers a good assessment of the media’s reaction to Jeremiah Wright and his condemnation of racist U.S. policies. The uproar of many white pundits was less to do with the content of Wright’s message - as demonstrated by their rampant de-contextualizing - and more to do with how that message shattered their dearly-held conceptions of who Obama is.
Many white people finally realized Obama cannot be colorblind because he, in fact, is a black man with the lived experiences of a person of color in a racist society. And because of that, he may very well - let’s hope - share some of Wright’s opinions.
No matter the rhetoric he employs, Obama cannot be “post-racial” in a world that still churns profits and white comfort out of oppressions based on race.
His glamour explains a campaign paradox: how a man who wrote a race-conscious coming-of-age memoir about his search for a black identity could be touted as a “post-racial” candidate. The allure of his origins obscured his own account of his inner life.
That’s one reason the revelation of his religious mentor’s racially charged sermons proved so potent. Obama’s association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright revealed to white audiences that the senator is a self-defined black man who listens sympathetically to—and might even share—the angry grievances of other African Americans. His rhetoric may be inclusive, but he is not colorblind. He does not, by his mere existence, make America’s racial divisions disappear.
A provocative new study from Northwestern University suggests that whites who are particularly worried about appearing racist seem to suffer from anxiety that may cause them to avoid interaction with blacks in the first place.
“The Threat of Appearing Prejudiced and Race-based Attentional Biases,” by Jennifer A. Richeson, associate professor of psychology and African-American studies and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern, and Sophie Trawalter, post-doctoral fellow, IPR, recently appeared in the journal Psychological Science.
The study participants - 15 white college students - tried to act in unprejudiced ways toward blacks primarily for appearance’s sake to avoid social disapproval — not because of their personal values.
And a related topic, “I’m not a racist; I have black friends”: black people love us
While men are more likely to tolerate of discrimination, everyone tended to accept the most prejudice against poorly educated immigrants and Arab American airplane travelers, according to a study by the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics.
Through both phone and internet surveys, researchers asked more than 3,300 people to evaluate five scenarios, each of which dealt with a form of discrimination targeting a distinct class of people: Arab American airplane travelers, seriously overweight people, the genetically disadvantaged, poorly educated immigrants and African American motorists.
Based on the phone interviews, men were 7.6 percent more likely to tolerate discrimination against the obese and 8.9 percent more likely to accept racial profiling of African-American motorists. And men were even more tolerant of discrimination in the Web survey: men were 19.6 percent more likely to tolerate discrimination against the obese and 17.4 percent more likely to accept racial profiling.
Tolerance Index: A ranking of acceptance of discrimination
Poorly educated immigrants - around 30 percent
Arab-Americans airplane travelers - around 20 percent
Seriously overweight people - around 14 percent
African American motorists - around 13 percent
Genetically disadvantaged people - around 5 percent
Conclusions: nearly one-third of people surveyed tolerate racism against brown people, one-third of the respondents suck and men suck more.
We should never tolerable discrimination and oppression.
While U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads rival Hillary Clinton in the polls, Palestinians in Gaza are launching their own attempt to boost his campaign.
Isn’t this support a bit bizarre? Obama has made considerable effort over the last year to demonstrate his allegiance to Israel. And in his appeal to U.S. Jewish communities, the deputy speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Josh Shapiro proclaimed Obama’s “100 percent voting record on Israel issues.”
The FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr. for nearly five years from 1963 until his assassination in 1968. After approving the wiretaps, attorney general Robert Kennedy specifically requested to be personally informed about any findings.
After his “I have a dream” speech, the FBI called him, the “most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.”
When King learned he would be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the FBI decided to take its harassment of King one step further, sending him an insulting and threatening note anonymously. A draft was found in the FBI files years later. In it the FBI wrote, “You are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that.” The letter went on to say, “The American public … will know you for what you are — an evil, abnormal beast,” and “Satan could not do more.”
It really begs the question of what was blacked out, a friend points out. If all of that horribleness was deemed acceptable, what could be so bad to warrant the censorship?
The letter’s threat was ominous, if not specific: “King you are done.” Some have theorized the intent of the letter was to drive King to commit suicide in order to avoid personal embarrassment. “King, there is only one thing left for you to do,” the letter concluded. “You know what it is … You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”
I’m glad many people are supporting Jeremiah Wright, the pastor whom Obama has denounced. To a standing ovation and thunderous applause, he gave the benediction at a ceremony honoring Maya Angelou before her 80th birthday (April 4).
During a fundraiser for diabetes research at North Dakota State University — the Mr. NDSU Pageant– , a white student in blackface portrayed Barack Obama receiving a lap dance from another guy dressed as the Obama girl.
In the background, two other students dressed as cowboys simulated anal sex while holding an Obama sign, which was ripped at the end of the 30-second performance.
At North Dakota State University only 1.5 percent of the students are black or African American.
I wonder if fox news will even mention this. It was on the front page of cnn.com, but a simple search for it on foxnews.com yields no results. They covered Obama’s “typical white person” comment and Rev. Wright’s speeches enough that you would think they like stories on race and Obama.
Rev. Wright, however, was not racist. He merely pointed out racism in society and U.S. policies. I guess Fox may just like stories on Obama that provide the opportunity for reporters to deny the existence of white privilege and structural racism.
But I still thought that it would cover such blatant racism that does allow simple reporting without challenging their dearly held white privileges. Perhaps Foxnews fears coverage would benefit Obama by countering all their hard work through the Wright story to whitewash racism in society. Weren’t their talking points trying to make Obama seem divisive and Wright seem racist and to imply that most racism today is against white people (ridiculous)? (more…)
The U.S. Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division are investigating the South Carolina Highway Patrol. In series of videos, dash-board cameras have recorded South Carolina police officers intentionally hitting black suspects with cars and using racial slurs in their pursuit. (more…)
First Clinton’s campaign fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro says Obama is “lucky” to be Black and the accuses his campaign of “racism:” “I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white.” Reverse racism cannot exist. Racism is about oppression; it is a power relationship.
Now Obama is condemning the comments made by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, about white privilege. Saying they are “inflammatory and appalling.”
Wright told his congregation the reason why “so many folks are hating on Barack Obama” is because he doesn’t “fit the model: He ain’t white, he ain’t rich and he ain’t privileged.”
“Hillary [Clinton] fits the mold,” Wright said, delivering a fiery tirade on how “Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong color,” and how “Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over as a black man driving” and how “Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home.”
Yeah, all of that is true. Clinton does have white skin privilege. You can’t deny that.
Voguing came from NYC queer culture, specifically among the Black gay and transgendered community. Folks would hold Balls, which were parties that had style and performance contests. The contests would have many different categories, which people would dress up and perform.
Contestants would be judged based on the “realness” of their performance, that is the ability for them to pass on the streets without other people questioning or doubting their authenticity. The winner would receive a trophy.
For example, a category could be corporate executive or fashion model, and the winner would be the person who best resembled and acted like an executive or model. (more…)
I stumbled upon the site of a conservative blogger (via Jezebel).
One of her more recent entries is about yesterday’s shooting of French police. While the struggle against police harassment is nothing new in France, the interesting thing about her post was the term she used to describe the people resisting the police; she called them “Punk Jihad.”
My first thought was: Punk music. Resistance. Struggle. France. Those kids are way too cool for me.
A ship leased by a Dutch Company, Trafigura, dumped 500 tons of toxic waste at municipal waste sites in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire–leading to the deaths of 15 people and illnesses in over 100,000. Trafigura was also named in the food for oil scandal.
Another multinational shits its neocolonial waste; and the human impact is great.
The only way Hillary Clinton could get ahead in politics was to join the boys’ club, or the boys’ club isn’t really a club for just boys.
Clinton earned this rap during one of her many congressional trips with McCain. While the two were on a trip to Estonia in August 2004, Clinton proposed an after dinner drinking game. McCain, the delegation leader, readily agreed according to NYT.
During their 2005 trip to Iraq, they both said the other would be a good president. “Meet the Press” asked if McCain thought Clinton would make a good president, and Mccain responded, “I happen to be a Republican and would support, obviously, a Republican nominee, but I have no doubt that Senator Clinton would make a good president.” When asked the same question about McCain, Clinton immediately responded, “Absolutely.”
Are you comfortable with that mutual support?
And is Clinton’s tolerance of alcohol what makes her one of the guys? Or her tolerance of sexism? (more…)
The popularity of the below youtube video resulted in the suspension of a Baltimore cop yesterday (Monday). The video shows Salvatore Rivieri, a officer with 17 years at the Baltimore Police Department, busting up a 14 year old kid (Eric Bush) for riding a skate board in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor (a massive mall for tourists that sucks money away from the city’s social services).
In case you missed it, this video was posted on Saturday Feb 9 2008, but it records events that transpired last summer. A Baltimore Sun reporter brought the video to the attention of the Baltimore Police on Sunday when the reporter called to asked for the department’s comments.
We all know the power of video to show police brutality–who can forget Rodney King?
But why do folks need to record violent police actions? (more…)
Bill Clinton provides a good example of how to essentialize:
The stories coming out of South Carolina were just not so. I didn’t say anything negative about Senator Obama. . . . But the main thing is, I understand the immense pride that he has generated in the African American community.
I mean, they have been voting for white candidates a long time, and they got him, and they are proud of him and a lot of people will support him. All that I can do is go and say why I think that Hillary will be a better president.
As if no Black person would vote for Obama because they think his positions are better. Most young people are also voting for Obam; I wonder if Bill understands our excitement at a young candidate who’s not from a power-family (bush, clinton, kennedy, McCain, etc–definitive oligarchy). (more…)
US soldiers killed four civilians in the village of Adwar, Iraq
- a father, mother, and their 19 year old son were shot to death in their beds
- their two daughters were injured. one daughter died in the hospital
- the surviving daughter,16, said “that she was in the house at the time of the raid, and that an Iraqi interpreter working for U.S. forces tried to stop the American soldiers from killing her parents.”
“Relatives mourn inside the house where the U.S. military killed an Iraqi couple and their teenage son in the village of Adwar, 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of Tikrit. Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, after American soldiers stormed their one-room house and opened fire. Couples two daughters were wounded , one of them died later on. (AP Photo/Hameed Rasheed)”
“Diego Garcia is British territory but home to a US military base believed to house so called ‘rendition prisoners.’”
As the US is illegally detaining people on Diego Garcia, the island’s indigenous population is fighting to return home. From 1967 and 1973 the British government forcefully expelled the Islands 2000 inhabitants in order to build the US base. Although UK courts have ruled the expulsions illegal, the Chagossians are still struggling for their right to return home.
Fox News just interviewed a senator from South Carolina about Codepink’s recent success at a marine recruiting center in Berkeley, CA. The City Council recommended that the recruiting center leave and they allowed codepink to protest and operate a loud speaker from a designated parking space in front of the recruiting station.
Fox News and Senator DeMented (SC-R) said CodePink and the City Council were not only disrespecting the military (by allowing freedom of speech) but also promoting “the homosexual agenda” (by not supporting the war). Senator Demented said he was working to take away federal funding from the city as punishment for acting on “special interests.”
It’s as though Fox and DeMented just threw together everything neocons hate in attempt to demean the action. It’s all non sequitur, and of course, they didn’t interview City Council officials or Codepink members.
During a fundraiser for diabetes research at North Dakota State University — the Mr. NDSU Pageant– , a white student in blackface portrayed Barack Obama receiving a lap dance from another guy dressed as the Obama girl.
Voguing came from NYC queer culture, specifically among the Black gay and transgendered community. Folks would hold Balls, which were parties that had style and performance contests. The contests would have many different categories, which people would dress up and perform.
I stumbled upon 
In case you missed it, this video was posted on Saturday Feb 9 2008, but it records events that 
“Relatives mourn inside the house where the U.S. military killed an Iraqi couple and their teenage son in the village of Adwar, 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of Tikrit. Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, after American soldiers stormed their one-room house and opened fire. Couples two daughters were wounded , one of them died later on. 
As the US is illegally detaining people on Diego Garcia, the island’s indigenous population is fighting to return home. From 1967 and 1973 the British government forcefully expelled the Islands 2000 inhabitants in order to build the US base. Although 
