Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is – Who I Am Supporting This Year
This year, as people are becoming more and more aware of how much collective choices about money can impact people and things (think Occupy Wall Street and the Move Your Money project), it’s important to understand that giving money to awesome organizations is as important as withholding our money from bad corporations.
Every December I give away donations that equal just 1% of my annual income. It sounds like a pittance, but if we all did it… well, it wouldn’t be a pittance then. And it would make a difference.
No time to really get into it all right now, but for more of my thoughts, see my posts from 2010, 2009, and 2008.
Here are my 2011 choices:
- The National Lawyers Guild – They have been working overtime this year helping out all those thousands of people who got arrested at Occupy protests around the U.S., as well as all of their normal cool stuff. They help us out, and we should help them out too. Here’s a link to their donate page.
- Riseup – A perpetual choice. This small collective that provides free, secure email, list, and hosting services to the radical community. Just the email accounts alone they provide allow the global justice community to survive, and they are keeping us out of the Google empire. Go directly to their donate page here.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation - Still the coolest. In addition to awesome posts like this “Know Your Rights” summary from this summer, they work on things like legislation and lawsuits that directly impact us all. Their donate page is here.
Occupy & Police Violence
The video above is of the University of California police spraying pepper spray on students at UC Davis this week. I can’t even watch the video all the way through. This follows last week’s clubbing of UC Berkeley students, not to mention the scenes of police violence from Oakland, New York, Portland and other cities. There have been thousands more photos and videos of police brutalizing protesters who are just standing or sitting there, who aren’t threatening police in any way. After the UC Berkeley incident, the Chancellor’s letter basically said that the police were “forced” to use their batons and that linking arms is “not non-violent civil disobedience.” Huh?
If you think those are isolated, check out Joshua Holland’s “Caught on Camera: 10 Shockingly Violent Police Assaults on Occupy Protesters” in Alternet yesterday. I couldn’t watch them.
I can’t believe that anyone thinks that raiding camps in the middle of the night, or using batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets is acceptable. I literally just can’t believe that someone somewhere gave the go ahead to any of it. And the rest of us can’t pretend it’s not happening. Regardless of how you feel about the Occupy movement, this is not OK.
Here are some links to other police-related stories that I’ve been following
- Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street – The Nation
- Occupy Movement’s “Day Of Action” in Pictures – The Guardian (check out #2 and 4 in particular)
- Retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis Arrested at OWS, Calls NYPD Rationale ‘a Farce’ – Death and Taxes
- The cop group coordinating the Occupy crackdowns – SF Bay Guardian
- Police Response to Occupy Wall Street is Absurd – Forbes
The caveats being, of course, that there are communities that are brutalized by police every day and no one pays attention. Plus, similar tactics were used to suppress the civil rights movement, except then it was water cannons and attack dogs.
Talking about Occupy Wall Street
I’ve been absolutely thrilled with the amount of talking that has been going on about the Occupy Wall Street actions. When is the last time that so many people were talking so much about class and capitalism?
So many people are saying so many smart and interesting things, I wanted to share some of my favorites – and I hope you will too. I don’t agree with everything everyone has said here but I’ve refrained from editorializing, and although I’ve highlighted some of my favorite quotes here, most of the pieces are really just excellent through and through. As I was reading over them to pick quotes, I just kept thinking, “Fucking brilliant!” It’s been a long time since people have been so inspired.
- Crimthinc: “Dear Occupiers: A Letter from Anarchists”: “The problem isn’t just a few “bad apples.” The crisis is not the result of the selfishness of a few investment bankers; it is the inevitable consequence of an economic system that rewards cutthroat competition at every level of society. Capitalism is not a static way of life but a dynamic process that consumes everything, transforming the world into profit and wreckage. Now that everything has been fed into the fire, the system is collapsing, leaving even its former beneficiaries out in the cold. The answer is not to revert to some earlier stage of capitalism—to go back to the gold standard, for example; not only is that impossible, those earlier stages didn’t benefit the “99%” either. To get out of this mess, we’ll have to rediscover other ways of relating to each other and the world around us.” And then: “Police can’t be trusted. They may be “ordinary workers,” but their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class.”
- Isabell Moore, “Why I Support the 99%: An Open Letter to My Family”: “I believe this financial crisis is not our faults. But I do I believe actual people, banks and corporations, the 1%, made it happen because of their obsession with a “thing-oriented society,” as said by Dr. King. They have gotten richer during this whole thing while most of the rest of us have gotten poorer. This is the way capitalism works and I don’t like it one bit. We will all benefit from a shift to a “person-oriented society.”
- Malcolm Harris, Jacobin, “Occupied Wall Street: Some Tactical Thoughts”: “This is a marathon, not a sprint or a hamster wheel. “
- The New York Times Op Ed from Sunday 10/9, “Protesters Against Wall Street“: ” It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge. “
- Manissa McCleave Maharawal, guest post on Racialicious, “SO REAL IT HURTS: Notes on Occupy Wall Street“: “For some people this is the first time they have thought about how the world needs to be recreated. But some of us have been thinking about this for a while now. Does this mean that those of us who have been thinking about it for a while now should discredit this movement? No. It just means that there is a lot of learning going on down there and that there is a lot of teaching to be done.” Read the rest of this entry »
Steve Jobs, Occupy Wall Street, and Haters
The front page of the Apple site today.
I have several quick thoughts about this.
1. Steve Jobs should not be held accountable for the faults of capitalism. Many of my friends are posting on Twitter and Facebook that iPhones are made in factories which have deplorable conditions, and they aren’t recyclable.
I don’t have the statistics on this, but I will bet you that most of the other electronics we use (as well as our cars, gasoline, and a lot of clothes and other things) are made in similar ways. Could Steve Jobs probably have done more to change it? Yes. Did he profit from it? Yes. Is this Steve Jobs’ fault? No.
I guess I am having a visceral reaction to some of my activist friends condemning Steve Jobs while at same time clutching laptops and cell phones. It is our entire global economic system that makes it possible for people to be poisoned in factories in Asia while Americans pretend it isn’t happening. Consumer demand – our own personal consumption, my consumption – drives this system and creates the need for poisonous factories.
Regardless of what you think about capitalism, Jobs (and the legions of people who work at Apple or influenced and helped him along the way) changed the way we interact with technology and each other, for for the better.
That is important. And good.
I’ve thought about this a lot – how to appreciate the good parts of a person while recognizing the bad parts exist? Very few people are saints. When I look at the people I know in my own life, which include well known punk rock scenesters or activist rockstars, very few of them are without fault. Some of them have big faults, like abusing their girlfriends or stealing money or otherwise being total shitheads – does this mean we should ignore their contributions that make the world a better place? I think we can accept the good and the bad. Acknowledging the good and the bad doesn’t mean that you’re erasing or ignoring the bad. I don’t think it’s asking too much for people to have a complex understanding of the way the world works, where things aren’t just “good” or “bad.”
2. Too bad that Steve Jobs died today because then the Occupy Wall Street protests wouldn’t get the coverage they deserved.
Sigh. First of all, the protests will never get the coverage they deserve.
Second, I would like to remind everyone of Manjula Martin’s excellent opinion piece last week on this very thing – the confluence of many things happening at the same time, especially on social media, and how it *is* actually possible to experience and understand and *feel* all of them. She was talking about how social media has turned into a space where we judge each other’s emotions.
In “The Week Social Media Broke My Heart,” she was talking about Troy Davis, the release of the hikers, and R.E.M. breaking up all happening at the same moment, but she could totally be talking about Steve Jobs dying and Occupy Wall Street.
I just re-read the piece looking for a part to quote, but the whole thing is just so good, I want you to read it for yourself. Here is just one small part:
Critics want it both ways: we want something to be pure and essential, but we also tend to retrospectively see events based solely on their context/reaction. Particularly in social media, context develops at an increasing pace: we condense the critical cycle into a series of quick “sharing” actions and move straight from “something happens” into criticizing ourselves and each other for liking things. In our rushed effort to provide the “essential” opinion, we forget the part about why we’re being critical in the first place: because the “something” happened made us feel something, and that made us want to contribute.
I totally want to quote the whole rest of the piece, but you should just read it yourself.
Slow Food’s $5 Meal Challenge
On September 17, Slow Food USA held a national day of action where they challenged people in the US to make meals for less than $5 per person, saying, “The $5 Challenge is a response to the First Lady’s challenge to the nation to end the childhood obesity epidemic in a generation. In addition to Michelle Obama, a handful of other influencers such as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and author Michael Pollan have increased public concern about the impact the industrial food system has on our health and the environment. The campaign is a way for everyday people to build and to share their own solutions.” The challenge: “I pledge to share a fresh, healthy meal that costs less than $5 — because slow food shouldn’t have to cost more than fast food.”
OK. Now, I am a huge proponent of “slow food” (not the organization), and of eating fresh and local, with friends, and not at chain restaurants, but when I heard about this campaign, I thought to myself, “Are you serious?”
Four Kickstarter Projects That Need Your Support
Apparently, everyone I know is doing a Kickstarter project. OK, Maybe that’s not true, but here are four projects from people I know personally that I am donating to, and I wish you would, too.
For the record, I think that Kickstarter is a brilliant idea. Or rather, I think that “crowd-sourcing” is a brilliant idea. The idea that a lot of people can give $20 and collectively make a big difference is nothing new – that’s what fundraising people who work at non profits do all the time, and that’s what Kim Klein says in her amazing book Fundraising for Social Change: the majority of money donated is by not wealthy people giving small amounts. It adds up, people!
But now people are doing it outside of the nonprofit industrial complex, and that’s just really awesome. Deanna Zandt did it to help her raise money to support her book. All these people are using Kickstarter as a way to do it for their projects. I, personally, am totally willing to give most anyone I know $20 to make their dream happen. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say that publicly. And I sure wish that Kickstarter didn’t take such a chunk of the $ raised, but I totally appreciate that they are providing a needed service.
PS – the one thing I hate about WordPress? You can’t embed Kickstarter videos. I don’t know who thought that one up. Anyway, each of these links has a video about the project – please follow them to learn more!
Anyway, here we go:
FOUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGNS THAT NEED YOUR SUPPORT
1. Roadmap to Apartheid is a film about Israel / Palestine. Here’s a piece from their Kickstarter page: “Ana Nogueira is a white South African and Eron Davidson a Jewish Israeli. Drawing on their first-hand knowledge of the issues, the producers take a close look at the apartheid comparison often used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Narrated by author and activist Alice Walker, the film breaks down the rhetorical analogy into a fact-based comparison, noting where the analogy is useful and appropriate, and where it is not.” I have a lot of friends who are passionate about Palestine, and I’m looking forward to seeing this full length film and seeing the perspectives of some people whose politics I know and like. This film, obviously, has the potential to be controversial, and in the best case scenario it would help spur some big conversations.
2. Fixed, another film by another awesome indy (and local!) filmmaker, is about the intersections of disability and technology. I remember reading a book in college called the Cyborg Handbook (10 years later I met the author, by the way, at an anti-war protest) that really introduced the complexities of these issues to me. I’m hoping that this film really explores some of the same issues. Here’s what Regan says about the project: “FIXED follows three remarkable people: Gregor Wolbring, John Hockenberry, and Patty Berne – a scientist, a journalist and a community organizer – each of whom has a personal story of disability and a passionate engagement in the debates around emerging human enhancement technologies.” Oh, and I donated some cupcakes as a reward for this one.
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Read the rest of this entry »
What is Terrorism? Why I Want All My Friends to See the New Documentary, “If A Tree Falls”
About a week ago I saw a preview of the new film, “If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.” The film will begin playing in San Francisco this Friday, July 15 at Landmark Theaters in SF and Berkeley. I think everyone I know should see this film.
“If A Tree Falls” follows the story of the Earth Liberation Front, activists in the Northwest US who were responsible for property destruction, such as arsons and vandalism, against targets such as ski resorts or timber companies. Many of the people involved are now in jail, including Daniel McGowan. The complete promo description of the film(below, after the jump) does a good job of summarizing it (and the situation).
I like this film a lot for several reasons. First, they filmmakers did a great job of placing the ELF and the specific acts within a historical context – why did some people feel the need to escalate their activism to the point of burning down buildings? How did the actions of police and local governments increase tensions? The filmmakers use interviews with people who were active in the political and environmental scenes, particularly in Eugene, Oregon, to give us examples of what heightened tensions during that time. (One caveat – this section of the documentary includes footage of violence by police against protesters, including that f-ing crazy footage from 1997 Headwaters where police put pepper spray directly into the eyes of peaceful, nonviolent protesters with cotton swabs. I found this triggering, and you might too.)
Second, I really appreciated the emphasis on questioning how environmental activists have been labeled eco-terrorists, and the use of the word terrorism in general – something I also appreciated about Will Potter’s book, Green is the New Red. Since Daniel McGowan lives in New York, the filmmakers chose to illustrate this by juxtaposing the 9/11 attacks – which were intended to kill innocent people – with acts of property destruction where no person was injured. The film portrays the activists not as crazy extremists, but as individuals who felt moved by their beliefs.
Finally, the movie includes a lot of interviews with law enforcement at local and federal levels talking about how they investigated the crimes, how they gathered evidence, and how they built the case against the defendants. Every activist should watch the movie for this fact alone.
The government’s case relied heavily on the use of informants – in one interview, a man from the local police department says outright that they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute anyone, and goes on to explain how they selected and pursued someone to become an informant, and how they used that informant to gather evidence against the others. This is really important to see and understand.
I want to encourage everyone to go and buy a ticket and see this in a Landmark theater. When films like this are played in mainstream theaters, how much money they make/how many tickets they sell really influences the future choices made by the theater about what films to show – This is a well made documentary about activists, and a good showing will encourage Landmark and other theaters to book good documentaries in the future – and good showings in cities like San Francisco can help a movie get released in additional theaters in smaller towns.
This is important. I want you to go see it and take your friends. Let’s make sure that films like this will continue to be made, and will continue to be shown in theaters where they can be accessible to everyone.
Four Days, Four Books
One of the best things about living in the San Francisco Bay Area is that a lot of people come here. A lot. Of course there are friends and relatives who want the benefits of sleeping for free on the couch, but any night of the week there are countless fun activities to choose from. This week, in particular, has been epic – four book readings at four different bookstores, four days in a row.
Monday, I saw Andy Cornell talk at the AK Press warehouse about his new book, Oppose and Propose: Lessons from Movement for a New Society. I had previously seen Andy talk during the weekend of the SF Anarchist Bookfair, about his research on US Anarchism from (roughly) World War I to the ’70s. He had slides. It was brilliant.
This small book highlights one small part of his research, the group Movement for a New Society, and how their work has influenced current anarchist organizing in the US. Where did consensus decision making come from? What is the basis of current self-education/anti-oppression organizing? Why did Movement for a New Society fade away in the ’80s, and what can we learn from their work, their choices, and their mistakes? Andy did a great job of explaining the historical context and legacy of MNS in a very accessible way.
Andy is super knowledgeable about all this stuff, because he has been studying it for the last eight years, and seems to have been uniquely positioned to do so. I first met him in the late ’90s and knew that he had worked at the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan – one of the largest collections of anarchist literature and ephemera in the U.S. I am thrilled that he is working on turning all of his research into a book on US Anarchist history.
On Tuesday, I squeezed into City Lights to hear Will Potter talk about Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege. First of all, City Lights itself is a treasure, and I love how it is situated on the edge of Chinatown and North Beach, within close walking distance of lots of great bars and restaurants (dive-y and spendy alike).
Will has been covering the Green Scare – systematic oppression of environmental and animal rights activists – for some time through his blog of the same name. It’s hard to say exactly how I feel about this issue because there is so much emotion wrapped up in it. Friends and friends of friends have been targeted and harassed and, well, it’s just a shitty situation for activists, creating (potentially? actually?) this chilling effect that prevents people from acting on their beliefs for fear of prosecution. For a long time, I’ve wanted to really think about how this has impacted the activist community and though I haven’t read it yet, I’m glad this book exists. It’s on my nightstand and on the shortlist of books to read next.
Beyond that, Will was the consummate presenter. He started with a story about why he wrote the book (he was visited by the FBI after leafleting with an animal rights group), he had & repeated his talking points (that this oppression has been advanced through legal, legislative, and extra-legal means), and ended what could be a depressing talk on an up note (that there is a fine line between anger and fear, and that anger is a great motivating factor). He was unhurried and deliberate, had notes, and spoke for about 40 minutes. And the questions were great. I loved how he answered the one about the differentiation between violence and property destruction, where he talked about how the word “violence” has been so overused as to make it meaningless, and how using “terrorist” to describe environmental activists who damage SUVs but not to describe anti-abortion activists who shoot and kill doctors is, well, absurd. I could go on, but you should probably just read his book.
General Strike!
The last general strike in the U.S. was in Oakland, California in 1946. After that, the U.S. Government succeeded in preventing general strikes by passing the Taft-Hartley Act, making solidarity strikes by unions illegal (among other things).
The fact that the words “general strike” have even been uttered in conjunction with Wisconsin is absolutely thrilling. This is a repost of information from the amazing Eric Drooker about his new general strike poster. The role of art in revolution just cannot be underestimated.
* * *
The IWW in Wisconsin hired Eric Drooker to design posters for a General Strike, which he is told may be immanent. The “Industrial Workers of the World” asked him to create versions in Spanish and Arabic, for international solidarity.
Please forward (& print) attached images widely, as you see fit, to union locals, blogs, websites, facebook, solidarity organizations, etc.
Print posters! Download hi-res versions here:
English:
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/images/genstrike_eng_hires.jpg
Spanish:
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/images/genstrike_span_hires.jpg
Arabic:
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/images/genstrike_arab_hires.jpg
Copyright policy: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
IWW is coordinating with larger unions to initiate a demonstrative one day General Strike throughout the state of Wisconsin–the date of which is to be determined during the coming week. The IWW is committed to organizing a grassroots, worker-led response to this and other economic problems.
Twitter: How-to and Who to Follow
So, the other day, my good friend Manjula joined Twitter, and while we were on the phone I found myself saying “And you should follow @SFMOMA and @Good and and and…” Which made me think how useful I’ve found other people’s Twitter lists – and how I should write one too.
Before I begin my list, I wanted to point to a few resources. If you’re really new to Twitter and want to know what the hell you’re supposed to do, you should try checking out some of Deanna Zandt‘s instructional stuff, like this presentation on Twitter basics. Or, if you’ve got the basics already, you can read this thing I wrote for Aid & Abet called “How to Use Social Media to Promote your Project.” Also, many people use a third party application to manage Twitter. I personally use HootSuite, because it allows me to manage multiple Twitter feeds at once, and integrates a URL shortener right into the screen so I don’t have to visit another site to turn http://angelcakes.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/vegan-sunflower-cupcakes/ into http://ht.ly/44aw7 – when you only have 140 characters, each one counts!
I’ve really come to value Twitter as a place participate in public conversations on the one hand, and to keep up with ultra breaking news on the other. Want to know what’s going on at the Wisconsin State Capital? Twitter! Oscar Grant verdict protest? Twitter!
My 20 Favorite Twitter Feeds. I love these Twitter users because they are smart, funny, informed, and I always look forward to their posts. There are a whole bunch of people I follow for different, more immediate reasons.
News & Current Events
1. @MotherJones - Mother Jones magazine. There’s also publisher @Steve_Katz and a load of other reporters and editors. They’ve been doing stellar reporting on all things important lately – Wisconsin, Egypt, climate, etc.
2. @ShareableDesign – Online magazine Shareable. I’ve written for them a couple of times and usually find their stories interesting.
3. @Good – Good Magazine. Love their infographics. Their feed has definitely led me to read more of their magazine.
4. @YesMagazine – Full disclosure: I’m a contributing editor for Yes! Magazine. But, that means that I think they are awesome. I’ve continually been impressed with their content.
5. @Colorlines – Formerly in print and now only online, Colorlines has great original reporting and commentary on race, culture, & politics. They call themselves, “a daily news site offering award-winning reporting, analysis, and solutions to today’s racial justice issues.”
6. @OrionGrassroots – It is probably not coming as a surprise to anyone that my favorite Twitter feeds are associated with print (or formerly in print) magazines, and Orion is another – a great enviro magazine that I’ve been reading for a few years.
