HOPE

This is the moment of recognition that the notion of slavery can't safely be tucked away in the landscape of black people exclusively, but that that landscape itself has caught up with all of us, even the 1% who are enslaved to their own greed.

LIVING UNDER OCCUPATION

There is a saying by George Santayana,  “Those who cannot remember the past  are condemned to repeat it.” In the year of 2014, people aged 65 years and older represent 9% of the U.S. population. Of those, persons aged 80 to 100 who have memories of World War II number roughly half of that, or 4.5%. I am one of those persons.

POLAR BEAR ARREST BY THE NYPD SPARKS INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY

Todays news carries the report that after an 8-hour sit-down at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, 102 “Flood Wall Street” protestors were arrested and one polar bear. The arrest was carried on livestream feed throughout the world.

President Obama Announces U.S. Plan Designed to Stamp Out Ebola Epidemic ####

FEAR AND TREMBLING

(If your concern is as deep as mine, please share this blog with as many of your friends who still have voices and know how to use them.)

In an article by Michael Collins, titled “Ukraine President Once Agent for U.S. State Department,” today’s Information Clearing House (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38760.htm) reveals that in several 2006 confidential messages from the U.S. Embassy, “elected” (with part of Ukraine unable to vote) “President” Poroshenko is referred to as “our Ukraine insider.” In another mention of Poroshenko, the State Department “made it clear that [it] saw the future value of Poroshenko’s insider role.” In a recent meeting with President Putin of Russia, although both leaders agreed to an end to military actions and set a meeting date, with the bombing of Slavyansk, Poroshenko’s subsequent actions belie his promises. And they are actions that in all probability are designed and will actually succeed in forcing Putin’s hand.

THREE SIMULTANEOUS ACROBATIC SUICIDES at GUANTANAMO

May 23, 2014, Global Day Of Action To Close Guantanamo. Now.  And For Good.

THE YEAR 2009 was the year ICE first discovered that someone by the name of Tanveer Ahmad—a Pakistani taxi driver as it turned out—had disappeared somewhere in the U.S. immigrant detention dungeons (see http://labloga.blogspot.com/2010/05/jean-blum-finger-in-goliaths-eye-part.html). But 2006 was the year three perfectly good, healthy people managed to disappear in the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo Bay. Their names need to be remembered: Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, Salah Ahmed al-Salami, and Mani Shaman al-Utaybi.

PRESIDENT OBAMA TALKS ABOUT GOOD BUSINESS PRACTICES IN RANA PLAZA, BANGLADESH

With a nod to the Bangladeshi garment industry, President Obama parlayed his surprise visit to the Bangladeshi Protectorate by giving a surprise address today at Rana Plaza, the site where 1,129 workers were singed at their Singers including their children in the building’s nursery facilities when the Savar building collapsed in 2013.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Bullet holes through skulls, heads incinerated, but body and clothes untouched by fire. A pregnant woman strangled with an electrical chord and left slumped backwards over her desk in a room untouched by fire or even smoke damage. We are looking at atrocities here.  But these are NOT the result of fire. What hard evidence seems to indicate is that the “fire” was set to cover the massacre of 40 people inside the Odessa Trade Union House. That it has the stamp of a deliberate act of provocation, and that its execution was intended to incite Russia into engaging in outright hostilities.

HOW TO MAKE A KILLING: BIG PHARMA'S POISON PILLS

Big Pharma is learning from the BIG BOYS: to make a killing, sell to both sides.  Dyncorp. Ratheon. General Dynamics, Boeing.  EVERYBODY needs  tanks, guns, bombers, drones, artillery. Even frackers know that. Poison wells, sell bottled water.  One stone to kill two birds. And now Big Pharma takes its cue. Here’s how it works:

“We Come as Friends” dir. Hubert Sauper, 2013 “Happiness” dir. Thomas Balmès, 2013

TWO DOCUMENTARIES: ONE THEME:

Screened as part of the 2014 San Francisco Film Festival Program, both films, each in their way, project the consequences of the neocolonialist program in Africa’s Sudan (Sauper) and Asia’s Bhutan (Balmès). And both films offer telling contrasts in terms of cinematic approach to time, to cutting and intercutting techniques, to cultural diversity, and narrative to bring their message home: neocolonialism is destroying indigenous cultures the world over in its frenzy to grab resources (Sauper) or new markets (Balmès) for its products. 

AT LAST: DEMONSTRATORS' CONCERNS REACH TOKYO, AND TOKYO RUNS SCARED

On March 11, 2014, on the third anniversary of the initial explosions at Fukushima Daiichi, No Nukes Action Committee in San Francisco organized a nation-wide action in 10 U.S. cities, among them Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Most of these actions involved presenting a letter of concern  directly to the consulate or embassy in these cities. At the same time, No Nukes Action, in collaboration with Fukushima Response Bay Area held a demonstration at the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco followed by a die-in. During our previous 19 demonstrations, beginning in June of 2012 at the consulate, the consul had always been willing (and mostly very gracious) to meet us on the sidewalk in front of their offices, but on the third anniversary of the disaster, Consul Hayakawa categorically refused to meet with us or to accept delivery of our letter in person, advising the demonstration organizers that they could use “ordinary mail.” Perhaps, with the passage of the Secrets Preservation Act in December, 2013, and with our mass action involving 10 U.S. cities, the official consular offices have received orders from Tokyo. Perhaps it is safe to assume someone is running scared, a barometer that at last our concerns are being heard.