Wednesday, November 5, 2008

● THE DAY AFTER

ELECTION '08
...THE DAY AFTER


we didn't let them steal it this time.
Video The Vote

Americans,
for the first time
in a long time, don't look like idiots.

Yes, an embarrassing ugly chapter in American politics is over. The son of privilege has managed to destroy much of what we call America (with infringements on all of our basic human rights), but there's still hope, as long as we realize that the time for merely hoping is over, and the time for action has begun. November5.org has a good strategy for positive change, but we have to act now, because the Bush administration is pushing through last-minute deregulation laws that will be incredibly difficult for Obama to undo. . . .

The election is over and we must begin turning our country around now, or the opportunity may not come again. By quickly organizing ourselves in each of the 435 congressional districts, over the next 100 days, we can make single-payer healthcare, a living wage, and a less militaristic society our long-term reality. We must do this because the founders of these United States gave us the power to do it. Please watch the video and sign up today. http://november5.org
[x]
November 5. 2008 from Tarek Milleron on Vimeo.
November 5. 2008
LEARN MORE @ novemberfive.org




Tuesday, November 4, 2008

● ELECTION DAY

ELECTION DAY
...VOTING FOR OBAMA


If McCain wins we are all in trouble. A man who sings songs about bombing Iran (another country that hasn't threatened us) and thinks a 100 year war is just fine, is not a man who has any idea how to bring peace to the middle east and morality to our foreign policies, let alone bring this country together. Obama has the ability to move people to action. It's important for the left to get a win. There is only so far right and authoritarian that we can move before slipping into fascism. As journalist/author/activist Naomi Klein suggests:

"More than that, what we are seeing with the crash on Wall Street, I believe, should be for Friedmanism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for authoritarian communism: an indictment of an ideology." -Naomi Klein WATCH...

La Pregunta Arts Café

After Obama won
the celebration took to the streets...

election day party aftermath - peace & harmony settling in.

...a party greater than any New Year's Eve

myVote4Obama
...

● MY VOTE FOR OBAMA

MY VOTE FOR OBAMA

We've supported Obama throughout his campaign with very little criticism. If the Republicans steal the election again, we are in for some pretty scary times. ...just waiting for the results. Once Obama wins we (his supporters) must be ready to give him his mandate, because if we don't the war machine / multinationals will. Obama cannot do it alone.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower's exit speech warning us

Although he gained support early on in his campaign for speaking out against the war, Barack Obama is not exactly anti-war anymore, but pressure from his supporters can bring him back to his more rational solutions. But then, also, after his (shameless) support for the bailout, he began doing something quite remarkable, as Naomi Klein points out...

Barack Obama is responding to the market crisis by turning his campaign into a referendum on Friedmanism (although he might not call it that). He’s saying that essentially what we’re seeing on Wall Street is the culmination of an ideology, of deregulation and trickle-down economics, that has failed. And what’s interesting is that the more he says that, the higher his ratings go in the polls. -Naomi Klein . . .

His ratings went up because he was speaking the truth to the people and it was resonating in our ears, and we responded with a resounding yes we will!...


take your video cameras to the polls

Video The Vote
http://videothevote.org

voting4obama
...

● OBAMA FASHION SHOW

OBAMA FASHION SHOW
Making the Lavender Skirt ( Yajaira ) U:RESIST®

Making the Lavender Skirt ( Yajaira ) U:RESIST®
http://uresist.com/fashion/models/yajaira
http://youtube.com/uresist#p/a/u/1/QTrM-cVQlkI
Yajaira preparing for the U:RESIST show:
WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE!... Fashion Show @ La Pregunta

U:RESIST is supporting Obama, but with opened eyes. We know that in order for him to do what needs to be done, it will take a lot of pressure from his base. Voting for the bailout was a huge disappointment. Nader is probably right, he always is. The peace movement knows that it will take a lot of work to get him to end the Bush wars, especially since he spoke of escalating the war in Afghanistan.

Yajaira Ferrer: Designer / Model / U:RESIST® Partner
Kurt Riebel: Artist / Designer / U:RESIST® CEO

Music by H.O.L.M.
(The History of Luminous Motion) Kurt Riebel & David Lanfair
http://uresist.com/blog/2009/09/holm.html
. . .

● WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE FASHION SHOW

● WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE FASHION SHOW
This Wear Your Resistance fashion show was a celebration of hope and activism for political change towards social justice. The show was intended to inspire each of us to wear our values, making social change a part of our everyday experience, and to keep the conversation going, the pressure on, and to never let up in our efforts to hold those in power accountable. Wear your resistance and be a conversation piece for peace. ☮

WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE!... fashion show
at La Pregunta Arts Café: http://lapregunta.net

Models: (in order from the start of the video)
..........Chelsea Grace
..........Aviv Golani
..........Mira Steinzor
..........Natalia Bonilla
..........Olivier Sada
..........Yajaira Beltre
............. . .
..........Kurt Riebel

U:RESIST® ● ● ● WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE!...
WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE FASHION SHOW YouTube Page

The Campus [CCNY]
ARTICLE: http://uresist.com/press
FANTABULOUS FUN WEAR FOR ALL SHAPES & SIZES:
by Jacquelyn Brown
Issue date: 11/17/08 Section: Arts/Culture

● FASHION SHOW

FASHION SHOW
Red Skirt '08: Yajaira's beautiful legs - U:RESIST®

Red Skirt '08: Yajaira's beautiful legs - U:RESIST®
http://uresist.com/fashion/models/yajaira
http://youtube.com/user/uresist#p/u/3/4_uRJVlG4sU
Yajaira discussing the making of a red skirt for the U:RESIST fashion show "WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE" at La Pregunta Harlem, New York. Music by Kurt Riebel.

Yajaira Ferrer: Designer / Model / U:RESIST® Partner
Kurt Riebel: Artist / Designer / U:RESIST® CEO

● WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE!...

U:RESIST® ARTICLE: http://uresist.com/press

http://youtube.com/user/uresist#p/u/4/9vaVT4Zo-x0

WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE!... fashion show
at La Pregunta Arts Café: http://lapregunta.net

Models: (in order from the start of the video)
..........Chelsea Grace
..........Aviv Golani
..........Mira Steinzor
..........Natalia Bonilla
..........Olivier Sada
..........Yajaira Beltre
............. . .
..........Kurt Riebel

● WEAR YOUR RESISTANCE FASHION SHOW
This Wear Your Resistance fashion show was a celebration of hope and activism for political change towards social justice. The show was intended to inspire each of us to wear our values, making social change a part of our everyday experience, and to keep the conversation going, the pressure on, and to never let up in our efforts to hold those in power accountable. Wear your resistance and be a conversation piece for peace. ☮




The Campus [CCNY]
ARTICLE: http://uresist.com/press
FANTABULOUS FUN WEAR FOR ALL SHAPES & SIZES:
by Jacquelyn Brown
Issue date: 11/17/08 Section: Arts/Culture

Monday, October 27, 2008

● Remember Brad Will

Remember Brad Will
on the 2nd Anniversary of his Death

Brad lived a courageous, inspiring life fighting for justice, peace, and human rights.
Brad Will, activist/videographer/journalist: killed by the State response to the Oaxacan movement for justice and freedom. Friends of Brad Will demand justice: justice for Brad, justice for the people of Oaxaca and the end of the corrupt brutal rule of Ulises Ruiz. Those who tried to help Brad are now being put on trial.

http://friendsofbradwill.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Will
...

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

● Blackwater: Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill

Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill talks about his book, “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” Scahill writes, “Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the ‘global war on terror,’ with its own military base, a fleet of
Blackwater
twenty aircraft, and 20,000 private contractors at the ready. Run by a multimillionaire Christian conservative who bankrolls President Bush and his allies, its forces are capable of overthrowing governments.” From Iraq to New Orleans, Blackwater has continued to pull in multi-million-dollar government contracts, mostly without accountability and in near-secrecy.

March 31st, 2004 four employees of the private U.S. security firm Blackwater USA are ambushed as they drive through the center of Fallujah. In images broadcast around the world, their burnt corpses are dragged through the streets. Two of them are strung up from a bridge. Below is an excerpt of the PBS documentary, “Private Warriors”, going back to that day.
* “Private Warriors”–excerpt of PBS documentary.
The U.S. military followed with the first of two major attacks that ended up virtually destroying Fallujah—and setting off a new wave of Iraqi resistance that continues to this day. Meanwhile, instead of curbing the reliance on contractors in Iraq, the Bush administration has expanded the privatization of war. Blackwater has been one of the biggest recipients.

* Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. He is the author of the new book, “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”
http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/jeremy_scahill
Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
WATCH
more...
...
Part II–Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
WATCH
more...
...
...
Kosovo, the Iraq Sanctions and Humanitarian Intervention:
Samantha Power, Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, based at Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. She wrote extensively about Bosnia and Kosovo in her book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, which won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize. Her new book is Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World.

Jeremy Scahill, independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent. He covered the NATO bombings of Kosovo and Yugoslavia for Democracy Now! in 1999.
Samantha Power v. Jeremy Scahill:
A Debate on U.S. Actions in the Balkans, the Independence of Kosovo, the Iraq Sanctions and Humanitarian Intervention
WATCH
more...
...
...
Jeremy Scahill: Despite Antiwar Rhetoric, Clinton-Obama Plans Would Keep US Mercenaries, Troops in Iraq for Years to Come
Jeremy Scahill reports Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will not “rule out” using private military companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. Obama also has no plans to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009. Despite their antiwar rhetoric, both Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton have adopted the congressional Democratic position that would leave open the option of keeping tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq for many years.
WATCH
more...
...
...
State Dept. Renews Blackwater Contract in Iraq Despite Pentagon Labeling Sept. Baghdad Killing of 17 Civilians “A Criminal Event”
The State Department has announced it is extending the private military firm Blackwater’s contract in Baghdad for another year. The news comes despite an ongoing FBI investigation into the September 16th shooting in Baghdad where Blackwater guards were accused of killing seventeen Iraqi civilians. An earlier investigation by the Pentagon found that all seventeen Iraqis were killed as a result of unprovoked and unjustified fire by Blackwater operatives. We speak with journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s most Powerful Mercenary Army. Scahill recently confronted the vice president of Blackwater about the September 16th shootings.
...watch the April 07, 2008 Democracy Now excerpt.
WATCH
more...

"Business has never been better for Blackwater."
-Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Democracy Now! correspondent, a writer for The Nation, a Puffin Fellow.

"Contract Justice” on The Nation’s website
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/scahill
for more info: http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/jeremy_scahill
...

Saturday, April 12, 2008

● Recession 2008

WATCHThe U.S. Economy 2008
Economics Journalist Robert Kuttner on the “Most Serious Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression”: “This is the Result of Rightwing Ideology and the Political Power
of Wall Street”


Economists are skeptical over
whether any measures taken by the administration can turn around the severe slump in the housing market, subprime mortgage crisis, growing unemployment, weakening consumer spending, and the added blow of record high oil prices.
TradersWeb
Veteran economics journalist Robert Kuttner and Robert Weissman, co-director of the corporate accountability group Essential Action and editor of Multinational Monitor magazine speak about the U.S. economy with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.
WATCH
LISTEN
Real Video Stream
More Info...
"This [the recession/slowdown] began and is continuing with a collapse in credit markets, and the collapse in credit markets is, in turn, the result of deregulation gone nuts." -Robert Kuttner
"...this occurs on top of thirty years of increasing insecurity on a whole bunch of fronts: the greater risk of losing your job, the greater risk of having your paycheck not keep pace with inflation, rising energy costs, rising tuition costs, rising health insurance costs. All of the things that make you middle class have become more difficult to attain in the past thirty years. So you’ve got a three-layer cake here. You’ve got this thirty-year history of flat or declining living standards for most Americans, you’ve got this terrible weakness in financial markets, and you’ve got this housing collapse." -RK
The ideology and practice of deregulation unfortunately has been bipartisan. "And if you look at the history of this, the Great Depression discredited free-market ideology, because it was such a colossal practical failure. Nobody in the 1930s could argue with a straight face that free markets worked. And so, we had a whole mixed economy, a regulatory structure invented during the New Deal, that really lasted thirty or forty years. By the ’70s, for a variety of reasons, big business had recovered a lot of the political power that it had lost in the Depression." -RK
"So now we’re learning, painfully, for a second time a lesson that we never should have had to learn twice, that markets don’t regulate themselves. Markets, left to their own devices, create grotesque inequality, ruin the environment and ruin the economy. And we’re seeing that unfold." -RK

Robert Kuttner, Veteran economics and financial journalist. He is a founder and co-editor of the American Prospect magazine and a former investigator for the Senate Banking Committee. He is the author of seven books, his latest is The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity.

Robert Weissman on the Government's short-term response.
"A huge danger is that a short-term response—and I think these are inadequate, but not trivial—will enable policymakers and the public to look away from the much deeper problems that Bob is talking about and that must be addressed, which include the excessive financialization of the economy, not just the deregulation, but the capture of political and economic power by Wall Street over the rest of the economy, its major control over what we do." -Robert Weissman
Robert Weissman talks about deregulation (the actual rolling back of those that were in place) and a kind of non-regulation, the failure of government agencies to exercise authority that they have.

Robert Weissman, Co-director of Essential Action, a corporate accountability group based in Washington, D.C. He is also editor of Multinational Monitor magazine.
WATCH
WATCH
LISTEN
Real Video Stream
More Info...
. . .

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

● The Story of STUFF! with Annie Leonard

We have bought into a system...
● ● ● The Story of STUFF! ● ● ● with Annie Leonard

● ● ● The Story of STUFF! ● ● ● with Annie Leonard
http://storyofstuff.com
From extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes connections between environmental and social issues, and calls us to create a more sustainable and just world.


We have bought into a system, in which buying stuff is our ultimate purpose. We have to change this system. ...first through awareness... then ultimately, to sustainability. Buying less of what we don't need is always important, but the ultimate goal is sustainability. And this goal, we must demand. ...renewable energy, sustainability of products and production - [ Production without Destruction. ]

● Wal-Mart & Nike: Child Labor

Wal-Mart and Nike are leading the
way to lowering standards around the world.
Charles Kernaghan interviewed by Harold Channer


Conversations with Harold Hudson Channer
MNN (Manhattan Neighborhood Network) NYC
Charles Kernaghan, Director of the National Labor Committee, an independent, non-profit human rights organization focused on the protection of worker rights (primarily in Central America, the Caribbean, China and other developing countries).
Charles Kernaghan - Air Date: 02-27-02
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4ZyD9PZcGy0
Kernaghan has led numerous fact-finding missions to Central America and the Caribbean to investigate working conditions in the free trade zones.

National Labor Committee is now
Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights
Tel:  (412) 562-2406 
Fax: (412) 562-2411
E-mail: inbox@glhr.org
Website: http://globallabourrights.org/about

He does not support boycotts (because workers in the developing world need their jobs) but argues for putting pressure on companies to respect the laws that are already in place. If the existing laws are observed; violations will have consequences, workers will have rights, they will be able to organize, and the levels of working conditions and wages will be raised.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

● RESIST G.M. FOODSTUFF


● ● ● ...

...
● In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
....-Michael Pollan
.................................and
The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Author Michael Pollan advises, “Don’t Buy Any Food You’ve Ever Seen Advertised.”

Michael Pollan, one of the nation’s leading thinkers and writers on food. The author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, warns of the processed food industry’s co-option of “sustainability” and its vast spending on marketing, Pollan advises to be wary of any food that’s advertised.

"The CDC, Centers for Disease Control, estimates that of the $2 trillion we’re spending on healthcare in this country, $1.5 trillion is for the treatment of preventable chronic disease. Now, that’s not all food, because you have smoking in there, too, and alcoholism. But the bulk of it is food." -Michael Pollan

"The most salient point is simply, [we] are not going to be able to tackle either the healthcare crisis or climate change unless [we] look at our food system. In the case of climate change, food is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gases, the way we’re growing food, the way we’re processing it and the way we’re eating. And the healthcare crisis... ...we are not going to be able to reform healthcare, which depends on getting the cost of healthcare down, without addressing... ...the catastrophe of the American diet. So we need to address it. It’s really the shadow issue over these other two issues." -Michael Pollan

omni·vore |ˈämnəˌvôr|
noun
an animal or person that eats food (or foodstuff)
of both plant and animal origin.

ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from French, from Latin omnivorus ‘omnivorous.’
. . .

food·stuff |foōd·stəf|
noun
A substance with some foodlike qualities that can be used or prepared for use as food, but generally lacks the health benefits of real food.
. . .
On Democracy Now February 13, 2008
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Author, Journalist Michael Pollan on Nutrition, Food Science and the
American Diet.

Acclaimed author and journalist Michael Pollan argues that what most Americans are
Pollanweb
consuming today is not food but “edible food-like substances.” His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. His latest book, just published, is called In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
WATCH
LISTEN
Real Video Stream
More Info...
Michael Pollan, Professor of science and environmental journalism at UC Berkeley. Real Video Stream
. . .

You say potātō,
I say genetically modified foodstuff.
I agree with Michael Pollan, in that what most Americans are consuming today is not food but “edible food-like substances.” I've often said that we shouldn't even have to have the term "health food", since food by definition should already be healthy. Unfortunately, the categorizes have been reversed, where pancakes, potatochips, and cheeseburgers are considered to be real food, while carrots and celery are considered to be rabbit food, hence not real food.

I also agree that thinking about food in terms of Nutrition defined by "the experts" can be misleading. Although, I think if we redefine nutrition to mean whole organic foods (usually plants) then it does serve a purpose. Most people that I've talked to don't really care that much about nutrition, maybe for the reasons discussed by Michael Pollan. Maybe people intuitively know there's a problem with nutritional science, so they ignore the whole idea of whether or not, what they're consuming is "good or bad" for them. Or, they just don't care because culture and tradition trump nutrition almost every time. Every time, that is, until they merge, which they increasingly are. But right now "nutrition" is the dysfunctional way, in which we make these health decisions about our eating habits, if we make these decisions at all.

My opinion varies from Michael Pollan a little on a small point, where he claims that people are eating or shopping in an effort to advance their health. This is true to a degree, but from my experience, people still eat according to how and where they were raised. It's just that, culture has been taken over by capital. It is the influence of big business on culture and nutritional science that is the problem. Michael Pollan recognizes this point. The difference in my opinion from his is simply that he sees this as a turning away from culture and pleasure, where I see it as a cultural shift, and manufactured wants replacing genuine pleasure.

Most people still do eat according to their culture, but the dominant cultures in the U.S. are increasingly influenced and determined by unregulated market forces. Yet, another example of what deregulated markets should not determine. Maybe the health of our bodies is in direct proportion to the health of our economic system. With regulations that only protect capital and not consumers, seeds that don't reproduce, and genetic modification, now not even our fruits and vegetables are safe. Fortunately, there's a growing resistance to this trend and the only question is whether or not we will be informed and act in time.

Also see:
Campaign against Genetically Modified Organisms
Monsanto: Planting Local Seeds, Sprouting Global Effects


✿ > ☠

foodstuff ...

YOU SAY TOMĀTŌ, I SAY RĒSIST !

...or genetically modified edible food-like substance.

♥ Happy Valentine's Day !!!

♥ Happy Valentine's Day !!! ♥


http://clipser.com/watch_video/103309

Sunday, January 20, 2008

● “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)”

On Democracy Now January 18, 2008
David Cay Johnston reveals how government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the (politically connected) rich.


LISTEN

WATCH
Real Video Stream.........
Johnston
David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist for the New York Times. His latest book is titled Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill). He is also author of the bestselling book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

● Resident Bush's Last Day in Office Countdown Clock


residency |ˈrez(ə)dənsē; ˈrezəˌdensē|
noun ( pl. -cies)
• the fact of living in a place : a government ruling allowed the right to residency.
• a residential post held by a person.


resident |ˈrez(ə)dənt; ˈrezəˌdent|
noun
a person who lives somewhere permanently or on a long-term basis.
• a bird, Bush, butterfly, or other animal of a species that does not migrate or travel abroad.
• a person who boards at a boarding school.
historical a British government agent in any semi-independent state, esp. the governor general's agent at the court of an Indian state.

adjective
living somewhere on a long-term basis : he has been resident in the White House for a long time.
• living at a school, office, or institution : resident students.
• (of a computer program, file, etc., such as, a virus implanted, spread on the DIEBOLD TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING MACHINES ) immediately available in computer memory, rather than having to be loaded from elsewhere.

DERIVATIVES
residentship |-ˌ sh ip| noun ( historical).

ORIGIN Middle English : from Latin resident- ‘remaining,’ from the verb residere (see RESIDE ).

--------------Thesaurus---------------

resident

noun
the residents of D.C. INHABITANT, local, citizen, native; townsfolk, townspeople; householder, homeowner, occupier, tenant; formal denizen.

adjective
1 is he currently resident in The White House? LIVING, residing, in residence; formal dwelling.
2 a resident governor LIVE-IN, living in.

--------------U:RESIST.COM---------------

for anti-fascist, anti-neo-con, anti-totalitarian political t-shirts visit uresist.com