Investigative journalist Naomi Klein speaking on “The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” is a PM Press DVD produced by Bonobo Films. It consists of a brilliant 65-minute talk Naomi gave on May 19, 2008 at the Friends Meeting House in London introducing the paperback edition of her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York, 2007), plus a remarkably insightful 10-minute interview with Naomi done in London the next day. Some sections of the talk are on youtube (1), but the whole is not, and is worth having in its entirety.
4. August 2010
Muzzling a Movement
It seems that the petty antagonisms that for so long characterized relations between competing animal activist and advocacy movements are dissipating. More and more frequently, the struggle for legitimacy between welfare, rights-based, and grassroots movements is being subsumed into a superstructural antagonism
29. July 2010
Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas
An old saying goes that, until lions are the storytellers, hunters will always write history to favor themselves. Countering such understandings is a fundamental aspiration to ideas like popular education as advocated by Paulo Freire.
29. July 2010
Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth, Culture and Social Crisis
Punk, hardcore and alternative rock music scenes have been for years the almost exclusive realm of teenagers and youth in their 20s. Not only have they been areas of creative expression, but such subcultures have given young people a place to challenge beauty standards, political boundaries and cultural norms.
21. July 2010
Resistance Against Empire
Derrick Jensen just won’t quit, that’s for sure. The word “prolific” doesn’t really do Jensen’s output justice; this guy is like an anarcho-primitivist version of Stephen King. And much like Stephen King, he’s constantly finding new ways to evoke a feeling of terror in his readers.
21. July 2010
The Politics of Protest: Task Force on Violent Aspects of Protest and Confrontation of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence
So the story goes, the original edition of The Politics of Protest was in fact a report commissioned by the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration in 1968. That year, Johnson created the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence.
18. July 2010
Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico
Ostensibly about the recent political strife in the Mexican state, Diario de Oaxaca will likely be far better known for its gorgeous visuals and packaging as a diary, complete with ribbon bookmark. The book, with bilingual versions of the story under the same cover, tells the story of artist Peter Kuper’s life in the community there. However, this book is much more than that.
18. July 2010
Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media
I have occasional conversations with associates about the unusual political and cultural space occupied by Latinos, and the challenges young Latinas in particular face. Often sexualized and objectified by mainstream white culture as exotic succubi, Latinas further occupy a racialized place of privilege that Black women are not permitted.
18. July 2010
Who You Claim
An old friend and comrade, Hitaji Aziz, once told me men of color have some of the biggest struggles to confront. Stereotyped and feared, men of color at once must wrestle with their own insecurities, self-perceptions and the necessity to feel human in a world that often denies men of color the right to feel much of anything beyond objectification and playing that part.
15. July 2010
Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy
AAARRRGGGGHHHH, Matey! I was one of the kids who grew up thinking that pirates were, well, cool as shit. Swashbucklers had evil-looking flags and tattoos, they wore eyepatches, they were fearless bandits, hedonistic drunks, and nationless nomads.
22. June 2010
Sober Living For The Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics
The contemporary vision of straight edge is a highly westernized one, focusing on plodding metal music and alpha male attitudes, with politics largely subtracted from the equation.
Become A Friend
17. August 2010