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Muzzling a Movement

4. August 2010

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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

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Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas

29. July 2010

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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.

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Resistance Against Empire

21. July 2010

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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.

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The Politics of Protest: Task Force on Violent Aspects of Protest and Confrontation of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence

21. July 2010

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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.

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Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico

18. July 2010

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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.

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Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media

18. July 2010

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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.

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Who You Claim

18. July 2010

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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.

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Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy

15. July 2010

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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.

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Sober Living For The Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics

22. June 2010

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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.

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An Unreasonable Man

13. June 2010

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An Unreasonable Man

Few people have influenced public policy the way Ralph Nader has in a career that spans more than four decades. The documentary, An Unreasonable Man, is a powerful, inspirational, and yes – sometimes critical, examination of his life that catalogs a number of his accomplishments working on behalf of the public interest in pursuit of social justice.

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George Orwell’s 1984 Electronic Music Remix

9. June 2010

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George Orwell’s 1984 Electronic Music Remix

George Orwell meets twenty-first century electronic agit-prop. That’s the best way to explain Margaret Noble’s latest nonprofit sound project. She begins with a 1950s vinyl recording of George Orwell’s novel 1984, famous for its depiction of a totalitarian society held captive by the three-pronged propaganda of: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

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