“Black Americans have some inkling of what Arab nationalism must feel like.”

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Many Black Americans expressed deep admiration, bordering on envy, for the Egyptians they saw on television.” There’s nothing strange about that; African Americans have often identified with other peoples of color that oppose domination by U.S.-backed regimes. But African American nationalism today leads Blacks to support a Black president who is hostile to their interests, while nationalism in Egypt helped fuel revolt against an Arab dictator who sold out his people.

"These were not armed men but mourners returning from a funeral.."

"Massacre – it's a massacre," the doctors were shouting. Three dead. Four dead. One man was carried past me on a stretcher in the emergency room, blood spurting on to the floor from a massive bullet wound in his thigh.

A few feet away, six nurses were fighting for the life of a pale-faced, bearded man with blood oozing out of his chest. "I have to take him to theatre now," a doctor screamed. "There is no time – he's dying!"

Others were closer to death. One poor youth – 18, 19 years old, perhaps – had a terrible head wound, a bullet hole in the leg and a bloody mess on his chest. The doctor beside him turned to me weeping, tears splashing on to his blood-stained gown. "He has a fragmented bullet in his brain and I can't get the bits out, and the bones on the left side of his head are completely smashed. His arteries are all broken. I just can't help him." Blood was cascading on to the floor. It was pitiful, outrageous, shameful. These were not armed men but mourners returning from a funeral, Shia Muslims of course, shot down by their own Bahraini army yesterday afternoon.

A medical orderly was returning with thousands of other men and women from the funeral at Daih of one of the demonstrators killed at Pearl Square in the early hours of Thursday.

"We decided to walk to the hospital because we knew there was a demonstration. Some of us were carrying tree branches as a token of peace which we wanted to give to the soldiers near the square, and we were shouting 'peace, peace. There was no provocation – nothing against the government. Then suddenly the soldiers started shooting. One was firing a machine gun from the top of a personnel carrier. There were police but they just left as the soldiers shot at us. But you know, the people in Bahrain have changed. They didn't want to run away. They faced the bullets with their bodies."

The demonstration at the hospital had already drawn thousands of Shia protesters – including hundreds of doctors and nurses from all over Manama, still in their white gowns – to demand the resignation of the Bahraini Minister of Health, Faisal Mohamed al-Homor, for refusing to allow ambulances to fetch the dead and injured from Thursday morning's police attack on the Pearl Square demonstrators.

But their fury turned to near-hysteria when the first wounded were brought in yesterday. Up to 100 doctors crowded into the emergency rooms, shouting and cursing their King and their government as paramedics fought to push trolleys loaded with the latest victims through screaming crowds. One man had a thick wad of bandages stuffed into his chest but blood was already staining his torso, dripping off the trolley. "He has a live round in his chest – and now there is air and blood in his lungs," the nurse beside him told me. "I think he is going." Thus did the anger of Bahrain's army – and, I suppose, the anger of the al-Khalifa family, the King included – reach the Sulmaniya medical centre.

The staff felt that they too were victims. And they were right. Five ambulances sent to the street – yesterday's victims were shot down opposite a fire station close to Pearl Square – were stopped by the army. Moments later, the hospital discovered that all their mobile phones had been switched off. Inside the hospital was a doctor, Sadeq al-Aberi, who was himself badly hurt by the police when he went to help the wounded on Thursday morning.

Rumours burned like petrol in Bahrain yesterday and many medical staff were insisting that up to 60 corpses had been taken from Pearl Square on Thursday morning and that police were seen by crowds loading bodies into three refrigerated trucks. One man showed me a mobile phone snapshot in which the three trucks could be seen clearly, parked behind several army armoured personnel carriers. According to other demonstrators, the vehicles, which bore Saudi registration plates, were later seen on the highway to Saudi Arabia. It is easy to dismiss such ghoulish stories, but I found one man – another male nurse at the hospital who works under the umbrella of the United Nations – who told me that an American colleague, he gave his name as "Jarrod", had videotaped the bodies being put into the trucks but was then arrested by the police and had not been seen since.

Why has the royal family of Bahrain allowed its soldiers to open fire at peaceful demonstrators? To turn on Bahraini civilians with live fire within 24 hours of the earlier killings seems like an act of lunacy.

But the heavy hand of Saudi Arabia may not be far away. The Saudis are fearful that the demonstrations in Manama and the towns of Bahrain will light equally provocative fires in the east of their kingdom, where a substantial Shia minority lives around Dhahran and other towns close to the Kuwaiti border. Their desire to see the Shia of Bahrain crushed as quickly as possible was made very clear at Thursday's Gulf summit here, with all the sheikhs and princes agreeing that there would be no Egyptian-style revolution in a kingdom which has a Shia majority of perhaps 70 per cent and a small Sunni minority which includes the royal family.

Yet Egypt's revolution is on everyone's lips in Bahrain. Outside the hospital, they were shouting: "The people want to topple the minister," a slight variation of the chant of the Egyptians who got rid of Mubarak, "The people want to topple the government."

And many in the crowd said – as the Egyptians said – that they had lost their fear of the authorities, of the police and army.

The policemen and soldiers for whom they now express such disgust were all too evident on the streets of Manama yesterday, watching sullenly from midnight-blue armoured vehicles or perched on American-made tanks. There appeared to be no British weaponry in evidence – although these are early days and there was Russian-made armour alongside the M-60 tanks. In the past, small Shia uprisings were ruthlessly crushed in Bahrain with the help of a Jordanian torturer and a senior intelligence factotum who just happened to be a former British Special Branch officer.

And the stakes here are high. This is the first serious insurrection in the wealthy Gulf states – more dangerous to the Saudis than the Islamists who took over the centre of Mecca more than 30 years ago – and Bahrain's al-Khalifa family realise just how fraught the coming days will be for them. A source which has always proved reliable over many years told me that late on Wednesday night, a member of the al-Khalifa family – said to be the Crown Prince – held a series of telephone conversations with a prominent Shia cleric, the Wifaq Shia party leader, Ali Salman, who was camping in Pearl Square. The Prince apparently offered a series of reforms and government changes which he thought the cleric had approved. But the demonstrators stayed in the square. They demanded the dissolution of parliament. Then came the police.

In the early afternoon yesterday, around 3,000 people held a rally in support of the al-Khalifas and there was much waving of the national flag from the windows of cars. This may make the front pages of the Bahraini press today – but it won't end the Shia uprising. And last night's chaos at Manama's greatest hospital – the blood slopping off the wounded, the shouts for help from those on the stretchers, the doctors who had never before seen such gunshot wounds; one of them simply shook his head in disbelief when a woman went into a fit next to a man who was sheathed in blood – has only further embittered the Shia of this nation.

A doctor who gave his name as Hussein stopped me leaving the emergency room because he wanted to explain his anger. "The Israelis do this sort of thing to the Palestinians – but these are Arabs shooting at Arabs," he bellowed above the din of screams and shouts of fury. "This is the Bahraini government doing this to their own people. I was in Egypt two weeks ago, working at the Qasr el-Aini hospital – but things are much more fucked up here."

'Were those live bullets? Sounded like an automatic weapon'

(GRAPHIC CONTENT)

Bahrain's Army Deliberately Shooting Peaceful Protesters [VIDEO]

"State, County and Federal Officials Make Human Trafficking Arrests

(HOUSTON) - A three-year investigation into the trafficking of young and minor female Mexican nationals for the purpose of compelling their service as prostitutes at Houston area bars and restaurants through force, fraud and coercion has lead to the indictment of 10 including the owner/operators of the La Costeñita Bar and El Club Restaurante, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today.

U.S. Attorney Moreno was joined in making this announcement at a press conference today by FBI-Houston Assistant Special Agent in Charge Michael H. Bonner; Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) Assistant Special Agent in Charge Sean McElroy; Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia; Major George Rhyne, Texas Department of Public Safety; and Lt. C.A. Vazquez of the Houston Police Department; whose agencies worked together as part of the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA) to conduct the investigation leading to the charges.

The three-count indictment returned by a Houston grand jury under seal on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011, was unsealed today. All 10 defendants charged were taken into custody as a result of coordinated enforcement actions undertaken by teams of investigating agents last evening. All those in custody made initial appearances before a United States Magistrate Judge earlier this morning. All will appear for a detention hearing tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 18, 2011, before United States Frances H. Stacy at 1:00 p.m.

“I applaud the bravery of the young lady who made the 911 call for help in this case,” said Moreno, “and commend the efforts of the agency members of the HTRA for the investigative efforts to rescue the victims in this case and apprehend their oppressors.”

Maria Rojas, aka “Nancy,” 46, a co-owner of the La Costeñita Bar and El Club Restaurante, located at 8403 and 8037 Clinton Drive, respectively, in Houston and her brother, Jose Luis Rojas, 38, who operated the La Costeñita as well as the locations adjacent to the bar located at 8303 Clinton Drive where the prostitution allegedly took place, are charged with conspiring to hold persons in conditions of peonage and recruiting, holding, transporting and providing and obtaining persons for sexual services.

“The crimes alleged in this indictment are unconscionable,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard C. Powers. “While we can't erase the harm done by these horrible acts, the FBI and other members of the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance will continue to ensure the victims of these crimes are protected and their traffickers are brought to justice.”

Specifically, the indictment alleges these defendants were involved in the recruitment of Mexican women and girls to travel to the United States with the false expectation of legitimate jobs in bars and restaurants beginning in 1999 and using force, fraud and coercion to compel their service as prostitutes in their bar and restaurant. It is further alleged that in 2003 through 2011, the conspirators changed their tactics and relied upon on the services of pimps to supply minor females and young women for use as prostitutes and to maintain control and prevent escape of the minor females and young women. The Rojas’ allegedly derived their substantial profits initially by doubling the amount of the smuggling fee charged by smugglers ($2,000 fee became $4,000) which was taken from the earnings of the women. Later when the operation changed to use pimps, profits were derived through the collection of $15 going to La Costeñita and $50 to the young women and minors which ultimately went to the pimp. This conspiracy charge carries a statutory penalty of a minimum of no less than 10 years imprisonment and maximum term of up to life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine upon conviction.

“Human and sex trafficking is modern-day slavery and it’s happening right here in our own back yard,” said Sheriff Garcia. “These indictments prove that we will not tolerate it and that we will pursue the individuals involved in this kind of crime to the furthest extent of the law. These arrests, while they’re just the tip of the iceberg, are an example of the results that working together diligently with local and federal agencies can produce.”

The remaining eight defendants, Javier Guevara Belmontes, 46, who also owned, controlled and operated La Costeñita Bar and El Club Restaurante; Maday Martinez, 34, aka “Yvonne” (full name Maday Martinez Lindero), and Evelin Carloine Aguera, 37, alleged managers at La Costeñita Bar and the adjacent property; Claudia LNU (real name: Claudia Perez Ramirez), 27, Silvano Santos, aka “Chivas,” 33, Francisco LNU, aka “Pancho” (real name: Francisco Midardi Maradiaga Jimenez), 33, and Olvan LNU (real name: Olvan Renieri Ramirez Caceres), 25, all of whom allegedly worked at La Costeñita Bar and at the adjacent property as “lookouts” alerting of police presence; and Aleyda LNU (real name: Aleyda Maria Juares), 27, who allegedly charged the young women and minors for condom and use of the rooms at a residence adjacent to the bar are charged along with Maria and Jose Luis Rojas conspiring to harbor illegal aliens for commercial advantage and private financial gain. A conviction for this felony offense carries a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Maria Rojas is also charged in the third and last count of the indictment with illegal re-entry into the United States after deportation which carries a maximum statutory penalty of two years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine upon conviction.

Maria and Jose Luis Rojas, Maday Martinez Lindero, Silvano Santos and Claudia Perez Ramirez are Mexican nationals. Four others, Evelin Carolina Aguero, Olvan Renieri Ramirez Caceres, Aleyda Maria Juares and Francisco Maradiaga Jimenez, are Honduran nationals. The l0th defendant, Javier Guevara Belmontes is a legal permanent resident originally from Mexico.

“Today's arrests reflect a coordinated state and federal law enforcement effort to crack down on human trafficking,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said. “The defendants are charged with illegally trafficking their victims into this country and coercing them into forced prostitution. The Texas Attorney General's Office will continue working with state and local authorities to prevent this horrific crime.”

Also included in the indictment is notice of intent to forfeit money constituting the proceeds of the illegal activity, the businesses (bar and restaurant) and several residential properties - including the bar and restaurant and adjacent property and Maria Rojas’ home - which the United States alleges were used to facilitate or were obtained with ill-gotten gains from the alleged crimes

The case was investigated by the FBI, ICE, Harris Co. Sheriff’s Office, The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the Texas Attorney General’s Office; the Department of State - Diplomatic Security Service, Texas Department of Public Safety and the Houston Police Department.

The HTRA formed in August 2004 in the SDTX is one of the original 32 U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance grantees. It is a collaboration of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies working together with area social service organizations to identify and assist the victims of human trafficking and to effectively identify, apprehend and prosecute those engaged in both domestic and international human trafficking offenses. The United States Attorney’s Office for the SDTX coordinates all trafficking investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Gallagher, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division’s Major Crimes Section serves as coordinator of the HTRA, Assistant United States Attorneys Ruben R. Perez, Chief of the Civil Rights/Trafficking Unit (CRTU), who is prosecuting this case with the assistance of Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Magliolo and Special Assistant United States Attorney Kimani Eason, members of the CRTU, serves as deputy coordinator of the HTRA.

The public is reminded that an indictment is formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence.
The defendant(s) are presumed innocent unless and until convicted through due process of law.

"Carved a stone for the door of our earthen oven..."

[earlier]

...probably, if not, some other schemin'

Did Glenn Beck Turn A Profit At Wilmington Charity Event?

February 15, 2011 9:43 am ET by Eric Boehlert

With news that Glenn Beck finally donated money to Wilmington, Ohio charities after staging in-person appeals on the town's behalf back in December, and with the news that most of the money raised from Beck's ticket sales did not go to Wilmington charities, it's time to ask this question: Did Beck actually turn a profit from his Wilmington appearances thanks to the sky-high ticket fees for performances. And did Beck turn a profit because Fox News, in a highly unusual move, allowed the host to charge exorbitant prices for fans to watch him tape his TV show in Wilmington?

Indeed, Beck's entire Wilmington production, which he relentlessly promoted as a selfless act of goodwill, looks increasingly cynical in its execution. It also looks increasingly profitable. For Beck, not the town.

We've always known Beck charged money for the Wilmington tickets. That's never been a secret. But the revelation late last week that such a large percentage of the ticket revenues did not go to charity raises the obvious question: Why did Fox News allow Beck to charge big bucks ($125) for tickets to the taping of his TV show? (And is that an option extended to other hosts?)

Let's recap what transpired in Wilmington late last year. In an effort to raise public awareness about the town and its unemployment struggles, Beck announced that he would visit Wilmington and shine a spotlight on the community. The host hoped that his legions of fans would descend on Wilmington for Beck's visit and (temporarily) boost the local economy.

When he announced his Wilmington plans, Beck also politicized his deeds by lying about how town, in a fit of Middle America self-determination, had shunned financial aid from Uncle Sam. Instead, residents turned to churches and neighbors in time of need, according to Beck. In truth, the federal government has pumped millions of dollars into Wilmington and the surrounding county in recent years. Just last week the government announced it was pouring nearly $3 million more into the community. (By comparison, Beck has donated $44,000.)

As part of Beck's whirlwind tour of the town back on December 15, he sold tickets to three separate events at the Murphy Theater, which he rented out. Fans were able to purchase $125 tickets to watch the taping of Beck's nationally syndicated radio show. Fans were able to purchase $125 tickets for the taping of Beck's Fox News program. And fans were able to purchase $125 tickets to his one-man performance that evening, 'America's First Christmas.' Especially wealthy, or dedicated, Beck fans were even able to purchase VIP tickets to a breakfast meet-and-greet with the talker in Wilmington that day. (Those tickets sold for $500, not counting the $32 per-ticket service fee.)

Keep in mind that typically, television shows filmed before a live audience give away tickets. For free. The notion that a news (or even faux news) program like Glenn Beck would charge admission for the taping of a program is highly unusual. The idea that show like that would charge $125 is just bizarre, and that Beck was doing that in a community suffering from sky-high unemployment was just jaw dropping.

At the time though, there were vague promises made by Beck's camp that the money raised from the ticket sales would go to help Wilmington charities busy trying to help those in need. If true, there at least seemed to be some sort of defense for the Broadway-style ticket prices.

And to his credit, Beck was able to sell lots of tickets in Wilmington. If you add up the revenue from Beck's three Murphy Theater events, he sold approximately $300,000 worth of tickets. Specifically, the taping of Beck's TV show sold out, generating nearly $100,000 in sales.

If all of that money, or virtually all of it, had gone directly to local charities than I could kind of understand why Fox News allowed one of its hosts to charge $125 for tickets to a taping. (i.e. It's all going to a good cause.) But we now know most of the money from those $125 tickets did not go to local charities.

Last week, we found out that from the estimated $300,000 raised from Wilmington ticket sales, Beck donated a grand total of $44,000 to local charities. So where did the remaining $256,000 go?

In terms of expenses associated with Beck's one-man, minimally staged productions that day, here's what the Wilmington News Journal reported [emphasis added]:

Chris Schock, the director of the Clinton County Regional Planning Commission, said the $44,611 was money remaining 'after [Beck] covered local fixed costs like paying the Murphy [Theatre] for rent, expenses, their portion of the ticket sales and paying the City of Wilmington $10,780.78, which covered all of the city's additional expenses.'

But there still seems to be an enormous gap between the $300,000 in ticket revenues Beck generated and the $44,000 he donated to charity. Beck's Wilmington costs accounted for nearly 85 percent of ticket sales? If true, that's one poorly run charity event. And keep in mind, the Fox News host pocketed $32 million in 2009. Did he not pick up any of the Wilmington expenses himself, or did he deduct every last penny before making his $44,000 donation?

That $256,000 gap is significant for several reasons, one of which is it raises questions about why Fox News let Beck charge admission for the taping of his TV show in Wilmington when it's now clear that most of that money did not go to charity.

Exit questions: Did Glenn Beck turn a profit in Wilmington? And did Fox News, which allowed Beck to charge $125 for tickets, in any way profit from the Wilmington event?

UPDATE: Media Matters has been contacted by a reader who says the Wilmington News Journal report, linked to above, that Beck charged for tickets to the taping of his Fox News show is inaccurate.

Did Glenn Beck Turn A Profit At Wilmington Charity Event? | Media Matters for America

Alternative Currency and Economies - Preserving the Possibilities Created by the Egyptian Revolution

I found myself reflecting about the Egyptian Revolution from a traditional economist’s point of view. During those two weeks, no doubt the GDP of Egypt suffered a drop. Instability stopped trade and, except for a handful of brave reporters and a stream of Egyptian ex-patriates, tourism doubtless dropped. There was fear that oil prices would spike and that access to the Suez Canal would be blocked. All that was achieved was liberty and the assertion of basic human rights. But from a market point of view, it was a non-event or perhaps a negative event.

But for me, this revolution was in fact a major economic event. The multitudes that gathered engaged in an unprecedented surge of value creating activity. The Core Economy of households, neighborhoods and civil society were functioning at peak efficiency to do what the Core Economy at its best should be doing: making human development possible; advancing social justice; solidifying and validating mutual interdependence; advancing trust; creating a legacy based on fundamental values that will inspire future generations.

We need to be conscious of a different kind of economics, an economics of meaning, an ecological economics. The only credentials needed were courage, hope, and a willingness to put one’s body on the line. This revolution did not call upon traditional marketable skills unless one appreciates that the restraint by all (including the military), the tenacity, the shared consciousness of higher values, the willingness to make sacrifices for a larger cause exemplify intelligence, problem solving and ethical sensibility that undergirds market and commerce.

Now consider what weaponry was involved: cell phones, twitter, e-mail, facebook – multiplied billions of times by communications, by a world watching, by formal governmental processes having to respond to a seemingly unstoppable force. I have heard it said that the fall of communism was triggered in part by the distribution of Xerox machines in Soviet Russia so that documents could be copied and news spread. It is clear that events in Tunisia helped inspire the opposition in Egypt to mount the protests that led to the toppling of Mubarak.
In Egypt, news commentators noted how educated professionals, lawyers and doctors, have participated in the movement.

Throughout the Mideast, indeed, throughout the world, it is no longer possible to prevent mass dissemination of ideas and a quantum increase in dialog and debate on fundamental issues that include religion, the status of women, human rights, economics and democracy.

Unemployment, inflation and the vast disparity of wealth triggered mass, uncontrollable anger. Sooner rather than later, throughout the world, there will be the need for another kind of economics. Given the vast unemployment around the world, we will need a different kind of money to get us through a period of transition and transformation.

There is vast and urgent work to be done. While creating a new government takes work and time, other work must go forward: raising children, providing education, promoting public health and public safety, delivering health care, taking care of the elderly, preserving and creating culture, creating an expanding the core infrastructure of roads and utilities and clean water, making democracy work, preserving the planet. People are patient – but they must eat – and they must have a reason to believe in the future.

Governments will not have the funds to mount massive public works schemes. Charity will not be sufficient to meet basic needs, let alone generate the singular effort it will take to keep hope alive. I believe we must create a separate economic system that enlists all to build the kind of world we all want – and that provides all willing to contribute with access to sustenance needed.

What would it take to establish distribution centers where people who contributed a specified number of hours to address a public need would be able to secure an allotment of food or clothing or fuel? What would it take, given the distribution of cell phones to create the equivalent of Craig’s list to generate a vast barter economy utilizing an hour-based electronic currency as the medium of exchange? What local institutions – civic or faith-based or organization-based – to function as intermediaries to oversee storehouses of essential materials and goods? What would it take to organize local efforts to create sustainable communities and networks that would trade with each other to meet basic needs?

If ever there was a time when complementary currencies could undergird civic development, public health, and general welfare, it is now. If ever there was a time when those with wealth, power and privilege would see it in their own self-interest to collaborate in creating an economic system that addressed critical need by rewarding basic labor, it is now. If ever there was a time when enabling people to be empowered by enlisting in work that advanced the common good, it is now. This is indeed what TimeBanking has done in community after community. (www.timebanks.org) New Community Weaver software utilizing Drupal will be available within a month; translation into different languages and smart phone applications will shortly be available.

A collective effort to initiate community-building efforts on a massive scale would be facilitated by use of a currency that sent a message of equality and respect with each hour of work provided.

What do you think?

The Work of the Core Economy - Preserving the Possibilities Created by the Egyptian Revolution

Seriously, "Cyberdyne"!? ..sounds straight outta Robocop - A beautiful movie with a happy ending - each time.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, technology journalist Evan Ackerman was the first person in the U.S. to walk in a robot suit called Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL). The exoskeleton was created by Cyberdyne, a Japanese company that envisions the suit assisting physically disabled people, though the company has been contacted by the U.S. Army, which may be interested in testing the suit, according to a story on IEEE Spectrum’s Automation Blog. Apparently all you have to do once inside the suit is think about moving and the suit takes over

Video: Man Becomes Cyborg – Science and Technology – Utne Reader

...Um

YouTube - Sarcos

..disappeared twitt from twitter, maybe?

..sounded relevant.

"A PRI ex-mayor is spreading rumors on twitter that #Oaxaca activists kidnapped 2 cops. Rumors like that got Atenco women raped in 2006."

A Socially Anti-Social, Dialogically Autonomous, Psychedelic Social Practice « OCCUPY EVERYTHING

..Standing on a corner, wanting to help carry people’s bags across the street for an art project ,this come-and-get-it smile is also one of social practices’ most common affects.

Body (continued): The problem of Social Practice.

So despite the very effective down-sourcing of power that results from the collective project of Fallen Fruit, Future Farmers and a thousand other projects on 127 Prince or the Groundswell Blog or the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, neoliberal markets have the capacity to ideologically re-appropriate these down-sourced potentialities back up into the market. In that both neoliberalism and our social practices are both facilitated by that smile, neoliberalism’s come-and-get-it smile is reinforced almost every time a social practitioner strikes that pose. :)

That smile, that shit eating, come have fun with me smile. It’ll be OK, we’ll have fun! Come have fun while we imagine how we imagine how we might live in a post-oil world!

That smile of the open network that opens up public space to social space is the same smile that neoliberalism likes within its creative cities, its self-realized contract workers, its glad to be hear immigrant labor, its virally-marketed, crowd-sourced production capacitors. :)

Marc J. Leger’s outlines this with delightful percussion in his essay “Welcome to the Cultural Goodwill Revolution: On Class Composition in the Age of Classless Struggle” for the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest #7.

This affected smile is the cruel tool of capitalist discipline that maintains this extended cultural moment.

Social Practice has (often unwittingly) facilitated this exploitation and is also uniquely positioned to end it.

Climax: Where the peasant throws off the overlord

For social practice to fulfill its radical potential, it just has to stop smiling.

There are so many emotions we need to work through together besides “happy!”
For starters, how about dominated and dominator?
Or how about sadness?

Anchoring group explorations in clearly productive projects creates a safe and extremely meaningful way to collectively process the discipline we encounter as capitalist subjects.

For social practice to fulfill its radical potential, it must stop using the affective communication tools which normalize interpersonal exchanges in order to create seemingly conflict-free social contracts.

Working through social conflict is a part of a movement. At least on the movement’s onset.

The radical social practitioner can also use an autonomous position from their audience to provocatively challenger audience-participants to build critical distance from their own collectivity.

This is key. Social practice must learn how to socialize an engaged criticality of how institutions and movements constitute and utilize social power. Neoliberal abuse of social practice is study case #1 of this utilization.

A radical social practice must facilitate the potential for its own critical deconstruction by its participants. Though this should smack of 90′s style institutional critique (see Art and Contemporary Critical Practice, Reinventing Institutional Critique, Gerald Raunig and Gene Ray editors) it isn’t. This criticality intends to model a critical practice outside of established institutions, and within the expanded field.

A critical social practice is aware of the enthusiasm and interest it builds in relationship to its own success. Yet instead of avoiding representation, it artistically moves to problematize its own performance and use this problematization as further medium between itself and its audience.

This project would then work in a two-fold manner. Within the traditional mode of social practice, it organizes people through desires to produce collective experiences or resources. Concurrently, the more critical element works to create a dialogical distance between participants and organizers so that the collective experience is not normalized as the result of smoothing affect. Instead the work becomes an act of negotiation and dialog while autonomous power (in the form of food gathering, protest/performance, or healing) is produced.

Socially anti-social practice. Psychedelic Social Practice. Dialogically Autonomous Social Practice.

Creating a movement in exchange with broader society is an occupation.


A Socially Anti-Social, Dialogically Autonomous, Psychedelic Social Practice « OCCUPY EVERYTHING

Permaculture Detroit, March 27 - April 8

Detroit's difficult past, it's vibrant entrepreneurial spirit, under-utilized workforce, abundant water, vacant land, and industrial past all combine to make Detroit the perfect candidate to be the first large, post-industrial, post-carbon urban area.

The unique goal of this course is to apply permaculture principles to produce a workable design for a major city as the course Design Project.

The Detroit Works project to redesign Detroit provides the teachers, staff and students with a unique opportunity to apply permaculture at a breadth and scale perhaps never attempted. We hope to encourage persons involved in Detroit Works, and individuals, businesses and organizations from around the city to collaborate in this process, bringing sustainable design elements to the table as the Detroit Works project moves forward.

Please Donate to the Scholarship Fund
http://www.microgiving.com/profile/killiankob

Registration and more information:
http://pri-de.net/board/courses2011.php

(Discounts available to Detroit residents - and teachers)

Tosepan Titataniske

Permaculture Heroes Vol 1, the first minidoc in this series, is a short introduction to permaculture, a legendary permaculturist Larry Santoyo, and an amazing model of permacuture, the Indigenous CO-OP & Community high in the Sierra Madre called Tosepan Titataniske, which means in Nauhatl, 'Going Forward Together We Will Succeed'.

COVOLV: Permaculture Heroes Vol.1 from COVOLV on Vimeo.

..more info:

Simple Strategies for a Sustainable Society
A full permaculture design certificate course with Larry Santoyo and Scott Pittman. Join an experiential learning retreat in a beautiful indigenous Nahuatl ecovillage at the Tosepan Kali, a sustainable rural resort and co-op

LOCATION: CUETZALAN, PUEBLA, MEXICO.

DATE: APRIL 10-25, 2011.

Using a holistic design approach, this course will teach you the possibilities of the practical and the profound in everyday living. It will introduce you to the people and resources that will help you create a new ecosystem, one that goes beyond your home and garden and all the way out into your community.

“Lets embrace sustainability not because we fear the future, let’s embrace sustainability because we love the things we love about the present.” - L. Santoyo