Peace and Conflict Studies course
Social media blackout and optional hike in red river gorge
“I am not going to back away from being called a radical. If being an advocate of peace, justice, and humanity toward all human beings is radical, then I’m glad to be called a radical.” - Congressman Ron Dellums (1935 - 2018)
Kloppenberg, James. "Things Fall Apart: The Origins and Future of American Democracy." Ideas (May 10, 2019) ["Does America’s early experiment with self-rule offer lessons for the U.S. today?"]
Social media blackout and optional hike in red river gorge
“I am not going to back away from being called a radical. If being an advocate of peace, justice, and humanity toward all human beings is radical, then I’m glad to be called a radical.” - Congressman Ron Dellums (1935 - 2018)
As citizens of a globalized world it is imperative that we begin to develop a broader awareness of the interconnected cultures and societies that influence and shape world events. Anyone remotely aware of the American social/cultural landscape must recognize that many of our citizens are unaware of the broader relations and connections of the world in which they live in. Many Americans tend to have a narrow understanding of world history, educated through ethnocentric American textbooks and informed through mediatized narratives filtered through the lenses of the dominant center, both of these effectively ignore the realities of the margins (culturally, economically and socially). Many concerned citizens struggle to carve out meaning in the contemporary data stream and suffer the neglect of a mainstream media that limits itself to predigested dualistic positions. In this simplified media environment, vast regions of the world are presumed to be unable to speak for themselves and rarely, in the mainstream corporate media that serves as the news for a majority of American citizens, do we receive sustained and in-depth critical analysis of issues through the voices and experiences of multiple interested parties. --Michael Benton, August 9, 2016
Might be better https://www.annenbergphotospace.org/video/wade-davis-wayfinders-why-ancient-wisdom-matters-modern-world/
Waziyatawin and Michael Yellow Bird. "For Indigenous Eyes Only: Beginning Decolonization." (Excerpt from For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook Edited by Waziyatawin Angela Wilson and Michael Yellow Bird © 2005 School of American Research.)
Noam Chomsky's Requiem for the American DreamWaziyatawin and Michael Yellow Bird. "For Indigenous Eyes Only: Beginning Decolonization." (Excerpt from For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook Edited by Waziyatawin Angela Wilson and Michael Yellow Bird © 2005 School of American Research.)
Kloppenberg, James. "Things Fall Apart: The Origins and Future of American Democracy." Ideas (May 10, 2019) ["Does America’s early experiment with self-rule offer lessons for the U.S. today?"]
Ellis, C.P. "Why I Quit the Klan." American Dreams Lost and Found (Interviewed by Studs Terkel: 1980)
Berkow, Ira. "Stealing Home: A Tribute to Jackie Robinson." Ideas (April 15, 2019) ["The National Baseball Hall of Fame quotes trailblazer Jackie Robinson: "a life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." Robinson's life had a huge impact, especially when he broke down the colour barrier in Major League Baseball and American society. His rookie season still stands as one of the most politically profound events in the history of organized sport."] -- Often identity politics is dismissed as an egoistic (or very narrow/limiting) political position that ignores the power of collective organizing against injustice. As a blanket dismissal this is an incorrect assessment as can be seen in the powerful effect the breaking of the color line in Baseball had on American culture and politics.
"How do images affect our hearts and minds? How do images influence our everyday lives, our techno-scientific practices, our connections and disconnections, our conscious and unconscious desires and fears? How do images show up in the clothes we wear, in the ways we walk, and the objects we want? How do images influence the foods we eat or don’t eat and the ideas and feelings we have about our selves and others? How do some images enter our flesh, captivate us, fascinate us, or arouse our senses? How is it that other images put us to sleep? How do images inform our habits and fantasies, pleasures and doubts, worries and joys, rituals and rebellions? How do images shape our personal, political, cultural, moral, and religious beliefs about nature and about justice? How do images influence what we imagine to be possible and what’s not? Visual images are today everywhere entangled within a complex and contradictory web of global electronic flows of information. Images are typically racialized, gendered, territorialized, eroticized, militarized, and class-driven. Some of the most powerful images are hooked-up to hi-tech machineries of war, surveillance, and the economic marketplace. Images also lie at the core of global corporate technologies of profit, control and advantage. How might such images be best understood? How might they be critically subverted, transformed, or remade?" -- Stephen Pfohl, "Images and Power" (2011)
Just watched the documentary The Work (2017), one of the most powerful films I have seen in awhile. I'm shaken, I'm at a loss of words, this should be viewed - here is an eloquent statement from Silent Dawn on Letterboxd about the documentary: "Rattles the soul. The deep, dark shit. Emphasizes that, at the end of the day, all we humans can do is embrace our common issues and rise above them. It doesn't have to be the same every goddamn time. We can teach kindness to our children. We can tell them that it's important to hug, kiss, and cry in pursuit of catharsis and empathy. We can provide a break in the cycle of violence and toxicity found in social masculine narratives. It starts with conversation, looking in the eyes of another, and letting tears stream forth, all because you feel something. It should be encouraged, and accepted, as normal, positive behavior. Our hearts should beat in unison. The Work is a landmark, simply due to its resolve and progression of respected human emotion. It visualizes bodies as they are: living, breathing, feeling. Let's show this in schools and talk about it afterward."
Shah, Kushbu. "They Look White But Say They are Black: A Tiny Town in Ohio Wrestles with Race." The Guardian (July 25, 2019) [A clear example of how racism is much more than just skin color (although that is an obvious and easy way for immediate enforcement), that who is considered to be "white"/"non-white" has evolved over time, and racism has always had a strong economic/class (hierarchy) function designed to keep certain peoples in their "place.". Check out Barbara Field's book Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality "Many residents in East Jackson were raised to identify as black. But what dictates race: where you live, your DNA, the history you’re taught?"]
Also, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences
Partanen, Anu and Jay Tomlinson. "The Nordic Theory of Love." The Best of the Left #142 (March 1, 2019) [MB - A great discussion of how a more supportive society would actually strengthen and aid us in developing saner/stronger relationships and families that are not structured around co-dependency and domination. "The Nordic theory of love and independence with the author of The Nordic Theory of Everything."]
Loewinger, Micah. "How Youtube's Left is Changing Minds." On the Media (July 19, 2019) ["The president’s racist tweets this weekend provoked revulsion throughout the mainstream media. But on YouTube, America’s most popular social media site, racism has found a home. Free of old-school gate-keeping, YouTube hosts a much wider political spectrum, reaching very impressionable eyes and ears. On the Media producer Micah Loewinger tells the story of three young viewers whose right-wing beliefs melted away after encountering videos by an informal movement of leftist creators known as Left Tube. He spoke with two of Left Tube's most famous personalities, Natalie Wynn (ContraPoints) and Oliver Thorn (Philosophy Tube) about how they think about crafting compelling videos. "]
Grady, Danielle. "Moving the Needle: Small Groups Push Outsize Changes." LEO Weekly (July 24, 2019)
I am Not Your Negro https://youtu.be/rNUYdgIyaPM (the long lasting influence of public intellectuals)
Racism is inherently structural (plays out in the government/institutions, policies/laws, media/representations and economics/wealth of a society). Our culture was founded by white supremacists and has continued privileging that ideology to the current day (Trump is not an aberration - just a social media/reality show fueled ideation). Whites/caucasians/whatever that are privileged by this system and do not challenge/resist it, well they are complicit in a racist society (in my mind, because as Howard Zinn puts it, "you can't be neutral on a moving train"). They are racist... pointing out that reality above, is not racist.
Roberts, David. "In Which CNN Devotes 7 Hours to Climate Change." On the Media (September 6, 2019) [MB -- I'm hoping this will be a tipping point in the way in which we conduct the investigation of candidate positions and, hopefully, a move away from the soundbite candidate forums of the two major parties. Fascinating example of the power of informed citizens asking pertinent questions of candidates who are then allowed the time to unpack their positions ... as opposed to the regular routine of media bobbleheads prompting pithy comments in the hope of a viral moment. Could you imagine the Twitter-in-Chief trying to survive a few of these 40 minute intense question-and-answer sessions? "... CNN hosted a town hall forum with ten Democratic primary candidates discussing their policy proposals for addressing the climate crisis. The DNC declined requests from climate activists to host a themed debate for the issue, so CNN had the candidates on back-to-back for 7 hours as moderators took turns asking questions with an audience of activists, PhD students, and professors. According to David Roberts, who covers energy and climate change for Vox, it was actually a meaningful event. The questions from audience members were personal, informed, and incisive and the candidates were surprisingly specific in their answers. Roberts tells Brooke what he learned from the town hall about different frames for discussing climate change, and how journalists are still catching up on the conversation."]
King, Charles. "How A Few 'Renegade' Thinkers Helped Usher In A New Era Of Anthropology." Fresh Air (August 20, 2019) ["In his new book, Gods of the Upper Air, Charles King tells the story of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead and the other 20th century anthropologists who challenged outdated notions of race, class and gender."]
Immerwahr, Daniel. "'How to Hide an Empire': Daniel Immerwahr on the History of the Greater United States." Democracy Now (March 5, 2019) ["“How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.” That’s the title of a new book examining a part of the U.S. that is often overlooked: the nation’s overseas territories from Puerto Rico to Guam, former territories like the Philippines, and its hundreds of military bases scattered across the globe. We speak with the book’s author, Daniel Immerwahr, who writes, “At various times, the inhabitants of the U.S. Empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed, tortured and experimented on. What they haven’t been, by and large, is seen.” Immerwahr is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University."]
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, et al. "Taking the first steps of American imperialism (Native Peoples Series Part 3)." Best of the Left #1252 (February 26, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the process of systematic, government-sponsored genocide against the native peoples of North America that kicked off the wealth-accumulating, territory-expanding American empire we know and love today."]
Estes, Nick. "Our History of the Future." Dig (June 29, 2019) ["Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance." Michael Benton -- This is one of the best discussions I have heard about indigenous cultures, settler colonialism, racism/apartheid in America and intergenerational indigenous resistance movements. I cannot laud this enough - totally revolutionized and extended my thinking/understanding of contemporary movements like Standing Rock and their place in the long history of intergenerational indigenous struggles against genocidal policies. I highly recommend this episode and check out The Dig podcast (they also just did an impressive 5 part episode on contemporary European politics)]
Grandin, Greg. "On American Expansion, Part One: The Myth of the Frontier." On the Media (March 29, 2019) ["What are the stories that America has told about itself? In the first of a three-part series on the notion of American Exceptionalism, Brooke speaks with historian Greg Grandin about America's founding narrative: the country's expansion westward. In his new book, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, Grandin traces how the idea of endless, unstoppable growth has influenced US policy and psychology — and how President Trump’s call for a barrier at the southern border upends the idea of America as a country of boundless possibility."]
"Costs of War." Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University (2019 Report)
Crisis In Democracy: Renewing Trust in America. Aspen Institute, 2019. ["The Report of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy."]
Armstrong, Sally, Paul Heinbecker and James Orbinski. "Five Freedoms: Freedom from Want." Ideas (April 11, 2019) ["Poverty has always been a defining issue in the quest to build a better world. Most political systems lay claim to the idea that they alone can create a better world. It's a kind of litmus test: if our political systems can't raise almost everyone out of relative poverty, then what exactly have we achieved? Why poverty exists at all in otherwise wealthy, prosperous democratic countries is a very incisive question, and it's not enough to just shrug and say our system is still better than any other alternative. And those alternatives? Dictatorships take us into the abyss. Right-wing libertarianism has little to offer as solutions to poverty. Soviet-style Communism didn't exactly work either, which leaves some version of western liberal democracy, either what we have now, or some variation that is still to emerge. So once we've got past that, and accepted that we've failed on the poverty file, how do we go about making things more equitable right now, making sure that wealth is distributed to those in need, and creating opportunity for the weak to become stronger?"]
"Busted: America's Poverty Myths." On the Media (5 part series: September 28 - October 28, 2016) ["On the Media’s series on poverty is grounded in the Talmudic notion that 'We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.' Brooke Gladstone traveled to Ohio to learn from people living the varied reality of poverty today, and to unpack the myths that shape our private presumptions as well as our policy decisions. In each episode, we feature the voices and complex stories of individuals, as well essential context from scholars, to lay open the tales we tell ourselves."]
Vision of an intersectional labor movement https://www.laborwaveradio.com/post/labors-identity
Robinson, Jennifer. "Julian Assange’s Attorney Decries Espionage Charges as 'Grave Threat to Press Freedom.'" Democracy Now (May 24, 2019) [Use Scahill segment -- "In an unprecedented move, the Justice Department has indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act for his role in publishing U.S. classified military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The documents were leaked by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. The Espionage Act of 1917 has never been used to prosecute a journalist or media outlet. The new charges come just over a month after British police forcibly removed Assange from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he took asylum in 2012. Initially the Trump administration indicted Assange on a single count of helping Manning hack a government computer, but Assange faces up to 170 additional years in prison under the new charges—10 years for each count of violating the Espionage Act. We speak with Jennifer Robinson, an attorney for Julian Assange. “It is a grave threat to press freedom and should be cause for concern for journalists and publishers everywhere,” Robinson says." Part two: "Daniel Ellsberg: Espionage Charges Against Assange Are Most Significant Attack on Press in Decades." Part three: "Jeremy Scahill: New Indictment of Assange Is Part of a Broader War on Journalism & Whistleblowers." Part four: "Assange Is Indicted for Exposing War Crimes While Trump Considers Pardons for War Criminals."]
Carroll, James, et al. "The Moral Crisis Faced by Christianity." Ideas (May 6, 2019) ["Christianity is the world's largest religion. One third of humanity identifies as Christian. Christian rituals and symbols have a special power even among non-believers in western countries — witness the outpouring of shock and sorrow over the fire that ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The moral codes of Christianity are intrinsic to western societies and form the foundation of the ethics and mores of hundreds of millions of people. And yet, some of Christianity's most daunting challenges have derived from the moral failures of its biggest institutions and the failures of Christians to follow their religion's core teachings. The object of worship may be divine, but the church and the worshippers are very human. Some of the crises facing contemporary Christianity are obvious, such as the ever-widening revelations of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy and the role of bishops in covering it up. Some are less obvious, such as the embrace of anti-immigrant, xenophobic political movements in countries with large Christian majorities. On this month's edition of The Enright Files, conversations about the moral authority of the Church — and the struggles of Christians to live up to the principles of their faith — in the face of anxious, angry times and the Church's own crimes."]
Berger, Dan, et al. "Prison Abolition Syllabus." Black Perspectives (November 20, 2016); Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. "Ruth Wilson Gilmore with Rachel Kushner." Lannan Podcasts (April 17, 2019) ["Ruth Wilson Gilmore is director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics and a professor of geography at the City University of New York. She is most famous for arguing that the movement for abolition, with its proud history of challenging slavery, should be applied today to the abolition of prisons. In an era when 2.3 million people are behind bars in the United States, she challenges us to think about whether it is ever necessary or productive to lock people in cages. She warns of the “nightmare made palatable by the terrifying numbers of prisoners and prisons produced by the last generation, while we were all, presumably, awake.” But her hope lies in the fact that “just as real was the growing grassroots activism against the expanded use of criminalization and cages as a catchall solution to social problems. In order to realize their dreams of justice in individual cases, the [freedom] riders decided, through struggle, debate, failure, and renewal, that they must seek general freedom for all from a system in which punishment has become as industrialized as making cars, clothes, or missiles, or growing cotton.” Gilmore wrote Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California(2007) and contributed to The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (2007). The American Sociological Society honored Gilmore with its Angela Davis Award for Public Scholarship in 2012. A tireless activist, she has co-founded many social justice organizations, including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network."]
Thompson, Ginger. "A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It’s Really Like to Guard Migrant Children." Pro Publica (July 16, 2019) ["With the agency under fire for holding children in deplorable conditions and over racist and misogynistic Facebook posts, one agent speaks about what it’s like to do his job. 'Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal.'"]
Greenhouse, Linda. "The Rhetoric That Shaped the Abortion Debate." Fresh Air (June 28, 2010)
Greenhouse, Linda and Reva B. Siegel, eds. Before Roe vs. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling. Yale Law School/Creative Commons, 2012.
Thompson, Ginger. "A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It’s Really Like to Guard Migrant Children." Pro Publica (July 16, 2019) ["With the agency under fire for holding children in deplorable conditions and over racist and misogynistic Facebook posts, one agent speaks about what it’s like to do his job. 'Somewhere down the line people just accepted what’s going on as normal.'"]
Greenhouse, Linda. "The Rhetoric That Shaped the Abortion Debate." Fresh Air (June 28, 2010)
Greenhouse, Linda and Reva B. Siegel, eds. Before Roe vs. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling. Yale Law School/Creative Commons, 2012.
Chang, Lauren and Shira Taylor. "Sex Ed Through Social Action Theatre." Talking Radical Radio (November 6, 2018) [MB - It would seem to me that if you truly wanted to decrease unwanted pregnancies (and the rate of abortions) then a first necessary step would be to actually educate your citizens about sex and sexuality (sincere discussions with a sex positive emphasis and working to empower young citizens through learning about themselves & their bodies would be the result). What sane person would be against this?]
Cultivation Theory https://www.communicationtheory.org/cultivation-theory/ [Why limit this to TV? What about the Internet (it is now as limited as traditional TV unless one purposefully learns how to expand their sources/content), social media (which is all about algorithmic limitations on what one sees and experiences), music (say, an obsessive consumption/immersion of/in a particular limited and/or reactionary genre), high art (and its class views), etc... or, even, narrow political views, religious fundamentalism, reactionary hate groups, etc.....]
Aldred, Jonathan. ""Socialism for the Rich: The Evils of Bad Economics." Audio Long Read (June 14, 2019) ["The economic arguments adopted by Britain and the US in the 1980s led to vastly increased inequality – and gave the false impression that this outcome was not only inevitable, but good."]
Giridharadas, Anand. "How Philanthropy Lets Rich People Off the Hook."
On the Media (April 19, 2019) ["Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World, explains that we're living in a century-old bargain between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of society: the rich get rich, and the rest of us get downstream benefits. Giridharadas and Bob talk about the origins of this bargain — and what needs to shift if we hope to see meaningful structural solutions to society's most pressing challenges."]
Press, Alex N. "A Tale of Two Prisoners." Jacobin (July 27, 2019) ["Comparing the treatment of Jeffrey Epstein to Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed Eric Garner's murder, reveals the grotesque inequality at the heart of American society. There’s one set of rules for the rich, and an entirely different set for the poor."]
Aldred, Jonathan. ""Socialism for the Rich: The Evils of Bad Economics." Audio Long Read (June 14, 2019) ["The economic arguments adopted by Britain and the US in the 1980s led to vastly increased inequality – and gave the false impression that this outcome was not only inevitable, but good."]
Giridharadas, Anand. "How Philanthropy Lets Rich People Off the Hook."
On the Media (April 19, 2019) ["Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World, explains that we're living in a century-old bargain between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of society: the rich get rich, and the rest of us get downstream benefits. Giridharadas and Bob talk about the origins of this bargain — and what needs to shift if we hope to see meaningful structural solutions to society's most pressing challenges."]
Press, Alex N. "A Tale of Two Prisoners." Jacobin (July 27, 2019) ["Comparing the treatment of Jeffrey Epstein to Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed Eric Garner's murder, reveals the grotesque inequality at the heart of American society. There’s one set of rules for the rich, and an entirely different set for the poor."]
Carroll, James, et al. "The Moral Crisis Faced by Christianity." Ideas (May 6, 2019) ["Christianity is the world's largest religion. One third of humanity identifies as Christian. Christian rituals and symbols have a special power even among non-believers in western countries — witness the outpouring of shock and sorrow over the fire that ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The moral codes of Christianity are intrinsic to western societies and form the foundation of the ethics and mores of hundreds of millions of people. And yet, some of Christianity's most daunting challenges have derived from the moral failures of its biggest institutions and the failures of Christians to follow their religion's core teachings. The object of worship may be divine, but the church and the worshippers are very human. Some of the crises facing contemporary Christianity are obvious, such as the ever-widening revelations of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy and the role of bishops in covering it up. Some are less obvious, such as the embrace of anti-immigrant, xenophobic political movements in countries with large Christian majorities. On this month's edition of The Enright Files, conversations about the moral authority of the Church — and the struggles of Christians to live up to the principles of their faith — in the face of anxious, angry times and the Church's own crimes."]
Documenting Hate - Frontline videos
Thompson, A.C. "Border Agents Caught Posting Racist, Sexist Messages About Migrants & AOC in Secret Facebook Group." Democracy Now (July 3, 2019) ["Customs and Border Protection has opened an investigation into the posting of racist and xenophobic messages by current and former Border Patrol agents on a private Facebook group. More than 9,500 people are part of the group, which was exposed by ProPublica on Monday. The Facebook group is filled with racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant and misogynistic content about migrants and asylum seekers, as well as public officials like Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is depicted in a photoshopped image being sexually assaulted by President Trump. In another thread, members of the group made fun of a video of a man trying to carry a child through a rapid river in a plastic bag. Someone commented, “At least it’s already in a trash bag.” We speak with ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson, who broke the story." [CBP leader was member of the FB group https://theintercept.com/2019/07/12/border-patrol-chief-carla-provost-was-a-member-of-secret-facebook-group/ ]
Deveraux, Ryan. "Border Patrol Agents Tried to Delete Racist and Obscene Facebook Posts. We Archived Them." The Intercept (July 5, 2019)
Michael Benton -- I abhor what we, as a country, are doing right now along our borders. I'm curious, I haven't heard one particular point brought up about these migrant prisons. This is what happens when you privatize basic human services (healthcare, education, basic necessities like water/heat, and, yes, prisons, etc...), the human equation (or any type of being) is lost in a system whose main priority (and this is the main priority of a corporation) is to milk as much profit as possible with no concern what is done to those working for them, those being serviced by them and the communities/environments in which the corporate entity is located.
There is also a basic political reality that should be remembered by even those who turn a blind eye to this issue or actively support these private migrant prisons. What you allow your government to do to the least of us (as in the ability to resist/challenge), will one day be done to you and yours (including you MAGA supporters). We see the weapons of 'wars on terror' on our streets being used against our citizens, we will see the expansion of this prison system based upon Guantanamo and migrant prisons if we stay quiet. Prisons in which people are not given the basic necessities and are dehumanized. Prisons where our duly elected representatives are not allowed access and are openly threatened when they investigate the conditions. Prisons in which the human factor is erased.
One last thing, I'll keep this simple, for the Christians that support Trump - what would your savior Jesus do in response to these migrant prisons. Where would he stand?
Barragán, Nanette. "'Unconscious and Unacceptable': : Rep. Barragán Decries Detention of Migrant Children in Prison Cells." Democracy Now (July 11, 2019) ["Yazmin Juárez, the Guatemalan mother whose child died after being held in an ICE detention center from a lung infection, testified before members of a congressional panel Wednesday. She shared the story of her daughter, 19-month-old Mariee, who died last year shortly after being released from the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Juárez filed a $60 million lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services. The House subcommittee convened to examine the treatment of refugees in U.S. detention, just over a week after lawmakers flocked to the U.S.-Mexico border to observe the horrible treatment of refugee children and families in immigration jails amid reports of continued unsafe and unsanitary conditions for asylum seekers. Meanwhile, NBC reports that migrant children jailed in Yuma, Arizona, have been subjected to mistreatment and sexual violence. We speak with Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán from California, who recently visited detention centers in Texas. She’s the second vice-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves on the House Committee on Homeland Security."]
Lane, Penny. "Hail Satan?" Radio West (May 10, 2019) [MB - I was interested in seeing this documentary and after listening to this discussion with the director Penny Lane I'm thinking it could be a great opportunity in my Peace Studies' courses for discussing the problems with authoritarian impulses and rigid/controlling dogmas of traditional/mainstream religions (or any dominant/controlling ideology/worldview).]
Wikipedia Listing of Mass Shootings the USA in 2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019
After the Dayton and El Paso shootings Donald Trump blamed the violence on video games -- IGN responded https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/08/06/every-country-has-video-games-only-one-has-a-mass-shooter-problem
Never Apologize - NRA Tactic https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/5/nra_infighting_alex_yablon_the_trace
Thompson, A.C. "Border Agents Caught Posting Racist, Sexist Messages About Migrants & AOC in Secret Facebook Group." Democracy Now (July 3, 2019) ["Customs and Border Protection has opened an investigation into the posting of racist and xenophobic messages by current and former Border Patrol agents on a private Facebook group. More than 9,500 people are part of the group, which was exposed by ProPublica on Monday. The Facebook group is filled with racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant and misogynistic content about migrants and asylum seekers, as well as public officials like Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is depicted in a photoshopped image being sexually assaulted by President Trump. In another thread, members of the group made fun of a video of a man trying to carry a child through a rapid river in a plastic bag. Someone commented, “At least it’s already in a trash bag.” We speak with ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson, who broke the story." [CBP leader was member of the FB group https://theintercept.com/2019/07/12/border-patrol-chief-carla-provost-was-a-member-of-secret-facebook-group/ ]
Deveraux, Ryan. "Border Patrol Agents Tried to Delete Racist and Obscene Facebook Posts. We Archived Them." The Intercept (July 5, 2019)
Michael Benton -- I abhor what we, as a country, are doing right now along our borders. I'm curious, I haven't heard one particular point brought up about these migrant prisons. This is what happens when you privatize basic human services (healthcare, education, basic necessities like water/heat, and, yes, prisons, etc...), the human equation (or any type of being) is lost in a system whose main priority (and this is the main priority of a corporation) is to milk as much profit as possible with no concern what is done to those working for them, those being serviced by them and the communities/environments in which the corporate entity is located.
There is also a basic political reality that should be remembered by even those who turn a blind eye to this issue or actively support these private migrant prisons. What you allow your government to do to the least of us (as in the ability to resist/challenge), will one day be done to you and yours (including you MAGA supporters). We see the weapons of 'wars on terror' on our streets being used against our citizens, we will see the expansion of this prison system based upon Guantanamo and migrant prisons if we stay quiet. Prisons in which people are not given the basic necessities and are dehumanized. Prisons where our duly elected representatives are not allowed access and are openly threatened when they investigate the conditions. Prisons in which the human factor is erased.
One last thing, I'll keep this simple, for the Christians that support Trump - what would your savior Jesus do in response to these migrant prisons. Where would he stand?
Barragán, Nanette. "'Unconscious and Unacceptable': : Rep. Barragán Decries Detention of Migrant Children in Prison Cells." Democracy Now (July 11, 2019) ["Yazmin Juárez, the Guatemalan mother whose child died after being held in an ICE detention center from a lung infection, testified before members of a congressional panel Wednesday. She shared the story of her daughter, 19-month-old Mariee, who died last year shortly after being released from the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Juárez filed a $60 million lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services. The House subcommittee convened to examine the treatment of refugees in U.S. detention, just over a week after lawmakers flocked to the U.S.-Mexico border to observe the horrible treatment of refugee children and families in immigration jails amid reports of continued unsafe and unsanitary conditions for asylum seekers. Meanwhile, NBC reports that migrant children jailed in Yuma, Arizona, have been subjected to mistreatment and sexual violence. We speak with Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán from California, who recently visited detention centers in Texas. She’s the second vice-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves on the House Committee on Homeland Security."]
German, Mike. "Ex-FBI Agent Speaks Out: Federal Authorities Have Downplayed White Supremacist Violence for Too Long." Democracy Now (August 5, 2019) ["According to The New York Times, white extremist shooters have now killed at least 63 people in the United States over the past 18 months. Late last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that crime driven by racism and white supremacy was on the rise compared to the past nine months. But former FBI agents say there is reluctance within the agency to tackle white nationalist violence in part due to President Trump’s rhetoric. We speak with Mike German, fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law. From 1988 to 2004, German served as an FBI agent specializing in domestic counterterrorism."]
Belew, Kathleen. "Understanding the White Power Movement." On the Media (March 22, 2019) ["When events like Christchurch happen, the elements may indeed be obvious: Guns. Sociopathy. Alienation. But the obvious is also reductive, and risks obscuring larger forces at play. The same goes with the vocabulary of race violence: White nationalist. White identity. Alt-right. White supremacy. White power. They’re used interchangeably, which further clouds the picture. Christchurch, says University of Chicago professor Kathleen Belew, is the latest manifestation not just of resentment and paranoia, or even radical racism, but of a clearly defined revolutionary movement: the white power movement. Belew is author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, which describes the history of the white power movement that consolidated after the Vietnam War. She argues that if society is to wage an effective response to the white power threat, we need to work to understand it."]
Belew, Kathleen. "Understanding the White Power Movement." On the Media (March 22, 2019) ["When events like Christchurch happen, the elements may indeed be obvious: Guns. Sociopathy. Alienation. But the obvious is also reductive, and risks obscuring larger forces at play. The same goes with the vocabulary of race violence: White nationalist. White identity. Alt-right. White supremacy. White power. They’re used interchangeably, which further clouds the picture. Christchurch, says University of Chicago professor Kathleen Belew, is the latest manifestation not just of resentment and paranoia, or even radical racism, but of a clearly defined revolutionary movement: the white power movement. Belew is author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, which describes the history of the white power movement that consolidated after the Vietnam War. She argues that if society is to wage an effective response to the white power threat, we need to work to understand it."]
Lane, Penny. "Hail Satan?" Radio West (May 10, 2019) [MB - I was interested in seeing this documentary and after listening to this discussion with the director Penny Lane I'm thinking it could be a great opportunity in my Peace Studies' courses for discussing the problems with authoritarian impulses and rigid/controlling dogmas of traditional/mainstream religions (or any dominant/controlling ideology/worldview).]
Rowley, Rick. "16 Shots: Chicago Police Killing of Laquan McDonald Exposed a System Built on Lies." Democracy Now (June 17, 2019) ["The documentary “16 Shots” examines the 2014 murder of African-American teenager Laquan McDonald in Chicago and the attempt by the city’s police department to cover up the events. McDonald, who was 17, was shot 16 times by former police officer Jason Van Dyke. Van Dyke was found guilty in 2018 of second-degree murder and sentenced to six years and nine months in prison for McDonald’s murder. He was also found guilty on 16 counts of aggravated battery—one count for each of the 16 bullets he fired at McDonald."] -- Do Not Resist and 13th documentaries.
Levin, Sam. "Los Angeles Police Spied on Anti-Trump Protesters." The Guardian (July 19, 2019) ["Case is one of several across the US of police targeting anti-Trump and anti-fascist groups with monitoring and criminal trials."]
Levin, Sam. "Los Angeles Police Spied on Anti-Trump Protesters." The Guardian (July 19, 2019) ["Case is one of several across the US of police targeting anti-Trump and anti-fascist groups with monitoring and criminal trials."]
The Guantanamo Testimonials Project Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (Ongoing Archive) [" Pursuant to its mission, the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA) launched, in Fall 2005, a long term research project to assess the effects of the U.S. war on terror on human rights in the Americas. Whether invoked as the rationale for the "extraordinary rendition" of Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria or as the basis for the suppression of indigenous movements in South America, the war on terror has had significant effects on human rights in the Americas. But nowhere have these effects been greater than at the detention facilities of the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Consequently, it seemed appropriate to begin our project by looking into the human rights situation at these facilities. We begin our endeavor with The Guantánamo Testimonials Project. The goals of this project are to gather testimonies of prisoner abuse in Guantánamo, to organize them in meaningful ways, to make them widely available online, and to preserve them there in perpetuity. The strength of these testimonies is considerable. Based on them, a number of distinguished individuals and organizations have called for the closure of Guantánamo."]
Taub, Ben. "Guantanamo's Darkest Secret." The New Yorker (April 15, 2019) ["The U.S. military prison’s leadership considered Mohamedou Salahi to be its highest-value detainee. But his guard suspected otherwise."]
Rich, Nathaniel. "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change." The New York Times Magazine (August 1, 2018) ["This narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the decisive decade when humankind first came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change. Complementing the text is a series of aerial photographs and videos, all shot over the past year by George Steinmetz. With support from the Pulitzer Center, this two-part article is based on 18 months of reporting and well over a hundred interviews. It tracks the efforts of a small group of American scientists, activists and politicians to raise the alarm and stave off catastrophe. It will come as a revelation to many readers — an agonizing revelation — to understand how thoroughly they grasped the problem and how close they came to solving it."]
Reich, Robert, et al. "Fighting for a Green New Deal." Best of the Left #1242 (January 18, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the groundwork for a Green New Deal as it's being laid and the fight that is heating up around the policies, not just between political parties but between the separate wings (and generations) of the Democratic Party."]
Springer, Claudia. "Shadow Films: Picturing the Environmental Crisis." Jump Cut #58 (Spring 2018) ["For the powerful forces invested in preserving the status quo, even limited environmental protections that threaten traditional modes of corporate profit-making provoke fierce opposition. Corporate stakeholders wield political power through lobbying and donations, and, increasingly, they hold government positions. A 2016 study by the Center for American Progress Action Fund found that 34% of American Congress members denied climate change and had been paid over $73 million in contributions by oil, gas, and coal companies. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who famously claimed that climate change is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," has reportedly accepted more than $2 million from the fossil fuel industry (Herzog). The fallout from political inaction means that people have lost their lives in the U.S., China, Nigeria, Ecuador, and Peru, among other countries, because of the oil, gas, and mining industries' toxic practices and attacks on opponents. The propaganda battles fought with images inflame a war with catastrophic consequences."]
Cioffi, Sandy and Riki Ott. "Sandy Cioffi on Nigerian Oil, Riki Ott Looking Back at Exxon Valdez Spill." Counterspin (June 14, 2019) ["The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened from the spring through the fall of 2010. The blowout of the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people, and countless animals, on its way to becoming the worst marine oil spill in history. It seemed to take that protracted disaster on the US coast to generate a New York Times front-page story on June 16, 2010, about oil industry ravages in Nigeria’s delta region, which, the article noted, “has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years, by some estimates.” CounterSpin had a powerful conversation that week with filmmaker and video artist Sandy Cioffi, whose film, Sweet Crude, looks at the oil industry in Nigeria, and the way it is covered in the US. ... Oil spills are often discussed in media in terms of the Exxon Valdez. But if the use of the Valdez as a touchstone might give the impression that “lessons were learned” from that 1989 disaster…. Well, that mainly applies to the lesson that not disaster, but activism—dogged, ongoing, out-of-the-spotlight, misunderstood and maligned activism—is what changes things. That’s part of what we learned when we spoke with activist and marine biologist Riki Ott in 2009—then the 20-year anniversary of that “oil spill to end all oil spills”—now many spills ago."]
-- Crude documentary....
Cioffi, Sandy and Riki Ott. "Sandy Cioffi on Nigerian Oil, Riki Ott Looking Back at Exxon Valdez Spill." Counterspin (June 14, 2019) ["The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened from the spring through the fall of 2010. The blowout of the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people, and countless animals, on its way to becoming the worst marine oil spill in history. It seemed to take that protracted disaster on the US coast to generate a New York Times front-page story on June 16, 2010, about oil industry ravages in Nigeria’s delta region, which, the article noted, “has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years, by some estimates.” CounterSpin had a powerful conversation that week with filmmaker and video artist Sandy Cioffi, whose film, Sweet Crude, looks at the oil industry in Nigeria, and the way it is covered in the US. ... Oil spills are often discussed in media in terms of the Exxon Valdez. But if the use of the Valdez as a touchstone might give the impression that “lessons were learned” from that 1989 disaster…. Well, that mainly applies to the lesson that not disaster, but activism—dogged, ongoing, out-of-the-spotlight, misunderstood and maligned activism—is what changes things. That’s part of what we learned when we spoke with activist and marine biologist Riki Ott in 2009—then the 20-year anniversary of that “oil spill to end all oil spills”—now many spills ago."]
-- Crude documentary....
Miller, Andrew. "'Our House Is On Fire': Brazil Faces Global Outrage as Massive Fires Spread in Amazon Rainforest." Democracy Now (August 23, 2019) ["The United Nations is calling for the protection of the Amazon amid fears that thousands of fires raging across Brazil and some parts of Bolivia are rapidly destroying the world’s largest rainforest and paving the way for a climate catastrophe. The fires have spread a vast plume of smoke across South America and the Atlantic Ocean that’s visible from space. They’re unprecedented in recorded history, and environmentalists say most of the fires were deliberately set by illegal miners and cattle ranchers. Indigenous people in Brazil have accused far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of encouraging the destruction. Bolsonaro has worked to deregulate and open up the Amazon for agribusiness, logging and mining since he came into office in January. We speak with Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch."]
Chomsky, Noam, et al. "Israeli right-wing politics has lead to some strange, fascist bedfellows." Best of the Left #1254 (March 5, 2019) ["Today we take a look at how the illiberalism of the Israeli government has alienated the vast majority of democratic nations and individuals who support human rights, leaving the country with some of the most far-right, fascist, white-supremacist, anti-Semitic people in the world as their only remaining allies."]
Wikipedia Listing of Mass Shootings the USA in 2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019
After the Dayton and El Paso shootings Donald Trump blamed the violence on video games -- IGN responded https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/08/06/every-country-has-video-games-only-one-has-a-mass-shooter-problem
Never Apologize - NRA Tactic https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/5/nra_infighting_alex_yablon_the_trace
Michael Benton -- Excellent episode analyzing the toxic effect of one of the worst organizations in America and the need to fight for stricter gun control laws.
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