Spew words, not bullets

America Arms Israel

2008-05-05T07:22:00.000-07:00

This is just a little bit of the impacts created on the Palestinians. Both Hilary and Barack support Israeli occupation. Many Americans, myself included, do not know or understand the history of the two groups. However, our ignorance doesn't make the atrocities less true or unreal. The negligence of our government extends far beyond our borders and causes hardships for millions of people around the world. Most of us already know this, but most of us never hear about it. So, this is me sharing a not so pretty story.

My May Day Speech

2008-05-01T17:32:00.001-07:00

I wrote this and wanted to share:

Is it true that America is at war? Yes. Although it’s buried under political rhetoric and ignored by the now corporately owned media. America has declared war on just about anyone. And this is only the begging. Non American news outlets report nearly 1M Iraqi deaths and over 4,000 American deaths. Not only are Americans and the Iraqi people dying, one major fact is constantly overlooked. This is a rich man’s war fought by poor people of all skin color: white, black, brown everyone is a target. This occupation of Iraq isn’t about democracy, it is about the control of the world’s depleting resources and corporate exploitation for profiteering. George Bush’s version of democracy isn’t fair elections or sustainable energy, no, for the neo-cons in the Whitehouse’s their version of democracy is a Walmart and McDonalds on every street corner of the world. This war profiteering is brought to you by your own political, media, oil and military industry representatives. All of them –in bed together, raping us of our human right and our civil liberties. We can thanks people like media mogul Rupert Murdoch whom owns MySpace, the chairman and CEO of boeing Philip M. Condit whom builds smart bombs that are sold to the government to kill Iraqis for a profit, Attorney General John Ashcroft for his hard work of building the police state, the chair and CEO of Exxon mobile Lee Raymond who just this morning cleared 11 Billion dollars in oil profits from Jan to March of this year alone, the director of Haliburton and Citigroup and former CEO of Cheveron Ken Derr whom is invested in the prisons built along the southern border of the United States and is standing by to get his company’s hands on the second largest oil reserves in Iraq, the chairman of Project for a New American Century William Kristol whom is the brain behind all this corporate warmongering and America’s head towards a New Word Order, James A. Baker III whom is the senior counselor of the Carlyle Group –the world’s top elistist responsible for the control of oil, arms and the appointed heads of state and who ensures the world will end with a bang and with a few bucks in his pocket too. We can thank our own California state senator Dianne Feinstien and her husband for the $600 M tax payer money that was paid to Perini, the URS EG&G division and partner International Consultants Inc. –all military corporations. We can thank the 8 years of term served by our beloved President of the United States for fraudulently stealing his election, and lastly our own California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for his ties to George Bush, the 386M dollar cut to the CSU and the $7B investments in the prison system of California.

The list goes on. And so does the war in Iraq, and soon Iran, and then Syria, North Korea, and Venezula. In the meantime, our economoy is flailing because of the outsourcing of jobs to third world nations, the dollar is crashing and our country is now officially in a recession. And we are now paying $4 a gallon and over 100% more for our education than we were in 2001.

All of these revelations are not new. The war between the elitist and the rest of us, has been going on since construction of time. Only this time, the stakes are higher. And we the people are more divided than ever. Economically and racially: issues like Mexican Illegal immigration, Muslim Terrorism, Black Ghetto crime, the controversy over Indian casinos, and the indoctrination of “white is right,” are all factors purposely kept in place to keep people like you and me from understanding eachother, to blame eachother, to fight eachother, so that the real criminals and terrorists, whom sit in air conditioned buildings in Washington D.C., can continue their exploitations of all of us.

The corporate media is beating the drums of war, selling us erection and diet pills, SUVs, racism and violence as entertainment and bombarding us with military ads that glorify war. But war isn’t a football game. People don’t get to come home and toast touchdown and kiss cheerleaders. Our loved ones come home in body bags drapped in flags, they come home missing limbs, with post stress disorders. My adopted father Robert Werbiskis contracted cancer from the transportation of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. My dad help murder Vietnamese, and in turn he died because of it. Because of the dominant culture’s idea that people are dispensable, We had to fight to Navy just so that would pay for his medical expenses. This man “served” his country, and then his country abandoned him.

During the first anti-War movement in the late 60’s and into the 70’s, America’s youth understood what many of us don’t understand right now. And what is even scarier is the people protesting today, for the most part, are those same resilient souls from the Vietnam era. What about us? Where are the college students of America today? I’ll tell you. They are you. You are the heroes. You are the only ones that will be able to challenge or change anything. I cannot fight for your rights, you must be willing to do that yourself.

We, as Americans, were taught that Freedom and Liberty were bled for. People died, so that we would have the Right to ask questions and hold our government responsible. America was founded off the very principal that men were equal meant to be Free. This is what the Revolutionary War was fought over. Independence. Equality. Human and Civil Rights. These aren't imaginary ideas, these are the definitions of what Life means to all of us in the United States.

I know many people feel the same disappointment, I felt, of being born to the wrong generation. And while we are so busy looking at the door of the 60's and 70's that slammed shut many lifetimes ago, we fail to realize these are the days. These are our days. The days of a global community, with global stakes. I will leave you with the question, how will history remember us? Were we mindless and stupid and not willing to take a stance for what we believe in, or are we brave and persistent and will do what is right?

We should all be listening to the falsehoods and injustices both inside and outside of our country. For now is the time to write our own history. This is our moment. That big empty canvass is still blank, and it is waiting for all of us.

War kills, so We protest it, why don't you?

2008-04-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in class there was a huge discussion over the perspective from a mother's son in war and an individual who is being critical of the war. I found it strange that the perspectives were separated. If anything, this goes to show the intrusiveness of the Iraq War. It effects everyone. Also, I want to point out that every person in the military has a mother. Every person in Iraq whom is killed has a mother. I protest the war! I protest against military recruitment. I protest military targeting.
Especially as a person of color. You can call my people illegal, deny them education and worker rights, call them diseased and send them to prison before you send them to a university, and still ask them to die in an elitist rich man's war?
Open your eyes. Truth hurts. Ignorance doesn't make what's real less true.
I will defend American life or Iraqi life. Life is life. A person is a person, despite if he or she is from Iraq, Iran, China, Tibet, Mexico, Venezuela, Afghanistan, or America. What's with the twisted perception that one American life is worth more than someone else's?
War is wrong, I don't care whose fighting it. People die. Sons die. Daughters die. Mothers die. That is why I'm against it. Because people that people love die. And people assume that if you don't want to fight, I'm a coward, and that couldn't be less than truth. Fighting should come on the senate floor, in scrutiny of an administration that want to occupy, invade, bomb, and exploit another country.
This war is not without consequence. Your $4 a gallon of gas is brought to you by war. Our ignorance of Muslims that can feed racism and or insensitivity for life outside the United States is brought to you by war. Family and friends in coffins, or missing limbs, or suffering from post military stress disorders, or the cancer my father died from shipping Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and the military's negligence of him was brought to us by war. Why don't you defend your loved one's life by protesting the war?!!! So please edit your ignorant and calloused assumptions and think before you speak -unless your willing to go yourself and sacrifice all of your loved ones for what, cause not everyone is selfish and thinks only about themselves and their own. Some of us love people that are not related to us. Some of us give a shit about EVERYONE. Some of us care and don't want your son, my son, your daughter, my daughter, your cousin, my cousin, niece, nephew, mom, dad, best friend etc. out there fighting and dying in an illegal, pre-emptive, unjust, never ending, not justified, president lied to us, occupying another country, whom we bomb their water supply, and then re-instate them with film crews showing us as good Samaritans, War. Period.

I will not defend the governments misuse of our precious military for the murdering of Iraqi's or Americans, your son or my father,
Period. So instead of fighting with me, why don't you come stand with me on May 1st in the CSUMB quad at noon and the rest of us whom protest and try to end this War, so all of our loved ones come home...

Character VS Racism

2008-04-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

Famous and controversial author Sherman Alexie recently came to speak at CSUMB. He discussed his controversial book Flight.
Flight is a story of resistance through Native American rhetoric. This novel is excellent. It's a voyage of adolescent conquest of a young Indian who is trying to find balance in his orphan world. He is in search of healing his soul from a fractured identity. The book is about tradition. Male victimization in western culture and the most important act of forgiveness. Sherman Alexie wrote this book to answer his children's pressing questions about the Iraq war. The writing is candid and surprisingly cool. He draws on references to P. Diddy and MP3 players. The tone is as naked and raw as could be. One thing that is really powerful about the book, is Alexie's revengeless plot. He transcends issues of race, and instead makes all characters flawed: Indians, Anglos, women, men, it doesn't matter. To Sherman, all people are monsters and capable of the ugliest of actions.
I put Alexie on the top author lists. Next to Hunter S. Thompson and Chuck Palahniuk. That's right folks, his writing is that good.

The Gas Guy

2008-04-19T20:00:00.001-07:00

I was driving down Del Monte Blvd. in Marina, and I saw the old Shell station was fenced off. The low grade wire fence had bouquets of red daisies and yellow roses. I asked my friend, what's up with the flowers? The man died, he said. What man, I asked. The Iranian man who was protesting the oil companies and died of a hunger strike. The man that slept in his store, refused to buy and sell gas, and went on hunger strikes. The man that made Time magazine and USA Today. I hadn't a clue whom this person was. All I could think was, this poor bastard died in protest. He died.
It seems sickening to me that this person who displayed the most earnest of qualities, like Mahatmas Gandhi, lived under our eyes and in ears distance and we never heard of him -at least I didn't. I thought of all the propaganda we are fed on a daily basis. The fake shit television, and plastic politicians and how powerless its all designed to make us feel. But we are powerful. One person is important. Each of us is a hero.

I guess in most cases, some of us are more heroic than others.

Driving a gas filled car is easy.

Willing to die in protest of war profiteering, occupation, and murder -is just something money can't buy.

Mr. I don't know your name, but I admire and respect you regardless...RIP.

International actions will be taken against the U.S.

2008-04-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

Americans kill unarmed civilians. Truth hurts, doesn't it?

Sadly, other countryies aren't being passive about these crimes and atrocities against humanity. And it's about time, because AMERICA'S WAR ARE TERROR. Remember that every time you pump gas into your car.

Free Tibet? What about Iraq!

2008-04-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

I find it hypocritical that the American government is so concerned over Tibet. Speaking on behalf of humanity and peace. What right does America have on intervening on behalf of the Tibetan people, while it murders Iraqis at the same time. Have we forgotten we have killed more than 1000x the number in Iraq?

Maybe we should clean up our on mess, and stop the murder of people under white stars and red stripes before we start pointing fingers at China.

Attached is a statement from a socialist organization:

For immediate release**
April 7, 2008 Press contact:
Richard Becker, 415-377-6321
Bill Hackwell, 415-269-7917
STATEMENT OPPOSING ANTI-CHINA CAMPAIGN

We are opposed to the campaign of disinformation and demonization that is targeting the People’s Republic of China (PRC.) The timing of the campaign is linked to China’s hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics. That the Olympics are taking place in China is of historic significance and great pride to all the country’s people. It was less than six decades ago that China emerged from a century of colonialist humiliation at the hands of the same big powers that are spearheading the China-bashing campaign today.

Washington is providing financial, political, diplomatic and propaganda support to the racist demonization effort, supposedly because of concern for “human rights.” This is the same government that is directly responsible for the death of one million Iraqis since 2003.

While one out of every three Iraqis have been killed, wounded or displaced since 2003 the US government is eager to have people in the US., especially students, protest any government other than their own. One pretext for the anti-China campaign is the fact that the PRC has trade relations with Sudan. The US wants to overthrow the government of oil-rich Sudan and replace it with a puppet. It has supported “rebel groups” who are prolonging the civil war. The people of the Sudan, who are suffering greatly, are cynically used as a fund raising vehicle by organizations that have raised tens of millions of dollars but have never spent a penny actually helping the people of Sudan, including those who live in the Darfur region.

Demonization campaigns against particular countries and their leaders are not just media exercises. Over the last two decades, such campaigns have preceded the invasions of Iraq and Panama, the bombing war against Yugoslavia, the coups in Haiti and attempted coup in Venezuela, and a threatened war against Iran. The pattern is clear and so too is the danger.

Regarding Tibet, for many centuries a region of China, the hand of Washington in the latest events is obvious for anyone who wants to see. For more than 50 years, the CIA and other U.S. government agencies have trained, funded, coordinated and supported the old feudal and repressive regime in Tibet represented by the Dalai Lama. The CIA front group the National Endowment for Democracy funds the International Campaign for Tibet, the Tibetan Youth Congress, the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement and the Dalai Lama himself. The U.S. maintains close ties with the Tibetan “government-in-exile” in India, whose real aim is to break away a region making up a quarter of China’s territory. These U.S. actions constitute an effort to de-stabilize and dismember the Peoples Republic of China. The progress in education, women’s rights, employment and health care would be immediately eviscerated if the old serf-owning ruling elite, represented by the Dalai Lama, was brought back to power.

No one, least of all progressive people, should be misled about what is really going on. The real motivation for the anti-China campaign has nothing to do with human rights or liberation, and everything to do with an agenda of global domination.

We the undersigned call for an end to the disinformation and demonization campaign against China, and a halt to the attempts to boycott and disrupt the 2008 Olympics.

Initial Signers:

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
Muna Coobtee, Party for Socialism and Liberation
Tony Gonzales, American Indian Movement-West*
Richard Becker, Western Region Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition*
Dave Ewing, Co-Chair,U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association,San Francisco
Willie Bartolome, Coordinator, Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante)-USA
Arturo P. Garcia, Philippine Immigrant Network for Empowerment
Bob Anderson, Stop the War Machine, Albuquerque, New Mexico*
Chuck Kaufman, Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua Network*
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Civil Rights Attorney
Peter Erlinder, Law Professor, former President of the National Lawyers Guild
Riva Enteen, member, National Lawyers Guild
Idriss Stelley Foundation
Education Not Incarceration, San Francisco Chapter
San Francisco Village Voice Community Radio
Mesha Monge Irizarry, San Francisco Bayview National Black Newspaper reporter*
Gilberto López y Rivas, Professor and Journalist
Beatrice Eisman, U.S.-Vietnam Friendship Association*
Mario Santos, National Coordinator,Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines—USA
Jim Lafferty, Interim General Manager, KPFK 90.7 FM Pacifica Radio* and Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles*
Ecumenical Fellowship for Justice and Peace-Los Angeles
Judi Cheng, New York City, NY
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
Allen Cooper, Veterans for Peace, GI Rights Hotline*
Peing Baclig, Justice for Filipino American Veterans (JFAV)*
Jack Vergara, Echo Park Community Coalition (EPCC)*
Pons De Leon, First Quarter Storm Network (FQSN)-USA-

*Organizations for Identification Only

Making Money the Right Way

2008-04-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of reading Natural Capitalism - a book about sustainable business praxis. I started researching ways of incorporating green technologies into our society, and was surprised to learn that of all the resources used to design product, only 6% end up in product. That means 94% of the waste comes from inefficient business practices. Wow, I thought. That's pretty shitty. I still find myself stupefied when people think global warming will not affect them. It's the saddest lie a person can tell themselves. But as globalization and Balkanizaiton proceed, we will see new wars emerge. But these will not be about "terrorism," instead will be fought over water, forestry, and food.

Imagine going to the supermarket, and NOT finding pre-packaged, nicely boxed food in isles on shelves. Imagine turning on your facet and there is no water, just the sound of dried and rusted pipes. If we keep lying to ourselves and our children and our children's children will soon be there. I encourage people to educate themselves on ways to eliminate waste, and consume less products. Many countries are incorporating new sustainable and more efficient design into their societies -America is possibly the only country whose government is doing the opposite.

Sadly, those in charge will someday learn that they cannot eat their money. And even more sadly, the rest of us will learn this lesson with them.

2008-03-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

The beginning of a new world stats by watching!!!

How far is too far in pornography?

2008-03-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

I felt the need to point out our fun discussion during class. I'm glad how nobody spoke up, besides the same six of us. I am so happy we are all embarrassed to act like a majority of us have never given or received a blow-job. I find it funny to write about porn and sex because so many people find it "inappropriate." Ha ha, I think rape is inappropriate. I think racism is inappropriate. I think the War on Terror is inappropriate. Because it dehumanizes, maims, and kills people. Funny, we can find gore in our video games and movies, murder in the newspaper, torture in legitimate government law. I think it's crazy more people aren't enraged over things that destroys everything from a nation of people to our environment.

It's damning to see people involuntarily twitched and cringe when they hear words like "double penetration," and "strap-on dildo." Images come forth and make us uncomfortable in our collective sex taboo skin. And yet those same people hear words like "over 1,000,000 dead Iraqis," "ecological disaster," and "sexual torture legislation" and don't flinch a muscle.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

2008-03-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

As I shut the tattered soft back cover of the autobiography of Malcolm X, I couldn't help but feel like the skin of my face had been burned off by truth. The sort of truth that can cut through metal like corrosive acid. Malcolm X, I will call him El-Hajj Milik El-Shabazz because this was the name he was buried with, had lived a life many of us could never mirror in a hundred lifetimes.
Few people, throughout history, have been born on the metaphorically and physical wrong side of the tracks and turned into one of the bone crushing opposites of hence he came. While White America expects and projects the black Negro of America to fail before anything else (look at America's investment in the prison system rather than the education system), rarely is a decaying society so abruptly turned obtusely upside down by the lived experienced and blood baring rhetoric of one black man. El-Hajj may have died on February 21, 1965, but the naked problems of which he spoke against still persist in the very fabric of everything that is America. If anything, the racial hatred lusted after in the land of the free and home of the brave has metastasized into a full blown cancer. Right now, not yesterday. But today. Mexican families are ripped about by the ICE on a
regular basis. Mothers forced to abandon their children and homes nearly paid for lost to corporate banks upon deportation. Some people lose their manhood second to their self started business and a life's work of labor. White America had no problem stealing land, but when a people that comes to live on that land, its a crime. America has no problem taking labor and
money from the political refugee, but when that refugee asks from some civil rights in a country it loves and lives in, it is a crime. While a nation of mixed colored and working class people -most of whom live paycheck to paycheck-- are blinded, cheerleading corporate media outlets are feeding us lethargic pills. Keeping the public deaf, dumb and stupid. Thy report the dehumanization in number and statistics, thus convincing and numbing the jeering cowboy racist to smile in satisfaction, for "his land" is being racially cleaned. Just like it was when the Native Americans were clubbed to death by the barrels of empty Winchester shotguns. Just as the Chinese were blocked out of migrating to the United States under "The Gentleman's Agreement" and Chinese Exclusionary Act that 'gently' forbade any immigration of Japanese and Chinese into the US from 1882 to 1943. Just as bombs are being dropped in cities all over Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine today and Iran and Turkey tomorrow. America is excluding and killing everybody that stands in its way of being the biggest bully on the global playground.
Tell any brainwashed American that his countrys' grandfather's raped, burned, caged and murdered a society of peoples and you watch how carelessly this gets tossed aside liked used toilet paper. "We are all human," or "that was then," are responses lobbed back like softballs. Casting the blood debt aside and acting as if it disappeared. But what those callused and thinned
skin spoiled children fail to realize is there will be no spiritual healing or foundation for brotherhood to be built until there is accountability for those atrocious actions that took place not so long ago. Until America admits its racist history openly, there will be no chance at changing it. For even a dope addict has to admit he has a problem so that he can take the necessary steps to cure himself of his disease. America is the new millennium crack head. Addicted to power, petroleum, scapegoating and
denial. Diseased from a spiritual beliemia and anorexia. Paired with a moral suicide of war, corporation and political corruption. How short we are as men to have sold out to the gas pump, plasma televisions, and a cup of Starbuck's coffee.

While America sits and waits around for the next episode of Entourage or Jeopardy, a world turns and is waking up around them. Eyes are being laid upon the nation that drops bombs globally like rain falls in India annually. Our world is eroding to a pile of dirt and will soon be a pile of compost extinction. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. For even a smoker's lungs
take a sever beating before he realizes he will die from self administered carcinogens. America is the worlds biggest and careless smoker. Setting fires by flicking its warmongering burning embers. Polluting oceans, land and sky wherever it drops its outsourced and free trade ashes. America looks at the world through a big giant kaleidescope. Memorized by what they see on the other side of the world and eye hole. What a monstrous opportunity for the spread and control of American Empire if they can just plant some roots in the middle east.
However, what America has failed to realize in its head cocking and pompous military bolstering is how unwanted and unneeded they are by a global citizenry. No body wants to play with America anymore, because America plays dirty and cheats.
I only wish El-Hajj, were here to give amplification to the voice that is so desperately needed as a world's hope and beacon of light.
When I read El-Hajj's autobiography, I found a man who I cannot admire with words, because his life left me speechless. But in finding him, I found myself again. It was like my own life finally was given language. Like brother and sister in struggle, I too have felt those spiritual beatings in America. Silent at times, and outraged during others. Ask anyone who knows
me. I am verbally violent with political assertion and accuracy, because there is power in voice. My words are my allies. And at times my weapons. But tonight, I bow my head and said a prayer. For when I closed this book, I was completely heartbroken. I write, because I can. I speak, because I am awake. I cry, because Malcolm X is dead. And this world so desperately needs many more of his kind. The kind of person who could burn your face off by speaking Truth.

Is police brutality illegal?

2008-02-25T16:47:00.001-08:00

The cop turned off the tape while "processing" this woman. When the tape resumes, the woman wakes up in a pool of her own blood. Police brutality is not an "idea." It is a very, very real issue. Most Americans would stand by and defend law enforcement -especially the police and court systems. But, one does have the right to at least question, where do we draw the line between police policy and police brutality?
As long as these types of injustices go unchallenged, they will continue to happen. For those who think this was justifed, would you feel the same if that was your mother? To speak out against what is illegal is wrong is all of our duties. I took the follwoing from a posted blog:
The police officer has been fired after an incident in which a female prisoner taken into custody on suspicion of DWI wound up lying on a floor at the police station in a pool of blood. Much of what happened was recorded on a videotape -- but there is a gap of undetermined length. During that time, the woman wound up injured. She said she was beaten up; the officer said she fell. if you'd like to voice your opinion to the police dept or internal affairs Chief of Police Henry Whitehorn Office: (318)673 - 6900 Assistant to the Chief Duane Huddleston Office: (318) 673 - 6908 Internal Affairs Captain Ray Goeckel Office: (318) 673 - 6906

Protest! It's Patriotic!

2008-02-17T11:23:00.001-08:00

First report from Berkeley, Friday February 15
By a WCW Youth and Student Organizer

This past Friday was another beautiful day in Berkeley. Ever since the Berkeley City Council set off a national debate by taking its stand against the war and recruiters' presence in Berkeley, people here have taken up the responsibility of saying: “NO!” to this illegitimate war, and have kept this demand on the streets and in the headlines.

Friday just after sunrise, leaders from very diverse antiwar groups arrived at the recruiting station - World Can't Wait, Code Pink, A.N.S.W.E.R., Vets for Peace, Pace e Bene, Ecumenical Peace Institute, and a respected educator/activist. They had announced a press conference after which they would stand together, acting in non-violent civil resistance to shut down the recruiting center. However, the recruiters never showed up! The speakers went ahead with the news conference, surrounded by friends and supporters. Several youth in Guantanamo-type jumpsuits and hoods stood at the station door in silent witness. Many news reporters were there when we declared victory for the day and pledged our determination to continue resistance actions at the recruiting station until it shuts down and this movement spreads throughout the country.

As the day progressed, our numbers (50-100) were bolstered by Berkeley High students, who came out on their day off. Since we had a sound permit, we played “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy on the loudspeakers and anti-war tracks from The Coup and Rage Against the Machine, as well as a great remix of “War,” by Edwin Starr. At noon, we had a youth “speak out,” which went so well, that we spontaneously decided to take a “Wake The Folk Up!” march to the nearby – and still too politically passive - UC Berkeley campus. Youth activists with WCW, A.N.S.W.E.R., and the Bay Area Revolution Club led a contingent of about 40 (mostly BHS students) up to campus and to the famous steps of Sproul Plaza, where in 1964, Mario Savio delivered his legendary address about "putting your body on the gears of the machine" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcx9BJRadfw). We called on the UCB students to join us, chanting: “UC Berkeley take a stand, stop the war, we demand!” And when we were not getting enough people to join us, one high schooler suggested this: “iPods down, cell phones down, UC Berkeley stand up!”

About 10 students joined us on the spot, as many others looked on in amazement, and a big group of mostly African American youth from West Oakland also joined us briefly. At one point, a pair of military recruiters walked by, and we started chanting: “Murder, rape, torture, war – that's what they're recruiting for!” When they walked by again, we asked them if they could teach us how to waterboard the youth that were wearing the orange jumpsuits and black hoods of the Guantanamo detainees.

Much later in the afternoon, when everyone was back at the recruiting station, the police used the pretext of a few picket signs scotch-taped to the window of the station to declare what they called a “civil alert.” A column of about 40 riot police marched right into our peaceful protest on the sidewalk, shoving teenagers, knocking an 86 year-old man to the ground (he bled, then got right back up and waved his World Can't Wait sign even harder) and wrecking much of our very expensive sound equipment. Watch this KRON 4 footage here.

Yet we would not be intimidated so easily! As soon as the riot police withdrew, we immediately regrouped in front of the recruiting station - more energized than before. And with the police gone and the street re-opened, the supportive horn honking and waving – and some “fight the power” fists -- from passing commuters, buses, and truck drivers was even louder and more insistent than we'd heard all day.

To the powers-that-be, we have “crossed the line” and are not staying within the bounds of Obama/Clinton/McCain politics-as-usual. In other words, we are having an effect and the authorities worry that this spark could ignite a new, powerful and uncompromising resistance movement. They did NOT like the stand taken by the Berkeley City Council to begin with, or the huge and broad numbers of people who have supported and defended them. And they especially do not want the youth to be taking any initiative. However, from our point of view, all of this is exactly what is so inspiring and beautiful about what has happened in Berkeley this past week. Will this resistance spread to other cities and fan out across the country? That's what needs to happen now.

More links to good media coverage:
Tuesday & Friday “Flashpoints”:
http://flashpoints.net/index.html#2008-02-12
http://flashpoints.net/index.html#2008-02-15
Friday KPFA Evening News:
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/02/15/080215kpfanewsrecruiting.mp3

Berkeley against Iraq War not Marines

2008-02-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

BERKELEY -Students walked out of Berkely High and joined political organizations like Code Pink in protest to recruitment made by the Marines Feb 12.
Students and community activists lined the front of City Hall in controversy over a letter that was sent down to the local Marine recruting office.
People let attitudes flare. Some wore traditional red, white and blue on one side. Others wore bandanas and shirts that showed organizations on behalf of human rights.
I can't help but to imagine if it were my town, I would find myself on the side of asking the Marines not to be in my town.
This isn't a football game. Where people whoes kids are in the war get to wear t-shirts sporting their branch like a football jersey.
This is real.
People are pro-war and all gun hoe until it is their loved ones who are coming home in coffins drapped in flags. I know Cindy Sheehan would prefers her sons sparkling eyes and soulful voice in the flesh to a piece of material dotted in stars and lined with stripes. I ate dinner with her and she told me. Her protest comes from the ultimate loss of life.

I am not against defending my rights, or my homeland. Not for the sake of government, but for the sake of the ones I love. My family. I would bleed for them. But I am against occupation and the indoctrination of Christianity. I am against torture and the violation of human rights on all side. I am against the War in Iraq. War is terrorism. War is death. This war is money for the rich, and the deportation of people who "think" and "believe" they are fighting for liberty and democracy.
Well, how about we get some democracy here -I still remember the voter fraud of 2000. A man was elected, to start a war under the rhetoric that he was fighting for the "democracy" of the Iraqi people. Let's fix our education and health care system, let's start treating people of color like equals before we start imposing our broken success on other countries. As for terrorism, when the United States of America is dropping bombs on people that are helpless to defend themselves, well, it's kind of obvious who is terrorizing whom.

This video is of a man, who was lied to by the Marine Corps. and by those he saluted and he died because of it. If you are willing to put you or your family through this by "serving your country," then you and I want different things in life.

Some may wave their Chinese made American flags and ask for war,
I prefer to see the American family live.

Hablo otra idioma. Que te importa?

2008-02-09T14:39:00.001-08:00

I think it's important to understand why it is important to study and understand other cultures. If we want peace in the world, I feel it important to start those ideas and behaviors here in the states. The border between Mexico and America is nothing but a drawn line on a map. Yet, the racial conflict continues. Recently, I read alternative perspectives and people's histories in the Chicano Movement. One piece I came across, painted the "piss and shit" attitude felt by the Chicano community:

"Some call us the forgotten people; others call us chili snappers, tacos, spics, mexs, or greasers. Some ignore us and pretend that we don’t exist, some wish we would go away…when we ask for jobs, we are called ‘those damn Mexicans." –Henry Johnson, William Hernandez (Introduction, Educating the Mexican American)

In the southwest of America, there lays a virus. A disease borne from the dehumanization of people through racism. The obvious past of the United States testifies to an ongoing exploitation of many groups of indigenous people from the Americas and foreigners from Europe. Only, "white" colored Europeans could assimilate into society with somewhat of a success. It was as plain as color. However, the indigenous man, along with Africans, were visibly different in ethnic features. Eurocentric ideologies treated the "dark" skinned people as savages. This general underlying prejudice still exists in our society today. It is a mighty waste of human brotherhood. And the division of races, "white" people included, keeps the masses distracted while the elitists rape and kill us collectively.

Few people are able to connect the dots of yesterday with the dots of today.

We will look back at the time spent on the senate floor debating the deportation or imprisonment of the Mexican people and wonder, what were we thinking? Humans are interdependent and it serves our best interests, collectively again, the build bridges rather than burn them. Despite our ignorance, the United States of America –in particular the southwest is a shared land. Anglo America may have colonized over Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California; however, a Mexican culture has been physically present prior to the occupation and continues on in this day. Until we know our past, we will not be able to heal deep wounds to qualm the racial fracturing and division that will be with us tomorrow.

The Flag You Wave --Made in China

2008-02-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

I love how people make their assumptions about a country they have never lived in or vistited more than the length of a holiday. Not to say that I have the deepest roots vested in China either. But I can say this: I have lived in China and seen enough of XioXan, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Quzhou to learn that China is filled with the hardest working people on the planet. The number of sheer people that dwell in this stable nation (no "terrorist" threats here) make it the most resources country in the world.

If you don't know that, just look at the labels of the products you buy.

Everything: MADE IN CHINA

What many Americans do not realize is just how much the world is changing. In my heart of hearts, I want to say that America is not doomed, but I feel my Gonzo hero -Hunter S. Thompson was right. All empires of the world have collapesed. America is no different. Sadly, as the world becomes flat through the exansion and use of technology, many countries stand to gain, while the U.S. stands to faulter. United we stand. United we fall. On a three hour bus ride from Hangzhou to Quzhou, I spoke with a nice old lady who teaches English. We were immersed heavily into politics -as I usually am --and I knew we were screwed the minute welts of water poured from her eyes. "Your generation took the streets," I said. "Your's haven't," she answered. "If America falls, then I guess it was time," she said.

I thought of all the kids that would never get to go to college and the prisons being built in our backyards. I thought of how Californians elected a governor slash movie star that is good friends with George Bush and has deep ties to the administration and the Enron scandal. I thought of all the old women and men that would lose their live savings in some hospital ran by an HMO while they breathe their last breathes and die of cancer. I thought of $3.30 a gallon for gas, and people not making the political connection that "Everything is Political." I thought of all the talk and squabbling over immigration reform and the billion dollar war we do nothing about. I sat there quietly. I was headed to a new city that had more than a million people in it. The streets would be filled with a growing economy and people that are spun in their communities and 6 day a week labor obligations. I thought of what Napoleon Bonapart once wrote, "When China awakens, the whole world will tremble." These ideas swam to the lips of my mind. Simple as that. And I understood clearly. The old woman sipped on her Chinese Coke can through a platic bendy straw and I just stared at the hundreds of miles of vegitation and the clusters of three-story houses, a blue sky and mountains of coal heaps we rode by...

At that moment, there really weren't any words left to speak.