Free(?) Will

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue."

-Karl Marx


Sam Harris

The Death Penalty Costs $300 Million Per Execution*

"Capital punishment is absurd for a lot of reasons: It's racist, classist, and it doesn't even deter crime. And yet two-thirds of Americans still support the practice, which has been abandoned in every other Western democracy. In the midst of America's great recession, perhaps an appeal to citizens' pocketbooks will change their minds about the death penalty."

-Cord Jefferson

*INFO:
http://www.good.is/post/capital-stupidity-the-death-penalty-costs-california-300-million-per-execution/

http://beadle-bug.tumblr.com/post/3068995681/most-painful-execution-technique-electric-chair

"Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty."*

*-Henry Ford



Slavoj Zizek on charity

By Any Means Necessary

"... in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”

-John Brown
(above) in 1846, holding the flag of Subterranean Pass Way, his militant counterpart to the Underground Railroad.

INFO:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_any_means_necessary

Proud Abominators

"Corrections" Corporation of America

A Wall Street giant, Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest operator of for-profit prisons, has sent letters recently to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons as a remedy for “challenging corrections budgets.” In exchange, the company is asking for a 20-year management contract, plus an assurance that the prison would remain at least 90 percent full.

INFO:
http://www.disinfo.com/2012/02/private-prison-corporation-offers-to-buy-48-states-prisons/

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."*

* -Frederick Douglass

Field Studies

Malcolm X

Bob Mizer & the Golden Age of the American Male

Films From Bob Mizer’s Legendary Athletic Model Guild

Programed by Billy Miller,
in conjunction with the Mizer Foundation

Saturday, February 4th, 7:30pm

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission St San Francisco

INFO:
http://www.ybca.org/bros-hos

Sight Unseen

Artists Television Access, 992 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA

Friday, February 3rd, 8:00pm

Short films by/about: Brian Belott • Gregory Kaplowitz • David King • Francis Faye • Jacuzzi Gals • Gilbert & George • Darrin Martin • Peter McGough • Heri Mkocha • M.O.V. • Jessica Plumb • Peter Rose • Alayne Patur Salahuddeen • Scott Treleaven

Programed by: Billy Miller

INFO:
http://www.atasite.org/2012/02/sight-unseen/

Complimentary copies of REVEL IN NYC at door.

Babel

by Peter Rose

Say NO to SOPA & PIPA

INFO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

The Red Cap of Liberty

A.K.A., The Phrygian Cap.

INFO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_cap

(Mr.) Common Sense

"The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance."

"I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace."

"Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities."

"It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes."

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

"That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not."

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."

"My mind is my own church."

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it."

"Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

-Thomas Paine

- - - -

As I went out one morning
To breathe the air around Tom Paine's,
I spied the fairest damsel
That ever did walk in chains.
I offer'd her my hand,
She took me by the arm.
I knew that very instant,
She meant to do me harm.

"Depart from me this moment,"
I told her with my voice.
Said she, "But I don't wish to,"
Said I, "But you have no choice."
"I beg you, sir," she pleaded
From the corners of her mouth,
"I will secretly accept you
And together we'll fly south."

Just then Tom Paine, himself,
Came running from across the field,
Shouting at this lovely girl
And commanding her to yield.
And as she was letting go her grip,
Up Tom Paine did run,
"I'm sorry, sir," he said to me,
"I'm sorry for what she's done."

-Bob Dylan

- - - -

Footnote:
To counter the sanitized story of the American Revolution being promulgated by the governing elite at the "Buy-centennial" of 1976, Jeremy Rifkin and others formed the People's Bicentennial Commission. "Although modern-day Tories will attempt to present themselves and the institutions they control - the corporations, the White House - as the true heirs and defenders of the struggle waged by the first American revolutionaries," the commission declared, "we will be celebrating radical heroes like Thomas Paine."

INFO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

Homeland "Security"

"... the standing army is used not so much against the external enemy as against the internal enemy. Everywhere the standing army has become the weapon of reaction, the servant of capital in its struggle against labour..."

-V. Lenin (1905)

INFO:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/20/local-cops-ready-for-war-with-homeland-security-funded-military-weapons.html
http://www.thenation.com/article/164501/paramilitary-policing-seattle-occupy-wall-street

Heil Amerika

Pictured above are 1940s American schoolchildren saluting the flag. The resemblance to the Nazi salute is uncanny; but actually both are derived from the same ancient Roman gesture. The American version was called "the Bellamy Salute", named after Francis Bellamy, who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance as part of a Columbus Day flag-selling promotion for a magazine. Bellamy, a Baptist minister, was part of a movement to put flags in every school. The placement of flags and the pledge continue to this day, and you can draw whatever conclusions you like from the practice. But during WW2, Americans became uncomfortable with the similarity to the Nazi practice and President Franklin D. Roosevelt rewrote the code and replaced it with the hand-over-the-heart gesture that is common today.
Then there's the "under God" part in the wording of the pledge, which is a whole other kettle of crosses. But even leaving "God" out of it, the basic problem with the Pledge of Allegiance and other loyalty oaths is that democracies are founded on the principle that the government owes allegiance to the people, not the other way around.

God, Country, & My Baby

Chico Holiday

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."*

*-Seneca the Younger

The God That Never Was

Just as a reminder... "Jesus" didn't write anything, nor did anyone who had personal knowledge of him. There is no archeological evidence of his existence. There are no contemporaneous accounts of his life or death: no eyewitness accounts, or any other kind of first-hand record. All the accounts come from decades or centuries later; the gospels themselves all come from later times - and the earliest promoters of Christianity had no concept of an earthly Jesus at all. In short, there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that this mythical being ever existed... Sorry.

INFO:
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/time.html

Love, American Style

Melvin Van Peebles #OWS

Follow The $

Despite the rhetoric, it is clear that “we” as a nation are not broke. While the recession has led to job loss and shrinking incomes for many in recent years, the economy has produced substantial wealth over the last three decades, and economists agree that we can expect comparable growth over the next three decades as well. The question is rather where, and to whom, is the money flowing?

Capitalism = War

"Capitalism has long since outlived its progressive historical role of creating a modern industrial economy. In order to maintain their rule, the national capitalist classes must exploit national, ethnic and racial divisions... impoverish the world’s masses, engage in continual wars for the maintenance and redivision of the world markets in order to prop up the falling rate of profit, and attempt to smash the revolutionary struggle of the workers wherever it breaks out. In its final frenzied effort to maintain its class rule, the bourgeoisie will not hesitate to plunge humanity into nuclear holocaust or dictatorial oppression of unprecedented ferocity."

-(above, excerpted from): Declaration of Principles and Some Elements of Program, International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.


They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.


They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.


They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.


They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.


They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.


They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.


They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.


They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.


They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.


They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.


They have sold our privacy as a commodity.


They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.


They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.


They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.


They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.


They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.


They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.


They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.


They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.


They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.


They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.


They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.


They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*


To the people of the world,


We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.


Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.


To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.


Join us and make your voices heard!


*These grievances are not all-inclusive.


(End of Statement)

The Wobblies

"The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth. We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers. These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all. Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system." It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old"

-Preamble to the current IWW Constitution

INFO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World