Bob Morris @ May 16th 2005 15:50 - Category: Unfiled ;
If I get ONE MORE automated phone call telling me who to vote for tomorrow, I’m going to stay home and not vote!
There’s been six of them in the past few hours here at my home office. Do the bozos who create these calls think people want to come home from work and listen to (lengthy) messages stacked up and waiting for them on their answering machines?
Bob Morris @ May 16th 2005 09:33 - Category: Unfiled ;
L.A. hip hop artist Wil b., who performs often at antiwar demonstrations and progressive events, has been busy. Currently he’s mobilizing votes for Antonio Villraigosa with a traveling Political Power of Hiphop Tour of Los Angeles which, after the election, will morph into the Summer Street Peace Tour. This is conscious hip hop, music with a message, good stuff indeed.
From their press release:
Kicking off May 14, 2005, the IBEW Political Power of Hiphop Tour of Los Angeles will spend the next 4 days mobilizing support for Villaraigosa, while, young Black voters are given a dose of “message music” as described by the show’s headliner Wil b.
At a time when, our L.A. school students are in such turmoil, this lead up to the election is no empty gesture that will dissipate following Election Day. The Political Power of Hiphop, “committed to positive change”, will soon announce a “Summer Concert Series†called “the Summer Street Peace Tour”, in conjunction with Councilman Martin Ludlow doing these types of events all over L.A. this summer starting as early as next month.
“We are committed to positive change and promoting interracial unity here in L.A. and it’s other surrounding area’s as we help to bring about a working solution to end the increase of violence, and racial intolerance everywhere.”
Plus his Political Power of Hip Hop site will be live soon.
In the next few weeks, we will be launching a website developed to promote cultural and basic human understanding through information, visual art, and music.
Our primary mission is to utilize the pure power of this incredible music and culture.
And it appears that tomorrow Antonio Villraigosa will upset incumbent James Hahn and become the first Hispanic Mayor of L.A. since 1874. Good.
Bob Morris @ May 16th 2005 09:24 - Category: Unfiled ;
US strategy is producing major blowback.
One fact is clear: “velvet revolutions” stage-managed by the United States in Georgia and Ukraine, and then carried over to Kyrgyzstan, are threatening to explode in volatile Central Asia.
At the time of the Kyrgyz coup, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confidently predicted that it was just a beginning, saying: “We know where we want to go.”
The events in Andijan showed they do not know. The U.S., which has a military base in Uzbekistan, has nothing to gain and all to lose from destabilisation in Central Asia’s most populous state, which moreover has a common border with Afghanistan.
From DJ Mitchell
I’ve been following the reports of spreading unrest in Uzbekistan, where protesters are demanding more freedom. Almost every news report describes the Karimov regime as “one of the most repressive in the world,” “frequently cited for human rights violations,” and “a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror.”
Early protests were blamed on Islamists. That apprently won’t fly anymore as the protests have become broad-based. Nevertheless, if the U.S. supports the repressors, to whom will freedom-seeking people turn? Usually those who oppose us.
When will our government learn to pick its friends better?
This isn’t a mistake, not a temporary error of judgement. Choosing brutal dictators for allies has been deliberate US policy for decades.
What if we had supported Ho Chi Minh when he sought our help in 1948 (as our own advisors recommended)? Not overthrown democracy in Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah? Not supported Saddam Hussein for all those years? Or demanded democratic reform in Uzbekistan before it reached the boiling point?
Certainly we would be better liked in the world. Perhaps a few wars could have been prevented. And it is possible– perhaps even likely– that power in these nations would be in the hands of moderates and not extremists today.
We, the American people, get the blame for these tragic errors. Yet what can we, the average American citizens, do to change our government’s course?
Organize!
Like the Pete Seeger song says, “When will they ever learn?”
When there’s enough dissent, then they will be forced to change - or driven from power.
Bob Morris @ May 16th 2005 09:13 - Category: Unfiled ;
The Schwarzenegger administration is poised to profoundly transform how California treats its most troubled young lawbreakers, replacing a prison culture of punishment and control with one anchored in group therapy, self-discipline and preparation for life outside.
Schwarzenegger is indeed reforming California prisons, and this a seriously good thing indeed.
Bob Morris @ May 16th 2005 09:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
Europe’s rules forcing U.S. firms to clean up.
Unwilling to surrender sales, companies struggle to meet the EU’s tough stand on toxics.
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