Find a show you like and click the 
button. The show will be added to your My Playlist page and updated 24/7 with new videos.
Search Results
1 Views
01:14:37 02/06/12
Fuck The Police (FTP 1) March & Rally in Austin, Texas 2-3-12
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 01:14:37 02/06/12
ANNOUNCING THE FIRST "FUCK THE POLICE" MARCH IN AUSTIN TEXAS FTP1 This event was called by various Anarchists and radicals in Austin Texas This event was explicitly Anti-Police and Anti-Capitalist. This event was created in response to the call for solidarity put out by the citizens of Oakland who have been participating in these marches for several weeks now. No longer can we ignore this call. We did not create a facebook event for this march because we recognize that facebook alienates the participants in these demonstrations by giving law enforcement and city officials a list of participants and organizers that end up becoming targets. FTP1 Austin was the first of many FTP marches that will be planned in the coming weeks. We gather in the spirit of open revolt against the racist police state that we live in, and understand that there is no excuse for Austin to sit back and remain passive while our comrades around the world face violent state repression. There is no excuse to continue to sit back and let the racist Austin Police Department along with every other facet of law enforcement private or public to brutalize and murder children in the most marginalized communities in our area. There are no borders in this struggle. To quote our friends in the bay area - "Please do not consume the images from the Bay as you would the images of overseas rioting or as a netflix subscription. Our hell is yours, and so too is our struggle." We hold our friends in Oakland in the highest regard; their actions have been an inspiration to all of us. Produced for Austin Indymedia by Jeff Zavala. This is a zgraphix production. http://zgraphix.org
1 Views
00:00:27 02/02/12
Foggy Florida Pileup Leaves One Girl Without Family, Country Or Health Insurance
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:27 02/02/12
On Saturday morning Lidiane Carmo woke up in Florida, where she was attending a church conference with her father, mother, and sister. Carmo was the youngest in her family, and they had traveled to Florida with her pastor father, her aunt, uncle and cousins as well as several other other church members.
On Sunday morning, Lidiane woke up in a Florida hospital with broken bones and internal injuries after the van they were traveling in was involved in Sunday's horrendous highway pileup on I-75 near Gainesville, Florida. Her father, mother, sister, uncle, aunt and cousin were killed. She is the sole survivor in her immediate family.
Lidiane's parents came to the United States from Brazil 12 years ago, bringing five-year old Letiticia and three-year old Lidiane with them. They had legal visas which have since expired.
Lidiane is now an orphan. She has no health insurance. She has no legal status to remain in this country. And she has no family beyond those remaining members of her father's church. She is the sole survivor.
If we had a DREAM Act in place, Lidiane could petition for citizenship here since she entered the country legally. But we don't, and because of Republicans' insane need to pander to bigots and racists, we're unlikely to see it without a completely different Congress.
I'm writing about Lidiane because she puts a very human face on what they're doing when they block the DREAM Act. I wonder if any of these crazy Republican candidates could gaze into her frightened, hurting eyes, and tell her she has to go back to a country she doesn't even know. I think they could, and that should concern us all.
Congress forced a clause into the Affordable Care Act which excluded undocumented immigrants from coverage. The exclusion wasn't simply from federal funds for subsidies. They are barred from purchasing insurance on the state-based exchanges and the national exchange. Barred. Even if they pay with their own funds. Barred.
Today a 15-year old child is in a hospital in Florida, suffering from severe injuries, bereft of her family, in Rick Scott's state. What will become of her?
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: >
As for Lidiane's status, one expert had reassurance for her friends and surviving relatives.
Charles Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney, told the AJC that Lidiane would not be deported because of a federal law granting special status to juveniles. Lidiane can become a ward of the state and be issued a green card, allowing her to stay, Kuck said.
"This child will be fine," Kuck said. "She's clearly an orphan at this moment."
But the Brazilian consulate was not as reassuring: >
At the church Tuesday night, a representative from the Brazilian Consulate in Atlanta addressed crash survivors and others in the congregation.
"I want to give you my love and our support," Ana Claudia Rodrigues, deputy consul general for the consulate, said through a translator.
But when crash victims asked about help, Rodrigues said she could only convey their concerns to the Brazilian government. Immigration issues are not up to the consulate, Rodrigues said, but the U.S. government.
"She didn't answer any of our questions," Weberson Barbosa, a crash survivor still on crutches, said Tuesday night. "We need someone to really view our pain and take action."
Lidiane's family, before the crash Yes, they really do. I wonder. Would Ron Paul tell this family to rely on charity? Would Mitt Romney tell this family to rely on charity? Would Newt Gingrich summon the neighborhood council to testify to Lidiane's character? Oh wait. She hasn't been here long enough.
Something is really broken in a country where a 15-year old child can suffer like this while politicians preach family values and American exceptionalism. Really broken.
0 Views
04:29:15 01/18/12
AP Ticker's Scrapple News - Why So Much Hate?
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 04:29:15 01/18/12
January 18, 2012. I would like to take time out for a heart to heart with the far right wing of this country. You hate Obama. You hate gay people. You hate black people, brown people, fat kids, skinny kids, even kids with chicken pox, immigrants, Muslims, labor unions, women who dare to exercise their legal right to choose when and if and by whom they are impregnated. You hate em all. You hate socialism and social justice. You hate regulations and taxes and spending and the Government. You only like people who look like you or at least hate the same things that you hate and you hate everyone else -- everyone who is not a rich, white, heterosexual christian male or his submissive and obedient wife. But you love war. You love torture. You love greedy rich people. You love, love, love Jesus H. Christ -- because Jesus Christ LOVED war and torture and greedy rich people, it's was what he was all about. Here's the rub: I think you hate gays, Obama, black people, poor people, women, atheists, agnostics, scientists, Latinos, Muslims, Liberals, all of us -- basically everyone who isn't exactly like you -- more than you love your country. I think you hate gay soldiers more than you want America to win its wars. I don't even think you want America to win wars, you just want America to have wars, never ending wars and the obscene profits they generate. Why? Why so much hate? Because you simply can NOT win on the issues. You never could. You've even said it out loud that if most people in this country bothered to vote, you'd lose. Because you've got NOTHING. All you have is a divide and conquer class war that pits ignorant racist and bigoted people against the rest of us in a meaningless battle of wedge issues and the same disastrously misguided agenda of tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization and war profiteering you've been pushing for the last 30 years. And just look where that got us. Look around, you're soaking in it. I'm AP Ticker
0 Views
04:32:37 01/10/12
Did Jon Huntsman Attack Himself with Racist Ad to Salvage His Failed Campaign?
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 04:32:37 01/10/12
Did Jon Huntsman Attack Himself with Racist Ad to Salvage His Failed Campaign?
Jon Huntsman predicted on Jan. 4 that his adult daughters were about to launch an unconventional attack on Ron Paul: ---- MORGAN: I think you should do what Mitt Romney does and get the dirty work done by somebody else. In your case maybe your daughters could unleash themselves on Twitter on [Ron Paul]. [...] HUNTSMAN: They've got plenty-- they've got plenty up their sleeves Piers, and you might be surprised at what they release in the next few days. www.youtube.com ---- The racist "Manchurian Candidate" video was posted just a few hours after that exchange. It was a seemingly random, anonymous video, uploaded to a new YouTube account that had been created the same day under the name of "NHLiberty4Paul". It was the only video on that account. No group called "NHLiberty4Paul" exists outside of that YouTube account. The video contained private photos and clips of Huntsman that no Ron Paul supporter would have had access to. The first website that linked to the video was Jon Huntsman's official campaign website. The reaction of anyone who saw the video was decidedly anti-Paul and pro-Huntsman. The media ran with the story and ignored the facts. The YouTube account "NHLiberty4Paul" was built up to a "pro-Paul group" or "group supporting Ron Paul". Fox News called the video a "Campaign ad", and a Bloomberg article even described it as a "television advertisement [Ron Paul's] backers are running attacking Hunstman". Neither Huntsman, nor his wife, nor his daughters left out any ... From: RonPaul2008dotcom Views: 13360 556 ratings Time: 02:57 More in News & Politics
0 Views
04:32:37 01/10/12
Did Jon Huntsman Attack Himself with Racist Ad to Salvage His Failed Campaign?
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 04:32:37 01/10/12
Did Jon Huntsman Attack Himself with Racist Ad to Salvage His Failed Campaign?
Jon Huntsman predicted on Jan. 4 that his adult daughters were about to launch an unconventional attack on Ron Paul: ---- MORGAN: I think you should do what Mitt Romney does and get the dirty work done by somebody else. In your case maybe your daughters could unleash themselves on Twitter on [Ron Paul]. [...] HUNTSMAN: They've got plenty-- they've got plenty up their sleeves Piers, and you might be surprised at what they release in the next few days. www.youtube.com ---- The racist "Manchurian Candidate" video was posted just a few hours after that exchange. It was a seemingly random, anonymous video, uploaded to a new YouTube account that had been created the same day under the name of "NHLiberty4Paul". It was the only video on that account. No group called "NHLiberty4Paul" exists outside of that YouTube account. The video contained private photos and clips of Huntsman that no Ron Paul supporter would have had access to. The first website that linked to the video was Jon Huntsman's official campaign website. The reaction of anyone who saw the video was decidedly anti-Paul and pro-Huntsman. The media ran with the story and ignored the facts. The YouTube account "NHLiberty4Paul" was built up to a "pro-Paul group" or "group supporting Ron Paul". Fox News called the video a "Campaign ad", and a Bloomberg article even described it as a "television advertisement [Ron Paul's] backers are running attacking Hunstman". Neither Huntsman, nor his wife, nor his daughters left out any ... From: RonPaul2008dotcom Views: 13360 556 ratings Time: 02:57 More in News & Politics
0 Views
21:05:32 01/07/12
Retro Rumble Episode 1
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 21:05:32 01/07/12
Season 1, Episode 1. "Don't Pee in the Pool" Retro Rumble is where the skilled gamers of today meet the best and the bizarre of classic gaming, and scrap it out solely for bragging rights. You'll see legendary titles and total sleepers, with a big dose of unrestrained commentary from the host and the players themselves. It's what used to happen in your basement every weekend! Made with old-school love from your friends at Arcade-In-A-Box! For further details about the rules of the game and more Retro Rumble, please visit www.theretrorumble.com Warning: The shows are unedited as far the comments go. The people in the show are VERY good friends, comments made by some players may be viewed as racist but I can assure you it is all in good fun and no one there is actually racist (we have people of all sorts of colors, races and sex play at Arcade-in-a-box). Arcade-in-a-box does NOT tolerate any derogatory remarks meant to harm anyone.
0 Views
13:48:33 01/05/12
G. Edward Griffin - The Collectivist Conspiracy
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 13:48:33 01/05/12
In this exclusive 80 minute video interview, legendary conspiracy author G. Edward Griffin explains how his research, which spans no less than 5 decades, has revealed a banking elite obsessed with enforcing a world government under a collectivist model that will crush individualism and eventually institute martial law as a response to the inevitable backlash that will be generated as a result of a fundamental re-shaping of society. Griffin discusses the similarities between the extreme left and the extreme right in the false political paradigm and how this highlights a recurring theme - collectivism. Collectivism is the opposite of individualism and believes that the interests of the individual must be sacrificed for the greater good of the greater number, explains Griffin, uniting the doctrines of communism and fascism. Both the Republican and Democrat parties in the United States are committed to advancing collectivism and this is why the same policies are followed no matter who is voted in to the White House. "All collectivist systems eventually deteriorate into a police state because that's the only way you can hold it together," warns Griffin. Carroll Quigley, Georgetown University Professor and mentor to former president Bill Clinton, explained in his books Tragedy and Hope and The Anglo-American Establishment, how the elite maintained a silent dictatorship while fooling people into thinking they had political freedom, by creating squabbles between the two parties in terms of slogans and leadership, while all the time controlling both from the top down and pursuing the same agenda. Griffin documents how the Tea Party, after its beginnings as a grass roots movement, was later hijacked by the Republicans through the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Pointing out how Republicans and Democrats agree on the most important topics, such as US foreign policy, endless wars in the Middle East, and the dominance of the private banking system over the economy, Griffin lays out how the left-right hoax is used to steer the destiny of America. Griffin also talks at length on a myriad of other important subjects, such as the move towards a Chinese-style censored Internet, the demonization of the John Birch Society as a racist extremist group, the Hegelian dialectic, the power of tax-exempt foundations and the Council on Foreign Relations, the movement towards world government, and the question of whether the elite are really worried about the growing awareness of their agenda amongst Americans.
6 Views
20:00:10 12/14/11
Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) Calls Out Lowe's Bigotry
[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:10 12/14/11
Murphy doesn't mince words here. He'll be a welcome addition to the U.S. Senate next year when he replaces the awful Joe Lieberman.
via The Hill : >
"This is a major American company rubber-stamping basic foundational bigotry against a major American religious group," Murphy said. "Lowe's pulled these ads because one right-wing anti-Muslim group in Florida said that the show hides the 'true agenda of Islam,' which according to this group is to destroy America," he added. "It's one thing when a fringe group or a radical, unhinged pastor is doing it. It's quite another when a fortune 100 company is endorsing this nonsense."
Murphy, who is running for the Senate, rejected Lowe's statement that said some of its customers have "strong political and social views."
"Congratulations to Lowe's for acknowledging that there are some really bigoted people in the world," Murphy said. "That doesn't mean that Lowe's or any other company should acquiesce to this kind of behavior. For instance, there are, unfortunately, a lot of people out there who still hold racist views about African-Americans, but I don't think that means Lowe's is going to be pulling its ads from television shows featuring African-Americans."
UPDATE : John Amato:
After Scarce posted this yesterday on Video Cafe, it's taken off in the main stream media. Greg Sargent writes: Turning up the heat on Lowe’s and anti-Muslim bigotry >
By now you may have heard that retail behemoth Lowe’s Home Improvement yanked ads from TLC’s “All-American Muslim” reality show after a single conservative Christian group complained that the show is “propaganda” that endangers “American liberties and Christian values.”
That one of the “American liberties” we hold to be important is freedom of religion was an irony lost on the group — and on Lowe’s — and the decision has been widely pilloried . Lowe’s subsequently offered a strikingly weak justification for the move, arguing that the program had triggered “strong political and societal views” and insisting that it is “best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.” Lowe’s, of course, is only “deferring” to the bigoted views that one conservative group holds about millions and millions of Americans.
Now Dem Rep. Chris Murphy — who’s running for Senate in Connecticut — has given a wonderful speech on the House floor lambasting Lowe’s over the decision, mocking the company’s justification for it, and vowing that Congress will turn up the heat on Lowe’s to reverse course. Murphy says to Lowe’s: “You’re better than this”
12 Views
20:00:10 12/14/11
Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) Calls Out Lowe's Bigotry
[LESS INFO] 12 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:10 12/14/11
Murphy doesn't mince words here. He'll be a welcome addition to the U.S. Senate next year when he replaces the awful Joe Lieberman.
via The Hill : >
"This is a major American company rubber-stamping basic foundational bigotry against a major American religious group," Murphy said. "Lowe's pulled these ads because one right-wing anti-Muslim group in Florida said that the show hides the 'true agenda of Islam,' which according to this group is to destroy America," he added. "It's one thing when a fringe group or a radical, unhinged pastor is doing it. It's quite another when a fortune 100 company is endorsing this nonsense."
Murphy, who is running for the Senate, rejected Lowe's statement that said some of its customers have "strong political and social views."
"Congratulations to Lowe's for acknowledging that there are some really bigoted people in the world," Murphy said. "That doesn't mean that Lowe's or any other company should acquiesce to this kind of behavior. For instance, there are, unfortunately, a lot of people out there who still hold racist views about African-Americans, but I don't think that means Lowe's is going to be pulling its ads from television shows featuring African-Americans."
UPDATE : John Amato:
After Scarce posted this yesterday on Video Cafe, it's taken off in the main stream media. Greg Sargent writes: Turning up the heat on Lowe’s and anti-Muslim bigotry >
By now you may have heard that retail behemoth Lowe’s Home Improvement yanked ads from TLC’s “All-American Muslim” reality show after a single conservative Christian group complained that the show is “propaganda” that endangers “American liberties and Christian values.”
That one of the “American liberties” we hold to be important is freedom of religion was an irony lost on the group — and on Lowe’s — and the decision has been widely pilloried . Lowe’s subsequently offered a strikingly weak justification for the move, arguing that the program had triggered “strong political and societal views” and insisting that it is “best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.” Lowe’s, of course, is only “deferring” to the bigoted views that one conservative group holds about millions and millions of Americans.
Now Dem Rep. Chris Murphy — who’s running for Senate in Connecticut — has given a wonderful speech on the House floor lambasting Lowe’s over the decision, mocking the company’s justification for it, and vowing that Congress will turn up the heat on Lowe’s to reverse course. Murphy says to Lowe’s: “You’re better than this”
6 Views
03:00:00 11/08/11
Occupy's A**hole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:00 11/08/11
During Tuesday's Occupy Oakland General Strike, the so-called "Black Block" vandalized stores and buildings as peaceful Occupiers try desperately to stop them. [Caution: Strong Language-- NSFW]
Guest Editorial by Sara Robinson , Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.
As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the a**hole problem. In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks — things that it’s high time somebody said right out loud.
1. Let’s be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms.
Occupy may be a DIY movement — but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we’re obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard.
2. It is OK to draw boundaries between those who are clearly working toward our goals, and those who are clearly not.
Or, as an earlier generation of change agents put it: You’re either on the bus, or off the bus. Are you here to change the way this country operates, and willing to sacrifice some of your almighty personal freedom to do that? Great. You’re with us, and you’re welcome here. Are you here on your own trip and expecting the rest of us to put up with you? In that case, you are emphatically NOT on our side, and you are not welcome in our space.
Anybody who feels the need to put their own personal crap ahead of the health and future of the movement is (at least for that moment) an a**hole, and does not belong in Occupied space. Period. This can be a very hard idea for people in an inclusive movement to accept — we really want to have all voices heard. But the principles Occupy stands for must always take precedence over any individual’s divine right to be an a**hole, or the a**holes will take over. Which brings me to….
3. The consensus model has a fatal flaw, which is this: It’s very easy for power to devolve to the people who are willing to throw the biggest tantrums.
When some a drama king or queen starts holding the process hostage for their own reasons, congratulations! You’ve got a new a**hole! (See #2.) You must guard against this constantly, or consensus government becomes completely impossible.
4. Once you’ve accepted the right of the group to set boundaries around people’s behavior, and exclude those who put their personal rights ahead of the group’s mission and goals, the next question becomes: How do we deal with chronic a**holes?
This is the problem Occupy’s leaders are very visibly struggling with now. I’ve been a part of a**hole-infested groups in the long-ago past that had very good luck with a whole-group restorative justice process. In this process, the full group (or some very large subset of it that’s been empowered to speak for the whole) confronts the troublemaker directly. The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.
This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual we statements that reflect the observations of the group. We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.
When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic a**holes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with I messages. I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave. Every statement needs to end with that demand — We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back. No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.
These interventions can go on for a LONG time. You have to be committed to stay in the process, possibly for a few hours until the offender needs a restroom break or gets hungry. But eventually, if everybody stays put, the person will have no option but to accept that a very large group of people do not want him or her there. Even truly committed a**holes will get the message that they’ve crossed the line into unacceptable behavior when they’re faced with several dozen determined people confronting them all at once.
Given the time this takes, it’s tempting to cut corners by confronting several people all at once. Don’t do it. Confronting more than two people at a time creates a diffusion-of-responsibility effect: the troublemakers tell themselves that they just got caught up in a dragnet; the problem is those other people, not me. The one who talks the most will get most of the heat; the others will tend to slip by (though the experience may cause them to reconsider their behavior or leave as well).
This process also leaves open the hope that the person will really, truly get that their behavior is Not okay, and agree to change it. When this happens, be sure to negotiate specific changes, boundaries, rules, and consequences (if we see you using drugs here again, we will call the police. There will be no second warning), and then reach a consensus agreement that allows them to stay. On the other hand: if the person turns violent and gets out of control, then the question is settled, and their choice is made. You now have a legitimate reason to call the cops to haul them away. And the cops will likely respect you more for maintaining law and order.
Clearing out a huge number of these folks can be a massive time suck, at least for the few days it will take to weed out the worst ones and get good at it. It might make sense to create a large committee whose job it is to gather information, build cases against offenders, and conduct these meetings.
And finally:
5. It is not wrong for you to set boundaries this way.
You will get sh-t for this. But…but…it looks a whole lot like a Maoist purge unit! No. There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association — which includes the right to exclude people who aren’t on the bus, and who are wasting the group’s limited time and energy rather than maximizing it. After all: you’re not sending these people to re-education camps, or doing anything else that damages them. You’re just getting them out of the park, and out of your hair. You’re eliminating distractions, which in turn effectively amplifies the voices and efforts of everyone else around you. And, in the process, you’re also modeling a new kind of justice that sanctions people’s behavior without sanctioning their being — while also carving out safe space in which the true potential of Occupy can flourish.
2 Views
03:00:00 11/08/11
Occupy's A**hole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:00 11/08/11
During Tuesday's Occupy Oakland General Strike, the so-called "Black Block" vandalized stores and buildings as peaceful Occupiers try desperately to stop them. [Caution: Strong Language-- NSFW]
Guest Editorial by Sara Robinson , Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.
As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the a**hole problem. In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks — things that it’s high time somebody said right out loud.
1. Let’s be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms.
Occupy may be a DIY movement — but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we’re obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard.
2. It is OK to draw boundaries between those who are clearly working toward our goals, and those who are clearly not.
Or, as an earlier generation of change agents put it: You’re either on the bus, or off the bus. Are you here to change the way this country operates, and willing to sacrifice some of your almighty personal freedom to do that? Great. You’re with us, and you’re welcome here. Are you here on your own trip and expecting the rest of us to put up with you? In that case, you are emphatically NOT on our side, and you are not welcome in our space.
Anybody who feels the need to put their own personal crap ahead of the health and future of the movement is (at least for that moment) an a**hole, and does not belong in Occupied space. Period. This can be a very hard idea for people in an inclusive movement to accept — we really want to have all voices heard. But the principles Occupy stands for must always take precedence over any individual’s divine right to be an a**hole, or the a**holes will take over. Which brings me to….
3. The consensus model has a fatal flaw, which is this: It’s very easy for power to devolve to the people who are willing to throw the biggest tantrums.
When some a drama king or queen starts holding the process hostage for their own reasons, congratulations! You’ve got a new a**hole! (See #2.) You must guard against this constantly, or consensus government becomes completely impossible.
4. Once you’ve accepted the right of the group to set boundaries around people’s behavior, and exclude those who put their personal rights ahead of the group’s mission and goals, the next question becomes: How do we deal with chronic a**holes?
This is the problem Occupy’s leaders are very visibly struggling with now. I’ve been a part of a**hole-infested groups in the long-ago past that had very good luck with a whole-group restorative justice process. In this process, the full group (or some very large subset of it that’s been empowered to speak for the whole) confronts the troublemaker directly. The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.
This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual we statements that reflect the observations of the group. We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.
When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic a**holes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with I messages. I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave. Every statement needs to end with that demand — We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back. No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.
These interventions can go on for a LONG time. You have to be committed to stay in the process, possibly for a few hours until the offender needs a restroom break or gets hungry. But eventually, if everybody stays put, the person will have no option but to accept that a very large group of people do not want him or her there. Even truly committed a**holes will get the message that they’ve crossed the line into unacceptable behavior when they’re faced with several dozen determined people confronting them all at once.
Given the time this takes, it’s tempting to cut corners by confronting several people all at once. Don’t do it. Confronting more than two people at a time creates a diffusion-of-responsibility effect: the troublemakers tell themselves that they just got caught up in a dragnet; the problem is those other people, not me. The one who talks the most will get most of the heat; the others will tend to slip by (though the experience may cause them to reconsider their behavior or leave as well).
This process also leaves open the hope that the person will really, truly get that their behavior is Not okay, and agree to change it. When this happens, be sure to negotiate specific changes, boundaries, rules, and consequences (if we see you using drugs here again, we will call the police. There will be no second warning), and then reach a consensus agreement that allows them to stay. On the other hand: if the person turns violent and gets out of control, then the question is settled, and their choice is made. You now have a legitimate reason to call the cops to haul them away. And the cops will likely respect you more for maintaining law and order.
Clearing out a huge number of these folks can be a massive time suck, at least for the few days it will take to weed out the worst ones and get good at it. It might make sense to create a large committee whose job it is to gather information, build cases against offenders, and conduct these meetings.
And finally:
5. It is not wrong for you to set boundaries this way.
You will get sh-t for this. But…but…it looks a whole lot like a Maoist purge unit! No. There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association — which includes the right to exclude people who aren’t on the bus, and who are wasting the group’s limited time and energy rather than maximizing it. After all: you’re not sending these people to re-education camps, or doing anything else that damages them. You’re just getting them out of the park, and out of your hair. You’re eliminating distractions, which in turn effectively amplifies the voices and efforts of everyone else around you. And, in the process, you’re also modeling a new kind of justice that sanctions people’s behavior without sanctioning their being — while also carving out safe space in which the true potential of Occupy can flourish.
0 Views
00:00:00 11/01/11
Racist LA Gangs
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:00 11/01/11
Whether you are racist or not, killing is a bad career choice.
Original Release Year: 2008
0 Views
00:00:00 11/01/11
Racist LA Gangs
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:00 11/01/11
Whether you are racist or not, killing is a bad career choice.
Original Release Year: 2008
9 Views
19:57:54 10/12/11
Hank Williams Jr. Keep the Change Song
[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 19:57:54 10/12/11
Hank Williams Jr. Keep the... 3:20 Hank Williams drops a new single on Obama, Hitler, Fox & Friends, ESPN and everyone else out there who wants change. Submitted by: Funny Or Die Regular Keywords: hank williams jr espn fox news fox & friends ignorant dumb racist hitler obama president obama song singing are you ready for some football apology keep the change change new release released fired monday night football mnf Views: 7,013
66 Views
04:46:23 08/30/11
Lowkey Ft Immortal Technique Voices Of The Voiceless
[LESS INFO] 66 VIEWS | ADDED 04:46:23 08/30/11
Verse 1: (Lowkey) "From West 10 to the West Bank, I write righteous rhymes with my right and wrestle the devil with my left hand, Never work for a Zionist, never been a yes man, My art is like Rembrandt painting pictures of death camps, The average person is allergic to the words of wisdom, This is for everyone of Saddam's Kurdish murder victims, And all the pure souls that never had the chance to speak, Truth pumps in my arteries and causes my heart to beat, For soldiers haunted and tortured by guilty memories, Who realised too late to reveal their real enemy, It's all dead wrong For every victim of racist persecution from Auschwitz to Hebron, My words may sting cowards, For people that were atomised by the Thermate in the Twin Towers Those living through the wars, Ask me what I do this for, Put the world in its place before it put you in yours, Chorus: (Singer) What happens under darkness shall come to light, Can't silence us even though you try, (Lowkey) You can try to avoid us but it's pointless You can never avoid the voices of the voiceless (Singer) Take our freedom, Can't take our pride, Come what may we will survive, (Lowkey) You can try to avoid us but it's pointless, You can never avoid the voices of the voiceless Verse 2: (Immortal Technique) Keep my third eye hidden under my New York fitted, A crazy unmarried man that deserves to be committed, The future is encrypted in my troubled lyrics, Dream that I've been somewhere for weeks, then wake up in a couple minutes, Sweat dripping with visions of population control, Thoughts overflowing my world like the melting of the North Pole, My people are targeted by military crack committees, So I'm bucking at the feds like natives in Rapid City, Reality savage, my words are like a riot in Paris, The voice of the voiceless, that voice is social imbalance, So stand strong or sit harder in your mental palace, Blinded inside a Kingdom united to its old habits, But now, Middle Passage coming, War Chant, African drumming, Gatling gun humming, Rapid fire mechanism, reckless living, That checks the rhythm of perfectionism, Slave condition, While you're singing God save the system, (Chorus) Verse 3: (Lowkey) Detain my body, but you can't imprison my mind, If it's my time I'll probably die with my fist in the sky, These are the thoughts of a man who can't escape from his coma, Cries of a young virgin girl who got raped by them soldiers, (Immortal Technique) Birthing a screaming bastard, post colonial nation, Subject to childhood diseases, famine, war and inflation, Education moulded you into your masters image, And you forgot who the fuck you were before the war was finished (Lowkey) You're hearing the ghosts of Nagasaki, You're hearing Hiroshima, Beautiful babies being born with the weirdest features, You might never see me in the charts, But Inshallah my seed can see peace in Iraq, (Immortal Technique) But peace and freedom can never be given, That's historically forbidden, Cos only collision is the recipe, Changing the course of destiny, So I'm strapped with weaponry, (Lowkey & Immortal Technique) Cos the government don't give a fuck about protecting me. (Chorus) My TIP JAR
7 Views
04:46:23 08/30/11
Lowkey Ft Immortal Technique Voices Of The Voiceless
[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 04:46:23 08/30/11
Verse 1: (Lowkey) "From West 10 to the West Bank, I write righteous rhymes with my right and wrestle the devil with my left hand, Never work for a Zionist, never been a yes man, My art is like Rembrandt painting pictures of death camps, The average person is allergic to the words of wisdom, This is for everyone of Saddam's Kurdish murder victims, And all the pure souls that never had the chance to speak, Truth pumps in my arteries and causes my heart to beat, For soldiers haunted and tortured by guilty memories, Who realised too late to reveal their real enemy, It's all dead wrong For every victim of racist persecution from Auschwitz to Hebron, My words may sting cowards, For people that were atomised by the Thermate in the Twin Towers Those living through the wars, Ask me what I do this for, Put the world in its place before it put you in yours, Chorus: (Singer) What happens under darkness shall come to light, Can't silence us even though you try, (Lowkey) You can try to avoid us but it's pointless You can never avoid the voices of the voiceless (Singer) Take our freedom, Can't take our pride, Come what may we will survive, (Lowkey) You can try to avoid us but it's pointless, You can never avoid the voices of the voiceless Verse 2: (Immortal Technique) Keep my third eye hidden under my New York fitted, A crazy unmarried man that deserves to be committed, The future is encrypted in my troubled lyrics, Dream that I've been somewhere for weeks, then wake up in a couple minutes, Sweat dripping with visions of population control, Thoughts overflowing my world like the melting of the North Pole, My people are targeted by military crack committees, So I'm bucking at the feds like natives in Rapid City, Reality savage, my words are like a riot in Paris, The voice of the voiceless, that voice is social imbalance, So stand strong or sit harder in your mental palace, Blinded inside a Kingdom united to its old habits, But now, Middle Passage coming, War Chant, African drumming, Gatling gun humming, Rapid fire mechanism, reckless living, That checks the rhythm of perfectionism, Slave condition, While you're singing God save the system, (Chorus) Verse 3: (Lowkey) Detain my body, but you can't imprison my mind, If it's my time I'll probably die with my fist in the sky, These are the thoughts of a man who can't escape from his coma, Cries of a young virgin girl who got raped by them soldiers, (Immortal Technique) Birthing a screaming bastard, post colonial nation, Subject to childhood diseases, famine, war and inflation, Education moulded you into your masters image, And you forgot who the fuck you were before the war was finished (Lowkey) You're hearing the ghosts of Nagasaki, You're hearing Hiroshima, Beautiful babies being born with the weirdest features, You might never see me in the charts, But Inshallah my seed can see peace in Iraq, (Immortal Technique) But peace and freedom can never be given, That's historically forbidden, Cos only collision is the recipe, Changing the course of destiny, So I'm strapped with weaponry, (Lowkey & Immortal Technique) Cos the government don't give a fuck about protecting me. (Chorus)
