Sunday Casual Reading

On some days every link begets two or three more, and soon my Firefox tabs are overflowing (a lot of my recent posts are really just research archives.) Let's just say it's been yet another educational morning.

I finally realized that WireTap Magazine is the youth section of Alternet.org. I'm also starting to see why everyone's switching from Blogger to Wordpress. The way that block quotes and pasting screws up the format in the new Blogger is pretty aggravating. No matter, in four months this blog will be finished.

WireTap Magazine, "Bigger than Hip-Hop." This article describes the current hip hop political movement: "So, culture, class issues, consumerism and varying degrees of complacency all divide African Americans, as much if not more than generational differences. In fact, to reduce the fragmentation of black politics into a generation gap is to play into the hands of the right."

"Shinin' the Light on White Privilege." A detailed history and time-line of the institutionalization of racial oppression in the United States.

"The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), is a national and international collective of anti-racist, multicultural community organizers and educators dedicated to building an effective movement for social transformation." This group has roots in New Orleans.

Letter of the People of New Orleans to Our Friends and Allies: "The South has been traditionally underfunded and often exploited by institutions, including corporations, the labor movement, foundations, and the federal government. We have faced the legacy of centuries of institutional racism and oppression, with little outside support. And yet, against massive odds, grassroots movements in the South have organized and struggled and won historic, inspiring victories with international relevance." The list of signatories at the end of the letter is a Who's-Who of the New Orleans grassroots social activism community.

New Orleans Network - Web Resources. A database and calendar of social activism in New Orleans; possible model for the new CenLamar.

Southern Human Rights Organizers' Network: "The primary goal of the network is to develop innovative and practical methods of organizing across the region. Another important objective is to strengthen the capacity of civil rights and social justice organizations in the Deep South."

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Their most recent publication, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, is described as follows: "In this landmark collection, over 25 activists and scholars describe and discuss the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC)--a system of relationships between the state, the owning classes, foundations, and social service &social justice organizations that results in the surveillance, control, derailment, and everyday management of political movements." This group has been particularly active in New Orleans.

Wiretap Magazine, "New Orleans: Continuing Crisis:"

For many in the nonprofit field nationally, post-Katrina New Orleans has been an opportunity for career advancement. While local residents have been too overwhelmed by tragedy to apply for grants, a few well-placed national individuals and organizations have not hesitated to take their place in line. Although some have no relation to New Orleans, they often have previous relationships with the foundations, as well as resources that translate into easier access to funding, such as development staff, website designers and professional promotional materials

[...snip...]

Foundations are an integral part of the current structure of U.S. nonprofits, a system that INCITE has called the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, to emphasize the intersecting, dependent and corporatized ways in which the system is constructed. It is a system in which organizations are frequently pitted against each other for funding, where organizers are discouraged from being active in their own community, and where accountability to and leadership from those most affected has become increasingly rare.

Update: In the spirit of Easter, the first four of the Eight Beatitudes,

• Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the land.
• Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
  
• Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
  

MCTenz Gives Tibetan Teens a Dose of Authentic Hip-Hop

Cath Marsh, the New Zealander who taught my class last year, has been trying out her new English learning materials on the students on the weekend. Following from her conviction that language must be learned in context and with interesting content, the module she is currently testing is on hip-hop.

In Kangding she bumped into a vacationing Tenzin Gyaltsen, a half-Tibetan from California (not to be confused with my colleague Tenzin Mullin, who is not Tibetan). He is an MC in Chengdu performing around China, and is a director of Pro-Motion Solutions, working to expand the hip-hop and DJ scene in Asia. He blogs at MCTenz.com.

She invited him up to give the class his views on hip-hop and a first-hand example of MCing, with Sacsha on the beat-box. It was classic (don't miss Tenzin's lecture notes on the board). Even if you're in a rush, watch this video. It's about the sweetest thing I've seen since being in New Orleans or India (you know I wouldn't lie to you):



Update: here's the URL for the Youtube video in case the embed becomes corrupt.

Tenzin has a few pictures of some break dancers in Kangding and his version of the experience on his blog.

I got pretty fired up during his explanation of hip-hop culture, and the students were definitely into it. He stressed that the theme of struggle in hip-hop stems in part from the oppression of minorities in the Bronx in the late Sixties and Seventies. "Struggle, Revolution, Growth." I asked him if the emphasis on cutting down rivals in MC Battles, out-flexing other B-Boys in a face-off, and throwing up the best bombs and tags was a way of getting one's opponent to be the best they can be. He didn't think so, but agreed that that was a result.

At that time my moustache was freshly crafted, and I was a little paranoid that they'd think I was a redneck winger from Louisiana. I couldn't get Deltron's words outta my head:

A lot of white boys like the style and copy
Dig in something deeper and you'll peep that were not free
It's not about the separation its about the population

Word. I've been trying to reconcile the opposing ideas that hip-hop is about individual power and that it is about community. At some point last week when reading about something unrelated, I stumbled across this story in WireTap: The Political Power of the Midwest. In spite of the title, this post is about how progressive urban grassroots organizers use hip-hop to mold the characters of inner-city youth, in community centers like Elementz and Urban Underground. "Our central theme is respect. We don't have the typical metal detectors and security guards. Instead, we focus on letting young people in on nearly all of the decision-making."

On DailyKos I also came across an interesting diary when I was doing a little research on grassroots hunger initiatives. The Politics of Hip-Hop reads like a manifesto constructed from hip-hop flows, arguing that the nature of hip-hop is political, oriented towards the class struggle of the common man and woman (not necessarily the black man and woman) and based on revolution. I know it sounds Socialistic but it grow up. When I began looking, I found similar sentiments. One diary encourages us to "peep" an email from Nasty Nes, who lists the links for the Hip-Hop League of Voter's local voting guides and give a heads up on common practices of disenfranchisement. Young Voters are still makin' it happen... introduces the Hip-Hop Summit and its relationship to the Youth Movement.

Finally, wu ming asks is political hip-hop dead? I think you'll see from the comments that the answer is fuck no it ain't dead. The comments are also a sure spot to score some downloading ideas for your personal library of underground hip-hop.

Let's get one thing straight, though. I'm a Northern European mutt raised in a professional class family in Central Louisiana. I'm a white boy who "likes the style," but I don't copy. I didn't get into hip-hop until I was in college, when I realized the musical eclecticism of Handsome Boy Modeling School samples, the lyrical deftness of Kool Keith, and the powerful simplicity of the politics of Digable Planets. These are the same reasons I listen to independent music (not emo, Chris and Mike) like Pink Mountaintops, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Silver Jews.

I draw power from this music not because of my race or my extra-curricular habits, but because it inspires me and has the potential to focus the revolutionary fervor of my peers. We're not the MTV Generation, we're not Generation Y, we aren't the Generation of Social Values or the Millennial Generation or the Nine-Eleven Generation (maybe the Generation of the Federal Flood, just maybe). I'm not sure what we are, together, though I am certain of one thing: most of us know shit when we smell it.

A Union of Dunces

This post is a continuation of a recent post titled "Confederacy of Dunces." I know the line spacing is FUBAR but I'm too lazy to go through the HTML to find the problem.

I've done a bit more digging into the opinions on MyDD and DailyKos as to whether the South should be important to the national progressive movement. What I've found amounts to a full-blown debate. Simply glancing at the list of diaries tagged "The South" will give you an idea of what I mean.

In 2005, Tom Schaller wrote a book titled Whistling Past Dixie, in which he argues that national Democrats should ignore the South and build a permanent majority coalition by solidifying gains in the West and Mid-west. Though they often give lip-service to Howard Dean's Fifty-State Strategy, I feel that the primary contributors of DailyKos and MyDD generally agree with Schaller's thesis. I often read MyDD and Kos, and usually like their views (these sites allow members to sign up for free and write diaries. The best diaries on DailyKos are highlighted on the main page. Members and editors frequently make comments to further discussion).

For example, take the DailyKos diary "The South: Democrats Don't Get It" by someone called The Poet Laureate. In response to a different diary in which someone presents a stereotyped list of Southern white males, The Poet Laureate makes the following point in response to the stereotype of Southerners as gun-enthusiasts: "We do need to understand both the cultural relevance of guns in the South, however. We also need to understand that the South maintains the awareness of a distinct cultural identity in many respects, and Southerners are wary of "outsiders'" attempts to assimilate them to another culture. I suspect this is at the root of the Civil War obsession down here; it has less to do with resisting change and social progress than maintaining a unique identity."

National progressive's unwillingness to engage with the South comes from their ignorance of the South, and a selective memory that focuses on segregation and forgets the roots of American Populism.

Another diary, pico's "Kos is Wrong on Louisiana," does a nice job of summarizing the decline of recent pro-choice legislators in our great state. I quite like the way she finishes her piece:

We don't agree because we acknowledge that strongholds only become strongholds when the other side has allowed its presence to dwindle. That's the essence of Dean's strategy, and the contempt it received from Begala is not entirely different than the contempt some people have shown for the state of Louisiana.

So my question for the community is this: do we take the Dean route, roll up our sleeves, and get to work building grassroots efforts in Louisiana, or do we take the Begala route and avoid Louisiana completely?

Either way, let's give some respect to the liberals who have stayed behind, who are sitting on their porches in New Orleans, angry that the state around them has veered hard Right, frightened that violent crime has taken a sudden upswing, depressed that large chunks of the city are still in shambles, and uncertain as hell about the future. The last thing they need is to be dismissed by the rest of us. They need a bit of our support right now, if you can spare it.

I have given this a fair amount of thought, and while I remember a lot of right-wing reactionaries and fence-sitting politicians from my youth, I also have this vague feeling that Alexandria was nonetheless home to many a closeted progressive.

Another diary pointed me to the excellent article, "The Way Down South," on the subject at The Nation. I highly recommend reading this for those who are interested. One highlight includes this quote:

"Today the Democratic Party stands between two great forces.... On one side stand the corporate interests of the nation, its moneyed institutions, its aggregations of wealth and capital, imperious, arrogant, compassionless.... On the other side stands the unnumbered throng which gave a name to the Democratic Party and for which it has presumed to speak. Work-worn and dust-begrimed, they make their mute appeal, and too often find their cry for help beat in vain against the outer walls."

These words were spoken 114 years ago by William Jennings Bryan. Again, I'd like to copy the closing remarks of the essay:

And yet a stubborn belief in the poor, backward, reactionary cracker South of myth still shapes and distorts American politics. By surrendering the region, Democrats have simultaneously abandoned the old hope of a durable national progressive majority. They have passively allowed right-wingers to build a mighty fortress for the defense of free-market excess in a region that is home to almost half--47 percent--of the Americans who call themselves populists. They have allowed economic, racial and cultural divisions to fester. And now, even with the Republicans' Southern strategy wearing thin, they are lurching toward an even more dramatic break with the South.

It ain't wise, and it ain't right. I can't say it better than Chris Kromm, director of the liberal Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, North Carolina. "For Democrats to turn their back on a region that half of all African-Americans and a growing number of Latinos call home, a place devastated by Hurricane Katrina, plant closings, poverty and other indignities--in short, for progressives to give up on the very place where they could argue they are needed most--would rightfully be viewed as a historic retreat from the party's commitment to justice for all."

There are many reasons to be committed to either national political party. For me, I don't want Democrats to regain popularity in Louisiana because I don't like the GOP. I also don't like the idea of a national party having too much power in a place like Louisiana, where locals must have the ability to determine our own future. I'd like to see real progressives in our state because we desperately need innovative social policy and economic populism.

This weekend the transparently biased Dead Pelican linked to this opinion piece at the DailyKos about the challenges that Mary Landrieu will face in her upcoming election: "Why Mary Landrieu is the Most Endangered Democrat up for Reelection Next Year." The comments section is especially telling if you'd like to get a feel how the national liberal blogosphere feels about our Senator. Most think that she isn't progressive at all and a slave to our oil industry. Much of the debate is driven by ignorance of our local politics and a desire to recast our state in the mold of northern-style liberalism.

These are my people, yet they don't understand me at all.

Confederacy of Dunces

I'm a daily reader of the political blog My Direct Democracy. They first got my attention when they raised the money for Tim Tagaris to cover the most recent attempt to unseat William Jefferson. I find the analysis of MyDD to be generally very interesting, and not quite as annoying as DailyKos can sometimes be.

Recently, though, a couple of posts have uncovered the way in which the South is viewed by the representatives of the current American progressive movement (the Gunbelt refers to the production of weapons in the Military Industrial Complex, of which most factories are located in the South):

What is clear though is that we need to begin to understand economic policies and tax structures as tools in remapping America. There is a moment for the next ten years, during which a non-Southern culture controls the political machinery of the Federal government and the South's veto can be overcome with a brutal series of threats to the region's excessive Federal subsidies and reliance on socialist corporate welfare. If we're smart, we can puncture the institutional architecture that allows the Gunbelt to thrive and build a new America along the networked rule-based freedom-enhancing tolerant lines that exist in the bulwark areas of Blue America.

And in a different post:

The electoral landscape has as its governing party a coalition that has cut out the authoritarian South. And long-term, the authoritarian South can now be tamed, since its dependence on Federal subsidies has grown to become a serious addiction.

I wrote a pretty had criticism of the way the South had been characterized in the comments, but it wasn't nearly as thought out as one that was posted shortly thereafter by someone names Chris. Here's a highlight:

It's telling that you claim labor in the 30s was the only "real" progressive movement in our country. I've been active in the labor movement to have no problem with that. Others might point to the Populists or the black freedom movement, which of course were largely based in the South. But that wouldn't fit your world-view that the South is a bastion of reaction, would it?

Word, Chris. I'm really becoming committed to "progressive politics," and the left-wind (not left-handed) tendencies I used to dismiss as youthfully naive I now am convinced will be with me my whole life. But it's going to be frustrating if I continue to have to rub up against prejudiced Northerners who are still patting themselves on the back for the Civil War and are convinced that every Southerner is a gun-toting inbred. When I try to explain why people in the South still get upset when they perceive the Federal Government to be meddling in state affairs I usually get pegged as a racist.

If Progressives finally wrest the White House from Republicans or Conservative Democrats, is it any use to the redheaded stepchildren down South if all we get is this same sad story?

The silver lining is that Chris left the website address for a Progressive Southern blog, called Facing South. At least I don't feel so alone anymore.

[I hope to post later this week on some software I've heard about that could be used for the new Cenlamar. I have also been lent a digital camera for the week, and at some point I'll have some pictures of my life and the students. Here's a teaser, from today's lunchtime tutorial in my apartment.]

What's Up, Breaux?

While catching my regular waves along Internet Reef I stumbled across this nugget, which I had caught mention of on Oyster's New Orleans blog but immediately dismissed as too good to be possible. Larry Sabato does an excellent job laying the groundwork for the gubernatorial races of 2007, which are already being overlooked by basically everyone as we oogle over the next Lemmiwink to make it into the Oval Orifice.

After discussing the woes of embattled Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher (and declaring Mississippi's Haley Barbour to be a shoe-in), Sabato turns his Crystal Ball to the Sportsman's Paradise:

In Louisiana, another Governor is in trouble, this one a Democrat, Kathleen Blanco, first elected like Fletcher in 2003. Hurricane Katrina is the proximate cause of Blanco's woes. Fair or not, she was seen as ineffective in the storm's aftermath, compared to Governor Barbour in the Magnolia State. Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans received as much blame locally as President Bush and his incompetent Federal Emergency Management Agency.

And the kicker:

The scenario being most widely discussed now is a surprise: Blanco could step aside, and popular former U.S. Senator John Breaux (D) would take Blanco's place in the race. (Breaux and Blanco have been allies, and Breaux has recently raised some money for her reelection.)

Wee-hoo! Johnny versus Bobby! A bayou grudge-match for da' hole famly.

Now, someone with a career as long as Breaux's must have plenty of bad things to say about him (and I don't mean hanging out with Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls), and certainly our local lovable RINO's will drag them all out if John decides to run. I remember the man most for when he fondly told W. Bush to stick the offer of Energy Secretary up his Texas-sized Crawford to preserve the Democratic balance in the Senate.

Who knows what will happen (besides Pat Leahy and Mr. Spock, as always)? I'm just glad I'll be back in time for all the fun.


[I've been waiting three months to make that joke, since you asked.]

because my correspondence is more interesting than my blog anyway

Hey Lamar,

I know you've got an overflowing plate at the moment (congrats by the way on the transition committee appointment; nice to see your mom, ray, wally fall and bob bussey on there as well), but I wanted to bring something of some interest to your attention.

So I think I posted somewhere on your blog about DailyKos and other nat'l liberal blogs coming out in support of Karen Carter against Dollar Bill Jefferson in La-02. (DailyKos, MyDD, and a blog called the Swing State Project compose the ranking triumvirate of lefty political blogs; during the election they raised over 500K for grassroots candidates overlooked by the DNCC.) Last weekend, Matt Stoller of MyDD called on 100 people to donate $100 a piece, and when they received 11K plus dollars they decided to hire a man named Tim Tagaris, who covered the Ned Lamont race for MyDD, and send him to NOLA for the next thee weeks to follow the La-02 runoff.

www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/15/154230/71

In the comments of MyDD's announcement, they put forth an open invitation for people to contribute blog names of New Orleans activists (I signed up to MyDD to plug the Roy election victory and your blog, btw). It's an interesting list, and here's the motherload:

thinknola.com/wiki/New_Orleans_bloggers

Anyway, Oyster over at YourRightHandThief (a nicely written progressive NOLA blog) in his most recent entry titled "MyDD: Moral Ghostbusters" (I couldn't find a permalink), has some interesting opinions about Stoller/MyDD's portrayal of Landrieu as a "moral ghost" and MyDD's decision to send Tagaris to NOLA. In the first comment blogger Adrastos (.blog-city) calls Tagaris a "carpetblogger."

righthandthief.blogspot.com

Tagaris actually left a comment of his own on the thread, and it's really conciliatory and he immediately won the support of Oyster's readers (no small feat in the blogosphere). He seems extremely motivated, and in spite of his benefactor and previous jobs he is not directly attached to the Carter campaign. Here's his first segment, which has okay comments as well, the highlight (lowlight?) being a picture of a Katrinacorpse.


www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/16/195119/10

I'm sorry to give you so much to look at all at once, since you have more than you can handle with one city already, but this is all going to be irrelevant after December 9.

I thought you'd be interested because this actually represents the national blogging community refocusing on New Orleans, and an example of how bloggers are not simply a bunch of computer potatoes. There are real projects that bridge the gap between the virtual and the visceral. It is also informing my opinion of Landrieu (Oyster at YRHT defends her pretty well, and he has the same reservations that we do, i.e. Holy Joe, and with the upcoming coastal oil revenue sharing proposal she and Blanco are going to be in the spotlight a bit more over the next two months). It's also interesting that Tagaris seems to completely understand the importance of engaging a community through it's bloggers, especially considering that his medium is professional internet journalism as well.

Yours,

Saddam Hussein Sentenced to the Gallows, plus two ten-year sentences

[I can remember Sunday mornings in the early Nineties drawing intricate battle scenes with U.S.A. nukes annihilating a Saddam Hussein ("So Damn Insane") to pass the time during Big Church. Also, Saturday was the 27th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran.]

Former U.S. A.G. thrown out before judgment; timing speculated to be related to U.S. Midterm Elections; Saddam likely to be hanged by February.


















From the AP's Hamza Hendawi:

"Before the session began, one of Saddam's lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty..."

"Some feared the verdicts could exacerbate the sectarian violence that has pushed the country to the brink of civil war, after a trial that stretched over nine months in 39 sessions and ended nearly 3 1/2 months ago. The verdict came two days before midterm elections in the United States widely seen as a referendum on the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi officials have denied the timing was deliberate..."

"Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi condemned the trial as a 'farce,' claiming the verdict was planned. He said defense attorneys would appeal within 30 days.

"The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.

A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.

From the AP:

Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi president:
-- Guilty of murder, sentenced to death.
-- Guilty of forced deportation, sentenced to 10 years in prison.
-- Guilty of torture, sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief:
-- Guilty of murder, sentenced to death.
-- Guilty of forced deportation, sentenced to 10 years in prison.
-- Guilty of torture, sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of the Revolutionary Court:
-- Guilty of murder, sentenced to death.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, former Iraqi vice president:
-- Guilty of murder, sentenced to life in prison.
-- Guilty of forced deportation, sentenced to 10 years in prison.
-- Guilty of torture, sentenced to 7 years in prison.
-- Guilty of inhumane acts, sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, former Baath Party official:
-- Guilty of murder, sentenced to 15 years in prison.
-- Guilty of torture, sentenced to 7 years in prison. (Sentences run concurrently so he will serve 15 years).

Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid, former Baath official:
-- Guilty of murder, sentenced to 15 years in prison.
-- Guilty of torture, sentenced to 7 years in prison. (Sentences run concurrently so he will serve 15 years).

Ali Dayih Ali, former Baath official:
-- Guilty of murder, sentenced to 15 years in prison.
-- Guilty of torture, sentenced to 7 years in prison. (Sentences run concurrently so he will serve 15 years.)

Mohammed Azawi Ali, former Baath official:
-- Acquitted of all charges and ordered released from custody immediately.

[No editorial necessary]

Playing on the Strings of My Heart

There's an Aeolian Harp in the heart of each of us, and I was reminded of mine today while viewing a favorite watchdog website, Crooks and Liars. I often get an emotional reaction from reading their compositions, but rarely is it so sentimental. Click on the picture to see the story.


Please vote in my stead on Tuesday. I was too lazy to get an absentee ballot, and I don't think I need to explain the impact of our government this time around.

The Senator and the Queen

Life Imitates Art