Beyoncé Does an Action at Halftime

At yesterday's Super Bowl Beyoncé stole the show with her halftime performance.  The New South Negress carries a piece by zandria that shares the deep meaning of 'Formation', the new song by Beyoncé. Below is an excerpt from that article.

We Slay, Part I

By zandria

The articulation of southern blackness here invites us to theorize black resistance practices. There is the expressive resistance that stands and fights and brandishes guns and stages coups. There is the quiet resistance, the meditative kind that Kevin Quashie talks about. For Ralph Ellison’s protagonist in Invisible Man, it is hibernation, the act of a particular kind of invisibility, that is a “covert preparation for a more overt action.”

Formation, is a different kind of resistance practice, one rooted in the epistemology of (and sometimes only visible/detectable to) folks on the margins of blackness. The political scientist Cathy Cohen talks about activism at these margins, the kind of deviance-as-resistance built and cultivated at the margins of respectable blackness. Formation, then, is a metaphor, a black feminist, black queer, and black queer feminist theory of community organizing and resistance. It is a recognition of one another at the blackness margins–woman, queer, genderqueer, trans, poor, disabled, undocumented, immigrant–before an overt action. For the black southern majorettes, across gender formulations, formation is the alignment, the stillness, the readying, the quiet, before the twerk, the turn-up, the (social) movement. To be successful, there must be coordination, the kind that choreographers and movement leaders do, the kind that black women organizers do in neighborhoods and organizations. To slay the violence of white supremacist heteropatriarchy, we must start, Beyoncé argues, with the proper formation. The proper formation is, she contends, made possible by the participation and leadership of a blackness on the margins. The celebration of the margins–black bodies in motion, women’s voices centered, black queer voices centered–is what ultimately vanquishes the state, represented by a NOPD car. Beyoncé as the conjured every-southern-black-woman, slays atop the car and uses the weight of her body to finish it off, sacrificing herself in the process. Like so, so, so many black folks in the margins in the movement for (all) black (lives matter for) liberation. This formation is brought to you by conjure.

“Formation” is an homage to and recognition of the werk of the “punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens” in these southern streets and parking lots, in these second lines, in these chocolate cities and neighborhoods, in front of these bands and drumlines. Movements for black liberation are led by black folks at the margins who know we must all get free to sink that car. Folks who know that we must be coordinated, and we must slay. And because I recognize black southern country fence-jumping feminism as a birthright and imperative, I have no tolerance for the uncoordinated–those who cannot dance and move for black queer liberation, black trans liberation, black women’s liberation, at all intersections.

Southern blackness is back, as Messy Mya said, by popular demand. But if you magic, you know we was always here, slaying, which is what we came to do. Ready? Okay.

Odds & Ends

• For the past week I've been gathering articles and other information for the next edition of the Global Network newsletter called Space Alert!.  This morning I sent the whole bunch to the person we pay to lay the paper out.  I should have the proofs back by the end of the week.  It's always a daunting challenge at first to sort through the volumes of potential material.  My favorite section of the paper is the two-page spread we call 'Odds & Ends' which are bits of items from around the world.  Going through an article to extract just enough to pass on the important info to the reader is both a challenge and fun at the same time.

• My talk at the Brunswick, Maine library yesterday drew 34 folks.  It was my first ever PowerPoint presentation and it seemed to come across well.  People liked seeing the images of US bases and the resistance against those bases in Sicily, England, Jeju Island and Okinawa that I reported on. 

• The Lenten vigils at Bath Iron Works here in town begins this Ash Wednesday with an 11:30 am peace witness on Washington Street in front of the BIW administration building.
• The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) reports on the latest North Korean satellite launch.  The US, Japan and South Korea screamed bloody murder about the launch insisting it was a nuclear missile delivery test in disguise.  (By the way since when it is illegal to launch a satellite into space?  The US has several thousand of them in orbit.)  The UCS maintains that "North Korea has not flight tested a ballistic missile version of the Unha or a reentry heat shield that would be needed to protect the warhead as it reentered the atmosphere. Because of its large size, such a missile is unlikely to be mobile, and assembling and fueling it at the launch site would be difficult to hide. Its accuracy would likely be many kilometers."  So in other words the US-Japan-South Korea military alliance are fabricating their outrage in order to justify further Pentagon deployments of 'missile defense' systems called THAAD (Theatre High Altitude Area Defense) systems in South Korea that will actually be aimed at China.  Got to watch both hands as the deception of the magician in Washington is quite subtle.

• A warning was sounded today in Tass.  They report on Russian reaction to the US development of hypersonic space planes (super drones) that can serve many functions including space-based surveillance, anti-satellite weapon, attack vehicle firing weapons to earth from orbit, or themselves dropping to Earth to deliver a first-strike attack.  From Tass:  

Russia is concerned over the ever more realistic prospect of attack weapons being deployed in outer space, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS in an interview.

"We are alarmed over the ever more real prospect of attack weapons being deployed in outer space," he said. "This is not identical to the militarization of space. I would like to draw a certain line here. Many countries have long used space and are still using it for intelligence and communication and for keeping an eye on what is happening in various parts of the world."

"We say it will be impermissible to deploy attack weapons in outer space. In other words, of weapons that might be used for attacking space objects of other countries or for attacking targets on the Earth from space," Ryabkov said. "Technologies are developing and such a possibility is getting ever more real."

Ryabkov voiced the certainty that an obstruction to this should be put up before it is too late.

"In a situation where there is no such restriction it is extremely hard to consider further nuclear arms reductions. They have played the central role from the standpoint of deterring any potential aggressor and still play this role today," he said.

Our Earth

Fingers on the Trigger

I've tried
to figure out
what makes
these cats
in the Pentagon
the CIA
Lock-Mart
Ray-thee-gun
and Boering
really tick....

The folks
back home
are confused
despairing
depressed
many flat out
given up
ready to climb
into a hole
and pull the dirt
in on top
of themselves

Do the war boys
really want to
end it all?
Are they that crazy?
What about their
own kids?

It's hard
to keep pushin
the rock
but the
alternative
is not so
appealing

The dream
the house
upon the hill
seems not so
important
when
the crazy cats
got their
fingers
on the
triggers

Ukraine – Masks of Revolution

The film is a special investigation carried out by Paul Moreira, which covers the events in Ukraine in 2014, particularly the far-right Neo-Nazi groups backed by the US, as well as the deadly violence in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa.

The film recently aired on French premium pay television called Canal Plus.  The US puppet regime in Kiev protested and unsuccessfully attempted to halt the airing of the program.  

Squeezing Mexico

In the second installment of this two-part episode, Abby Martin continues her investigation of the hidden war on the U.S.-Mexico border, looking at the root causes of the epidemic of migrant deaths. The Empire Files documents an inflated, paramilitary Border Patrol, the devastating impacts of NAFTA, how the U.S. Empire benefits from immigrant labor and what can change the equation.

Featuring interviews with Todd Miller, author of 'Border Patrol Nation', and Araceli Rodriguez, mother of Jose Antonio, a 16-year-old boy murdered by Border Patrol.

Sunday Song

 

 

Clinton is a Corporate Agent

Judge for yourself

Judge For Yourself. Stand for something or you will Fall for anything!

Posted by Bernie Sanders' Supporters on Thursday, February 4, 2016

A Reminder

I traveled three hours north to Blue Hill, Maine on Thursday along with VFP national board member Tarak Kauff who co-led our delegation to Jeju Island and Okinawa last December.  We were invited to speak at an event there that also featured fellow VFP members Dud Hendrick and Russell Wray - both of whom came on that same trip to Asia.

It was exciting to see the others again and our collective presentations came across well - we got good reviews from those in attendance.  In a small way it helped us honor our promises on Jeju and Okinawa that we would go home and spread the word.  God knows we need to do more as the US clearly is moving toward war with China and Russia.

Tarak and I had to drive back to Bath in a snow storm taking us 4 1/2 hours to make the return trip.  The roads were so bad that he delayed his return home to Woodstock, New York and stayed the night here.

Fortunately for me Tarak come outside and helped me shovel the mounds of snow, twice, having bragged that he had a great shoveling technique.  I didn't see alot of impressive technique but he did help move the snow out of the way and that is all that counts in the end.

Then on top of all that Tarak got up early this morning and made breakfast for everyone at our house.  All-in-all Tarak is a great guy and we told him he could come visit anytime......

We are now beginning planning to take another group of veterans and other activists to South Korea next summer.  At the end of July we plan to join the annual peace walk all around Jeju Island and then we'll go to the mainland for meetings with South Korean activists, protests at other US bases, as well as other exciting events.  Let me know if you would be interested and I will send you more information.

Message from the Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers

"As you move through these changing times... be easy on yourself and be easy on one another. You are at the beginning of something new. You are learning a new way of being. You will find that you are working less in the yang modes that you are used to.

"You will stop working so hard at getting from point A to point B the way you have in the past, but instead, will spend more time experiencing yourself in the whole, and your place in it.

"Instead of traveling to a goal out there, you will voyage deeper into yourself. Your mother's grandmother knew how to do this. Your ancestors from long ago knew how to do this. They knew the power of the feminine principle... and because you carry their DNA in your body, this wisdom and this way of being is within you.

"Call on it. Call it up. Invite your ancestors in. As the yang based habits and the decaying institutions on our planet begin to crumble, look up. A breeze is stirring. Feel the sun on your wings."

Missile Defense - Part Two

US missile defense systems in Europe (with NATO) and the Pacific are dangerous!

This video made by Global Network board convener Dave Webb from Leeds, England.  He also chairs the UK's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

The US is encircling Russia and China with so-called 'missile defense'.

Dangerous Nukes in Space Push Returns

A plutonium-238 pellet at the US Department of Energy labs being readied for space missions

The U.S. push for nukes in space continues.

Thanks to the sharp eyes of Linda Pentz Gunter of Beyond Nuclear comes the news that the appropriately named U.S. Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho has slipped this passage into the “Energy Policy Modernization Act” (S 2012) 

“i) Using expertise from the private sector, institutions of higher education, and National Laboratories to develop computational software and capabilities that prospective users may access to accelerate research and development of advanced fission reactor systems, nuclear fusion systems, and reactor systems for space exploration.” 

What is now Idaho National Laboratory has a long history involving the use of nuclear power in space, including plutonium systems. This has been going on despite accidents involving the use of nuclear power overhead.  

See more here

Knoxville News Sentinel reported in late 2015 that Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee has achieved production of 50 grams of plutonium-238. That's roughly the mass of a golf ball, but it's considered a milestone in re-establishing a U.S. stockpile of Pu-238 for use as a power source on deep-space missions. ORNL has been developing the capability over the past couple of years with funding that NASA provided via the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy. 

Pu-238, a different isotope from the plutonium-239 used in nuclear weapons, is used as fuel in space power systems known as radioisotope thermoelectric generators or RTGs. The radioactive material produces heat as it decays, and that heat is converted to electricity for vital tasks on spacecraft. ORNL said the infrastructure is now in place to provide a steady and growing supply of plutonium-238 for future space missions. 

According to NASA, the next space mission with plans for using an RTG is the Mars 2020 Rover, which is tentatively scheduled for launch in July 2020.

Not only are we concerned about a launch accident with deadly plutonium onboard - but the entire space nuclear production process at the Department of Energy string of labs around the country has a very bad track record.  

Before the 1997 launch of the Cassini space probe (with 72 pounds of plutonium-238) at Cape Canaveral it was reported that previously at the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico, where the plutonium generators for that mission were fabricated, there were 244 cases of worker contamination.  The nuclear labs have a long history of contaminating local water systems with these highly-toxic substances as well.

Interview with Dulles Book Author

It’s been more than 50 years since Allen Dulles was removed by JFK as director of the CIA, but his legacy lives on. Between 1953 and 1961, under his watch, the CIA overthrew the governments of Iran and Guatemala, invaded Cuba, and was tied to the killing of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected leader.

Democracy Now speaks with David Talbot, author of "The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government," about how Dulles’ time at the CIA helped shape the current national security state.

Everyone should read this book.....

Impacts of Flint Lead Story

 

Erin Brockovich stops by to explain the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which she has been investigating for over a year.

 

She says that Flint is only the tip of the iceberg as communities across the nation have water infested with lead and other toxic chemicals.

 

This would not be happening in a wealthy white community.

 

Rise up and protect your children and grandchildren.

Why Are You Declaring Us Subhumans?

A passionate voice of an aid worker in eastern Ukraine who shares the human impacts of the US-Kiev war on the Russian speaking populations in the Donbass. 

What is this war against the civilian population of eastern Ukraine really about?

Satire for $ale

 

Univision Communications just bought a 40 percent controlling interest in The Onion. They also acquired the option to buy the remainder of The Onion in the future. The Onion is now controlled by Univision, whose co-owner, chairman, and CEO is Haim Saban, close friend to Hillary Clinton. He is also Hillary Clinton’s singular, biggest financial supporter. He’s given Hillary more than two million dollars for political campaigns, and at least another 10 million to her Foundation. His wife sits on the board of Clinton’s Foundation. The Resident breaks down the state of comedy in the world today.

Jeju Island - Now it Gets Real

Armed South Korean military forces arrived yesterday in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island.  The Navy base there is nearly complete and it is just a matter of time before US-South Korean military operations begin from what is known as the "Island of Peace".

There can be no doubt that the growing US-South Korea-Japan military alliance is aimed at China.  The US Navy just last week was provocatively sailing Aegis destroyers inside China's exclusion zone.  US Air Force spy planes are continually bumping up against the Chinese coast trying to get a reaction and thus create a pretext for battle.

At the same time the US and South Korean armed forces are moving toward deployment of the THAAD (Theatre High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense (MD) system. The US has several types of MD systems - each for a particular layer of space to intercept retaliatory strikes after a Pentagon (and allies) first-strike attack.  Different MD systems have varying success rates in their testing phase.  Added all together they are key elements in Pentagon war planning.

The Navy Aegis destroyers that will be ported on Jeju Island are also outfitted with MD systems (which have the best testing rate of any of the MD systems now being deployed).

China warns of consequences should South Korea go ahead with THAAD deployment, the Hankyoreh reports:

China believes that THAAD would be targeted not at North Korea but at itself. Since the X-band radar, which is a key component of the THAAD system, has a detection radius of more than 3,000 kilometers, China considers it a major threat to its security. The prevailing view is that deploying THAAD on the Korean Peninsula is part of the US’s strategy of pivoting to Asia.

“No matter how good the excuse, China probably won’t relent in its opposition to deploying THAAD on the Korean Peninsula,” said Cheng Xiaohe, a professor at Renmin University of China.

“THAAD’s detection radius goes beyond North Korea into China and Russia,” said Lu Chao, a researcher at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences. “China and South Korea may be good friends, but how smooth can a relationship be when one party [South Korea] is holding a machine gun under the table? The US may be behind the THAAD issue, but South Korea gets to decide whether or not to deploy it.”

Also commenting on the US-South Korea-Japan military buildup aimed at China is Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law and long-time peace activist.  He wrote today:

When we provoke a war against China, Japan will be right there with us. Or maybe [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe will provoke the  war with China and bring us along with him. Either way, under Abe the Showa Constitution [that outlawed offensive operations since WW II] has become the Proverbial Mere Scrap of Paper.  Seventy years after World War 2, the Japanese Empire is back!

The US and its NATO allies (South Korea, Japan, Australia, Mongolia and New Zealand have been made NATO "partners" in the Asia-Pacific in order to extend the military bloc's power) are playing a dangerous game that many knowledgeable experts are predicting could lead to WW III.

The corporate dominated US-NATO war machine wants to rule the world and they see Russia and China as obstacles to their global domination.   

Sunday Song

 

 

Scrap Trident Rally Planned in London

As you all know, this year, the UK Parliament is set to vote on whether or not to replace the British Trident nuclear weapons system at an estimated cost of over £180 billion ($260 billion) and at a time when the government is slashing public spending on vital areas such as education, health and welfare services.

The majority of people of the world want to see positive steps taken towards global nuclear disarmament – but talks and negotiations have been stalled for years. The majority of people in the UK, including the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and other parliamentary party leaders, oppose nuclear weapons – now is an excellent time for a call to scrap them - not replace them. 

The UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is therefore organising a national demonstration to protest against Britain's Trident on Saturday, February  27th in London. This message to ‘Stop Trident’ could prove to be a vital intervention ahead of the Parliamentary discussion.

Please help us to get the message out loud and clear: we don't want a new Trident, we don’t want the current Trident - and the world doesn’t want nuclear weapons. We invite the international community to join us in saying “No” to UK government plans and “Yes” to global nuclear disarmament – the longer these weapons exist, the greater the possibility that they will be used.

Please :

a)    Join us in London on 27^th February – for more information see: http://www.cnduk.org/

b)    Come along to our special international planning meeting in London on the 28^th February (see attached details) – please let us know if you are coming to this – contact: dave.webb@cnduk.org

c)     Please send messages and/or short videos of support to: dave.webb@cnduk.org

d)    Hand in letters of protest to British Embassies and other representatives.

Thank you - together we can abolish nuclear weapons once and for all.

Dave Webb
Chair, CND

New Advice Column: 'Dear Commie'

A new feature here on Organizing Notes will be this periodic 'Advice Column' called 'Dear Commie' as suggested by a reader.  So feel free to send in your questions and they will be entered into the hopper and responded to as time and space permits.

• Dear Commie: I’m depressed about the world and wonder what should I do?  

Dear Depressed: Take two aspirin and stick your head in the sand or try watching Fox News for awhile – that should help.  If not keep pushing the rock up the hill – at the very least it is good exercise.

• Dear Commie: I’ve been arguing with my neighbor again about Obama – is he right when he says that our president is a socialist?  

Dear Obama Fan: No Obama is not a socialist - he is a corporatist. It's time we all learned the difference.

• Dear Commie: Don’t you ever worry about what people think of you?  I mean you being a commie and all that…. aren’t you concerned that you will lose friends and not be invited to holiday parties?  

Dear Worried: My neighbor works for the military industrial complex but seems to watch my public access TV show and is always friendly.  Actually I’m glad I never get invited to any of the holiday parties - so boring, they rarely talk about anything interesting.

• Dear Commie: I see you must like Putin because you are the only blogger I know who does not trash him all the time.  

Dear Putinized: The Indians said put your ear to the railroad tracks and hear the train coming.  In my reading of history when I see certain leaders get demonized the next step is a US sponsored invasion or a coup d'état .  Do the names Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Mohammad Mosaddegh, Patrice Lumumba, Jacobo Árbenz, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad mean anything to you?
 

• Dear Commie: Look, if everything you say is true, then why should we bother fighting against a stacked deck?  I agree that the corporations run the show in Washington and around the world.  How can we compete with that?  My thinking is we go along and get along and enjoy the ride as long as we can.  Why do you keep messing with all this – its futile?  

Dear Give Up: One simple expression should explain it – I am stubborn as hell.

• Dear Commie: I’m not much of a football fan, even though I did grow up thinking of my hometown Baltimore Colts as superheroes. It didn’t occur to me at the time how violent and warlike football was, not to mention how big a business it is on the backs of working slobs like me. But once I got hip to all that, I decided it wasn’t worth the assault on my peacenik sensibilities to take part in our mass cultural homage to the gridiron gladiators. But I recently moved to North Carolina and the Carolina Panthers are unavoidable now that they are going to the Super Bowl extravaganza. I wondered recently why they are named the Panthers, when there don’t seem to be any of those amazing creatures in the state. Here’s what I could find out online:

Panthers team president Mark Richardson, the son of team owner Jerry Richardson, chose the Panthers nickname because "it's a name our family thought signifies what we thought a team should be—powerful, sleek and strong." Richardson also chose the 1995 expansion team’s color scheme of black, blue, and silver, a choice that initially came under scrutiny from NFL Properties representatives. According to one newspaper report, the concern was raised at the 1993 NFL meetings that a team nicknamed the Panthers that featured black in its color scheme would appeal to street gangs and reflect poorly on the league.

So my question is, what the hell? Seems like there should have been some sort of rational or even democratic process in place (like there was for the Baltimore Ravens). And is the worry about the use of the color black just a little bit racist? I thought the Black Panthers were pretty cool really, though a little scary for a white boy like me. Am I some kind of commie for questioning all this?

Sincerely,
Concerned in Carolina

Dear Carolina: It's a very long question...... surely you don't think that the NFL would worry that the public would respond poorly to a team being called the Black Panthers - especially with their current out spoken black quarterback taking them to the Super Bowl.... well on the other hand, maybe you are on to something..... watch the game anyway as much as you can. Just close your eyes when it gets too rough.
PS Enjoy the commercials, I'm sure there will be many of them.

• Dear Commie: I want the system to fall, I really do. But I fear the violent reign of terror that is likely to ensue when the capitalist system collapses. History tends to suggest that phase is inevitable and causes even more suffering than the toppled regime did. Do you think it is inevitable? What is a realistic alternative?

Dear System Fail:  You are right - the capitalist system will fail, and is in fact now failing.  Think of the people in Flint, Michigan who have been drinking lead tainted water just so the corporate controlled government could shave a few bucks from the budget.  Think of the endless war$ now underway that benefit the bankers and weapons industry.  In the end what could be worse than drinking tainted water and being the recipients of US-NATO bombs?  Our job is to offer a positive transformative vision for the future - let's convert the military industrial complex and build solar, wind, rail, do more energy conservation and clean up the environment.  Imagine the jobs created and the peace that could come from such a new direction.  Now doesn't that already feel much better?  Sometimes collapse of the rotten is necessary and even positive.  So hold onto your hat and hang in there....change is on the way sooner than you might think.