The UK’s Daily Sport tabloid is on a roll - only a few weeks after delivering the now legendary leader “Gordon Ramsay Sex Dwarf Eaten By Badger” comes this beauty. But what I want to know is - did it hurt?
My father is 64. He was a public school teacher for 20 years before being let go. He was unemployed for 2 years off and on between night jobs and private school gigs. He is currently a security guard at a cigar factory. At 62 he had to borrow early from his retirement pension and may not have enough for 5 years from now. He makes $8/hr with a degree.
My mother is 60. She has worked in the insurance industry since she graduated high school. She lost her job in February and has applied for 700 jobs and has started losing hope at ever finding one at her age. The first line of unemployment ran out and she is uninsured. She has type 2 diabetes and hypertension. She recently was hospitalized because she bought food instead of medication.
Now they are having their home of 36 years foreclosed on. They are filing for bankruptcy next year. Their credit limit was lowered to $400 between two cards.
I am 23 years old and working toward my BA. I lost my Bright Futures scholarship (75% of my tuition paid) because I fell below half time status my third semester (I had to work full time instead to pay rent and eat). I am 20K in debt and am paying out of pocket for my current tuition while I start paying back loans with two part time jobs.
WE HAVE DONE EVERYTHING WE CAN. WE WORK HARD. WE ARE THE 99% AND WE WANT J U S T I C E!
“We Are The 99 Percent” is a website put together by the Occupy Wall Street coalition where people share the struggles they are enduring trying to survive in the current depression. Their stories (hundreds of them) and photographs are heartbreaking. You can visit the site here.
The immortal Arthur Lee and Love performing “Signed D.C.” on Danish TV special A Group By The Name Of Love that aired in July of 1970.
The concert footage is from a Love gig at Tivoli Koncertsal, Copenhagen, March 12, 1970.
Sly before in 1968 B.F. (before the ‘fro).
Our buddy Mitch Stadium claims this is the first time this video has ever been on YouTube and I have no reason to doubt him. Stadium, the nom de plume of one of the premier rock archivists on the planet, has done it again with this choice piece of rock history.
Sly Stone: vocals, organ, guitar, piano, harmonica, and more
Freddie Stone: vocals, guitar
Larry Graham: vocals, bass guitar
Greg Errico: drums
The long-running BBC radio series, Desert Island Discs is well-known for the quality of its celebrity interviews, where a guest chooses 8 tracks that best described key moments in their life. Each guest also gets to pick a book, and one luxury item.
When Tracey Emin guested on the show in November 2004, her luxury item was a pen that would never run out. Her book was a copy of Spinoza’s Ethics. Tracey also gave a revealing interview to host, Sue Lawley, in which she discussed her difficult and traumatic childhood and youth, and her ambitions, the importance of art and her controversial career as an artist.
Tracey’s favorite discs were:
1. John Holt “Riding For a Fall”
2. The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”
3. Donna Summer “I Feel Love”
4. The Clash “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”
5. Middle of the Road “Chirpie Chirpie Cheep Cheep”
6. Elvis Presley “Burning Love”
7. Third World “Now That I’ve Found Love”
8. David Bowie “Young Americans”
Previously on Dangerous Minds
Tracey Emin: Sex, Success and Celebrity
You can grab a larger version here.
Previously on Dangerous Minds
George Carlin on why we should Occupy Wall Street
In the video below shot a few days before the 1968 Democratic National Convention, radical prankster Abbie Hoffman discusses guerrilla theater, drugs, sex and the role of humor as a tool for shaking up the status quo. Dissidence with a touch of Dada.
While the shit is hitting the fan it’s always good to have a sense of the absurd to keep things in perspective.
“Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.”
Much of the tone of the current Occupy Wall Street movement, with it’s colorful signs, face paint, freak flags, costumes and optimism in the face of so much opposition, can be traced to the Sixties provocations and theater of Hoffman, Jerry Ruben, The MC5, Ed Sanders, Paul Krassner, Allen Ginsberg, Dana Beal and the Youth International Party.
While Abbie showed us that political activism could have a playful side and that yippie tactics could be an effective means to grab headlines, releasing word viruses that could fuck with the status quo, he was also wise in his grasp of political realities:
Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit. When all today’s isms have become yesterday’s ancient philosophy, there will still be reactionaries and there will still be revolutionaries. No amount of rationalization can avoid the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on the planet. I still believe in the fundamental injustice of the profit system and do not accept the proposition there will be rich and poor for all eternity.
Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them.
Being a revolutionary isn’t just about talking a good game, it’s also about showing the world what freedom loving human beings are capable of: a robust passion for life and a deep respect for humanity and the earth we stand on.
There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
― John Lennon
When people discount the role the Sixties play in contemporary attitudes about politics, sex, the environment and human rights, I say open your gawdammed eyes and take a look around. The press, pundits and people in general are comparing the OWS movement to the radical uprisings of the Sixties for good reason - they arise out of the same basic impulse toward justice and freedom….and something innate in all humans: the desire to fuck with authority.
With their limited frames of reference, I keep hearing people referring to the OWS protesters as hippies. Well, I guess we’re all hippies now. Pass the patchouli. Yippee!
The New York Observer posted this FANTASTIC clip of a Fox News personality (I can’t recall this guy’s name and I’m too lazy to check) getting his ass schooled by a (super) articulate Occupy Wall Street protester named Jesse LaGreca, a man born with a rare gift for gab (and blogging, he’s known as “Ministry of Truth” when he blogs at Daily Kos).
I just can’t imagine how this conversation landed on the cutting room floor, can you? This footage is going to be all over MSNBC, CNN and Current later today.
Fox: Jesse, so Ray, your partner here, your ..
Ray: comrade.
Fox: Your colleague, she’d seen the protests in Greece and Europe and elsewhere. Did you guys take your cue from that? Are you hoping to cite certainly what was a lot of the tension, if not police activity. I know over the weekend there were over 100 arrests and you guys got things fired up. Are you taking your cues from the international movement and how do you want to see this? If you could have it in a perfect way, how would it be?
Jesse: Well I don’t know, its really difficult to answer questions leading to those conclusions. I’d say that we didn’t take our cue leading off of anybody really. It became a more spontaneous movement. As far as seeing this end, I wouldn’t like to see this end. I would like to see the conversation continue. This is what we should have been talking about in 2008 when the economy collapsed. We basically patched a hole on the tire and said let the car keep rolling. Unfortunately it’s fun to talk to the propaganda machine and the media especially conservative media networks such as yourself, because we find that we cant get conversations for the department of Justice’s ongoing investigation of News Corporation, for which you are an employee. But we can certainly ask questions like you know, why are the poor engaging in class warfare? After 30 years of having our living standards decrease while the wealthiest 1% have had it better than ever, I think it’s time for some maybe, I don’t know, participation in our democracy that isn’t funded by news cameras and gentlemen such as yourself.
Fox: But, uh, yeah well, let me give you this challenge Jesse.
Jesse: Sure.
Fox: We’re here giving you an opportunity on the record […] to put any
message you want out there, to give you fair coverage and I’m not
going to in any wayJesse: That’s awesome!
Fox:…give you advice about it. So, there is an exception in the case, because you wouldn’t be able to get your message out there without us.
Jesse: No, surely, I mean, take for instance when Glenn Beck was doing his protest and he called the President, uh, a person who hates white people and white culture. That was a low moment in Americans’ history and you guys kinda had a big part in it. So, I’m glad to see you coming around and kind of paying attention to what the other 99 percent of Americans are paying attention to, as opposed to the far-right fringe, who who would just love to destroy the middle class entirely.
Fox: Alright, fair enough. You have a voice, an important reason to criticize myself, my company and anyone else. But, let me ask you that, in fairness, does this administration, President Obama, have any criticism as to the the financial situation the country’s in…?
Jesse: I think, myself, uh, as well as many other people, would like to see a little but more economic justice or social justice—Jesus stuff—as far as feeding the poor, healthcare for the sick. You know, I find it really entertaining that people like to hold the Bill of Rights up while they’re screaming at gay soldiers, but they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that a for-profit healthcare system doesn’t work. So, let’s just look at it like this, if we want the President to do more, let’s talk to him on a level that actually reaches people, instead of asking for his birth certificate and wasting time with total nonsense like Solyndra.
GENIUS!!!! I wanted to cheer when I watched this clip. Someone needs to start an effort to draft Jesse LaGreca for Congress, if not a higher office!
This video was shot by Kyle Christopher from the Occupy Wall Street media team.
More at the New York Observer.
Some serious backwoods Tennessee stupidity on display here. I hope these guys press charges to the fullest extent of the law.
“I went over to take the keys out of the ignition and all the sudden I hear someone say ‘sick’em,’” said Gibson County resident, Jerry Pittman Jr. Pittman said the attacked was prompted by the pastor of the church, Jerry Pittman, his father. “My uncle and two other deacons came over to the car per my dad’s request. My uncle smash me in the door as the other deacon knocked my boyfriend back so he couldn’t help me, punching him in his face and his chest. The other deacon came and hit me through my car window in my back,” said Pittman. He said bystanders did not offer assistance. He said the deacon yelled derogatory homosexual slurs, even after officers arrived. He said the officers never intervened to stop the deacons from yelling the slurs.
This covers a wide spectrum of “fucked up,” doesn’t it?
Although this video was put together by Think Progress to show/prove that Obama’s politics are in sync with GOP patron saint Ronald Reagan and the Republican party of that era, the compare/contrast the viewer is being asked to mentally do as they watch this clip, doesn’t exactly express the message they think it does… The only thing that *I* got from it is how damned far right the Democrats have moved in the past three decades.
And that’s bloody appalling.
It’s about time the Democrats to start acting like Democrats again. Their base is turning rapidly leftwards for the first time in decades and they seem to have no idea which way the wind is blowing. Even some Tea party types are starting to wise up. Some are joining Occupy Wall Street actions. Perhaps some policies that are a little MORE “New Deal” and much less “Republican party 1980” are in order?
Thank you Chris Campion, of Berlin, Germany!