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The 112th Congress?
01.02.2011
11:37 am
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Starting to look that way, isn’t it?

Via Paul Krassner

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.02.2011
11:37 am
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Vintage footage of London Anarchist group
01.01.2011
12:37 pm
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During the 1970 election campaign, an anarchist/squatters activist group formed in east London, called E.X.P.O.S.A.  (Extra Parliamentary Opposition Socialist Alternative) to persuade a non-voting stance. This is a BBC news report. Can you imagine something similar to this on American TV news? Other than the times conservative intellectual William F. Buckley would have guests like Allen Ginsberg, Noam Chomsky and Stokely Carmichael on his Firing Line TV show, I can’t of anything even remotely like this that I’ve ever seen on American television from that era. (Note: I’d love to be proven wrong, please send in any and all American equivalents you might know about)

Almost everything these guys say, to my mind, is right on the money. Forty years later and… nothing has fucking changed!

Note how much more intelligent “the man on the street” responses are compared to the “throw-a-rock, hit-a-moron” types seen on camera at the various Tea party gathering.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.01.2011
12:37 pm
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‘Little Lamb of the GOP’ painting
12.22.2010
05:43 pm
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Little Lamb of the GOP: oil on panel 36” x 24”
 
“Little Lamb of the GOP” from Michael Caines’ Perfect Happiness series.

Michael’s work is currently showing at:

Mulherin Pollard Projects
317 10th Ave (between 28th & 29th)
New York, NY 10001

(via BB Submitterator)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.22.2010
05:43 pm
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Republicans prove they have an ironic sense of humor as Michele Bachmann named to Intel panel
12.20.2010
11:07 am
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Idiot Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, whose ditzy, wingnut antics have seen her become a cable news VIP due to producers hoping she’ll say something totally stupid on air, has been named to the House intelligence panel for the 112th Congress by incoming GOP Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

The intelligence panel—sworn to secrecy—receives national security briefings in a secure conference room. How will a low IQ BIGMOUTH like Michele Bachmann ever be able to keep national security secrets? They’d have been better off nominating Julian Assange to the position!

Unless, of course, shutting her up was Boehner’s Machiavellian intention in the first place. That, and forcing journalists and bloggers the world over to use the word “intelligence” in the same sentence with the name Michele Bachmann. Used to be that you could google Michele Bachmann and “intelligence” and nothing would come up. Not any more! That John Boehner, he’s a real card, ain’t he?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.20.2010
11:07 am
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Thank you Congresswoman Diane Watson!
12.17.2010
03:59 pm
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A few days ago I called the office of United States Congresswoman Diane Watson, who represents me and the other residents of the 33rd Congressional District here in the metro Los Angeles area. I called Rep. Watson to encourage her to vote against renewing the Bush tax cuts for millionaires.

Since Rep. Watson was one of only 148 members of the House courageous enough, smart enough and as committed to the well-being of the common man enough to vote against this obscene affront to the concept of fucking “fairness” in this country, I wanted to thank her publicly. Rep. Watson will be retiring at the end of the 111th Congress and I want her to know how incredibly grateful I have been to have someone who I tend to agree with 100% of the time, representing my interests in Washington. For me, the match between constituent (that would be me) and Representative has it has never been better (and I’ve always lived in areas leaning heavily toward liberal politics). I will be sorry indeed to see Congresswoman Diane Watson retire, but wish her the very best.

Ironically, I clipped the following text from Michelle Malkin’s blog. She prefaced this by calling Diane Watson a “racist.” I’m a 45-year-old white male, so if I agree 100% with this, would that negate Malkini’s idiotic charge of racism? This took guts to say in this political climate!

WATSON: You might have heard their philosophical leader. I think his name is Rush Limbaugh. And he said early on, “I hope that he fails.”
Do you know what that means? If the president, your commander-in-chief, fails, America fails.

Now, when a senator says that this will be his Waterloo, and we all know what happened at Waterloo, then we have him and he fails. Do we want a failed state called the United States?

And remember: They are spreading fear and they are trying to see that the first president that looks likes me fails.
Now just understand what’s at the bottom line.

And you know we just got, 48 hours ago, we just go back, we were in Beijing, China, Hong Kong, China, we were in Taiwan, we were in Guam, we were all over the Far East.

I just want you to know: People look at the United States as a country that has changed its way and has elected someone from Kenya and Kansas, I’ll put it like that.

And they’re saying, “We thought you would never do that.”

So we don’t want to have this young man, and he just turned 48 — we want him to succeed, because when he succeeds, we regain our status. We regain our status.

It was just mentioned to me by our esteemed speaker, “Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?”

And lemme tell ya, before you say “Oh, it’s a commu–”, you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]

And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found…well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro…

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.17.2010
03:59 pm
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Larry Flynt tells Obama: You’re toast
12.15.2010
01:21 pm
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I think Larry Flynt speaks for many of us with his open letter to President Obama, published today at The Daily Beast:

The people who supported you in 2008 wanted someone who would fight for them. They wanted real health-care reform, real banking reform, an end to the expensive wars we’re waging and the restoration of our civil liberties.

On issue after issue you’ve caved. Renewing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is the final straw. This was a fight you could have won without suffering any collateral damage—and you didn’t even throw a punch.

I was delighted when you were elected. Now, like many other Americans, all I see is an ineffectual wimp. If you want a second term in office, you must win back the respect of the American people. From my vantage point it’s hard to see how you can do that.

If you can’t trust a pornographer to tell the truth, who can you trust?

Below, Larry Flynt speaking the truth in 1984.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.15.2010
01:21 pm
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Not just Berkeley & London: The international student movement is on fire!
12.11.2010
01:06 pm
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Demonstration against the privatization of education, New Delhi, December 2, 2010
 

As our UK-based Dangerous Mind Paul Gallagher has noted, London students have taken the issue of educational democracy off the campuses into both the city’s freezing streets and the faces of lines of cops. Of course these have been paralleled by media coverage of a couple of years of anti-tuition hike protests at the University of California. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Turns out the international student movement that’s been brewing is on the way to becoming the primary dynamic popular movement of our time. From Manila to Santiago to Jakarta to Marrakech to Milan to Prishtina, students have been hitting the capitals to protest the privatization, commodification and militarization of education and research. Their fight against the fee hikes, budget cuts and other politricks affecting access to education is already the most effective and wide-reaching youth movement you’ve ever seen. Period.

To state the sweepingly obvious, the global financial industry played a huge part in causing the worldwide educational crisis. And democratized education will be key to defending humanity against the most powerful wave of greed we’ve seen in a while. That makes the global struggle for free, emancipatory education the key struggle of our lifetimes.

You may think I’m overstating it. Hell, maybe I am. But just in case, do yourself a favor: keep an eye on this movement and support it in whatever way you see fit.
 

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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12.11.2010
01:06 pm
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‘WikiRebels’: Rough-cut of first in-depth documentary on WikiLeaks
12.11.2010
01:35 am
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‘WikiRebels’ offers some insight to Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Inexplicably, I can’t find any information on this documentary other than its Youtube description:

Rough-cut of first in-depth documentary on WikiLeaks and the people behind it! From summer 2010 until now, Swedish Television has been following the secretive media network WikiLeaks and its enigmatic Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange.

Reporters Jesper Huor and Bosse Lindquist have traveled to key countries where WikiLeaks operates, interviewing top members, such as Assange, new Spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, as well as people like Daniel Domscheit-Berg who now is starting his own version - Openleaks.org.”

Has ‘WikiRebels’ been leaked?
 

 
Parts 2 - 4 after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.11.2010
01:35 am
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Revolution comes out of the barrel of a microphone: James Brown live in Boston April 5, 1968
12.10.2010
11:15 pm
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On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated. The following day mayhem erupted in cities all across America. Riots and looting had broken out in Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C. and L.A.. Boston was a powder keg on the verge of exploding and Mayor Kevin White was considering canceling all public gatherings, including an April 5th concert by James Brown at the Boston Garden. When White realized that canceling Brown’s show might actually trigger the very riots that he was attempting to avoid, the Mayor made a profoundly smart and historic move. He met with Brown and discussed ways in which they could keep the peace. They decided to proceed with the concert and broadcast it live on local television. Unfortunately, the Boston network affiliates refused to broadcast the concert. But, public station WGBH agreed to air the show and it turned out be a historically significant decision that altered the course of Boston’s history. Brown’s concert would be seen by far more than 14,000 concert goers. It would be made available to everyone in the Boston area with a television set. And it might just quell some violence. As it turned out, it did.

Brown’s performance was absolutely epic. He dedicated the concert to Dr. King and through his music managed to calm the anger and frustration of a community in deep mourning. Boston stayed cool while other cities burned.

Here’s 150 minutes of footage aired by WGBH on that extraordinary night when the hardest working man in show business became a force of healing, peace and Black pride.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.10.2010
11:15 pm
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Uncut version of David Wojnarowiscz’s censored video ‘A Fire In My Belly’
12.09.2010
11:22 pm
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Last week David Wojnarowiscz’s video “A Fire In My Belly” was removed from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s exhibit, ‘Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.’ The version pulled from the exhibit was actually just an excerpt from the original 21 minute film. Here’s the uncut version of “A Fire In My Belly” courtesy of the estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York.

Unlike the shorter version, the original video does not contain Diamanda Galas’s vocal track. I find the silent version more haunting.
 

 
Via TB
 
Previously on DM: Smithsonian bows to religious and conservative extremists and pulls AIDS video from exhibit.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.09.2010
11:22 pm
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