by Audrey

I received an email from the mother of one of my students last week, directing me to a news story involving her son. He and two other area youth created a mural in downtown Mount Clemens, in a public space by a fountain. They used sidewalk chalk – the chunky kind that […]

Open thread for discussion (if any) of Insurgent American article.
Something to be Enthusiastic About: thinking about Demand Reduction

(From a diary at European Tribune:) We may have to pack light to make it through the next century, or indeed the next millennium. If we have to pack light, what do we really need to preserve that essential ability to feel enthusiasm, a genuine pleasure in life? Most of what I own I don’t really need or am not truly attached to; this is something you find out not only when packing for a journey, but when packing to move (which I’m doing now, and that’s another story). Is it worth packing and paying for the larger size of truck and toting the heavy boxes? Maybe not. Maybe I can live just fine without it. I suspect that the same applies to us (affluent Westerners) as a culture; much of what we have isn’t really all that wonderful — not worth throwing away a perfectly good planet or killing people for, anyway — and we could be quite happy with a lot less material cruft and a much lower energy budget.

So I’m proposing the question — to myself and to us all: suppose you’re packing light for a long journey; suppose you don’t have infinite energy to haul heavy baggage around; suppose you don’t have infinite suitcases to pack tons of junk into; what would you stuff into the backpack and take on the train, and what would you leave behind and hardly miss as soon as the journey started?

…is the opening section of the third chapter of Maria Mies’ canonical Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale - Women in the International Divison of Labor (Zed Books, 1986, 1998). It is a theoretical treatment of the whole business of the male-conquest theme, and how that theme maps onto the “civilized-backward” episteme that […]

A few closing thoughts for the evening… on immigration. The Republican chiefs — beholden to the same business interests as Democratic chiefs for big chunks of campaign cash — are now being hoisted on their own petard by the demands of capital accumulation. One of those demands is cheap, throwaway labor inside the […]

By YIFAT SUSSKIND
Indigenous activists are putting up a fight ­ against violence. At the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, activists are focused on passing a declaration that recognizes the right of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories, and resources. This organizing drive is seeking international legal protection from the violence done to Indigenous Peoples, […]

More than once, we have remarked here about the emerging
“national” consciousness of the nascent Latin@ movemen tin the US; and of its potentially tectonic consequences. Bradblog (a commercially successful whitelib site) has posted some stunning footage of this state-sponsored xenophobic terror, featuring Jonathan Mann’s riskily-acquired footage, the that is a must-see.

This was too good to leave at a disappearing comments section. -SG
From James M:
No one enjoys writing cover letters to prospective employers, so out of the kindness of my heart I decided to make one for all of you, to serve as a template. I hope you find this useful:
Dear Potential Employer,
I was recently […]

Stan here. I’ve been AWOL at Insurgent American and

[With Kim Sky’s permission, I am reposting an email about the soldier-effigy burning. It brings forward a helluva lot of contradictions; and I can’t think of a better place for a discussion of them than among y’all. -SG]
Portland Anarchists Burn Soldier Effigy — now on Drudge Report
this has been kind of interesting. drudge […]