war

2nd act of Nutcracker much like 2nd act of Hair: child soldiers dance, psychedelia and love in the fallout of war. cc @jleonyc, @ABTballet
Twitter  10 December 2012 | LINK | Filed in
RT @ jricole: Noam Chomsky: We can defeat terrorism; the first step is to stop participating in it.
Twitter  11 November 2012 | LINK | Filed in
"Violence in the home normalizes violence in the street and in foreign policy." Interview with @Wolfe321 at carahoffman.com/…
Twitter  27 April 2012 | LINK | Filed in
U.S. Military Suicides in 2012: 155 Days, 154 Dead http://t.co/r71Lqxli via @PGourevitch
Twitter  8 June 2012 | LINK | Filed in
Documentary film on widespread #rape in the US #military inspires policy change: http://t.co/sPsUnbNH. Implementation remains to be seen.
Twitter  20 June 2012 | LINK | Filed in ,

Real Money for an Imaginary War

Since September 11, 2011, the Department of Homeland Security has doled out between $30 and $40 billion to state and local law enforcement and other first responders for weapons, surveillance networks, tanks, drones, and submarines to police U.S. citizens in the U.S.

The Washington Post has state-by-state database of projects, but this piece by Stephan Salisbury on the sweeping militarization of local law enforcement puts it into perspective:

“So much money has gone into armoring and arming local law-enforcement since 9/11 that the federal government could have rebuilt post-Katrina New Orleans five times over and had enough money left in the kitty to provide job training and housing for every one of the record 41,000-plus homeless people in New York City. It could have added in the growing population of 15,000 homeless in Philadelphia, my hometown, and still have had money to spare. Add disintegrating Detroit, Newark, and Camden to the list. Throw in some crumbling bridges and roads, too.”

It’s not just policing, policy, and policy making that have changed. And its not just another transfer of wealth from tax payers to defense contractors and their shareholders. Driven by fear, cash, and “national security,” America is being physically redesigned.

If You Fear Something, You Will See Something

The Latina art collective fulana produced the image above to satirize an ad campaign on the NYC subway.

>  13 March 2012 | LINK | Filed in ,

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus



Stylish and powerful infographic on the nature and ramifications of the computer virus Stuxnet.

While not the first time that crackers have targeted industrial systems, Stuxnet is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts specific industrial systems and is widely suspected of targeting the uranium enrichment infrastructure in Iran.

Patrick Clair designed and directed the animation for the Australian television program Hungry Beast.

This may be old news (Stuxnet was discovered a year ago,) but the consequences are still playing out.

>  9 August 2011 | LINK | Filed in , , , ,
Combat Paper. Combat Paper “The Combat Paper Project utilizes art making workshops to assist veterans in reconciling and sharing their personal experiences as well as broadening the traditional narrative surrounding service and the military culture. Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences in the military.”
>  8 July 2011 | LINK | Filed in , ,

Mothers' Day for Peace

Women on the March

Arise, then, women of this day!

Though appropriated by the billion dollar intimacy-industrial complex, Mother's Day in the US started as an anti-war protest.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe published the Mother's Day Proclamation, a manifesto against the the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level and called for international congress of mothers. By 1873, women in 18 cities in America held a Mother's Day for Peace gathering. For 30 years, Mothers’ Day for Peace was celebrated in June until Congress officially declared Mother’s Day in May. Read a brief history of the holiday here.

Previously: Another Mother for Peace


Update: 5/9/2011. I posted this item with both historical interest but also some sadness and cynicism. How could what started as a day calling for public day of action and international solidarity become warped into a private celebration, closed to the world at large? Of course we love our mothers, but I can’t help feel that love has been turned against us, used to move merchandise and squelch political action.

Well it turns out I was somewhat wrong. Not one, but two columns ran in the New York Times calling for humanitarian aid to improve maternal health in the name of Mother’s Day, and I received email from a non-profit or two working to use the day for good. It’s not quite international solidarity to stand up to the powers that be, but it’s a start.

>  2 May 2011 | LINK | Filed in ,
The Return To Palestine. Jamaa Al-Yad, an artists’ collective in Beirut, has posted a collection of printable materials (posters, flyers, handouts, stickers, stencils, etc.) to be used to publicize “The Return to Palestine March” and related activities scheduled for May 15 throughout the world. These materials are free to download and disseminate. From the site: “The Return to Palestine March will serve to reaffirm the rights of return and of the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, and to reaffirm that these right are inalienable, irrevocable and non-negotiable. They also aim at confirming the centrality of the Palestine issue to all Arabs.”

Return to Palestine
>  29 April 2011 | LINK | Filed in , , ,



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