Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts

What is Justice?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at the 2019 Women's March in New York City.


Saturday Catchup 2018-03-03


After a long absence, Saturday Catchup is back!

Social democracy is all the rage in the U.S. (and neoliberalism under assault) since Sen. Bernie Sanders' late run for president. In this video, radical journalist, author and film-maker Paul Mason; Dr. Faiza Shaheen, economist, writer, activist and director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies; writer Anthony Barnett, co-founder of openDemocracy; economist Dr. Johnna Montgomerie; and Laurie Macfarlane, senior economist at the New Economics Foundation discuss whether radical social democracy offers a way out of the crisis of neoliberalism, and what this means for economic policy over the next decade. The debate is part of a new series of essays by Paul Mason exploring what radical social democracy means during the next decade:
Extra credit:
The word has become a rhetorical weapon, but neoliberal properly names the reigning ideology of our era -- one that venerates the logic of the market and strips away the things that make us human: Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world by Stephen Metcalf (Guardian).
The mission of radical social democracy must be to rekindle hope in a simple idea -- that life in your community will get better: Neoliberalism has destroyed social mobility. Together we must rebuild it by Paul Mason.
I’m not a neoliberal. Maybe you aren’t either. by Laurie Macfarlane (Medium).

Eljeer Hawkins is a community, labor and antiwar organizer, and for 23 years has been a member of Socialist Alternative, the US affiliate of the Committee for a Workers' International, a global Trotskyist
organization fighting economic exploitation and oppression based on race, gender, sexual orientation and national identity. Hawkins writes regularly on race, the criminal legal system, Black Lives Matter and the historic Black freedom movement, and lectures widely, including at Harvard, Hunter College, Oberlin and University of Toronto. In this interview, Hawkins discusses how he came to believe in the socialist cause and how a socialist society can be realized in the US: Inspiring a Socialist Alternative: An Interview With Eljeer Hawkins with Bryant William Sculos (Truthout).

A palate cleanser from the New York Times: Reporter Carla Correa travels to the lair of "The Bachelor" so you won't have to. "There are two ways to watch 'The Bachelor.' The first is, in 'Bachelor' parlance, to be swept away on the 'journey' and suspend any disbelief that suitors are 'here for the right reasons.' For most viewers, though, the only way to sit through a two-hour episode is to accept the polyamorous spectacle as one big social experiment. 24 Hours in Bachelor Nation by Carla Correa (New York Times)

Aestheticist Adolph Hitler doesn't care for gentrification:




"The right to be heard is crucially important. But I want to think more generally about how we have learned to look at women who exercise power, or try to; I want to explore the cultural underpinnings of misogyny in politics or the workplace, and its forms (what kind of misogyny, aimed at what or whom, using what words or images, and with what effects); and I want to think harder about how and why the conventional definitions of ‘power’ (or for that matter of ‘knowledge’, ‘expertise’ and ‘authority’) that we carry round in our heads have tended to exclude women." -- Mary Beard, Women in Power.
 
For the text of this talk, go to Women in Power by Mary Beard (London Review of Books).

The resemblance of zoos to prisons aside: At the Stock Island Detention Center, a jail in Florida, prisoners care for a zoo of their own. Curator Jeanne Selander  runs the prison zoo with the inmates, who benefit not only from the responsibility, but also from experiencing reciprocal love and care --often for the first time. Operations like this one shouldn't be news, they should be standard.

Sign up for a weekly email from 60 Second Docs, for videos that are uplifting without recourse to freak accidents or weird animal friendships.

A song-story from country singer-songwriter Paul Overstreet

Finally, in a spirit of resistance not nostalgia, here is the last installment of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, never broadcast at the time. The brothers, Tommy and Dick Smothers, waged a war against network censorship for a couple of years in the late 1960s, a fight they lost when they were fired for inviting comedian David Steinberg back on the show, despite complaints from some viewers over a previous booking. Nancy Wilson and Dan Rowan were also guests.

Leadership


Bill Clinton is angling to seat a surrogate in the Oval Office. George Bush I is jumping out of airplanes. George Bush II is painting pictures of his feet. And Jimmy Carter?

"I have been a practicing Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be 'subservient' to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views." -- Jimmy Carter, president of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

Female Vets Face Homelessness, Dearth of Services

"...the new faces among America's homeless veterans.

"They're younger than homeless male veterans and more likely to bring children. Their number has doubled in the past decade, and there are an estimated 6,500 homeless female veterans on any given night - about 5 percent of the total homeless veterans population.

"But women-only programs...are few.

"'It is always hard to find a place or resources or help when you are homeless,' said Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. 'It is almost impossible if you are a woman. Most of the VA facilities cater to men, and you can't take a mom with two little kids and put her in the middle of a homeless center with 30 or 40 male veterans,' said Murray, D-Wash.

"The distressed economy only made things worse....

"Like male veterans, many homeless female veterans face substance abuse and mental health problems. Many also struggle with sexual trauma that occurred in their childhood, in the military, or elsewhere."

The rest of the story: Female Vets Face Homelessness, Dearth of Services by Kimberly Hefling (Associated Press 2009-12-15)

Resources: U.S. Vets
Department of Veterans Affairs
National Alliance to End Homelessness
Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran of America's report on female veterans (pdf)
 
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