Bill Ayers

https://portside.org/2021-05-19/half-lenin-half-gandhi

Even as one branch of Asian American culture goes corporate & representational, another branch follows Edward Said’s insights and connects East/Southeast Asian “Orientals” to Arab “Orientals.” Hence, to be Asian American is also to decolonize & align with the Palestinian cause.Said himself, in ORIENTALISM’s conclusion, connects the Vietnam War to American Orientalism & dissects western media’s representations of Muslims in a way that shows a complete parallel to how the Vietnamese are represented. Gooks then, Muslims now, fulfilling the same function.Impossible to watch the IDF bombing and shelling Gaza and not think about American war strategies in Viet Nam, carried out in utter disregard of Vietnamese life and not caring to distinguish between combatants and civilians.And blaming the Vietnamese for the conditions that the Americans created, as Israel is blaming the Palestinians for making the IDF bomb and shell them, a ludicrous argument that a lot of western media is just repeating.In sum, one cannot be anti-racist without being anti-colonial and decolonizing. For Asian Americans not to see our common cause with other oppressed peoples means that we are not genuinely anti-racist. We’re just self-interested.

Rashid Khalidi (see EPISODE #23 of Under the Tree) clarifies the hundred year war against Palestine, and explains the Israeli terror unleashed against Palestinians:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/13/what-were-seeing-now-is-just-latest-chapter-israels-dispossession-palestinians/

Episode # 32) “Eliminate All the Brutes!”

The Indian novelist Arundhati Roy says, “The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t un-see it.  And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing becomes as political an act as speaking out. Either way, you’re accountable.”  And implicated. Our guest today is Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, author of the classic An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, whose lifework has been an ongoing project to shake us awake, to rouse us from the deep, deep American sleep of denial, to invite us to face history in all its glory and horror.

31) Love the People, Defend the Earth

The predatory heart of capitalism is the rage to accumulate, to expand, and to overrun all boundaries. Racial capitalism demands growth— unleashed and unchecked—but the Earth objects. Violence and aggression are the inevitable accomplices of predation, and when the casualties of cataclysmic capitalist climate collapse resist—as they inevitably will—they are labeled “illegal aliens,” “lawbreakers,” “terrorists,” and “fanatics.” We’re joined today by Eleanor Stein and Jeff Jones, two brilliant freedom fighters and anti-racist organizers, whose central work focuses on environmental justice.

https://rick-ayers.medium.com/capitalism-is-killing-us-the-covid-case-ea529dbbdbe8

Celebrate May Day! In 1889 May Day was designated International Workers’ Day by the Socialists and Communists of the Second International to commemorate the Haymarket uprising in Chicago. It’s an important part of our history, and a moment to recommit to the fight for a humane and just future for all. Remember the Haymarket Martyrs!Remember Lucy Parsons!#blacklivesmatterDefund (and disarm) the police!Abolish prisons!

Episode # 30: Hearing the Voices of Witness

There’s a vast delusional gulf between the world as it is, and the world as each one of us thinks it is. I’m not being negative or accusatory, but simply stating the obvious: here we go, mistaking our self-constructed little world for the whole wide world. If you believe emphatically enough that the world of your perception and mental construction is in fact the whole wide world, and if you’re willing to act with full force upon that misperception—well, god help us all. Arrogance and self-righteousness, bossiness and obnoxiousness, authoritarianism, autocracy, fascism, and more. What to do? We start by recognizing the obstacle, and continuing to wonder, reflect, discuss, debate, and keep on wondering. We can talk to strangers, and assume that everyone we meet is a three-dimensional creature, just like ourselves.  We can learn to listen to other voices, and we can attune ourselves to ambiguity, doubt, skepticism, agnosticism, and uncertainty—always willing to question, and question, and then question some more. To help us along the way, we’re joined in conversation by two dazzling teachers, writers, activists, and Oral Historians, Cliff Mayotte and Claire Kiefer from Voice of Witness, editors of Say it Forward: A Guide to Social Justice Storytelling.

The Star Tribune reports that Minnesota’s police licensing board (POST) has agreed to pursue new rules for law enforcement responses to protests and a ban on officers affiliating with white supremacist groups.
But…the proposed ban [raises] two important questions. The first… why are the state’s police departments so rife with white supremacists that such a ban is necessary? The second…why are openly white supremacist and fascist groups even allowed to exist legally across the state (and nation)?
It seems pointless to recruit thousands of racists into a militarized police force, heavily arm them, point them mainly at communities of color, and then make unenforceable rules forbidding them to join outside racist groups. Like a host of other empty police reforms, this one only offers a diversion from the necessary and inevitable examination of the historic role of policing itself.
I’m also wondering if the proposed rules would bar cops from joining the…Republican Party which has once again exposed its own white supremacist character in response to the police murders of George Floyd and Daunte Wright and the Derek Chauvin trial. Party leaders did everything they could to use the trial and the protests outside to attack civil rights icon, Rep. Maxine Waters rather than the murderers themselves…Side note ~ If such a rule [were] proposed here in Chicago, they’d have to start by barring cops from joining their own union, the FOP, clearly the number-one white supremacist organization in the state