January 2012
29 posts
“won’t you PLEASE think of the racists? didn’t you think of how it might affect HER when you commented on her racist statement? How DARE you be so thoughtless towards racists!?”
—what I hear when people chastise me for commenting on racist shit. (via velocicrafter)
Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA →
louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com
By Bill Quigley
One. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. [more]
Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. [more]
Three. Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. [more]
Four. Leave the rest of the world alone. [more]
Five. Property rights, privilege, and money-making are not as important as human rights. [more]
Six. Defend our earth. [more]
Seven. Dramatically expand public spaces and reverse the privatization of public services. [more]
Eight. Pull the criminal legal prison system up and out by its roots and start over. [more]
Nine. The US was created based on two original crimes that must be confessed and made right. [more]
Ten. Everyone who wants to work should have the right to work and earn a living wage. [more]
Finally, if those in government and those in power do not help the people do what is right, people seeking change must together exercise our human rights and bring about these changes directly. Dr. King and millions of others lived and worked for a radical revolution of values. We will as well. We respect the human rights and human dignity of others and work for a world where love and wisdom and solidarity and respect prevail. We expect those for whom the current unjust system works just fine will object and oppose and accuse people seeking dramatic change of being divisive and worse. That is to be expected because that is what happens to all groups which work for serious social change. Despite that, people will continue to go forward with determination and purpose to bring about a radical revolution of values in the USA.Smart and meaningful piece from Bill Quigley. Worth reading the whole thing.
“A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest. We must free ourselves from the sacralization of the social as the only reality and stop regarding as superfluous something so essential in human life and human relations as thought… There is always a little thought even in the most stupid institutions; there is always thought even in silent habits. Criticism is a matter of flushing out that thought and trying to change it: to show that things are not as self-evident as one believed, to see what is accepted as self-evident will no longer be accepted as such. Practicing criticism is a matter of making facile gestures difficult.”
—Michel Foucault, “Practicing Criticism” (via talajoon)
“We were not born critical of existing society. There was a moment in our lives (or a month, or a year) when certain facts appeared before us, startled us, and then caused us to question beliefs that were strongly fixed in our consciousness-embedded there by years of family prejudices, orthodox schooling, imbibing of newspapers, radio, and television. This would seem to lead to a simple conclusion: that we all have an enormous responsibility to bring to the attention of others information they do not have, which has the potential of causing them to rethink long-held ideas.”
—Howard Zinn (via omchomsky)
