This is my reply to an open letter and response concerning the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism in Mexico, which I attended as a student. It’s written in the same spirit as my open letter to Democracy Now!: we must continually evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of independent media in order to be effective. (more…)
Jerry called me a few days after the quake, huddled with hundreds of people in a space without food and water. I was lining up a profile story with him before the catastrophe. But he’s already back at work, it appears. See some of his pre-disaster work here. He even tackled the problem of Haiti’s deforestation with his art, in an amusing way. (more…)
On Sunday leading former members of the Young Lords Party, a militant Puerto Rican community organization active from 1969 to 1971, gathered at the First Spanish Methodist Church in East Harlem to reflect on the impact of the group. The New York Young Lords took over the church the first time in 1969 an attempt to use it as a base for community food and health programs. Months later they occupied it again, this time brandishing weapons, in protest of the hanging of Julio Roldan, a Young Lords member who was found dead in his cell after a police raid.
It’s unfortunate that the Young Lords are not as well known among broader public as the Black Panthers. The group was arguably more progressive for its time. Patriarchy and other oppressions within the Young Lords started to break down quickly when members challenged those hierarchies inherited from society. The Lords had deep roots in and support from the “El Barrio” community.
Which makes the New York Lords’ sudden and swift decline all the more puzzling. Why did the group fall apart after just two years of success? What can radicals learn from the Young Lords?
I cannot find any audio or video from Sunday’s forum online, oddly, to help answer those questions. You can hear Democracy Now co-host and Lords co-founder Juan Gonzalez speak on his experience in this interview.
I attempted to answer the question posed above myself last year in a paper for a ‘Radical Social Movements’ class. I’m posting it online now, to share it with y’all and Google’s indexer. The paper is entitled “The Young Lords: Examining Its Deficit of Democracy and Decline. Read it here →
An opening summary paragraph is below, but consider reading the paper itself. It analyzes the Lords’ rise and fall in some detail. (more…)
Travis Bishop is led away from Fort Hood in shackles. Image from video shot by Bishop’s lawyer.
This started out as a story for Free Speech Radio News but didn’t make it into today’s newscast. I’ve heard of the Flash player not working for a few folks. Listen to the MP3 if that’s the case for you. Cross-posted to Houston Indymedia, now featured on Indymedia.us.
A Fort Hood soldier faced a military trial today for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, one week after another member of his unit was sentenced to 30 days in jail for refusing to go to war. Sergeant Travis Bishop was convicted on all charges and sentenced to one year in prison, loss of pay, and reduction in rank. (more…)
To my knowledge this is the only interview with a member of the Korean Metal Workers Union recorded in the United States. Last night I spoke by phone with Jung Sik Hwa, a 20-year member of the union whose Ssangyong branch occupied their factory for 77 days. He was outside the Pyeontaek factory last week protesting the police assault in solidarity with the Ssangyong workers. Transcript and more to come soon. This podcast and the interview with Mr. Goldner will air on KVRX 91.7 FM here in Austin. Feel free to share and re-broadcast.
MP3. Cross-posted to Radio Indymedia.
Yesterday the 10-week-long occupation of the Ssangyong automotive plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, by striking workers was broken by a final, violent police assault. When Ssangyong went bankrupt and announced the firings of thousands of assembly-line workers, they armed and barricaded themselves inside the plant. I spoke with Loren Goldner, an author writing a book on the Korean working class who visited the factory in June, on Friday about the situation. The workers’ struggle has received stunningly little attention in the US corporate and alternative press. He was speaking to me from New York City. Please share and re-broadcast.
MP3. Cross-posted to Radio Indymedia and libcom.
Update: The podcast does not convey the “epic,” in the BBC’s words, nature of the final four-day fight the workers put up against the police. Below are pictures and videos collected from Youtube and libcom.org. (more…)
Protests coordinated by United4Iran were held in over 150 cities yesterday around the world in solidarity with the movement against the Khameini and Ahmadinejad government.
Update: Thanks again to Pouya (Flickr) for sharing his photos of the event. I’ve packaged some of Pouya’s pictures together with my audio report in the video above .
MP3. Feel free to share and re-broadcast. Transcript with links and more information below the jump. (more…)
