Unbinding Prometheus

This afternoon, a boisterous group of the 99% from Occupy Baltimore joined Center Plate workers of UNITE HERE Local 7 at the Baltimore City Center Convention Center.

Over the past 18 months since Center Plate took over food service operations at the Baltimore Convention Center, workers have had:
5%-16% wage cuts
No Health Insurance

Center Plate workers are fighting to restore their wages and win decent raises and affordable health insurance in their new Union Contract!


(Photos from Bill Hughes)

This demonstration and the issues around it were covered on the Marc Steiner show:
Organizers from UNITE HERE! and Occupy Baltimore discussed the protests, and the ways in which organized labor have supported the movement:
Novella Gardner, banquet server and union leader at the Baltimore
Convention Center
Liana Dalton, Organizer with UNITE HERE!
Mike Maguire, member of the Red Emma's Collective, participant at
Occupy Baltimore participant, carpenter
Shallon Brown, software developer and participant in the Occupy
Baltimore demonstration

Listen to the Marc Steiner Show (WEAA 88.9FM) Building collaboration between organized labor and Occupy Baltimore

See occupybmore.org

I asked unwoman to make this for me, and she did! I am very pleased.

Give it a listen:

"Written in Red"

It is a songpoem based on the last poem Voltairine de Cleyre wrote before she succumbed to septic meningitis. Voltairine was many things... a feminist long before it was fashionable, an anarchist when such a title was associated with regicide, an advocate of labor struggle and sabotage, a freethinker, an enemy of marriage, mother of bastard, a depressive, survivor of an attempted murder, a speaker, a writer and a poet.

During the spring of 1911, at the moment of her greatest despair,” writes her biographer Paul Avrich, “Voltairine’s spirits were lifted by the swelling revolution in Mexico, and especially by the activities of Ricardo Flores Magon, the foremost Mexican anarchist of the time, whose Partido Liberal Mexicano played an important part in rousing workers and peasants against the Diaz dictatorship.” Voltairine went on to throw herself into activism on behalf of the Mexican cause. It gave her a new lease on life, according to Avrich. “During the last year of her life, Voltairine was ‘filled with the spirit of direct action’”(Avrich quoting Goldman). This poem, dedicated to her Mexican comrades, was published in Regeneracion six months before her death. It was the last poem she wrote.

WRITTEN—IN—RED

To Our Living Dead in Mexico's Struggle

Written in red their protest stands,
For the Gods of the World to see;
On the dooming wall their bodiless hands
Have blazoned "Upharsin," and flaring brands
Illumine the message: "Seize the lands!
Open the prisons and make men free!"
Flame out the living words of the dead
Written—in—red.

Gods of the World! Their mouths are dumb!
Your guns have spoken and they are dust.
But the shrouded Living, whose hearts were numb,
Have felt the beat of a wakening drum
Within them sounding—the Dead Men's tongue—
Calling: "Smite off the ancient rust!"
Have beheld "Resurrexit," the word of the Dead,
Written—in—red.

Bear it aloft, 0 roaring flame!
Skyward aloft, where all may see.
Slaves of the World! Our cause is the same;
One is the immemorial shame;
One is the struggle, and in One name
Manhood—we battle to set men free.
"Uncurse us the Land!" burn the words of the Dead,
Written—in—red.

( Collapse )
See also:
Collected Works of Voltairine De'Cleyre at Anarchist Archives
Collected Works of Ricardo Flores Magon at Anarchist Archives
Ricardo Flores Magon at Libcom

Nomadic War Machine (and others!) show and dance party

Performing...

Nomadic War Machine
Shane Shane (Madison)
Friends
New Jedi Order



Cider House
260 Waxter Way
Baltimore, MD

Magpie is doing a series of political spooky music videos:

Nurr Goth Isn’t Political

I am from the forest. Sometimes, I miss it.

Recently, I posted a number of articles about the Iroquois Nationals difficulty with using their Haudenosaunee passports to travel to the World Lacrosse Championship in Manchester.

A friend asked me, "I'm not, by asking the following, accusing you of exceptionalism, but what is the ground for exempting indigenous groups from your general anarchist critiques of other nationalisms and statisms? Or have all or certain indigenous groups politics been deemed sufficiently fitting of anarchist concepts that their exercise of 'human right' to 'collective' self-determination and self-definition are not considered nationalist and statist?"

It's a fair question.

I want Iroquois Nationals to beat the pants off of England!

( Collapse )

Bump hips!

---

Update: FIL announced that the competition schedule had progressed too far to allow Iroquois to compete in the tournament. France, Canada, U.S., England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales all got to compete in the tournament. That's right, England, Scotland and Wales field their own national teams, despite being part of the same sovereign state.

Most of my writing (such as random emails, emotional journal postings, union agitprop journalism, book reviews, etc... )

Wallace's novels often combine various writing modes or voices, and incorporate jargon and vocabulary (sometimes invented) from a wide variety of fields. His writing featured self-generated abbreviations and acronyms, long multi-clause sentences, and a notable use of explanatory footnotes and endnotes—often nearly as expansive as the text proper. He used endnotes extensively in Infinite Jest and footnotes in "Octet" as well as in the great majority of his nonfiction after 1996. On the Charlie Rose show in 1997, Wallace claimed that the notes were used to disrupt the linearity of the narrative, to reflect his perception of reality without jumbling the entire structure. He suggested that he could have instead jumbled up the sentences, "but then no one would read it."

According to Wallace, "fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being," and he expressed a desire to write "morally passionate, passionately moral fiction" that could help readers "become less alone inside." In his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, he describes the human condition of daily crises and chronic disillusionment and rejects solipsism, invoking compassion, mindfulness, and existentialism:

"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.... The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.... The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness."
David Foster Wallace

It's true. I use a lot of quotations and footnotes.

Though some of my writing is like ( Collapse )

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Madow drew the connection between Arizona's recent anti-immigrant legislation and the Immigration Reform Law Institute and the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform (FAIR). I'd like to explain a bit more about FAIR and their racist ties. This is largely based on a letter I wrote back in 2002.

Years ago I went to a meeting held by the union (Washtech/CWA) on off-shoring and H1B Visa (guestworker program). I ran my mouth alot at that meeting and picked some fights; and I've been generally trying to counter some of the anti-immigrant rhetoric around the periphery of the union (not union-members; the union has abut 300 members, but an email list of interested folks is 15,000 subscribers--techies). Anyway, at this meeting a guy from FAIR (Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform) showed up.

( Collapse )

( Collapse )

There will also be a picket at the Baltimore City Center Sheraton on June 26, 4:30 PM, 101 West Fayette Street.