NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Here is a statement originally issued on January 7, 2014, signed by 29 international scholars, peace advocates and artists . Below the statement are the list of the 103 signatories as of January 28, 2014, and the press release issued on that day with the contact information of the three organizers of the petition.  The signatories include filmmakers Oliver Stone and Michael Moore, linguist Noam Chomsky, and Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire. Please join them by signing this petition and help bring justice to Okinawa PHOTO:Filmmaker Oliver Stone visits elders at Henoko sit-in tent, August 2013 (Photo by Ryukyu Shimpo 琉球新報社提供) 日本語での署名は こちら STATEMENT   We oppose construction of a new US military base within Okinawa, and support the people of Okinawa in their struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment We the undersigned oppose the deal made at the end of 2013 between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Governor of Okinawa Hirokaz

The Problem With America's History Books Posted: 11/01/2012 1:30 pm By Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick are co-authors of The Untold History of the United States (Gallery Books, $30) It has become commonplace to deplore U.S. students' dismal performance in math and science when their test results are compared to those of students in other advanced and not-so-advanced industrial countries. But, it turns out, according to the Nation's Report Card, or National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federally administered test results released in June 2011, the area in which U.S. students perform most poorly is actually U.S. history. According to the results, only 12 percent of high school students were proficient in U.S. history. And only a scant 2 percent could identify the social problem addressed in Brown v. Board of

Around this time last year Howard Zinn passed away. He was most famous for his seminal counter history of the United States A People's History of the United States, but he wrote many other works as well and was a long time activist and support of numerous progressive causes. After I began teaching World History last year, I found that much of the way I talk about things, even history, tends to be at a level which is hard for your average UOG undergraduate to understand. When you starting talking like Levinas, Derrida, Benjamin, Slavoj Zizek and Avery Gordon to talk about history even if students are interested, they sometimes lack the vocabulary or a friendly framework to even engage with what I'm saying. The first time I taught World History 2 (from 1500- the present) I made the mistake of giving my students Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History, without prepping them much or giving them an idea of what it was about. Needless to say the discussion was gut

The new Oliver Stone movie will be out tomorrow and I'm very excited about it. For better or for worse, Oliver Stone movies were one of my first very concrete experiences of being masumai or dunked into a historical context, and not hating or loathing it. Despite the creative liberties taken in the films, there is something often more real about them then actual real life, as if through fiction you can actually reach what "really" happened in a way that if you simply video taped the world you couldn't. Films such as JFK, Platoon, Nixon and Born on the Fourth of July, all brought me into American history in such a way that I was both entranced and disgusted. For me, and you may disagree, but JFK and Platoon were riveting stories, and Nixon was a film I thought I would detest or find boring, but like most Oliver Stone films I found myself wrapped up in it, and embodying what was probably the base intent of the film, that more people both understand Nixon and hate him.