Read This: One Student’s Epic Tweets Call Out the Biggest Hypocrites Marching for Free Speech In Paris – Mic.
Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie
Perhaps the best thing I have read on the murders in Paris (and their aftermath) – from Scott Long:
Nothing is quick, nothing is easy. No solidarity is secure. I support free speech. I oppose all censors. I abhor the killings. I mourn the dead. I am not Charlie.
Read the full essay: Why I am not Charlie | a paper bird.
On American Soil
The United States had Marxists in the past, it is true, but they were a strange type of Marxist, or rather, three strange types. In the first place, there were the émigrés cast out of Europe, who did what they could but could not find any response; in the second place, isolated American groups, like the De Leonists, who in the course of events, and because of their own mistakes, turned themselves into sects; in the third place, dilettantes attracted by the October Revolution and sympathetic to Marxism as an exotic teaching that had little to do with the United States. Their day is over. Now dawns the new epoch of an independent class movement of the proletariat and at the same time of genuine Marxism. In this, too, America will in a few jumps catch up with Europe and outdistance it. Advanced technology and an advanced social structure will pave their own way in the sphere of doctrine. The best theoreticians of Marxism will appear on American soil. Marx will become the mentor of the advanced American workers. To them this abridged exposition of the first volume will become only an initial step toward the complete Marx.
– Leon Trotsky
About Peak Oil
Peak Oil Theory says that the rate of production worldwide may soon be in terminal decline, with dire consequences. It’s been called “the world’s biggest serious question.”
When will the peak happen? What will it mean to our lives?
Find out on Learnist.
Is The U.S. A Racist Society?
Vlog Brother John talks about Racism in the United States: By the Numbers.
Peace On Earth
Rory Fanning, a former U.S. Army Ranger and author of the new book Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America, tells the remarkable story of hope amid the horror of the First World War: the Christmas Truce of 1914.
Read it here: When soldiers declared peace on earth | SocialistWorker.org.
We Tortured People
Today the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the Forward, Findings and Conclusions, and Executive Summary of their study on the Central Intelligence Agency’s “enhanced interrogation” program. Prior to its release, it has been a source of contention within the ruling class. The CIA actually was caught spying on the Senate Committee during the process of the investigation.
Here’s a link to the report.
Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program
For those who would like a three sentence summary, here it is.
We tortured people.
We lied about it.
The torture yielded no useful information.
The Assassination of Fred Hampton
Today marks the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton by the Chicago Police. Five years ago, on the fortieth anniversary, Democracy Now aired a retrospective.
On December 4th, 1969, Chicago police raided Fred Hampton’s apartment, shot and killed him in his bed. He was just twenty-one years old. Black Panther leader Mark Clark was also killed in the raid.
While authorities claimed the Panthers had opened fire on the police who were there to serve a search warrant for weapons, evidence later emerged that told a very different story: that the FBI, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Chicago police conspired to assassinate Fred Hampton. Noam Chomsky has called Hampton’s killing “the gravest domestic crime of the Nixon administration.”
See the full report: “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther” | Democracy Now!.
Order Versus Justice
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote these words from a jail cell.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Understanding Ferguson
Here are some more links of interest concerning Ferguson.
- Marcia Chalelain presents a crowdsourced syllabus about race, African American history, civil rights, and policing. How to Teach Kids About What’s Happening in Ferguson – The Atlantic.
- “This is only the beginning, we’ll be back tomorrow.” Juan Thompson reports on what happened Monday night. “Burn This Shit Down”: Mayhem and Protests Engulf Ferguson – The Intercept.
- Two experienced attorneys explain what, in their view, are serious flaws with the grand jury process in the Darren Wilson case. Legal Experts Explain Why The Ferguson Grand Jury Was Set Up For Failure | ThinkProgress.
- From Socialist Worker: The president who has ordered bombs dropped on seven countries and whose administration has directly assisted in the militarization of police departments like Ferguson’s across the country says there is never an excuse for violence. The American way of violence and injustice | SocialistWorker.org.
- From WSWS: The entire process through which the grand jury arrived at its decision is a legal fraud. The outcome is not the result of fair judicial proceedings, but political calculations. No indictment for Ferguson cop who killed Michael Brown – World Socialist Web Site.
- My friend Rob Usdin writes on the psychology of riots and those of us who look on. Blue Jersey:: Ferguson – The Psychology of Riots and Poverty.
- The Morning News presents links to a bunch of Ferguson-centric articles.
- One of my favorite Christian writers, Ben Irwin, says he’s done praying for peace in Ferguson, so long as “peace,” on the lips of those of us still clinging to our unearned privilege, means peace for us and our kind.